"Alright, this is it," Starlight Glimmer murmured to herself. Ahead of her was a simple wooden door with a frosted glass pane. Attached to the pane was a printed sheet of paper, which bore the message, Dictators Anonymous group meeting tonight.
Starlight really was not sure how beneficial this meeting was going to be. If it was up to her, she'd have stayed right at the castle, looking over some more theoretical works on friendship penned by the Princess of Friendship herself, Twilight Sparkle. It had been Twilight's idea to send her to these meetings, as a matter of fact. Starlight had protested, saying that after what she had done, she really did not want to remember her time spent as a tyrant ruling over her hometown. Twilight, however, had insisted.
"You can't start looking to the future unless you move on from your past, Starlight," she had told her. "And that's exactly what this group is about—helping you come to terms with your past and move on from it. It's only one night a week."
Well, Starlight hadn't exactly been in a position to negotiate. It had only been thanks to Twilight's mercy that she wasn't facing banishment from Equestria for almost destroying it by messing with space and time, after all. So she'd sighed and agreed to suck it up for one night a week.
"Here we go," she told herself, holding her breath. She raised a hoof and pushed the door open. Inside were a few folding chairs, arranged in a circle. On the far wall was a banner reading, One Day at a Time!
A middle-aged, yellow-furred pegasus mare was already seated in one of the chairs. She looked up at the sound of the door opening. "Well, good evening, my dear. Are you here for the group session?"
"Um, yes," Starlight replied, coughing. "My name's Starlight Glimmer. It's, uh, my first time coming here."
"Ah, wonderful," the mare smiled. "Don't worry, Starlight—we don't judge you for your past in here. We're here to help each other move on and start their lives anew! My name is Gold Dust. Now, you're a little early, so if you'd like to take a seat...?"
"Sure," Starlight replied, smiling in return. "Thanks." She used her magical aura to pull up a seat and plonked her rear end into it, humming tunelessly to herself as she stared at the clock. She wondered just what other kinds of tyrants would be joining her here tonight.
She didn't have to wonder for long. A couple of minutes after she took her seat, she heard steps coming down the hall. They came to a stop outside the door, and a moment later, the door was opened.
Starlight looked up, and was quite surprised to see a human of all creatures step inside. She'd read about humans, of course, but had never seen one in the flesh before. This particular human had black, slicked-looking hair, and a rather funny-looking moustache—it consisted of little more than a tuft on his upper lip, as if he had deliberately missed a spot shaving. He was clad in a smart-looking uniform, with a red and white armband on his left arm which bore a symbol Starlight could not recognise.
"Güten Abend, Frau Gold Dust," he said to the mare in question. "A pleasure to see you as always."
"Likewise, Adolf," Gold Dust smiled in return. "You're just in time to meet our newest member, as it happens."
The human turned to look at Starlight, who gave him a shy smile. "Hi," she said. "My name is Starlight Glimmer. And you are...?"
"Adolf Hitler," the human declared proudly, "Chancellor of the Greater German Reich." He caught himself. "Or... I was, in a past life. A pleasure to meet you, Fräulein Glimmer."
"Please, just Starlight will be fine," Starlight replied, offering him a hoof to shake. As she did so, she noticed that this Hitler guy was looking at her rather intently.
"Hmm..." he murmured. "Ja... you have beautiful eyes, Starlight. A most wonderful shade of blue. Do you perhaps have a touch of Aryan blood in you?"
Starlight wasn't sure what Aryan meant, but it sounded like a compliment. "Well..."
"Ah, ah, ah!" Gold interrupted, giving Hitler a stern look. "Adolf, we've talked about this, remember? No more talk of racial purity or social Darwinism. That was the old you."
"Agh!" Hitler put a hand to his forehead. "Of course, you are right, Frau Gold Dust. I try, und I relapse."
"It's okay," Gold assured him as he took a seat of his own. "That's why we're here, to help you move on from that part of your life."
"Yes, now if only someone could have taught him how to listen to his generals," a new voice said, followed by a peal of laughter. "That would have been a most useful lesson to learn!"
Starlight looked up again to see who this particular voice belonged to. The answer was another human, dressed in a military-looking outfit with a number of medals on his chest. This one looked rather older, his face more wrinkled and weathered. Like Hitler, he too sported a moustache, but this one was far more impressive. It looked as if he had glued a yard brush to his upper lip. Judging by how irritated Hitler looked at his presence, Starlight also guessed that the two were not on the best of terms with each other.
"I'm not having this argument with you again, Stalin," Hitler said through gritted teeth. "I swear to you, if I had time to build up just one successful counterattack, I would have wiped the floor with you, easily."
"Ha! Nice joke, my friend," Stalin replied with a smirk. "And hey, as long as we're telling jokes, I've got one for you—Stalingrad."
A pause followed, before Starlight tentatively spoke up. "Um, I don't get it."
"Neither did he!" Stalin roared with laughter once more, looking at Starlight while Hitler almost ground his teeth into powder. "I don't believe I've seen you here before, miss."
"You haven't," Starlight replied. "My name is Starlight Glimmer, and it's my first time here. Who are you?"
"Josef Vissarionovich Stalin," he replied with a smile and a slight bow. "General Secretary of the Soviet Union, and champion of the proletariat the world over. It's nice to meet you, comrade Starlight."
"Likewise," Starlight replied.
"Careful, Fräulein," Hitler snarked. "If you look at him the wrong way, he might just send you off to one of his gulags."
"And if you tell him that you need to retreat from a superior enemy, he'll insist that you march yourself to your death anyway," Stalin shot back.
"Oh, that's rich coming from you!"
"At least my tanks could handle a bit of mud and snow without curling up and dying!"
"Ahem."
All four heads looked up to see yet another human standing in the doorway. This one was much larger and wider, as well as having far darker skin. Like Hitler and Stalin, he too was decked out in military regalia. Starlight was starting to notice a pattern in that. She was slightly disappointed that this man had arrived, honestly. It had looked like the argument between Hitler and Stalin was about to get really good.
"Ah, hello, Idi!" Gold said brightly. "So glad to see you're feeling better."
"Oh yes, Miss Dust," the man replied, shooting her a wide smile with bright white teeth. "I've learned to pay attention to the expiration date on microwave burritos in the future." His head turned towards Starlight, and those teeth flashed once more. "Ah, a new face!"
"Yep," Starlight replied. "Starlight Glimmer. And you are...?"
"His Excellency, President for Life, Field Marshal Al Hadji Doctor Idi Amin Dada, VC, DSO, MC, Lord of All the Beasts of the Earth and Fishes of the Seas and Conqueror of the British Empire in Africa in General and Uganda in Particular," the man rattled off, still wearing that smile.
Starlight blinked, looking a little dazed. "Um..."
"This is Idi Amin," Hitler offered. "He's... a bit eccentric. You get used to it."
"I also call myself the last king of Scotland!" Amin offered. In response, Starlight shifted her chair slightly further back.
"Well," Gold said as Amin sat down, "now that we're all here, we can get started. Now, as I was saying to Starlight before you arrived, we are not here to pass judgement. You've done some terrible things in the past, yes, but that is all in the past. This is the present, and the present is about helping each other get clean, one day at a time!"
Starlight joined the group in a brief round of applause.
"Now, Starlight," Gold continued. "Since you're our newest face, perhaps you'd like to take the stage and tell us about yourself?"
"Uh, sure, okay," Starlight replied. Swallowing, she got to her hooves and stood before them.
"Well," she began, "my name is Starlight Glimmer."
"Hi, Starlight," the group intoned.
"I was a dictator up until very recently," Starlight continued. "A few weeks ago, I was cornered by Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, after I tried to destroy her and her friends. Fortunately, she showed mercy and took me in as her student. It was her idea for me to come here."
She paused to take a breath, before continuing. "Before that, I didn't rule a country, but I did have control over a small village called Our Town. I convinced everypony there to give up their cutie marks..." She wiggled her flank to emphasise hers. "...and live in a society of equals. Nopony would be better or worse at anything than anypony else, and everypony would be on the same playing field for everything."
Hitler snorted and rolled his eyes at that, while Stalin nodded approvingly.
"I'm not proud to say that I was a pretty ruthless leader," Starlight continued, biting her lip. "One of my mandates was that everypony was to smile and be happy at all times. If anypony spoke out or stopped being happy, they were sent to a room for... well, re-education. None of them were the same when they came back out. They were all begging to be forgiven, saying they would never doubt me again."
She paused, closing her eyes. "I ruled the town with an iron hoof, right up until Princess Twilight and her friends came and stopped me. I won't bore you with the details, but I was overthrown and forced to flee. From there, I spent a long time plotting my revenge. My plan was to use time travel to stop Twilight and her friends ever meeting each other."
"Time travel?" Amin repeated. "Sweet!"
"Yeah," Starlight nodded. "It, um... it didn't work out. That was when Twilight offered to help me turn my life around. And, well, here I am."
"Impressive," Hitler mused. "Never even in my darkest hour would I have considered time travel as a means of setting things right. Tell me, Fräulein, what convinced you to seize power like that in the first place?"
Starlight paled. "Um, p-pardon?"
"I mean, was it to secure a brighter future for you and your townsponies?" he continued.
"To usher in a classless society?" Stalin added.
"To weed out corruption and slavery bred by colonialism?" Amin added.
"Ah... n-no, it was none of those." Starlight blushed. "My, um, my friend got his cutie mark before I did and had to leave. That was... when I decided that cutie marks were evil."
Silence fell like an executioner's axe... before everyone in the room burst into peals of laughter.
"Are you kidding me?" Stalin gasped. "I thought Adolf over there throwing a tantrum over being rejected from art school was pathetic, but you... oh, my God!"
Starlight glowered and gritted her teeth. These were definitely going to be some long, long sessions...
END
Author's Note
No, I don't know what I was thinking, either.
