Chapter 11 - Heart of Stone
Chapter 11 – Heart of Stone
Brock was feeling decidedly awkward at the moment.
For one thing, he wasn’t really needed much anymore. They had safely arrived at the pokémon center, and safely turned the wounded pokémon over to the nurses there. By any stretch of the word, his mission was over.
The creature was lying seemingly idle on its stretcher, yet the way its eyes moved about told a different story. It was not with the panicked darting of a hurt wild pokémon, nor the lazy restfulness of one acclimatized to pokémon centers; rather, it seemed to be purposefully scrutinizing one thing before moving on to another, with attention to even the smallest detail. As if it never had seen any part of a pokémon center before, and did not want to miss any of them in case it never saw one again.
All that, while idly sipping away at the contents of the ornate teacup that had appeared out of thin air when it woke up. A minute past, it had even managed to coax one of the nurses into refilling it.
If they had been perplexed at the creature before, teacup or not, the simple little pantomime of psychic power that it employed to make itself understood had made all hell break loose. The nurses were trained in caring for wounded pokémon, whether they be coy wilds, hardened battlers or cuddly pets. This one had healed itself from the edge of death without anyone’s help, and was now behaving, more than anything, like a well-off foreign tourist. No one, himself included, knew what to do.
So he waited, and tried to sum up as much as possible of what he knew of the creature, in hopes of coming up with something that could help. One. It crashed into a mountain, seemingly from a great height and head first from the impact and position it was in when I found it. Yet, its head was completely unharmed. That was the first anomaly, and possibly the most important. If anything, it shouldn’t have survived a fall like that in the first place. Unless, of course, it was a Rock-type. Or Steel, for that matter. Add to that its obvious psychic powers, and you have a decent general outline of its abilities. Which was the second, and definitely most blatant, anomaly. It looks uncannily like an undersized Rapidash, but it doesn’t possess any traits similar to one. No fire, for starters, and nowhere close to as muscular as one. On the contrary, its entire appearance is very delicate.
He cast an eye toward the large console of the scanner the nurses were trying to hook the creature up to – with limited success, as the creature seemed decidedly doubtful of the grand assortment of electrodes and cables she was presented with – and reviewed the small amount of data they had nevertheless been able to retrieve so far.
Species: Not recognized #???
Gender: Female
POKÉDEX DATA NOT AVAILABLE, PLEASE VERIFY YOUR DATABASE
Type of damage: Physical harm, multiple fractures
Damage: (309 items)...
What followed was an enormous list of every injury the creature had sustained. The fact that it had more fractures than a human had bones in their body said something of the sheer extent of its damage. More than that, however, there was the fact that out of the 309 items on the list more half were half-breaks, cracks and otherwise half-healed injuries.
The nurses had got into quite a fuss when he called them on Misty’s radio while they were going in for their landing, and told them the creature was putting its bones back together. Sure, certain species of pokémon had the ability to heal their own wounds in one way or another, but more often than not this was limited to harm of a much lesser degree. Most couldn’t really do much more than revitalize themselves to keep up their fighting spirit; even those who could knit scrapes and flesh wounds were excessively rare. Grass-types were a bit difficult to classify, of course, since they sometimes had bodies with much more plant elements than they had animal parts; still, they also more or less followed the same general rule.
To heal themselves, a pokémon had to be in a good enough shape to fend for itself; or in trainer language, able to battle. Added to that, they were more or less limited in their healing abilities to battle wounds – disease usually struck pokémon as often and hard as with humans. Yet from what the half-healed fractures the scanner showed him, this one had been beaten beyond any hope of repair, and then healed itself back up while unconscious. In less than half an hour, it had managed a feat that normally would take months even with the full resources of a specialized hospital.
This pokémon was beyond the grasp of their rules and logic, and everything it did only pushed their confusion further. And that was without worrying about the issue of its probable...sentience.
Brock shivered a bit at that thought. Truly sentient pokémon had always been around, true – but only ever as legends and stories. True, psychic-types had always been skirting the mark, at least according to their trainers; and likewise the Dragon Masters of the west had always insisted that their own beasts were more than that. And occasionally, others had come quite close to agreeing with one or the other. There were occasional examples of human-like intelligence and thought among well-trained pokémon – but never had they actually managed to match that mark.
Until three years ago, that was. And after the so-dubbed Cerulean Incident, any research on the potential higher thought processes of pokémon was thrown straight into the freezer. Mewtwo had set an example, shattered a barrier that had stood through every test of time humanity had thrown at it, and surpassed it with humiliating ease.
Well, that comparison is probably exaggerating things a bit, Brock admitted to himself. This creature was not behaving anything like the psychic terror. If anything, its mannerisms were disturbingly like that of any human being; the only thing was that it had a pokémon’s body, and spoke – for speak it did, that much he could tell from the sounds it made – a language nobody understood. Very much human, yet very much in a pokémon shape.
Brought tapped his chin. There was something about that thought. A human in pokémon form…
It took a few moments for his mind to process it, but a few seconds later he rose up and went for the exit. I’m sure I heard Misty mention somewhere that she knew Bill, and if anyone is familiar with a situation like this, it’d be him. He briefly caught a look of confusion on the pokémon before the door closed behind him, and felt a sting of guilt as he made his way out on the streets of Cerulean City. I suppose I was the first thing it...she, saw. Probably trusts me for saving her. That just means we’ve got to get this chaos over with quickly, so we can reason out what’s going on here.
Brock was a quiet person, true, but he was no fool. For every piece of this puzzle that he found and put into place, the whole damnable thing made less and less sense. Someone – or something – was messing with both odds and ends here, and they needed to find the culprit before this got any worse.
And if that involves dragging the craziest scientist alive into this whole mess...well, there’s nothing to gain in not pulling out all the stops, anyway.
Brock shook his head, and took up his phone.
-/-/-/
This is a terrible idea, Misty thought as she watched the Aqua Jet's sister plane land beside her own on the pokémon center's helipad. What's worse is that Brock came up with it – Brock! Of all people! – and that Bill is, well...Bill.
There was no other way to describe the man who was currently exiting the jet, his pristine labcoat swirling in the turbine streams as they died down. The world-famous pokémaniac was a scientist of high regard, but had never received any formal education as a pokémon researcher. Thus his lack of a title, research stipends from official agencies, and a laboratory. What he also lacked was limited funding, limited intelligence, common sense and someone to tell him when to stop or they'd pull the financing of his project. He did everything himself, with his own endless supply of money, and went way too fast for anyone to understand what he was doing. Sometimes even too fast for himself – as shown in the first incident with his so-called Cell Modulator program, where he accidentally turned himself into a Clefairy.
And apparently, Brock thought it was a great idea to use that very program again, to try and turn the pokémon they'd rescued into a human so they could talk to it. So he'd asked her for Bill's number – which she'd given him, not thinking to ask why – and he'd promptly informed the crazy scientist about his idea, and crossed the point of no return. Bill did not let go of an experiment until he'd gotten results out of it, that was something she'd learned from her experiences with the man.
She admitted to herself, ten minutes later, that she might have misjudged the man a little.
“Oh, dear, no no no, this won't do at all. We don't have a proper cell matrix for this species to begin with – you could at least have told me it was a new one! – so we'll have to work on that before we do any sort of experiments on it. Need to tell the computer what goes where when we put it in, and what goes where when we put it back. Er, when we transform it, that is. Now I can do those calculations on my portable station as well, so if we just roll this girl out to the BJ2 and hook her up to my stuff, we should be done in a jiffy. Well, a few hours. Well, “done” is perhaps a bit of a strong term, but we'll have made enough progress to get something going on, at least.”
Misty sighed, and leaned back against the wall. Okay, I take that back. He's still as nuts as ever. And that naming sense is just terrible! She'd had a short conversation with him about how to name her own craft, and received no promising ideas from him then; he hadn't named his own craft yet then, and his old one – which he'd made himself – had only ever been called Bill's Jet. Judging from the acronym he used to refer to this one, it was clear that the Aqua Jet's sister craft would only ever be a sequel by the name of Bill's Jet #2. It was, in a depressing sort of way, a reflection of the man's social capabilities. A quick summary of them would sound something like: 'On the whole, more or less nonexistent'.
Which was also the reason that the head nurse took him by the collar of his labcoat and gently shoved him to the side when he made a grab for the pokémon's stretcher. Subtlety was a word in the man's dictionary, and nothing more. “Now wait just a minute here, mister! This pokémon is a patient, and you can't simply go around whisking it off as you wish! We know you are a very accomplished scientist, but that does not mean you have the mandate to march into a pokémon center and drag off patients that are still recuperating!”
Misty cringed. This was not going to end well. Bill was not a person who did waiting. He probably had the purchasing power to buy the entire center if he wanted to prove a point, now that she thought of it. She was about to speak up and try to defuse the situation, but the scientist himself took word before she could even think of what to say.
“So I would have to wait until she can get about on her own, you say?” Misty frowned, mouth slightly open. That was a very un-Bill thing to say. The rest of the room agreed, with the nurses sharing confused glances all around. Well, most of the room at least; Brock, who was sitting beside her on the small wall-mounted bench, was always a more or less closed book, and the pokémon itself likely couldn't understand a word of what anyone said. She'd heard its attempts at making conversation with her – which sounded oddly like how she imagined a Ponyta's impression of birdsong would – and shared mutual headshakes and looks of disappointment when neither of them had understood each other. Vocally, at least. Their body language seemed conveniently similar.
Eventually, the head nurse gave a sigh. “I suppose that would be acceptable. But, you hear? No leaving the center unless it- she walks out on her own. Until then, you are welcome to use our machines for your work, as long as you don't interfere with our work or disturb the patient. Are we clear, mister Bill?”
The way she said it made it clear she had little respect for a man who, regardless of how successful he was, never had received a proper license for what he was doing. Bill didn't seem to care, however – as soon as the word “acceptable” escaped the nurse's mouth, he turned around and started walking back up toward the pokémon again. Worried murmurs went through the crowd of nurses hovering around the equipment that the pokémon was connected to, and when he reached the stretcher again there were loud huffs of protest. This time, however, he didn't try to take the stretcher anywhere on his own, instead simply opting to bow down a bit and get face-to-face with the creature occupying it.
“Well, you heard the girls. Hello there, miss. You don't think you could get up for old Bill here and trot on over outside with me for a bit? I'd really appreciate it if you did, and I think you'd find the end results quite satisfactory as well.”
Every jaw in the room dropped. Well, those belonging to women, at least. Misty managed to pick her own back up after a while, but her wide disbelieving eyes could still see most of the nurses gawking at the man responsible. Brock was, of course, as unperturbed as ever.
Eventually, she managed to piece enough of her sense back together that she could form coherent thoughts again. So not only can Bill act like he's got common sense, he can also act like a...normal person!? What is the world coming to? And what the hell happened to his not having any social skills? Does that only apply when he talks to humans, or something?
She didn't have time for much more disbelieving wonder at Bill's sudden acquisition of a silver tongue, however. There had been plenty of body language involved in his little speech; not quite pantomimes, but if this creature was as bright as Brock thought it was – worse, she was starting to believe him on the matter as well – she'd have little problem piecing together the general idea of what he wanted out of her. Said and done, the creature gave a few cat-like mewling sounds, thoroughly inspecting Bill with her big, blue eyes all the while.
Suddenly the horn on its head started shining like mad, like she'd noticed it did whenever it used its psychic powers. This time it was a light many magnitudes brighter from the soft glow she was used to, however; it slowly enveloped the pokémon in a dazzling blue aura, thickening until it seemed to be almost tangible, nearly concealing the creature beneath it.
And then, quite unceremoniously, the pokémon rolled off the stretcher.
A collective gasp went through the crowd of quite frazzled nurses, but everyone soon noticed that there was a pointed lack of falling going on; instead of obeying gravity and plummeting the a meter to the floor, the pokémon gracefully floated downward on what appeared to be a vibrantly shining pillow of psychic power. Gradually, the intense glow relented, until it finally died down altogether and allowed them to see what the creature had done.
It stood on its own legs, true. To some extent, at least. More important, however, was probably the massive cluster of purple crystals separating her body from the floor; she was no expert on anatomy, but from what she'd seen of the scanner's results, those legs would've shattered to pieces if a Goldeen sneezed on them.
Still, she couldn't really understand the thing's logic. Why had it effectively nailed itself to the floor when someone had asked it to go out? Was it protesting? Or maybe it hadn't understood the question to begin with?
She was about to say something to break the massive cloud of silence blanketing the room, when the crystals moved.
It looked as if someone had made an Onix out of amethysts, and attached it to the creature's underside. Or more accurately, fused them together. It was hard to tell where the crystal ended and the pokémon began.
Its carefully locked mane flung through the air as she gave Bill a pointed look – as if to ask, are you coming? – before slithering through the room on a piece of living rock. The scientist, for his part, nodded sagely, wearing a satisfied grin on his face. “I knew I was right about this one,” he murmured as he passed the bench Misty and Brock were sitting on – and to her surprise, she saw Brock nodding in agreement. That surprise abated quickly enough once she realized the reason for his approval, though. After all, it wasn't every day a gym leader discovered a brand new species that was – literally – of their own type.
A few seconds of quiet, utter disbelief and shock went by as the pokémon and the scientist exited the same way as they'd entered, one by one. Then the nurses basically flooded out of the door after them, presumably to give Bill a piece of his mind. At least, that's what Misty thought they'd do. She certainly would have. It was their own fault for phrasing things too easily, but that was still no excuse in her book.
But this wasn't her book, and thinking about it she didn't actually have any interest in trying to stop Bill from doing whatever it was he wanted to do. If anything, this was starting to attract her own curiosity as well; if she'd had any sort of feeling of detachment when she'd first picked the creature up with Brock on the mountain, it was well and gone now. Sure, sentient pokémon were freaky and all, but...
She raised an eyebrow over at Brock, and received a shrug in response. “Might as well see what they're about, I think.” She nodded back, and they filed out of the treatment room's back exit with considerable more order than the ones they followed.
-/-/-/
It was not by any means an everyday thing for Rarity to experiment with magic. She was hardly on Twilight's level – her magical ability and general knowledge of most of its schools were far behind the studious librarian's, she had no problem to admit that – yet there were certain areas where she had a level of expertise that far surpassed most of her fellow unicorns. By and large they were the finer, more delicate kinds of spellwork that she commonly used to make dresses – or, as had been the case today, patch together broken bones – but there was one branch of more advanced casting she'd always had a surprising amount of talent for.
Twilight had always been troubled by this. While the librarian had a vast and rather balanced affinity for just about any type of magic, Rarity was the most capable in several parts of what magical theory referred to as “Geomancy”, or the manipulation of earth. Several, but not all of them – which was what Twilight always had struggled to understand, after she'd explained it to her – for example, her old gem-finding spell was almost instinctively easy for her to cast, but she knew from experience that many other unicorns found it extremely complicated to do what they wanted with it. On the other hand, there were parts of Geomancy that dealt with things closer to earth pony magic and manipulation of the soil; Twilight had attempted to teach her a few of those, but Rarity had never been able to get a single one of them right.
If it hadn't been for Twilight's then recent experience with discovering their mutual pink friend's strange, illogical abilities, Rarity was rather sure she'd have been stuck in a laboratory for a good few days until Twilight got the right of things. Which would, of course, have been completely unacceptable. By Celestia, the sheer amount of work that would pile up! Not to mention how horrid I would look by the end of it. I would never have lived it down!
As it was, though, she'd been able to slither her way out of that particular crisis, and for over a year Rarity had not paid much heed to Twilight's ideas. After all, to herself the explanation was quite simple: dirt was dirt, diamonds were diamonds, and her cutie mark were diamonds, not dirt. End of story! No advanced magical theory was needed to explain it. It was her destiny and special talent to be good with one, and her duty as a lady of style and class to avoid dealing with the other. And so Rarity had spent the following year learning to knit wounds and heal bones with magic, rather than engaging in frivolous scholarly passions just for the sake of understanding something “scientifically”. Not that she thought any ill of Twilight for being how she was; she respected her quite a deal for the skills and knowledge her way of life had gifted her with. But sometimes one simply had to know when to stop.
Then, the Crystal Empire had reappeared, and Rarity's magical ambitions had reignited themselves with a vengeance. Not that there was any doubt of whose vengeance it was. It was the one word she had heard from the terrible creature.
Crystals.
Somehow, it had stuck inside her mind. And sure enough, there had been plenty of inspiration to draw from in the Empire itself, as brief as their visit had been. At first she'd considered talking to Twilight or Cadence – who had grown most beautiful, even more so than she'd been before, since her marriage; what wonders love could do to a mare! – about the matter, but then she'd found one particular variety of crystal architecture that she could simply not take her eyes off. Until she had managed to recreate it by her own power, that was. The Heart of Stone had been a piece of art in one of the plazas with enormous crystals moving as if alive, and even seeming to respond to her presence to some degree. Her own replica had, of course, been a lot less grand, but the fact that she could have it move around in the most spectacularly beautiful ways – she'd made it appear like a crystal waterfall, once, a breathtaking experience – was very much enough for her.
Still, once she returned to Ponyville it became rather clear that her exertion had been too much for too little. She could not infuse her own crystals with magic of its own, as the original had been made; moving about with the thing took a lot of concentration, which made it hard to walk without stumbling – and a lady never stumbles, unless she really wants to – and just like any other spell, trying to hold it from a distance simply took enormous amounts of power. Soon she had to accept her failure, and move on to more important everyday things – like dressmaking. And so, Rarity's life went on.
But today was very different from every other day. Today, she couldn't walk. And when the doctor finally came – thankfully it seemed nurses and doctors could still, even here, be easily told apart by their clothing – and actually managed to be understandable like a civilized pony, she simply could not deny his most gentlecoltly request, no matter how rudely the nurses behaved toward him. She most certainly hoped he would have a word with them later! That was no way for a lady to behave, and certainly not against her superiors.
So Rarity, for the first time, conjured up the magics that made up her own personal Heart of Stone, and put them to an actual use other than simply looking pretty. Not that they were bad at looking pretty, of course, or that there was anything wrong with looking good for the sake of it. Add that to her own humble self – which she had made sure to give a few touches with her magic while they'd been waiting for the doctor – and the outcome, as she'd verified with a brief look in the glass of the door as they exited the room, was positively gorgeous. She looked amazing.
The Heart carried her out on its crystalline limbs, and she noticed the small metal box from before had been joined by another that looked exactly the same. Perhaps it is an ambulance of some sort? Rarity wondered. She did not spot any wheels on either of them, though. And why would he take me here, in the first place? She turned around and waited for the doctor to catch up, and he pointed toward one of the wheel-less ambulances. Suddenly he gave a loud bark, and its strange, sliding door opened wide, seemingly on its own, followed by a small metal ramp that slid out until it touched the ground. Voice activation. This place has curious magic. Frowning, she followed him up the ramp, and the door hissed shut behind them.
The inside of this box was similar to the one she'd woken up in, but nopony came far in her line of work without a good sense for details. There were several differences between the interiors of the two. She didn't know what to expect, but what followed was an almost disappointingly similar routine to the one she'd already gone through inside the hospital. The only difference was probably that it was a lot faster; the doctor, to his credit, worked quite efficiently. He attached a few sets of electrodes to her – her brief session in Twilight's laboratory had taught her about those – and pressed a few buttons on his machine, which whirred a bit and made a few other sounds before giving a loud beep, probably signaling it was finished with whatever it had been doing. They repeated this some five times over the course of a few minutes, until the doctor gave her a nod and what she assumed was a grateful smile, and pointed toward the door as it hissed open once more.
The nurses stood in a crowd outside, with stern looks on their faces; it was clear that they didn't really like what the doctor was doing. She couldn't for the life of her figure out why – they had been doing exactly the same things just before he came, so what was the difference? – and promptly decided there was no point in dwelling on it. The doctor barked a few times at them, and the crowd slowly dissolved as they milled back toward the hospital.
One of the nurses remained behind, but that was not what caught Rarity's eye. The spiky-haired creature who'd been with her when she woke up was there, and had by his side a smaller female who was most definitely not a nurse. He was smiling at her, and she had no idea why.
A few more barks were exchanged by the creatures in the hospital courtyard, before the doctor started walking back toward its entrance, beckoning for her to follow. By the gestures he was making, he evidently thought she needed rest; which, now that she thought about it, was probably a good idea. Healing bones, with magic or without, took a lot out of you.
The room they brought her too was eerily similar to the ones back in the Ponyville hospital, except that the beds were markedly larger in size. Seeing how large the creatures were, of course, this wasn't exactly too strange at all. White curtains shielded the window from sunlight, and shades of mellow green covered the carpet and walls. She thought about asking for something to eat before going to sleep, but the moment she let the Heart lift her limp frame up and deposit her on the bed, all thoughts of anything but sleep vanished. This bed is absolutely fantastic. Not even bothering to dispel her magic, she fell into a deep, peaceful sleep only minutes later.
She dreamed of dresses. Dresses, cats, and her sister. “Sweetie Belle, be safe,” murmured Rarity in her sleep, as midday turned to afternoon and began to approach sunset outside her window. “Please, be safe.”
Admit it, I had you going there for a while.
Yes, Rarity gets another powerup. But I think it's a rather justified one, in this case. Special talent and whatnot, and I've been building toward this for a while now anyway.
If anyone's wondering how it looks like when she moves, those of you who are familiar with the LoL champion Lissandra, well, pretty similar to that. Except she doesn't look like she's a part of the ground, I guess. Also, the crystals she's using are pretty much identical to those in her Cutie mark, so significantly brighter, lel.
Anyway, hope you enjoyed the chapter. I'll see what I work on next, but as far as Master is concerned, we're probably going to head down to the Seaside girls. :)
Ravens guide y'all!
//ViKing AuThor
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Hey look an update
I can only imagine what will occur once Rarity learns the true meaning behind Bill's actions. It should be hilarious.
Hope you get to Twilight or Pinkie soon. All we know at this time is Pinkie is annoying the hell (by being Pinkie) out of the people of Viridian city.
Truth be told, Rarity has always been the odd duck out for adventures. Rainbow Dash and Applejack can do plenty of kicks, Twilight has magic, Fluttershy doesn't even get into fights (one way or the other) and Pinkie Pie is... I don't even need to finish this sentence, really. But Rarity? If she's going to hold her own in an adventure, some upgrades are needed. I love what you did here; the medical skills make a lot of sense and the addition of Rarity's "stone heart" is finely done.
Also, Rarity's view of the situation made me laugh!
Love it.
Hmmm even as a human they wouldnt understand her, after all Bill still spoke human as a Pokemon
3214092
DON'T SPOIL THE SURPRISE FOR THEM NOW :D
Stranger things have happened.
upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/fi/0/02/Pok%C3%A9mon_Mystery_Dungeon_Blue.jpg
3214124
Now, now, when I said "game canon" I didn't mean those games... :D
3214179 "those games" were the awesomest thing ever!
Heh, I'm 100% behind giving Rarity powerups.
Magic Crystalline Golem Carriers? That is VERY fancy, perfect for Ponyvilles fanciest pony.
Not to mention that by all rights and logic, Rarity is probably the most powerful unicorn in Ponyville not named Twilight Sparkle. These "powerups" are more like her actually having a use for all that ability. Broad talents like "gemstones" would likely lead to large magical reserves, not quite Twilight's level, but still a large amount to cover all the subtalents and applications that has.
If I may offer a bit of criticism, you should probably replace the word "sentient" with "sapient."
Sentience is any form of awareness that allows one to make decisions based on surroundings. Animals are sentient, and you could make the argument that some A.I.s today are also sentient. Sapience is self-awareness, or, in layman's terms, human-level intelligence.
When is moar Twilight coming?
3214037
Ohoho, don't underestimate Rarity's fighting ability. She's shown repeatedly that she packs quite a punch. Really, along with Rainbow Dash, she's probably the only one who had martial arts training.
3214100
Yeah but surely Bill would know that... Never mind, I'm sure he's too busy thinking of all the science to be had to care.
We aren't going to ever see Twilight, are we? She just shows up at the climax, informs them that she's solved the problem, and takes them home. (leaving Japan, or wherever, to face whatever apocalypse I imagine is coming)
3215093
I AM aware of that, and it's something that I intend to use in my own fics. On a related note, I can think of more times that Rarity has hauled heavy loads than Applejack. The Diamond Dogs' cart, the cart full of camping supplies... Tom. For being an elegant unicorn, she seems to be more than able to haul REALLY heavy things.
3215224
Very good point! Most of the fics that touch on that explain it by way of her father having been a big, brawny hoofball player, interestingly enough. One that taught his little gemstome how to beat somepony else into submission, if need be.
Kinda heartwarming, really.
Great chapter!
Also "sentience" is what animals have, "sapience" is what humans(and ponies) have.
3214862 3215153
Unfortunately for you, Twi's part isn't coming (probably) until I've progressed a bit into the other storylines. Time discrepancy.
To sum things up: as was hinted in the first chapter, Twilight took a much more careful approach to her investigation of what the hell is going on than what the others managed. Once I've written the next few sets of chapters, I'm likely going to do a small timeskip of a few days and let the story jump forward a bit, so we can skip the boring parts. Twilight's introduction is going to be after that. As for Pinkie...well, wait and see. ^v^
3215282 3214765
Those two are interchangeable to some level, and I'm lazy (and not american). Tryhard pls
3215248 3215224
I'm well aware that Rarity can hold her own fairly well to start with, but there is a discrepancy in combat ability between her and the others that needed to be addressed in order for this fic to work.
Twilight is, well, Twilight. No arguments there. Likewise on Rainbow. Applejack has always been the sturdy, brawly tank-type in combat terms, Pinkie does whatever she wants because Pinkie, and Fluttershy Used Stare or just plain doesn't want to fight, depending on what's going on. Rarity has the capability, but no canon actually ever really defines it and gives us a specific example of "this is how Rarity fights". I'm not berating the level of her canon combat abilities; I'm just saying it's not exactly clear what they consist of.
Speaking of how our ponies fight, I think you can count on there being more of that coming up rather soon. Things are about to get a bit...hot, so to speak. :)
3215747
Aww
Ill be waiting!
Yay,more to- oh, I'm done. Begin Wait.exe.
3215747 I take it from that last line that Spike may be coming up again? Then again... Applejack could still be up for debate in terms of hot news. What with her running on water and all last time we saw her.
But let's take a recap of where our heroines are shall we?
Twilight - Saffron City, Kanto
Rarity - Cerulean City, Kanto
Pinkie Pie - Lavander Town, Kanto
Applejack - ???, running on water, Presumably Johto (because you know, Suicune)
Fluttershy - Olivine (possibly heading to Cianwood), Johto
Rainbow Dash - In a mountain side 'secret' base, Johto
If there are any mistakes in my information let me know. I also freaked out at the 'official name' of the MC in HeartGold/SoulSilver.
Oh I love how Lissandra moves. Really great idea you had there.
3216720
Ah, but we're going with the male MC (Ethan) here, so Johto's Lyra is only the Day-care folks' granddaughter in this fic. Not that that's going to stop her from joining the fray in the most spectacular way possible, of course.
3216720 AJ started in Cianwood, and heading toward Olivine. RD and Mewtwo's secret base is in Dark Mountains, which is where the Dark Cave is located - between Violet and Blackthorn on the map. And Pinkie is in Viridian, not Lavender.
3217731 Welp 2 out of 6 is good enough for me. Least I got the regions right, I mean if I got those wrong well... heh.
Nice chapter. I eagerly look forward to more.
3213982 She will not be pleased. Nor will she when she finds out that Bill isn't actually a doctor.
That's my prediction anyway.
3218083 Even though Bill is acting all nice and gentlemanly towards her and the others are being kinda jerky?
Not sure about that one :)
3217145
No mad science? Come on, mad science is the best kind of science! Especially if Rarity kept her magic. Call it Biped Forme.
In any case, definitely looking forward to more, and I love Rarity's makeshift ambulator. Interesting to note that she seems able to use Rock moves, but not Ground ones. Perhaps the two worlds are more closely related than I first suspected...
I'd jump on the "sapient, not sentient" bandwagon, but that's already been addressed. Regardless, looking forward to more!
... okay, newsflash. When you put a space in your comment(and only that), it actually allows you to post it... the more you know.
)
Well, this chapter was interesting! I hope it won't be too long for the next!(Seriously, this type of sentence should be banned by now
Keep up the good work!
3219676
Protip: Whining about it is the best way to make me do it just to spite you. :)
3214100 sorry bout that
3218086 That's not what I mean. That may serve as a bit of a redeeming factor for him in her eyes, but she may not be too keen on the idea that she allowed someone that she didn't know perform tests on her, partly because she assumed that he was a doctor, actually was not an actual doctor at all, nor had he had any formal training. Nor may she like that the nurses knew this and still allowed him to take their patient (even though she had gone willingly). She may feel a bit, if only slightly, betrayed, as-well-as a fear of what might have happened. He may be a genius, and he may know what he's doing, but the thought that he would have been required to have formal training in the field of medicine may have been a reassurance (whether-or-not it would have actually resulted in him knowing more than he currently did, he may know even more, but how would she know?), also, doctors are bound by certain rules, the Hippocratic Oath being one of them (at least in our universe), Bill however, is under no such restraints. What's to stop him from doing something that no respectable doctor would do? It might make her feel uneasy, maybe it would be an irrational uneasiness, seeing as how nothing actually happened (what if his show of gentlemanly behavior had just been a feint) , but the fact that it could have happened may be what sets her off. (Rarity does have tendency to lean towards the dramatic, although, I don't know if she would go this far or how far down this trail of thought she would go.)
I suspect that it would be something like, "You mean you're not a doctor?!/What do you mean you're 'not a doctor'?!" She would be shocked. She also may be a little cross with herself for letting herself blindly trust someone, something, that she had never met before so easily, and she might project some of that annoyance with herself onto him.
I'm not saying that they wouldn't become friends later-on, far from that. They likely would become friends. However, this would be something to get over and come to terms with before that happened.
I'm sorry for any redundancy that I may have included.
3220090Sorry.
Go on ahead and chase your dreams, and don't give up on this awesome fanfic!
iambrony.steeph.tp-radio.de/mlp/gif/196841842029063116417175.gif
None of my favorite stories quite match up with what I had in mind.
3228071
Fear not, your lord and savior will return in the next chapter
3272513
Here come the parasprite bots. Have fun in the igloo, sandman.
To any other followers of That Guy, do yourselves a favor and don't bother. All it'll earn you is a block and a report.
3272541 Hahaha, oh that is comedy gold! What next? I'd love it if the reports on you would turn on them and ALL of them got banned.
I will read this story! And I am confident I won't regret it!
...Why am I posting this comment! Nobody cares!...
3322900
Now, now, don't say that. :)
3322958
Read the A/N's and comments for depth on every possible snag in this story. You'll be better off for it, trust me.
3322902
I did not regret reading this story!
However, I do not like the fact that the ponies cannot communicate with the humans. They both speak english. I mean sure, equine anatomy has no way of pronouncing human language but STILL
3323271
Exactly. Thus, them sharing a language would be illogical, just from a biological standpoint - without counting the other countless factors in.
Don't worry though - there'll be plenty of opportunity to expand in this area later on. It's just that there are certain parts of our cast that have significant advantages in areas that, if we ignored the BLARING language barrier issue, would simply not come to light.
An explanation of Language general: Fluttershy can understand and be understood by any creature, thanks to her Dragon's Tongue ability. Ditto with Spike, although this only applies (for reasons yet to be revealed .w.) after his dip in the Dragon's Den lake.
Rainbow Dash on the other hand has Mewtwo's psychic abilities to thank for her newfound bilingualism. We'll see how long it lasts, and how it actually works, later on; for now, suffice it to say that Mewtwo has pretty big mind-reading/telepathy powers, and since he's a man-made pokémon he knows the human language. :)