Ayyy, Twilight! It's your friend, Starlight! Wanna go bowling?
It was a beautiful day outside.
The birds? They were singing, although they were getting tired at this point.
The flowers had wilted slightly under the summer sunshine,
And as for our friend Starlight Glimmer... At least she wasn't bored anymore.
Tends to happen when your friend accidentally summoned a demon from Tartarus because they used the wrong kind of olive oil.
Speaking of our lovely mulberry lady, she was strolling through Ponyville, along with her friend, Starlight Glimmer.
“So Twilight,” asked Starlight, breaking the awkward silence. “I haven’t gone bowling in a while. Are there any bowling alleys around? It’s been almost a decade since I was in ‘’normal’’ society, but it seems that nothing’s really changed.”
“Well, where else would we be going?” Twilight retorted.
“Good point,” Starlight conceded, continuing towards the bowling alley.
There were busy ponies buying and selling, hustling and bustling around the small town.
It reminded her of Our Town in a way, but with less guilt. Not stripping free will away from ponies probably helped. Or maybe it was her new mane style.
Probably that, yeah.
They finally arrived at the bowling alley, and Starlight noticed that they had somehow managed to transplant an entire hill on top of it. Whether it was a genius way to make the building distinct or a safety hazard was debatable.
Stepping inside, Starlight didn’t really know what to expect. There were various lanes in which ponies would throw balls that would then roll down a lane in order to attempt to knock over pins. The bowlers wore various garments (which Rarity could only describe as “gaudy as Tartarus, darling") of a wide spectrum of colours.
The unicorns in particular wore a strange metal ring around their horns.
Starlight was starting to regret suggesting this idea, but one look at Twilight’s somewhat relieved face told her to carry on, despite her anxiety telling her otherwise.
A hoof touched Starlight’s back. “Starlight, you look worried sick. I know that being in social situations isn’t… to your taste so to speak. But if you never socialize, you’ll end up as a shut-in with only a dragon for company while your tutor constantly attempts to get you more sociable but you don’t care because you want to learn Pyromus Maximus…”
Twilight paused for a moment. “On second thought, maybe Celestia was right about that spell.”
Starlight simply gave a smile in understanding. With that, the went to the counter, where they found another purple mare tending the counter, with flowing pigtails in a dark purple and turquoise way and a broken gem wrapped around her neck.
Twilight found the mare oddly familiar, but that was probably due to her coat.
“Welcome to the Bowling Bowl, where we’re the only bowling alley in Ponyville, so slogans are redundant.” the mare stated very flatly, clearly not paying attention to who the two were. “Would you like to rent a lane?”
“Lane for two please,” Twilight replied, as the mare trotted over the the back, which was filled with a taco, some official looking paperwork, another taco, a metal ring similar to the ones the unicorns were wearing when they came in and finally, yet another taco.
Grabbing two strange rings, she handed them over to the unicorn and alicorn pair, “All ponies with horns have to wear this power limiter while participating in bowling. It’s to prevent any sort of cheating by nudging the pins over with magic or whatever. Sorry,” the mare explained, while the two mages put the limiters on.
Now, these limiters were designed rather cheaply made in Chneigh, so they immediately shorted out when trying to contain the vast amount of power present in the two mages.
The mare sighed, “Faust dammit. As it seems your magic shorted out out our equipment, we’ll just say you broke it. Pay up.”
Twilight was understandably rather peeved about this. “Okay, first of all miss, your shoddy equipment breaking because they couldn’t handle our power? That’s your fault for getting foals in Neighpan to manufacture this trash rather than getting somepony competent to make it to prevent this sort of thing from happening. Second of all, as proven by your equipment shorting out, I think we can take you in a fight if we really wanted to.”
Starlight just stared at Twilight. Wasn’t she supposed to be the Princess of Friendship?
“Third of all, I don’t know if you noticed, but I’m the Princess of Friendship.” she stated while unfurling her wings, causing Starlight to jump a little from the sudden movement. “And what does the sign up above you say?”
“... Tacos, now 90% off?”
Twilight facehooved. “No, It says “Princesses Bowl Free.””
The mare widened her eyes in shock. She forgot that was even a thing!
Then again, this was the first time that rule had been put into use since she came here.
“And finally, Aria Blaze… I don’t know how you became a pony after coming back from the human world, but don’t think that just because you’re a pony now, doesn’t mean I won’t incite magical violence on you.” Twilight finished, with an evil smirk on her face.
Starlight, for her part, simply backed away from Twilight. An angry alicorn is an alicorn you don’t want to be near, after all.
Aria, her cover now blown, regained her composure and attempted to defuse the walking timebomb that is Twilight Sparkle before she ended up as a statue or something. “I suppose we can drop the charges for damaged equipment this time, Princess.” Aria said, ensuring to add emphasis on the end for effect.
Twilight didn’t notice, as she had now returned to her not angry and adorkable normality. “Thank you Aria. We’ll be bowling now. Tell Sonata and Adagio that I know where you are.” she happily stated, before trotting off to the nearest empty lane, Starlight following a few steps behind her.
Catching up to the alicorn, Starlight noticed her practicing holding a bowling ball… And failing. After a few moments of watching the Princess of Friendship make more dents in the alley’s floor, Starlight decided to interject.
“You know, we could just both use our magic instead.” Starlight offered, prompting a surprised gasp from Twilight.
“But the spirit of the game Starlight! Why should we break the rules of the game, especially after the famous incident involving Bob Bencolt and his manipulation of the pins during Ultrabowl 27!” Twilight exclaimed.
Starlight wanted to question Twilight’s intricate knowledge on sports, especially as she landed on the more bookish end of the spectrum, but decided against it. She had only recently learned of her O&O hobby, after all. Not to mention the fact that she didn’t even know who Twilight was when they first met, and Twilight and her friends were national heroes!
There Starlight was again, reminiscing over her past misdeeds. Would she ever let go of those horrid memories. She was a different pony now and had friends who cared for her regardless.
Starlight was snapped out of her thoughts by a loud THUD. Apparently Twilight had continued to attempt to grip a bowling ball in her forehooves.
Starlight smiled to herself. This was better than being a megalomaniac dictator of a hamlet full of brainwashed talentless hicks anyway.
Starlight grabbed Twilight’s ball in her, before stepping in front of the lane. Concentrating on the pins ahead of her, she squinted. Her breathing slowed, the ball seemed to freeze in the air.
Starlight threw the ball as hard as she could, the orb screaming down the lane at an unprecedented speed, before smashing into the pins, shattering many of the pins in a massacre of painted wood and splinters flew everywhere in a tremendous crash that practically shook the alley.
Predictably, this caused the entire alley to quieten down as every patron there (And Aria, after she ducked in order to avoid a chunk of wood wanting to make love to her face) just stared at the cause of the mangled mess of pins.
Starlight, for her part, took it very well. “Whoops.” She muttered to herself, as she prepared to gather the splinters of the pins to fix the mess she created, when an unknown orange hoof stopped her.
“Don’t worry about the pins. Usually Aria and Sonata shatter a set of pins by accident once a week anyway. I have to admit though, that’s the closest thing to a strike anypony has gotten in the last hour or so.” The orange mare said reassuringly., her large, poofy mane calmly bouncing as she spoke.
Twilight was surprised by this turn of events. “Adagio? I’m surprised you’re not trying to do anything like mind control Starlight with your broken pendant or something.” She said, somewhat nervously due to how she assumed Adagio’s intentions like that.
“Ah, Twilight!” Adagio greeted the purple princess warmly, “It’s been awhile since the Battle of the Bands, eh? You probably figured out that we abandoned our evil, hate feeding ways since our pendants got shattered. We’ve just been living normal pony lives, running this bowling alley. Sonata’s in the food court, take a wild guess what her speciality is.”
Twilight realized that she was expected to reply to the mellowed out former Siren, but was too shocked at the fact that their forms were equine. “Honestly Adagio, I’m more surprised that you and your sisters are now ponies. Weren’t you full on sirens before?”
Adagio put hoof under her chin in a pondering gesture, “Yeah, we were curious about that after we jumped into that horse statue thing, but we collectively decided that it’s best not to question it and gain a fresh start back in Equestria. After all, everyone who knew us is dead anyway… Aside from you, obviously.”
Twilight thought for a moment. One the one hoof, these were the Sirens, who had almost destroyed Twilight and her human world friends. On the other hoof, while Aria was the same deadpan mare she always was, Adagio seemed to have completely mellowed out in the intervening time. On the third hoof, did they have a license to operate this facility?
On the last hoof, she still had the kettle on at home. Faust damnit. She probably also left the summoning circle on, so she probably accidentally summoned some Tartarus spawn for below the depths to burn, pillage and mess up her book collection.
“Consider our meeting to be an unofficial pardon, Adagio,” Twilight replied, with a sparkle in her eyes. “After all, you seem to have reformed after our last meeting and between you and me, I have more than enough to deal with already and as you three aren’t doing anything obviously evil, I’ll let you carry on with this business.”
Adagio acknowledged the announcement with a nod, causing her large mane to bounce freely, before heading off to sort out the pin carnage that had befallen the bowling alley.
With that odd exchange over with, Starlight poked Twilight with her hoof. “Hey, Twilight?”
“Yes?”
“This whole situation with Adagio kinda reminds me of something.”
“Go on?”
“Why wasn’t I prosecuted for endangering the entire timeline? I mean, I’m glad I was given a second chance and all, but I expected some form of punishment.”
Twilight sighed. She knew she’d have to have this discussion someday. Just not in a bowling alley. At least everyone had returned to their lanes and continued like nothing happened, as is usual for Ponyvillians.
“First of all Starlight, I’m a Princess.I can abuse my power to veto any potential law anyway due to “Princess Reasons”. Sure, a few nobles may complain, but that’s mostly to that power mostly being used to deny them their “Rich get richer” schemes.”
“Huh. Surprised that you can get away with that.” Starlight replied , picking broken bowling pins out of her mane using her magic.
“Godhood gives you that sort of power, Starlight. It’s also how I managed to stop one of my friends from going to jail after trying to save her pet tortoise from hibernation.”
Starlight pondered for a moment. “Rainb-”
“Yep. Anyway, onto your case, I could have stopped you from receiving jail time, but two things stopped that. One, only you, me and Spike were there to experience you doing what you did to the timeline. Even if you wanted to confess, it’s my word against yours.”
“Wow. I mean, when you put it like that, I could easily be framed for something, with that sort of law system.” Starlight stated, having finished picking at her mane and now attempting to bowl less ferociously.
“I mean, that’s a case where I’m corrupt. Obviously I wouldn’t do that unless the situation called for it. Secondly… Well…”
“Well?” Starlight asked, throwing the ball with far less force than before and simply knocking down a good seven pins with one bowl.
“There was never a law against changing the past.”
Starlight froze in her tracks. “So, what I did was never technically evil?”
“In the eyes of the law, no. You were perfectly lawful in doing that. Mainly because there was no possible way to do so in the first place until you improved Starswirl’s spell.”
“Twilight. You do realize that having free reign to change the past is a horrible idea, right?”
“Well, after what you did, I’m inclined to agree. No offense.”
Starlight snorted.
“But I’ve now patched that very small hole in the legal system. So we have nothing to worry about that. I also took the time to fix the demon summoning law so that it could be legal with a licence.”
Starlight, having now bowled a spare, trotted up to Twilight and gave her a hug.
She then whispered, ”You have no idea what Tartarus you’ve brought upon Equestria with that law. May Faust have mercy on our souls.”
Twilight shrugged with some difficulty. “Eh. I could do with some target practice anyway.
Author's Note
Well, that happened. Honestly, I just wanted this off of my list before the year was out. I was kinda stuck for ideas and I was too far in to simply abandon the entire fic.
I'm not wring a sequel to this sequel though. Well, not right now anyway. Maybe in 2018 when I finally decide to write again.
