Perception

"Don't look at me!" Starlight exclaimed quickly, her sense of bravado disappearing fast. "They're the problem; not me!"

Rushing to look back, Starlight saw the six staring back at her with their dry eyes. She could detect that glint from Twilight's eye radiating into her soul. She felt that she was checkmated.

"How...how could you?" Double Diamond said, stammering. "You said special talents brought pain...and suffering!"

Time seemed to slow as a long bout of silence ensued. Starlight's face was strained, yet she displayed no decipherable feelings whatsoever, as she tried to fight her own emotions.

After a standoff with herself, she had no choice but to give in to her emotions. Apparent to all, uncontrollable hot tears flowed down her face in dribbles against Starlight's wishes. She knew that the town was her true home, a place of serenity and validity to her ideals. She had ponies that she could call "friends" and had even gave them her trust. She took years of learning and interaction to get this high point, standing up to challenge after challenge.

And all it took was six meddling ponies from afar to cause her entire network of friends to come crashing down, with irreparable damage. Her feelings of camaraderie with the locals in the town shattered at that instant. What initially could be described as a gentle stream was now a cascading waterfall.

Starlight tilted her head to the side to force her vision away from the crowd.

Starlight knew that the residents' respect of her was smashed brutally. They conformed to her ideals and her reality because they thought that they were her friend. A friend that is worthy of them to give their all. But now, the crowd saw a new Starlight Glimmer, one who is no longer a true friend. She was a manipulator, con artist and scammer of their beliefs and lifestyle. She lied to them all.

Twilight and her friends found it exceptionally difficult to continue watching. They were shifting their body positions uncomfortably and unrelentingly. They felt remorseful; even sympathetic to Starlight. It was painful to observe Starlight's disposition destroyed, even if it were for the better. They hoped that Starlight could recover and reform herself to a true leader.

Starlight stared down onto the ground, observing a few pitiless ants walking on the sandy gravel.

"NO!" Starlight screamed, suddenly appearing to stand tall and strong again. "I brought you harmony, peace and equality! How could you listen to these six?"

The crowd heard every word uttered from Starlight's outburst, causing many of them to shake their head with a sporadic frequency. The words that entered the discerning minds of the crowd were dispelled back out as soon as they came.

"Everypony has unique talents and gifts," Twilight stated softly, after inhaling deeply to muster the courage to stand up against Starlight's uncontrollable outbursts. "And when we share t-"

"SILENCE!" Starlight shouted at the top of her voice, stamping her hoof onto the dry, barren ground. She shook her head feebly, her mane waving irregularly with the constant breeze. Raging fires sparked off in the eyes of Starlight Glimmer.

Despite this, the crowd trotted confidently and uniformly towards her.

Starlight's mouth grew wide open at the crowd's silent demand for payback. Reflexively, her horn glowed intensely, causing the crowd and the six to seek cover around the town. A radiance of cyan energy crackled in the air with great magnitude, forcing all to shut their eyes momentarily.

When their vision was restored, Starlight was nowhere to be found.

Starlight had no time to think.

The glass jars containing the six's cutie marks below the table were seized. If Starlight's way of life was to be gone, the six must lose their cutie marks permanently. She smiled slyly; she could minimally cause the six to experience some sort of suffering for all that they have done.

Her moment of empowerment evaporated when she heard the ticking sound of the clock that hung on the top of her fireplace. Using her magic, she commanded control over the six glass jars. She knew that if she could head for the labyrinth of caverns deep in the mountains, she would be guaranteed safety from the six hunting her down.

Stepping forth to the front of her bed, she hesitated for a moment. She stared at the picture of the black equal sign hung at the side of her bed, the symbol of what she had created. She was destroying what she took much effort and time to create.

But Starlight felt the blaze from the fire within her.

Without any sense of affection, she blasted her bed away with her magical prowess, revealing a secret passage she dug.

She hurriedly rushed down the stairs to enter the secret entrance, not even bothering to turn her head back.

Galloping away out of the exit of the underground passage, Starlight knew that the cave network was only a few more minutes away. Her chin was held high as the distance to the cave closed up. A thin smile emerged from her face.

Bright flashes of light emerged behind Starlight's back, forcing her to turn her head back in curiosity. Beams of light, of colours one could not possibly imagine, flashed out in an elegant display, like fireworks flashing in the sky. Starlight's heart collapsed into the deep, dark abyss, thinking that the residents were celebrating her exile from the town she painstakingly founded.

Halting, Starlight squinted at the glaring flashes of light, placing her hoof right at her forehead. The origin of the lights was observed to be originating from an opening on the side of a grey, rocky outcrop that she knew from the back of her hoof. The fire in Starlight exploded at the otherwise gorgeous sight; her accomplishments were being ruthlessly undone behind her back. With her eyebrows facing inwards at steep angle, she kicked herself forward with monumental strength with her two hind legs to spur her advance.

Turning the corner of the rocky alpine outcrop, she ground to a halt, gasping in horror. She stared down into the great landscape below, her mouth as wide as saucers. The connecting bridge across the ravine, towards the cave entrance was destroyed. The wooden planks supporting what was left of the construction was green with moss. The ropes were cut, with the ends swaying with the cold mountain wind. The structural integrity of the bridge can only be described as anything but safe.

"STOP!" an authoritative voice shouted from behind Starlight's back.

Starlight looked around her immediate surroundings to discover if what was any possible escape route, moving her head wildly without much self-control. But the mountain path was linked to the rope bridge to that cave entrance, with no intersections to speak of.

"COME BACK!" the voice commanded.

Shaking her head profusely, Starlight kept her eyes shut tightly and threw herself off the edge. Tears were forced out from her eyes, lubricating the contact surface of her eyelids, forcing Starlight's eyes open.

Starlight's pupils dilated at the sight of the rocky landscape flying past her at an unthinkable speed, shrieking at the peril she placed herself into.

In her subconsciousness, her vertigo jumped into her horn, causing it to shine brightly as Starlight continued to accelerate down the depths.

Instantaneously, contact with the ground was felt, causing Starlight to lose her balance on the safety of the other side of the ravine. She trotted around in random circular patterns, trying to regain her sense of reality, before collapsing onto the hard, gravel path. Contrasting spots appeared in her vision as she was supported by the ground, her head spinning uncontrollably. The dizziness that Starlight felt made her relax her mind for a brief moment.

The shattering of fragile glass at the bottom of the ravine alerted the dazed Starlight. Crawling right to the edge of the ravine head first, she saw sparks of light flew out from the bottom of the ravine that matched the cutie marks of the six she so deeply hated. She extended one of her hoofs out over the ravine, as if it could draw the cutie marks back to her.

The beams of light travelled from the bottom of the ravine over to the back of the corner of the outcrop, flashing brilliantly, even as Starlight was observing it indirectly. Her extended hoof fell back to touch the cliff side, believing that further action was futile.

Starlight's hind legs kicked sideways to rotate herself, such that her head faced away from the cliff, with the friction of the sand assisting in every way it possibly could. A dark shadow greeted her vision directly in front of her face.

Straining her head up, she saw a blue pony with an indigo mane staring right back at her. It was one of the town's residents, Party Favour, who was blocking her view of the cave entrance ahead.

Ahead, through Starlight's peripheral vision, she could see the indigo toned Night Glider, another resident, heading towards a perilous pile of rocks that was loosely supported by a wooden strut, similar in engineering to those used in mines.

"Why are you willing to sacrifice yourselves for six strangers you don't even know about?" Starlight said, still breathing deeply.

"It's because they helped us see the truth in your LIES!" Party Favour bitterly responded, his hoof outstretched, pointing at something behind Starlight.

Glancing back, Starlight saw the six ponies arrived at the other end of the destroyed rope bridge, their heads bowed down in exhaustion as they reached the cliff side. Starlight's hope of escape sank down to the bottom of her soul, but her fighting spirit, her resilience kept the machine in her going and intact.

Starlight straightened her legs to bring her up from the ground. Wordlessly, she closed her eyes in concentration, letting loose sparks flying out from her horn. Projecting from it was a beam of intense cyan energy radiating from her horn to strike at the clear target.

A crunching, sawing sound reverberated across the mountain range.

Opening her eyes slowly while not breaking her effort in maintaining the beam, Starlight's heart sank like never before.

A protective purple shield emerged to defend Party Favour from the unicorn's beam, with its user stood right next to him. And that user was none other than the purple alicorn that foiled her plans and her town, Twilight Sparkle.

Starlight persisted, channeling what shred of energy in her to the power of her beam, closing her eyes once again. She desperately tried tilting her head further down to reduce the gap between the shield and the origin of the beam to increase its intensity, in the hope that it would break into the field. But this was all to no effect on Twilight's impervious shield, except in generating an incredibly high-pitched shrieking sound that grew louder and louder with the excessive levels of friction caused.

Perspiration trickled down Starlight's face constantly, forming a small, moist puddle below her head. Eventually, her beam grew weaker and weaker, eventually disappearing into nothingness. White smoke emerged from the surface of the horn, rising serenely up into the sky.

Twilight lowered her protective shield, her wings outstretched, wide and open. She stood still, with her mouth straight and closed shut. Her brows were leaning inwards, towards her nose, displaying her seriousness.

"I studied that spell for YEARS!" Starlight remarked, frowning. "How could yo-"

"I studied magic for years too," Twilight interrupted calmly, stepping forth to Starlight. "What you failed to comprehend is that study can only take you so far! It is because of my friends' unique talents and personalities allowed me to discover I represent the element of magic..."

Starlight rolled her eyes at Twilight's long speech. She did not care about Twilight's ideas of friendship. Her focus was on how she was to escape to the cave system. The longer she waited, the more likely Night Glider could cause the cave entrance to be sealed off with an avalanche of boulders and rocks.

Hoping to represent the element of surprise, she dashed past Twilight as fast as she could.

Sighing at Starlight's attempt at a breakout, Twilight took a singular step forward towards the cave entrance. She knew that she herself had to dislodge the rocks before Starlight could reach the cave entrance. A thin, concentrated beam of magic stuck the wooden struts supporting the rocks above the cave entrance originating from Twilight's horn.

"NO!" Starlight shouted in exasperation, watching the splintering of the wooden struts mere feet away.

Cheers were heard from the other side of the ravine, echoing incessantly through the mountains, as the rocks above began their descent to block off the fugitive's escape.

But Starlight was not done yet. She gambled on taking a giant leap of faith into the dark safety of the cave.