Author's Note

Just a fair warning, this is, to me, a sadder chapter than the last two ones. Even I felt sad when writing this, and I normally don't feel that way with writing sometimes so :/

Just a small heads up.

Tension

It was another day of school. Most foals roam the hallways with tired and bored expressions, but Starlight was not one of them. She gleefully carried a handful of books with her aura. Sure the other subjects were boring but what Starlight was most excited about was magic. How could anyone not be excited about magic?

After magic class, it was lunchtime. She grabbed a tray and grabbed an apple and some carrots with her magic and placed it on one of the lunch tables. She set down her books and flipped through the pages of the information that she hadn't even touched yet.

Starlight took a bite from an apple and began to read about teleportation. It was a trick that she always wanted to learn for quite a while. Of course, the teacher said that teleportation is a tricky spell to do, and usually foals like her don't really learn it until they were older. But a detour like that did not effect Starlight. If there was a spell that she wanted to learn, she wanted to learn it now.

As she began to read more, another foal came to her table. She looked up to see an orange colt with a white streak on his stount, and he had white socks on each of his legs. His mane was the color of the evening sky.

"Hello!" The colt greeted.

"Oh, hello." Starlight waved shyly. She didn't expect anypony else to sit at her table. She normally preferred to sit alone, but she didn't mind company.

"Reading about teleportation, huh?" Sunburst leaned over to look at Starlight's book. "That's a complex spell, you know."

Starlight rolled her eyes. "As if that will stop me."

But the colt still looked concerned. "It's not easy to do one though."

"What do you know about teleportation?" Starlight asked, starting to get a little irritated.

"For starters," the colt grabbed a book from Starlight with his light yellow aura. "You have to know the exact place and time of where and when to teleport. The location needs to be clear in your mind. If you mess up, then a malfunction can happen and the magic fails." He looked up to face Starlight with a sheepish look. "And have a headache that can last a few days."

Starlight giggled, with her hoof covering her closed mouth. "I guess I haven't thought of that."

"We don't know what to experience until we tried them out." The colt reached his hoof to Starlight. "I'm Sunburst. Even though I've seen you around a lot, I never gotten to know you and I want to change that."

Starlight stared at the hoof for a brief moment, and she reached and shook his. "I'm Starlight Glimmer."

They both gave warm smiles to each other.

Sunburst looked at Starlight's food tray, and let out a worried whinny. "I forgot to get my tray!"

"You can have my carrots if you like." Starlight levitated the carrots to Sunburst.

"Really?" Sunburst looked at them, then back at Starlight. "You need them more than I do."

"I don't mind. Plus, sharing is caring, right?"

Sunburst was still unconvinced, but let out a grin in the end. "When you say it like that..."

Sunburst grabbed one carrot, and Starlight grabbed the other, and they both ate it together while sharing some laughs.

"Awwww!" A voice of another colt was heard nearby.

Starlight and Sunburst turned to see Bunker looking at them with a mocking expression. He was also with two other colts.

"The two nerds are eating carrots together." Bunker said with his tongue sticking out. "Who even likes carrots?"

Starlight gave Bunker a hostile expression, while Sunburst looked at Bunker with a nervous frown.

"What d-d-d-do you want?" He asked, stammering.

"Oh, nothing." Bunker acted innocent. "Except I want to know whats in this book!"

He forcefully grabbed the book with his dark grey aura and began reading the contents of it. "I feel like we should rip out the boring stuff, what do you guys think?"

His friends both nodded eagerly.

"You will not!" Starlight got up from the seat and was face to face with Bunker. "Give me back the book. Now!"

"Why should I?" Bunker teased.

"Because I got that book from home. My dad would throw a fit if he saw it being ripped!" Starlight could imagine her father scolding her in the face at the very moment, all because of this stupid colt.

"Too bad, so sad." Bunker said as he ripped a page from the book, not even bothering if the content was boring or not.

"No!" Starlight gasped at the fallen pits of paper that fell on the floor. She looked up at Bunker with pure anger. She lit up her horn and her magic surrounded the book, but Bunker's friends quickly ran up to her and grabbed her horn with their hoof, making it difficult for her to cast magic.

"Hey!" Sunburst called out, finally getting angry. "Let her go!"

"Or what?" The other friend of Bunker's loomed over him. He was a lot bigger than Sunburst, with his legs a little longer than the others.

Sunburst sat in silence.

Meanwhile, Starlight kept begging Bunker to return the book.

"Give it back!" Starlight pleaded.

"Oh relax, there is a lot of books in the bookstores in Sires Hollow that are exactly like this. You'll be fine." He said as he continued to rip more pages.

By the time this went on, the other fillies in the lunch room all watched the scene, while the staff in the kitchen were not paying attention.

As Bunker went through the pages, a piece of paper floated down from the book.

Starlight's pupils turned small. "Sweet Celestia, no." she whispered.

Bunker levitated the picture. It was a quote that her mother made for her moments before she passed away, with her signature at the end.

It said:

You can do many great things. And no matter how hard you fail, I will always be there you guide you. I love you.

• Silverflower

Bunker turned to Starlight and showed the note to her. "What is this? Is this some inspirational note with your fake name at the end?"

"Silverflower was my mother." Starlight whispered the words.

"Really? Interesting." Bunker looked at it for a moment. "But I have a feeling that this should be spared."

Starlight looked at him with mercy. He can rip any page in the book if he wanted. She would not care. She would even put aside Firelight's scolding, but that note was the one thing that she can't bear to see ripped to shreads.

"Or should it?"

Her heart lurched when she saw the center of the note rip a little bit.

Starlight now glared at him, hatred now started to seem into her mind towards the colt. "Bunker, I swear to Celestia..."

"What are you going to do?" Bunker said, antagonizing her further. "You made a fool out of me days before. And this is a little thing called revenge."

Starlight looked aghast. "Are you serious? That's what its all about?"

The paper torn even further. "Yes."

Starlight now felt tears flow from her eyes. "You spare that note, RIGHT NOW."

"How about, no?" He tore the note further.

Both of Bunker's friends are now starting to look at him nervously.

"Bunker, I think you're taking this too far." A light red unicorn said, who was covering Starlight's horn. Which was now not for bullying anymore, but for the protection of what Starlight could do to his friend.

"Yeah, dude." Another unicorn friend agreed. "Just drop the note and leave it."

Sunburst looked a the unicorn's side. He was frozen like stone, not daring to take part of the heated moment.

"Not until she gets the message." Bunker teased her even further.

Starlight looked at the note, then back at Bunker. Even though she really didn't want too, she had no choice.

"I'm sorry, ok?" Starlight pleaded. "I won't stand up to you ever again! But please spare that note! I'm begging you!"

Bunker still stared at her for a few moments. His gaze finally softened.

"Glad we could agree in something." Bunker said, and he safely put the half-torn note onto the table.

Eventually, one of Bunker's friends released Starlight with a sigh of relief.

She ran up to the note and hugged it deeply. Maybe some tape might fix it. But she didn't care. She was happy that it was saved.

"I'm sorry for not helping enough." Sunburst raced over to Starlight when the other colt finally left him alone.

Starlight shook her head. She was too relieved to be mad at him. "It's ok. As long as my note is ok, nothing matters."

Just then, the same dark grey magic levitated the note out of Starlight's grasp. Before she can get it back, it was being torn to shreds right in front of her.

"NO!" Starlight screamed.

She looked at the side, and saw Bunker stare at her with a smug expression. "Don't think that a note you made by yourself will let you have a way to guilt trip me."

He looked at his friends, obviously expecting support, but they all stared at him with appalled faces.

"DUDE!" A light red unicorn screamed at him. "Do you not realize what you have DONE?!"

"Relax, she won't do anything to me. She's not a very strong unicorn, even though she keeps saying and believing that she is." Bunker said as he walked away.

Starlight looked at the note, tears were streaming down her face like a waterfall. She wept and she closed her eyes.

All the fillies that were watching the whole time all stared at Starlight, expecting her to do something.

Sunburst placed a hoof on Starlight's shoulder.

"Starlight? Are you ok?"

Quick as lightning, Starlight opened her eyes. The sadness in Starlight's eyes were nowhere to be found, they were replaced with tiny pupils in an expression that was filled with hatred.

Her horn glowed a bright turquoise and, remembering the lesson she learned a few days ago, she quickly cast a spell on Bunker. When he was hit, he let out painful noises as he was levitated to the air. While his colt friends, who luckily dodged the attack, looked at him in fear.

Most of the fillies in the background were freaking out too, while some of them watched very contently, as if this was the drama that they had been missing out on in this boring school.

Starlight made Bunker face her as she painfully forced to take his cutie mark out of his flank. Screams of pain flooded the lunchroom. And it was bad enough that even the kitchen staff fled the scene.

Starlight grinned when Bunker was then dropped to the hard floor, and watched with sadness when his cutie mark was levitated by Starlight, who looked at him with a smug expression.

"Starlight!" Sunburst shaked his new friend. "Snap out of it!"

"Not until he learns a lesson." Starlight calmly said to the colt.

Bunker still looked at her in fear.

"It must be hard seeing the things you love being ripped away from you." Starlight said to Bunker. "Must be a shame."

Before Bunker could respond, another pony entered the lunchroom with a very angry expression.

"STARLIGHT GLIMMER!" Mrs. Willow yelled at the unicorn.

Snapping out of it, Starlight whipped her head to face the mare. She quickly gave the cutie mark back to Bunker, who went through a brief transformation. After getting up, with the help of his friends, he quickly fled the scene with the colts right behind him.

"Hope you get expelled, you mind controlled freak!" Bunker yelled as he quickly left the room.

But even Starlight ignored that. As she was face to face with a very angry teacher.