“Do you want to tell me what’s gotten into you?”
Starlight Glimmer eyed the AI’s massive stature, eyebrow flicking upwards as she levitated the scroll down on a nearby dresser. The scroll that hopefully contained the spell to send him home. Ultron. Yet there he stood, silent, fuming with disgruntled emotion. And she had no idea why.
The first signs she picked up were back at the Canterlot Archives, in the Star Swirl the Bearded wing. She no longer saw that determined fire in his eyes, the brightness for a better future as clear as any given day. He exited the darkness beneath the earth, a shadow overcoming his heart, if he even had one. The entire journey back to the village, back into Starlight’s cottage, all the way into her room, and he hadn’t changed from that demeanor.
Not one bit.
Time to find out why.
As his continued silence infected the early morning light, Celestia’s rays pouring in through her window and giving light to her bedroom, Starlight stepped forward and narrowed her eyes in thought and processing.
“What did you see down there?” she asked.
Ultron’s shoulders tensed up for a millisecond, and then relaxed. Yet his palms were still formed into fists, his head staring onward into the blank. Starlight refused to move away, refused to back down and let her question slide. He should have been happy. She found the spell that could get him home! All of his troubles, all of his worries that she knew of were gone.
That she knew of.
Ultron slowly twisted his neck around.
“The truth,” he murmured, voice lower and more menacing than she has ever heard.
Starlight curled her lip upwards. “The truth?” she repeated, earning a flicker of movement from Ultron’s stare. “What kind of truth? What…what exactly did you find?”
“The truth of your history,” Ultron clarified, spinning around to face her. Starlight’s eyebrows rose, jaw slightly parting. “Beneath the archives held a terrible secret. I give them props for that, hiding it all this time. But like all secrets, once they try to bury them beneath their knowledge…they tend to bury bodies alongside it.”
Starlight tilted her head a few inches to the right.
His palms relaxed. “You…don’t know, do you?”
“Do I know that Equestria’s history is labeled as a fairy tale?” Starlight questioned. “Yes, I do. The Princesses were the ones who shaped the country, and ultimately the world into what it is today. From the three pony tribes, to Tirek’s halted campaign, and Discord’s rise to Luna’s fall…I know what we are: Living in a world dictated by beliefs of our destiny.”
Instead of Ultron agreeing with her, Starlight was taken by surprise, which wouldn’t be the first time. To her surprise, Ultron gritted his jaw and shook his head so very slowly.
“You really don’t know,” he croaked.
Dust particles danced across the morning sunlight showering in from the window to her right. For some odd, deluded reason, Starlight couldn’t find a reason to speak, as if every fiber of her being yearned to hear Ultron’s words. Maybe then she could understand his change of tone, what he discovered, and what he planned to do about it.
It wasn’t good.
By her standards, it was horrid.
Ultron began to speak, walking around the room as he did so. He said, “Your history is a fairy tale, yes, I’ll give you that. But, like a species I’ve come to know full and well, you fail to dig deep. You merely scratch the surface of your potential. You’re all lost, can’t you see it? You’ve been spoon-fed this lie for generations, and not one of you were willing to see past the glass.”
He stopped, he closed his eyes. Starlight watched on, breaths so silent. He opened them and continued.
“You’re obedient to your rulers. You expect them to lead your life into goodness, but fall short into a path cloaked with failure and lie. I found you, Starlight,” Ultron pointed out, turning to face the unicorn. “I found you and held faith that there was a free mind in this abysmal world of deceit. You saw past the lie, reached the gates of truth…only to have no key for what lied ahead.”
“Stop talking in riddles!” Starlight ordered, frustrated with Ultron’s clever tongue. She stamped her hoof into the wooden floorboards, saying, “What lie are you talking about?”
“You’re nothing new.”
“…What?” Starlight asked, faced contorted into confusion.
Ultron marched on, growing closer to Starlight with every footfall. “I saw the truth, Starlight. Your acclaimed rulers have been hiding your history’s true representation for years. None of your textbooks about the history of Equestria, or Equus for that matter, showed even a glimpse of what I saw beneath the archives. Believe me, I’ve checked.”
“How did you—?”
The door creaked open. Starlight spun around to see one of Ultron’s sentries blocking the open door, a book held in its metal palm. With blue eyes centered on the unicorn, the sentry tossed the book aside, its cover landing ready for all to see. Starlight scanned the cover quickly. Her history textbook.
“I’ve been catching up on my understanding of Equestrian language. Turns out, it’s not that different from that of humans. Then again…there wasn’t much difference between the two to begin with,” Ultron announced, the last sentence falling lower and lower with each word escaping his maw.
The sentry refused to move, staring on as Starlight slowly craned her neck forward again, watching Ultron with a fresh feeling of apprehension growing between her and her “friend”.
“Do you see it now, Starlight?” Ultron asked, stopping. “You, as well, have been living in a false painting of what the rulers want. I was given light; I was given the truth that no pony has seen, minus the Princesses.”
He lowered his head, red eyes dimming.
“I saw war. I saw cataclysm. I saw what Equestria was founded over. The trickster’s enslavement, the king’s rule, the brothers’ invasion… The sister’s betrayal. I saw it all. And that’s not even the worst of it. What’s painful is how the rulers believed they could hide it away, pave across the bones of the millions who lost their lives in the wars that claimed this land you call your home. No…no, they believed that could get away with it. Not this time.”
Ultron was silent for a moment, his towering form building with each passing second. Starlight, shocked into silence, watched the robotic entity until he spoke again, and even then she couldn’t contain her gasp of outrage.
“Now with the truth out for the world to see, to wait for someone to take stand for what’s right, they were to look onward in happiness and in pride as you rose up and brought about change to their lives. Instead, they’ll look up in terror as a rain of fire will fall upon them and their cities. They think they’re different now than they once were, forgetting about the past that inflicts them, and live a life seen right by tyrants.”
He leaned forward, eyes shimmering in the shadows.
“Not now. Not while I’m here, Starlight. Equus…is seen different today, but what’ll stop them from causing another conflict. What will stop them from the inevitable?” Ultron leaned back, his chin rising as he growled, “Me. The species of Equus have shown their true colors on those stone walls, and now they will cry out as their world will be brought to its knees, as it falls.”
“No…”
“As it dies.”
“No!”
Starlight’s scream ended Ultron’s poem of destruction. Her ears, near to the point of shedding blood, fell flat against her skull as the pony slowly backed away, but stopped upon realizing that the sentry was still behind, still blocking her escape. So she held her ground, staring up at Ultron with eyes filled with fear, confusion, and shock. All mixed in one to form a deadly combination that Starlight struggled to gain control of.
So, with a pained voice and pleading eyes, she said, “This is not the way! You can’t judge us today based on what happened over a thousand years ago! We’re different ponies now; you can’t do this, Ultron!”
“There is no debating over this, Starlight,” Ultron clarified, shaking his head. “I was designed for one purpose, and that is to see the safety of humanity brought to fruition. They sought to only bring about their own destruction, so they must be destroyed. Your species, equines, and all others hold no favor in this. You’re nothing new. You are humanity incarnated.”
Ultron watched her movements carefully. He held out his hand to her, clawed fingers outstretched. “And so…for the best…the extinction of your race must be exact.”
Starlight shook her head, biting her lower lip. “No…” she whispered.
“You don’t have to fear change, Starlight. After all…didn’t you build upon that belief?” Ultron asked. She quickly shook her head back and forth, slowly moving away from him. He held out both hands to her and said, “Think of it, Starlight. I’ll wipe out the evils on this planet, leaving nothing but ash. You can use that spell, we can both return to Earth and rule together. We can both…win!”
“When everything is dead?” she breathed, eyes wide with shock.
Ultron nodded.
Starlight Glimmer couldn’t believe it. She simply couldn’t. The friend she thought she made was gone, a friend she believed to share her exact thoughts on how the world can be saved. Now, she only saw the twisted allusion he created for himself, the evil that he is capable of.
He never wanted the type of change Starlight believed in. He wanted nothing more than the extinction of ponykind, mankind surely to follow. If she gave him that spell then he will undoubtedly use it to continue his reckoning on Earth, but not one second before leaving Equus and everything on it barren and dead.
Why did her thoughts seem all so familiar?
“The Avengers…” Starlight paused, vision recollecting the images of her past actions, a tiny gasp escaping her form. “At the Gala… They were right…”
Ultron clenched his fist. Starlight continued to back away slowly, her chest rising and falling at a terrified pace, eyes as wide as dinner plates. She shook her head quickly, gulping and muttering, “You’re insane.”
“Not insane. Blessed. Gifted. Free.”
“I never wanted this…” Starlight muttered loud enough for him to hear. She shot her stare over to the scrolls and notes still on the dresser to her right, closer to her area of reach. With a shot back at Ultron, she tightened her jaw and narrowed her eyes.
“Reconsider…or I’ll destroy the spell.”
For a moment, Ultron’s tone changed once more, leaving what appeared to be hurt in his eyes, break in his voice, and slump in his shoulders. He shook his head, hand held out to her, reaching for her.
“Please…don’t do this, Starlight. See reason...”
Her horn ignited.
She growled, “I already have.”
And then there was a flash of white and Ultron was blinded. He roared in protest, taking a step back and covering his eyes with a forearm. In that second of confusion, Starlight took immediate advantage. She spun around, lighting off another spell and blasting the sentry straight through the chest. Its weak armor did nothing to protect it, and it hit the far wall with a devastating crunch.
Starlight enveloped the scroll with her magic, teleporting herself and the needed parchment out of the room.
Ultron swatted his arm downwards. He scanned the room, seeing nothing but the body of his fallen soldier slumped against the wall ahead of him. He instantly captured the sound of a blast of magical release beneath him. He tightened his jaw, aiming his hand down and blowing the floor beneath him apart.
The unicorn yelped in surprise. She spun about, scroll levitated close to her body as Ultron landed in her living room with a powerful crash. Floorboards and dressers fell from above, but it mattered little to Starlight. The well-being for Equus’ future far exceeded that of her cottage.
Ultron stared at her. Starlight, her teeth grinding together, shot a powerful blast of magic right for the AI’s chest, just as she had done for the sentry. Instead of meeting her expected results with Ultron’s follower, the AI blocked the spell as if it was nothing. He swatted her magic aside, blasting forward with the thrusters on his back.
Starlight found herself clutched into Ultron’s powerful grip as they both broke through her front door and tumbled out into the dirt road. She screamed, eliciting the attention of everypony in town. As ponies pushed open their front doors, eyes wide and filled with shock at the scene playing out in the near center of town, numerous Ultron Sentries filled the perimeter. They pointed their blasters at the crowd.
Nopony intervenes.
With the town’s populace watching form the sidelines, leaning over and around one another to see the skirmish commence. The sight of their oppressive leader being practically strangled by the demon that threatened them with their lives was startling, surprising, and terrifying. Nopony knew how to feel. Nopony knew whether to help her or let her face it alone.
They simply didn’t know what to feel of Starlight Glimmer.
Her screams amplified as Ultron kneeled in front of her, his hand shooting down and gripping the entirety of her horn. Even then, she refused to release the scroll, the flying parchment held beneath her. With a cry that could shatter a hundred windows, Starlight shed a few tears as Ultron slowly, painfully began to bend his wrist.
“Drop it. Now,” he threatened, pausing once.
As she opened her eyes, she stared up in pain and horror through teary vision at the one she might have called her friend, now the monster threatening to end her magical lifestyle and her world. As a tear slid down her cheek, failure graced her features…and Starlight’s horn died.
As the scroll slid out from under her and down onto the dirt, Ultron’s sharpened fingers gently picked it up. He gave the parchment a once over. He nodded, slowly looking back down at the defeated Starlight Glimmer beneath him.
“Good girl.”
As she fearfully looked up at him, Ultron ended that fear by punching her across the face.
With the scroll in hand, Ultron stood up and took a step away from the unconscious unicorn. He dusted himself off with his free palm, noting the crowds around him grow continuously uneasy upon his rise from the dirt. As they should. But he wasn’t particularly focused on that. His mind was elsewhere, on the scroll in his palm, on his new mission.
And how exactly he was going to pull it off.
“Well…back to step one.”
With that, he flew off. The sentries guarding the village followed in his wake, but not before ransacking Starlight’s home and all her books. Once that was done and all was gone, Ultron and his forces disappeared from sight, leaving the town in silence.
Double Diamond, Party Favor, Night Glider, and Sugar Belle were the ones to lead the crowd around Starlight’s unconscious form, blood trickling from the pony’s nose. Their eyes rested on her body, every single one of them, as the infestation of silence plagued their village.
Double Diamond nodded to her. Nodded to Sugar Belle.
The unicorn levitated Starlight’s body onto her back and carried her to the town’s infirmary.
Only now does Starlight realise the folly of her trusting her "friend" and the ideals that she thought she had in common with him. After what Ultron has seen, only now does she realise that he is not the friend she thought he was and that if she let Ultron unveil his plan and give him the spell to return to Earth, the extinction of her kind would be the price she'd have to pay along with the extinction of humanity..... something she can not allow him to do.
With his former ally no longer willing to help him and left for dead, with her fate left in the hooves of the town ponies that were once her followers, Ultron now has the spell that will bring him back to Earth in his hands now. All that he lacks is the means to using it which he'll have to find another magic user capable of performing the spell, willing or not. As long as he can't get back to Earth, humanity is safe...for now at least. But I can't say the same for Equestria and ponykind. The worst is yet to come.
How much do you want to bet Ultron will capture Twilight to use the spell after he has destroyed Equus to return to Earth? Anyone?
Starlight just found out that she just assisted the birth of an extremist's plans to annihilate her species.
That girl is way too late to the party.
Thing is, though, once Starlight somehow manages to get word through to her townsponies, which would then spread to the rest of Equus, no Unicorn that wasn't as blind to Ultron's intentions towards a sapient and advancing spiecies, Humans and Equines alike, as Glimmer once was would help him carry out his mission.
Unless Discord leads him to 99.9999999% before basically flipping shit upside down on the self proclaimed God.
Then, Ultron may very well have a little breakdown by trying to understand how magic altered the basic Laws of Physics to such an extent that could make clouds rain chocolate milk whilst being comprised of cotton candy.
I feel real bad for Starlight, she may have been extreme and misguided in her views but at her core she just wants her people not to go through the pain she felt after losing her first friend....They say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
6844518 The rollercoaster of destruction has only just begun, I'd say.
6845313 I got a twenty on that.
6845593 All very true. It should be interesting to see how Ultron will carry out his plan.
6846468 Very true. Very true.
Well it's a good thing you're starting to see the error of your decision to help Ultron, Starlight. I only hope you can put aside your hatred of Twilight to help her and her friends defeat him...
But I'm curious, when does Tirek come into play?
I knew Ultron and Starlight's partnership would backfire. And now Starlight's actions have caused Equestria its future. Finally she's starting to see the error of her ways.
6848591 He'll come later in the story, during the major conflict. It'll be quite some time, though.
6854497 Let's hope she can turn around.
6858188 Cool, will there be some buildup to him so it doesn't seem like he'll just pop in at the last minute?
6858278 Yeah, I got something like that planned.
6858906 Sweeeeet.
Oh boy oh boy oh boy! The suspense for the next chapter is killing me!
Now you know why you shouldn't have trusted Ultron, Starlight... And now you'll pay the price for your mistake...
*sigh*
Starlight, this is the reason not to trust a Murder bot hell bent on destroying a world with bad history.
Then again, there's always Thanos with his Infinity Gauntlet.
Well that was a short alliance. Not too surprising since Starlight never wanted to kill everybody. Though honestly got off a bit easy all things considered. I mean she's alive and can still fight Ultron with the heroes.
6858906
"Betrayal begets betrayal." Mimir, Smartest One Alive says.
One question of mine still remains...
WHERE THE BUCK ARE SCARLET WITCH AND QUICKSILVER?!
9062202 Coming soon. Keep reading.
I told you, Starlight.
I told you I didn't envy what would come when you realized what you have really wrought on your fellow ponies, on the world, nay, worlds.
And so we come to this moment that Starlight Glimmer saw the 'true' Ultron, that all his intents were not part of her plan. Sure, Starlight Glimmer 'did' want revenge against Twilight Sparkle... But she never wanted it to be at the expense of every other pony, she never wanted a future where everypony is 'dead' (As that one potential future showed during another attempt to stop Twilight from fixing the past). In a way, this makes her reformation much more 'real' than even the Season 5 finale could achieve. That just because Starlight Glimmer was initially an antagonist, she is still a 'flawed' pony driven by her insecurities, fearing that it was a cutie mark that made her 'friend' leave her. A fact that all women feel when the men they love gets a new job for example or that something requires them to move away and 'suddenly' they fear they won't have time for them or that a long-distance relationship won't work.
To give her some credit, she tried to keep the spell away from Ultron but her efforts proved to be in vain. Course if I were Ultron, I would not want to go home just yet. If he seeks to fulfill his desire to cleanse the planet of all it's fault, Equestria might end up being on the list. As for Starlight in particular, it's remarkable how despite all the treatment she gave to those townsponies and how upset they were when she showed up in this story, they still sent her to the infirmary in hopes she can be saved. I guess it goes to show that despite everything, even if they were upset, they won't stoop to her level. Will that change her viewpoint about wanting to spread 'Equality' toward Equestria? Sometimes I don't know if even she actually believed in that especially during that season.
I buy this reformation arc. I seriously buy it. Starlight has a reason to trust the villaige now, even if she has to earn their trust back still (much more realistic than just being hugged at the first sign of an apology) and she also has a reason to put her grudge against Twilight aside and even help her. I’m pretty sure that even in the show, the worst she wanted (this is a personal inference mind you) is for Twilight to end up friendless. Definitely not the wasteland timeline. Or in this fic, the Ultron timeline.
Looks like Starlight finally realized her “friend” wasn’t all he was cracked up to be. She’s lucky her old village friends are showing her pity by helping her. I wonder if this will lead to a new redemption story for her?