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It was midnight in Starlight's village. The houses were quiet, the breeze soft, everyone was asleep soundly. everyone, of course, except Quill. He desperately flipped through pages, one book after another. The library was a mess, books all over the place, yet less than half were gone from their shelves. Sweat dripped from his forehead. Tears dripping from his bloodshot eyes, he struggled to stay awake. He had been at this for a long time. Days. Months. Maybe years. Since Starlight left, he had been trying to search for something, anything, that could help him. He struggled to lift the books with his magic. Not from fatigue, rather but from his cutie mark. A black, fading equals sign stamped his flank. It drained his magic, but he used all he had to read. He had to preserve his mark. He had to restore equality in the town. No, not the town. He needed to restore balance in all of Equestria. He badly wished Starlight could help, but she had changed. She pursued "friendship." But Quill knew that friendship was nothing. Equality was what mattered.

Suddenly, he stopped. His eyes flipped open and shut, struggling to keep open. Finally, he fell asleep. His head slumped over and hid the table with a loud bang, shaking the nearby shelf. A dozen books fell on his head, one landing in his hoof, yet he still dozed. He slept for hours, until finally, he awoke. "I'm sleeping on the job!" he realized, yet he remembered no pony came into the library because they all thought he, the librarian, was crazy. I'll show them who's crazy, he said. Then he saw the book in his hoof. The cover read, "Magical Sacrifices." He opened the book and started reading.

"If an item has been enchanted with magic in the past, a sacrifice of a horn can be made to re-enchant the item with the same spell, no magic needed," he read. "This is just what I need."

Quill walked into the cave. A stick lay on the ground, motionless. He looked at the axe resting on his hoof. He tried to strike but cringed before he could make impact. Was he really about to cut off his horn, all to avenge the cult? Should he give it up? Looking at his flank, almost blank from the fading mark, he knew what to do. He struck, screaming loudly as the pain rushed inside him. He still had not cut it off. He struck again, screaming louder than before, tears rushing from his eyes. Finally, his horn fell off and rolled next to the stick. He tried to conjure just a small spark- one that could combine the stick and his horn. He tried, struggling to summon magic with a broken horn and agonizing pain. A small flash of light connected his head to the two objects. A ball of dark magic enveloped the horn and stick. When it was gone, what was left was a large white staff with a black equals sign at the top. He had done it. Now it was time to equalize the entire village.

Suddenly, at Twilight's castle, her cutie mark flashed in her sleep.