Issue #5
It was Tuesday morning, and the world was ending.
Hundreds of massive green and black spaceships hung in the skies of planet Earth, hovering above major cities and locations of strategic importance. Their chitinous, semi organic appearance, suitably alien, made the fleet instantly recognizable to anyone who had basic knowledge of major galactic powers (on Earth, that was a group of people who numbered double digits) as the invasion force of the Changeling Empire, a race of shapeshifting insectoids that fed on emotional energy.
And, above Canterlot City, which apparently had become the most important place on Earth at some point, was the mothership, almost the size of the city itself. Within the twisted flying fortress, sitting on her dark throne, was Queen Chrysalis, Empress of the Changelings, come personally to claim the primitive planet as her people’s newest feeding ground.
If Earth had been any normal planet, the battle would have been over in hours. Its population reduced to slaves or livestock, its cities razed and replaced with hives, its resources plundered for the Empire’s expansion. However, Earth had two things that the Empire’s previous victims lacked: Advanced forewarning of their arrival, and a frankly absurd amount of super-powered individuals capable of fighting back.
The Elements of Harmony, acting on information provided to them by a Changeling defector named Thorax, had rallied a veritable army to defend the planet. Heroes from all over the world came together, uneasy truces were made with villains, and, through some miracle, they’d even received support from the world’s governments.
Reinforcements had arrived, too, from unexpected places: A sorceress from the future, who traveled back in time to aid her to-be mentor Alicorn, leader of The Elements, and revolve a time loop; a mysterious woman in a purple blazer who cut through spacetime with a greatsword to join the fight; and a group of spider themed heroes from other worlds, lending aid across the multiverse wherever needed. If Chrysalis had expected an easy conquest, she would find anything but.
From the roof of their apartment building, Maud and Starlight watched the ominous form of the Changeling ship above them, Maud stoic as always and Starlight with a faltering, slightly nervous expression. “That’s… a really big spaceship.” Starlight commented.
“Yep.” Maud replied quietly.
“Do… Do you think we can really fight these guys?” Starlight asked.
Maud was silent for a moment. “We have to.” She answered eventually.
A comically exaggerated noise, like rubber stretching, drew their attention away from the ship. A pink mass pulled itself out of a ventilation slit clearly far too small for it to fit out of, resolving into the head and upper torso of a woman with a *sproing* sound. Her face was framed by a mass of bright pink curly hair, and she was covered in a form fitting pink bodysuit that somehow formed thick black outlines around her body, like a cell shaded cartoon character.
“HI MAUD!” The woman shouted excitedly, waving enthusiastically at Maud and Starlight, so far her arm appeared to be a blur.
“Hello, Pinkie.” Maud said, relief barely tangible in her tone.
Pinkie Pie, better known to the world as the bizarre and wacky superheroine Slapstick, craned her head unnaturally to look directly up at the Changeling ship above Fillydelphia. “Huh. They haven’t started attacking here yet. That’s strangely convenient!”
Turning back to Muad, her expression turned serious. Or, at least, as serious as Pinkie ever got. “The girls and I are gearing up to infiltrate the mothership. Thorax said if we take down Chrysalis, the rest of the fleet should surrender. It’s our one shot at ending this as quickly as possible.”
Maud looked at Pinkie for a moment. She opened her mouth to speak, but Pinkie cut her off. “I know it’s dangerous,” she said, uncharacteristically somber. “But it’s our best hope. If things drag out any longer…” she frowned. “People are gonna start dying.”
“Just… promise me you’ll come back safe.” Maud eventually said.
“I…” Pinkie faltered. “I Pinkie Promise. Cross my heart, and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.” She said, reciting the childish chant and going through the matching motions. “There, you see?” She gave a strained smile. “I’d never break a Pinkie Promise.” She thought for a moment. “But, if… if we, if I…” she trailed off, before giving Maud a sad smile. “Tell Mom and Dad and Limestone and Marble what happened, okay? Oh, and look after Gummy for me?”
Maud gave a solemn nod. “I will. But I won’t have to.”
Pinkie pursed her lips, before smiling and nodding. “No, you won’t. No icky bug queen can stop The Elements!” The sound of triumphant horns playing a heroic tune emanated from no particular source, and Pinkie threw up her arms as a cloud of confetti surrounded her. “We’ll beat her alien butt back to deep space!” She gave Maud a salute. “Seya, sis!” With that farewell, she took a deep breath, and was sucked back through the ventilation slit, in violation of several laws of physics and common sense.
Starlight, who had remained silent during the talk between sisters, turned to Maud. “I still don’t understand how she does that.”
“Nobody does,” Maud answered. “She’s just… Pinkie Pie.”
“Powers beyond man and demon…” Starlight’s avatar shook her head. “Hey,” she asked, looking up and around. “Where’d Trixie go?”
Wordlessly, Maud pointed to the rooftop access doorway. Part of a star studded cape was visible on the ground, sticking out from the other side of the small part of the building that jutted out to cover the staircase up.
“Trixie?” Starlight asked, floating over to her normally bombastic girlfriend. “You okay?”
Trixie, huddled against the wall hugging her knees, looked up at Starlight, a frightened expression on her face and eyes filled with tears. Trembling, she shook her head.
Starlight gasped, moving in closer. “What’s wrong?”
“I…” Trixie gulped. “Trixie is terrified, okay?” She blurted out. “I just– I can’t– I wasn’t– I’m not prepared-” she took several deep breaths, trying to calm herself, while watching her hands shaking. “It’s too much…”
“But…” Starlight frowned. “What happened to all that confidence? We’ve been preparing for days, you didn’t say anything before…”
“It…” Trixie shook her head bitterly. “It’s fake, it’s always been fake, you know that!” She shouted. “Trixie is a coward who shouts her own name to validate herself. She pretends to be confident to hide how utterly afraid she is.” She hung her head. “Trixie is pathetic…”
“No, you’re not!” Starlight insisted, putting her hands on her hips. “Trixie is amazing and smart and talented and I love her. Just because you’re afraid…”
“I’m afraid too.”
Maud knelt down, lightly taking Trixie’s hand. “I’m not good at expressing my emotions. But I’m scared too. For myself. For my sister. For the world. For you, and Starlight…” She gripped Trixie’s hand tighter, taking care not to squeeze it too hard. “Pinkie’s scared too. Everyone is, no matter how strong.”
“I know I sure am…” Starlight added. “But it's not about not being afraid. It’s about acting in spite of it. Even if the ego and the third person speech and everything is just a facade… well, first of all, if it lets you work through fear, then it’s not fake. And…” her avatar blushed a little. “It kinda helps me too.”
“R-really?” Trixie asked.
It was Maud who answered, nodding. “Your confidence is very reassuring. It makes me feel like we can achieve anything.”
Trixie blinked, and then laughed a little. “Heh. For me it was always… you’re always so calm, Maud. That’s what reassures me.”
“Me too.” Starlight nodded. “For me, it’s both of you. I’ve never really… had anyone before, and–” she cut herself off, shaking her head. “This isn’t about me.”
“No, no,” Trixie shook her own head, wiping away tears. “Say it. Trixie… I want to hear it.”
Starlight hesitated a little. “Okay, then… It’s just, I’ve always been alone, even before…” She gestured at the grimoire that held her spirit prisoner. “I’ve never had anyone who cared about me, anyone to care about. And, if I’m being honest, the thought of losing either of you terrifies me, and…” She smiled half heartedly. “I guess we’ve all been holding in our fear, huh?”
“Trixie did not sign up to fight alien armies. She was perfectly content beating up common criminals.”
Maud’s eyebrow raised ever so slightly. “I thought you wanted a challenge?” she asked.
“...Mostly content. But this is way beyond that.” She looked up at the glowing green patterns on the underside of the ship high above the city, and took a deep breath. “But we don’t have any other choice, do we?”
“We… could just run?” Starlight suggested. “Let The Elements do their work? It’s not like we’re that important. Nothing we do here will have an effect on the bigger picture, so…”
Trixie shook her head. “We can’t. Innocent people could get hurt, and we’re supposed to be protecting them. What was it one of those weirdo spider people said? ‘Being great and powerful comes with responsibility?’ Something like that. If Trixie wants to be Great and Powerful–” she flashed a hesitant smile. “–she has to be responsible too.”
Maud nodded, giving a light hum of affirmation.
Trixie slowly climbed to her feet, Maud helping her up. “Trixie is terrified right now. But Trixie will fight anyway. And…” She mustered up some bravado from deep within her soul, giving a confident grin. “With her girls by her side, Trixie will win! No freaky space bugs can stop The Great and Powerful Trixie!” She gave Maud a slightly hesitant look. “Better?”
“Much.” Maud squeezed Trixie’s hand again. From her other side, a tendril of magic stretched from Starlight’s book, taking hold of Trixie’s other hand.
A hatch opened on the spaceship above them. A cloud of black figures, too numerous to count, swarmed out, flying out and spreading across the city. Trixie gulped, but stood firm, squeezing her girlfriends’ hands tighter. “Ready?” She asked.
Maud nodded. “Ready.”
Starlight smirked. “Ready.”
Letting go of Maud and Starlight, Trixie held her hands out in a reading stance, Starlight floating underneath her now glowing hands, enveloped in a turquoise aura and pages flipping rapidly. A large circular platform of magic formed underneath her, carrying her and Maud into the air to combat the approaching Changelings.
It was Tuesday morning, and the world was ending. But as long as they had each other, Trixie, Maud, and Starlight would be just fine.
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A nice resolution to the emotional beats, even if we didn't get the giant fight sequence. And of course you had to include your OC as an easter egg.
10956039
I will put her everywhere and nobody can stop me
It was probably a misremembering the quote, but I want to see the great and powerful spiderwhatever now.
Lovely conclusion. Every comic team needs a moment in the big climactic event. Also, fascinating glimpse at this world's Pinkie. Thank you for this, and best of luck in the judging.
10956039
Oh, is that who the lady with the spacetime-cleaving greatsword was? I was wondering.
Why would I give it a thumbs down? This was hilarious!
As for everything I disliked:
1.
That's it, that's the list.
Well that certainly is a hell of a premise! Yet another store and let's add to the read later list hopefully I will get to it sooner than later
hello! you should have already been PMed about this, but this comment is just to record that this fic has won Fourth Place in the StarTrixMaud Shipping Contest!
again, i feel like i'm missing a lot of references with the other superheroes (save the Spider-Verse), but it does a great job of adding to the superhero comic feel. it's also a nice touch to have these characters be the second-string team compared to the Elements of Harmony, with Maud's sister being a first-string hero. that almost feels like a modern-era superhero comic trope in it of itself: thinking of the way The Venture Bros. makes that shift of focus a part of its parody. and a great character moment between the trio at the end, and Trixie's insecurity.
as a story, this was a top-notch genre pastiche, really pulling together this world, these characters' backstories, and how their dynamics work in both domestic and superhero-plot settings in a minimum number of scenes. as a shipfic, this was, if you can believe it, also top-notch! throuple dynamics are hard to juggle but you really make it work, all the more impressive and entertaining for how non-standard book demon Starlight is as a character in a romantic context. i buy wholeheartedly why these three characters are into each other, and the banter and chemistry between them is just really fun and great. a thoroughly enjoyable read, all the more so of how unique the ideas were, thank you so much for writing it!
11006869
Writing this, the hardest parts were making the banter feel romantic, because banter I can write but romance I have a hard time with, and knowing exactly how far to go with tropes. Earlier versions of chapters and half of a scrapped chapter are much more meta and even start breaking the fourth wall, because that's what I like from the superhero comics I read, but I ended up dialing it back a lot. I don't actually read a lot of comics, so this is more of a pastiche of the idea of superhero comics, or superhero cartoon adaptations, with a lot deep cuts and references to things both in and out of them. There were a lot more obscure references back when this was supposed draw more elements from the Marvel Comics continuities and was even loosely set in one of their many universes at one point before I decided that made it unapproachable. The fact that everyone assumes the Spider-Men featured are the movie Spider-Verse instead of the post comic event Spider-Verse team known as the Web Warriors kinda cements the idea that making a entire story that hinges on Marvel Lore would have been a bad idea.
Anyway, that's some of my post contest Author's commentary, I'm glad my story was enjoyed, this AU is one of those ones I tentatively would enjoy continuing but don't really have any motivation to, but we'll see, I'm rambling and don't know how to end comments so I'll just say im gay
I really enjoyed this story. The fact that Starlight really seemed like herself despite this being another universe entirely, really endears me to the whole story. What I liked was that this had a general feel of a comic book hero action, which was quite nice.
The fact that you managed to somehow transplant Trixie's sleight of hoof into this universe is nice, and the usual Starlight kite obsession is interesting to note. While reading through the story, it struck me that this was a little like a Marvel Comic, yet so not Marvel-like. Why? It was so much better lmao.
The romance weaved into a superhero-type story was nice, and I feel like it managed to avoid the trope most superhero stories fall into. All in all, a really well-done story, and I wish I read this sooner.
They do be fighting crime tho
Howdy, hi!
Amazing conclusion to this. Threw for a loop for but a moment before I reoriented to the story. Absolutely loved this whole thing from start to finish. It's such a good superhero story and well-done romance between the three characters. I adored every second of this.
Thank you for the read~!
Lovely little fic! I'm always a sucker for superhero AUs, and of course StarTrixMaud is a vastly underappreciated ship in this fandom - for that matter,
polyponyamory in general is vastly underappreciated and underrepresented!Also, I giggled out loud at Pinkie's hero name being Slapstick. It's so perfect for her, and honestly seeing the names people come up with for superhero names is a not-insignificant part of the appeal to me.