When Twilight Sparkle is imprisoned after a heavy-hoofed ponyhunt on the direct orders of Princess Celestia, Rainbow Dash takes it upon herself to rescue her egghead friend from prison. Unbeknownst to her, things are not as they seem in Manehattan, or anywhere in Equestria. As she uncovers the mystery piece by piece, the rest of the famous Elements of Harmony and a few other familiar friends come to her aid. Who controls the strings, and can they be cut in time... or is it already too late? Will friendships of the Mane Six dissolve as they struggle through their greatest trials yet? And just where the hay is Princess Luna? Wake up! It's time to kick some flanks!
Loosely based on the John Carpenter film "They Live". Chronologically between Season 2 and 3.
As featured on EQD!
- Member Since 12th Dec, 2012
- offline last seen Nov 11th, 2017
Xtralife
I'd call myself a fanfic writer, if I wasn't too busy horsing around!
Xtralife
Joined 12th Dec, 2012 ·
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Chapters (11)
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Dis gon b epik!
What Regidar said.
Dis gun b GUD!
I'm sensing a roaring rampage of rescue. Awesome.
Rainbow Dash's attitude while discovering the secret room was a lot of fun to read. She was so in-character, and it contrasted nicely with how serious the situation was. It's also delightfully awesome how her random decision led to such an important plot development. You also write Pinkie gags like a pro (at leas this one time, so far as I've seen), by expanding creatively on an existing joke.
A reference to one of the dumbest comedies I've ever witnessed.
Rainbow Dash and Twilight Sparkle. They would make a kickass pair in a fight, so here's hoping they're gonna be back-to-back and surrounded by changelings at some point. It would also be a huge shame to leave Spike out of the action, he being a little guy, and underdog, and a fire-spitting dragon. He fought in a limited capacity in On a Pale Horse and Nightmare Spike (admittedly, the latter is mine). Mention of his escape in the first chapter gives me hope.
What's been going on with him, though? Was he pretending to be in the same boat as his friends, acting like he didn't know where Twilight was and fielding questions?
It also would've been a good idea to give Dash some breathing room after her revelation. This chapter rushed through the action, ignoring any chance to build suspense. I would've given her an ally to talk to about the changelings before cutting loose with the violence.
Oh boy, I haven't touched this in a little while. Okay, let's see here...
2591504
You're on the right track! There will definitely be roaring rampages, but there shall also be some controlled and planned flank-whoopin'. Glad you're diggin' it!
2656072
It was a lot of fun letting Rainbow Dash loose in there! As she's mostly an impulse-driven character, I felt that throwing her into a situation where she would have to control her ADD would have some great results. And professional Pinkie Pie gags? Now that's a compliment! Not too many authors can do that from what I understand, and besides, my top ten ponies are Pinkie Pie and then nine Mirror Pool clones.
But can you believe I haven't even seen that movie?
2635630
Oh hello again! Good to see you stuck around!
Huge changeling fights are a must. You'll be able to get your daily recommended allowance of them, and that's a promise! You'll also get to see what happened to Spike in one or two chapters. Whether it's good or bad though - well, I can't give that away yet.
You've got a point with Dash's sudden snap, though. The thing is that as I mentioned, Dash is a creature of speedy volition. But she's actually at a specific point of her character arc here. She'll soon have to learn to calm down before reacting - and again, that's something I think I'll keep in my back pocket for a while. But guess what? The beginning of that change is happening soon.
I'll have to check out those stories you name-dropped! You shouldn't have mentioned that Nightmare Spike was yours, though. That way I would have read it, and then I'd have commented with "Wait, you're the author?" and then you would have been all "Oh, I didn't mention it? Man, it's almost like I planned it that way!" But yes, I'm gonna read them, because I'm in dire need of new pony fics right now.
I have some pages written up for the next chapter already, so you guys can expect more content relatively soon. Thanks for the comments, feedback, and praise!
2691243 Awesomerific!
2691243 I made it known that I was the author of Nightmare Spike for the same reason I didn't put html around the text: don't wanna go shamelessly plugging my stuff. On a Pale Horse definitely deserves more views and comments, but you needn't read mine...
...Although I do think it would be cool if there was more fanfiction of Spike as Kick-Ass, which is what Nightmare Spike basically is.
Sweet.
Damn dude, worth the wait... somehow.
Ooooooooooh this is getting better and better!!!!
4190555
Yeah, that time gap was pretty ridiculous. I'm already a very sporadic writer, but now that I'm in college, a huge amount of free time has gone right out the window. But I'm gonna finish this! It's been too fun to give it up.
4200852
Glad you dig it! I can only hope you'll continue to love future installments. And thanks for the fave, too!
Lol spike at the end
I so can't wait for more!!!!
I take it Rainbow Dash (and other members of the mane six) will be beating people up in this story?
4379063
I'm just overwhelmed that their pre-readers dug the story. I was thinking it was just too weird of a premise, you know?
There's most definitely violence, ponies in atypical dangerous situations beyond what the show would ever go into, and a number of unnamed changelings kick the bucket. But I'd argue the Mane Six are just doing what has to be done, and the particularly, er, pugnacious moments are there for a reason. I hope that answers your question... at least well enough to give it a shot.
Thank you!
And that line has been one of my favorites to write. I know the source material was a serious (though admittedly cheesy) film, and I was trying to emulate that as best as possible, but there's this overwhelming urge inside of me to fill everything with gags and puns. I'm glad people are loving that aspect of the story.
4380006
Sort of! Kind of!
This is awesome!
4603055
I do what I can... good to see you dig it!
Damn dude, she took off the fuckin' gloves.
You really need to update more. Well, at least not remembering the story gave me an excuse to reread it.
4703315
Oh yeah, she's not playing around anymore. She's in the endgame at this point, and there's no way she'd let anypony stand in her way.
4703704
I... I really can't argue with that. I need to work on my writing speed. The good news is that I'm actually ten pages into the next chapter, so maybe I can crank this out a little quicker.
4706547 Yeah, don't worry about it. I'm sure you'll finish the story eventually. Unless you are dieing of cancer or something, in which case you have bigger worries than finishing this story. But the fact that you are producing this story at all, and providing us free access to it, is enough for me.
Loving the intense action in this story, sticking around for more!
4837137
And the action will only ramp up from here, man. Glad you're so into the story!
4837819 You and me both.
Well, they're pretty much screwed..
5081540
On Pinkie Pie's comment, you mean? Yeah, I'm kind of mocking myself there, actually. I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to hash out how this and the last chapter would go down, and I was worried that it wasn't believable or that it didn't make sense.
5083137
"Faithful Reader" is an understatement! And they're only kinda screwed. You still have yet to see what the escape plan is!
Woohoo, go Twilight! That was a pretty awesome chapter and Frank is best changeling.
ok....What the FUCK is going on?
5567634
It's been a few months since I updated, so I understand if you've just started reading again and are having some difficulties. How can I help?
derpicdn.net/img/2015/2/3/820340/medium.jpg
5585521
I have no idea what I'm looking at here, but it's amazing.
5585752
It is crazy Twilight going off the rails with her conspiracy theories...
I think you put a extra space there
5614133
You're right, I did! Thanks for the catch, I appreciate it.
5617947 No problem
I loved everything in this chapter. It was good simple fun to picture the characters doing everything you described, especially Spike*. It's been brought up in threads these last couple of days that he would've been able to deal with the villagers in the S5 premier about as handily as you had him slipping through security here.
The bit where he noted a discrepancy in Derpy's tendencies had me suspecting the three of them were being led into a trap, but it seemed meaningless enough that I wasn't sure. Nice move.
*slightly biased.
5835073
Oh snap, you're back! Yeah, it's definitely arguable that Spike is underutilized and stronger than the characters can give him credit for, and it's easily underlined by the Power Ponies episode. But what are some of the fan theories going around about him and the premiere? Because my first thought is that he could melt the glass cutie mark casings in the vault and just unleash a clusterbuck of epic proportions, if not simply return the Mane 6 their own marks in seconds. Starlight Glimmer has absolutely no contingency plan for baby mythical lizards all up in her biz.
5847335 Most people speculate that the absence of a cutie mark upon his scaly behind would've made him immune to her control (can't take away his special talents, can't fix him with a depressing Equality mark). Just as many seem to agree that he would've had no trouble breaking his friends out of Glimmer's propaganda shed...in at least four different ways. I would've had him picking the lock with his tongue, then melting the lock, then digging a hole under the wall, then chewing his way through the wall, and each time the Gimmerians would've had to keep putting him back and safeguarding against all the different things he can do as they learn about them.
Like a Warner Brothers cartoon.
Never .... EVER ... assign Rainbow Dash any spot at all on a prison break or heist. She will expose your whole damn plan at the first opportunity to feel like a badass in the most outrageous way possible. If Applejack had just put her in a large box and dragged that box behind her throughout the prison, it still would've been less conspicuous.
I'm lovin' how you grafted a prison break onto a shoot-em-up action flick (and, as usual, that Spike gets to be part of it). It's ballsier and still fits the tone of chapter one, in that companions are still missing and enemies are hidden among regular people. And then there's that clever twist: who's in trouble? RD or AJ? I look forward to finding out, though I suspect that little incongruity in how Andrea Libman's ponies recounted their arrest yields the answer. Since I don't particularly enjoy searching previously read pages for clues, I will wait, and be surprised.
But we still haven't gotten to the point. Why did the Changelings lead our heroes by their noses all over the prison on a merry chase? Just for fun? So they could build up to a reveal, instead of just locking them up and telling them while they were caged? I hope you planned this out a little more...
According to memory, every recent chapter has been—in my opinion—the best chapter yet. But this is the best chapter yet.
Hillbilly Radish Cart, Bumpkin Carrot Wagon...it's hilarious, Rarity's brain turning out all those synonyms while she wasn't even paying attention. I'm pretty sure she messed up his name on purpose, but it was still a nice little set of gags. That's one of the things I love about this fic: good humor, good action. Though it's getting hard to decide just how serious everything should be: the personalities of the changelings and the prisoners is a parody of genuinely evil behavior, and most of the violence is comical...but there's also some dyin' going on. Then again, that sorta describes how dark The Simpsons gets, so maybe I'm just too accustomed to the gulf between daytime cartoons like Johnny Bravo and adult cartoons like Rick and Morty.
The highlight for me throughout the story—as always—continues to be how Spike's involvement is balanced out with the other six. He's not being the incompetent child that the writers at DHX think him to be, but nor is he showing off or kicking ass like the wish-fulfillment self-insert some fanfic writers turn him into. He's just being Spike, and he's handling the situation by simply walking around and doing stuff. It's awesome and adorable, and I don't think there are any other fanfic writers who've ever done this so well.
5585521
Is that picture an actual story? XD
The story's discontinued?! 😭
9764178
Not that I am aware of. It is an old picture by the former artist Ichibangravity