Bonus Chapter: That awkward moment...
Author's Note
This chapter isn't entirely necessary to read to get the full experience of the story, but I thought it'd be kind of fun to write.
As for when this chapter takes place, it's a thing that happened during Starlight's Genocide playthrough when she was right about to fight Mettaton Neo.
Bonus Chapter: That awkward moment...
A few hours had passed since Starlight had attempted the Genocide route. The entire time she was playing she kept saying to herself what Twilight had told her. It’s all just a game. It’s not real. She’s not REALLY killing all of her friends in cold blood with her only motivation being to see what happens. Nope. That wasn’t happening at all.
…
If she was completely honest with herself though, she felt like a scumbag for doing this playthrough.
Twilight was surprisingly still awake to watch Starlight play and let out a slight yawn as she leaned back in her chair. “Yeesh, you really did a number on Undyne back in Waterfall didn’t you?” Twilight asked her.
Starlight stopped playing for a moment to turn around and give Twilight a deadpanned expression. “You’re not helping Twilight. I feel unclean enough as it is. And it took a lot longer than I wanted it to. I thought you said this was supposed to be easier.”
Twilight snickered a little. She’d learned not to take the game as terribly serious (Again, just a game right?) as a beginner would, but she could definitely get where Starlight was coming from. Undertale seems to have this effect on ponies. “I did. And it is. If there wasn’t a challenge in there now and again though, it’d get boring.”
Starlight sighed and returned to her game. “You’re probably right. I just feel kind of terrible for killing all these monsters and at this point I’m so strong there’s pretty much nothing they can do.” Starlight said as her character made its way through the brightly lit Hotland core. After she made it through the core she’d be on her way to Asgore’s castle, where who knows what would await her and no doubt try to kill her.
Twilight watched Starlight make it to the door that would lead to the battle (if anypony could really call it that) against Mettaton Neo, when she felt the insides of her mouth and smacked her lips a bit. In the time she’d taken to watch Starlight play, she hadn’t drank anything and was now feeling thirsty. “Hm. I’ve already seen how this turns out so I’m just going to go get a drink really quick.” Twilight said as she stood up out of her chair and trotted out of the room, leaving just Starlight and the computer.
Starlight moved her character to the glowing yellow save point and saved her game before stopping to recollect on her actions and where she currently was. She was only a few steps away from having to battle Mettaton. This in particular she was not looking forward to doing in the slightest. All of the others she’d killed made her feel incredibly terrible, there’s no doubt at all about that. But Mettaton…
Well, Mettaton just had a special place with her. It gave her the worst feeling she’d had yet in this playthrough knowing that to continue she’d have to slay him to continue. It didn’t sit well with her. When she’d battled him in the Pacifist route she’d done a while back, she’d almost instantly felt something when she laid eyes upon that devilishly handsome robot. The memory of all the poses he’d been doing through the fight made a slight blush come to her cheeks and made her sweat a little.
But she couldn’t turn back in the game when she was this far. Not now. And especially not while Twilight watched her every move. She’d need to give herself some form of relief before she continued. It was all she’d be able to do if she was going to summon the will to go on.
Starlight minimized the game and pulled up the web browser. She went to the search engine and looked up images of Mettaton EX’s sprite. She pulled up the first one she found which demonstrated Mettaton in his signature, open armed pose that he made when his new body first showed up. The sight brought memories of the pacifist run back. The sinking feeling her gut grew and so did the blush on her face.
“Nnn. Oh my darling robot, please forgive me for what I’m about to do to you. I’m so sorry.” She whimpered a little, hugging the computer monitor as tight as she could without breaking it, and giving the image on the screen a couple of kisses for good measure.
She’d thought she’d get this over with before Twilight came back in the room.
She was wrong.
Twilight was now standing in the doorway with soda in her magic, and a slightly disturbed look on her face as she tried to process what exactly it was that she was looking at. Starlight’s eyes shot open and widened a bit when she saw the unicorn standing there and staring at her. The feeling of guilt she’d had for hours had now been replaced with embarrassment at over what her friend just watched her do, and she backed away from the computer screen, awkwardly staring back at Twilight. “…Weren’t you ever taught to knock first?” Starlight asked with a nervous expression.
“…Do you want me to leave you alone with the sprite or…?” Twilight asked with a raised eyebrow.
In which Twilight is a huge troll
Starlight Glimmer gets dunked on
“Okay, here we go.” Starlight quietly said to herself as she put her headphones on. The glow of the computer she was sitting at was the only light that her room in the Castle of Friendship contained as she started it up. It was the middle of the night in Ponyville right now. Luna’s moon high in the sky and the sound of crickets lulling ponies into a peaceful slumber for the night to come.
Not Starlight Glimmer though. Instead she sat at her computer intending to be playing a game the entire night through as opposed to sleeping. It was all she really felt like doing right now. For at this point in her life, sleep was nearly impossible. Ever since the events of a month ago, the memories of that barren, grey wasteland that was indirectly caused by her meddling with the timestream had not once left her mind even for a second.
Her new friends had forgiven her just fine, sure. But forgiving herself was a different story entirely.
She quickly shook her head trying to get these thoughts out of her mind. “Just don’t think about it Glimmer. Just try to have fun and calm down.” She said to herself. She turned her attention back to the screen, where the game she’d just bought was starting up. On the screen was the image of a bipedal creature standing up and holding a spear, and next to it was some sort of anthropomorphic goat. Text crawled below the screen as she watched.
Long ago, two races ruled over Earth: Humans, and Monsters.
The image changed to two armies facing each other down in what looked like a violent demeanor.
One day, war broke out between the two races.
The image then changed a third time to the human army standing victoriously over the monster army as the monsters all looked back up at them. The sight of the whole ordeal started to give Starlight chills. Whether they were the good or bad kind, she was unable to tell.
After a long battle, the humans were victorious. They sealed the monsters underground with a magical spell.
Starlight awaited the next image change, but her attention was torn away from the screen by the feeling of a hoof on her shoulder and a familiar voice accompanying it. “Starlight? What are you doing up this late?” it asked.
Starlight turned around to see none other than Twilight Sparkle; formerly her bitter rival but now a good friend of hers. Since the events of last month, Twilight let Starlight stay in her castle in Ponyville seeing as she had nowhere else to go. She really appreciated Twilight’s help, but she really felt like she didn’t deserve it. Like she hadn’t felt like she earned her friendship. She felt Twilight should’ve punished her to some degree and not treated like a friend. Twilight just seemed to be very strangely friendly and open.
She didn’t understand it.
“Um…what’re YOU doing up this late?” she asked Twilight back.
Twilight’s face deadpanned a little bit. “You know I do a lot of my reading at night. I tell you, I’d get so much more done if I didn’t have to sleep.” She said. “But, this isn’t about me. Why are you awake?” Twilight asked again.
Starlight was fumbling to come up with some excuse to get herself out of this, but came up short. She only sighed a little in defeat. “I can’t sleep…I can’t stop thinking about everything I did…so I’m just trying to waste some time and keep my mind off it by playing a game.” She said, pointing to the screen.
Twilight looked past her friend and at the computer screen and saw just what it was she was playing. It was something she herself had played a little while ago, and quite frankly, given the game’s nature, she was not prepared for it in the slightest.
UNDERTALE
‘Oh boy. She’s playing THAT game huh.’ She thought to herself.
“I’ve already beaten the game before, but I’m just kind of looking back through to see if I missed anything. I want to get the full experience out of it, you know?” Starlight asked.
Twilight thought to herself for a moment as she took in what Starlight was saying, when a slightly devious thought came to her. Rainbow did this exact thing to her when she played this game, going in completely blind to what was going to happen. Kill everything in the game she said, it’ll be the most fun you’ll ever have, she said.
Although she’d gotten pretty mad at Rainbow for luring her into a trap like that, she got over it pretty quick. But Twilight thought about that specific situation for a reason here. If Starlight wanted to get the most out of the game, then she’d give it to her.
“You know…there’s more than one way to play this.” She said, smiling a little. “I know that after you beat the first route you probably wouldn’t think of doing this, but…killing everything in the game is a lot more fun”
That caught Starlight completely off guard. “Wait, really? I’ve…been curious over what would happen if I did that but…given what I’ve seen in this already…I don’t know if I want to.” She said.
“Oh no no no, trust me it’ll be fine. It’s not like the characters are actual sentient beings or anything, they’re pixels. It’s also a LOT easier than the pacifist route.” Twilight said, trying to rationalize the scenario. Though Twilight herself cried a lot when playing this game just in the peaceful route and the final boss to this route gave her probably the absolute worst experience of her entire life. Tirek, Discord, Nightmare Moon, Chrysalis, and even Starlight herself were all mere peons compared to the true hell that awaited Starlight at the end.
“Well….you’re my friend so…I guess I can trust you on this.” Starlight said looking back at the screen. She moved over the “Reset” button on the main menu and booting a new save file up
A few hours later
“Twilight Sparkle, I am never trusting you ever again.” Starlight said, bags under her eyes and a couple of tear stains on her cheeks. She was obviously very tired already and emotionally drained from what she had witnessed in the game since she started the “Genocide Route” as Twilight called it. She was expecting a lot of bad things to come out of it, but certainly not THIS bad.
It all started when she killed all the monsters in the Ruins and no more started to show up when battles started. The slow and chilling music really didn’t help the atmosphere of the entire thing. While that did raise a few red flags, that’s not what did it for her. Killing Toriel is where she realized that this entire playthrough was a mistake. But she continued on, not wanting to look weak in front of her new friend over a game.
She didn’t know how well she was doing with that, but still. She refused to let this game break her.
Twilight only snickered a little and relished in the fact she’d successfully pulled this off. “What? It’s just pixels remember? It’s not THAT bad.”
“Papyrus still believed in me even as I murdered him…I killed the love of Alphys’ life…and I feel like the scum of the Earth for killing Toriel. This route of the game does NOT fill me with determination. I had to kill TEMMIES for Celestia’s sake.” She said, moving her character sprite into the “Judgement Hall” to approach Asgore’s throne room. “Why the heck would ANYPONY play this route?!”
Twilight only shrugged. “Morbid curiosity? You wanted to experience the game in full so I’m just letting you do that.”
Starlight let out a deep, aggravated breath. “I know I know but…uuugh I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” She groaned. “Well…after I get done with this, I’m gonna do another True Pacifist run. I don’t like this at all.”
Twilight patted Starlight’s back to help her calm down. She’d really need it for what was coming next. “Well relax Starlight, you’re almost done. You’ve only got one thing standing in between you and completion…” Twilight said, her smile growing wider.
Starlight hesitantly nodded and moved her character across the screen and past the pillars in the foreground. More than anything right now, she just wanted to get through this run and never ever do it again. As she moved her character though, she started to remember something that happened earlier in the game. Papyrus’ brother, Sans, had said that if she kept doing what she was doing, then she was gonna have a bad time. While Starlight was indeed having a “bad time” she really couldn’t shake the feeling that the worst was yet to come.
Her fears had unfortunately been realized when her character abruptly stopped and the camera panned across the screen over to the shadow of Sans staring directly at her. Sans’ dialogue then began to scroll in his traditional font of Comic Sans…
Starlight only just now got the joke and would’ve facehoofed if the circumstances weren’t so bad.
“heya. you’ve been busy, huh?” Sans’ dialogue box said very ominously. The fact that Sans was still giving that unsettling and uninviting smile despite the fact that she has killed all his friends made Starlight even more uneasy.
“…so, i’ve got a question for ya. do you think the worst person can change…? that everybody can be a good person, if they just try?” Sans continued. Against Starlight’s control, her character moved forward, not giving her the option to respond. What Sans was saying here really hit close to home for her given what she’d done and has been doing lately and it made her all the more uncomfortable.
“heh heh heh heh heh….all right. well, here’s a better question.” The sprite of Sans’ head in the dialogue box suddenly got all the creepier as his eyesockets turned completely black. “do you wanna have a bad time? ‘cause if you take another step forward…you are REALLY not going to like what happens next.” Again, against Starlight’s control, her character moved forward.
“welp. sorry old lady. this is why I never make promises.” Sans said, followed by the battle screen starting up. This was it. Starlight was prepared to just hurry up and get closure on this route before things got any worse. Though Starlight was pretty mad at Twilight for tricking her into this route in the game, and even madder at herself for taking this advice, she did admit one thing. This wasn’t really all that difficult, just like Twilight said it would be.
Twilight sure was a smart one for baiting Starlight into this.
The sprite of Sans on the battle screen began to speak again, with a calm and serene about him, and the sounds of birds could be heard. “it’s a beautiful day outside. birds are singing, flowers are blooming…on days like these, kids like you…” Sans’ eyesockets went completely black again and the sounds of birds stopped altogether, leaving Starlight in dead silence. “Should be burning in hell…”
Without any warning, Starlight’s soul in the game was turned blue, indicating that gravity was affecting it, and it was pushed down. Bones then sprung forth and before Starlight could even say “Oh crap”, her soul had already lost a majority of its health. Panicking, Starlight made her soul bounce upward, falsely assuming she would be safe. He was wrong, as her soul turned back to red and was forced to the right and to navigate a safe path through bones “AGH, FUCK WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!” she yelled in shock/ Again, Starlight in her panic couldn’t think clearly and it cost her more HP. After she cleared the maze, she was met with four demonic looking skulls firing lasers at her and eventually killing her, resulting in a game over screen.
Starlight was at a complete loss for words. “…What in the actual fuck?”
“PFFFFFHAHAHAHA” Twlight fell off of her chair laughing loudly at Starlight’s unfortunate demise. “O-OH MY GOSH THE HOURS OF STAYING UP WAS WORTH IT!~” she laughed.
Starlight looked down at Twilight with an angrier than usual look on her face. “You knew that was coming the whole time?!?!”
“Of course I did!~” Twilight laughed. “You DID kind of kill Sans’ brother, you can’t expect him to go easy on you.”
At that, Starlight’s mind that had been previously filled with rage and anger at Twilight was replaced with pure fear at what that implied. Her face fell into a shocked frown and her eyes widened. “…You mean…I actually have to fight him?...that’s not just a fake out boss or anything?”
“Nnnnope…have fun~”
A few MORE hours later.
Starlight had officially had it. Sans had killed her a total of 147 times in a row, and ever since she started this, even with his attack patterns burned into her subconscious, it wasn’t looking like she was getting much closer to beating him. Her breathing was getting shallow now and she wanted more than anything for this orchestra of sensory fuckness and bones to just END. She may have had the option to quit and give up on the game entirely, but she could NOT accept that. Not when Twilight was watching.
“Do you need another energy drink Starlight?” Twilight asked.
“Considering that I’m running on only sheer determination and caffeine right now, yes.” Starlight said grumbled, her eye twitching a little from rage and sleep deprivation. Twilight nodded and exited the room. She came back a moment later with the most caffeine infused energy drink she had in the castle and gave it to her. “Thanks.” Starlight said quickly, opening the energy drink and chugging it down as fast as she could before tossing it into a nearby wastebasket…
That was already overflowing with cans of the same brand.
“You know you could just stop now and call it a night Starlight.” Twilight said to her.
“NO! I WILL NOT BE UNDONE, NOT NOW!” Starlight yelled. She’d been going at this for so long and had been killed so many times that Sans had become the only character in the game she actually wanted to die. That smug smile on his face, combined with the fact through the entire fight she was unable to land a single hit on him was driving her close to insanity. But she refused to stop. She was Starlight Glimmer, the unicorn that could go hoof-to-hoof with Princess Twilight and was able to travel through time and change the course of history. She would NOT be beaten by a lazy, hoodie wearing comedian like this. “FIGHT ON EVEN PLAYING FIELD YOU NIHLISTIC ASSHOLE!” Starlight yelled angrily at the screen.
She thought she’d finally reached enlightenment when all of a sudden, Sans stopped attacking. He was saying something about how he could “see a good person inside of her” or whatever. She’d already stopped caring about the dialogue at around death #27. When he was done talking though, four glorious words appear in the box at the bottom of the screen.
*Sans is sparing you.
Starlight tried to work through her anger and think about what this meant for her right now. On one hoof, from what she knew of the game, sparing someone ended the battle immediately. She knew this would mean the end of the Genocide route and make everything she went through before utterly meaningless. At this point though, she didn’t care. She just wanted it all to stop where she could finally go to bed and be done with Sans forever.
“You know what?...I’m done with this Genocide crap. I’m a good pony, I’m sparing him.” She said as she clicked “Spare”
Starlight was still looking at the screen so she didn’t see the smile on Twilight’s face get even bigger.
Sans then began to speak again. “…you’re sparing me? finally. buddy. pal. i know how hard it must be to make that choice. to go back on everything you’ve worked up to. i want to let you know…i won’t let it go to waste.” San’s then opened his arms as if he was going to offer a hug. “…c’mere. pal”
Starlight let her guard down and sighed in sweet relief. “Oh thank Celestia it’s finally ov-“ she only got a moment of this though before a huge wall of bones covered the entire box her soul was trapped in, making taking damage completely unavoidable. “AGH NO WHAT THE FUCK?!” Starlight yelled, pointlessly trying to move her soul around in a desperate but futile attempt to escape. Eventually her soul ran out of HP and shattered. This brought her to the game over screen, only the music was entirely different than before and entirely cheerful and upbeat. To add insult to injury, three of the most insulting words Starlight had ever laid eyes upon scrolled across the screen.
“geeettttttt dunked on!!!”
Starlight’s jaw hung open at that. She was at a complete loss for words over what just happened. She’d spent hours on this one boss, having killed everything before now and going through hell to get where she was, only for none of it to matter in the long run. “…I-I…tried to be the g-good pony in this playthrough for once…a-and…I got…d-dunked on?!”
Twilight meanwhile was now howling with laughter at seeing Sans utterly destroy Starlight at the end of the battle and was now on the floor. “OH MY CELESTIA I WAS HOPING YOU’D DO THAT! HAHAHAAHA!” Twilight laughed, holding her stomach, trying and failing to retain her laughter. “I-I’m sorry I shouldn’t be laughing. B-But….I-I can’t help it! A-At least you got to hear that great music for so long right?!”
Starlight did not acknowledge Twilight’s comment whatsoever, and her face hadn’t changed in the slightest since the game over screen popped up. She just sat there and stared at the computer in disbelief and denial, taking in everything that happened, hoping that she was just having a bad dream and that none of this was real.
Twilight, seeing now that Starlight hadn’t said anything at all, was starting to actually get a little concerned over this. She stood up and trotted over to her, lightly tapping her shoulder. “…Starlight?”
Twilight trotted into the computer shop the next morning with an unamused and deadpanned look on her face, also carrying a large bucket in her magic. The cashier, a dorky looking purple Pegasus stallion with glasses, took one look at the princess of friendship and immediately stood up. “Y-Your highness, what can I do for you?” he asked nervously.
Twilight put the bucket on the counter and lightly tipped it forward, showing that inside was a thick, hot, grey liquid inside of it. “Yes…the warranty on this computer hasn’t expired yet has it?...it umm…overheated…” she said, smiling a little sheepishly.
The cashier took one look inside the bucket and raised an eyebrow at her, as if to say “How the fuck did this happen?”
Twilight said nothing for a moment before letting out a defeated sigh. “…My roommate got dunked on by a skeleton in a video game…she didn’t take it well.”
The cashier knew immediately what Twilight was talking about and nodded. “Oooooh…”
Author's Note
Twilight's been taking some lessons on trolling from Celestia it seems. It may have resulted in the loss of her computer but it was worth it.
