Starlight...I am your father...
Twilight and Spike stood on one of the many take-off lanes in Cloudsdale, both of their hearts hammering after falling through a time portal and Spike almost falling to his death, in a way, had Twilight not saved him. The two had just found out that they had traveled back in time, and while Spike was believing it without any difficulties, Twilight was having troubles comprehending the new information. "Spike, only Star Swirl the Bearded could do something like that, and even his spell just went back a week!" Twilight cried, watching her assistant walk away from her to grab a rolled-up piece of paper Starlight had used to bring herself and them there. "how could Starlight do more than the greatest wizard in Equestria?"
"With this, maybe?" Spike mumbled, looking at the paper. It was probably a good thing he grabbed it in time, otherwise they might've been completely lost. "Oh, wait. Nevermind." Spike continued, "it's just her to-do list for today." He rolled the paper back up and tossed it off the side of the cloud. "No real use for us." He walked over to Twilight's side to try and comfort her.
The alicorn was in a state of deep thought, trying to come up with a way so this would all make sense to her. One idea kept popping into her mind, no matter how many times she tried to deny it, because it simply wasn't possible. But her mind had other ideas, giving her explanations to the questions that followed the preposterous idea. "Or..." Twilight began, "she could be Starswirls daughter!"
Spike jumped at hearing this, looking up at Twilight's face to see if she was kidding. "What?!" He exclaimed when he saw she wasn't. "Twilight, have you been taking crazy pills again?"
She looked down at her trusty assistant. "Why would you say that, Spike?"
He looked away from her, unsure if he should tell her that her suggestion was insane or not. "No reason..." He mumbled, making a safe bet by choosing the later.
"It makes perfect sense!" Twilight said to no one in particular, pacing around in small circles.
"Twilight..?" Spike poked her, trying to get her attention.
Twilight continued on, ignoring the dragon. "She looks young because she time-traveled to the future using a tweaked version of her fathers spell."
"Twilight..."
"And...she decided to lead a village of communism because it would be a lot easier than getting the hang of future things!" Her wings poofed up out of excitement.
"Twilight..."
She stopped pacing and looked towards the cloud Fluttershy was now on, where Rainbow was now snarling at the bullies, trying to be as fierce as possible. "We could possibly be in the past with a daughter of one of the greatest ponies there ever was!"
"TWILIGHT!!" Spike yelled, having finally run out of patience. As soon as her got her attention, along with everypony else's, he pointed to a nearby cloud. "I saw her horn poking out of that cloud. Maybe you can just go and confront her there."
"That's a great idea, Spike!" Twilight cheered, already about to take flight. "Get on my back, I think you can help me with this." Without objection, the dragon happily hopped onto her back; as soon as she felt his weight and his claws grab a hold of her mane, she flew as fast as she could to the cloud where Starlight had been hiding.
As soon as the duo took off, everypony went back to doing their own thing, including Rainbow and the bullies, who were ready to start a race.
"Starlight! We know your in there!" Twilight called as soon as she landed on Starlight's cloud. A magical, red-purple bubble surrounded Spike and the princess, for they didn't know what spell Starlight might pull on them, givin the chance. "You might as well come out now and save yourself the trouble of somepony seeing us!" Now standing next to her and help in her glow, Spike face-palmed himself.
"Oh, really?" Starlight's voice echoed around them, swimming in and out of the protective bubble. "Because I think that would be..." she slowly started to rise from the puffy cloud, her magical aura having a good hold on herself so she wouldn't crash through said cloud. "Thrilling!" She finished.
Twilight disposed of her protective bubble, quickly using a freeze spell on Starlight. No matter how hard the unicorn tried, she couldn't use a counter-acting spell on the one that had her frozen. She did realize, however, that she could still breath, and move her eyes. "What...what is this?!" She demanded, happy that she could still talk as well.
"A freeze spell." Twilight said simply. She turned her attention to Spike and gave him a cloud-walking spell, so she could focus her magic on the nasty trouble maker that was trying desperately to move anything but her eyes or mouth.
"Release me at once!" Starlight demanded again, "I need to ruin your entire life! Just like Sunburst ruined mine!" She clamped her mouth shut as soon as those words escaped her, embarrassed that Twilight probably now knew the reason why she's been trying to cause havoc wherever she went.
"Who's Sunburst?" Twilight asked, "I just want to know who your father is." Next to her, Spike groaned.
"What?" Starlight's pupils dilated.
"Who. Is." Twilight said, speaking slowly so Starlight could hear her clearly. "Your. Father?"
"Uh..." Star's eyes shifted nervously, looking from the sun above them to the cloud below, and even far downwards, to where a bunch of woodland critters were around a tiny, yellow blob. Darn it!, Starlight thought, "Princess Jerkface" is keeping me from messing with time!" She looked at Twilight, who was waiting patently for her answer. "I dunno." Star said after a few seconds. "Now, can you let me go?"
Twilight raised her head in a great attempt to look serious. "No."
"No?!" Star shrieked, "What do you mean no?! I demand you to let go of me this instant!"
"Not until I get my answer." Twilight told her. "I'm not leaving until I get it and neither are you." She then used a great deal of her magic, straining with the effort, to take away the enemy's horn. She was sweating and close to passing out by the time the horn was gone. "Now talk." She said between huffs.
"MY HORN!" Star cried. "WHAT IN EQUESTRIA DID YOU DO TO MY HORN?!"
"Yeah, Twilight, how'd you do that?" Spike asked, suddenly interested and slightly afraid of finding out the full potential of Twilight's alicorn magic.
"Discord taught me." Twilight explained, never taking her eyes off of Star. "I'll give it back to her...after she tells me who her father is!"
"WHY do you want to know so badly?!" Starlight screamed, "WHY IN THE NAME OF CELESTIA IS IT SO GOSH DARN IMPORTANT TO YOU?!" Again, she tried to struggle against the freeze spell, but it was a pointless effort.
"Spike, get on my back." Twilight instructed for the second time that day. Spike climbed on, giving Twilight the signal it was okay to hover. As she did so, she whisked the cloud away with her wings, so there was nothing under neath them; except for the forest floor, but that had a couple hundred miles of free-falling in between.
"Are you insane?!" Starlight yelled, starting to get freaked out by the alicorn's power.
"No." Twilight said, "I'm just curious. Now, I'm going to ask you one more time. Who is your father?"
Starlight's eyes narrowed, a couple thousand thoughts of pure hatred and sarcastic remarks swirling around in her head. "I already told you, you twit!" She hissed, going with the safest remark there was. "I. Don't know!"
"Yes, you do." Twilight smiled. "I saw your reaction the first time I asked. You were nervous; your eyes were shifting, like you were scared I was about to find out your little secret. The second time I asked you, you were starting to get annoyed, which meant you wanted me to get off your case. So I took away some of the things that matter to you; life," she gestured towards the now empty space where the cloud had been not even two minutes ago, "and magic." She pointed towards her own horn to give an exapmle that wasn't really needed. "I know I sked you three times already, but, since I'm nice, I'm going to give you yet another chance and ask you one more time. I'm serious this time, Starlight. No more chances. I'll also rephase the question for you, so the only answer options you have is 'yes' or no'. None of this 'I don't know' buissness. Is your father Starswirl the Bearded?"
Starlight had to wait a few seconds before Twilight's statment and question finally sunk in. Even after that, she started to laugh like she'd just heard the funniest thing in the world. "And here, I thought I was crazy! After losng my village and my horrible,childhood past. But, apparently, I was wrong!" As she spoke, Twilight and Spike exchanged a mischiveious look. "Twilight Sparkle, you are insane!" She continued to laugh her head off, her laughter slowly decreasing as soon as she noticed Spike wasn't laughing along.
Twilight gave Starlight a stony look, for the breifest of seconds, before changing to a cheery smile. "You gave me all I needed to know." She grinned.
"What?" Starlight asked, freaking out. "What are you talking about? No, I didn't! My dad told e not to tell anypo-" She stopped herself yet again, but a moment to late.
"Truth spell?" Twilight asked Spike, who was semi-interseted in the confersation ever since Starlight's horn had been taken away.
Spike nodded. "Truth spell."
A blast of magic hitStarlight straight in the chest, giving her a discomforting feeling in her heart. She was scared to open her mouth, as the words 'truth spell' didn't give her any comfort in her mind or tounge as well.
"Last chance, Star..."
"You said that, like, two chances ago." Spike interupted. Twilight shot him a look before continuing.
"Is Starswirl your father?" She asked for the second time that day.
No matter how hard Starlight tried to keep her mouth clamped shut, it proved almost impossible. It seemed like it had a mind of it's own as it opened and the truth came out. "Yes, he is my father. I loved him and cherished him and always wanted to be by his side. When he passed on, he left me his time-travel spell. I was so mad that Death had taken his life that I took a pen ad messed up the spell itself; out of spite, I tried it and I got sent forwards to this time period. I was scared and frightened and didn't want to use the stupid spell again, so I tossed it into a trunk and started a little village, stopping anypony who was passing by and brainwashing them to join my village, to think that it was their idea all along."
Twilight shot a reversal spell at the exhausted pony so her mouth would finally stop moving. Spike's jaw had dropped, atonished at all the new information he ad just gained. Just wait until he told Rarity! She would think he was the smarest dragon there ever was!
"There's the answer I wanted!" Twilight beamed, "and I know it's true because I made you be honest to the both of us!" She remved her self-satisfactory grin and replaced it with an uneasy smile. "Thanks for your time," she whispered, "and have a good death."
"Death?" Starlight asked, becoming even more scared of Twilight by the second. "Death?! Don't you mean 'Life' or 'Day'?!?
"Nope." Twilight grinned wickedly, levitating Spike over to where they were on the take-off road before. As soon as she was done with getting her day-deaming dragon out of the scene, she released her magicl hold on Starlight. Before the newly-formed earth pony knew it, she was free-falling, gaining speed as the hard ground became closer and closer. The last thing Starlight heard was the Sonic Rainboom, echoing in the distance.
"Hey, where did Starlight go?" Spike asked, drifting out of his daydream just as Twilight landed next to him on the Cloudsdale-road and as filly-Dashie completed her beautiful rainbow over Cloudsdale. "Did you take her back to the past?" He asked her, climbing onto her back for the third time that day.
Twilight smirked, igniting her horn. "Something like that." She said, "I'd rather avoid the subject, though."
"What didn you do..?" Spike moaned, bracing himself for whatever she said next. Just then, a time-portal appered out of the sky and sucked Twilight and Spike into it. The two came crashng down upon the holographic map in Twilight's castle, with nothing seeming to have changed since they were there last.
When Spike gave her a curious look, Twilight told him that she got the spell out of Stalight's mind while she was under the truth spell, something that, while can be pretty much impossible, is beyond easy while one is under the mind-numbing truth spell. Spike was about to ask her what she did to Starlight again, but changed his mind when Pinkie Pie burst through the doors with a beautifully frosted cake, the other four trailing behind.
"This is to celebrate your amazing speech at Canterlot University!" Pinkie cheered, instantly getting confused looks from the five that were there.
"Pinkie, y'all weren't even there when she was sayin the speech." Applejack informed.
"Or was I..?" Pinkie asked. "You never know..." The six shared a laugh, only one trying to brush away the horrible memory of what happened to Starlight.
But, hey. It had to be done.
