8: Why Do You Keep Hitting Me So Much?
"Now that you know my name, tell me yours." Crystal Sun said to Twilight. They were sneaking through a block of destroyed buildings while trying to avoid the Awakened, who were patrolling the streets.
"My name... What was it? Oh no, I can't remember!" Twilight exclaimed, but Crystal quickly silenced with a hoof over her mouth.
"Shush, not so loud. So, you can't remember your name, huh?" Crystal whispered. Twilight nodded slowly. Crystal sighed and took away her hoof from Twilight's mouth.
"What am I supposed to call you then? I know, I'll just call you Lotus Star. Will that do?" Twilight nodded.
"My name is... Lotus Star..." she slowly said, as if she just had reached a realization. Crystal gave her a slightly confused look before peeking through a hole in a wall, Twilight peeked too and could see the streets on the other side. They swarmed with Awakened and a different type of cyborg: They wore completely white armor, had a full-covering helmet which sported a cross-shaped red visor, they also had some sort of energy cannon instead of a rotary cannon.
"What are those? I haven't seen them before." Twilght whispered, Crystal kept eyeing the cyborgs while answering.
"Those are Enlightened... But those are only sent against high-priority targets. What are they doing here?" Crystal hissed, Twilight just looked at the strange cyborgs with curiosity.
It would be fun, I mean interesting to study one... Wait, am I a scientist? That would explain all these complex thoughts I'm having.
Twilight closed her eyes and pressed at her eyelids with her hooves, it helped against the headache from all the thoughts going through her mind. Twilight tapped at Crystal's shoulder, she turned around and gave Twilight an annoyed look.
"What is it, Lotus? I hope it's important because we are in quite a hurry here." Crystal whispered.
"Oh, umm... I just wondered, could you... You know, kill one of those cyborgs for me? I want to study one."
"HAH! That wasn't even funny."
"It wasn't meant to be funny."
"You're kidding... You're kidding me, right?"
"Well, no..."
"Oh, okay. Let's just put it... How should I say this... Buck you and your idiotic ideas!" Crystal said, ending the sentence yelling. Twilight backed off a little; she hadn't expected such an outburst from the unicorn.
"B-but, why not?"
"I was only sent in here to retrieve a unicorn, not kill an Enlightened for her to study. Tartarus, they didn't even say ANYTHING about Enlightened being here!" Crystal yelled, throwing her front hoofs into the air.
"Wait, you were sent in by someone to retrieve me?" Twilight asked with a quizzical look on her face. Crystal nodded, she still seemed angry.
"In that case, I'm your client."
"Yeah, so what?"
"Then you, according to the Equestrian Bodyguard Constitution have to do as I say. So would you kindly go and kill an Enlightened?" Twilight said triumphantly. Crystal seemed completely taken by this statement and just stood there staring.
How do I know all of this? Oh, it feels great to be smart!
Crystal stared at Twilight for a split second before bursting into laughter, a mocking type of laughter.
"That's not how it works around here, laws aren't worth nickel anymore. From when are you? Before the fall of Celestia?"
"What do you mean 'laws aren't worth nickel'? Equestrian law is written to never expire, even if the world were to end. So you have to follow my orders!" Twilight countered, Crystal stopped laughing and frowned at Twilight.
"That's right, you MUST follow my orders. That's the law." Twilight said with a triumphant smile. Crystal just looked at Twilight with growing hate, and Twilight noticed how frustrated she was.
Crystal pounced at Twilight and pinned her to the ground, she took her crossbow and aimed it at Twilight's throat; she then leaned in close and whispered in Twilight's ear.
"Let's get something straight, wiseacre: I don't take orders from you. I'm not doing this for you. I'm doing it for the money. Is that clear?" Crystal hissed in Twilight's ear. Twilight was petrified by fear and couldn't do much more than nod slowly.
"Good, let's get moving then." Crystal said and helped Twilight up, she was shaking and didn't want anything other than get away from this twisted version of Canterlot.
So this city is named Canterlot? How come I know that? Welp, must be an important place.
"Identify yourselves!" A voice suddenly said, Twilight and Crystal looked at each other before looking over the wall they were hiding behind. They found themselves staring into the faceplates of a squad of Enlightened. Twilight felt herself turn multiple shades paler; Crystal Sun slowly raised her crossbow and grabbed Twilight's hoof with her own.
"Prepare to run when I tell you to." Crystal whispered, Twilight nodded without taking her eyes off the cyborgs.
Wow, they sure resemble crusaders with that armor. Except bigger, and deadlier, and scarier, and less reasonable.
A red beam came from the visor of one of the cyborgs; it swoop across Twilight and Crystal before fading away.
"Targets identified as Twilight Sparkle and Crystal Sun, recommended action: kill Crystal Sun and Twilight Sparkle." The Enlightened that scanned the two mares said, a white glow began emanating from the muzzle of it's weapon.
"RUN!" Crystal yelled as she drew her crossbow and shot the Enlightened straight through the visor: the arrow punched through the glass and embedded itself in the cyborgs brain; killing it instantly. Twilight turned around and ran away as fast as she could,the other Enlightened opened fire and she could feel the air around her crackle as brilliant-white energy beams barely missed her. Twilight ran as fast as her librarian body could carry her.
Do I work out? Maybe I should do it more.
Twilight’s thinking was interrupted by Crystal dashing past her, moments later Twilight felt an energy beam singe the tip of her tail.
This only motivated Twilight to run faster, and she could hear the noises from the Enlightened shrink in volume as she outran them.
Suddenly, a beam of energy from one of the Enlightened struck Twilight's leg. She felt a jolt of pain and the smell of burnt skin reached her nose.
"Aagh!" Twilight shrieked as she lost balance and crashed into the ground headfirst. She slid in the mud for a good meter before hitting a rock. Twilight crashed into the rock with her horn first and felt a massive surge of pain as the sensitive appendage cracked from the impact.
Twilight screamed at the top of her lungs as she felt the crack spread to the base of the horn. Energy began flowing out through the crack, and she felt her body grow heavy from the loss.
"Come on, get up! We need to get out of here!" Crystal yelled to Twilight, but Twilight could only whimper as she laid in the dirt. Crystal stopped, turned around, and ran back to Twilight. She muttered something before lifting Twilight's slack body with her fierce green magic.
"Faust damnit! You broke your horn!" Crystal growled to Twilight before dumping her behind a broken wall. Twilight nodded weakly, she could feel her very life spill out through her cracked horn.
Crystal dove down behind the wall and landed next to Twilight. Then she saw the large field of crystals in front of them. Twilight glanced weakly at the field and remembered the guards back in the castle: the ones that had been encased in crystals.
"Buck! How am I supposed to get you past the field?" Crystal groaned in frustration. She then turned to Twilight with a much more concerned look.
"Hold still, I'm going to fix that horn. It's only temporary, but it should work until we find some reinforcements." Crystal said with a calming voice. She charged her horn and sent a beam of energy into Twilight's; the effect was instant, a green net grew over the crack and stopped the energy leakage.
"Wh-what did you do?" Twilight blurted out as she ran a hoof across her horn, it seemed to be in crisp condition.
"I quick-mended it. Your horn will hold for a while, but you still need to get it checked by somepony." Crystal whispered as she eyed the field of crystals. She was trying to determine if it was worth trying to throw Twilight across.
Something's not right with Crystal Sun... She isn't a normal unicorn.
Twilight stopped thinking as she saw a swarm of blue bolts soar above her head, she shakily stood up and followed the bolts as they crashed into a group of approaching Awakened. The Awakened were engulfed in white energy discharges, a *thump* could be heard and the energy subsided. There were nothing left of the cyborg ponies.
"Did you see that Crystal? What was it?" Twilight said in a confused tone as she turned to Crystal.
"That my dear Lotus, is our ticket out of here..." Crystal mumbled with a small smirk. Twilight tilted her head and gave the brown mare a questioning glare. The purple unicorn then turned around as she heard something, only to see a large group of cyborgs move towards her and Crystal.
"Um... C-Crystal... Now would be a g-good time to d-do something..." Twilight stuttered as she paled from the sight. Before Crystal could react, something appeared on the other side of the crystal field. It jumped across the field and landed in front of Twilight, who reeled back with a yelp. Twilight realized that the creature was a pony, it stood on it's hind legs though, and it sported some sort of futuristic white armour. The pony was also holding some sort of metal tube with it's front hooves, which it now pointed at the incoming cyborgs.
"Wub a dub dub motherbuckers!" The armoured pony yelled with a feminine voice, before letting loose a barrage of energy spheres from the tube it was holding. Twilight watched in amusement as the projectiles discharged when they hit their targets and completely evaporated the cyborgs, doing no sounds except from a heavy thump with each discharge.
Seeing the coast was clear, the armoured pony turned to Crystal and Twilight. It put a hoof to one of it's ears before starting to talk.
"Command? Scratch here, we have a civilian and a mutant. Requesting Ox evac." The pony said, Twilight assumed she was using some sort of communications device.
"Who is that?" Twilight whispered to Crystal, the armoured pony must have heard her though, and it turned to look at Twilight.
"Save the questions until we're at a safer location will ya?" It said, Twilight assumed it was female considering the voice. The pony put a hoof towards it's ear again, nodded and muttered something.
"Alright ladies, I have good and bad news! Our evac won't be able to land closer than a kilometer away." She said to Twilight and Crystal, Crystal groaned.
"And the good news?" Crystal asked in an annoyed tone.
"Those were the good news, the bad news is that an armour division has been dispatched by the Marked of Cadence to take us out, and we won't get any reinforcements of our own in another six minutes. So I suggest we start moving towards towards the extraction point!" The armoured mare barked before grabbing Twilight and Crystal with her magic. She then turned towards the field of crystals.
Oh no, there's no way she's going to make that jump! Twilight desperately thought just before the armoured mare jumped.
Twilight closed her eyes as hard as she could, but opened them again when she noticed that they were still hanging in the air. Twilight looked up at the pony carrying her, a pair of metallic wings were extended from her back. The wings didn't flap and seemed to be used for gliding rather than flying.
The three mares landed on the other side of the crystal field safely, and Twilight immediately turned towards the armoured mare.
"Never... EVER do that again without warning me! What's your name by the way?" Twilight growled while trying to calm herself.
"You're not in any position to comandeer me sweetie. Name's Scratch by the way." The armoured mare said with a small laugh. Twilight raised an eyebrow, it felt like she knew this "Scratch".
I swear I know that voice and name from someplace else...
Twilight's thinking was interrupted by a beam of energy striking the tiara that somehow was still sitting on her head, causing it to vibrate from the sheer amount of energy in the blast. The crystal in the tiara gave off a little spark, that spark jumped to Twilight which caused her to get a slight migraine.
"We need to get to the evac zone! Double time!" Scratch barked. She launched another volley of energy at the incoming cyborgs and set off in the opposite direction; Twilight and Crystal quickly tailed her. As they ran, a thumping noise could be heard. It sounded like a walking giant, and it was getting closer.
Suddenly, a giant metal unicorn appeared in front of them. Twilight raised her eyes and saw a red crystal at the tip of the giant horn. The three ponies stopped, and Twilight could hear the other two swear.
"What the buck is an Avatar doing here!?" Scratch yelled in a confused and angry tone. Crystal didn't answer, she gritted her teeth and brought up her crossbow.
"Get yourself to cover! I'm taking it out!" Scratch barked and gestured to Twilight and Crystal to run into one of the ruined buildings, an order they promptly obeyed.
The Avatar, a behemoth compared to the three ponies, emitted a low-pitched sound not unlike a growl. Twilight peeked up from her hiding spot behind a cracked wall and saw how the red crystal at the tip of the giant's horn was glowing. Suddenly, the lavender unicorn felt something shove her aside, a brilliant red beam cut through the wall and scorched the ground where she had been standing mere seconds ago.
"I swear to Faust, I'm not going to help you the next time you decide to get hit by an Obelisk laser." Crystal growled while slapping Twilight. Twilight reeled, she put a hoof to her chin and rubbed the sore skin.
"S-Sorry..." Twilight stammered, but was quickly silenced by another slap.
"Just... be quiet will ya." Crystal groaned in irritation.
Scratch tilted her head upwards to see the top of the Avatar: it was a somewhat larger than usual model, and it was equipped with a scanner.
"Well, seems like Crystal and that civvie won't be able to hide. Help me Tavi, what's the best approach?" Scratch muttered. A gray earth mare with a pink bowtie appeared on the inside of her visor, the small mare took up a cello and slowly played a sad tune while answering.
"Well... according to your scanners you are up against an Avatar AW-15. Before I give you some advice, may I ask how you got into such a ridicilous situation?" The small pony said in a slightly disappointed tone. The tune she played sped up slightly and turned from minor to major.
"Oh you know me Octavia, I'm always getting the cool missions!" Scratch replied with a chuckle. The armoured mare unleashed a volley of sonic pulses from her cannon, they didn't even scratch the paint job on the Avatar. The enormous robot pony shifted it's attention towards Scratch and fired a beam of ruby-red energy from it's horn. She swiftly jumped to the side as the beam cut the air and evaporated the remains of a cart behind her.
"I swear, if you didn't remind me so much of Vinyl..." Octavia said with a grunt. She threw away the cello, took a thick book from nowhere and placed a pair of purple reading glasses on her muzzle. She opened the book, flipped a couple of pages and read a little before continuing to talk.
*ahem* "Avatar Warmech, model AW-15, produced by the Brotherhood of TROT. The Avatar Warmech is an advanced weapon developed specifically to counter the heavy armor of the E.D.I Manticore Tank. This hulking beast resembles a black metal unicorn, and is armed with an Isis Class VI Military Laser. It's known for being able to vaporize entire armour columns in a matter of minutes and it's ability to take equipment from other TROT vehicles in order to upgrade itself. What makes this robot menace truly unique is the fact that Princess Cadence herself designed it." Octavia read in a monotone voice, completely oblivious to the fact that Scratch was doing her best to dodge the lasers fired from the Avatar.
"Yeah, that's great trivia and all but... Could you skip to the part with documented weak spots?" Scratch sighed while dancing away from a giant hoof trying to crush her. Octavia frowned, flipped page in the large book and ran her hoof down the page..
"Ah! Here we are my little stressball, known Avatar AW-15 weak spots. The best way to neutralize an Avatar AW-15 is to focus one powerful blast on it's belly, as this is where the hatch for the crew is placed." Octavia said with a playful smile. Scratch quickly acnowledged and activated her visor to display the area. The surroundings was covered in a white grid, her two unicorn companions hiding behind the wall were covered in a green grid, the Avatar was covered in a red grid: a square on it's belly were highlighted in yellow.
"Thanks Tavi, I'll cover it from here." Scratch mumbled with a smirk before dismissing the small gray mare from her line of sight. Scratch used her jump-pack to glide past the Avatar and land next to it. She quickly bolted in under it and rolled over on her back.
"Let's see how ticklish you are..." Scratch whispered while centering her sonic cannon on the highlighted patch in her visor.
"Are you sure this is a good idea? This equipment is still a prototype, and such a discharge has never been attempted before. I'm not sure even your custom capacitors will be able to handle a power flux at 120 percent." Octavia said in a concerned voice.
"Don't worry baby, I got this!" Scratch yelled as she removed the safety lock from her cannon. A humming sound could be heard from it, and a blue light coming from the coolant vents intensified.
"Have a taste of my BASS CANNON!" Scratch screamed as she fired her cannon. At first, nothing happened. Then, a blue-white beam of energy struck the underside of the Avatar, ripping apart the entire midsection of the large robot, pushing Scratch one decimeter into the ground and releasing a sound like the heaviest bass drop in the history of Equestria. The beam continued far past the gray clouds up in the sky and disappeared almost as soon as it had appeared.
*phew* "What'd I tell you Tavi? I got this." Scratch laughed before beginning to dig her way out of the hole she was laying in.
(Avatar destroyed. Unit promoted.)
Twilight and Crystal threw themselves to the ground when they heard the shockwave, for all they knew it might have been the end of Equestria. The duo slowly raised their head over their cover and took in the scene: Scratch was digging herself out of a hole, surrounded by bits of metal and small fires. Twilight couldn't help but find the scene a bit funny, it just looked so unreal to her.
"Alright girls, we need to reach the evac point ASAP!" Scratch barked, and before they knew it, they were running again.
Twilight could feel that she hadn't been running this much for a very long time, and finally she collapsed from exhaustion.
*gasp*"I-I can't*phew* run an-anymore..." she panted as she crawled across the ground. Crystal and Scratch looked at Twilight with disapproving expressions, looked at each other and said something. It was too low for Twilight to hear.
"It's a good thing we finally got backup then. Great work on running pony girl." Scratch encouraged in a sarcastic tone. The two mares then snickered to each other.
(Reinforcements has arrived)
They were all interrupted by a loud roaring noise, and suddenly a large tank rolled through a building and drove past the trio. Twilight sat up and watched as more of the vehicles drove past them, including some even larger double-barelled tanks.
"Wh-What is that!" Twilight yelped. She looked at the other two mares who just seemed to be more and more amused at her stupidity with every minute. They were whispering something about amnesia.
"I'll have somepony explain to you when we are on the Ox, alright?" Scratch said while gesturing to an armoured cart-like vehicle. The vehicle stopped and a pony sporting regular combat armour leaned out through a window.
"Hey there Captain Scratch, need a ride? I'll give ya one in exchange for a date." The pony said with a stupid grin. Scratch laughed and gestured for Twilight and Crystal to get inside the vehicle.
"Keep dreaming, we need a lift to sector zeta-six for evacuation. Or you know what, I'll drive." Scratch said with a slight laugh. She then proceeded to take the soldier's place at the controls and drive the party away from the battle. The soldier, now sitting in the back with Twilight and Crystal, looked like he was in heaven and Tartarus at the same time.
"I can't believe this... Here I am alone with two hot mares in the back of an APC, both of them are taboo and I'm going to have to go through the realm of Discord if I try something funny..." he muttered while trying to hide his blush. Twilight noticed how Crystal saw an opportunity. She stood up in the moving APC, spun around and brushed her tail against the face of the soldier. Twilight couldn't help but laugh a little at the soldier's reaction, as he fought to remain collected. Crystal then sat down, and winked at the soldier, who proceeded to have a nosebleed and fall unconscious.
"How did you do that?" Twilight asked with wide eyes. Crystal just smirked and gave the lavender librarian a sly smile.
"Practise Lotus, lots of practise." She said with a wink. Twilight decided to leave it at that, she wasn't sure if she wanted to hear the rest.
The two mares remained silent for the rest of the trip, the vehicle was closed up so they couldn't watch the landscape speed by. When they reached a full stop, Twilight had counted to approximately one-hundred and fifty bolts holding the armoured plates in the vehicle together. The vehicle shook as Scratch jumped out of the driver's seat and opened the back door for Crystal and Twilight to exit.
"Here we are ladies. It may not be first class, but it's durability, reliability and ability to absorb large amounts of anti-air fire makes up in my opinion." Scratch said while leading the two unicorns towards a large flying transport.
"Wha... What is that thing?" Twilight asked with her mouth hanging open. To her it looked like a giant metal bird, it had two wings with some sort of fan attached to them. There was a grey container attached to it, and Twilight assumed that was the cargo hold.
After being shoved inside the container by Scratch, Twilight sat down on a bench while they took off. She wasn't unused to flying, but flying in a metal box held up by two fans was almost too much for her.
"What's the matter Lotus? Scared of heights?" Crystal teased as she saw Twilight's expression. The lavender mare took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down, it was obviously nothing to be scared of.
"So, where exactly are we heading Captain Scratch? I hope it's not a detention center." Crystal asked as she turned to Scratch, who was talking to a holographic extension of a gray earth mare.
"Well then design the next capacitator's software to not get a green square of doom when the hardware overcharges... Huh? Oh, we're heading to the EDI base in the area." The armoured mare spoke absently without turning away to the hologram.
"Who are you talking to?" Twilight curiously asked while throwing a glance at the hologram. She had never seen anything like it before, and if she had it was now forgotten. Scratch turned around and held up the holographic projector. It was a gray metal plate with a ghostly image of a pony standing on top of it.
"I don't think you've been introduced to each other. This is Octavia, she's my personal PBPU, or Pony Based Processing Unit. Octavia, meet Crystal Sun. She's the mutant bounty hunter I told you about." Scratch said while gesturing at Crystal, who frowned slightly when Scratch called her a bounty hunter.
"And this is... I don't think I ever caught your name." Scratch said as she turned to Twilight. The lavender librarian could see a confused and surprised face appear on the image of the pony called Octavia.
"Oh, um... Just call me Lotus Star, that's what Crystal does." Twilight awkwardly answered.
"Okay. *ahem* Octavia, this is Lotus Star. Lotus, this is Octavia." Scratch said while gesturing between the two ponies. Twilight smiled slightly, but Octavia seemed to withdraw.
"Scratch, is this a joke? Are you messing with me?" Octavia whispered, her ghostly teeth clenched together.
"Huh? No I'm not. Why would I do that?" Scratch asked in a puzzled tone. The rest of the unicorns looked just as confused, and repeatedly kept looking between Octavia and Twilight.
"Because that pony is supposed to be dead." Octavia answered in an emotionless tone. Scratch and Crystal gasped, they then turned towards Twilight with an expression of confusion. She just looked at them with even more confusion.
"Uh... Are you sure Tavi? Why are you saying that?" Scatch stammered, she slowly backed away from Twilight until she was standing against the wall in the small cargo hold.
"Oh but for Faust's sake Scratch. What were you doing during history lesson? That pony is Twilight Sparkle, the last Element of Magic. She disappeared just a few years before the fall of Celestia, and many thinks her disappearance was one of the reasons Celestia was… removed. Can’t you see the tiara on her head? That IS the Element of Magic. Search her saddlebags, I'm sure you will find the rest of the Elements there." Octavia groaned while facehoofing. Scratch rubbed her head with an armoured hoof, she didn’t seem to know what to do.
“Wh-What? Why are you saying that?” Twilight blurted out. She then noticed how Octavia was giving her an annoyed face. Crystal rubbed her chin.
Suddenly, Scratch let out a relieved little sigh.
"Oh I know what this is, your software has been tilted by the overheat in the capacitators! But don't worry Tavi, I'll plug you into the maintenance grid as soon as we get back to base." She laughed, Twilight could hear the exhaustion in the armoured mare's voice. Octavia's eyes narrowed, and she was just about to say something when Scratch withdrew her.
As they kept flying, Twilight noticed how Crystal was eyeing her. The lavender mare paid it no attention, and managed to fall asleep for the rest of the flight.
"Wakey wakey!" Twilight awoke from a voice yelling in her ear and a hoof connecting with her chin. She sat up and rubbed the sore spot where she had been slapped. The lavender unicorn raised her eyes and stared Crystal right in the face.
"Why are you hitting me so much?" Twilight spat while standing up. She took her tiara, which had fallen off her head, and placed it in her saddlebags.
"Oh you know. I find it funny, mostly because I know you won't strike back." Crystal grinned. She was quickly silenced by Twilight's left hoof striking her muzzle. Crystal wiped some blood away from her nose and chuckled. She then grabbed Twilight with her magic and threw her out on the ground.
"You know, try practicing your technique! The force is there, but you're not using it properly!" Crystal laughed from inside the Ox cargo hold while Twilight slowly got up. After glaring daggers at the unicorn, Twilight turned around and saw the impressive base she was inside. It was surrounded by a concrete wall, and towers with some sort of small double-barelled cannon mounted atop were placed evenly along the perimeter. A number of large buildings could be seen, most of them were identical with some sort of large chimney. Twilight suddenly felt a hoof shove her forward, so she began walking towards the entrance of the largest structure in the base, the one they had landed outside.
"Come on you two! We don't have all day, Scratch yelled from the entrance. She had removed her helmet and Twilight could finally see her face. The mare had a white coat and a well-combed electric blue mane. Her eyes were deep-green.
The trio stepped inside the main building and found themselves standing in a small chamber.
"Scanning in progress." A voice spoke from a speaker. A cyan light filled the chamber.
"Organic lifeforms detected, starting decontamination process." The voice said, sprinklers then opened in the ceiling, completely dousing the three mares. Twilight felt how the chemicals sprayed caused her horn and hooves to hurt, and she noticed how Crystal seemed to have even more troubles with it. The mutant unicorn was gritting her teeth, and it was an obviously painful procedure for her.
When the sprinklers retracted, Twilight could see small wounds on her hooves, and when she touched her horn she could feel the crack in it forming again. Scratch seemed to notice this, as she quickly pushed a red button on one of the walls. She then barked something in a microphone. Twilight wasn't sure what, since she felt a fog lower over her senses. The lavender mare collapsed just as the other door on the airlock opened, and the last thing she saw before blacking out was two medical teams rushing in to her and Crystal.
Twilight slowly opened her eyes, it felt like somepony had been marinating her in Hydrochloric Acid. She blinked a couple of times to adjust to the bright light surrounding her. After squinting for a while, the lavender mare finally managed to take in her surroundings.
Twilight was laying in a hospital bed, and a number of machines were connected to her. After some struggle with her weakened muscles, the unicorn managed to turn her head just enough to take a look at herself in a mirror standing next to her hospital bed.
She was a mess to say the least. The purple horn was covered in some sort of metal cone, probably to protect it. Her legs were each having two syringes connected to them, a glowing green liquid was being extracted from the leg by one syringe while the other one was pumping in a crimson red liquid. Twilight wasn’t sure on what the green liquid was, all she noticed was that it seemed to be replaced with blood. Looking at her hooves, Twilght noticed that they were placed in some sort of cage, a cyan field was surrounding them.
“Oh, so you are awake? What a pleasant surprise.” The purple unicorn heard from behind her. She slowly turned around and was met with the hologram of a surprisingly familiar looking stallion.
“Wh-Where am I? What are all these machines?” Twilight mumbled, not being capable of much else. The stallion, who had a caramel coat, a brown mane and an EKG as a cutie mark simply chuckled. He took the glasses he wore, wiped them and placed them on his muzzle again.
“A very good question. But a better question would be ‘What are you doing here?’.” He answered. Twilight just raised an eyebrow, how was she supposed to know that?
“You’re probably wondering why I’m saying this, but the reason is very simple. You see, it’s not every day I get a patient that’s supposed to, how should I say this... Have died a couple of hundreds years ago. Isn’t that correct, Miss Sparkle?” The holographic doctor said in a surprisingly menacing voice.
That line caused something to spark inside Twilight’s mind, and she felt a massive surge of pain rush through her brain. The pain was so immense that Twilight couldn’t even move, all she did was lay and watch the doctor walk up next to her and stare at her, doing no visible effort of trying to ease her pain.
After ten minutes of unimaginable pain, it finally subsided. Twilight opened her eyes, which she had clenched shut halfway through. It felt like a fog had been partially lifted from her mind, and memories were starting to fill the gaps.
“I-I remember things… I’m Twilight Sparkle. You're Doctor Stable.” Twilight mumbled. She looked at the now very familiar face of Doctor Stable, who were smiling while writing something in a journal. He nodded to himself before fading out of existence, just to appear in front of a machine hooked up to Twilight a second later.
"Just as I suspected, a severe case of amnesia." He mumbled while reading some of the gauges on the machine.
"Just how are you doing that? Walking around, you're dead too." Twilight exclaimed. Stable looked at her and chuckled.
"One might argue that I am in fact, physically dead. But my mind now exists inside a computer. The floor here is actually a holographic projector, that's why you'll probably see some old friends around here later. I wasn't the only one to do this you know." He absently said while warping between the machines.
"Now relax, when we got you you were suffering from Chrysalium Toxemia. Your body was slowly crystallizing. What I've been doing is that I've removed all the major infected tissue, I've also been purifying your blood with a powerful neutralizing agent. At this rate, your body should have recovered in a week and a half." The doctor said while reading a notepad. He adjusted his glasses and scribbled something on it.
"Stable, can you tell me exactly where and when I am? I think I have been subjected to some sort of temporal displacement. I-I'm so confused." Twilight asked, ending in a sigh. Stable looked at her in amusement.
"You are in the underground medical station of a EDI base located at the outskirts of what used to be Canterlot. The time is half past seven and the year is three-hundred and forty-seven after the Fall of Celestia. You're in the future Miss Sparkle. Wait a sec, I'm going to bring you a very close relative." Stable replied. He dematerialized once again, and returned several minutes later. With him he had another holographic pony.
It was a mare Twilight didn't recognize, she was a chalk-colored unicorn with a purple and white striped mane. Her cutie mark was three purple stars.
Twilight just looked at the unicorn in confusion. It felt like she knew her, but Twilight wasn't sure. The chalky unicorn just looked at Twilight with teary eyes before disappearing, leaving nothing but a stain of holographic tears next to Stable.
"You didn't recognize her, did you?" Stable asked, a hint of disappointment in his voice. Twilight slowly shook her head. he sighed and brought up a notepad. After making a mark in it, Twilight noticed how a blue fluid was mixed with the purified blood pumping into her. Before the lavender mare had any chance to protest, she had fallen into a deep sleep.
"Don't worry Twilight. You'll wake in a week, and I'll make sure to have a way to make you remember by then." Stable muttered before dematerializing. His mind flowed out on the base's grid and informed all the other PBPUs that the Element of Magic had returned.
Holographic ponies watched over Twilight during the following days.
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I'm going to need to reread this story from the beginning again aren't I? This last chapter confused th hell outta me.
3314928 Not the entire story, only chapter 7, maybe 6.
Also, was it a good kind of confusion or a bad one?
3315012
I think a little bit of both. Good confusion that I may need to reread the story, bad confusion that I didn't know what was happening.
You shall be punished for causing this.
Just kidding.
3315012 Well, you did it again. You made me fall for this story BIG TIME!
Can't wait for the next installment!
The following review is brought to you by Zero Punctuation Reviews.
Imagine, dear reader, that you're to visit your Alzheimer's induced grandfather at a nursing home that always smells vaguely like piss and desperation. He always spends these visits in his wheelchair spouting some kind of one-sided, quasi-story 'conversation' at you. You nod and smile, however, and pretend to pay attention because you love the guy and he'll be dead someday, but you check out immediately because grandpa's ramblings are poorly delivered and seem to have no connection or context with itself or indeed reality as a whole. So you then sit patiently in the corner of the room and wait for another family member to initiate leaving, then you kiss grandpa on the cheek and tell him you love him before promptly walking out the door. By the time you've gotten to the car and plugged in your iPod headphones, you've forgotten every word that poor grandpa said. In a nutshell, that's what "Madness of Sound" is like.
This is the part where I talk about the premise and what I think the story is trying to accomplish, but alas I couldn't gather either of those things. It feels like the story just blindly trotted up to me and vomited some kind of narrative down onto the sidewalk before my feet. I recognize chucks and bits of plot, exposition, character development and all that overrated 'story writing' shit, but I couldn't tell you how it all came together. This story, to put metaphors aside, is a complete mess.
This may have been a beautiful and side-splitting action adventure within the wondrous, labyrinthian mind of Drweegee1337, but it's transition to paper - so to speak - was less than seamless. As I read thru the first few chapters, I could feel my higher cognitive functions checking out. This is a very bad sign, as the praise centers that actively search for premises and ideas to value were completely turned off. The story did not welcome me into the theatre and hope I would have a lovely time enjoying it, it threw me into my seat and shoved popcorn at my face before hitting me with a shovel and throwing me out into the night to wander the streets wondering whether I should be offended or disappointed.
But perhaps I'm over thinking things, as I often do. Perhaps "Madness of Sound" is to be judged as a spectacle rather then a story. But even on those merits it fails because spectacles are supposed to be fun to witness and this spectacle falls flat because it has no established context. Where the spectacle is taking place and how the spectacle comes to be are essential to the entertainment value. All attempts at humor fail because there's no set up or build up, just a random punchline thrown up at you. It's like walking into an interview only to witness the interviewer stand up and scream, "Orange you glad I didn't saw banana?" before kneeing you in the stomach and running out of the room.
As you're walking into "Madness of Sound" land, be sure to keep your eyes glued to ground lest you fall into a plot hole. Plot devices are brought up, thrown into your face like you're supposed already know about them, used to propel the narrative then are dropped and forgotten about. I know working exposition into narrative is hard, but that does not excuse simply not having any exposition. You have to lay out the base information for the story to work - a platform from which your audience can build their experience upon - otherwise they have no cornerstone to build their experience upon.
Description and connotative words would've been nice. The first chapter purported to unleash a cataclysm upon Ponyville, but devoted about a sentence and a half to the event. The event itself, and the state of the town before and after the event and the effect of the event upon the characters are so under-developed it renders the whole happening meaningless and without any impact. Okay, granted one whole character bled a bit, but that's the extent of the damage as described. I cut my finger and it bled a bit in a kitchen accident but that doesn't make it comparable to Armageddon. A similar presentation issue can be noted with a lot other plot points throughout the narrative. Presentation isn't just bad, it's barely there. My imagination has nothing to work with.
"Madness of Sound" failed from the gate for my higher brain checked out almost instantly. I read the whole thing, but didn't conceptualize most of it. I was just reading words on a page with zero interest or understanding. And if I can't tell what the fuck is going on, it's the layman I feel sorry for since I'm so much smarter and attractive then they are. My mommy wouldn't have told me that if it wasn't true. I don't know if Drweegee1337 is trying to excite me, horrify me, make me laugh or even trying to tell me a decent little story and ultimately fails at all four.
To summarize, this bumbling grandpa is plagued by no sense of substance, inconsistent tone, lackluster use of language, bland characters and an unfunny plot that, despite it's best efforts, failed to engage me miserably. Failure, however, is the best lesson and the self-righteous dickblisters of the internet that are only good for pointing out flaws in everything to avoid overcoming the fear of subjecting their own horrible work to criticism are the best at teaching that lesson.
Who knows, maybe if Drweegee1337 settles down, develops a style and writing methodology and can give his/her little tale some room to breathe and develop naturally, maybe it can become the side-splitting action adventure of his/her dreams! But until then, don't read it. It's not worth your time. It might even make you cry.
3369093 Ouch...
Thanks though, I'll continue working on improving descriptions, pacing and following a more consistent story in the future.
3369093 Ouch...
Thanks though, I'll continue working on improving descriptions, pacing and following a more consistent story in the future.
well ... good chapter ... but please try to cut back on the delay if you can