//------------------------------// // The Cutie Re-Remark - Part 2 // Story: My Little Pony: Friendship is Absurd // by Lord Seth //------------------------------// “And so after some thought, Sunset and Gilda settled into the new timeline, and canon occurred. And that’s how Equestria was made!” finished Chrysalis. “That had nothing to do with the founding of Equestria,” said Luna. “Of course it did!” said Chrysalis. “It told the story of how, via time travel, Equestria got made.” “Chrysalis, the fact we are having this conversation strongly indicates that’s not how the story ended.” “Ooh, you caught that contradiction!” said Chrysalis. “Good job! Glad to see you’re staying on your toes! That was my April Fool joke for you!” “But… that day was yesterday,” said a confused Luna. “Again, keeping you on your toes!” declared Chrysalis. “I never want my assistants to get too complacent, because then they slack off.” “What did you even mean by canon occurring?” “Oh, a ‘canon’ is a kind of song,” said Chrysalis. “After deciding to settle in, they took out ukuleles and decided to play one of those songs. I thought their adventure was highly lacking in ukuleles so I decided to add some in.” Luna sighed heavily. “Could you at least tell me how Sunset’s adventure actually ended?” “I thought that the ending I came up with was a perfectly fine and thematically appropriate ending,” said Chrysalis. “It doesn’t matter,” said Luna, “because it isn’t how it actually ended.” “Pfft, reality is overrated,” said Chrysalis. She frowned. “Darn it, I just realized something.” “What?” asked Luna. “It would have made a lot more sense if Starlight had gone back to when they got those Elements of Irony in the first place,” said Chrysalis, “as that was a more strong showing of them getting together directly than the Sonic Rain-Boom. But I guess she was kind of crazy, so that could explain it. Oh well. Too late to change it now that I’ve already told you it.” “I don’t think you can just change reality like that,” said Luna. “Like I said,” said Chrysalis, “reality is overrated.” One of these days, I’m going to realize that asking her questions about things like this—or about anything at all—only leads to pain, thought Luna to herself. One sentence before the end of the previous chapter, because much to the displeasure of ukulele fans everywhere, that final sentence of the previous chapter mentioning canon was the only part of that chapter that didn’t actually happen… “Well, I guess we could take the opportunity to explore the world a bit,” said Gilda. The two went over to the train station to buy tickets. “Can we get the cheapest tickets to Canterlot, please?” asked Sunset. “Uh, sure,” said the pony working at the ticket station. “That leaves tonight. Here, can you sign these?” Sunset and Gilda looked at the pieces of paper they were handed. “Waiver forms?” asked Sunset in a confused tone. “Well, of course,” said the pony. “Night is when the flesh-eating zombies come out. We need to make sure we’re not liable for any injuries if they happen to attack the train.” “Wait, what?” asked Sunset. “What’s this about flesh-eating zombies?” “How do you not know about those? They’re everywhere!” “Um… well… we recently lost all of our memories, right!” said Sunset. “So we caught up by reading some newspapers, and they didn’t say anything about zombie attacks.” “Why would they?” asked the ticket seller. “They’re so common they’re no longer newsworthy. Also, the newspapers are notoriously unreliable, even getting things like who’s the leader of this country wrong.” “I’m sure we can just pick up some guns to handle the zombies,” said Gilda. “Guns?” asked the ticket seller. “You know, guns?” said Gilda impatiently. “Weapons incorporating a metal tube from which bullets, shells, or other missiles are propelled by explosive force? I’d expect they’d be great at getting rid of zombies, especially shotguns.” “Never heard of them,” said the ticket seller. There was a pause, then Gilda started hyperventilating and grabbed Sunset. “We have to go back! I can’t take this world!” Sunset batted Gilda away. “Look, I admit that the part about the flesh-eating zombies might be a little bit of a deal breaker, but we are not going to go through all that time traveling again just because you’re such a gun nut. I’m sure if we make it a point not to venture out at night, we’ll be fine.” “Right!” said the ticket seller. “During the day, all you have to deal with are the flesh-eating giant leeches. They’re much less of a problem.” “Okay, we’re heading back,” said Sunset. “Let’s go.” She and Gilda left. “Hrm,” said the ticket seller. “Maybe I should have only given all that information after they bought the tickets. Might have cost myself a sale there.” After another fight with Starlight and subsequent warp to the new present… “Okay, what happened in this present?” asked Sunset. The two quickly saw a gigantic Tirek wrecking havoc. “Mystery solved,” she said as she cast the spell again and they returned to the past, resulting in yet another confrontation with Starlight. “How much longer do you plan to keep this all up?” asked Gilda. “Until you give up!” declared Starlight. “What if Sunset and I don’t give up, and the three of us keep doing this forever?” “If that’s necessary to stop you and your friends from that cutie mark connection, sure!” said Starlight. “Is this really a connection?” asked Gilda. “Seems more like a coincidence.” “Even if so,” said Starlight, “the fact you lot didn’t get your cutie marks at those particular times in a new timeline clearly would change your lives sufficiently that you wouldn’t meet and become friends.” “You know, I’ve been meaning to bring that up,” said Sunset. “I think you’re under some incorrect impressions. Our group being ‘friends’ seems to be stretching the definition of that word.” “Who cares?” said Starlight. “I’m still getting my revenge.” “Yes, but it results in futures that are all kinds of screwed up,” said Sunset. “I mean, our little group did help stop several major threats to the world.” “Hrm, which of those futures were specifically averted by that?” asked Gilda. “Well, the first was partially caused by us not helping, as we didn’t defeat Celestia, which made the war worse,” said Sunset. “The one with Chrysalis and that weird one with the zombies didn’t seem to directly involve us and likely came out due to other things that changed in the past. But we definitely helped stop the others.” “What are you babbling about?” asked Starlight. “Wait, on second thought, I don’t care.” She zapped Rainbow Dash. “Looks like you failed again.” The portal opened up. “See you–” started Starlight, but Gilda suddenly grabbed her and she was pulled into the portal along with Sunset. The three were dropped onto the map yet again. They looked around and saw they were surrounded by vines. “Didn’t expect to see this,” said Sunset. “What, were you expecting a barren wasteland?” asked Gilda. “That would be overly convenient for the one time we grabbed Starlight.” Gilda flew up quickly to get a better view. “Wow, it looks like these vines go on forever. Might have overtaken the whole continent for all we know.” “Oh, no,” said Starlight sarcastically. “Some vines. Why should I care about that?” She went up to the vines and suddenly got hit by one. “Okay, that’s how you want to play it?” She blasted the vines with some magic. It had no effect, but the vines grabbed her and smashed her against the ground a few times before letting go. “Oh, look at all the cute birds…” she muttered before collapsing. “Let me guess,” said Sunset, “this one came about because we didn’t get rid of those vines when they were attacking, as we didn’t have the Elements of Irony to stop it?” “Probably,” said Gilda. “Though I do wonder what happened to all the threats in the various futures. For example, whatever happened to Tirek in the futures without him? I know a bunch of small changes add up to bigger ones, but it does seem a little odd, don’t you think?” “Honestly, at this point I’m trying to not bother making sense of things,” said Sunset. “It just gives me a headache. Now let’s see if we can get Starlight up.” “I’ll do it!” said Gilda. She went over to Starlight and punched her in the face. “Ow!” screamed Starlight as she suddenly got up. “What was that for?” “To wake you up,” said Gilda. “Also, it didn’t look like I was going to get to punch Rainbow Dash anytime soon, so I decided to take it out on you instead.” “Why did you even want to punch Rainbow–” started Starlight before getting interrupted by Sunset. “Well, now we’ve shown you that the future can get awfully screwed up when you decide to change what happens to a group that ends up saving the world several times!” said Sunset. “Maybe sometimes we did so inadvertently, but it still happened!” “Like when Discord said we were such sociopaths he wasn’t interested in trying to corrupt us, so he left for some place named Acapulco,” said Gilda. “Good times.” “What’s your point?” demanded Starlight. “Do I have to spell it out for you? Ugh.” Sunset sighed. “The point is that your meddling is just screwing things up in the present and not doing anything to restore your village. For example, in this timeline, it presumably just got taken over by the vines. Actually, there’s a possibility these might have wiped out all life.” “Rather dark, really,” said Gilda. “Anyway, now that you’ve learned this, any chance you’ll change your mind?” “You don’t know anything about me!” screeched Starlight. “I was perfectly happy before you and your group ruined what I built!” “I don’t think that was ever in dispute?” said Gilda. “It was about you not messing things up for everyone, including yourself.” “This does actually bring up a question,” said Sunset. “Whatever happened to you to make you like this?” “Well,” said Gilda, “I think my gun fixation probably comes from–” “Not you!” snapped Sunset. “I was talking about Starlight!” “You want to know?!” asked Starlight. “You really want to know?!” “The fact I asked in a non-rhetorical tone would seem to suggest that,” said Sunset flatly. “Fine!” said Starlight. “I’ll show you!” “Can you do it quickly?” said Gilda. “I just noticed these vines seem to be closing in on us.” Starlight cast the spell. A portal opened, sucking all three of them into it. The portal disappeared. The three were dumped yet again out of the portal, though this time in a nondescript town. “I really wish this could be done a little more gracefully,” said Sunset. “Where and when are we?” “In the past, when I was young,” said Starlight. “This was my home town.” “Wait, you aren’t from the future?” asked Gilda. “Um… no?” said Starlight. “Darn it!” said Gilda with a sigh. “So much for my theory that you were Shining Armor and Cadance’s daughter who traveled back in time.” Starlight stared at Gilda. “The color schemes match really well!” said Gilda defensively. “It wasn’t a completely unwarranted guess!” Starlight rolled her eyes, then walked over to one of the houses. They all looked in the window to see a much younger Starlight along with an orange-colored colt with red hair. They were balancing books in a big stack. “Wow,” said Sunset, “let me tell you, Starlight, pigtails do not suit you.” “Hey, that other kid looks kind of like you, Sunset,” said Gilda. “Is there any relation?” “Well, I never really knew my family,” said Sunset, “so who knows?” “Maybe it’s your long-lost brother!” said Gilda. “Or maybe you split off from him in a scientific experiment gone totally wrong!” “Hey!” said Starlight. “Stop making this about yourselves! Pay attention!” She pointed through the window. “That’s me and Sunburst. We were best friends! But then…” There was a pause as the group continued watching the two try to stack the books. “But then?” asked Sunset. “Did he fall in with the wrong crowd, and you got so depressed you ran into a treehouse and ate so many cookies you got huge?” suggested Gilda. “Um, hang on,” said Starlight. “I think I may have brought us back slightly farther than I should have. Wait for it.” Younger Starlight attempted to take one of the books from the pile, but it caused it to start tilting. Just before it fell onto her, however, Sunburst used magic to stop the books, levitate them away, and then put them back on the shelves. Afterwards, a cutie mark suddenly appeared on him. He was apparently so excited he ran out to show this off to two ponies that were apparently his parents, and the three walked off. The younger Starlight took on a depressed look. “And just like that, my friend was gone,” said the older Starlight. “His family recognized his magical talent and sent him off to Canterlot. I never saw him again.” “Um,” said Sunset, “why not?” “Because of his cutie mark!” declared Starlight angrily. “He got his, and I didn’t! He moved on, and I didn’t! I stayed here and never made another friend because I was too afraid another cutie mark would take them away, too!” There was an awkward pause. “Aren’t you going to say something?” asked Starlight. “Er… one moment, please,” said Sunset. She went over to a nearby tree and slammed her head into it a few times, then came back. “No, that didn’t make it make any more sense. Okay, Starlight, I need to ask you a question, and please don’t take it the wrong way. Are you insane, or are you just stupid?” Starlight was taken aback. “What?” “Probably a bit of both,” said Gilda. “Not everypony is’s lucky enough to get her cutie mark at the same time as her friends!” Starlight paused. “Or whatever you call that group of yours!” “But what difference would it have made if it hadn’t all been simultaneous for most of our group?” asked Gilda. “I mean, sure, it makes for a nice backstory, but none of them met each other until after getting their cutie marks, so it wouldn’t matter if the timing had been different.” “Before getting into the questionable nature of your revenge plan,” said Sunset, “I’d like to confirm. This is your reason for hating cutie marks? That’s it?” “What’s wrong with–” started Starlight. “I’ll lay it out for you!” said Sunset grumpily. “Point number one! Why didn’t you keep in any kind of contract with Sunburst? You wouldn’t even have had to go to where he was; just writing would be enough!” “Um…” said Starlight hesitantly. “Point number two!” continued Sunset. “You’re clearly really powerful magically! Why didn’t you just go to that school yourself?” “That’s because… er…” Starlight trailed off in confusion. “Three! How dumb and childish do you have to be to carry some kind of grudge towards cutie marks into adulthood and do all those crazy things like setting up that town just because of that? Talk about blowing things out of proportion!” “I–” started Starlight. “Four!” said Sunset as she cut Starlight off. “If you were… wait.” She turned to Gilda. “Was it cutie mark?” “No, that would be too simple considering the scenario,” said Gilda. “Like I said, think outside the box. It might be closer than you think.” Sunset sighed. “So much for that. Where was I? Oh, right.” She turned back to Starlight. “If you were so afraid of making friends because they might get taken away because of cutie marks, then why didn’t you just make a point to only make friends with ponies who had already gotten theirs? Point number five! If–” “Uh, Sunset?” interrupted Gilda. “Two things. First, we are still in the past, so maybe we should go back to the present to make sure we don’t mess up anything in this timeline.” “Oh, good point,” said Sunset. She opened up the portal and all three were sucked back in and were sent back to Cloudsdale. “I guess I have to come here before returning to the present,” muttered Sunset before she cast the spell again and the three were deposited on top of the map, but this time in a castle with the thrones having the normal cutie mark symbols on them. “The other thing I wanted to say,” said Gilda, “was that you’re starting to sound a little like a character from one of those bad fanfics that only exists to let the author complain about something they didn’t like in the series. Could you wrap it up?” “You read fan fiction?” asked a surprised Sunset. “I skim,” said Gilda. “Fine,” said Sunset. “Just one more point, then. Point number five! Starlight, if you had access to freaking time travel, why didn’t you use the opportunity to only go back as far as us visiting your village and tell yourself to be more careful of us? It’d help you out and wouldn’t have had as much of a chance of screwing up the entire world. And what was even your endgame with the plan? If I gave up, you still would’ve been stuck in the past! My plan to take over Equestria with an army of brainwashed teenagers made more sense!” “Wait, when and why did you have a plan to do that?” asked Gilda. “I went through a really weird phase when I was a younger, okay?” said Sunset. There was a pause. “Hrm,” said Starlight. “When you lay it out like that, it does feel like everything I’ve done has been awfully stupid.” “Right!” said Sunset. “Now that you’ve admitted that, maybe–” Sunset was interrupted by Lightning Dust suddenly smacking Starlight in the back of the head with Gilda’s gun, knocking her out. “Glad you kept her distracted!” said Lightning Dust. “That let me pull it off!” “I think she was actually coming around,” said Sunset. “Oh,” said Lightning Dust. “Well, I still don’t think I’m legally liable for any injuries caused to her.” “At least this whole nonsense is over,” said Sunset. “I know I constantly say this, but this was quite possibly the dumbest adventure I’ve had so far. Seriously, if Starlight had spent even half as much time figuring out her revenge plan as she did figuring out this cutie mark connection, it might not have been so dumb.” “Oooh, sweet burn!” said Gilda. “Would you say she got… sunburned?” asked Sunset. “Now you’re trying too hard,” said Gilda. “Well, here’s your gun back, Gilda,” said Lightning Dust as she returned it. Gilda looked at the unconscious form of Starlight. “Any suggestions on what to do with her? I don’t think we can just shove her in a box and ship her off to the comic book company like we did with Mane-iac.” Ragmill returned. “You know, although that was awfully rude, I’m thinking of giving you another chance,” she said. “Maybe I will buy this castle.” “Really?” asked Sunset eagerly. “Nope!” said Ragmill. “Just screwing with you.” “Why?” asked Sunset. “Because…” said Ragmill as she suddenly transformed into Chrysalis, “surprise! I was Chrysalis all along!” Everyone stared at Chrysalis. “Honestly,” said Chrysalis, “I would have thought that such a crazy name would have given it away. I mean, Ragmill Mightrest? What kind of name is that? Does it mean I’m ambivalent about giving ragmills a rest?” “But why did you go through all of this?” asked Lightning Dust. “April Fool joke,” said Chrysalis. “Oh, wow, I forgot that was today,” said Lightning Dust. “That was a pretty lousy April Fool joke,” said Gilda. “Oh, I was just kidding around,” said Chrysalis. “This wasn’t a prank. I did decide to buy the castle and just wanted to do it incognito.” “Really?” said Sunset, her eagerness returning. “Actually,” said Chrysalis, “I was just messing with you when I said I was just kidding around about it being a prank. It really was a prank! I’m the prank master!” “Why did I even get my hopes up,” muttered Sunset. “That’s a great question!” said Chrysalis. “You should know better by now than to do that. By the way, what’s Starlight Glimmer doing here?” “We had a very stupid adventure that led to this situation,” said Sunset. “You had an adventure in a minute or two?” asked Chrysalis in a confused tone. “I was only out of here for that long.” “Time travel was involved,” explained Gilda. “That sounds interesting!” said Chrysalis. “I’d like to hear it!” “Do I have to?” asked Sunset. “Only if you don’t want me to declare imminent domain on this castle,” said Chrysalis. “I believe you mean eminent domain,” said Lightning Dust. “No, imminent domain,” said Chrysalis. “The problem with eminent domain is that it takes a while. Imminent domain is much faster, as the name suggests.” Sunset sighed. “Okay, here it goes.” One story later… “…and that brings us to now,” said Sunset. “Hrm… I think I’ll give you a C+ for that report,” said Chrysalis. “I feel it dragged on a bit too long, plus I sort of zoned out for most of it after you found out about the flesh eating zombies.” “Ha!” said Lightning Dust. “I’m not the only one who does that when Sunset is talking!” “Whatever!” said Sunset. “You’re queen of Equestria. Can you do something about Starlight?” “Well,” said Chrysalis, “causing the potential end of the world by time travel isn’t technically illegal, because we never bothered passing a law about that.” “There’s no law against it?” asked Sunset incredulously. “How often do you think time travel comes up?” said Chrysalis. “Though there was going to be a bill to add that in as part of a ‘just in case’ initiative, but when it came down to approve it, we couldn’t find the bill. It seems the bill went off to star in a musical number about how a bill becomes a law. It was catchy, but as a result it never got passed.” “Well, there’s got to be something illegal about all that stuff she did in the town!” said Sunset. “Including taking me prisoner!” “Oh, that was illegal,” said Chrysalis. “But it has a rather short statute of limitations. By the time we took it to trial, said statute of limitations would be over.” “What if we hurried?” “Well, we’d have to really hurry,” said Chrysalis, “considering we’ve got about 5 more seconds until it runs out. Oh, darn it, there we go.” “Why is the statute so ridiculously short?” asked Gilda. “We used up all of the long statutes on other laws, so we were only left with short statutes for this one,” said Chrysalis. “That doesn’t even make…” started Sunset before thinking better of it and deciding to no longer pursue that line of inquiry. “Fine. What are we supposed to do with Starlight in the meantime?” “Hrm,” said Chrysalis. “There’s probably something we can catch her on. I’ll just take her into custody until I can find something. In the meantime, I’ve got some work to do. That 94.2477796% approval rating isn’t going to maintain itself!” Chrysalis left with the still-unconscious Starlight. “You know,” said Sunset, “it’s sad to think that based on those alternate timelines, this is apparently the good version of Chrysalis.” “I’ve been thinking,” said Gilda. “We still have that scroll that can let us travel through time. Why don’t we go back and try to improve things for ourselves?” “Because doing so could easily have unforeseen consequences and only make things worse for you?” suggested Lightning Dust. “Well, maybe if we carefully considered–” started Sunset before getting interrupted by the scroll suddenly flashing and all of the text on it being replaced. “What happened?” asked Gilda. Sunset read the new text on the scroll. “‘Your free trial of Trusty Time Travel™ has expired! Any changes to the timeline as a result of its usage may have been reverted as a result. To purchase a subscription to the full version of this spell, please contact manufacturer.’ Starswirl made this as a demo?” “Trials periods are a good way to entice customers who might not want to jump into the premium plan right away,” said Lightning Dust. There was a pause. “Wait a minute, that’s it!” said Sunset. “I’ve been having so much trouble selling this castle. What if we did a sort of trial version by renting parts of it out? I’m sure that could more reliably make money than trying to find somepony to actually buy the thing.” Suri suddenly dashed in. “Did I just hear a great money-making idea?” “Well…” started Sunset. There was a pause. “Yes?” asked Suri. “Sorry,” said Sunset, “I’ve gotten so used to being interrupted I didn’t bother finishing my thought. What I was saying was that we were going to try renting out parts of this castle for money. It doesn’t seem like we’re having any luck selling the whole thing.” “A brilliant idea!” declared Suri. “Previously I didn’t bring up that idea because I thought it might void the warranty on the castle, but if it won’t get sold anyway, I suppose it doesn’t matter.” “I still can’t believe there are warranties to be voided on castles,” said Sunset. She paused. “Wait a minute. Gilda, it was changeling, wasn’t it? You were talking about me!” “And the last horse finally crosses the finish line,” said Gilda in a satisfied tone. Several days later… “Guess who’s back?” announced Chrysalis loudly as she entered the castle. “No, seriously, guess!” “Okay, I’ll guess. Is it Chrysalis?” said Sunset flatly. “Wow, you got it right!” said Chrysalis. “Anyway, it turned out I didn’t really need to find anything illegal Starlight did, because after she finally woke up, she totally had reformed and wanted to put all of that equality and such things behind her and was willing to take any punishment I offered. I’m sure the head injury was completely coincidental to this sudden change in personality. Of course, I had to find something in order to come up with a sentence, so I got her for tax fraud, as she wasn’t paying taxes on that town of hers.” “Great!” said Sunset. “So we won’t have to worry about her anymore?” “Well, I won’t,” said Chrysalis. “You, on the other hand, will. I’ve decided to put you in charge of her rehabilitation!” Sunset stared. “What.” “Yep!” said Chrysalis. “You’ll be able to teach her all about the magic of friendship!” “How am I in any way qualified to teach anypony that?” asked Sunset. “Because you’ve learned so much!” said Chrysalis as she pulled out several pieces of paper. “I mean, just listen to some of these lessons you sent in! ‘Today I learned it isn’t the fall that kills you; it’s the sudden step at the end.’ ‘In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.’ With you knowing things like that, how can I not consider you a friendship expert?” Sunset could only continue to stare at Chrysalis blankly. “Anyway, I’m glad we’ve sorted all that out! Also, don’t worry; you actually get some decent tax breaks for this.” Chrysalis left briefly and came back in with Starlight. “You all have fun! I’m off!” “And what are you planning to do while I handle this?” asked Sunset wearily. “Embarrassing story, that,” said Chrysalis. “You know about how you need express written permission to transform into someone? Turns out there actually, by pure bizarre coincidence, was a Ragmill Mightrest. So I had to sentence myself to some prison time.” “Makes perfect sense!” said Lightning Dust. “But don’t worry!” said Chrysalis. “It probably won’t be too long. I’m sure that I’ll be able to give myself early parole for good behavior. Also, there is a small chance that everything I said starting with ‘Embarrassing story’ and ending with ‘good behavior’ was made up. Tallyho!” The group stared at Chrysalis as she left. “So,” Gilda finally said, “that happened.” “Chrysalis is… a very unique individual,” said Starlight. “Well!” said Gilda. “I guess you’re in charge of Starlight now, Sunset. Now all you have to do is teach her to make friends!” I guess it is in my best interests to try, thought Sunset to herself. After all, the faster Starlight makes more friends, the less I’ll have to deal with her. “Sure!” she said out loud. “I’ll do my best to do that thing you just said.” “I never thought that I would find a place To step right in and start again I never thought–” “Okay, friendship lesson number one!” said Sunset grumpily as she interrupted Starlight’s song. “No singing while I’m around!” “Not even Winter Wrap Up?” “Especially Winter Wrap Up!”