Star Butterfly vs. The Magical Power Of Friendshipby PeridorkChaptersEpisode 1: Welcome To The Echo Creek Stop & SlurpEpisode 2: Star And Twilight Meet A Friend In The Hospital's MorgueEpisode 3: How The Mall Had A Fire SaleEpisode 1: Welcome To The Echo Creek Stop & SlurpIt would have been a normal day in Equestria if not for the fact that Twilight was planning to have a scientific breakthrough. Twilight Sparkle and her friends stared at the purple alicorn's newest magical contraption that she had built after fighting the Sirens at Canterlot High. The Crystal Mirror, on loan from Princess Cadance, stood in the middle of the room and Twilight's scientific instruments were placed in a seemingly haphazard arrangement in concentric circles around the ancient and barely understood mirror. Twilight had looked into the history of the mirror, but she could only find references to Starswirl's apprentice Clover the Clever building a planar lens to view possible realities as a way to one up the other two races in surviving the Windigoes. And with the issues of deterioration on the early sources of Clover the Clever, most of what Twilight could learn was that the Mirror could be the same thing mentioned in the History of The Three Tribes by Mannus. Which didn't explain how anything worked- Mannus just said that it was an eye opening experience for Clover. Twilight sighed. The lack of knowledge about early Equestria was something that bugged her when dealing with ancient magical artifacts like this. "Now Twilight, I know that you often like to show off your magical doohickeys when they might not be finished yet, but this just looks like a mess that Spike made in his sleep." Twilight looked at her contraption again and saw that maybe Applejack was right. It did look a little rushed, but Twilight had crunched the numbers in her head and her plan to connect the human world without waiting on the moon in the human world and the Equestrian moon to sync up was sound. Because, even with Sunset's new journal on the other side, it still had issues with keeping the statue side open. And Twilight and her friends were going to test it. If only some ponies weren't being so dangerously forgetful about machinery. "Ooh, Twilight! What does this do?" Pinkie was poking the mirror and seeing if she could see her forehoof go through the mirror. It would be a normal occurrence for Pinkie Pie, if she wasn't trying to see if Gummy could turn into a human by tossing him at the mirror and yelling something about a transformation sequence. "Pinkie, this is a perfectly safe machine if used properly. And Gummy won't be able to talk anyway on the other side, there's no magic there. So please stop trying to do. . .whatever you are doing." "Aw, sorry Gummy, I guess we wont hear your voice yet." Twilight sighed. Pinkie being Pinkie was just one thing that she had to learn to accept when she moved to Ponyville, but the pink pony still had some moments that even the other girls thought were a bit too crazy for even Pinkie to say sometimes. They figured that maybe Pinkie was smarter than she looked and somehow knew about things that were beyond what ponies should know. Twilight turned away to think about how to possibly fix the machine's coordinates into a- "Come on Egghead, if you can't turn pets into human things or figure out if you're faster than the human version of yourself- what's the point about a place where all they do there is learn about boring human stuff." Rainbow Dash glided lazily around the room just waiting for Twilight to finish up her preparations for the journey to the other, less awesome world. "Rainbow, that's not the point of the mirror. . ." Twilight's eye twitched a little bit at Rainbow's comment but she thought of Cadance's breathing technique, counted the first fifteen digits of pi, and moved onto grabbing the last few bits of wiring and attaching them to the top of the mirror. "Have you girls seen Rarity? She's almost late for this." Fluttershy, who had been sitting quietly in the corner just watching her friends spoke up. She had been sitting there because she hadn't wanted to get in the way of Twilight. Also she had been worrying about the animals she had left in her cabin- maybe Bon Bon wasn't the best pony to ask for help. But her animals had calmed down once Bon Bon had used her real voice."Uh, Twilight, Rarity told me that she would be a little bit late because she was gathering a few things." "Okay. That's good. . . I just hope that she won't go overboard- this isn't supposed to be a long trip." "Or she could just do what I do and store things in her hair. It really helps Gummy and me when we get really bored." Pinkie pulled out a Daring Do and Do Not book and sat down to read the newest adventure of the Daring Gang. Twilight had gotten Pinkie stuck on the filly series when she showed Rainbow the original versions. Twilight just sighed. She still couldn't figure out Pinkie Pie's abilities. She probably never would. She had tried to figure out Pinkie and she had ended up in a body cast for that. So for her safety, even though being an alicorn made her stronger, Twilight didn't want to take a chance on studying Pinkie for sanity reasons. Before Twilight could aim for one of the nearby desks and just shut her brain down for a few minutes by slamming it into the wooden top, the library door opened and the one pony that everypony was waiting for strutted in with 'only' a few clothing items all over her back. "Sorry girls, Twilight's invitation to try out this new idea she had created made me worry about where exactly we would go and a lady can't help but be prepared for any eventuality in case of a fashion emergency. I mean what if I see some kind of fashion that's new to me. . .so I might have then decided to pack some notebooks and then I thought maybe I need some of Sweetie's color pencils to give it a splash of color. . .and now I'm rambling." Rarity's speech faltered as Rainbow rolled her eyes at the fashionista. "Come on, Rarity, it's not going to be that bad. Even if this Canterlot High seems to be a cutie mark free borefest." "Well Rainbow, Rares might be right though. Since Twilight hasn't really said where in the wide world of somewhere we might land." Applejack was trying to get the friends back on track. "So Twilight, might filling all of us in as to what we will be doing since for some reason you've been more focused on building this and not filling us in?" Applejack cocked an eyebrow and waited- sure she knew that Twilight could be focused on a task too much at hoof and forget to tell the girls but her forgetfulness didn't usually involve travelling beyond the borders of Equestria. Twilight blushed and smacked her hooves together. Finally, she could get into her own element and explain her plan. Pulling up a nearby chalkboard that she had placed in the tree for this eventual happening, she began to write her plan onto the chalkboard with a flurry of movement and enjoyment. Not every day could she prove a crucial theorem of science. "Now, if my calculations are correct, we will be able to enter the human world anywhere. This was made possible with a whole lot of magical theorems that I got from the Crystal Empire's archives and combining it with current ideas on magic to create a stable portal that will be open as long as we need on this end." "That's it?" Applejack raised an eyebrow because the farmpony was more used to Twilight's more involved explanations for sciency doodads. "Yeah. Pinkie told me to keep it to the point earlier today so I had to take out the explanation of multiple realities and small changes and all that." Twilight blushed a bit because she remembered the last time she had tried to teach a pony with a short attention span a difficult concept and that had involved almost burning down Canterlot. "Yeppers I sure did." Pinkie Pie grinned. "Okay so before we all head off into possibly a different area of the human world. . .I just wanted to hand out a few magic mirrors just in case something goes wrong." Twilight had learned a lot from all the times she had messed with science and she now believed that if something went wrong scientifically, it would be at least a good idea to make it easier for each of the girls to contact each other. And the mirror thing was Spike's idea. He thought it was a nice touch since the Crystal Mirror was, just that, a mirror. The girls all quickly agreed that having some form of communication just in case something happened when they were in a different version of Canterlot High. The six mares grabbed their own hoof mirrors, even Rainbow Dash who had a separate mirror to accentuate her non girliness, and stood in the center of the machinery that was attached to the portal. "Girls, just remember that is a research mission so please be careful since I hope that this moment will be put down in history when Equestrians make contact with possible new races." "Uh, Twilight, I know you are wanting to make sure things go okay and all but can't we have a little bit of fun when we 'meet new races'" Rainbow Dash shook her head. Twilight was kind of dense. Why wouldn't it be great to hang out with new things? And anyway being careful was not her middle name. Danger was her middle name. "And anyway I'd love to share with thingies my special baking powers that I've learned." Pinkie Pie smiled at Twilight and waited somewhat patiently with Gummy in her hooves. Twilight had tried to make Pinkie leave her pet at home but Pinkie had refused quietly. "Fine. But seriously everypony, this is supposed to be some sort of science mission affirming Clover the Clever's Third Law of Temporal Dimensional Mechanics. The fun part is just an added bonus." "So aren't you gonna tell Spike about this crucial mission, Twi? I don't want to be stuck in a place forever. I'd miss my family and everything." Applejack was right, Twilight thought. The idea of leaving Shining and her family in the dark about this would have been an issue. Before she forgot, she levitated a piece of parchment over to her and began writing to Spike about what he needed to do while she was gone. Couldn't hurt to at least have a way to get back since Twilight didn't know if the places her friends and her were going had technology like her machine to get back here. "There. I told Spike everything on how to run the library when we are gone and to send letters to each and every one of your family members- and for him to get some ponies to help with take care of business while we are gone. . .anything else before we go where nopony else has probably gone before?" Pinkie Pie waved her hoof about excitedly. "Ooh, ooh, pick me pick me!" "Yes, Pinkie?" "Well I felt a Pinkie Sense feeling earlier today so I made these packs for each of you while I was waiting." Pinkie grabbed her boxes that she had carried over from Sugarcube Corner that had been sitting by the front door of the library since she had entered the Golden Oaks library. Speeding around the circle, Pinkie gave each and every pony a box color coded to their coats. "Duh, so you made a basket of stuff. Can't we just open them now?" Rainbow Dash playfully rolled her eyes since she had been secretly eyeing the care packages or whatever Pinkie would call a box with stuff inside that wasn't really a present. "Silly. You can't open them now. Open them, you will know when to." Pinkie Pie smiled and giggled at her joke that nopony understood. "O Kay then. . .well I guess we'll get a move on then. Time can't really wait. Well, it could but. . .you know what I mean." Twilight shook her head and began powering up the spell necessary to send each of her friends to a different reality tied to the Crystal Mirror. Theorems and practice attempts flashed through her head as slowly each of her friends quickly faded out of the current Equestrian reality with a pop and with that she cast the final spell with a blast of magic. Twilight faded out of Equestria. Echo Creek, California was a normal town by any stretch of the word. Some streetlights, a Stop and Slurp, Echo Creek Academy- a kindergarten to twelfth grade public school, and a magical princess from another dimension. Well, okay. Maybe most towns did not have a magical princess, but this one did. "Ooh. Marco, Marco, Marco. Look at the deal that Stop and Slurp has today. A pizza and Slurpzilla combo pack? I don't even know what that is and I'm excited!" Princess Star Butterfly, Princess to the land of Mewni and current foreign exchange student, grinned at her best friend Marco Diaz. Her blue dress with a pink squid thing and the cute red devil horn hair piece making her stand out even in the California day. And her little hearts on her cheeks that showed her emotions were currently normal pink hearts. The blonde haired girl jumped in place at she pointed to the deal on the side of a convenience store. Marco Diaz, in one of his multiple red hoodies and black pants combos since he liked the look, turned to Star and frowned. Being the kid that looked out for Star wore on his nerves and it had only been about a week since she had moved into his house. He ruffled his brown hair with a hand and shook his head. "Star, no. Do you remember the last time we had pizza? You accidentally thought the hot peppers were a monster because they were spicy." "But, Marco. . .we don't really know of hot foods on Mewni so everything that's 'spicy' is thought of as poison." "You then punched the waiter and made a water monster by accident because you were freaking out. We still can't go to Fazbear's because of the mess you made." "Can I at least get one tiny Slurpzilla? Please Marco! I need to see if the flavor combo your dad told be about is tasty!" Star had heard about the Super Slurper combo from Mr. Diaz. The idea of putting every flavor intrigued Star. There had been no convenience stories on Mewni. The peasants sold their gruelish slop in the market. Flavors were not really known in Mewnian culture. Only recently had dimensional scissors made it possible to trade with different dimensions for spices. "Okay. But I don't know where exactly my wallet is. . .one of Ludo's goons threw it near here." Searching nearby a dumpster was not one of Marco's favorite things to do. It wasn't even on the list. "Dang it. I had some of my allowance in there." "Oh Marco. I could just use my magic and find your wallet. . ." "Nah, Star, I got this. I mean it couldn't have gotten that far. Ludo's minions kind of suck." Marco took off his hoodie and stood there for a moment. He had a grey shirt underneath the hoodie and the heat of California had cooled off so he shivered in his t shirt. "Though it's a little chilly right now." He jumped into the dumpster, hoping that he wouldn't have to take a super long shower once he got out. Wow. He felt something somewhat sharp poke him in the side and something plush moved underneath him. "Ugh, my horn." "Oh Dios Mio, my side." Marco moved as quickly as he could in a dumpster covered in trash and possibly a hobo living in the squalor. He touched his side and he felt something sticky pool on his side. Please don't be blood. Please don't be blood. "Star? Get your wand ready. I don't know if that is one of Ludo's new minions or not but its better to be safe than sorry cause I might need medical assistance if I think I remember what I learned in Biology." Star nodded and pulled out her cute little Princess wand that was also the main reason her evil nemesis, Ludo, who just so happened to be a short evil kappa overlord of evil, was fighting her and Marco. And it was cute- with little wings and a star design. It was supposed to show the current holder's heart because when her mother gave it to her, it was different and more regal than now. Star aimed the wand at the back of the alleyway. "Jellybean Hallucination Mist or Magical Narwhal Blast, Marco?" "Second one. It poked me in the side." Marco, who had seen the power of some of Star's more offensive spells limped behind a car and waited. And waited. Marco poked his head up and looked at the creature that walked out of the alley. A purple unicorn with wings stared back at the human and the Mewman. "Uh, Star? Is that a unicorn?" "Yeah." "Is it a breed that you've seen before." "Nope." "Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am a Princess of Equestria. Where exactly am I?" Huh, a talking unicorn. Not to be unexpected from some of Star's stories about Mewni, but she had to have a special purpose if she had wings. Marco guessed those were new. Unicorns weren't supposed to fly. Marco would have said something if he wasn't feeling dizzy from- blood loss- yeah that was blood. Breathing slowly and trying to stay awake he heard Star scream in joy. "Marco! Do you know what this means? I get to be friends with a talking unicorn Princess! And roomies! Best. Walk. To. The. Store. Eva!!!" Star ran up to Twilight and hugged her 'new friend'. Twilight just looked uncomfortable. "Well I wasn't expecting getting a hug so quickly but I guess this isn't that bad. Though I thought I cast the human spell. . .I shouldn't be a pony in a land of humans." "Yeah some trip to the store. Uh, Twilight. That's Star, she's a Princess. I'm Marco, and I am currently losing blood cause you poked me with your horn. And whatever you did to me with just a touch of your horn hurts really really bad." Twilight shook her head and wiggled out of Star's weakening grasp as the Mewman realized that Marco wasn't faking. The blood had started to cover the bottom of his shirt. Twilight knew practical spells to heal bones, but blood loss wasn't a thing that was often a thing in Equestria. Magical residue in the air made Equestrians very hard to hospitalize. Rainbow Dash was proof of that fact. Twilight looked into Star's worried eyes. The hearts had turned into small dark rainclouds because she was just about to start crying. "Can't you do anything, because I don't want to explain to his parents how the best trip to the store almost killed Marco. I. . .don't know what to do. I-" Star began to cry. Twilight breathed. Think, think, think. She looked at 'Marco' and she noticed that even with her magic- she didn't know how much magic this dimension had compared to Equestria- she'd be working with unknowns and with a life in the balance, unknown variables could be fatal. And even as Celestia's faithful student, she didn't focus on medical applications for magic. Magical theories were her forte. She could save him but only if she quickly decided on what to do. "Okay. But you might not like it. . .Star." "What is it? I mean I hope its not blood magic or something." "No- though that might be a thing to study later- we're going to the hospital." "But you don't know where. . ." Twilight lay her horn on Marco's head and focused on the words. Nearby hospital. Nearby hospital. Faintly, she began to see a route to the closest one in the general area. Echo Creek Medical Center. Quietly, Twilight thanked that she had taken some lessons from Luna after the Changeling Invasion. Memory spells were not a common spell type in current magical texts. "Done. Star you might want to grab onto my hoof." Star reached out timidly and took Twilight's hoof. She was confused how Twilight could have gotten information from Marco without talking to him- Mewnian magic didn't really have mind powers. Trading stories could be important later. Marco needed to go to a hospital fast. Gripping Twilight's hoof tightly and placing Marco on Twilight's back- Star breathed. She only had one chance to get what she came for tonight- and since Marco was going to go to the hospital it might be her one chance for the night. "You want to give me a slurpy..." Star tried to wave her hands and bug her eyes because mind control eyes were a thing in Earth cultural traditions. That movie with the snake and the secret history of a past kingdom in the stars set to film told her that mind control was possible. "I want to give you a slurpy...? Wait, what's a slurpy and why are you doing that?" "Well I tried." Star quickly grabbed Marco's wallet that he had found in the dumpster and ran as fast as she could into the Stop and Slurp. Screams of 'The Super Slurper combo is mine' and 'but you have to pay. . .' could be heard in the convenience store. Twilight just watched as Star ran out and grabbed her hoof. Twilight decided that maybe following the law might not be the best idea since Star seemed to have just stolen a drink. "Let's go." Twilight charged up her horn and winked out of the Stop and Slurp's parking lot. First thoughts on contact with new creatures- while I do like this version of Earth because of the more magical elements compared to Canterlot High- I don't know if I'll get used to a magical princess who has a power similar to mine but the outlook of ruling like Pinkie. Might have to be worried about my future here. Also I don't remember if I said the last half of the spell that gave us a way back to Equestria. Will have to find out in the coming hours once Star stops styling my mane. She's worried about Marco. He's okay. Though I didn't think horns were so sharp- testing needed? I wonder how the other girls are. Yours, Twilight. Author's Note Mirrorverse Book 1 List of references in the chapter- Star Trek, "Transformation Sequence"- Sailor Moon, "The Daring Gang" supposed to be the Hardy Boys or the Boxcar Children, Pinkie's mixed up sentence- supposed to be a reference to Yoda, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza- Five Nights at Freddy's, mind control trick referenced Kaa from the Jungle Book movie and the Jedi Mind Trick and Star Wars. Episode 2: Star And Twilight Meet A Friend In The Hospital's MorgueThe Echo Creek Medical Center was a new hospital that had just been built in the last few years. It wasn't the largest hospital in California, that would be the one in Guadalupe Hidalgo. It also never saw many film or movie stars since the Holliwood area was covered by the Lon Chaney Memorial Hospital. The hospital did have one thing that made it stand out- the emergency medical services were well known to be one of the better ones in California. Though having a screaming girl riding a unicorn throw a patient in your face did do wonders for prompt and good service. Though it wasn't Star's fault for screaming like a maniac, it just so happened that teleportation wasn't a very common thing in Mewni. So she handled the laws of magic being broken rather well. Skidding across the floor, the two magical princesses and Marco ran into the help desk with a thud. "May I help you?" Twilight thought of how to phrase the whole mess that she inadvertently caused. And Celestia had taught her that diplomacy did also involve making your side look a little better than reality in certain cases. Princesses were not infallible and Celestia had tried to explain why she needed to always hand off the responsibility of saving the day to Twilight. That was a fun conversation that Twilight had after she beat Tirek. Quickly responding with the best thing in a bad situation she finally spoke. "Yes, sorry for just dropping in here unexpectedly but we had a really bad accident and we need to have some sort of doctor look at my friend here." Twilight waited for a reaction to the fact that she could talk. She filed away that there seemed to be unicorns in this dimension but they were very rare and not well known in this part of the world since Marco had been surprised at the fact that she could talk. The receptionist looked down at Twilight, shrugged at the sight of a talking purple horse and talked over the speakerphone, "Doctor Pangloss, we seem to have an emergency." The speakerphone chirped and replied in a slightly excited tone, "I'll be right down. I was just showing my daughter the morgue for a fun learning experience. Give me, I dunno, a minute or two." Twilight stared at the nearby clock and began to count the seconds that she believed that this Earth had in a minute- she didn't think that the timing was that off since she had glanced at a few human science books while she was living in the Canterlot High library. And she just hoped that Marco would be okay since human science seemed to be in some regards more advanced in healing if you tok away the advantage that ponies had with unicorn magic. Star was just trying to keep as calm as possible. She had pulled out Marco's cellphone, which Marco had needed to explain that it wasn't a magic wand and was more like the magic mirror that she had in her room, and looked through the speed dial contacts. Star was at least glad to see that Marco was prepared for anything since she couldn't completely remember the house phone number off the top of her head right now. She counted the phone call's connecting rings as a way to keep a little more calm. After the fourth one, a Spanish accented voice picked up the phone. "Marco?" Star wasn't going to like this phone call since anything that went wrong was probably going to get the attention of her mother, the Queen of Mewni. She quickly waved over to Twilight and tried to use the magical power of charades to say that she was going to be busy for a few minutes. Twilight glanced over and saw Star do what Fluttershy would term 'a mating dance' and only after Star pointed at the phone did she realize what was going on. Twilight nodded and waited for this Doctor Pangloss to appear. After what felt like an eternity as Twilight tried to look anywhere but the problem that she caused, she heard two sets of footsteps approach from the hallway. Twilight glanced over at Star who was stuck between telling Marco's parents what happened and being surprised at who she saw emerge from the double doors. A middle aged woman with purple highlights in her black hair waved and smiled at the shocked faces. Her scrubs were not the normal color of blue that Star had seen in every random tv show with doctors, but they were a shade of purple that seemed tinged with some red. And she was covered in tattoos that where partially hidden by her clothing. And then Star noticed one of her classmates in a nurse uniform. "Janna? What are you doing here?" It had been thirty or so minutes since Marco was taken into surgery for getting a stab wound that was accidental. And the medical center was mostly okay with leaving it there because trying to say that a unicorn stabbed a teenager and trying to get that approved by medical insurance would be rather difficult. And Star had finished her phone call with Marco's parents. After a tearful explanation of what happened and getting Twilight on the phone, they seemed to have calmed down and not threatened to call Mewni and talk to Star's parents. For the time being of course. And well, at least Marco seemed to be okay. So three girls were sitting in the waiting room- one was a pony, the other two were not. "So Janna. . .hello." Twilight felt really awkward about meeting one of Star's classmates in a situation like this. Janna for her part, was not wearing her typical green slacker hat, jacket, and yellow skirt combo but it was a strangely fitting stereotypical white nurse outfit. Janna was actively confused as to how she could explain the outfit. "Hey, Star. Hey, random purple horse. I can totally explain why I'm like this." Star was mostly silent since she was still worried that Marco's parents would tell what happened tonight. She didn't want to go to St. Olga's and be a reformed princess. That was where princess individuality went to die and burn away in a sparkling rainbow of doom. She had to get her mind off her parents. Quietly, she spoke up. "Don't worry about it. You look pretty good that way too. But can we just swap stories or something. I'm kind of too drained to be anything more than worried for Marco." Star fidgeted around in her chair and then slumped over. She didn't know what to do and with all the training that she had to be a good Princess, she was conflicted. On one hand, she knew her parents loved her, but her mother was so harsh and quick with punishments that she didn't know how she felt anymore when she was alone with her thoughts about her family and if she was living up to the expectations. Janna and Twilight quickly shared a worried look. Janna knew how Star usually was at school- confident, happy, and overall a nice person without many issues fitting in her own way. But this version of Star worried her. Like any girl, Janna had seen the cartoon versions of Princesses on the screen with a happy ending and happily ever after but maybe she was a bit wrong about Star. Maybe there was something more there than just joy and happiness. "Uh sure. We can do that. Do you want to go first, Twilight?" Twilight shook her head no. She kind of wanted to know why Janna was here in the first place. "Well okay then. l guess we can start as to why I am dressed like this. . .- "Mom. Why do I have to be dressed up like a nurse if it's bring your daughter to work day?" Janna was laying on her bed and she could hear her mother folding the laundry. Her mom always listened to some singer songwriter music when she was doing that. Janna, on the other hand, listened to death metal when she had to do anything. She just liked the loud music. It helped her find her happy place. "Well I thought it would look really cute and since you do want to follow in my footsteps I just thought that on site supervision would be best. And why not make you look good while you're there. Plus I get to show you off for fun." Janna just thought her mom could be a dork as she outright giggled at the thought of parading her around and probably posting tons of pictures onto Spacebook. There were so many awkward photos on her mom's profile. For being a tattooed mom that her friends loved because of the idea that she had a super cool mom that let her do what she pretty much wanted. . .she was still a completely awkward mess. Thank goodness she hadn't found a boyfriend yet. That would be a fun dinner as her mom grilled her boyfriend about things. Personal not polite in conversation around a dinner table type things. But her mom did do the birds and the bees talk with her friends present once. And it was terrible. Too much information and altogether one of the more strange happenings that her mom did. But Janna was used to the strange adorkable happenings of her mom for the most part. She was a surgeon and from what she could gather on the nights that her mom came home really late- it wasn't the happiest of jobs since she had to make sure that the patients were okay first. And some days were so bad that she had to make her mom want to get out of bed by cheering her up. Today was one of the better days for sure. So maybe her mom was a dork. At least she could use the pictures as a good memory. And since she was planning on going off to college in a few years, there wasn't going to be as much daughter bonding times as before. "Fine. I'll do it. But can you at least not touch my hair? I like it right now- and maybe can we check out the morgue? That's always a fun place to be." Twilight just stared at Janna. "What? The morgue is a fantastic place and being around all the dead bodies makes it seem like a murder mystery. And just in case zombies come attack us in the foreseeable future, I want to be prepared for the zombie uprising." The girl just smiled and thought of the fantastic zombie movies that she had seen when she was a little girl. While most girls had been trying to become a princess, she had wanted to become a monster hunter. Then you knew how to get yourself out of a kidnapping attempt by bloodthirsty, evil monsters without needing a prince to save you. It was kind of empowering. Twilight waved a hoof and laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I just wasn't expecting that kind of a happy ending in your story." Star chuckled a little bit at Twilight's outburst. Star didn't think that Janna had a relationship with her parents since she never saw her outside of school. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad anymore, it just was so difficult trying to fit into a new school and dealing with expectations that your parents gave you. Maybe she wasn't so different after all. Twilight smiled at Star's laughter. Though she wondered how exactly Star was hiding so much insecurities since she had mainly seen the Mewnian mostly be worried sick about what amounted to an accident. She'd have to file that away for later since she remembered that even Pinkie Pie held issues with depression and worrying mental health even if she was the Element of Laughter. Maybe being a princess here was different than what Princess Celestia had led her to believe- and even Celestia could be a problematic teacher with her expectations. Twilight shuddered to herself when she remembered the Smarty Pants Incident. "Yep. That's my family. We're pretty much there for each other but hey we can totally get on each other's nerves." Janna sat back comfortably in her chair." "Well I guess that means I'm up for the next turn in this round of stories then. . . and this is the story of how I cast a love spell to cause a friendship issue." "Clock is ticking." Twilight needed to find a friendship issue or else she'd be sent to Magical Kindergarten. Celestia expected her to be the best unicorn she could be; she was Celestia's student and so she was held to a higher standard. She glanced outside and saw that time was running out. Quickly rummaging through her chest of things, she pulled out her favorite fillyhood doll- Smarty Pants. "It's okay Twilight, see? If you can't find a friendship problem. . .you can make one!" "Now Twilight, I do believe that I must have really touched a nerve if you have gone this far off the deep end and are actively trying to create chaos." "Who said that?" Twilight looked around the room and glanced over to her full length mirror where a draconequus sat comfortably in a hammock while drinking liquid gold. "Now you do realize that this is just a memory, dear Twilight. But since Star needs a good friendship lesson your mind has given your nice little conscience a voice to say the great moral lesson. It just so happens that your voice chose little old me for this task- though I can't imagine why. Sure I can see Fluttershy having a Discord on her shoulder but not you Twilight. You are the Princess of Friendship. Though it might mean that you think that my magic helped cause that whole Smarty Pants debacle?" "No. I was just going to get back to the story that I wanted Star to learn." Discord cordially laughed as he stirred Twilight a sparkling apple juice. Extending his lion paw, he slid the drink over to her. She hadn't noticed but this mental image of Discord seemed to have all the powers the original did. "No, Twilight, I don't. I'm sorry but you can be rather convoluted in your denial sometimes. And yes I heard your thoughts. We are in your head. Maybe a change of scenery helps. Think of a moment. Any moment really. It could be at any time, any where, any when or how. I'll make it real. If you want to change the actors in the scene- change them. I'll still be able to get it right. I'm you Twilight. Not the nice part of you that everyone sees, no. I'm the part that's growing weaker with every day." Twilight raised an eyebrow at this. Discord, even a mental one had considerable power so him saying that he was growing weaker confused her because she had some experience with dreams but a mental image of a reformed enemy in her own head- especially when she wasn't awake? That was new territory. "Good. I got your attention it seems. Well no, I am not the Great and Terrible Discord that Celestia had turned to stone so long ago and your Fluttershy finally, for the most part, reformed. I mean that Discord is the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. No, I'm all your self-doubt, your loathing, your fears, your bad memories. I'm you. I'm the part Celestia made by accident." "I-" Twilight didn't know what to say about this. "Don't worry. We can always talk later, you and I, just think about it. And in three. . .two. . .one. You should be just about done with your story. And don't worry. I added some embellishments for the last few years as well. Because Twilight, your life is not just a weekly event of evil and then you get a nice moral out of it. No, my Purple Smart, its life. Life choices have a, let's continue to use my favorite pony's cutie mark for this example- a Butterfly Effect if you will. And your new friend Star has some issues that have been rippling out. She needs help because I foresee that sometime in the future, with the trajectory of bad feelings that her mother helped instill in her. . .she needs a friend besides Marco." "But why are you helping me if you are the things in my head?" Discord lounged upon a psychiatrist's chair. his arms crossed, and predatorily grinned at Twilight. "Because Twilight- I know that you enjoy fixing a friendship problem and well lookie right there. There's a friendship problem. That's it really, though I do enjoy a good show every once in a while. See you later and say hi to Star for me. I rather like the girl." "Wai- Twilight blinked as her eyes adjusted to the florescent bulbs. She couldn't remember what she had said, but both Star and Janna were hugging her. She thought that she could feel wetness on the edges of her eyes and there were two wet splotches on her coat where the girls had put their heads as they hugged the shorter alicorn. "Twilight, that's so sad." "What?" Twilight didn't know who that was at first but she guessed it was Janna since it sounded a bit lower in pitch than Star's more hyperactive pixie like self. "I mean with the whole Princess of Frindship thing and still feeling like you screwed up multiple times." Ugh, she was going to have to talk to her Conscience of Discord soon. She just hoped that it wasn't as bad as she feared since it had been rather teasing in his word choices. This was going to be a pain- note to self. . .do not bring up the Mare Do Well Mess because that was a terrible attempt by her friends and her to 'teach' Rainbow a lesson. Yeah that was a bad moment. But maybe just maybe everything here would turn out okay. Discord breathed a sigh of relief. These mares were going to be the death of him one day. He didn't like doing the whole ruse of being a Jiminy Cricket type figure but being the literal Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony gave him privileges like free cable and general wifi. Oh and being one of the only things in Equestria that knew of alternate realities. Came with the mindbreaking perks of the job. He was really only keeping tabs on each of the girls because of two ponies. Fluttershy, because she was his first friend and the multiverse could be rather harsh on the yellow pegasus and Celestia since he owed her from the last time she let him out of the stone statue. "The work of a draconequus is never done. Isn't that right Senior Huevos?" The living sock puppet could only wonder why a sepentlike plushie was talking to him. It shrugged and went on its sock puppet ways. "Whatever. This is not what I expected when Celestia called in the favor. Turn the moon to cheese one day and everypony loses their minds-" Author's Note I don't know what Los Angeles is in Star's universe- but since Echo Creek is based around Echo Park California I went with the idea that there's some sort of switch around with the names- though Holliwood is canon in the Britney's Party episode. I went with Guadalupe Hidalgo since that is the treaty that ended the Mexican American War. And yes Janna is like my favorite human character for the kids since she's so weird. And this chapter's a bit more somber and sad- the fact is that Star's home life for a while is rather iffy- because she didn't even know her dad fought monsters on his days away so she always seemed a bit more worried when her parents were involved for like half of the season- this is still "episode one" territory so I'm thinking that she's worried about how people see her because she literally just moved and knows next to nobody really- she really just hangs out with Marco. There's something there. And I have ideas on how to make the other human girls into a secondary safety net for Star's emotional issues. I mean Marco is great and all- but Star really only has Princess Pony Head as a bestie girl friend. And the plot takes care of her for quite a while. Note: We have not seen any of the human students' parents so I'm making them up as we go along. And besides Jackie Lynn Thomas I don't think their last names have been said. I could be wrong but I'm only a writer making it up as I go along. So I went with 'Pangloss' since I had to have a reason as to why Janna likes the morgue and it turned into this. Also I guessed her parents had to be a bit weird. I mean she's out there in the times we see her. Also though her mom's name is never said this chapter (cause calling your parent's by their first name is always awkward) I'm going with Candy. Yeah her mom's name is Candy Pangloss. References- Lon Chaney- famous for silent movie roles and his son Lon Chaney Jr. was also famous for being one of the more famous versions of the Wolfman in films, Doctor Pangloss- name of a doctor in Candide. Also I think I just realized that Twilight's stabbing Marco might be a stealth reference to Cabin in the Woods and that unicorn stabbing a dude. I think I'll count that one. Also the whole sharing stories idea comes from a fantastic arc in the Sandman comics where the characters have to waste time because of a cosmic storm so they share stories in the meantime because stories always have some sort of power. Also the Discord scenes I thought of him as Q the entire time. Also Discord's final line is based on Heath Ledger's Joker. And sorry for the long author's note- there was a lot of stealth world building here I felt like I had to explain. Episode 3: How The Mall Had A Fire SaleIt had been a few days since Twilight had been in the human world and she had gotten used to adapting her morning rituals to her new environment. It wasn't that difficult to find a coffee that made her think of home, and besides her seemingly deadly brew of blackness that nobody else could drink, she was dealing with being in a world not catered to ponies. Though the cursed shower mechanics she still was rather confused about. For she could never turn on the perfect balance of hot and cold water in her morning cleansing. She wasn't completely inept at cleaning like Rarity insisted, she was just too often focused on the task at hand. And Twilight grumbled that mirrors were a bit too high when compared to Equestria. She wondered if the world she came from was a bit smaller than some others. Sighing she trotted into Star's room to wake her up for school. It was Twilight's first day after all- the idea of a magical unicorn lounging around the house all the time until the magical mirror device was fixed or something happened in Equestria made Twilight's head spin. She loved the idea of relaxation but putting it into practice would drive her mad and the human world had so many interesting ideas about technology and science that she couldn't just sit around all day wasting time. Though the talk with the school's principal for letting her transfer in was a strange one. Twulight just had to turn lead into gold and he let her in without even blinking an eye. Really? Was gold that scarce in this dimension. Twilight chalked it up to magic changing the building blocks of matter easier than most scientific processes. "Star, time to wake up." Star, for her own part, was doing better than a week prior when Marco was put in the hospital. She was at least mostly back to normal. Though she had been watching a lot of tv- especially this weird tv show about a person who got a werewolf liver transplant. Tv here was weird. At least when Twilight had watched the tv shows in Canterlot High, it was about going to school. Twilight stopped thinking about "As The Bell Rings" when she noticed that somehow Star had not moved from her comfy chair in her room since she last checked last night. The tv blared some "Banagic Wand" type nonsense. Earth really had no magic so Twilight doubted the slogan, a little bit of banana a little bit of magic- The Banagic Wand!!! Buy Now! At your best mall type area. Buy our things get a Pretty Pretty Banana Ranger outfit (if you sell your soul and swear fealty to the demon overlords! Oh and Star Butterfly, go out with our fantastic manager to the Bloodmoon Ball. Wait. What was that last bit? Star moaned in her seat. "Not him. I thought I blocked him on my magic mirror. Couldn't he take the hint when I launched him into the Ninth Circle of Dis? Really?" Star rubbed her eyes and slowly stretched moving her arms up and down and shaking her head to wake herself up more. Noticing that Twilight was in the room, she smiled and quietly shut off her tv that was still blaring that commercial. "Hey." "Hey." Twilight could feel the awkwardness ooze from the two word conversation that they were having. Star was rubbing a hand through her hair as she tried to figure out how to say that somehow there was something she was keeping from Twilight. Twilight cursed that Conscience wasn't there to speak some sense into Star or at least that it couldn't help Twilight with the situation of silence that came with the territory of introversion. "So. . .Twilight, um, Janna just texted me on the thingamajig doodly and her and her friends want to go shopping. Yes." Strange. Now Twilight guessed that cell phones and whatever were a new thing to Star but she hadn't heard Star talking to any person before she walked in and it seemed too perfect. Well, knowing how Rainbow Dash usually spilled a major secret by accident, Twilight ran with the probable excuse. Plus, Janna had been coming over a lot since Marco was hurt and Twilight liked her. But this was a world of humans and Twilight had one major problem. "Star, you do know I'm a unicorn." "Yeah, sure, what's your point exactly?" Twilight sighed. Sometimes Star reminded her a bit too much of Pinkie. "Well for starters, the idea of me going shopping for clothes or anything seems problematic with how the world is made for bipeds. Also while I like that the hospital didn't freak out about a magic talking horse creature- that doesn't mean that everyone, is it everyone, in the world is so understanding about the whole magic pony princess thing. Even most of Equestria was a bit weirded out when I grew wings." Star grinned and wrapped a hand around her second pony friend (the first one with a complete body and not just a floating horse head Princess). "Don't worry, Twilight. I know everything about human culture. Like how the spinny things makes bikes go and that the yard box that sacred scriptures are kept gets raided by a post office gnome. And anyway Janna and her posse are going to be there? What's the worst that could happen?" "A lot actually." Carefully sidestepping clothes that had piled up since the last time she had washed her laundry, Star Butterfly just hummed a catchy yet somewhat ironic tune about a spacefaring unicorn while getting dressed. Twilight silently grumbled to herself about how catchy the song was. After what sounded like a giant explosion, Star walked out in her normal clothes. "Sorry. My wand's been acting up a little bit when I try to change my hairstyle, Twilight. I wonder if its the battery that needs changing. Oh well, we can always head on over to the magical superstore later." *** Even though Twilight thought that Star had come up with a fake reason for her to get out of the house to go shopping, the three other girls stared at the magical pony princess. In short, somehow Star hadn't been lying about getting Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn together to have a girls day out. Now if they weren't fangirling over her mane and wings that would be nice too. Well Janna wasn't at least. "How are you doing?" "Pretty good Twilight, not much on my end and I thankfully didn't get forced to dress up for a family outing to the beach or something. Dunno what's up with my mom sometimes but she just loves to go to places at the spur of the moment." Janna breathed a sigh of relief. The last time her mom had one of those moods they drove all the way to Oregon to go Bigfoot hunting. "Well that's good." Twilight felt a sharp yank as Hope unknotted a particularly matted piece of her coat. While she got that this reality thought of unicorns as completely feminine and perfectly okay to freak out about- Twilight wasn't a big fan of makeovers. Even if Rarity had tried to force her to get dolled up for every Princess duty. "Dude. I was really doubting that you had a magical friend Janna but this is totally awesome!" Jackie Lynn, Marco's crush, stood smiling at Hope's handiwork. Her skater chick personality extended to her ripped jeans and t-shirt. Twilight hadn't tried to accidentally find out about Marco's crush but after a hasty search for a hospital, sometimes some extra personal info was brought up. "No problem. Hey Hope. can you stop brushing Twilight's hair? We are in the middle of the mall. I think some of the people are freaking out." "But I captured it with my pure intentions and she will serve me. And then I can get my family back together and stop my parents divorce!" Hope just laughed maniacally for a bit. Janna and Jackie just looked at Twilight and shook their heads. Hope was in counseling for the whole messy divorce. The family issues right there were too much to handle some days. "Sorry. Okay. Well we can always go that way!" Star just tried to diffuse the situation by pointing at the largest stage she had seen so far in her Earth adventure. A crowd of a few hundred milled about the structure as it completely made that section of the mall nearly impossible to navigate. Pulling on Twilight to get Hope's attention, the three girls and an alicorn walked over to the most amazing thing ever known to the mall. An "As Seen On TV" demonstration. "Come one come all to the Banagic Wand demonstration. Remember after the great demonstration to order your very own wand and make your kids watch the tv show." A short demon with a cute nametag with Azazel written on it stepped out while giving the speech. And Star recognized him. Star froze for a second. Oh crud. He's here. "On second thought, let's go completely the other way. This is totally unimportant." With a great fanfare, the manager of the Little Shop of Wondertainment stepped out. His boots clacked on the stage's floor and left a contained bit of fire floating on top. His red polo and khakis cut a nice figure and many in the audience swooned as he smiled. Including all of Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn. "Great." Star just groaned and pulled Twilight closer as the group of girls slid up to the stage. "Now imagine a world filled with magic. Where every wish you need is just a spell away. Friends, money, power, love. Anything is possible. Now since we are a company and spurious and false claims are fraudulent- that is all a great hypothetical situation. But the Banagic Wand, is a great and fun party starting tool to get your friends a hot summer's day. And with your fantastic turnout in Echo Creek, the Wand can be yours for just $19.95- along with other shipping and handling fees! Now who wants one!" A flurry of cash was thrown at the stage as people furiously wanted the greatest tool ever known. With that Tom Walker, Demon Prince of Hell bowed and went backstage. He had noticed a face that he hadn't seen in quite a while. Star was rather mad. She had wanted to spend a nice day with her girl besties and second pony bestie. But no, she had stayed up all night when her tv set and magic mirror had replayed a message from Tom about the Banagic Wand. Sure maybe she would have loved the idea of Earth Magic if Tom wasn't involved, but nope. This was all a scam to get what demons termed "stupid Midgardian Souls" into a contract. Demons were the first and best scam artists. So seeing her girl friends just swoon with how nice and charming he was rather made her a bit miffed. And Tom just nonchalantly grinning while lazily having his feet up on the desk made it ten times worse. "Why it's just so good to see you Star. Did you like the whole presentation? My advisers told me to play up the selling souls bit but I thought, why not have a fun jab at these humans and make the shipping and handling fees be all inclusive and have the contract be a costly one. Aren't I just grand?" "No. Not really." Star just crossed her arms and frowned. Twilight, for her part, was mostly confused and still trying to process the whole demon bit. She had fought a demon Sunset in her first excursion into the human world, but staring at a demon that was a natural one really made her rearrange her ideas about this world. Taking a few deep breaths she began to talk slowly so the other girls would understand. "Now, Tom was it, this Wand is all magical and everything. Or that's what I'd think would be correct. But did you predict any problems during testing?" "Sure there's always problems- no souls for one thing, but disfigurement, possession, and localized explosions were just some of the more problematic ones. What's your point. horse?" Twilight let that insult slide by. He wasn't worth a lot of her time overall. Sure he felt super powerful with the wave of aura that let most people fall in love with him, but she was trying to prove a point. His idea of ultimate wish granting potential had some dangerous implications. "Now your claims are that it could do anything you wanted it to do, but there's a major problem. Wishing to fix a problem and getting it without effort is hollow. Wishing for friends could be seen as brainwashing, and any love potion could also be seen as forcing your will onto another. Money and power can't be made from nothing- money would need a material to be made from, and power would mean something would have to happen to rise to that position. Your wand is a complete scam since any magical artifact usually needs to work under equivalent exchange and it breaks about four or five different magical laws in ethics alone." Tom just stood in silence, his eyes flaming with fire and his desk calendar saying "150 days anger free" exploded in a living inferno. Star just yawned. She'd seen this side of Tom too many times to count. When he was stuck in a corner or just angry with some little thing he went at the problem with the mantra of "please burn because I'm a little baby with anger issues." He was a young demon. Though Star just thought that maybe he had gotten some help with his anger issues, she was probably wrong. Or if he did, it really wasn't helping all that much. The girls all came up with a similar plan. Run as far away from Tom as possible. As the whole stage caught on fire, all the girls just kept running. The mall was rioting. Most of the town had learned that random fires were much more common nowadays ever since the school almost burned down thanks to a small flaming rainbow a week back, but still malls weren't supposed to have raging infernos. Star was frantically trying to get her wand to start as the battery flashed red. Oh Mewni, she had actually forgot that her wand needed to get a new charge. Did that make her completely useless? Not really since she did know how to fist fight wild animals for fun, but magically speaking she was rather at a loss. And that was when she ran into a tendril of pure darkness. Twilight was alone. She had felt her friends run away. She was pretty happy for that fact since just making sure the mall wasn't going to become a burned out husk because of some stupid demon having a temper tantrum was taking up a lot of time. Which was stupid since she had been right about the complete terrible idea of wishing wands and morality clashing. Breathing a sigh of relief for a few seconds she turned and saw the mall's floor become a writhing mass of black magic. She could feel the taint cloud the air with darkness and quickly dodging a tendril the size of a small tree try to crush her in anger. she began teleporting into a safer area. Skating around on hooves charged with mana, she noticed Tom just lazily sitting on a chair eating popcorn as a large tendril dangled her friends nearby. Great. Now Twilight was having flashbacks of Discord. Quickly stopping her skating around, she blasted a tendril and stopped near the food court. Glaring up at Tom, she just yelled at the high level demon. "Tom! Put down my friends!" Stopping to yell at him was a terrible idea. A large tendril threw Twilight into a nearby jewelry store. And all she could feel for a minute was shards of glass and extreme pain. Star Butterfly was not having a good day. While she was currently being used as a glorified hostage and the whole reason why the mall was currently on fire, she stared at the destruction in mall and the purple pony that was fighting against it. From Janna's awkward staring at Star's ex boyfriend to finding out that the Banagic wand (and therefore its related anime tie ins, clothing line, and cosplay contest) being a plot of Hell to ensure the power of friendship to taint the minds of little kids. She had just wanted to relax with friends and try on clothes, not destroy the mall. "So Star-" "No Tom, I still won't go to the Ball with you. Ask someone else." "I mean I'm open for a dance. And my mom won't mind me dating a demon, she's rather open to strange things like that." Janna just grinned at Tom and winked at him. "I'll keep that in mind." Tom and Star groaned at the prospect. Twilight was fuming. She couldn't see straight and her tired body had been tossed through a nearby jewerly story when Tom had felt that she was a dangerous wild card. Or something like that. Either way it caused her a whole lot of pain. Her mind was controlled currently by instincts and training. Her wings lay limply at her sides. Muscle tear? Bone problem? Twilight's mind didn't care about it and she had to think of how to beat Star's deceptively annoying ex boyfriend. He reminded her of Sunset. Though that was more because of his cocky demeanor and demonic powers. And Discord. Because he wasn't taking this all that seriously if the bickering between him and the girls were any indication. Good thing she generally knew a few spells to reset broken bones and regrow teeth. This world made her lose her powers of regeneration that alicorns naturally had thanks to its generally lower density of mana- but there was one thing about this world that was rather nice. Twilight didn't have to hide her alicorn strength. Twilight channeled her best cocky Rainbow Dash impression and glared up at the lazing around demon. "Hey idiot! You let go of Star and the others right this minute or I might have to actually get serious." Tom just laughed. "Really? It doesn't even look like you can stand at this point. Sorry. But I think I got what I wanted- though I think it's not exactly who I expected to go with to the Bloodmoon Ball." Janna just tried to fist pump in excitement. "Did you hear that Twilight? I'm going to a dance! Now Tom what's your phone number?" "Well I have a magic mirror, so I don't know if that will work." Twilight's eye twitched. Somehow Janna had enjoyed the smooth demon and now was trying to exchange numbers with him. This day was completely confusing and strange. "Oh. Sorry Janna, I forgot I might have to show off for you because you'd need to know how completely awesome I am." Tom just grinned and Twilight rolled her eyes as he lazily floated down to the floor. "Now I haven't released my full power in a year or two so it might be a bit flashy. Twilight felt the air in the room fill with power as the whole mall began to raise in temperature. Tom breathed in air and breathed out a blue flame that ignited the air around him into a bright blue ball of fire. A clawed hand shot out of it and the whole ball imploded back into Tom's mouth. Tom smiled and cracked his knuckles. Twilight just stared at the demon in front of her as Janna swooned. His horns that showed that he was a demon had grown longer and twiled around his head like a crown, and his whole body was now encased in blue flames as armor. He turned and waved at Janna and Twilight saw that his back held two pitch black wings. Twilight didn't know what to do. Her normal strength that she held was probably not enough to hurt him as he had felt the black magic ooze off of him in waves. She knew that she was at least gifted in magic, but still that didn't always make up for differences in power if the enemy had a released form. It'd be the difference between Discord fighting normally and him becoming serious. The idea of an enemy hiding a portion of their strength to seem weaker was a common idea in magical combat. It would make the opponent become confused when their attacks stopped having an effect. Princesses needed some kind of power boost when things looked rough. Twilight don't release your power unless you feel like you have to." Celestia stared down at the newest princess of Equestria. Beating Tirek and holding the powers of three more alicorns had sped up her true alicorn powers and the idea of holding one of the largest mana levels in Equestria had scared the youngest princess. Celestia had just told her that a Princess had to know when to use their full power to conserve their resources and how dangerous a full strength release could be to the user. "Dont worry. I have total restraint." Twilight looked up to her mentor and smiled. "THIS. IS. COMPLETELY. STUPID. Star and Tom looked at Twilight as she began to glow pale white. The ground shook as the two conflicting powers in the mall vied for space. Twilight's white light versus Tom's dark blue aura flared up on the ceiling. It was rather pretty and something that nobody was expecting. Wings of light extended from the dome of light that Twilight was in and the group could hear the bones of Twilight be healed back into place with some painful sounds that accompanied it. If the group had sat outside of the mall, they would have noticed a growing storm react to the changes in pressure. "Magical Release Heartsong Activate! Tom let go of my friends you complete and utter moron!!!" Twilight charged out her eyes glowing a determined pink. Teleporting all over the field in the blink of an eye, Twilight launched a beam of magic that Tom tried to catch to defend against the new barrage of signals that he was getting. Somehow he couldn't touch it as when he even got close it began to burn him. A demon getting a burn, that was definitely a new one. Shaking his hand to try and stop the pain inching up his arm, he spread his wings and shot up into the air. If this horse didn't want to play fair with her magic, he wasn't going to play fair with the temperature. "Heat Wave." The idea of heat was that the hotter it got, the more dangerous it was to use for the user. But Tom didn't care. He had already got what he wanted- a date. This was just going to get messy. Summoning the next hottest thing he could think of that was easy to summon, he thought of lava- it wasn't anything like plasma, but there's a certain level of power that would be classified as overkill. That's when it began to rain lava. Hope, Janna, and Jackie Lynn just watched as the mall became a battlefield. Star was just relieved that in a way she hadn't set the mall on fire. Sure he was her ex boyfriend- but she actually hadn't summoned something that set things on fire. Though she wondered how Marco would take the mall being completely destroyed. Well it would be an interesting story to tell him. Hope was super excited. "Janna, your new boyfriend is super mega cool." "Well he is a demon." Twilight knew what she had to do. Even though it was completely untested, she remembered that through her studies with chemistry, that water existed in the air. And so she shot a blast of ice magic into the surrounding air to hopefully survive the blast of heat. The world exploded as the two temperatures collided. Twilight couldn't move much anymore. Sure the power boost of having the mana reserves of four alicorns was nice, but she had already been using her magic before she switched to her powered form and so she was exhausted. And as the smoke and ice cleared she noticed the same for Tom- while he was very powerful, he also had been using magic more than usual. The two magic users stared at each other and fell over laughing before their bodies realized how much power they had both used and fell asleep. "So is it a draw or something?" Jackie Lynn asked as the black tendrils began to disappear. "Probably." Star massaged her head. This was going to be a pain to explain to her parents. An eye shaped device that had watched the whole battle lazily floated into a nearby portal that winked out of existence again. It looked like the things that watched Mewnian culture but only because its current user had stolen it to make it easier to spy on the human world. The robotic voice box that he had attached to it began to monologue while floating into the portal back to the castle. "This is quite interesting. But no matter. I am the greatest and most evil overlord in the universe and once I have Princess Star Butterfly's wand I will be able to conquer the universe and- and- no actually that's pretty good. Though maybe I could also be an evil lifeguard and be completely super cool that way. What ever I choose, I will be known as the one that steals Star's wand to have nigh ultimate power. Or else my name is not Ludo- which it is Ludo!" Author's Note References: "As The Bell Rings"- I see that little show being a mix of Saved By The Bell and As The World Turns. "Pretty Pretty Banana Ranger" referenceing both PreCure shows, Power Rangers, and the idea that businesses are evil. I took the general gist of the evil commercial from South Park's fantastic parody of Pokemon. Ninth Circle of Dis- A reference to one of my favorite epic poems "The Divine Comedy" And yes capturing unicorns with virgins was a common idea in the Middle Ages And Tom's totally wearing the general red and khaki outfit of Target. I thought it was funny in my head and I've watched too many informercials and I went with a Shamwow/ Billy Mays vibe from Tom's speech. Equivalent Exchange talk from Twilight- reference to Fullmetal Alchemist. And Tom's transformation had some Bleach vibes. I have been watching a lot of anime. So thanks to magical girl shows, Twilight has a super dangerous power level boost. That also drains her life force if used for too long.
Episode 1: Welcome To The Echo Creek Stop & SlurpIt would have been a normal day in Equestria if not for the fact that Twilight was planning to have a scientific breakthrough. Twilight Sparkle and her friends stared at the purple alicorn's newest magical contraption that she had built after fighting the Sirens at Canterlot High. The Crystal Mirror, on loan from Princess Cadance, stood in the middle of the room and Twilight's scientific instruments were placed in a seemingly haphazard arrangement in concentric circles around the ancient and barely understood mirror. Twilight had looked into the history of the mirror, but she could only find references to Starswirl's apprentice Clover the Clever building a planar lens to view possible realities as a way to one up the other two races in surviving the Windigoes. And with the issues of deterioration on the early sources of Clover the Clever, most of what Twilight could learn was that the Mirror could be the same thing mentioned in the History of The Three Tribes by Mannus. Which didn't explain how anything worked- Mannus just said that it was an eye opening experience for Clover. Twilight sighed. The lack of knowledge about early Equestria was something that bugged her when dealing with ancient magical artifacts like this. "Now Twilight, I know that you often like to show off your magical doohickeys when they might not be finished yet, but this just looks like a mess that Spike made in his sleep." Twilight looked at her contraption again and saw that maybe Applejack was right. It did look a little rushed, but Twilight had crunched the numbers in her head and her plan to connect the human world without waiting on the moon in the human world and the Equestrian moon to sync up was sound. Because, even with Sunset's new journal on the other side, it still had issues with keeping the statue side open. And Twilight and her friends were going to test it. If only some ponies weren't being so dangerously forgetful about machinery. "Ooh, Twilight! What does this do?" Pinkie was poking the mirror and seeing if she could see her forehoof go through the mirror. It would be a normal occurrence for Pinkie Pie, if she wasn't trying to see if Gummy could turn into a human by tossing him at the mirror and yelling something about a transformation sequence. "Pinkie, this is a perfectly safe machine if used properly. And Gummy won't be able to talk anyway on the other side, there's no magic there. So please stop trying to do. . .whatever you are doing." "Aw, sorry Gummy, I guess we wont hear your voice yet." Twilight sighed. Pinkie being Pinkie was just one thing that she had to learn to accept when she moved to Ponyville, but the pink pony still had some moments that even the other girls thought were a bit too crazy for even Pinkie to say sometimes. They figured that maybe Pinkie was smarter than she looked and somehow knew about things that were beyond what ponies should know. Twilight turned away to think about how to possibly fix the machine's coordinates into a- "Come on Egghead, if you can't turn pets into human things or figure out if you're faster than the human version of yourself- what's the point about a place where all they do there is learn about boring human stuff." Rainbow Dash glided lazily around the room just waiting for Twilight to finish up her preparations for the journey to the other, less awesome world. "Rainbow, that's not the point of the mirror. . ." Twilight's eye twitched a little bit at Rainbow's comment but she thought of Cadance's breathing technique, counted the first fifteen digits of pi, and moved onto grabbing the last few bits of wiring and attaching them to the top of the mirror. "Have you girls seen Rarity? She's almost late for this." Fluttershy, who had been sitting quietly in the corner just watching her friends spoke up. She had been sitting there because she hadn't wanted to get in the way of Twilight. Also she had been worrying about the animals she had left in her cabin- maybe Bon Bon wasn't the best pony to ask for help. But her animals had calmed down once Bon Bon had used her real voice."Uh, Twilight, Rarity told me that she would be a little bit late because she was gathering a few things." "Okay. That's good. . . I just hope that she won't go overboard- this isn't supposed to be a long trip." "Or she could just do what I do and store things in her hair. It really helps Gummy and me when we get really bored." Pinkie pulled out a Daring Do and Do Not book and sat down to read the newest adventure of the Daring Gang. Twilight had gotten Pinkie stuck on the filly series when she showed Rainbow the original versions. Twilight just sighed. She still couldn't figure out Pinkie Pie's abilities. She probably never would. She had tried to figure out Pinkie and she had ended up in a body cast for that. So for her safety, even though being an alicorn made her stronger, Twilight didn't want to take a chance on studying Pinkie for sanity reasons. Before Twilight could aim for one of the nearby desks and just shut her brain down for a few minutes by slamming it into the wooden top, the library door opened and the one pony that everypony was waiting for strutted in with 'only' a few clothing items all over her back. "Sorry girls, Twilight's invitation to try out this new idea she had created made me worry about where exactly we would go and a lady can't help but be prepared for any eventuality in case of a fashion emergency. I mean what if I see some kind of fashion that's new to me. . .so I might have then decided to pack some notebooks and then I thought maybe I need some of Sweetie's color pencils to give it a splash of color. . .and now I'm rambling." Rarity's speech faltered as Rainbow rolled her eyes at the fashionista. "Come on, Rarity, it's not going to be that bad. Even if this Canterlot High seems to be a cutie mark free borefest." "Well Rainbow, Rares might be right though. Since Twilight hasn't really said where in the wide world of somewhere we might land." Applejack was trying to get the friends back on track. "So Twilight, might filling all of us in as to what we will be doing since for some reason you've been more focused on building this and not filling us in?" Applejack cocked an eyebrow and waited- sure she knew that Twilight could be focused on a task too much at hoof and forget to tell the girls but her forgetfulness didn't usually involve travelling beyond the borders of Equestria. Twilight blushed and smacked her hooves together. Finally, she could get into her own element and explain her plan. Pulling up a nearby chalkboard that she had placed in the tree for this eventual happening, she began to write her plan onto the chalkboard with a flurry of movement and enjoyment. Not every day could she prove a crucial theorem of science. "Now, if my calculations are correct, we will be able to enter the human world anywhere. This was made possible with a whole lot of magical theorems that I got from the Crystal Empire's archives and combining it with current ideas on magic to create a stable portal that will be open as long as we need on this end." "That's it?" Applejack raised an eyebrow because the farmpony was more used to Twilight's more involved explanations for sciency doodads. "Yeah. Pinkie told me to keep it to the point earlier today so I had to take out the explanation of multiple realities and small changes and all that." Twilight blushed a bit because she remembered the last time she had tried to teach a pony with a short attention span a difficult concept and that had involved almost burning down Canterlot. "Yeppers I sure did." Pinkie Pie grinned. "Okay so before we all head off into possibly a different area of the human world. . .I just wanted to hand out a few magic mirrors just in case something goes wrong." Twilight had learned a lot from all the times she had messed with science and she now believed that if something went wrong scientifically, it would be at least a good idea to make it easier for each of the girls to contact each other. And the mirror thing was Spike's idea. He thought it was a nice touch since the Crystal Mirror was, just that, a mirror. The girls all quickly agreed that having some form of communication just in case something happened when they were in a different version of Canterlot High. The six mares grabbed their own hoof mirrors, even Rainbow Dash who had a separate mirror to accentuate her non girliness, and stood in the center of the machinery that was attached to the portal. "Girls, just remember that is a research mission so please be careful since I hope that this moment will be put down in history when Equestrians make contact with possible new races." "Uh, Twilight, I know you are wanting to make sure things go okay and all but can't we have a little bit of fun when we 'meet new races'" Rainbow Dash shook her head. Twilight was kind of dense. Why wouldn't it be great to hang out with new things? And anyway being careful was not her middle name. Danger was her middle name. "And anyway I'd love to share with thingies my special baking powers that I've learned." Pinkie Pie smiled at Twilight and waited somewhat patiently with Gummy in her hooves. Twilight had tried to make Pinkie leave her pet at home but Pinkie had refused quietly. "Fine. But seriously everypony, this is supposed to be some sort of science mission affirming Clover the Clever's Third Law of Temporal Dimensional Mechanics. The fun part is just an added bonus." "So aren't you gonna tell Spike about this crucial mission, Twi? I don't want to be stuck in a place forever. I'd miss my family and everything." Applejack was right, Twilight thought. The idea of leaving Shining and her family in the dark about this would have been an issue. Before she forgot, she levitated a piece of parchment over to her and began writing to Spike about what he needed to do while she was gone. Couldn't hurt to at least have a way to get back since Twilight didn't know if the places her friends and her were going had technology like her machine to get back here. "There. I told Spike everything on how to run the library when we are gone and to send letters to each and every one of your family members- and for him to get some ponies to help with take care of business while we are gone. . .anything else before we go where nopony else has probably gone before?" Pinkie Pie waved her hoof about excitedly. "Ooh, ooh, pick me pick me!" "Yes, Pinkie?" "Well I felt a Pinkie Sense feeling earlier today so I made these packs for each of you while I was waiting." Pinkie grabbed her boxes that she had carried over from Sugarcube Corner that had been sitting by the front door of the library since she had entered the Golden Oaks library. Speeding around the circle, Pinkie gave each and every pony a box color coded to their coats. "Duh, so you made a basket of stuff. Can't we just open them now?" Rainbow Dash playfully rolled her eyes since she had been secretly eyeing the care packages or whatever Pinkie would call a box with stuff inside that wasn't really a present. "Silly. You can't open them now. Open them, you will know when to." Pinkie Pie smiled and giggled at her joke that nopony understood. "O Kay then. . .well I guess we'll get a move on then. Time can't really wait. Well, it could but. . .you know what I mean." Twilight shook her head and began powering up the spell necessary to send each of her friends to a different reality tied to the Crystal Mirror. Theorems and practice attempts flashed through her head as slowly each of her friends quickly faded out of the current Equestrian reality with a pop and with that she cast the final spell with a blast of magic. Twilight faded out of Equestria. Echo Creek, California was a normal town by any stretch of the word. Some streetlights, a Stop and Slurp, Echo Creek Academy- a kindergarten to twelfth grade public school, and a magical princess from another dimension. Well, okay. Maybe most towns did not have a magical princess, but this one did. "Ooh. Marco, Marco, Marco. Look at the deal that Stop and Slurp has today. A pizza and Slurpzilla combo pack? I don't even know what that is and I'm excited!" Princess Star Butterfly, Princess to the land of Mewni and current foreign exchange student, grinned at her best friend Marco Diaz. Her blue dress with a pink squid thing and the cute red devil horn hair piece making her stand out even in the California day. And her little hearts on her cheeks that showed her emotions were currently normal pink hearts. The blonde haired girl jumped in place at she pointed to the deal on the side of a convenience store. Marco Diaz, in one of his multiple red hoodies and black pants combos since he liked the look, turned to Star and frowned. Being the kid that looked out for Star wore on his nerves and it had only been about a week since she had moved into his house. He ruffled his brown hair with a hand and shook his head. "Star, no. Do you remember the last time we had pizza? You accidentally thought the hot peppers were a monster because they were spicy." "But, Marco. . .we don't really know of hot foods on Mewni so everything that's 'spicy' is thought of as poison." "You then punched the waiter and made a water monster by accident because you were freaking out. We still can't go to Fazbear's because of the mess you made." "Can I at least get one tiny Slurpzilla? Please Marco! I need to see if the flavor combo your dad told be about is tasty!" Star had heard about the Super Slurper combo from Mr. Diaz. The idea of putting every flavor intrigued Star. There had been no convenience stories on Mewni. The peasants sold their gruelish slop in the market. Flavors were not really known in Mewnian culture. Only recently had dimensional scissors made it possible to trade with different dimensions for spices. "Okay. But I don't know where exactly my wallet is. . .one of Ludo's goons threw it near here." Searching nearby a dumpster was not one of Marco's favorite things to do. It wasn't even on the list. "Dang it. I had some of my allowance in there." "Oh Marco. I could just use my magic and find your wallet. . ." "Nah, Star, I got this. I mean it couldn't have gotten that far. Ludo's minions kind of suck." Marco took off his hoodie and stood there for a moment. He had a grey shirt underneath the hoodie and the heat of California had cooled off so he shivered in his t shirt. "Though it's a little chilly right now." He jumped into the dumpster, hoping that he wouldn't have to take a super long shower once he got out. Wow. He felt something somewhat sharp poke him in the side and something plush moved underneath him. "Ugh, my horn." "Oh Dios Mio, my side." Marco moved as quickly as he could in a dumpster covered in trash and possibly a hobo living in the squalor. He touched his side and he felt something sticky pool on his side. Please don't be blood. Please don't be blood. "Star? Get your wand ready. I don't know if that is one of Ludo's new minions or not but its better to be safe than sorry cause I might need medical assistance if I think I remember what I learned in Biology." Star nodded and pulled out her cute little Princess wand that was also the main reason her evil nemesis, Ludo, who just so happened to be a short evil kappa overlord of evil, was fighting her and Marco. And it was cute- with little wings and a star design. It was supposed to show the current holder's heart because when her mother gave it to her, it was different and more regal than now. Star aimed the wand at the back of the alleyway. "Jellybean Hallucination Mist or Magical Narwhal Blast, Marco?" "Second one. It poked me in the side." Marco, who had seen the power of some of Star's more offensive spells limped behind a car and waited. And waited. Marco poked his head up and looked at the creature that walked out of the alley. A purple unicorn with wings stared back at the human and the Mewman. "Uh, Star? Is that a unicorn?" "Yeah." "Is it a breed that you've seen before." "Nope." "Hello, my name is Twilight Sparkle, and I am a Princess of Equestria. Where exactly am I?" Huh, a talking unicorn. Not to be unexpected from some of Star's stories about Mewni, but she had to have a special purpose if she had wings. Marco guessed those were new. Unicorns weren't supposed to fly. Marco would have said something if he wasn't feeling dizzy from- blood loss- yeah that was blood. Breathing slowly and trying to stay awake he heard Star scream in joy. "Marco! Do you know what this means? I get to be friends with a talking unicorn Princess! And roomies! Best. Walk. To. The. Store. Eva!!!" Star ran up to Twilight and hugged her 'new friend'. Twilight just looked uncomfortable. "Well I wasn't expecting getting a hug so quickly but I guess this isn't that bad. Though I thought I cast the human spell. . .I shouldn't be a pony in a land of humans." "Yeah some trip to the store. Uh, Twilight. That's Star, she's a Princess. I'm Marco, and I am currently losing blood cause you poked me with your horn. And whatever you did to me with just a touch of your horn hurts really really bad." Twilight shook her head and wiggled out of Star's weakening grasp as the Mewman realized that Marco wasn't faking. The blood had started to cover the bottom of his shirt. Twilight knew practical spells to heal bones, but blood loss wasn't a thing that was often a thing in Equestria. Magical residue in the air made Equestrians very hard to hospitalize. Rainbow Dash was proof of that fact. Twilight looked into Star's worried eyes. The hearts had turned into small dark rainclouds because she was just about to start crying. "Can't you do anything, because I don't want to explain to his parents how the best trip to the store almost killed Marco. I. . .don't know what to do. I-" Star began to cry. Twilight breathed. Think, think, think. She looked at 'Marco' and she noticed that even with her magic- she didn't know how much magic this dimension had compared to Equestria- she'd be working with unknowns and with a life in the balance, unknown variables could be fatal. And even as Celestia's faithful student, she didn't focus on medical applications for magic. Magical theories were her forte. She could save him but only if she quickly decided on what to do. "Okay. But you might not like it. . .Star." "What is it? I mean I hope its not blood magic or something." "No- though that might be a thing to study later- we're going to the hospital." "But you don't know where. . ." Twilight lay her horn on Marco's head and focused on the words. Nearby hospital. Nearby hospital. Faintly, she began to see a route to the closest one in the general area. Echo Creek Medical Center. Quietly, Twilight thanked that she had taken some lessons from Luna after the Changeling Invasion. Memory spells were not a common spell type in current magical texts. "Done. Star you might want to grab onto my hoof." Star reached out timidly and took Twilight's hoof. She was confused how Twilight could have gotten information from Marco without talking to him- Mewnian magic didn't really have mind powers. Trading stories could be important later. Marco needed to go to a hospital fast. Gripping Twilight's hoof tightly and placing Marco on Twilight's back- Star breathed. She only had one chance to get what she came for tonight- and since Marco was going to go to the hospital it might be her one chance for the night. "You want to give me a slurpy..." Star tried to wave her hands and bug her eyes because mind control eyes were a thing in Earth cultural traditions. That movie with the snake and the secret history of a past kingdom in the stars set to film told her that mind control was possible. "I want to give you a slurpy...? Wait, what's a slurpy and why are you doing that?" "Well I tried." Star quickly grabbed Marco's wallet that he had found in the dumpster and ran as fast as she could into the Stop and Slurp. Screams of 'The Super Slurper combo is mine' and 'but you have to pay. . .' could be heard in the convenience store. Twilight just watched as Star ran out and grabbed her hoof. Twilight decided that maybe following the law might not be the best idea since Star seemed to have just stolen a drink. "Let's go." Twilight charged up her horn and winked out of the Stop and Slurp's parking lot. First thoughts on contact with new creatures- while I do like this version of Earth because of the more magical elements compared to Canterlot High- I don't know if I'll get used to a magical princess who has a power similar to mine but the outlook of ruling like Pinkie. Might have to be worried about my future here. Also I don't remember if I said the last half of the spell that gave us a way back to Equestria. Will have to find out in the coming hours once Star stops styling my mane. She's worried about Marco. He's okay. Though I didn't think horns were so sharp- testing needed? I wonder how the other girls are. Yours, Twilight. Author's Note Mirrorverse Book 1 List of references in the chapter- Star Trek, "Transformation Sequence"- Sailor Moon, "The Daring Gang" supposed to be the Hardy Boys or the Boxcar Children, Pinkie's mixed up sentence- supposed to be a reference to Yoda, Freddy Fazbear's Pizza- Five Nights at Freddy's, mind control trick referenced Kaa from the Jungle Book movie and the Jedi Mind Trick and Star Wars.
Episode 2: Star And Twilight Meet A Friend In The Hospital's MorgueThe Echo Creek Medical Center was a new hospital that had just been built in the last few years. It wasn't the largest hospital in California, that would be the one in Guadalupe Hidalgo. It also never saw many film or movie stars since the Holliwood area was covered by the Lon Chaney Memorial Hospital. The hospital did have one thing that made it stand out- the emergency medical services were well known to be one of the better ones in California. Though having a screaming girl riding a unicorn throw a patient in your face did do wonders for prompt and good service. Though it wasn't Star's fault for screaming like a maniac, it just so happened that teleportation wasn't a very common thing in Mewni. So she handled the laws of magic being broken rather well. Skidding across the floor, the two magical princesses and Marco ran into the help desk with a thud. "May I help you?" Twilight thought of how to phrase the whole mess that she inadvertently caused. And Celestia had taught her that diplomacy did also involve making your side look a little better than reality in certain cases. Princesses were not infallible and Celestia had tried to explain why she needed to always hand off the responsibility of saving the day to Twilight. That was a fun conversation that Twilight had after she beat Tirek. Quickly responding with the best thing in a bad situation she finally spoke. "Yes, sorry for just dropping in here unexpectedly but we had a really bad accident and we need to have some sort of doctor look at my friend here." Twilight waited for a reaction to the fact that she could talk. She filed away that there seemed to be unicorns in this dimension but they were very rare and not well known in this part of the world since Marco had been surprised at the fact that she could talk. The receptionist looked down at Twilight, shrugged at the sight of a talking purple horse and talked over the speakerphone, "Doctor Pangloss, we seem to have an emergency." The speakerphone chirped and replied in a slightly excited tone, "I'll be right down. I was just showing my daughter the morgue for a fun learning experience. Give me, I dunno, a minute or two." Twilight stared at the nearby clock and began to count the seconds that she believed that this Earth had in a minute- she didn't think that the timing was that off since she had glanced at a few human science books while she was living in the Canterlot High library. And she just hoped that Marco would be okay since human science seemed to be in some regards more advanced in healing if you tok away the advantage that ponies had with unicorn magic. Star was just trying to keep as calm as possible. She had pulled out Marco's cellphone, which Marco had needed to explain that it wasn't a magic wand and was more like the magic mirror that she had in her room, and looked through the speed dial contacts. Star was at least glad to see that Marco was prepared for anything since she couldn't completely remember the house phone number off the top of her head right now. She counted the phone call's connecting rings as a way to keep a little more calm. After the fourth one, a Spanish accented voice picked up the phone. "Marco?" Star wasn't going to like this phone call since anything that went wrong was probably going to get the attention of her mother, the Queen of Mewni. She quickly waved over to Twilight and tried to use the magical power of charades to say that she was going to be busy for a few minutes. Twilight glanced over and saw Star do what Fluttershy would term 'a mating dance' and only after Star pointed at the phone did she realize what was going on. Twilight nodded and waited for this Doctor Pangloss to appear. After what felt like an eternity as Twilight tried to look anywhere but the problem that she caused, she heard two sets of footsteps approach from the hallway. Twilight glanced over at Star who was stuck between telling Marco's parents what happened and being surprised at who she saw emerge from the double doors. A middle aged woman with purple highlights in her black hair waved and smiled at the shocked faces. Her scrubs were not the normal color of blue that Star had seen in every random tv show with doctors, but they were a shade of purple that seemed tinged with some red. And she was covered in tattoos that where partially hidden by her clothing. And then Star noticed one of her classmates in a nurse uniform. "Janna? What are you doing here?" It had been thirty or so minutes since Marco was taken into surgery for getting a stab wound that was accidental. And the medical center was mostly okay with leaving it there because trying to say that a unicorn stabbed a teenager and trying to get that approved by medical insurance would be rather difficult. And Star had finished her phone call with Marco's parents. After a tearful explanation of what happened and getting Twilight on the phone, they seemed to have calmed down and not threatened to call Mewni and talk to Star's parents. For the time being of course. And well, at least Marco seemed to be okay. So three girls were sitting in the waiting room- one was a pony, the other two were not. "So Janna. . .hello." Twilight felt really awkward about meeting one of Star's classmates in a situation like this. Janna for her part, was not wearing her typical green slacker hat, jacket, and yellow skirt combo but it was a strangely fitting stereotypical white nurse outfit. Janna was actively confused as to how she could explain the outfit. "Hey, Star. Hey, random purple horse. I can totally explain why I'm like this." Star was mostly silent since she was still worried that Marco's parents would tell what happened tonight. She didn't want to go to St. Olga's and be a reformed princess. That was where princess individuality went to die and burn away in a sparkling rainbow of doom. She had to get her mind off her parents. Quietly, she spoke up. "Don't worry about it. You look pretty good that way too. But can we just swap stories or something. I'm kind of too drained to be anything more than worried for Marco." Star fidgeted around in her chair and then slumped over. She didn't know what to do and with all the training that she had to be a good Princess, she was conflicted. On one hand, she knew her parents loved her, but her mother was so harsh and quick with punishments that she didn't know how she felt anymore when she was alone with her thoughts about her family and if she was living up to the expectations. Janna and Twilight quickly shared a worried look. Janna knew how Star usually was at school- confident, happy, and overall a nice person without many issues fitting in her own way. But this version of Star worried her. Like any girl, Janna had seen the cartoon versions of Princesses on the screen with a happy ending and happily ever after but maybe she was a bit wrong about Star. Maybe there was something more there than just joy and happiness. "Uh sure. We can do that. Do you want to go first, Twilight?" Twilight shook her head no. She kind of wanted to know why Janna was here in the first place. "Well okay then. l guess we can start as to why I am dressed like this. . .- "Mom. Why do I have to be dressed up like a nurse if it's bring your daughter to work day?" Janna was laying on her bed and she could hear her mother folding the laundry. Her mom always listened to some singer songwriter music when she was doing that. Janna, on the other hand, listened to death metal when she had to do anything. She just liked the loud music. It helped her find her happy place. "Well I thought it would look really cute and since you do want to follow in my footsteps I just thought that on site supervision would be best. And why not make you look good while you're there. Plus I get to show you off for fun." Janna just thought her mom could be a dork as she outright giggled at the thought of parading her around and probably posting tons of pictures onto Spacebook. There were so many awkward photos on her mom's profile. For being a tattooed mom that her friends loved because of the idea that she had a super cool mom that let her do what she pretty much wanted. . .she was still a completely awkward mess. Thank goodness she hadn't found a boyfriend yet. That would be a fun dinner as her mom grilled her boyfriend about things. Personal not polite in conversation around a dinner table type things. But her mom did do the birds and the bees talk with her friends present once. And it was terrible. Too much information and altogether one of the more strange happenings that her mom did. But Janna was used to the strange adorkable happenings of her mom for the most part. She was a surgeon and from what she could gather on the nights that her mom came home really late- it wasn't the happiest of jobs since she had to make sure that the patients were okay first. And some days were so bad that she had to make her mom want to get out of bed by cheering her up. Today was one of the better days for sure. So maybe her mom was a dork. At least she could use the pictures as a good memory. And since she was planning on going off to college in a few years, there wasn't going to be as much daughter bonding times as before. "Fine. I'll do it. But can you at least not touch my hair? I like it right now- and maybe can we check out the morgue? That's always a fun place to be." Twilight just stared at Janna. "What? The morgue is a fantastic place and being around all the dead bodies makes it seem like a murder mystery. And just in case zombies come attack us in the foreseeable future, I want to be prepared for the zombie uprising." The girl just smiled and thought of the fantastic zombie movies that she had seen when she was a little girl. While most girls had been trying to become a princess, she had wanted to become a monster hunter. Then you knew how to get yourself out of a kidnapping attempt by bloodthirsty, evil monsters without needing a prince to save you. It was kind of empowering. Twilight waved a hoof and laughed. "Sorry, sorry. I just wasn't expecting that kind of a happy ending in your story." Star chuckled a little bit at Twilight's outburst. Star didn't think that Janna had a relationship with her parents since she never saw her outside of school. Maybe it wasn't going to be so bad anymore, it just was so difficult trying to fit into a new school and dealing with expectations that your parents gave you. Maybe she wasn't so different after all. Twilight smiled at Star's laughter. Though she wondered how exactly Star was hiding so much insecurities since she had mainly seen the Mewnian mostly be worried sick about what amounted to an accident. She'd have to file that away for later since she remembered that even Pinkie Pie held issues with depression and worrying mental health even if she was the Element of Laughter. Maybe being a princess here was different than what Princess Celestia had led her to believe- and even Celestia could be a problematic teacher with her expectations. Twilight shuddered to herself when she remembered the Smarty Pants Incident. "Yep. That's my family. We're pretty much there for each other but hey we can totally get on each other's nerves." Janna sat back comfortably in her chair." "Well I guess that means I'm up for the next turn in this round of stories then. . . and this is the story of how I cast a love spell to cause a friendship issue." "Clock is ticking." Twilight needed to find a friendship issue or else she'd be sent to Magical Kindergarten. Celestia expected her to be the best unicorn she could be; she was Celestia's student and so she was held to a higher standard. She glanced outside and saw that time was running out. Quickly rummaging through her chest of things, she pulled out her favorite fillyhood doll- Smarty Pants. "It's okay Twilight, see? If you can't find a friendship problem. . .you can make one!" "Now Twilight, I do believe that I must have really touched a nerve if you have gone this far off the deep end and are actively trying to create chaos." "Who said that?" Twilight looked around the room and glanced over to her full length mirror where a draconequus sat comfortably in a hammock while drinking liquid gold. "Now you do realize that this is just a memory, dear Twilight. But since Star needs a good friendship lesson your mind has given your nice little conscience a voice to say the great moral lesson. It just so happens that your voice chose little old me for this task- though I can't imagine why. Sure I can see Fluttershy having a Discord on her shoulder but not you Twilight. You are the Princess of Friendship. Though it might mean that you think that my magic helped cause that whole Smarty Pants debacle?" "No. I was just going to get back to the story that I wanted Star to learn." Discord cordially laughed as he stirred Twilight a sparkling apple juice. Extending his lion paw, he slid the drink over to her. She hadn't noticed but this mental image of Discord seemed to have all the powers the original did. "No, Twilight, I don't. I'm sorry but you can be rather convoluted in your denial sometimes. And yes I heard your thoughts. We are in your head. Maybe a change of scenery helps. Think of a moment. Any moment really. It could be at any time, any where, any when or how. I'll make it real. If you want to change the actors in the scene- change them. I'll still be able to get it right. I'm you Twilight. Not the nice part of you that everyone sees, no. I'm the part that's growing weaker with every day." Twilight raised an eyebrow at this. Discord, even a mental one had considerable power so him saying that he was growing weaker confused her because she had some experience with dreams but a mental image of a reformed enemy in her own head- especially when she wasn't awake? That was new territory. "Good. I got your attention it seems. Well no, I am not the Great and Terrible Discord that Celestia had turned to stone so long ago and your Fluttershy finally, for the most part, reformed. I mean that Discord is the Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony. No, I'm all your self-doubt, your loathing, your fears, your bad memories. I'm you. I'm the part Celestia made by accident." "I-" Twilight didn't know what to say about this. "Don't worry. We can always talk later, you and I, just think about it. And in three. . .two. . .one. You should be just about done with your story. And don't worry. I added some embellishments for the last few years as well. Because Twilight, your life is not just a weekly event of evil and then you get a nice moral out of it. No, my Purple Smart, its life. Life choices have a, let's continue to use my favorite pony's cutie mark for this example- a Butterfly Effect if you will. And your new friend Star has some issues that have been rippling out. She needs help because I foresee that sometime in the future, with the trajectory of bad feelings that her mother helped instill in her. . .she needs a friend besides Marco." "But why are you helping me if you are the things in my head?" Discord lounged upon a psychiatrist's chair. his arms crossed, and predatorily grinned at Twilight. "Because Twilight- I know that you enjoy fixing a friendship problem and well lookie right there. There's a friendship problem. That's it really, though I do enjoy a good show every once in a while. See you later and say hi to Star for me. I rather like the girl." "Wai- Twilight blinked as her eyes adjusted to the florescent bulbs. She couldn't remember what she had said, but both Star and Janna were hugging her. She thought that she could feel wetness on the edges of her eyes and there were two wet splotches on her coat where the girls had put their heads as they hugged the shorter alicorn. "Twilight, that's so sad." "What?" Twilight didn't know who that was at first but she guessed it was Janna since it sounded a bit lower in pitch than Star's more hyperactive pixie like self. "I mean with the whole Princess of Frindship thing and still feeling like you screwed up multiple times." Ugh, she was going to have to talk to her Conscience of Discord soon. She just hoped that it wasn't as bad as she feared since it had been rather teasing in his word choices. This was going to be a pain- note to self. . .do not bring up the Mare Do Well Mess because that was a terrible attempt by her friends and her to 'teach' Rainbow a lesson. Yeah that was a bad moment. But maybe just maybe everything here would turn out okay. Discord breathed a sigh of relief. These mares were going to be the death of him one day. He didn't like doing the whole ruse of being a Jiminy Cricket type figure but being the literal Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony gave him privileges like free cable and general wifi. Oh and being one of the only things in Equestria that knew of alternate realities. Came with the mindbreaking perks of the job. He was really only keeping tabs on each of the girls because of two ponies. Fluttershy, because she was his first friend and the multiverse could be rather harsh on the yellow pegasus and Celestia since he owed her from the last time she let him out of the stone statue. "The work of a draconequus is never done. Isn't that right Senior Huevos?" The living sock puppet could only wonder why a sepentlike plushie was talking to him. It shrugged and went on its sock puppet ways. "Whatever. This is not what I expected when Celestia called in the favor. Turn the moon to cheese one day and everypony loses their minds-" Author's Note I don't know what Los Angeles is in Star's universe- but since Echo Creek is based around Echo Park California I went with the idea that there's some sort of switch around with the names- though Holliwood is canon in the Britney's Party episode. I went with Guadalupe Hidalgo since that is the treaty that ended the Mexican American War. And yes Janna is like my favorite human character for the kids since she's so weird. And this chapter's a bit more somber and sad- the fact is that Star's home life for a while is rather iffy- because she didn't even know her dad fought monsters on his days away so she always seemed a bit more worried when her parents were involved for like half of the season- this is still "episode one" territory so I'm thinking that she's worried about how people see her because she literally just moved and knows next to nobody really- she really just hangs out with Marco. There's something there. And I have ideas on how to make the other human girls into a secondary safety net for Star's emotional issues. I mean Marco is great and all- but Star really only has Princess Pony Head as a bestie girl friend. And the plot takes care of her for quite a while. Note: We have not seen any of the human students' parents so I'm making them up as we go along. And besides Jackie Lynn Thomas I don't think their last names have been said. I could be wrong but I'm only a writer making it up as I go along. So I went with 'Pangloss' since I had to have a reason as to why Janna likes the morgue and it turned into this. Also I guessed her parents had to be a bit weird. I mean she's out there in the times we see her. Also though her mom's name is never said this chapter (cause calling your parent's by their first name is always awkward) I'm going with Candy. Yeah her mom's name is Candy Pangloss. References- Lon Chaney- famous for silent movie roles and his son Lon Chaney Jr. was also famous for being one of the more famous versions of the Wolfman in films, Doctor Pangloss- name of a doctor in Candide. Also I think I just realized that Twilight's stabbing Marco might be a stealth reference to Cabin in the Woods and that unicorn stabbing a dude. I think I'll count that one. Also the whole sharing stories idea comes from a fantastic arc in the Sandman comics where the characters have to waste time because of a cosmic storm so they share stories in the meantime because stories always have some sort of power. Also the Discord scenes I thought of him as Q the entire time. Also Discord's final line is based on Heath Ledger's Joker. And sorry for the long author's note- there was a lot of stealth world building here I felt like I had to explain.
Episode 3: How The Mall Had A Fire SaleIt had been a few days since Twilight had been in the human world and she had gotten used to adapting her morning rituals to her new environment. It wasn't that difficult to find a coffee that made her think of home, and besides her seemingly deadly brew of blackness that nobody else could drink, she was dealing with being in a world not catered to ponies. Though the cursed shower mechanics she still was rather confused about. For she could never turn on the perfect balance of hot and cold water in her morning cleansing. She wasn't completely inept at cleaning like Rarity insisted, she was just too often focused on the task at hand. And Twilight grumbled that mirrors were a bit too high when compared to Equestria. She wondered if the world she came from was a bit smaller than some others. Sighing she trotted into Star's room to wake her up for school. It was Twilight's first day after all- the idea of a magical unicorn lounging around the house all the time until the magical mirror device was fixed or something happened in Equestria made Twilight's head spin. She loved the idea of relaxation but putting it into practice would drive her mad and the human world had so many interesting ideas about technology and science that she couldn't just sit around all day wasting time. Though the talk with the school's principal for letting her transfer in was a strange one. Twulight just had to turn lead into gold and he let her in without even blinking an eye. Really? Was gold that scarce in this dimension. Twilight chalked it up to magic changing the building blocks of matter easier than most scientific processes. "Star, time to wake up." Star, for her own part, was doing better than a week prior when Marco was put in the hospital. She was at least mostly back to normal. Though she had been watching a lot of tv- especially this weird tv show about a person who got a werewolf liver transplant. Tv here was weird. At least when Twilight had watched the tv shows in Canterlot High, it was about going to school. Twilight stopped thinking about "As The Bell Rings" when she noticed that somehow Star had not moved from her comfy chair in her room since she last checked last night. The tv blared some "Banagic Wand" type nonsense. Earth really had no magic so Twilight doubted the slogan, a little bit of banana a little bit of magic- The Banagic Wand!!! Buy Now! At your best mall type area. Buy our things get a Pretty Pretty Banana Ranger outfit (if you sell your soul and swear fealty to the demon overlords! Oh and Star Butterfly, go out with our fantastic manager to the Bloodmoon Ball. Wait. What was that last bit? Star moaned in her seat. "Not him. I thought I blocked him on my magic mirror. Couldn't he take the hint when I launched him into the Ninth Circle of Dis? Really?" Star rubbed her eyes and slowly stretched moving her arms up and down and shaking her head to wake herself up more. Noticing that Twilight was in the room, she smiled and quietly shut off her tv that was still blaring that commercial. "Hey." "Hey." Twilight could feel the awkwardness ooze from the two word conversation that they were having. Star was rubbing a hand through her hair as she tried to figure out how to say that somehow there was something she was keeping from Twilight. Twilight cursed that Conscience wasn't there to speak some sense into Star or at least that it couldn't help Twilight with the situation of silence that came with the territory of introversion. "So. . .Twilight, um, Janna just texted me on the thingamajig doodly and her and her friends want to go shopping. Yes." Strange. Now Twilight guessed that cell phones and whatever were a new thing to Star but she hadn't heard Star talking to any person before she walked in and it seemed too perfect. Well, knowing how Rainbow Dash usually spilled a major secret by accident, Twilight ran with the probable excuse. Plus, Janna had been coming over a lot since Marco was hurt and Twilight liked her. But this was a world of humans and Twilight had one major problem. "Star, you do know I'm a unicorn." "Yeah, sure, what's your point exactly?" Twilight sighed. Sometimes Star reminded her a bit too much of Pinkie. "Well for starters, the idea of me going shopping for clothes or anything seems problematic with how the world is made for bipeds. Also while I like that the hospital didn't freak out about a magic talking horse creature- that doesn't mean that everyone, is it everyone, in the world is so understanding about the whole magic pony princess thing. Even most of Equestria was a bit weirded out when I grew wings." Star grinned and wrapped a hand around her second pony friend (the first one with a complete body and not just a floating horse head Princess). "Don't worry, Twilight. I know everything about human culture. Like how the spinny things makes bikes go and that the yard box that sacred scriptures are kept gets raided by a post office gnome. And anyway Janna and her posse are going to be there? What's the worst that could happen?" "A lot actually." Carefully sidestepping clothes that had piled up since the last time she had washed her laundry, Star Butterfly just hummed a catchy yet somewhat ironic tune about a spacefaring unicorn while getting dressed. Twilight silently grumbled to herself about how catchy the song was. After what sounded like a giant explosion, Star walked out in her normal clothes. "Sorry. My wand's been acting up a little bit when I try to change my hairstyle, Twilight. I wonder if its the battery that needs changing. Oh well, we can always head on over to the magical superstore later." *** Even though Twilight thought that Star had come up with a fake reason for her to get out of the house to go shopping, the three other girls stared at the magical pony princess. In short, somehow Star hadn't been lying about getting Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn together to have a girls day out. Now if they weren't fangirling over her mane and wings that would be nice too. Well Janna wasn't at least. "How are you doing?" "Pretty good Twilight, not much on my end and I thankfully didn't get forced to dress up for a family outing to the beach or something. Dunno what's up with my mom sometimes but she just loves to go to places at the spur of the moment." Janna breathed a sigh of relief. The last time her mom had one of those moods they drove all the way to Oregon to go Bigfoot hunting. "Well that's good." Twilight felt a sharp yank as Hope unknotted a particularly matted piece of her coat. While she got that this reality thought of unicorns as completely feminine and perfectly okay to freak out about- Twilight wasn't a big fan of makeovers. Even if Rarity had tried to force her to get dolled up for every Princess duty. "Dude. I was really doubting that you had a magical friend Janna but this is totally awesome!" Jackie Lynn, Marco's crush, stood smiling at Hope's handiwork. Her skater chick personality extended to her ripped jeans and t-shirt. Twilight hadn't tried to accidentally find out about Marco's crush but after a hasty search for a hospital, sometimes some extra personal info was brought up. "No problem. Hey Hope. can you stop brushing Twilight's hair? We are in the middle of the mall. I think some of the people are freaking out." "But I captured it with my pure intentions and she will serve me. And then I can get my family back together and stop my parents divorce!" Hope just laughed maniacally for a bit. Janna and Jackie just looked at Twilight and shook their heads. Hope was in counseling for the whole messy divorce. The family issues right there were too much to handle some days. "Sorry. Okay. Well we can always go that way!" Star just tried to diffuse the situation by pointing at the largest stage she had seen so far in her Earth adventure. A crowd of a few hundred milled about the structure as it completely made that section of the mall nearly impossible to navigate. Pulling on Twilight to get Hope's attention, the three girls and an alicorn walked over to the most amazing thing ever known to the mall. An "As Seen On TV" demonstration. "Come one come all to the Banagic Wand demonstration. Remember after the great demonstration to order your very own wand and make your kids watch the tv show." A short demon with a cute nametag with Azazel written on it stepped out while giving the speech. And Star recognized him. Star froze for a second. Oh crud. He's here. "On second thought, let's go completely the other way. This is totally unimportant." With a great fanfare, the manager of the Little Shop of Wondertainment stepped out. His boots clacked on the stage's floor and left a contained bit of fire floating on top. His red polo and khakis cut a nice figure and many in the audience swooned as he smiled. Including all of Janna, Hope, and Jackie Lynn. "Great." Star just groaned and pulled Twilight closer as the group of girls slid up to the stage. "Now imagine a world filled with magic. Where every wish you need is just a spell away. Friends, money, power, love. Anything is possible. Now since we are a company and spurious and false claims are fraudulent- that is all a great hypothetical situation. But the Banagic Wand, is a great and fun party starting tool to get your friends a hot summer's day. And with your fantastic turnout in Echo Creek, the Wand can be yours for just $19.95- along with other shipping and handling fees! Now who wants one!" A flurry of cash was thrown at the stage as people furiously wanted the greatest tool ever known. With that Tom Walker, Demon Prince of Hell bowed and went backstage. He had noticed a face that he hadn't seen in quite a while. Star was rather mad. She had wanted to spend a nice day with her girl besties and second pony bestie. But no, she had stayed up all night when her tv set and magic mirror had replayed a message from Tom about the Banagic Wand. Sure maybe she would have loved the idea of Earth Magic if Tom wasn't involved, but nope. This was all a scam to get what demons termed "stupid Midgardian Souls" into a contract. Demons were the first and best scam artists. So seeing her girl friends just swoon with how nice and charming he was rather made her a bit miffed. And Tom just nonchalantly grinning while lazily having his feet up on the desk made it ten times worse. "Why it's just so good to see you Star. Did you like the whole presentation? My advisers told me to play up the selling souls bit but I thought, why not have a fun jab at these humans and make the shipping and handling fees be all inclusive and have the contract be a costly one. Aren't I just grand?" "No. Not really." Star just crossed her arms and frowned. Twilight, for her part, was mostly confused and still trying to process the whole demon bit. She had fought a demon Sunset in her first excursion into the human world, but staring at a demon that was a natural one really made her rearrange her ideas about this world. Taking a few deep breaths she began to talk slowly so the other girls would understand. "Now, Tom was it, this Wand is all magical and everything. Or that's what I'd think would be correct. But did you predict any problems during testing?" "Sure there's always problems- no souls for one thing, but disfigurement, possession, and localized explosions were just some of the more problematic ones. What's your point. horse?" Twilight let that insult slide by. He wasn't worth a lot of her time overall. Sure he felt super powerful with the wave of aura that let most people fall in love with him, but she was trying to prove a point. His idea of ultimate wish granting potential had some dangerous implications. "Now your claims are that it could do anything you wanted it to do, but there's a major problem. Wishing to fix a problem and getting it without effort is hollow. Wishing for friends could be seen as brainwashing, and any love potion could also be seen as forcing your will onto another. Money and power can't be made from nothing- money would need a material to be made from, and power would mean something would have to happen to rise to that position. Your wand is a complete scam since any magical artifact usually needs to work under equivalent exchange and it breaks about four or five different magical laws in ethics alone." Tom just stood in silence, his eyes flaming with fire and his desk calendar saying "150 days anger free" exploded in a living inferno. Star just yawned. She'd seen this side of Tom too many times to count. When he was stuck in a corner or just angry with some little thing he went at the problem with the mantra of "please burn because I'm a little baby with anger issues." He was a young demon. Though Star just thought that maybe he had gotten some help with his anger issues, she was probably wrong. Or if he did, it really wasn't helping all that much. The girls all came up with a similar plan. Run as far away from Tom as possible. As the whole stage caught on fire, all the girls just kept running. The mall was rioting. Most of the town had learned that random fires were much more common nowadays ever since the school almost burned down thanks to a small flaming rainbow a week back, but still malls weren't supposed to have raging infernos. Star was frantically trying to get her wand to start as the battery flashed red. Oh Mewni, she had actually forgot that her wand needed to get a new charge. Did that make her completely useless? Not really since she did know how to fist fight wild animals for fun, but magically speaking she was rather at a loss. And that was when she ran into a tendril of pure darkness. Twilight was alone. She had felt her friends run away. She was pretty happy for that fact since just making sure the mall wasn't going to become a burned out husk because of some stupid demon having a temper tantrum was taking up a lot of time. Which was stupid since she had been right about the complete terrible idea of wishing wands and morality clashing. Breathing a sigh of relief for a few seconds she turned and saw the mall's floor become a writhing mass of black magic. She could feel the taint cloud the air with darkness and quickly dodging a tendril the size of a small tree try to crush her in anger. she began teleporting into a safer area. Skating around on hooves charged with mana, she noticed Tom just lazily sitting on a chair eating popcorn as a large tendril dangled her friends nearby. Great. Now Twilight was having flashbacks of Discord. Quickly stopping her skating around, she blasted a tendril and stopped near the food court. Glaring up at Tom, she just yelled at the high level demon. "Tom! Put down my friends!" Stopping to yell at him was a terrible idea. A large tendril threw Twilight into a nearby jewelry store. And all she could feel for a minute was shards of glass and extreme pain. Star Butterfly was not having a good day. While she was currently being used as a glorified hostage and the whole reason why the mall was currently on fire, she stared at the destruction in mall and the purple pony that was fighting against it. From Janna's awkward staring at Star's ex boyfriend to finding out that the Banagic wand (and therefore its related anime tie ins, clothing line, and cosplay contest) being a plot of Hell to ensure the power of friendship to taint the minds of little kids. She had just wanted to relax with friends and try on clothes, not destroy the mall. "So Star-" "No Tom, I still won't go to the Ball with you. Ask someone else." "I mean I'm open for a dance. And my mom won't mind me dating a demon, she's rather open to strange things like that." Janna just grinned at Tom and winked at him. "I'll keep that in mind." Tom and Star groaned at the prospect. Twilight was fuming. She couldn't see straight and her tired body had been tossed through a nearby jewerly story when Tom had felt that she was a dangerous wild card. Or something like that. Either way it caused her a whole lot of pain. Her mind was controlled currently by instincts and training. Her wings lay limply at her sides. Muscle tear? Bone problem? Twilight's mind didn't care about it and she had to think of how to beat Star's deceptively annoying ex boyfriend. He reminded her of Sunset. Though that was more because of his cocky demeanor and demonic powers. And Discord. Because he wasn't taking this all that seriously if the bickering between him and the girls were any indication. Good thing she generally knew a few spells to reset broken bones and regrow teeth. This world made her lose her powers of regeneration that alicorns naturally had thanks to its generally lower density of mana- but there was one thing about this world that was rather nice. Twilight didn't have to hide her alicorn strength. Twilight channeled her best cocky Rainbow Dash impression and glared up at the lazing around demon. "Hey idiot! You let go of Star and the others right this minute or I might have to actually get serious." Tom just laughed. "Really? It doesn't even look like you can stand at this point. Sorry. But I think I got what I wanted- though I think it's not exactly who I expected to go with to the Bloodmoon Ball." Janna just tried to fist pump in excitement. "Did you hear that Twilight? I'm going to a dance! Now Tom what's your phone number?" "Well I have a magic mirror, so I don't know if that will work." Twilight's eye twitched. Somehow Janna had enjoyed the smooth demon and now was trying to exchange numbers with him. This day was completely confusing and strange. "Oh. Sorry Janna, I forgot I might have to show off for you because you'd need to know how completely awesome I am." Tom just grinned and Twilight rolled her eyes as he lazily floated down to the floor. "Now I haven't released my full power in a year or two so it might be a bit flashy. Twilight felt the air in the room fill with power as the whole mall began to raise in temperature. Tom breathed in air and breathed out a blue flame that ignited the air around him into a bright blue ball of fire. A clawed hand shot out of it and the whole ball imploded back into Tom's mouth. Tom smiled and cracked his knuckles. Twilight just stared at the demon in front of her as Janna swooned. His horns that showed that he was a demon had grown longer and twiled around his head like a crown, and his whole body was now encased in blue flames as armor. He turned and waved at Janna and Twilight saw that his back held two pitch black wings. Twilight didn't know what to do. Her normal strength that she held was probably not enough to hurt him as he had felt the black magic ooze off of him in waves. She knew that she was at least gifted in magic, but still that didn't always make up for differences in power if the enemy had a released form. It'd be the difference between Discord fighting normally and him becoming serious. The idea of an enemy hiding a portion of their strength to seem weaker was a common idea in magical combat. It would make the opponent become confused when their attacks stopped having an effect. Princesses needed some kind of power boost when things looked rough. Twilight don't release your power unless you feel like you have to." Celestia stared down at the newest princess of Equestria. Beating Tirek and holding the powers of three more alicorns had sped up her true alicorn powers and the idea of holding one of the largest mana levels in Equestria had scared the youngest princess. Celestia had just told her that a Princess had to know when to use their full power to conserve their resources and how dangerous a full strength release could be to the user. "Dont worry. I have total restraint." Twilight looked up to her mentor and smiled. "THIS. IS. COMPLETELY. STUPID. Star and Tom looked at Twilight as she began to glow pale white. The ground shook as the two conflicting powers in the mall vied for space. Twilight's white light versus Tom's dark blue aura flared up on the ceiling. It was rather pretty and something that nobody was expecting. Wings of light extended from the dome of light that Twilight was in and the group could hear the bones of Twilight be healed back into place with some painful sounds that accompanied it. If the group had sat outside of the mall, they would have noticed a growing storm react to the changes in pressure. "Magical Release Heartsong Activate! Tom let go of my friends you complete and utter moron!!!" Twilight charged out her eyes glowing a determined pink. Teleporting all over the field in the blink of an eye, Twilight launched a beam of magic that Tom tried to catch to defend against the new barrage of signals that he was getting. Somehow he couldn't touch it as when he even got close it began to burn him. A demon getting a burn, that was definitely a new one. Shaking his hand to try and stop the pain inching up his arm, he spread his wings and shot up into the air. If this horse didn't want to play fair with her magic, he wasn't going to play fair with the temperature. "Heat Wave." The idea of heat was that the hotter it got, the more dangerous it was to use for the user. But Tom didn't care. He had already got what he wanted- a date. This was just going to get messy. Summoning the next hottest thing he could think of that was easy to summon, he thought of lava- it wasn't anything like plasma, but there's a certain level of power that would be classified as overkill. That's when it began to rain lava. Hope, Janna, and Jackie Lynn just watched as the mall became a battlefield. Star was just relieved that in a way she hadn't set the mall on fire. Sure he was her ex boyfriend- but she actually hadn't summoned something that set things on fire. Though she wondered how Marco would take the mall being completely destroyed. Well it would be an interesting story to tell him. Hope was super excited. "Janna, your new boyfriend is super mega cool." "Well he is a demon." Twilight knew what she had to do. Even though it was completely untested, she remembered that through her studies with chemistry, that water existed in the air. And so she shot a blast of ice magic into the surrounding air to hopefully survive the blast of heat. The world exploded as the two temperatures collided. Twilight couldn't move much anymore. Sure the power boost of having the mana reserves of four alicorns was nice, but she had already been using her magic before she switched to her powered form and so she was exhausted. And as the smoke and ice cleared she noticed the same for Tom- while he was very powerful, he also had been using magic more than usual. The two magic users stared at each other and fell over laughing before their bodies realized how much power they had both used and fell asleep. "So is it a draw or something?" Jackie Lynn asked as the black tendrils began to disappear. "Probably." Star massaged her head. This was going to be a pain to explain to her parents. An eye shaped device that had watched the whole battle lazily floated into a nearby portal that winked out of existence again. It looked like the things that watched Mewnian culture but only because its current user had stolen it to make it easier to spy on the human world. The robotic voice box that he had attached to it began to monologue while floating into the portal back to the castle. "This is quite interesting. But no matter. I am the greatest and most evil overlord in the universe and once I have Princess Star Butterfly's wand I will be able to conquer the universe and- and- no actually that's pretty good. Though maybe I could also be an evil lifeguard and be completely super cool that way. What ever I choose, I will be known as the one that steals Star's wand to have nigh ultimate power. Or else my name is not Ludo- which it is Ludo!" Author's Note References: "As The Bell Rings"- I see that little show being a mix of Saved By The Bell and As The World Turns. "Pretty Pretty Banana Ranger" referenceing both PreCure shows, Power Rangers, and the idea that businesses are evil. I took the general gist of the evil commercial from South Park's fantastic parody of Pokemon. Ninth Circle of Dis- A reference to one of my favorite epic poems "The Divine Comedy" And yes capturing unicorns with virgins was a common idea in the Middle Ages And Tom's totally wearing the general red and khaki outfit of Target. I thought it was funny in my head and I've watched too many informercials and I went with a Shamwow/ Billy Mays vibe from Tom's speech. Equivalent Exchange talk from Twilight- reference to Fullmetal Alchemist. And Tom's transformation had some Bleach vibes. I have been watching a lot of anime. So thanks to magical girl shows, Twilight has a super dangerous power level boost. That also drains her life force if used for too long.
