Map to... Oh, you Gotta be Kidding me.
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“O-on second thought... maybe I’d better go with them,” Fluttery says, retreating from being subjected to Spike and Big Mac’s plans to banter away about Hoofball. “In case they... need me.”
“Looks like it’s a road trip,” Twilight says, walking over to where Dash and Shy are.
“Count me in too!” I cheer, causing all seven in the room to jump.
“Screwball?” Twilight cocks and eyebrow, before shaking her head. “I don’t think you need to come yourself. Only our Cutie Marks are on the map,” she indactes to where the six marks are hovering.
I blow a raspberry, waving her reason away. “Since when have I needed permission to do stuff out of the norm?”
“Uh...” Twilight opens her mouth, but then closes it, frowning.
“She’s got ya there, Sugarcube,” Applejack agrees. “What harm could happen? She’s got powers like Discord. Nuthin’ could stop her.”
I smirk at the Alicorn, who rolls her eyes.
A few hours later, we travel by train and reach the area just outside of Starlight Glimmer’s village.
I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit unsure about that pony. I never did get to watch the season 5 finale, so I’ve no idea whether Starlight plays a part in that or not, nor just what she’d do during it’s events.
Then again, maybe it won’t be Starlight at all. Maybe it’ll be the Changelings. After all, I’ve still no idea where Queen Cheese Legs went after she took the majority of her hive out of the Empire while Twilight and I were in the human world for the events of the first Equestria Girls movie.
Maybe she’ll be back. Don’t understand why she’d risk it, though. She knows damn well that I’ll be out to get her once I find her and I’ll use every bit of my Chaos to make her existence miserable. Just ask Adagio Dazzle.
Anyway, we head done, myself deciding I’ll play up being a normal Earth Pony for now and walking alongside the rest of the group. After all, if I wanna surprise Starlight at one point, should it be needed, she’ll be far less wary of me if I don’t show I posses unique powers already that could easily trump her plans.
Though, I’m not going to lie. You think it’s creepy watching all these towns ponies saying “Welcome” with those smiles in the show? Experiencing for real is WAY more unsettling.
We get led to Starlight’s house and I notice something I hadn’t before. When she talks about being happy to have us... it sounds like she’s saying right away that, doesn’t matter whatever other reason we came, we could’ve been visiting a friend for all she knew, but now that we were here, without any question, we wanted to join their village.
Okay, that is an ego centred thought that I doubt even Spoiled would have. Oh, yeah. I just compared Spoiled, the mare I hate with all my guts, as being better in an emotional aspect than another pony. That’s pretty bad.
Though I find myself subconscious was being a bit active. When Applejack says, “Say what?” in a deadpan after Starlight talks about “true friendship”, a big red flashing light appears atop her hat, the words Bullshit Detector written in white letters underneath.
“Hey, I wondered where that went,” Pinkie says, grabbing it off AJ’s hat and it disappearing into her mane.
...
Nope. Not going to bother questioning that. Not even going to try.
After Starlight gets the town to sing, which, by the way, the lyrics are far more unsettling to hear in person than watching or listening to it from seeing it as a fictional perspective, we all head around the village.
When we get to Sugar Belle’s bakery, we all sit down, myself plopping between Applejack and Fluttershy.
“If we’re going to get to the bottom of why the map sent us here, we’ll need the help of these ponies,” Twilight says, myself taking notice of Sugar Belle coming out from her bakery to speak with us.
Wait. Wasn’t she just over there with Diamond Double? How did she get back into her bakery without passing us?
I glance over to the white stallion and... he’s the only pony there.
O....kay. little weirded out here. Yeah, I’m the one weirded out, the pony with freaking Chaos Magic.
“Is your friendship ending?”
Sugar Belle’s question pulls me from my train of thought and I look to her with a deadpan, while saying sarcastically, “Oh yeah. We’re having one tiny disagreement and now a friendship that has been solidified for over a year is suddenly gone if a puff of smoke.” I roll my eyes. Yeesh.
“Are you crazy?!” Pinkie cheers, cutting off whatever the other mare was going to say. “We’d let a disagreement get in the way of food!”
Sugar Belle takes the order for fourteen muffins (one for each of us and the extra seven strictly for Pinkie because she’s so hungry) and heads back inside.
“Come on, girls,” Twilight says, looking to all of us. “We’ve gotta stick together. It doesn’t matter what happened before, we’re here now.”
Applejack gives a light sigh. “Ah guess yer right. and the sooner we figure out why, the sooner we can go home.”
The others all murmur in agreement as Sugar Belle puts at plate stacked with muffins in the centre of the table.
“Forgive me for overhearing, but just a moment ago you were disagreeing,” she says, looking confused, “and now it sounds like you’re... agreeing?”
“Uh-huh,” AJ deadpans.
“Well, it’s just you had such differing opinions,” Sugar Belle says, looking uncertain, “and Cutie Marks.”
I narrow my eyes playfully, though to her it probably looked serious. “You got a problem with others having different Cutie Marks? Doesn’t sound very understanding to me.”
“We have differing opinions all the time, darling,” Rarity chuckles.
“But... you look like you’re friends,” Sugar Belle says and you can tell from her expression her brain isn’t comprehending the situation.
“We are friends,” Twilight affirms, smiling. “A simple disagreement wouldn’t change that.”
“Yeah,” I say, folding my forelegs. “Foals disagree with their parents all the time, but it doesn’t stop them caring about each other. It’s just what happens.”
“I’m sorry, I’m just having a hard time understanding,” Sugar Belle says with a strained smile, before going into a deadpanned expression. “Different talents lead to different opinions, which leads to bitterness and misery.” Her expression turns to a small confused smile. “So, why aren’t you bitter and—?”
Pinkie hacks up the bite of muffin she’d taken, interrupting Sugar Belle.
They talk a bit more, Sugar Belle mentions about not being any better at baking than anypony else in the village, which actually makes me frown as something occurs to me.
Starlight took Sugar Belle’s talent for baking away... yet made her the town baker. That... that’s just so stupid, I don’t even know where to begin picking apart the holes in that logic.
Sugar Belle whispers for us to come inside before we go and rushes into her bakery.
Actually, that there says something. Starlight seems to be the only one who clearly thinks we intend to stay, as Sugar Belle just asked us to come into her bakery before we leave.
Then again, she could’ve just meant before we left her bakery.
We all speak quietly about how we’ll go inside to see what Sugar Belle wanted to talk about. When AJ’s says Pinkie has to eat all those horrible muffins, I give the farm mare a small glare, before looking to the muffins.
“There, better,” I say, the briefest of flashes, too small for anypony save us at the table to notice. “Pinkie, you’ll be able to enjoy them now.” I’m not letting Pinkie force herself to eat all these things, considering in the episode she said she’d accidentally eaten cardboard that was tastier.
Pinkie looks anxiously at me, then down at the muffins, gulps and leans forward, taking a bit. A second later, her eyes light up and she opens her mouth wide, pretty much inhaling the rest, chewing away with happy murmurs.
The others all look to me.
“What did you make them taste like?” Rainbow asks uncertainly.
I shrug. “You’d be surprised what Pinkie can enjoy. Let’s just leave it at that.”
After that we head into the bakery and Sugar Belle, Night Glider and Party Favour tells us about how they miss having their marks, as well as about where the marks are kept and The Staff of Sameness.
I do find myself deadpanning. Really, Starlight couldn’t have thought of a better sounding name? Staff of Equalization, Staff of Uniformity, Staff of Similarity, so many other names that actually sound like something an ancient mage would name a magical item... and yet she chooses a name that sounds like something a foal would use when playing make-believe and couldn’t think of anything else? The more I think about it, she can’t be the bad guy in the finale’s events, right? She’s too stupid.
We get led to the vault and there’s definitely something unnerving about seeing all those Cutie Marks there.
Not to mention, I can sense magic in the stones of this cave. Is that how Starlight is able to keep the Cutie Marks trapped within, she’s using the stones’ natural magic to hold them?
“Well, it seems you inspire all kinds of free-thinking,” Starlight says, before narrowing her eyes, “don’t you?”
Rarity chuckles nervously. “Oh, well we certainly didn’t intent to cause any disruptions to your—”
“Good!” Starlight leers at us, Double Diamond coming up behind Rarity to stop her from being able to back away. “Let’s just make sure of that.”
I glare. “What? Our word isn’t good enough for ya, ya self-centre bitch?!” Whoops.
The other ponies of the village start surrounding us and Twilight does the Star Wars line.
I prepare to use my magic to stop all this, since I don’t feel anything holding me back, so I’m allowed to stop this, but suddenly find somepony has jumped forward and pinned me down.
In doing so, they accidently bash my head against the rocky ground, causing everything to blur.
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“In sameness, there is peace. Exceptionalism is a lie. Free yourself from your Cutie Mark.”
When I was able to recover my senses, we were already inside the room Starlight uses to brain wash ponies into believing her bullshit ideals and all our Cutie Marks are gone.
At first, I freaked out, but then realized was fine, even though my Cutie Mark is gone. No idea why that is, but it seems to be the case. I do feel weird though. Like I’m drained, but not drained.
Still, being branded with this mark means I’m stuck waiting out the events, as irritating as that is.
“Choose equality as your special talent.”
But nowhere near as irritating as having to hear that damn propaganda!
“ARGH!” I yell, having been laying on my stomach with my hooves over my ears for the last five minutes. “I wish she’d just shut up, already! I’d rather listen to anything but this!”
“To excel is to fai—” the sound of a record scratch interrupts Starlight’s next lines.
“I’m feeling like a star,
You can’t stop my shine.
I’m lovin’ Cloud City,
My head’s in the sky.
I’m solo, I’m Han Solo.
I’m Han Solo.
I’m Han Solo, Solo.
Yeah, I’m feelin’ good tonight,
Finally feelin’ free and it feels so right, oh.
Time to do the things I like,
Gonna see a Princess, everything’s all right, oh.
No Jabba to answer to,
Ain’t a fixture in the palace zoo, no.
And since that carbonite’s off me,
I’m livin’ life now that I’m free, yeah.”
My eyes open and I star up at the speaker phone on the ceiling, blinking.
The others are also staring in confusion at the device, before they all slowly look towards me.
“Screwball wanted something else to play...” Fluttershy says slowly.
“And the moment she said it, Starlight propaganda turned into... um...” Twilight looks up again in confused, “very unusual song.”
“It’s a fun song,” I pout, crossing my forelegs. “Sure, it’s not great, but it’s a good laugh. Wait, a second.” I blink, before looking back at the speaker, then at the others, uncross my legs and look down at my hooves, before a big grin spread across my face. “Of course! I can still use my magic because I wasn’t completely cut off from it.”
“But... I don’t understand,” Rarity looks around the group. “When Tirek took our magic our Cutie Marks disappeared and we couldn’t use any magic at all. How come Screwball can still use her magic.”
“Wait. That’s it!” Twilight cries, a smile forming. “The unicorns around here can still use their magic and the pegasi can still fly.”
“And the Earth Ponies must be able t’ grow the food this town needs to stay fed,” Applejack nods.
“So, despite Starlight taking our Cutie Marks, we might still have a chance,” Dash yells, punching a hoof in the air. “Screwball can just poof our marks back and we’ll be outta here!”
We all jump when a loud horn blares. It takes a second, but I realize it’s that sound that came when I first tried to go back to Earth.
Without my even trying, a small watch appears before me. I catch it before it falls and I look it over. It looks like a watch, but it’s like that one from the Santa Claus 2, where it tells how much magic Santa had left before he ran out.
Currently, the hand is pointing at eight.
“Seems, while I do have access to my Chaos Magic, it’s limited without my Cutie Mark,” I say, showing the watch to the others. “If we’re gonna use my magic to get out of here, we’re going to have to be smart about this.”
“Hmm,” Twilight frowns, rubbing her chin with a hoof. “Screwball is the youngest of us, so she might be able to convince Starlight that she believes her ideals.”
“The fact that Starlight is willing to put a foal through what she’s doing to us is deplorable,” Rarity huffs.
“Yeah. But her doing it to adult ponies is perfectly fine,” Dash deadpans.
“You know that’s not what I meant, Rainbow Dash,” the alabaster mare retorts.
“Girls, focus!” I call, causing them all to stop and turn to me as I look back with a smirk. “Don’t worry about a thing. I got this covered now. I have just the plan to expose Starlight for the fraud she is and get our marks back.”
Dash cocks an eyebrow. “Fraud? What’re you talking about, Screws?”
I snicker. “Let’s just say little miss Equality isn’t being completely honest with everypony in this village.”
“How?” Twilight cocks an eyebrow.
I just grin, walking over to join Pinkie, who’s been spending all the time we’ve been chatting dancing to the music. “You’ll just have to wait til tomorrow morning, Twily.”
She deadpans.
We spend the night much better off than had we not realized I could still faintly use my magic. sure, it got a little annoying hearing I’m Han Solo on a constant loop, but it was better than Starlight’s Equality propaganda.
Come morning we’re woken up by the music cutting out, replaced with Starlight’s voice. “Oh, good morning~”
The door opens and she walks in.
“I trust you had a pleasant night?” she asks with a bit of sneer hidden within her smile.
You’ve no idea, Starbutt, since we didn’t have to listen to you all night long.
She turns, indicating outside. “This way, please. There are some friends that would to see you.”
I almost can’t hold back my snicker. This is going to be fun.
We all walk out to meet with the towns ponies.
“Gather round, friends. Gather round.” Starlight calls out as everypony comes closer. “We’ve come to see if you are ready to join us,” she addresses us. “There are so many friend to be made once you realize you don’t need your Cutie Marks, or the talents that come with them.”
“I don’t give a flying fuck if I need my Cutie Mark or not!” I snarl, causing eveyrpony to take a step back at the venom in my voice. “You took them away without giving us the chance to decide that for ourselves!” I look out at the ponies gathered. “Tell me, in honesty, who here accepted being a part of this village before Starlight took their Cutie Mark away?”
There’s silence as each pony looks to one another, seeming surprised they’d never thought about it that way.
Starlight gives a laugh that sounds so forced even a deaf person would say, they hear it. “That doesn’t really matter, little one,” she comes closer and I see a hint of anger flash in her eyes. “What matters is we’re all willing to be here now.”
“Actually, it’s a very interesting thing to bring up,” I smirk. “See, you didn’t actually try to see if we wanted to give up our marks until you took them away. So, here’s my question, if we don’t want to be here, are we allowed to take our marks and go?” I deadpan. “Or will you just force us to remain in that shack forever.”
I see a small bead a sweat form on Starlight’s forehead. Good. I’m getting to her. Keep her focused on me and me alone and the fun will go without interruption.
“No. You only have to remain in there until you accept our ideals,” she smiles, though it is faltering ever so slightly. Clearly, she did not anticipate this kind of reaction.
I rub my hoof against my chest. “So, forever then, since I can promise you the seven of us have no intention of staying. Plus,” I look at her with narrowed eyes, “We all have families in our hometown, and I’m just a filly. My daddy and big sister would be heartbroken if they never saw me again because I simply vanished after staying here. Would I be allowed to send a letter to them, or would you keep a child from her family by force? Because, that would mean you are preventing me from being with my family, while other ponies in this town are allowed to be with them. In that sense, if I stayed, I wouldn’t be equal to everypony else in this town, because I wouldn’t be allowed to be with my family.”
That causes slight uncertain murmuring to occur among the gathered ponies.
Starlight glances left and right, giving a shaky laugh. “O-of course not. You’re family can just move here too.”
I smirk. And she’s mine. “So, I can send them a letter to invite them here.”
“Oh, no,” she says flatly, shaking her head. “That can’t happen.”
I frown in confusion, though it’s only an act, but got to play up the part of an innocent, naïve foal. “But, I can still leave once I decide to live here so I can go get them, right?”
Starlight shakes her head. “No, once you choose to stay you... can’t go to get them...” she trails off, seeming to realize too late the flaw in that logic.
“So, let me see if I have this straight,” I say. “If I choose to stay, you will keep me from being able to be with my family, even though you say I’m allowed to have my family so I can be equal to everypony else, but everypony else gets to be with their families except for me, meaning I don’t get to have something everypony else does, thus making myself unequal to every other member of the town.”
I see in my peripheral vision that Dash, AJ, Twilight and Rarity are enjoying seeing as Starlight desperately backpedals, trying to figure out how to make things work with the argument I’ve given her.
After several long moments, I decide to end that bit of her suffering by switching to another topic she won’t enjoy.
“So, just to be clear, every single pony in this town has the same Cutie Mark? Nopony has a different one; they’re all in the vault?”
That seems to calm her down and she smiles, nodding. “Yes. Every single pony has given up their Cutie Mark, which now rests in the vault.”
I smirk, addressing the ponies themselves. “So... does anypony know which of those Cutie Marks is Starlight’s?”
At once, Starlight pales and I love it.
All the other ponies look like they’re about to answer me, before glancing around at each other in confusion.
“We were told you’re all allowed to go back up there to look at your marks and remind yourselves why you gave them up,” I say nonchalantly, relishing the fear and frustration on Starlight face, “so, the earliest of you all must have seen Starlight’s Cutie Mark. What does it look like?”
“This is my Cutie Mark!” Starlight blurts out in fear, indicating to the equal mark on her flank.
Twilight seems to catch on and gives a mocking confused frown. “What? But I thought you said it was Mage Meadowbrook’s staff that gave those marks? How is that your Cutie Mark if you needed to use the staff on yourself to get it?”
Starlight’s anxiety is so fun to watch as the murmurs grow stronger. “It is. I mean, I did. I gave up my mark by using the staff.”
“But, if you gave up your mark using the staff, how is that your Cutie Mark that you gave up?” Fluttershy asks, more out of curiosity than joining in with my plan.
Starlight just looks around, her panic clearly rising as the ponies behind her start doubting her story.
“Okay. Time to end her suffering,” I say after several more moments, smirking. “You’ve already got a dark cloud hanging over your head, why keep going?”
Starlight blinks and looks up and, indeed, there is a dark rain cloud hovering above her head and, before she can do more than acknowledge this, a torrent of water pours down from it as if a bucket was upended.
When it stops, she’s soaking wet. But... that’s not the only thing that’s change.
There’s a collective gasp from the towns ponies. Starlight turns, asking, “What’s wrong?” before her eyes widen as her real Cutie Mark is exposed to them all.
She looks around in, her panic returning fall force.
“Wh-what are you looking at? They’re the problem, not me!” she says, indicating to us.
“Wow. You get exposed, so you try and blame a filly,” I deadpan. “Real mature there, Glimmer.”
“How could you?” Party Favour asks from the back of the crowd.
“You said Cutie Marks were evil!” Double Diamond says, sounding close to sobbing. “You said special talents led to pain and heartache!”
“They do,” Starlight tries desperately. “Don’t you see? Look at them.” she indicates to us, where I’m doing a little dance, Pinkie joining in.
“Oh yeah,” Dash smirks, crossing her forelegs. “They totally look like they’re suffering pain and heartache.”
“Then why?” Sugar Belle walks up to Starlight. “Why did you take ours and give up your own?”
“I can answer that, quite easily,” I stop my little dance and smirk. “You see, Starlight’s special talent is related to magic and spell crafting. If she gave that up, she wouldn’t be able to cast the spell needed to take her own Cutie Mark away in the first place.”
“But the staff has all the magic we need!” Night Glider says in confusion.
I heartily laugh. “That’s the best part. The oh so great Staff of Sameness, is just a stick she found while wandering the desert.”
“Wh-what does it matter?!” Starlight glares at me, before looking to the other ponies. “It's my magic that makes all this possible! You'd all still be living your miserable lives thinking you're better than everypony else if it weren't for my magical abilities! I brought you friendship! I brought you equality! I created harmony!”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong, Glim Glam,” I snicker, before looking out at the ponies. “Did any of you ever think of yourselves as better than others, simply because of your talent?”
Uncertain looks pass over them all, before Double Diamond looks firmly at Starlight. “You lied to us!”
Starlight gives a strained smiles. “So what? E-Everything else I said is true! The only way to be happy is if we're all equal!”
“Except for you,” Party glares.
Starlight turns around, her horn lighting up as she glares... and I hear the sound Spring Trap makes when he catches you in Five Night’s at Freddy’s 3? What?
“Everypony has unique talents and gifts,” Twilight begins, taking a step forward, “and when we share them with each other, that's how rea—”
“QUIET!” Starlight yells, whirling around to glare at the Alicorn, which does shut her up and causes me to giggle.
“You can't have a cutie mark, Starlight!” Sugar Belle says firmly. “Either we're all equal, or none of us are!”
Everypony gathers closer, standing up to Starlight. She looks around, finding no exit, then gives a flash with her horn, causing a barrier to form and shove us all aside and runs off into her house, closing the door behind her.
“Come on!” Double Diamond calls out. “Let's get our cutie marks back!”
We all cheer, “Yeah!” and hurry along after him, heading for the cave where the vault is.
Thankfully, since I know Starlight doesn’t take the Mane 6 (and by default now, my) Cutie Marks out of the vault til the very evening, I know ours are there too.
Sure enough, every single Cutie Mark is there, even the seven most recent additions.
The ponies of the town run up and start hitting it, but they’re not doing much.
“A-hem!” they all stop as I walk towards it, grinning. “Glad I still have enough for a little fun.”
“Step back, everypony,” Twilight calls to the rest of the gathered group. “Screwball can do this, but I’d advise getting out of the way.”
They do so, leaving me standing in front of the glowing Cutie Mark Tetris before me.
I spit into my front hooves and rub them together, before holding my legs up and swinging them in an arch.
At once, a large chuck of the cave lower ceiling breaks off and goes flying at the vault, smashing it and sending every Cutie Mark flying.
As mine returns, I feel a rush of energy flood my being. Once I feel everything is back to its abnormal normal way with me, I float up into the air.
With that, I turn and notice the Mane 6 aren’t around.
I roll my eyes, teleporting to their location, to find their following the path Starlight goes down to escape.
I decide to follow, up until Starlight’s about to enter the cave, before I teleport a large amount of snow on top of her.
She pops out, sees the others and fires a blast of magic at them, but, Twilight having gotten her mark back during the chase, teleports in front of everypony, creating a shield just like the one Starlight used, stopping the spell from making contact.
Starlight stares in disbelief. “Wh– I studied that spell for years! How can you—?”
Twilight shakes her head. “I studied magic for years too! But what I didn't know then was that studying could only take me so far. Each of my friends has taught me something different about myself!” She indicates to them, as Party Favour, Night Glider and Double Diamond start coming within range. “It was their unique gifts and passions and personalities that helped bring out the magic inside of me! I never would have learned that I represent the element of magic without these five! And I certainly wouldn't be here to stop you now!”
Starlight rolls her eyes. “Spare me your sentimental nonsense! I gave these ponies real friendships they never could've had otherwise!”
“How do you know that?!” Double Diamond growls. “You never even gave us a chance!”
Starlight glares, her horn flaring. When the light fades, she’s gone.
“She's getting away!” Dash shouts.
“We'll never find her in there!” Double Diamond shakes his head.
“Well, I probably could,” I shrug, “but I don’t see a point. Her plans are ruined, plus, it’s not like she’s really all that smart. A lot of her plans her kinda proven pretty dumb. I doubt she’d be able to do anything that will be a real problem.”
Twilight shakes her head. “We just have to hope that when she's had a chance to think it over, she realizes that you all have taught her something.”
With that and a few more talks, we head back to the village and celebrate.
Once the party ends, we all head back to the train tracks and wait for the train. It arrives several minutes after we get there, so we board and all sit down in our sits.
I could just teleport back to Ponyville, but I think a train ride will relax me,
Well, Starlight is dealt with and things in that village should be fine from now on. I can’t help but wonder where Starlight went. Did she go back to where she was born? Will she get lost in those caves? Will she eventually return to the village, having actually realized her mistake and be reformed?
Ah, whatever. Either way, I know I won’t have to worry about her being a problem ever again. She may be very magically gifted, but it’s not like she’ll, I dunno, put the entire Space Time Continuum at risk or anything, right?
With that reassure thought, I close my eyes and decide to take a nap for the ride back, glad that soon, I will be able to deal with Spoiled once and for all.