Be Careful What You Wish For

by darkstone57

Chapter 1

The time is ripe. Everything is ready.

Starlight Glimmer stood at the end of the room, which was a part of the dilapidated old castle that lay deep in the Everfree Forest, with a confident smile across her face.

She could hear them coming now.

She turned methodically at the sounds of the group of galloping hooves rapidly approaching her, and then coming to a halt after a great slam was made that followed with call of disdain from a voice that she knew well.

Starlight stepped proudly and with a sinister grin walked up to the ones she blamed for all her recent misfortune, in the middle of the room.

“Hello, girls.” Starlight greeted with venom, the Elements of Harmony.

“Starlight,” Twilight responded with disdain at the sight of Starlight standing in front of her, “What are you planning?”

“What?” Starlight replied with facade of surprise, “Don’t care how I’ve been? How I’ve been living my life?” Starlight’s rage was plastered all over her face, “You know, since you took my old one away from me!?!” She roared at Twilight.

“Save it, ya snake,” Applejack jabbed, earning a sneer from Starlight, “We wanna know what ya stole from the Princesses’ so we can take it back!”

“Yeah!” Rainbow chimed in with vehemence, “And, what’s with this shield, afraid you can’t take us?!” Rainbow Dash taunted as she brought herself as close she could Starlight, glaring at her with disgust.

“Oh, I know better than deal with you mindless force. I have better idea instead.” Starlight simmered her anger as she remembered what she was going to do.

“Explain.” Twilight demanded, sharply.

“You girls won’t get past my shield, no matter how hard you try. From where you are, it protects me and the rest of the room behind me and it has enough force to withstand the strength of meteor strike.” Starlight confidently rambled as she gestured to the room itself.

“Then, why shut yourself in?” Rarity asked, perplexed at Starlight’s efforts.

“So you can watch.” Starlight stated with sadistic glee.

“Watch what? You play the longest game of sitting in a dark room before you chicken out?” Pinkie asked.

“No, you dolt,” Starlight snarled at Pinkie before proudly proclaiming; “My victory.”

“What do you mean?” Twilight demanded, again.

Starlight turned her head to her saddle bags, her horn surrounded in her magical colour as she uses her magic to open the seal, pulling out two large scrolls that seemed to become slightly torn by age and levitated them over to her position.

“Tell me something, Princess;” Starlight began, her confidence on full display, “What do you think a unicorn like me can do with these spells?” Starlight asked as she brought the two scrolls in front of Twilight, not going outside of the shield, for her to read.

Twilight didn’t take her gaze off of Starlight but decided to humour her and began to quickly scan over the two scrolls that she came to understand used to belong to Star Swirl the Bearded. As she read them and began to think whilst putting a hoof to her chin and closing her eyes, her friends looked between in each other in genuine cluelessness as to what the scrolls where talking about.

Then, like a shot to the head, Twilight knew what she meant and it shook her to her core. Her eyes shot open in genuine horror at the thought of what her plan was and breathed a fearful and honest; “No...”

Her friends felt their confidence wane at the sight of Twilight truly horrified, Applejack placed a comforting hoof on Twilight’s back to try and comfort her. “Hey, Twi?” Applejack asked, starting to worry, “What is it?”

“Don’t worry, girls.” Starlight feigned care as she began to turn around, “She’s just realised that she can’t stop me.”

“What in the hay are you yammering about now!?” barked Rainbow Dash.

Starlight didn’t reply but instead began to walk toward the altar at the end of the room but stopped halfway, the scrolls hovering just above her.

“This time,” Starlight began with anger once more at the forefront, “You and your precious friendship won’t stop me from having my way!”

“Speak plainly, you fiend!” Rarity yelled at Starlight with frustration.

“DON’T DO IT!” Twilight cried out fearfully as she rammed her hooves against the shield, her friends surprised in her sudden outburst were left with more questions than answers.

“Twilight, what’s wrong?” Fluttershy asked with genuine concern.

Twilight dropped her hooves and turned to her friends who all had no clue what was going on.

“What Starlight has in her possession are two of Star Swirl the Bearded’s scrolls that contain two extremely powerful spells,” Twilight sucked a fearful gulp, “A spell that affects the fabric of time and a spell that affects the fabric of space.” Twilight stopped before bringing her gaze back to Starlight whose smile split her face with sickening joy. “She...” Twilight tried to say it but she couldn’t.

“I,” Starlight interjected from across the room, gaining all of their attention, “was originally going to use this time spell, to alter the timeline so that six of you would have never met and would have never have ruined my town that I worked so hard for!” Starlight snarled, once more, before regaining her composure.

“But, that would be problematic as I would more than likely have returned to a different reality altogether, one where I can’t have my ways of equality and harmony shown properly because the ponies of that town may have led different lives, entirely.” Starlight stopped and took look around the room for a moment.

“However, with this spell that revolves around bending space, I can combine the two together to build something even better than a town – A WHOLE NEW WORLD!” Starlight proclaimed proudly, her hooves shot up in celebration. “One, where my ways of Equality and Harmony will give everyone true friendship for eternity! And, no one will be able to stop me!”

“BUT YOU’LL DESTROY THIS WORLD IN THE PROCESS!!” Twilight screamed, slamming her hooves against the shield again.

“And, that, dear ‘Princess of Friendship’, is my victory.” Said Starlight, eerily calm, “Right here, in this room, where you six came together to create the elements and become victorious over one enemy, is where you will undeniably lose to me.” With that, Starlight began to chuckle proudly as she shot beams of magic simultaneously at the two scrolls.

After a moment, the scrolls emitted a continuous wave of magic that was aimed in the space between Starlight and the Mane Six. The magic collided and little white ball of contained energy appeared and hovered in midair, for all to see, one that was slowly growing larger, much to Starlights fulfilment.

Desperation became the forefront emotion as all the girls did was do everything that they could think of to try and breaking the barrier. From slamming hooves, to shooting beams, to firing party cannons and more, but, nothing even left a crack in the shield.

“Just a little bit longer and then my equality will become reality.” Starlight mumbled to herself with glee as she watched the magic ball increase in size.

As it increase in size, something began to change in the atmosphere, the sky around the castle began to darken all of a sudden, despite it being midday and for some reason that even Starlight couldn’t put her hoof on, something felt strange.

Even the girls, as they began feel defeated, felt that there was something else going on besides Starlight’s spell.

And after a moment they all felt an immense pressure forcing them down. They all tried to stand up right and even Starlight managed to keep her spell going but this pressure wasn’t from the gravity of space, it felt like something powerful was holding them down. Something, that Starlight felt was aimed directly at her. Something was enraged.

The spell stopped halfway as Starlight’s ears dropped as indescribable sounds of something coming from behind that broke her concentration. With dread, she turned her head. Starlight saw the floor of the altar behind blacken and disappear as well as the wall and ceiling around it.

Starlight stood up again after a moment of silence as her fear became her most prominent emotion as she stared into the black abyss. Then, she saw them.

Two large furious red eyes poked out from the darkness and bore its attention right at Starlight Glimmer.

The Mane Six huddled together in fear at the sight of those enraged eyes.

Starlight couldn’t even light a hoof at the sight and began sweating bullets as the eyes continued to stare right at her with a large red mouth that hung open.

An angry growl filled the silence that burst out into a deep and powerful roar that shakes the very foundation of the castle ruins.

When it stopped, sounds of multiple cracks began to fill the air behind Starlight. She turned to see and was shocked to find that her plans had literally begun to break apart. Her shield and her white sphere quickly gained more and more cracks in front of her eyes and before she could even react, they both shattered into pieces and disintegrated into nothingness; even the scrolls were torn beyond repair.

Starlight Glimmer’s plan was ruined.

A sinister growl grabbed her attention as she turned again to the dark creature only to be scared stiff, once again, at the sight of the creature suddenly having a pair of three large crimson tendrils that were aiming forward, directly at Starlight.

The creature slowly began to rise higher it seemed and Starlight could do nothing but follow its face as it rose with a vengeful rumble in its growl.

Starlight Glimmer, who was so confident and proud a moment ago, was now scared for her life and was a still as a statue at the sight of, what she assumed to be, her end.

The creature roared, Starlight screamed and the Mane Six covered their eyes as the darkness almost instantly swallowed Starlight Glimmer.

After a moment, Twilight opened her eyes to see the area before them was enveloped in darkness and silence but then she realised, the darkness began to shrink away, back towards the altar.

Something in Twilight sparked to life for a moment as she realised what she was looking at. She gently removed herself from the girls who all began to see the darkness as well slip away.

They separated themselves and stood in confusion and shock at what they just witnessed.

“What... in the hay... was that thing?” Applejack spoke up, in complete bewilderment.

“It saved us all...” Rarity stated.

“But,” Fluttershy interjected, “...what did it do with Starlight?”

“Do you think she’s... okay?” Pinkie asked with surprising worry.

“I don’t think so...?” Rainbow said, unsure.

The conversation of the five girls began to slowly become heated over the discussion of Starlight’s well being. Twilight, however, continued to watch as the darkness retreated to the altar and as she did, spoke a simple word, firmly, “No.”

“What did ya say, Twi?” Applejack asked.

Twilight suddenly charged forward to Applejacks and her friends shock as she passionately dashed towards the darkness surrounding the altar.

“What are you doing?!” Rainbow called out, perplexed.

“Saving Starlight!” Twilight called back.

To which her friends replied with a unified cry of; “WHAT!?!”

They suddenly found their vitality as they tried to stop Twilight but she was already too far ahead.

Twilight gained momentum and dived head long first into, what was left of, the darkness that the creature came from.

Before they could reach the darkness their friend vanished into... it was gone and they came to screeching halt as they all cried their friends name.