The rest of the week went by in a relatively normal routine for Sunset Shimmer as she went to school, talked with her friends, and hung out with Aria and Sonata. Now that the weekend was here though, that routine had gone out the window as she was presently in her human form, wearing a sparkly dress and cape, and sitting back stage in downtown Canterlot's brand new "Authentic Vegas Cafe."
She could hear the crowd cheering at Trixie's act as her nerves began to overtake her. In an effort to calm down she said to herself, "OK, just calm down Sunset. Remember all you have to do is wait for Trixie's cue, come on stage, say a few words and do a few gestures, get in the 'transformation box,' turn into a pony when Trixie says, and then burst out of the box and do a 'Great and Powerful Pose' as she called it."
Sunset glanced through the curtain and saw Trixie wearing a rhinestoned version of her typical blue dress, hat, and cape. Trixie gestured with a plastic wand and made a bouquet of flowers come out of it, which she then handed to a young couple in the front, causing them to blush and the audience to cheer.
Sunset then commented to herself, "Say what you will about Trixie's boasting but she sure knows how to work a crowd," she then glanced at the audience before saying, "Sure wish my other friends could be here. I mean I know this was last minute and I understood when they all said they already had plans but still."
Sunset didn't have much time to think about this though, as she heard Trixie say, "And for my next trick I will need the help of my Lovely and Charming assistant!"
Sunset then got up and stood in front of the opening of the curtain as Trixie continued saying, "Behold the one, the only, Sunset Shimmer!"
At this, Sunset burst through the curtain with a large smile on her face and approached Trixie who looked at her with a "don't worry you're doing great" smile on her face before she said, "Thank you for being here today, oh Lovely and Charming Sunset."
Sunset returned the smile as she said, "Happy to be here, oh Great and Powerful Trixie. Now tell me, what trick shall I be helping you with today?"
Trixie then turned to the audience as she said, "Why I'm glad you asked Sunset, for today I shall be using my Astonishing Transformation Chamber," she then gestured to a box which now had a spotlight go on above it before saying, "to turn you into an animal."
Sunset then walked up to the box and feigned disappointment as she said, "Oh that's all."
Trixie then feigned surprise as she looked at Sunset and said, "Why whatever do you mean, 'that's all?'"
Sunset then turned to the audience as she thought, "I'm actually starting to enjoy this," before she said, "Well no offense Trixie but that trick doesn't exactly stand up to your Great and Powerful standards."
Trixie then smiled as she looked at Sunset and said, "Oh is that all," before she turned back to the audience and said, "Well yes any third rate magician could turn their assistant to a bunny or a white tiger but only the Great and Powerful Trixie can turn her Lovely and Charming assistant into a creature of legend."
Sunset then got excited, for real as she was really getting into the show, before saying, "Mythical creature huh, I like the sound of that." She then hopped in the box as Trixie shut it and the audience cheered.
Trixie then turned to them as she said, "Now then. Ladies and Gentleman behold a creature you have only seen before in your wildest dreams and greatest fantasies. A legendary, mystical, and magical," she then paused for emphasis before saying loudly, "UNICORN!"
At that last word the box opened revealing the flash of light as Sunset started her transformation before she then hopped out of the box and landed in front of it on her back hooves, with her front hooves to her sides, and a huge smile to the audience on her face, just as they planned.
The audience clapped and cheered as both Trixie and Sunset basked in this adjuration, but unfortunately that didn't last long as a man stood up excitedly saying, "Do me next! I want to be a unicorn!"
Trixie and Sunset both looked at each other surprised as neither of them expected this to happen and it was only getting worse as more people started joining in.
"No me next! ME!" said one woman.
"Can you turn me into a Pegasus?" asked another man.
"How about doing a half and half and turning yourself into a centaur," said another woman as she looked directly at Trixie.
Sunset looked at Trixie, hoping the veteran performer would know what to do, but whether it was her nerves over this gig getting to her or just that she's never faced this kind of heckling she just stood there smiling as beads of sweat started to form on her forehead. Instinctively Sunset turned to the audience wanting something to save them, but having no idea what to expect. Even if she did though she probably wouldn't have expected what happened next as from seemingly out of nowhere Aria and Sonata jumped out of the crowd and onto the stage next to them.
Sonata looked at everyone and smiled saying, "We're sorry everyone but the Equestrian magic used to do such an astounding transformation needs time to recharge before anything else can be done," she then turned to Trixie and winked before saying, "Isn't that right oh Great and Powerful Trixie."
Trixie, ever the show woman, caught onto what was going on pretty quick as her confidence returned and she said, "That's right my enthusiastic little admirers. I'm afraid all of the pony magic within the Astonishing Transformation Chamber has been drained and will not be back for some time."
"How long exactly," said the first man who had started all this.
Trixie opened her mouth to try and answer this but was caught off guard as Aria walked over to the box and pulled a firecracker out of her pocket before showing it to Trixie and, ignoring her protest, lit it and slipped it into the box before giving Trixie a thumbs up.
Not wanting this to look any worse than it was about to Trixie said, "Unfortunately the only way to recharge it is to send it back to the magical land of Equestria from whence it came... BEHOLD!"
At that moment the firecracker went off shattering the box into a million tiny paces as the audience cheered. Trixie then smiled at them and took a bow, while trying to hold back the tears from seeing one of her beloved props be destroyed, before Sunset, Aria, and Sonata did the same.
After the audience calmed down abit they all walked backstage and Sunset turned to the newcomers as she said, "Aria, Sonata, what are you two doing here?"
Trixie on the other hand had an angry look on her face as she said, "Never mind why they're here. JUST WHY THE HECK DID YOU DECIDE TO DESTROY MY PROP!"
"Well it worked didn't it?" said Sonata innocently, as she didn't seem to realize that Trixie was upset before she continued saying, "I mean the audience seemed happy."
Trixie then became a little nervous at this genuinely helpful statement as she said, "Well I guess so but still."
Aria then spoke up saying, "Well you can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs. I mean I thought you magicians were all about showmanship?"
Trixie became defensive as she said, "Of course I know about showmanship."
"Well then you're welcome," said Aria matter of factly while Sonata smiled next to her.
Trixie was rendered speechless by this argument that was somehow composed of genuine kindness, sarcastic smugness, and pure logic all at the same time. This allowed Aria and Sonata to turn their attention back to Sunset as Aria said, "Now to answer your question. We remembered you mentioning you were helping Trixie here today so we figured we'd check it out."
"And it's a good thing we did, otherwise we wouldn't have been able to help you like this," said Sonata.
"Well, I'm definitely happy to see you and thanks for the help, even if it wasn't quite the way Trixie would have wanted, but I didn't expect you to two to come. I mean you haven't even left my apartment since you started living there so I figured you just were not ready to talk to people yet and were trying to gear yourselves up to be ready in time for trick or treating in a few days."
"Admittedly, yeah for the first day or two we didn't leave solely because we were still kind of depressed and while yes there are moments where that can creep up on us again. Buuutttt-" said Aria before trailing off.
"After the first few days we did feel good enough to go out... but we didn't really have any money to do anything and we didn't want to ask you for any after what you've already done for us," said Sonata as she looked down embarrassed.
Sunset was about to explain how they were friends and that they shouldn't worry about asking for a few dollars here or there, but that thought was soon interrupted as they all heard the door open. They looked over and saw a man with a dark blue Mohawk, a nose ring, and muscles that would make Bulk Biceps jealous walk towards them.
Upon seeing him Trixie returned to her senses and began saying, "Mr. Will, I'm so sorry I-"
However he interrupted her and began saying, "Please call me Iron Will, after all that's what all my employees call me."
Trixie began saying, "Sorry, Iron Will I," before she paused as she figured out what had just happened and said, "Wait employees? So you mean I got the job!"
"Indeed you did little lady, Iron Will likes your act and Iron Will thinks that it is the perfect thing to help this cafe cement itself as another strong branch in the Iron Will franchise," said Iron Will as he smiled at her.
Trixie's excitement turned to confusion as she said, "But wait, that ending to the show wasn't what I told you wold happen though?"
"Yeah but who would have expected anything like that to happen. I mean seriously don't these people know that this is all sleight of hand and stuff, I swear it's like they think magic is real," said Iron Will resulting in several nervous laughs from the girls in front of him. He didn't seem to notice that though as he continued saying, "Overall your show was really good and I would defiantly love to see more of it. And you two," he said as he moved over to Sonata and Aria.
"I like how you handled that crowd out there, I mean saying the "magic box" needed to charge and then blowing it up was genius. I always say "when all else fails, blow something up" or at least I would say it if I could think of a rhyme for it; But regardless I need that kind of quick thinking around here. So how would you two like jobs here?" said Iron Will.
"Really!" said Sonata excitedly.
"What kind of job is it exactly?" asked Aria skeptically.
"Well officially you would be waitresses, bringing drinks and food to people while they watch the shows but in actuality what I want you to do is keep an eye on things and if you see another group of hecklers start to tear down a show like this, just step in and use some of those improvisational skills of yours to get things back on track," said Iron Will
"Well that sounds like fun, so I'm definitely in!" said Sonata beaming with excitement.
Aria thought for a moment before shrugging her shoulders and saying, "Ehh why not, this could definitely fix our money troubles. Who knows maybe we'll get enough to pay off our debt with Doughnut Joe," she turned to Sunset and continued saying, "No offense but his coffee is leaps and bounds better than yours, I mean he actually infuses mocha beans into the whip cream to give you an extra pick me up."
"Oh I almost forgot Sunset," said Iron Will as he glanced over to her before saying, "Be sure to tell her all this when you get her out of the trap door or where ever she is in." He then began walking away before saying, "Cute dog by the way, you seem to got it trained really well."
Trixie, Aria, and Sonata grimaced at that last comment while Sunset simply groaned and said, "Seriously, how many people are gonna think I'm a dog."
Meanwhile in the main room of the cafe.
A girl in a brown vest/poncho, a white shirt, and and jean shorts pulled out her phone and began saying, "Listen, I was just at this totes amazing magique show and I think I found the new theme for our theme park." She then started sending the pictures she took of the show as she said, "OK get on my snapgap and start posting these pictures with hashtag ponies, hashtag magique, hashtag magique ponies, and," she paused as she remembered the words those girls had used before saying, "hashtag Equistria Land."
"When all else fails, explode its entrails!"
Equestria land huh? Lets just see how many ways this can go wrong for a certain girl.
9265301
When someone intervines blow it to smitherines
Another good chapter. Trixie and Sunset make quite the interesting performance duo, and having Sonata and Aria insert themselves into the mix like that was a clever move. Good to see that the risk they took reaped a great reward from Iron Will; hopefully, this will begin to turn things around for them.
But from here, let's have a look at a few things that could use fixing.
Overall, I feel that this would flow better as two separate sentences. Start by removing the comma after "Trixie" and replace the semicolon after "cape" with a period. Replace "as she" with "Trixie" to begin the next sentence, then there needs to be a "with" after gestured since the action is in relation to direct use of an object. Regarding "to their blush", that doesn't exactly sound right and I couldn't find a proper word to use that didn't have a negative connotation to it (embarrassment, for instance), so a slight rewrite might be necessary. At the end, audience would be singular in this case, and "cheers" would normally be in past tense to match the rest of the story, but a bit of revision will help it flow better with the phrase before it. It'll look something like this.
In this next one:
There should be a question mark at the end rather than a period.
EDIT: Just noticed that "said" is also missing right before the dialogue. Might wanna throw that in there, too.
Found a couple of misspellings:
Though the pronunciation is the same, it should be spelled "sleight". Also, there should be an "is" before "all" in that sentence.
Got a bit of a chuckle out of that one. Should be spelled "whence".
I've been going on quite long enough, I think, so I'll finish up with one last tip regarding quotations within quotations, as I saw two instances of them. Any time you have a second quotation inside a first, only use "double quotes" for the main quotation; the secondary quotation within should be designated with 'single quote' marks. I'll show you what I mean.
Seeing as how these quoted bits are contained within Sunset's spoken line, you'll use single quotes marks for them. Also, the comma after transformation box should be outside the quote marks as well. After revision, you'll end up with this:
Then we have this line:
Again, the quote marks surrounding "that's all" should be single, not double. Also, whenever you use "why" as a leading interjection like that, a comma should follow to separate it from the main clause. So we'll end up with this:
That was far more than I intended to throw at you, so apologies for the overload. Again, I hope it's helpful to you, and keep up the great work!
9265844
Just made all the corrections and again thanks for the help . As you can see I am at least trying harder with grammar as I did my best to put commas and semicolons where you said they would be necessary (who knows maybe with your help I'll be able to learn enough of this stuff to not need an editor , probably not though )
Also out of curiosity is your username a reference to Emerald Splash from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure or is just coincidence that they sound so similar?
9266229
It's purely coincidental; I've never actually seen JoJo's Bizarre Adventure. It was just a name I used for an old OC several years ago.
9266501
I figured as much but it didn't hurt to ask. Emerald Splash is the main attack of Noriaki Kakyoin and his stand Hierophant Green and I'm just gonna leave a picture of them here simply because it would be funny if the coincidences went further, like your OC had the same hair or eye color as one of them or something
vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/deathbattlefanon/images/c/c4/Kakyoin_%26_Hierophant_Green.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20150622214841
9265368
Still probably better than Happy World Land.
9267189
Ah okay, I recognize this guy. I probably should give it a watch at some point.
Interestingly enough, Emerald Flash's initial design was patterned after myself, so he had a brown mane and tail and blue eyes. He ended up seeming a bit bland, though, so I gave him a bit of a revamp after a while. Now he's got the two-toned black and blue mane you see here, and his eyes are orange. The artwork itself is not mine (I can't draw to save my life), but I did recolor it and then added in the Cutie Mark.
Anyway, looking forward to the next chapter. I'll try my best not to get too carried away this time.
Well... Aria and Sonata now have to pay up Trixie too.
Regardless that stunt with the explosive was both entertaining and clever.
"And Iron Will likes to talk in the third person like Iron Will's new favorite magician!"
Fact: TORGUE weapons make things EXPLODE!
I believe it should be definitely! Though you can never tell with Iron Will
Really hate that Valencia chick. I hope whatever she's thinking comes back to bite her in a big way.