//------------------------------// // Ch 4: Panic, Pain, Peril, Pie // Story: Equal Measures // by Coyotek4 //------------------------------// “Starlight, wait! …” Applejack, still feeling the effects of an unconscious state, is unable to project her voice for Starlight to hear; she watches helplessly as Starlight runs from the scene. She turns to her friends, all of whom are recovering themselves. “We gotta go after her!” “Oh, what’s the point?”, Rainbow Dash grouses as she points to her new cutie mark. “I can probably barely move, if this is anything like the last time.” “I can’t believe she would just turn on us all,” Fluttershy remarks sadly. “What do you think caused her to react like that?” “I dunno, Fluttershy, but wallowin’ in self-doubt ain’t gonna change nothin’. I say we send an emergency message to Twilight; if anypony can figger out how to get us back to normal, it’ll be her.” “Pinkie, darling, are you all right?” The others follow Rarity’s gaze to her friend, who sits motionless while contemplating inner feelings. Pinkie suddenly leaps to her hooves and bolts from the room to the kitchen area; within minutes, she returns with a recently-baked pie. Rarity begins to chide her: “Pinkie Pie, you cannot actually be thinking about food at a time like—“ SPLAT!!! Unable to react in time, Rarity is suddenly assaulted head-on with a banana-cream pie. Her face is completely slathered in pie filling, as whipped cream drips through and down her now-matted and sticky mane. For several seconds, no one reacts to the attack. Then … “BWAHAHAHAHA … *gasp* … HAHAHAHAHAA!!!” Pinkie falls to the ground holding her side, unable to control her incessant laughing at Rarity’s pie-facial. the unicorn’s anger quickly reaches a boiling point: “PINKIE PIE, WHAT THE HAY IS WRONG WITH YOU???” Rarity’s exclamation does nothing to stop Pinkie’s hysterical laughter, tears now flowing from her eyes in the process. “PINKIE PIE!!!” she repeats, to no avail. “ *hehee* … Nothing’s … *hehehee* … nothing’s wrong with me … *hahahaa* … that’s the point … *giggle* ” Rarity continues to scowl at Pinkie as filling continues to drip down her face and mane. A flash of insight comes over Applejack. “Waitaminute, Rarity … I think Pinkie is on to something.” “More like she’s on something,” Rarity grumbles as she levitates a towel from the kitchen area towards her. “No, really. Look at her, gettin’ a full laugh at your expense … that shouldn’t be happening right now!” “Why shouldn’t it?” Fluttershy asks. “Pinkie’s always getting a full laugh, at pretty much anything.” “Not always,” Applejack corrects. She quickly runs to the kitchen, fills a pitcher with water, and returns to the others. She dumps the water over Pinkie Pie, soaking her and stifling the laughter while getting her to regain her composure. “I can’t say I disapprove of that reaction,” Rarity admits as she wipes away the rest of the pie from her face, “but what does that have to do with—“ “Look!” Applejack triumphantly asserts. The others walk over to Pinkie, who by now is laughed out and standing on her hooves. They inspect her flank, now sopping wet and brandishing a familiar trio of balloons. Starlight gallops down the main thoroughfare leading out the northern end of Ponyville. To the right and left of her, Starlight races passed numerous nameless, faceless ponies. Her mind races as she passes each one … Would I try to turn that one? Those two. What about those foals? Can I be trusted around anypony anymore? What if … The frequency of appearances of random ponies dissipates as she continues racing along the road. Soon, she notices that there are no other ponies to race past. She takes one final look behind her … and slams head-on into the back of a wagon, falling to the ground. She picks herself up and shakes off the newly-formed headache as the wagon-puller approaches. “I’m so sorry, I wasn’t looking where I was running and … Trixie???” “Starlight! Hey, I didn’t expect to run into you this afternoon … or for you to run into me, for that matter.” Trixie chuckles, happy to see her friend so unexpectedly. “So what brings you out here? Come to see me off for my first Canterlot performance?” Starlight answers with great agitation. “No … I mean yes … I mean, I have to go.” “Go? Go where?” Trixie then gasps in anticipation: “Wait, you’re coming with me! It’ll be just like our first performance … except without the, uh, you know, me only pretending to be your friend.” “No, I can’t go with you, I need to—“ “Well, if you just want to keep me company on the trip, I would love that. It’s a long way to Canterlot, and this wagon doesn’t fit on the Ponyville Express.” “TRIXIE, I’M RETURNING TO MY EVIL WAYS!!!” Starlight blurts out. Trixie stares at her harried friend for a few seconds, then bursts out laughing. “Oh, I love it, Starlight! Magic and comedy! That’s a wonderful idea!” “Trixie, I’m not kidding! I need to get away from Ponyville before I cause any more damage!” “What are you rambling on about?” Trixie asks with growing concern. “What ‘damage’?” “I’ve brainwashed Twilight’s friends. My friends. I’m trying to control them, just like I talked about with that village. I can’t trust myself to be around them anymore. I can’t stay here any longer … I can’t be around anypony … I can’t be around you, Trixie.” The last remnants of levity now gone, Trixie takes in Starlight’s comments. “I don’t understand … you don’t want to be friends anymore?” “I don’t want to hurt you, Trixie. But I can’t control these urges anymore. I thought I could, but … I see now that they’ll always be a part of me.” “That ridiculous!” Trixie angrily asserts. “We’re friends. That means we help each in times of need. I’m here for you, just like you were for me so many times. Whatever you go through, we go through.” Starlight relaxes, a feeling of content coming over her at these words. She smiles for the first time since chatting with Twilight the night before. “That’s better. Now tell me, here and now, what’s going on? Why do you think you’re hurting ponies?” Starlight opens her mouth to speak, but a burst of energy shoots from her horn and hits Trixie in the chest, knocking her down to the ground and knocking her out. She spins around and finds her twin standing behind her. “Well done, Starlight! Start with those closest to you; they’ll be the easiest to control.” “NO! GET AWAY FROM ME!” Frantic, Starlight bolts from the path into the surrounding fields. “Goodspeed, Rainbow Dash.” “Applejack, she’s only been gone for two minutes. Give her some time.” Applejack sighs. “I know, Rarity. I just got a lot o’ questions an’ not enough answers.” Fluttershy turns to Pinkie Pie. “So how did you know that those equal signs weren’t really our cutie marks.” “Well … when we were in that vault and got ambushed the first time, I could feel a part of me just being taken from me, you know, some happy fun part of me that left me all ‘blah blah’ and such but when we woke up just now I didn’t feel that sense of ‘blah blah’ so I thought maybe we really weren’t changed like we were that last time but I had to be sure so I had to give myself a reason to really laugh, and I mean really laugh, I mean laugh hard, so I thought the best way to do that was to grab a big ol’ cream pie and … *giggle* … and just cream Rarity with …” Pinkie once again falls to the floor in hysterics. Rarity stares at her laughing friend with contempt. Now is not the time for revenge, Pinkamina Diane Pie … but just wait … Rarity shakes off her thoughts and turns back to Applejack. “OK, so what do we know?” “Well, we all saw Starlight Glimmer walk in and shoot some sort of knockout blast at us, we all fell unconscious, and we woke up with equal signs painted on our flanks.” “And Starlight walks in on us, is aghast by the sight of us, and runs away.” Rarity mulls over the events. “Something’s not adding up here.” “You and Rainbow Dash saw her earlier at the castle,” Fluttershy mentions. “You seemed to think something was bothering her then.” “She did seem to be fighting off some inner demons … as if her past self were trying to take over. But if that were the case, why use paint? Starlight’s magic is powerful enough to have just removed our cutie marks; she’s actually done that deed before! Why fake it this time?” “And that was genuine surprise when she saw us,” Applejack adds. “Maybe she really doesn’t have any recollection of what she’s been doing.” “Or maybe …” Rarity pauses to think, but at that moment Rainbow Dash returns from her trip to the castle. “Any luck?” Applejack’s question is met with a rushed response. “No time, we gotta head north down the road. Trixie’s lying down next to her wagon. I think someone attacked her. Maybe Starlight.” “No,” Rarity insists, “Starlight would never lift a hoof against Trixie.” “We can sort everything out later,” Applejack asserts. “Dash, you an’ Fluttershy fly back and tend to Trixie; the rest of us will meet you as soon as possible. Now let’s move, ponies!” AJ, Pinkie and Rarity gallop down the main thoroughfare leading out the northern end of Ponyville, passing fewer ponies each minute unless it’s just the threesome racing on their own. They soon see a wagon peeking over a slight hill and lessen their pace to catch their breath. Seconds later, they meet up with their pegasi friends. “How does she look, Dash.” “About as well as we did,” Rainbow Dash tells Applejack. “She’ll probably come to soon enough; hopefully, she can shed some light on recent events.” “It’s a good thing that you caught a glimpse of her while returning from the castle,” Fluttershy notes. “Any sign of Starlight?” “I searched every room in that castle; no sign of Starlight … but you may not want to go into the cutie map room right now. It’s creepy.” “Creepy?” Fluttershy asks. “Creepy how?” “Well, it looks like ‘old’ Starlight did some redecorating. The walls are full of equal signs, and messages of conformity are scrawled all over the floor.” “Wow, that sounds like a fun house room gone really bad,” Pinkie remarks as the others shudder at the thought. “So what now?” “I think now we need to get Spike to send a message to Twilight,” Applejack suggests. “Starlight’s dealin’ with some powerful inner demons right now, and if Trixie couldn’t get her to snap out of it, I doubt any of us can.” “That all assumes that Starlight really is behind all this,” Rarity continues, “but I still don’t see it. If such a sinister side were powerful enough to actually attack us, then that side would certainly have been able to actually take away our cutie marks. There’s just no reason to resort to a façade like paint.” “But if anypony else were causin’ all this, wouldn’t Starlight have told us?” “Well … I can’t argue that point, AJ. But I still think there’s more to this than—“ A moaning causes the others to turn to Trixie, now getting up on her hooves while holding the back of her head. “The Great and Powerful Trixie … has a serious headache right now,” she says weakly. She then notices the others standing around her. “Starlight! Do any of you know what’s happened to Starlight?” “We were hoping you could fill in some details, Trixie,” Rarity states. “Tell us, did you see her? Did she cause this? Did she … did she attack you?” “Well … yeah, but then … it’s just weird …” Trixie rolls her eyes to the sky, trying to recollect more details. “Please,” Rarity urges, “try to remember anything you can.” “I remember … I remember her crashing into the wagon. Something’s really got her spooked; she kept talking about having to leave Ponyville, having to leave her friends … having to leave me.” Tears begin to stream from her eye, and she turns away. Rarity hugs her tightly, then whispers into her ear: “I’m sure this is difficult for you … but please, is there anything else you remember?” Wiping her eyes, Trixie turns to again face Rarity and the others. “I tried to talk her out of it … that we would be there for her, no matter what. And I thought I was starting to get through. It looked like she was having second thoughts about running away. And then …” “Oh my … she did attack you?” “No … no, it wasn’t Starlight. It was somepony behind her … and I only caught a glimpse before getting hit, but … do any of you know if Starlight has a twin sister?” The others all look to each other quizzically. While the others chat to themselves about how none of them really know much of Starlight’s family, Rarity contemplates Trixie’s memory of events. She turns from the others and strolls away for several feet, then stops. She then turns back to the others, fear in her eyes. “Starlight Glimmer is in great peril.” The rolling hills having long ago given way to dense forest, Starlight Glimmer gallops through thickets of trees, nicking and scratching her body through numerous bushes and brambles. All the while, her evil spirit taunts her as she follows. “Stop running away from who you are, Starlight Glimmer. Work with me, not against me. Embrace all that I have to offer. Fulfill your destiny.” Daylight fades as fatigue sets in, but Starlight continues to block out the messages from her mind as she rushes past another bush. Soon, her gait lessens to a trot, then a walk. She takes in several gasps of breath and eyes her current surroundings: she finds herself near the base of a small mountain, surrounded on three sides by numerous mighty pines that block out most of the sun’s rays. She notices a narrow cave opening in the stone; as she does, she feels drops of rain. She scrambles to the makeshift shelter before the skies open up into a downpour. Illuminating her horn to see in the dark, Starlight walks a few steps in … only to find more solid rock; the alcove’s depth is no more than her old room in the castle, bereft of any sign of life. She turns back around, and comes face-to-face with her twin; her illumination spell immediately ceases. “So it’s come to this. All your plans, all your desires … reduced to a small cave?” “If it must be,” Starlight defiantly states. “ Nopony will find me here, and I won’t allow you … I won’t allow myself … to brainwash another living creature. You can force me to turn against my friends, but you can’t force me to actually return to them. I’ll live off the land in isolation if I must, but you will not win!” Her twin eyes her for a moment before speaking. “If that is the way you truly feel …” Her twin then turns towards the cave entrance, and a bolt of energy fires from her horn, striking the mouth of the entrance. The resulting explosion triggers a rockslide that quickly buries the egress from their view, eclipsing the last of the daylight in the process. “NOOOO!!!” Starlight’s exclamation is met with silence, and her eyesight struggles to adjust to the pitch-black conditions. She attempts to relight her horn, but to no avail. A thought then occurs to her: “Wait … how could you physically cause that? You’re not real!” “Wrong again, Starlight Glimmer.” A light emanates from a horn … and a chill runs through Starlight’s spine, causing her to shiver as she eyes the image of a haggard changeling, her wings frayed, her hair tangled, and her body pockmarked with scars and scratches. “I told you you couldn’t just forget about me,” Chrysalis calmly informs Starlight. “Now let’s talk for a little while.”