Starlight was confused when she saw the storm clouds forming in the skies along with the airship slowly descending to the ground, she went amongst the crowd of ponies with Trixie whimpering and biting her hoof in fear.
“Calm down Trixie. We’ll be fine. Just let me search for our friends real quick…” Starlight comforted her friend as she searched through the crowd before finding Twilight, Spike, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Fluttershy at the front of the crowd.
“Alright found them. Let’s stay with them.” Starlight smiled as she began walking towards them before Trixie grabbed her tail with her magic.
“Are you sure? That ship looks veeeeery scary.” Trixie looks as the ship continues to park while destroying some pillars in the process.
Starlight gulped a bit and almost considered staying behind before sighing, “If things go wrong we’ll definitely flee so we can come up with a counterattack but I’m not leaving without Twilight, Spike, or the others, you can stay behind if you’re too scared but I’m sticking with them.”
Starlight began walking towards Twilight’s group and was a bit surprised to see Trixie reluctantly follow, she smiled fondly at her friend as they headed to them.
“What’s going on?” Starlight whispered to Applejack.
“I don’t know.” Applejack whispered back, “That hedgehog’s got something though.”
Starlight looked ahead to see the small tiny hedgehog with wide blue eyes place the little box on the ground, which suddenly grew into a speaker, which he then spoke into, “Ponies of Equethtria, we come on behalf of the fearsome, the powerful, the almighty...Storm King!”
Soon a banner on the aiirship unfolded showing a white ape with a black crown with long horns and black armor much to the shock and confusion of Starlight who shared a look with Trixie.
“And now, to deliver the evil, evil message, put your hooves together for Commander Tempeeeeest!” Grubber smiled enthusiastically.
Suddenly a maroon coated unicorn with a broken horn slowly appeared at the exit of the ship with a cold stare.
Starlight considered lighting her horn but she refrained from it, lest she encourage a wide scale invasion.
“Is that a… unicorn?” Twilight asked curiously.
“I think so.” Spike noted, “But what happened to her horn?”
Suddenly the three alicorn princesses, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence stood in front of the crowd.
‘Good, maybe they can clear things up.’ Starlight smiled hopefully.
“Tempest is it? How may we help you?” Celestia asked formally.
“Oh, I’m so glad you asked. How about we start with your complete and total surrender?” Tempest answered coldly.
‘Or not…’ Starlight thought fearfully.
Twilight soon moved to where the princesses were and smiled sheepishly, “Hi there. Princess of Friendship. Not exactly sure what's going on, but I know we can talk things out.”
Starlight’s concern immediately grew, Twilight may be a princess but she herself was evenly matched with her, and this unicorn seemed much more merciless than Starlight was as a villain.
“Oh, goody. All four Princesses.” Tempest smirked villainously before walking down the ramp and speaking sternly, “Here's the deal, ladies. I need your magic. Give it up nicely, please, or we make it difficult, FOR EVERYONE!”
“And why should we cower before you? There's one of you and hundreds of us.” Luna spoke defiantly.
Tempest chuckled before speaking sinisterly, “I was hoping you’d choose difficult.”
Soon two white and hairy gigantic apes with armor, a shield, and a spear began to get off of Tempest’s airship before whirring was heard and two more airships appeared and more of the white furred creatures jumped off the sky and began invading the city, causing the ponies to scatter in fear. Starlight immediately ran off with Applejack and Trixie, and made sure to stay with the rest of the group.
Once they were far away enough and made it to the exit of the castle arena, Starlight’s eyes widened fearfully, “Wait a minute! Where’s Twilight?!” She asked the group as she noticed the alicorn was not with her.
“Aw crud. I’ll get her!” Rainbow Dash flew quickly with a rainbow streak behind her.
Starlight waited impatiently and in fear for Twilight to return, and thankfully Rainbow Dash was soon running along with Twilight but the Storm King guards were beginning to attack them.
“Over here y’all!” Applejack called out for Twilight and Rainbow Dash and thankfully the two were able to evade the Storm Creatures and Starlight immediately started running off with Trixie screaming as she did so, which caused Starlight to pick Trixie up with her telekinesis, if only to ease her friends’ worries a little.
They began heading across the bridge when a Storm Guard blocked the way, so Starlight stopped along with the group.
Twilight soon got over of her shock however, and blasted the guard, but it blocked the attack with it’s shield which turned out to be effective since the shield blocked her magic, and soon Twilight’s magic repelled onto the bridge, breaking it, sending Starlight, Trixie, and the rest of her friends falling into a river stream, and later, a waterfall.
Starlight didn’t know how long she began swimming in that stream but soon she felt her world go black.
Suddenly Starlight felt a thumping on her chest, as she opened her eyes and then saw Fluttershy putting pressure on her stomach with her hooves before Starlight suddenly spat out water and coughed it up.
“Phew.” Fluttershy said in relief. “I almost thought you were dead.”
“I didn’t.” Trixie suddenly appeared behind Fluttershy and smirked boastfully, “I knew you would survive.”
“Is that why you were whimpering like a lost puppy?” Spike asked with a frown.
“Ugh fine. I admit I was concerned. At least I fished her out of the lake.” Trixie groaned in annoyance.
“Where are we anyway?” Starlight asked curiously as she took note that she, Trixie, Fluttershy, Spike, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie were all under some a fallen tree in a sandy area while Twilight was outside the shade and looking out to the water.
Soon Applejack walked over to the group and answered Starlight’s question, “We’re far enough from Canterlot, that much is clear. You okay?”
“I’m good. Don’t worry.” Starlight smiled reassuringly.
“We just got our cupcakes handed to us by the worst party crasher ever!” Pinkie Pie spoke in horror.
“We gotta go back there and fight. I’m sure me, Twilight, and Starlight can turn things around.” Rainbow Dash said in determination.
“You saw the size of those… goons and they have shields that blocked Twilight’s magic.” Spike said in fear, “You seriously wanna go back!”
“So now what? We can't hide here forever. And let's be honest, we can't go back. Look at what they did to the Princesses. We gotta keep them from Twilight.” Applejack said sadly.
While this was going on, Starlight looked to see Twilight looking on in the distance before walking up to her former teacher, “Twilight? Everything okay?”
“The Queen.” Twilight silently gasped which confused Starlight.
“Uh… say what now?” Starlight asked with a raised eyebrow, confused what her friend was implying.
“Celestia told Luna to find the Queen of the... ‘Hippos’. Luna can't, so I have to.” Twilight said in determination.
“Uh hippos… seriously?” Rainbow Dash stated, clearly baffled.
“I've heard they're surprisingly graceful for their size. Huh, but they're always hungry.” Pinkie Pie admitted.
“Hungry?! They don’t eat ponies, do they?” Trixie asked fearfully.
“Calm down Trixie, they don’t.” Starlight told the stage magician.
“Phew. Well that’s a relief.” Trixie sighed in relief.
“They're somewhere south, past the Badlands.” Twilight explained.
“But that means we’ll have to… leave Equestria.” Fluttershy shuddered in fear.
“I’m not even packed!” Rarity cried out in horror.
“Because THAT is the most major concern right now.” Trixie snarked much to Starlight’s amusement, she liked Rarity but she had to admit Trixie wasn’t wrong.
“I understand you're scared, and nopony else has to go. But I have to find this queen. She might be our only hope.” Twilight told everyone earnestly before heading off to go beyond the Badlands.
Starlight immediately knew what her next course of action was, and she was not gonna take no for an answer for what comes next.
“Nuh-Uh. You are not going alone.” Starlight smiled determinedly, “If you’re charting unfamiliar territory than you’ll need somepony to help.”
“Starlight’s right, you're not getting all the glory. We're in this together.” Rainbow Dash smirked as she flew over next to Starlight.
“We got your back.” Applejack put a hoof around Rainbow Dash as she spoke.
“Indeedy.” Pinkie Pie agreed wholeheartedly.
“I am ready to save our home.” Rarity smiled proudly.
“Yay.” Fluttershy smiled shyly.
“We’re all behind you Twilight.” Spike said happily.
“I guess this won’t be a waste of my time.” Trixie rolled her eyes with a smirk.
“Let’s go find this Queen.” Pinkie Pie began bouncing… only she was going north.
“We’re heading south cotton candy brain.” Trixie said in annoyance, earning her a glare from Starlight as Pinkie bounced to the south, while the others followed her via walking.
“Anypony up for a game of ‘I Spy’?” Pinkie Pie asked happily, causing the entire group to groan.
“No, really! Come on! I spy with my little eye something that is orange. No takers? It's you, Applejack!” Pinkie Pie spoke quickly as she began laughing.
Trixie sighed in annoyance and Starlight could not blame her friend, this was going to a long trip.