And what an oversight that was.
She had done it! Starlight Glimmer, a pink coated unicorn pony with purple hair that had cyan stripes in it, had defeated the elements of harmony with a surprise attack! Everything was going her way right now; nothing could possibly ruin her plans now. They were too weak to stop her from making all ponies equal!
Starlight Glimmer had stolen their cutie marks and was plotting the future of Equestria, she had even managed to defeat THE Twilight Sparkle and the princess would soon come to see things her way. She just had to do one last thing, the cutie marks of the princess and her friends were very valuable so she’d have her stooge bring them back to her so she could use them to her own personal ends.
“Double Diamond, I need you to retrieve their cutie marks from the vault.” Starlight Glimmer obviously had to stay in town and keep an eye on the shy pony, so she delegated this task to Double Diamond.
“Are you sure you want me to do this Starlight, I mean… I kind of have some issues with this and what you are doing.” Double Diamond didn’t like that Starlight was going to have him bring her the six cutie marks, he really didn’t like where this was going.
“Just go! I have a guest to entertain after I wash up.” Yes and then her plans would come to fruition; all Starlight needed to do was get the weak willed shy pony on her side. She would need to start convincing the shy one to get a haircut and that being equal was the best way to live.
Double Diamond took the wagon with the six empty jars and set off for the vault up in the cave up the path.
This is where Starlight made her biggest mistake; she never bothered to tell Double Diamond how exactly he would be removing the cutie marks from the vault and sticking them into jars.
She then went into the house and went up the stairs to start washing herself and the makeup off of her flank, what she didn’t notice was that she had a voyeuristic pony watching her with a slight blush while staring at her flanks as she toweled it down before reapplying the makeup
-
Double Diamond didn’t mind the cold, never had in fact. It was odd that despite missing his talent for skiing he was still more naturally resilient to the cold than other ponies as an Earth Pony. He was beginning to really doubt that taking away a pony’s cutie mark really made them equal to anyone and just weakened them to a point where anyone could easily gain control of them, but he ignored that niggling active part of his brain and continued on his way up to the vault.
Upon entering the cave and looking up at the wall of stashed away cutie marks with so much magical energy in the vault, it was amazing that Starlight managed to create such a thing that could hold back all that magical potential of so many ponies.
“Um… how am I supposed to do this?” Double Diamond was a little confused on this fact, how did Starlight expect him to open the panels on the vault without magic? Much less how was he supposed to move the cutie marks? Was he supposed to use his bare hooves to do that?
Starlight Glimmer really never gave Double Diamond explicit instructions on how he was supposed to exactly do this, the staff was here but it was inert without Starlight Glimmer’s powers. In fact Starlight Glimmer was suspiciously the only unicorn capable of wielding the staff; also he was an earth pony. This was starting to make Double Diamond question Starlight’s ability to lead.
“So I’m supposed to somehow get six cutie marks out of this without unicorn magic, without the ability to use the staff or even open the slots that require unicorn magic to open in the first place.” Scratching his head Double Diamond pondered this very seriously convoluted situation before him. “How does she even expect me to do this?”
Double sat down and looked at all the cutie marks stored away, among them was his. It was also a little strange now that he thought of it, how come there had only been ‘exactly’ six slots left? Did Starlight Glimmer somehow know that there would be six ponies coming to the town and knew that she would need those six spots? Also why are those six random spots near the middle of all the other cutie marks? Why did they form a pentagram shape when you drew a line between each of them with the princesses in the middle?
Shaking his head, Double Diamond realized he had to get back on task. He had cutie marks to somehow relieve from the vault and stuff into jars with his bare hooves. Again, he was beginning to question Starlight’s leadership.
Sighing wistfully after looking at his cutie mark, the pony with the white coat and icy colored mane and tail moved over to the twisted wood that ended in two prongs. Maybe he could do something with the staff? How else would Starlight expect him to get the cutie marks out?
He took it in his hoof and looked at the vault… hmm… he couldn’t exactly wield it the way Starlight did. Speaking of wielding the staff, didn’t Starlight seem more powerful than every other unicorn in the village despite being equal? That made little sense, wouldn’t the other unicorns be able to wield it too if they were all equal? Yet, Starlight said she was the only one that could despite being as equal as all the other unicorns.
Again Double Diamond shrugged that off and looked between the staff and the vault sitting before him. Getting angry and frustrated at the impossible situation of having to figure out how to get several specific cutie marks out of the vault, he threw the staff at it in the hopes that it would somehow miraculously help him solved the problem.
The end results were rather spectacular and quite obvious, also very colorful as the stored talent magic exploded out of the vault violently.
-
Fluttershy was about to sneak back inside the house when she yelped as her own cutie mark slapped her on flank. This caused her to turn and witness hundreds of beams of energy raining down through all the buildings, destroying them in a wave of harmonious cacophony of ponies getting their cutie marks back. It was simply put, a beautiful experience.
The butter yellow pony with the long pink mane was happy to have her cutie mark back and nuzzled her own flank before she flew off to meet with her friends who were running towards Glimmer’s residence.
-
“What is causing all that noise?!” Starlight Glimmer yelled as she ran outside upon hearing the destruction of so many homes. What she saw were all the ponies in town gathered around her and glaring along with Double Diamond. “What? Why are all of you looking at me like that for? Also, why does everyone have their cutie marks back?”
“Better question, where was your cutie mark? It was never in the vault and you never pointed it out to anyone. You said every cutie mark was in that vault including your own, so where is it?” In answer to Double Diamond’s question and suspicions, Fluttershy splashed water on Starlight Glimmer’s flank and the makeup slowly washed away the fake equal mark revealing what the town hadn’t bothered to find out.
“She never took it off her flank and she’s been lying to you all along.” Fluttershy simply stated in a proud tone that she revealed Starlight Glimmer’s lie.
Starlight Glimmer tried to charge magic to her horn only for a bolt to strike it and she felt all the magic drain out of it in an instant, making her incapable of casting spells.
Princess Twilight, the purple pony princess of friendship with the dark blue hair and a magenta stripe, marched up to her glaring. This time Twilight had caught Starlight Glimmer unaware and she wasn’t going to get away as she was surrounded by every pony in town.
-
In the end things turned out for the better and Starlight Glimmer’s plan, whatever it was, it was no longer feasible. She was now stuck doing community service having to pick up trash with her bare hooves.
Starlight was busy dredging trash out of a river and was currently getting targeted by birds that were good friends with Fluttershy. Several birds flew over head and the orange jumpsuit wearing mare was suddenly covered in white splotches. It was all over her jumpsuit, in her mane and some of it had even gotten in her mouth.
“What is it with birds and using me as a statue?!” Starlight yelled angrily to the sky after spitting and spluttering out the fowl tasting stuff, her entire world and empire have crumbled before it could truly get started.
To add insult to injury, a chicken ran up to her laid an egg and then tossed it into her face. All of Fluttershy’s animal friends had Starlight Glimmer blacklisted by all of nature itself.
Really, Starlight should have never sent Double Diamond to the vault. What did she seriously expect to happen when she sent an Earth Pony alone to do the job of a Unicorn?
Author's Note
Seriously, how did Double Diamond not end up freeing the cutie marks? How does he even access the vault when Starlight basically had the keys to it?
Seriously if Starlight were smart she would not have left it to him to somehow miraculously defy logic.