//------------------------------// // 86. Tripartite - Part Four // Story: Letters From a Little Princess Monster // by Georg //------------------------------// Letters From a Little Princess Monster Tripartite - Part Four Our Town. My Town. My Empire. It was a logical progression. The logistics were going to be a cast-iron bear, though. Starlight Glimmer looked up and down at the wall of cutie marks, all neatly locked into their places and glowing with magic. Every one of them had once belonged to one of the ponies of her town, but every time she added one to the collection, it became more unstable. Her calculations had shown it was a natural reaction to the inherent problems that cutie marks caused in the first place, with all the differences between them that caused ponies to fight and not get along translating into the storage of their disgusting marks also. Two powerful cutie marks to stabilize the matrix would solve that problem quite well, and allow her to expand the collection to hundreds, even thousands of cutie marks. All ponies would see her brilliance then, and Starlight could turn her growing power to solving the problems of the other races of Equestria. Of course, she would have to find a way to get past legions of Royal Guards and hordes of officious bureaucrats to equalize the two princesses first. That was the problem. And then she would need to find some way to move the magical stone that held the collection of cutie marks to her new castle. That was another problem. “Starlight! Two new ponies just showed up in town!” Double Diamond came clattering into the cave, his eyes wide and just as white as his coat. “They’re—” “Are they alicorns?” snapped Starlight. “Or guards of any kind?” Worst case, Starlight had created a concealed tunnel out the back of the cave, and picked a dozen of the best cutie marks to take with her. With their power, she would be able to conceal the entrance and hide from any serious search while working on the continuation of her Plan. Our Town was disposable. She had gotten the Plan honed to a fine gloss on the hapless ponies, and they knew nothing that would clue the Princesses to their fate. “I’m not sure,” gasped Diamond. “It’s some blowhard unicorn and a strange child.” “Trixie?” Starlight nearly pulled the glass jars out of her concealed nitche and fled, except for the way that Double Diamond was looking less afraid and more confused. “Yes, she said that’s her name, but she doesn’t have Celestia with her. The child is some sort of alicorn, I think.” “An alicorn child?” Starlight resisted opening up the chest where she stored newspapers, which she had forbidden in the town because of the disharmony they represented. She could remember a series of printed stories when Princess Luna returned, wild and crazy things that proved just how insane working at a newspaper would make a pony. Several of them had mentioned an alicorn child, although one claimed he was a visitor from the stars and another said she was Celestia’s long-hidden foal, as if those antique ovaries could produce anything but dust bunnies. A few minutes later as Starlight and Diamond peered around the corner of a building, she had to admit the theory of this being Celestia’s child was looking better, although with the timidity and difficulties the twitching purple foal was having with her speech, probably brain damaged in some way. Trixie was just as annoying and flamboyant as Starlight remembered from a few years ago, although she was not using any smoke bombs. Yet. “Tell the villagers I’ll be doing the song in a few minutes,” she whispered to Diamond. “They had better not muck it up this time. Give them the whole happy village treatment, we’ll see if our ‘guests’ can stay in the special house, and by tonight they’ll be ready to take a trip up to the cave so they can be harmonized.” “Is she really a princess?” asked Diamond. “Why do you think they came here? What if—” Starlight dusted the ditzy idiot with another dose of mind magic, picking from several spells that had been useful in the past. His pupils contracted to tiny dots, then expanded out as he started smiling again, showing at least a few of his brain cells were still intact. “That sounds great, Starlight,” he intoned. “I’ll go tell the others. Trixie and Twilight Sparkle will be so happy in their new home.” As the idiot trotted away to begin relaying her instructions, Starlight scowled. Twilight Sparkle. It was a familiar name. And while Trixie was happily introducing her little alicorn friend around to all of the townsponies, there was time to go check her newspapers again. The mind magic that Starlight used in more extreme cases only complemented the harmony that the Plan created. Each of the townsponies watched each other, and some watched the watchers, so any whisper of discontent quickly found its way to her ears. Some of the more unruly townsponies had to be magically treated until they were little more than shuffling, smiling puppets, but such was the cost of harmony. The problem was that more of the townsponies had to be magically subdued every time the town grew larger. The foals were the worst, because they sat around the town like grinning listless lumps. They wouldn’t even play games like Dragon Pit or Battleclouds. Her hidden cache of newspapers did not help identify the alicorn foal, but only confused the issue. The only alicorn who had ever been a foal was Princess Cadenza, and that was ages ago. From all of the hyperventilating articles, the Princess of Love was expecting to give birth at any time, but the purple foal Starlight had seen was at least eight years old, if not nine, and already had her disgusting cutie mark. “Time travel is an option,” she mused, scanning over the newspapers. The Starswirl wing of Celestia’s school library had been locked up solid ever since Celestia’s former student had gone on her oddly covered-up tirade and ran away, so actually validating that theory was out of reach. The easy solution was to remove the visitors’ cutie marks and interrogate them while their willpower was lowered, but if they were being watched, or if this was some sort of… really strange trap, that would be unwise. The precaution of pushing the date of her Canterlot trip back a day or two only made sense. Once she had the clandestine newspapers stashed, Starlight gave the Staff of Sameness a gentle pat. It was her favorite prop, a toy that none of her townsponies had any clue about. They all believed when she told them it was an artifact which allowed her to remove cutie marks and advance the cause of harmony, which was just what she wanted. “Trixie was a nosy little bitch back then, but she doesn’t have enough magic to blow out a candle,” mused Starlight. “If I split the alicorn off by trapping Trixie in the guest house, I can get answers out of the child. An alicorn, hm…” Standing here in the cave was not getting anything done, so Starlight slipped back out to the town and watched the two for a while. They did not seem to be suspicious, or carrying any Royal Guards in their saddlebags. In fact, they seemed to be a lot like a mother and daughter playing tourist, which only made Starlight scratch her head even harder. Was it possible that Trixie had an alicorn foal? No. The world would come to an end before any stallion worth an alicorn would sleep with that loser, and that Great and Powerful womb would remain just as dusty as Celestia’s. Still, Trixie seemed to care for the young creature, and stayed right next to her through the tour. Starlight tried and failed to separate them during the introductory song to Our Town, and after the courtesy lunch at the cafe that sold those ghastly muffins that stuck to your tongue and left a bitter aftertaste for hours. Starlight added ‘burn that bakery to the ground’ to her list of things that needed to be fixed once she had control over Equestria. * * * Administering the town took second place to her new prospects for equalization, but there were still many things to do, so she did not have enough time to properly watch Trixie and the odd child. Today, it seemed that everything that had been going right for her flipped upside-down, and her idiots running the place were even more idiotic than usual. She tried to keep up with Trixie, but the two visitors stayed ahead of her every step. The cat-and-mouse game continued through the afternoon, with Trixie and her odd child seeming happy to visit every townspony, some for a few words, others for longer discussions that Starlight could not get herself positioned to hear. It was frustrating, but at least Trixie had not seemed to recognize Starlight. Late that afternoon, it was a joy to see Trixie into the ‘special’ house and take little Twilight Sparkle away for a private chat. The young alicorn was curious to know about Our Town and the special magic that gave all the residents the same cutie mark, so it seemed only appropriate to show her. Oddly enough, that growing separation from Trixie made the little alicorn change somehow. As Starlight walked with her, Twilight slowly changed from the quiet child who had been nothing more than Trixie’s shadow around the town all day to something both more and less. It didn’t matter. Starlight’s ultimate victory was too close for concern. A short jog up the hill to the cave took little time, a trip that had become easier for Starlight the longer she stayed in town. Constant trips to bring more ponies into the town and having only those paste-like muffins to eat kept her in trim form. It would be good for Trixie too, once she was properly harmonized. The Great and Pudgy One always seemed to be carrying a few extra pounds around back when Starlight had met her. “Behold, the cutie vault, Twilight Sparkle,” announced Starlight, sweeping a hoof across the glowing wall filled with cutie marks, bound into their protective containers. The cave was a comfortable cool place in the heat of the late afternoon, but the sensation of power from the restrained cutie marks made Starlight’s breath come faster, and a hint of sweat began to form around her horn. This was her hour, the first alicorn cutie mark added to the vault, and her plan could only proceed up to Canterlot from here! “This is the reason for our harmony!” she continued. “Cutie marks interfere with ponies’ ability to get along with each other. Different talents lead to different opinions which lead to bitterness and misery. You should have some experience with that, since you know Trixie.” Twilight Sparkle nodded, leaving Starlight to continue with a growing sense of impending victory. “You know what it’s like to live the heartache of a life with special talents. Trixie’s special talent doesn’t seem to have won her many friends, if you two are here alone.” “Alone,” said Twilight in a near whisper. “I spent much of my life alone, like you. Until I found friends.” “Friends who are not here with you,” said Starlight. “They had somewhere else they needed to be, rather than spend time with you. They left.” “I left,” said the little alicorn, turning her eyes toward the floor. “I couldn’t go with them. I had to come here. To stop you.” “Stop me?” Starlight laughed with a gesture to the front of the cave, and the enthralled citizens of the town who had followed them began to file inside. “Why would you want to stop me from bringing all of the ponies of Equestria the same unity and purpose I have for my town? Soon, you will enjoy the sameness that has brought them all together, and with an alicorn’s cutie mark in the vault, I will be able to perform the cutie unmarking on even more ponies! Even—” “You can’t win.” The little alicorn’s voice was barely perceptible from where she hunched in on herself. Despite Twilight Sparkle’s earlier cautious demeanor around the happy citizens of Our Town, she crumpled in on herself like a deflated balloon. She did not even try to fight when Starlight floated the useless Staff of Sameness over and poked her once with it. It was so disappointing. An alicorn, giving in this easily. Not even the smallest of protective spells, or an attack on the hundreds of cutie marks imprisoned in the crystal case on the wall. Instead, she had turned into a pathetic lump of shivering purple in the middle of the dimly lit cave, surrounded by the moving shadows cast by the magic of the severed cutie marks. Magic which Starlight Glimmer controlled. And which soon would be even greater. “I have won,” said Starlight with a little laugh. “Your mentor is a blowhard who didn’t even suspect anything wrong when I locked her in the cabin. And don’t think she’s going to teleport out to save you, because I warded that room strong enough to hold even Celestia or her sister.” All around them in the shadows, the enthralled inhabitants of Our Town gathered closer, making a circle that Twilight Sparkle could not run or fly out of, and with the anti-teleportation wards that Starlight had embedded into the cave, there was no escape for the shivering foal. “I’m going to take your precious cutie mark,” gloated Starlight Glimmer. “And I’m going to use its power to grow even stronger.” “Then you’ll go to Canterlot,” said Twilight Sparkle in a weak, quavering voice. “Where you’ll take Celestia and Luna’s cutie mark too, and everypony else.” “That’s right!” Starlight crouched down and gave a victorious grin at the cringing alicorn foal. “Everypony will be equal! Free from the tyranny of their cutie marks!” Twilight shook her head, making her short mane brush against the dusty floor of the cave. “Wrong. Not everypony will be equal. You will have all the power. Above all the other ponies. Alone. Without friends.” “Friendship is worthless,” snarled Starlight, jabbing forward with the Staff of Sameness in her magic. “Friendship is more precious than any amount of power.” Twilight Sparkle paused to swallow as the enthralled citizens of the town surrounded them both in a tight circle, nearly shoulder to shoulder now. “Each of my friends has taught me something different about myself. Especially Trixie. Friendship is the only thing we can count on when we are at our lowest. When we cannot face something by ourself, we rely on our friends. You don’t have any friends.” “I have friends!” spat Starlight with a wave of the Staff of Sameness at the enthralled ponies around them. “You used your magic to drain their power and make them into your minions,” said Twilight, sounding slightly stronger as she spoke the words with great care, even if she was curled up on the dirty floor of the cave. “You don’t have any real friends who care for you because of who you are inside. Not any more. Not since Sunburst.” A cold explosion of frost crept down Starlight’s flanks at the mention of that name. She had tried to forget him while she threw herself into learning magic, growing her power, and trying to ignore the burning hatred that had built up over the years. Her first and only friend, who had betrayed her, left her, abandoned all they had together for the appeal of Celestia’s school, far away. Sunburst the Traitor. “He would not want you to do this,” continued Twilight Sparkle, still curled up into nearly a ball on the cave floor and speaking slowly, as if she had to focus every word through incredible pain. “We tried to find him, but there was no time. We thought he could talk you out of your plan.” “He’s dead to me,” said Starlight, feeling oddly hesitant about the words she had thought about so many times. The power and the Plan were all she had left. All that mattered. She had poured herself into it for so long. “I don’t need him.” “Yes, you do,” said Twilight. “You’re powerful, but you need his wisdom. You need friends different than you. And we need you too. Trixie needs your knowledge. And patience. I need your skill. There are so many things you need to learn from us and that we need to learn from you. We’re stronger together, like…” The foal hesitated, her voice cracking slightly with tension. “It’s like a movie with a hero and a monster. They fight, and sometimes the monster wins, but the hero always wins at the end.” “You’re no hero,” sneered Starlight. “You’re a deluded foal.” “Sometimes the hero wins by stubbornig… subbornating… subborning the monster,” continued Twilight just as if Starlight was not even talking. “She turns the monster into a hero too, and they become friends. They’re stronger together.” “I’m not a monster!” shouted Starlight Glimmer. In her rage, she lifted the Staff of Sameness over all of them with her magic and made it shine like the sun, casting sharp shadows of all the surrounding villagers against the cave walls. “I alone can see what needs to be done to make everypony happy! I just want to make everypony happy! My village has been a refuge for unhappy ponies! They come here because they want to, not because I make them.” “It was.” Twilight sniffled. “The first ponies you convinced to move here wanted to be your friends. You pushed them away. Used magic to keep them here. Kept their cutie marks even when they wanted them back. Then you started to lure the ponies in with words. Then spells. Now you want to force everypony—” “They don’t know what they want!” Starlight was uncomfortably aware of how close the townsponies had gathered around the two of them, all of them with the unfocused stare of the mentally enthralled. Putting that behind her, Starlight jabbed the staff toward Twilight Sparkle and focused her magic. “And neither do you!” The unmarking spell was almost trivial for Starlight Glimmer’s power now, surrounding the cowering alicorn foal in a fog of her magic, then the expected tug… Did not happen. Twilight Sparkle’s cutie mark remained on her rear once the magic died away, even after Starlight recast the spell, putting more of her magic into it until she was panting for breath when the spell faded away and the cutie mark still was there. “I don’t understand!” she gasped while trying to recover. “There’s no spell blocking me. I just can’t take your mark! Is it because you’re an alicorn? Or—” The first splat of green goo against her head caught Starlight by surprise, as well as the barrage of gooey splats that followed in one constant stream from all around her. She tried to light her horn, but something in the goo shorted her magic away, and then it was too late as dark shapes of changelings swarmed over her. Fighting desperately to stay conscious, she could see the rest of the townsponies shift into insectile monsters as they contributed their efforts into subduing Starlight. Completely stripped of her magic by the goo filling her nose and mouth, she could barely see the rough outline of Twilight Sparkle outside of the changeling pod she was being stuffed into. The alicorn foal looked blurred and distorted, with her buzzing voice being the last thing that Starlight was aware of as she slipped into darkness. “You’re not the monster,” said Twilight Sparkle’s voice from outside of the pod. “I’m about to do a terrible thing, far worse than you can imagine. You’re the hero. I’m the monster who needs saved. My father and the rest of the changelings will take you to their old hive where you’ll be safe. Please. Save me.” And then there was nothing but darkness.