//------------------------------// // Self Help // Story: Starlight Glimmer Makes Many Mistakes // by MagicS //------------------------------// “It’s good to see you can still act like a responsible adult.” Spike said to Starlight as the two of them walked back to the castle. “Hey, Twilight made me her guidance counselor for a reason. I can do a good job when I’m serious.” She snapped back at him. Lightning Dust hadn’t been the happiest when Starlight and Spike dropped her off with the police and told them the story but she didn’t make a big fuss about it. Starlight hoped that her little intervention in the show and her encouragement was enough to help the pegasus achieve her dream of becoming a Wonderbolt in the future. The two of them said their farewells to the impertinent filly after that and had started on their way back to the castle. “Well I don’t know about you but I’m taking a nice long bubble bath once we get back.” Spike said. “Sounds nice. Just make sure to properly hang up your tuxedo first. It cost a lot of money.” Spike frowned and glanced up at her. “Yeah, it cost a lot of Celestia’s money.” “Hey, you’re still wearing it aren’t you?” Starlight mocked. “It looks too good on me, I can’t pass something like this up!” Spike weakly argued as he held onto his lapel, grinning and showing off the tux to Starlight. Starlight rolled her eyes. “How very principled of you.” “I think Rarity would understand where I was coming from.” “Well, yeah.” Starlight did have to allow that. Celestia was lowering the sun by the time the two actually got back to the castle. The guards and everypony else knew them well enough by now that they could easily walk in without a problem. Starlight and Spike waved to some of them and even got a few waves back. They hadn’t seen that one pony, Sharp Schedule, since their first day here though. Starlight wondered if he was avoiding them for some reason. They were walking through one of the outer gardens of the castle when a voice rang out. “Aha! There you are!” Starlight sighed and turned around. “What is it, Sunset?” Sunset Shimmer stood at the entrance to one of the stone covered pathways that bordered the garden. She had a fierce and determined look in her eyes as she stared down her nemesis. “Oh boy...” Spike muttered as he saw the expression on her face. “I’ve come to challenge you!” Sunset yelled at Starlight. Starlight just flatly stared at her for a moment before responding. “Why? I told you I’d gladly teach you if you wanted and we had the spare time.” “That’s not good enough!” Sunset barked out again. “I couldn’t stomach not being able to defeat your bubble shield, no unicorn has ever been able to get the better of me at magic before! And I’m Celestia’s prized student, this isn’t something I can let stand! So I’ve spent the past three days studying and practicing an attack powerful enough to break through any barrier you can make. Just try and stop this!” Sunset’s horn began glowing a powerful red, sparks shooting off of it. Now Spike was thinking that firing a powerful spell at another pony fully aware of the possibility and with the intention of hurting them was probably not something Celestia would approve of. Meanwhile Starlight was just kind of annoyed that she had to bother with something like this again. “Take this!” Sunset said as she fired a blast of concentrated magic directly at Starlight. Who promptly put up a powerful shield of her own magic upon which Sunset’s beam bounced off of and shot directly back at her. “Gahhhh!” The yellow unicorn yelled as he own spell blasted her, sending her comically smacking into the wall behind her. She slid to the ground in a pile of blackened fur with a singed mane and tail, pitifully coughing up a puff of smoke. “You didn’t need to do that.” Spike admonished Starlight. “On the contrary Spike, if she still attempted to do something this dumb after what I did to her last time, I think if anything this was me holding back.” Starlight responded as she walked up to the prone form of Sunset. “Now Sunset,” Starlight said to her. “Are you going to keep doing things like this or are you going to be good and get along with me so I can teach you some magic?” “Good...” Sunset weakly groaned as she couldn’t even look up at Starlight. Starlight smiled. “That’s what I wanted to hear! Alright, see you tomorrow.” And she quickly turned around, leaving the teenager there and walking back with Spike to their room. Spike for his part did send Sunset a pitying glance, but Starlight was partially right that she kind of brought all of this on herself. The next day Starlight was out alone on the town. Spike decided to take a vacation from her (much to her chagrin that he decided to frame it as such) and was currently enjoying being midway through a six hour bubble bath. So it was Starlight out wandering the streets of Canterlot on her own, she didn’t have any plans and couldn’t think of anything she wanted to change or bother with at the moment so the unicorn was merely seeing the sights, window shopping, and pony watching. That is until she got to one of the many plazas of Canterlot and heard a booming voice speaking out over a large crowd. “Welcome ponies of Canterlot to Iron Will’s improvement seminar!” The loud voice caught the attention of every pony in the area, even those that weren’t already gathered in the plaza. “Iron Will?” Starlight said aloud to herself, remembering the minotaur from his brief… work… as a teacher when Discord was messing with her at the school. She couldn’t help but be curious and her hooves brought her over to the crowd to see what he was doing. It really was a large crowd and Starlight had to fight her way halfway through it before she could even see Iron Will. He was noticeably younger but still as big and strong looking as she remembered. How long did minotaurs live anyways? It was kind of funny to see he’d been doing stuff like this for as long as he had. Iron Will stood on a premade stage with his hands clasped behind his back and eyes gazing out over the huge crowd of ponies, confidently grinning at them. “You ponies are here because you are wimps and you want to stop being wimps! Is that correct?!” He suddenly boomed out. Before the crowd could even really respond in the negative or affirmative, Iron Will continued. “Iron Will is indeed correct. You heard about me and my seminars and you came here because you wanted to change from a weak pushover into something great!” The mintoaur yelled. Starlight frowned. She didn’t like how he was just generally browbeating and denigrating a whole crowd of ponies like this. That should only be done on a personal level. And only to ponies that really deserved it! From what she saw of his teaching Iron Will seemed crass and a bit too extreme and self-centered for friendship school but he didn’t exactly come off as a bad guy either. And Yona liked him after all. “Hm, maybe I can make him better at helping ponies?” Starlight said while Iron Will continued to heat up the crowd. “Being less of a pushover is great but not if you just become a jerk instead.” And there was no reason to use so much negative reinforcement either. Starlight waited out the rest of the seminar as Iron Will verbally whipped and whipped up the crowd. She had to admit he had a way with rhymes and catchy phrases. “So if anypony ever again tries to make you their doormat?” He asked the crowd. “You go on the attack!” The crowd of ponies yelled back at him. “Excellent! Now Iron Will must inform you that he is absolutely, positively, completely assured that you will be satisfied with this seminar and the lessons learned in it. If you feel you haven’t shed your pushover self then you get your money back. But! Iron Will can already tell that there isn’t a single solitary pony out there that isn’t one-hundred percent satisfied already, is there?!” He shouted. “No!” The crowd again yelled back at him. Although Starlight noticed there were a good few who didn’t seem totally happy but were clearly too nervous to speak up. She’d do something about that. Iron Will finished up his performance and told all the ponies that now they had the tools to become strong and assertive, just like him. It amazed Starlight that something as loud and obnoxious as this was allowed in Canterlot. The minotaur said he would always be around for more seminars in the future and he also said that he’d be signing autographs for anypony that wanted one backstage. “The perfect opportunity.” Starlight said as she started forming up with the eager ponies to get Iron Will’s autograph. Thankfully the line wasn’t as big as the crowd but Starlight still had to wait a bit before her turn to meet the minotaur came up. Behind his stage he sat at a desk with a huge stack of photographs that he was signing, Starlight didn’t exactly understand the taste of the ponies who wanted one but who was she to judge. “Thank you for attending Iron Will’s seminar.” He said to Starlight as she stood in front of his desk. “Have this complimentary autograph.” He quickly signed his name on one of his photos and slid it to her in a way that said “I really should have thought to make ponies pay for these” to Starlight. “Thanks, but that’s not why I’m here.” She slid his autograph right back to him. “Would you be interested in a business venture with me?” The minotaur raised an eyebrow as he looked down at Starlight. “Iron Will is always interested in an excellent business venture.” He still made her wait for him to finish signing the rest of his autographs before he spoke with her again. Most of his stuff was being packed away into a large trailer by a group of goats who worked as his assistants. “So. What do you have to offer to Iron Will?” The burly orator asked of Starlight. “Advice first of all.” Starlight said. “On how to improve your seminars.” Iron Will started laughing. “Gehahaha, improve? Iron Will’s seminars are perfect! There is nothing to improve. No ponies have ever said they were dissatisfied!” Starlight frowned up at the laughing minotaur. “Only because they were too scared or intimidated to tell you about it. I saw ponies in the crowd just now who weren’t happy but were still too much of wimps as you would call them to speak up about it.” “That’s crazy talk.” Iron Will dismissively waved his hand. “Why would anypony feel they couldn’t be open with me? I am a very approachable and reasonable person.” As if to “emphasize” this he flexed his muscles, veins popping out of his neck and biceps. “Right...” Starlight just cast a disbelieving look at him. He frowned back at her. “Okay, so what if you’re maybe correct? What would you do and why should Iron Will even listen to you in the first place?” “Well I’m a guidance counselor at a school for friendship that’s all about reasonably solving problems, and I’m currently a special guest of the Princess at the castle right now. So my seal of approval would carry a lot of weight I think.” Starlight told him. Iron Will looked at her with a bit of a confused expression. “What does reasonably solving problems have anything to do with my seminars?” Starlight groaned. “Ugh, look, I’m saying that you should be nicer and more positive instead of just telling ponies they’re wimpy and that they should just be ultra-aggressive and rude. You should be convincing ponies that they can better themselves through positive reinforcement and reaching understandings with others, not just being selfish and resorting to violence or yelling.” “Iron Will is still skeptical. But he does wish to help ponies stop being pushovers and become winners, just like him.” Iron Will thumbed his chin. “Well that’s a start.” Starlight resisted rolling her eyes. “Another thing I think would be really helpful for you is instead of just doing these shows why not write a book?” “A book?” “Yeah. If you write a book, or a magazine or catalog or something you can easily distribute it all over Equestria. You’ll reach way more ponies and become more well-known than if you only did seminars like these. And for the shyer ponies who aren’t totally satisfied it’ll be easier for them to return your book and get their money back than if they had to meet you in person.” Starlight said. “Hm.” Iron Will looked deep in thought. “Iron Will is not excited about how easily it would be for a pony to say they want their money back, but it would allow me to reach so many more ponies that it likely wouldn’t matter. And I do want to help.” “Excellent. I know all about the benefits of using books to get your message across.” Starlight proudly stated before grimacing as the realization of what she just said sunk in. “Well I’ll be certain to at least try this venture out. Iron Will is excited to see how far and wide his message of self-help will reach!” The minotaur exclaimed and stuck his hand out for Starlight to shake. Starlight smiled and shook his hand with her much smaller hoof. “Good luck!” And then a white haze overtook her eyes and the world shifted back and forth like an earthquake had suddenly sprung up right beneath her hooves. A vibrating sensation going from the bottom of her hooves all the way to the tip of her horn finished up as the whiteness completely overtook her vision, and then just as quickly it all vanished. “Something wrong?” Starlight blearily looked up at the concerned Iron Will. Blinking a few times to catch her bearings she hesitantly responded. “Nope, no, nothing’s wrong! Good luck again.” And with a quick wave she turned around and trotted away before he could say anything. Why did that of all things make the timeline shift again? This doesn’t make any sense! Starlight was quite put out. And about a month later Iron Will’s very popular book came out: “How to Positively Crush Your Pushover Self”. Starlight was angrily stomping her way back to the castle, so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t notice the poor colt walking out of a store and onto the sidewalk she was on until it was too late. Once more Starlight tripped over a young pony, growling in annoyance as the two of them fell to the ground in a tangled mess. “I’m sorry, I really should’ve been looking where I was going.” The pony--a colt--said to Starlight. “No, no, it was my mistake for not paying attention to what was in front of me.” Starlight said as she stood up, the young pony following her. Now looking at him she saw that he was yet another pegasus like Lightning Dust but he had a yellow coat and a blue mane and tail. He appeared to be just about as old as Twilight or any of her friends would be right now. The pegasus shook his head a few times to get his vision back to normal. “You okay?” Starlight asked. A little worried. “Yeah, I’m fine.” He answered. “Sorry for bothering you, I’ve just had my head in the clouds since yesterday.” “Yesterday?” “Yeah! I saw the Wonderbolts show. It was amazing, I never really had much interest in the Wonderbolts before that but it was just so cool! I didn’t know pegasus could fly like that at all.” The pony said in pure wonder. Starlight smiled, looking past him she noticed that the store he had just walked out of was a Wonderbolts memorabilia store. Looks like she might have turned another pony onto the dream of becoming a Wonderbolt. “What’s your name?” She asked him. “Flash Sentry! I’ve always wanted to be a royal guard but after seeing that I think I may really want to be a Wonderbolt instead.” Flash exclaimed with gusto. Starlight playfully tussled his mane. “Well, good luck with that. You’ve got your whole future ahead of you and the possibilities are endless. I’m sure you can do whatever you set your mind to.” “Thanks, miss!” Flash Sentry said and began walking away, waving behind his back as he went. “It always feels good knowing I’ve helped shaped the future of a bright young pony. Twilight was right about me becoming a guidance counselor, I’m guiding even without intending it.” Starlight proudly said to herself, beginning the rest of the walk back to the castle in a much better mood.