A little snippet of Letters From a Little Princess Monster for your weekend · 4:50pm Jun 2nd, 2018
I'm still working on the next arc in Letters From a Little Princess Monster, a sequel of the AU story The Monster in the Twilight (for those of you who don't know). This arc will be called 'Dominoes' because it is the triggering point for three storylines: The (re)Birth of the Crystal Empire, Our Town, and The Griffons, all of which will be deadly threats to Equestria and Monster's friends. (Yeah, and you thought Letters was convoluted before) It will in all likelihood be Fall before the arc comes out, but I thought you might want to see a snippet of how Monster is going to face Starlight Glimmer (this world's Starlight, that is).
Remember, Spoilers.
Letters From a Little Princess Monster
Dominos - Part something
“You can’t win.” The little alicorn’s voice was barely perceptible from where she hunched in on herself. Despite Twilight Sparkle’s earlier cautious demeanor around the happy citizens of Our Town, Starlight Glimmer had managed to lure her into the cave, just the right place for the next step in her glorious plan. The alicorn had not even tried to fight or put up the smallest of protective spells once she saw the hundreds of cutie marks imprisoned in the glass case on the wall. Instead, she had turned into a pathetic lump of shivering purple in the middle of the dimly lit cave, surrounded by the moving shadows cast by the magic of the severed cutie marks.
Magic which Starlight Glimmer controlled. And which soon would be even greater.
“I have won,” said Starlight with a little laugh. “Your mentor is a blowhard who didn’t even fight when I locked her in the cabin. And don’t think she’s going to teleport out to save you, because I warded that room strong enough to hold even Celestia or her sister.”
All around them in the shadows, the enthralled inhabitants of Our Town gathered closer, making a circle that Twilight Sparkle could not run or fly out of, and with the anti-teleportation wards that Starlight had embedded into the cave, there was no escape for the shivering foal.
“I’m going to take your precious cutie mark,” gloated Starlight Glimmer. “And I’m going to use its power to grow even stronger.”
“Then you’ll go to Canterlot,” said Twilight Sparkle in a weak, quavering voice. “Where you’ll take Celestia and Luna’s cutie mark too, and everypony else.”
“That’s right!” Starlight crouched down and gave a victorious grin at the cringing alicorn foal. “Everypony will be equal! Free from the tyranny of their cutie marks!”
Twilight shook her head, making her short mane brush against the dusty floor of the cave. “Wrong. Not everypony will be equal. You will have all the power. Above all the other ponies. Alone. Without friends.”
“Friendship is worthless,” snarled Starlight, jabbing forward with the Staff of Sameness in her magic.
“Friendship is more precious than any amount of power.” Twilight Sparkle paused to swallow as the enthralled citizens of the town surrounded them both in a tight circle, nearly shoulder to shoulder now. “Friendship is the only thing we can count on when we are at our lowest. When we cannot face something by ourself, we rely on our friends. You don’t have any friends. Not any more. Not since Sunburst.”
A cold chill crept down Starlight’s flanks at the mention of that name. She had tried to forget him while she threw herself into learning magic, growing her power, and trying to ignore the burning hatred that had built up over the years. Her first and only friend, who had betrayed her, left her, abandoned all they had together for the appeal of Celestia’s school, far away.
“He would not want you to do this,” continued Twilight Sparkle, still curled up into nearly a ball on the cave floor and speaking slowly. “We tried to find him, but there was no time. We thought he could talk you out of your plan.”
“He’s dead to me now,” said Starlight, feeling oddly hesitant about the words she had thought about so many times. The magic and the plan were all she had left. All that mattered. “I don’t need him.”
“Yes, you do,” said Twilight. “You’re powerful, but you need his wisdom. You need friends different than you. And we need you too. Trixie needs your knowledge. And patience. I need your skill. There are so many things you need to learn from us and that we need to learn from you. We’re stronger together, like…”
The foal hesitated, her voice cracking slightly with tension. “It’s like a movie with a hero and a monster. They fight, and sometimes the monster wins, but the hero always wins at the end.”
“You’re no hero,” sneered Starlight. “You’re a deluded foal.”
“Sometimes the hero wins by stubbornig… subbornating… subborning the monster,” continued Twilight just as if Starlight was not even talking. “She turns the monster into a hero too, and they become friends. They’re stronger together.”
“I’m not a monster!” shouted Starlight Glimmer. In her rage, she lifted the Staff of Sameness over all of them with her magic and made it shine like the sun, casting sharp shadows of all the surrounding villages against the cave walls. “I can see what needs to be done to make everypony happy! I just want to make everypony happy! My village has been a refuge for unhappy ponies! They come here because they want to, not because I make them.”
“It was at first.” Twilight sniffled. “The first ponies you convinced to move here wanted to be your friends. You pushed them away. Used magic to keep them here. Kept their cutie marks even when they wanted them back. Then you started to lure the ponies in with words. Then spells. Now you want to make everypony—”
“They didn’t know what they wanted!” Starlight was uncomfortably aware of how close the townsponies had gathered around the two of them, all of them with the unfocused stare of the mentally enthralled. Putting that behind her, Starlight jabbed the staff toward Twilight Sparkle and focused her magic. “And neither do you!”
The unmarking spell was almost trivial for Starlight Glimmer’s power now, surrounding the cowering alicorn foal in a fog of her magic, then the expected tug…
Did not happen.
Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark remained on her rear once the magic died away, even after Starlight recast the spell, putting more of her magic into it until she was gasping when the spell faded away and the cutie mark still was there.
“I don’t understand!” she gasped, still trying to catch her breath. “There’s no spell blocking me. I just can’t take your mark! Is it because you’re an alicorn? Or—”
All she's missing is the go-to line of somepony suffering from Malign Hypercognition Disorder : "Soon I will be invincible!"
I am in full favor with this. Onward to awesomeness, I say!
4874848
You cannot defeat me! I am INVINCIBLE!!!!!
BTW, why do all these super smart supervillains use staves?
4875194 Because when all your super-weapons fail, you still have a stick.
The guy in Here and There, Now and Then had a +5 stick. They're pretty handy.