In Which Starlight Royally Messes Up
If there was something that Twilight and Spike were expecting when they walked into the map room, it definitely wasn't Starlight Glimmer waiting for them to exact some kind of revenge.
"Welcome home, Twilight!" Starlight Glimmer said before casting some sort of spell on the cutie map. Twilight stuck out a wing to shield Spike from whatever damage this unknown spell could do. While it would be remarkably easy to knock out Starlight Glimmer right then and there, Twilight liked to leave violence as a last resort.
In a move that Twilight would only describe as "incredibly stupid," Starlight tossed the paper containing the instructions to cast the spell behind her, as if she would no longer need it. "Won't be needing this anymore!"
Twilight stood her ground, waiting to see what kind of offensive spell Starlight had decided to throw at her. She was surprised when a dome made of magic appeared above the map, which promptly sucked Starlight up into it. Once everything seemed quiet, she brought the paper to her face to give it a read.
"Time magic?" She gasped in horror, before narrowing her eyes. "What's she trying to do?"
"Maybe she's going to the past to kill you as a baby?" Spike suggested.
"That seems a bit extreme," Twilight said. "You stay here, I'm going to go after her and see what she's up to."
"But wouldn't it make more sense for me to come with and help you out?" Spike asked.
"Very funny Spike, but I'm not bringing a child into the past with a dangerous unicorn who hates us. Go over to Rarity's house and wait there until I come get you."
Spike looked very concerned upon hearing this. "But what if you-"
"I'll be careful, and besides, there's not much she could do to an alicorn," Twilight said, flaring out her wings to make a point. "I promise I won't do anything stupid, and I'll make doubly sure Starlight Glimmer doesn't do anything stupid either."
Spike looked a bit skeptical, but tentatively agreed to this course of action. "I know you've said you'll be careful, but can you make it a Pinkie promise?"
"Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye," Twilight recited. "I'll be careful, Spike, you don't need to worry about me." The two shared a hug before Twilight cast the spell on the paper, following Starlight into the past.
Twilight emerged from the dome high above the ground. She assessed her surroundings, determining herself to be somewhere in Cloudsdale. Finding a secluded spot to land, she stood on a small cloud that was further from many of the others. She couldn't see Starlight anywhere, and hoped the unicorn hadn't fallen through the clouds and died. While looking around, she spotted a light blue filly with a rainbow mane. She figured that it must be Rainbow dash, and judging by the fact that Rainbow didn't appear to have a cutie mark, Twilight concluded that she was at least 20 years in the past, possibly further.
Leaping to a cloud a bit lower, Twilight scanned her surroundings to try to catch a glimpse of Starlight. With any luck, she'd be able to pluck her from the past and be back to the present before anyone even noticed anything was amiss. Luckily, being in Cloudsdale, it was rather obvious where Starlight was when she saw magic nearby.
Twilight's eyes widened when she realized just exactly what Starlight's plan was, spreading her wings to put an end to the deranged unicorn's scheme.
"What did you do?" Twilight shrieked. "Let Rainbow Dash go!"
"You are about to find out" Starlight replied ominously.
Twilight rolled her eyes. It was just typical that Starlight would fancy herself some sort of mysterious and powerful force of nature. Twilight was about to respond, when Starlight cast the time spell again.
"See you soon!" Starlight taunted as Twilight was sucked into the magic dome again.
Twilight awoke to find herself sitting at the cutie map. This wasn't unusual, as she held many a late night here with either a good friend or a good book. The unusual thing about this time was that the castle was gone, as was much of Ponyville. The entire area seemed a bit devoid of much of any life.
Getting a bearing on her surroundings, she started to head towards the center of Ponyville in hopes of finding some information. On the way, she decided it would be a good idea to keep a low profile, and headed instead for Sweet Apple Acres. If Ponyville was here, she reasoned, Sweet Apple Acres must also be here, given the Apply family's role in the founding of the town.
Twilight was quite unnerved upon arriving at the farm. If she was being honest with herself, she couldn't even call it much of a farm anymore. There were industrial machines all over the place, producing what she assumed was apple sauce in high quantities. Spying a familiar orange pony, Twilight trotted up to Applejack.
"Applejack? Is that you?" Twilight asked.
Applejack didn't turn from her work. "Yup, who else would it be?"
Twilight couldn't think of a good response in this situation, and fell back on a good conversational staple. "Anything new happen lately?"
"Nope, just continuing to do my part for the war effort," Applejack replied nonchalantly, still not looking Twilight's direction. "Do I know you?"
Collecting her jaw from the ground, Twilight gathered her thoughts before proceeding. "I'm... not from around here. Did you say something about a war?"
This finally got Applejack's attention. Turning to face Twilight, she said "You aren't seriously going to tell me you don't know about the war." Seeing the sheepish look on Twilight's face, she continued "the war against King Sombra?"
"WHAT?" Twilight shouted.
"Where have you been? This thing's been going on for years at this point. Do you need medical attention or something?" Applejack asked.
"Uhh, no. I'll just be on my way." Twilight said before turning and galloping away.
"Huh, what a weird pony." Applejack mused before turning back to her work.
Twilight was frantically making her way back to the map. It was rather obvious what Starlight had done. She interrupted the sonic rainboom that had been the catalyst for all of her friends getting their cutie marks. This was simultaneously very stupid and very petty. Twilight didn't think that this would be the direct result of her and her friends dismantling Starlight's little cult. This seemed a bit too extreme for that. There had to be some underlying issue that had driver the unicorn over the edge of sanity.
Upon arriving back at the map, Twilight resolved that there would be no time shenanigans, and that she would stop Starlight in her tracks immediately upon arriving back in the past, and cast the time spell once again.
Author's Note
I tried to stick to canon in this first chapter, but without being an explicit retelling of the episode. From here on, however, canon will be pretty much completely disregarded, as this is where Starlight's plot armor really starts to kick in.
In Which Starlight gets Royally Messed Up
Twilight sensed the spell Starlight had flung at her immediately upon arrival, and teleported behind the unicorn. Taking a moment to lock her sights, Twilight fired a beam of concentrated magic directly at Starlight's back, hoping to end the fight without being noticed.
Starlight hadn't expected Twilight to evade her first spell, anticipating having the element of surprise on her side, but she was nothing if not adaptable. IT was painfully obvious that Twilight was about to hit her with some sort of counterattack. What Twilight didn't know was that Starlight had been meticulously studying combat magic for the past year, in case it might come to a fight. With as much determination as she had, there weren't many ponies in existence that could last 10 seconds in a magic duel against her, much less win. Starlight grinned as she threw up a powerful shield spell, she wasn't going to go down easily.
Unfortunately for Starlight, Twilight had spent her entire life studying magic, and was the most knowledgeable mage on the planet, save for possibly Celestia herself. On top of that, Twilight was the bearer of the element of magic, and an alicorn. There was no living being on the planet that would stand a chance against her in a no-holds-barred magic duel.
Starlight didn't have time to react as her shield spell shattered, not even slowing Twilight's blast down. She was thrown hundreds of meters from where she had originally stood, skidding several dozen more meters before coming to a painful stop right before the edge of the cloud. She struggled back to her hooves but she didn't even have time to turn around before she was violently ripped away from the could she had been standing on.
Given the circumstances, Twilight didn't feel the need to be gentle when picking Starlight up. In the half second it took her to swing Starlight around and slam her into a nearby cloud, she cast the cloud walking spell on Starlight 3 separate times. While one instance of the cloud walking spell would make clouds feel rather fluffy, each additional spell made them a lot less forgiving.
Starlight cried out as she was slammed against a cloud that felt harder than steel. Her head was swimming, partly from the pain, and partly from confusion on how Twilight was able to overpower her so easily. She was a magical prodigy. It made no sense that Twilight would be able to beat her so easily.
Once her vision had cleared up, she was greeted by the sight of an extremely pissed off alicorn. This would ordinarily be terrifying enough, but the fact that Twilight's horn was lit up with a spell microseconds away from being cast almost made Starlight wet herself with fear. She didn't even have time to wince as Twilight's sleeping spell washed over her, and she was out like a light.
"So you just knocked her out? That doesn't seem like something you'd usually do."
"Well, yes. Ordinarily I wouldn't resort to violence, but given that she was messing with time magic and screwing with destiny, I felt that force was necessary."
"Well, you certainly didn't under-do it. She's purple from all the bruises you gave her"
"Ummm... she's usually purple, Celestia. Didn't you know that already?"
"Yes, well. A mare can make a joke every now and then, can't she?"
"Well I suppose... Oh it looks like she's waking up!"
Starlight's everything hurt. It felt like the weather ponies had slacked off and allowed a dense fog to cloud her mind. It hurt to move, it hurt to breath, it even hurt to think. The thing that hurt the most, however, was her pride. She had no idea Twilight Sparkle could throw so much magic around like it was no big deal. She had been watching the purple princess for the better part of a year, and never saw much of anything that might give away just how much power she was packing.
Slowly, Starlight opened her eyes. She appeared to be in a large room in the Ponyville castle. Dozens of ponies looked back at her. Princesses Celestia and Luna were standing slightly behind Twilight, the former with a stern look on her face, while the latter was outright scowling. Behind the princesses were the rest of the elements of harmony and spike. The rest of the room was filled with rows upon rows of royal guard ponies. Looking around, she noticed that all of the unicorns in the room had their horns lit, sans Rarity.
"Before we ask any questions," Twilight said. "Do you have anything you'd like to say?"
Starlight blinked a couple times. "Doesn't this seem like overkill? I'm just one pony, and half of you look ready to fry me if I so much as sneeze."
"You used time magic to mess with the timeline and endanger every living being in this world. If anything, I think we probably have less ponies here than we should." Princess Luna said curtly.
Starlight didn't know how to respond to that. Luckily she didn't have to as Twilight picked up the reigns from there.
"Do you have any idea how dangerous messing with time magic in the way you did is? You could have destroyed everything there is, or ever could be. I have half a mind to just charge you with genocide and send you to the moon."
Starlight's eyes widened. "Genocide? I haven't done anything that would even come close to genocide!"
"Starlight, when you sent me forwards in time, I came out in a completely different world. Everypony was completely different, and we were at war with the Crystal Empire. Even if we disregard all the ponies that died in that conflict, every living creature in that world is gone now. It's a miracle that this world didn't seem to be affected at all."
"That's not how time magic works!" Starlight interrupted. "Any alternate timelines created will run parallel to our world, so nothing really happened to that world."
"Where did you get that idea? Certainly not from reading the spell you made. While Starswirl's original spell might have that property, the modifications you made to it took that out. Did you honestly think that changing one thing in something as complex as time magic wouldn't affect literally everything else about it? Did you even check to make sure that your modifications wouldn't have any unintended side effects."
"I... well... no, I didn't." Starlight felt incredibly stupid in this moment.
Twilight said nothing for a bit, letting Starlight stew in the silence. "Maybe in the future, you should think before you do something incredibly dumb."
Starlight bowed her head. What could she say to that? Twilight was right.
"You have broken so many laws in so many ways, I don't think there's enough paper in the castle to write them all down on. I could be completely justified in just disabling your magic and letting you rot in the deepest cell in the royal prison for the rest of your life, and I'm incredibly tempted to do just that. However, unlike you, I think before I do anything drastic, so I'll only ask this once, and you better have an incredible answer if you want to see the sun ever again. What was your motive?"
"It's.. sort of complicated..." Starlight said weakly.
"Well you better start explaining."
"I... You took everything from me! I had everything figured out! I was happy, I was leading my town to a brighter future where everypony could get along, and nobody would ever have to be envious of another. And then you showed up and ruined it in just a couple days. My entire life's work just... gone. In two days I went from everything to nothing, and it's all your fault!"
"First of all," Twilight said. "You were running a cult, which is highly illegal in Equestria. Second of all, petty vengeance seems like quite a small reason to resort to something as dangerous as time magic."
"That's not the only reason. Do you have any idea how hard it is to see someone who's responsible for ruining your life to have everything work out for her? You had status, a huge home, a vast network of friends, you had everything you ever wanted, and I had nothing!"
"You did all this because you were jealous? I think if you wanted to have friends, starting a cult is probably the worst way to go about doing it."
"Yeah, well... I tried doing friendship the normal way, and it never worked out!"
"Okay, so you were mad that you were bad at making friends?"
"No! I wasn't bad at making friends. Friendship is just... The world didn't want me to have friends!"
Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Really? How about this: If you can convince me that every single one of your failed friendships were not your fault, then I'll let you go free."
Everyone in the room let out an audible gasp at this.
"Twilight, are you sure that's wise?" Princess Celestia asked. "Surely there's a better way to prove a point than risk letting her go free."
"I know what I'm doing!" Twilight shot back before turning back to Starlight Glimmer. "Do we have a deal?"
Starlight could hardly believe this. All she had to do was tell her story, and She'd be free to go! She wouldn't even have to lie!
"Okay, so Double Diamond-" Starlight began.
"Double Diamond was a member of your cult, not a friend." Twilight interrupted. "Friendship requires a give and take, and you only ever took from members of your cult. Friendship can never exist between two ponies as long as one sees themself as better than the other. Next."
"But that's not true! If you really believe that, then none of you princesses would have any friends!" Starlight argued.
"We do not see ourselves as better than any other pony, Starlight Glimmer." Princess Celestia cut in. "Longer lived, yes. More knowledgeable in certain areas, certainly. But we are not better than anypony, just more experienced."
"Quite right." Twilight agreed. "Next."
Starlight grit her teeth, obviously she wasn't going to convince Twilight that any of the ponies in her old village were her friends. "Before I founded my village, I had a friend named Sunburst. We were best friends, and did everything together. Then one day he got his cutie mark, and got shipped off to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and I never saw him again! Destiny itself broke us apart, so I'd like to see you find a way to make me responsible for this!"
"Did you ever visit Sunburst?"
Starlight blinked. "Well... no I didn't-"
"Did you ever write a letter?"
"Umm... No-"
"Did you ever apply to get into the same school? I don't doubt that you would've been able to get in."
"Well... when you put it that way it makes it seem a lot worse than it actually is but..." Starlight stopped. She couldn't think of anything to say to make her situation look any better.
"If you have nothing else to say, then I think it's fair to conclude that your friendship with Sunburst failed because neither of you put in the effort to keep it going after he left for school. Next."
No more words came out of Starlight's mouth. She just looked down at the floor.
"That's it? That's the only friend you ever had?" Twilight asked in disbelief.
Starlight didn't say anything, but just nodded her head.
"Let me get this straight. You started a cult, stole cutie marks from dozens of ponies, stole scrolls containing time magic, used said time magic to alter the timeline, putting the lives of countless ponies in jeopardy, destroyed an entire world, and attacked a kid, just because a friend moved away when you were little? Am I understanding this correctly?"
"Well when you put it all in context, it does seem a bit extreme." Starlight said lamely.
Twilight looked back at Princess Celestia, completely bewildered. They seemed to have an entire conversation in the few seconds they shared eye contact. When Twilight turned back to face Starlight, she cleared her throat. "Starlight Glimmer, as punishment for your many, many crimes, I'm sentencing you to ten thousand hours of community service. While you are completing your punishment, you will be monitored by no less than 3 royal guard ponies at all times. You will be prohibited from using magic unless it is directly necessary for the task you are doing. In that case, I myself will be monitoring you directly to make sure you don't try anything funny. Do you understand your punishment?"
Starlight was at a loss for words. "Ten thousand hours? That'll take years to do!"
"Three years of working 12 hours a day for 6 days a week." Twilight said. "It's more lenient than I think you deserve, but my hope is that by working for ponies you will understand them more and come out of it a better pony. Once your time is completed, we'll see if you need more. Until then, my ruling is final."
Author's Note
I can't be the only one that thinks it's utter nonsense that Starlight is able to match Twilight in magical skill and knowledge. Twilight spent her entire life studying magic, whereas Starlight spent her life running a cult. Even if Starlight was a magical prodigy, there's still a massive gap in skill and practice.
It had been a grueling five years. Starlight found out pretty quickly that working 72 hours a week was too much for her to handle, so Twilight was kind enough to allow her to complete her punishment at a slower pace. She had just finished her last hour of community service the previous day, and was now once again in the castle of friendship, waiting for Twilight to arrive to assess Starlight's progress.
The verdict was a foregone conclusion in Starlight's eyes. She hadn't been able to hold a grudge against Twilight for even the first year of her service. Taking the couple of times Starlight had used her magical prowess to assist Twilight and her friends in saving the world, Starlight figured that after this meeting she would be free once more.
She certainly felt like she wasn't evil anymore. Nowadays, she wondered how she ever convinced herself that starting a cult or using time magic in a plot for petty revenge was anything other than a dumb idea.
She even had friends now, true friends. She wondered how she had been able to survive all those years without anyone to share a meal, a joke, or her feelings with.
Above all else, she felt normal.
"Hello Starlight, welcome back." Twilight said as she entered the room.
"Hello Princess Twilight, how are you doing today?" Starlight asked.
Twilight gave a small sigh at the use of her title, but she was more than used to ponies ignoring her requests that they leave her title out of their conversations. "I'm doing fine, thank you for asking. You'll have to forgive me for skipping the usual pleasantries, I'm rather busy today and don't have a lot of time for the meeting, so let's just get started."
"Okay, I think that's all I need to hear. You're free to go."
While this was the outcome that Starlight was expecting, she was still a bit relieved that Twilight came to the conclusion that she was no longer a threat to society. "Thank you so much, princess!"
"Have you given any thought to what you're going to do now that you're a free mare?"
"Yeah, I'm going to join the royal guard."
Twilight was a bit taken aback at this. "The military? That doesn't really seem your style."
"Yeah well, when you have the same three guards watching your every move, you tend to get to know them rather well. From the conversations we've had, I've come to realize that I want to keep helping ponies, and the royal guard seems like the best way for me to do that."
"Well I can certainly say that you won't be a bad guard, I wish you luck."
"Thank you princess."
Starlight walked out of the castle, ready to begin the rest of her life.
Author's Note
There, done.
I wrote this out of sheer pettiness and long built up frustration. I've never like Starlight Glimmer, and I think it shows here. I think if the show runners had put a bit more effort into making her less of a Twilight clone, she might have been more interesting, but whatever. Not much you can do now.
anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading!
