Razor Claw roared in triumph "I finally did it! I have regained my honor!"
He then flew away still making noises of triumph while Stars friends approached his unmoving body. They all just stared at it while on the verge of tears, all of them, except Twilight, who suddenly broke out in laughter.
Her friends stared at her like she had just gone insane "Why are you laughing?" Rarity asked horrified.
"Star, you can come out now, the dragon is gone, I want to know how you did this." Twilight said between laughs.
"Darling I don't think you quite grasp the situation Star is-" she was interrupted by a nearby rustling of bushes as Star walked out of them as alive as ever "hiding in a bush and not really dead." She finished stunned.
"But you- the dragon- how did- what?" Rainbow stuttered out.
Star gave them a sheepish grin "Well you see during that short time when I had magic at my disposal I remembered something Solar had told me earlier, he said "Stay calm and think this through, try to find a way to beat him without getting yourself and your friends killed" but to keep you all alive I had to die, which I was fully prepared to do and was going to do before I regained the use of my magic, but let's not dwell on that, anyway, when I had magic at my disposal I thought of a way for me to die while not dying at all." He then walked over to his other body "This isn't a real body, this would be considered a "golem" or a mindless dummy, wizards used to use them to do menial tasks and such, but I used it as a replacement, right before he grabbed me while I was still behind the first tree that I passed I used a combination of 3 spells, firstly I constructed the golem nearby, then I used a copy-paste spell, to make it look like me, then I used a transfer spell, to switch places with it, and voila! Fake Star!" he said gesturing to the nonmoving golem again.
Twilight clapped her hooves in approval "Bravo!"
The others looked less than thrilled at this "You couldn't have told us beforehoof?" Rarity asked.
"Nope, actually it was originally planned for that to be the real me, but hey, that isn't what happened so let's look past that and think of the positives." Star answered with a bright smile.
"Wait, you came here fully expecting not to come back?" Rainbow asked.
"Pretty much." He confirmed.
"You had absolutely no confidence in yours or our abilities?" Twilight asked.
"No no no, I had COMPLETE confidence in each of your abilities." He reassured her "But the thing is, regardless of whether or not we won, none of us wanted to end the life of that dragon, no matter how much he wanted to end ours, so he would have kept coming back until either all of us were dead, or just me, and I personally would have preferred the latter to the former." He explained.
"So ya came here ta *gulp* die so we didn' have ta?" Applejack asked.
Star sighed in annoyance "Are you all still on that? Yes, it happened, it's over, everything turned out good, don't dwell on what could have been you'll drive yourselves insane. Now, let's go home."
Just as he started to take a step he tripped and fell face first to the ground, that was when they got a good look at his physical condition, he had a large, bleeding scratch across his body, his front right leg was twisted in such a way that it looked as if the bone had been broken in half, it was a miracle that he was able to stand at all.
He was immediately surrounded by his friends as they helped him up "You really shouldn't 'even be able to stand right now." Twilight marveled.
"Oh, I actually shouldn't even be conscious right now, but the pain of this and the exhaustion of using all of that magic at once has put me into shock, right now I may seem fine but once the shock wears off I will hopefully be knocked unconscious immediately, otherwise I will be screaming in pain for a while." Star explained.
"Then we should probably get you to a hospital." Pinkie suggested.
"I agree." He said before attempting to walk back the way they had come.
He was stopped by a purple aura "You shouldn't be walking in your condition, I will carry you." Twilight stated before taking his lead and walking the direction that he had been just moments before.
After about a minute of walking Fluttershy approached Star "Hey Star, I was just wondering, I mean if it's okay with you, I wanted to ask why that dragon hated you so much, that is if you don't mind me asking."
"Yeah, what'd you do to tick him off so much?" Rainbow asked.
"Well you see, it happened while I was out "exploring" with Starswirl, we ended up in dragon country, also known as the pridelands, anyway Starswirl had business with the-" Star stopped midsentence "The shock just wore off." He added in a very strained voice.
He looked frozen before letting out a small "ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh" in pain before passing out.
Fluttershy gasped "Do you think he'll be okay?" she asked.
Rarity put her hoof on Fluttershy's shoulder in reassurance "He'll be fine darling."
Star woke to the all too familiar scene of a hospital room, he looked over and saw a white earth pony with a light pink mane and silvery blue eyes, she was also wearing a nurses hat "Excuse me Ms…?" he left the statement hanging signaling for her to introduce herself.
"Nurse Redheart." She obliged.
"Nurse Redheart, may I ask how long I have been here?" he asked.
"Your friends dropped you off about twenty hours ago." She explained.
"Thanks." Star smiled gratefully, causing a smile to grow on her face as well.
He grew a slightly more serious look "So, how bad is the damage?" he asked.
The smile drained from her face as she sighed "I hate this part of my job." She said under her breath before looking back up at him "Well, there is no permanent damage, but you're front right leg bone was shattered in the middle, you will have to stay off of it for about a week and a half, you also have a large scratch across your body, it won't be healed fully for another few days." She explained.
"Wait, only a week and a half? Shouldn't it take longer for my leg to heal?" he asked in surprise.
"Well, the thing is, your body seems to be healing at a much faster rate than anypony else I've ever seen, you're a very lucky pony." She praised.
"I should ask my mom about that later." He decided.
After quite a bit of arguing with Nurse Redheart, two other nurses, and a doctor, he was finally allowed to leave, but he had to have a cast on his leg and stay in a wheelchair, and they made each of his friends sign an agreement that they would keep him in the wheelchair for at least another week.
They wheeled him to Sugarcube Corner where Pinkie had set up a "Congratulations on getting out of the hospital and getting rid of that dragon" party.
Then, after a few hours of partying they all ended up as they did at the end of their previous parties, all of them just sitting, laughing, and talking. After a lull in the conversation came Twilight turned to Star "You never got to finish explaining why that dragon was so upset with you." She pointed out.
Star sighed "Upset is too refined a word to describe it, I would say anger with which is only comparable to the white hot fury of a thousand suns, but that's my description of it. Onto the subject at hoof it was like this, while Starswirl and I were "exploring" we ended up in dragon territory, also known as the pridelands, that I already told you, anyway Starswirl had business with the… king is to formal and all-powerful a title to explain it, let's say he was the alphadrake of this particular pack of dragons, and that this pack of dragons was the most powerful out of all, anyway he had business with the alphadrake and I was stuck with nothing to do, that is until Princess Yellowscale showed an interest in me, we immediately struck up a friendship. She is as her name implies yellow, though it is much more of a gold than yellow, anyway after a while she proclaimed her feelings to me, which I politely rejected. Her father was furious and demanded me executed, and since Razor Claw had already challenged me to a duel all he did was get angrier, after I defeated him in a duel and left he vowed his vengeance." He explained.
"You stole the affections of the dragon he loved then rejected her feelings? You're a regular heart breaker." Rarity teased.
"Yep, the ladies just can't resist me." Star joked while making a pose, causing the other ponies in the room to laugh, everypony, that is, except for Spike, who appeared to be glaring at Star.
Star took notice of this "Something the matter Spike?"
"Nothing's the matter." He grumbled out.
A sly grin grew across Stars face before he leaned over the edge of his wheelchair and nudged Spike with his elbow "I may be notorious for stealing women from dragons, but don't worry, I won't steal your woman from you."
Another wave of laughter was heard through the room, though he could have sworn he heard Spike mumble something like "Too late for that." But it was too quiet to tell.
Eventually the group of ponies dissipated until Star was left alone with Twilight, Spike, and Pinkie Pie "So, Twilight, before I leave, how do you like the spell book now that it is completely deciphered?" Star asked.
Her eyes widened in realization "I haven't even looked through the book since it was deciphered completely! I need to go do that right now!" she exclaimed before galloping out the door dragging Spike close behind.
Pinkie giggled at this before letting out a small yawn "I'm going to get some sleep, I haven't slept in… What day is it?" she asked.
"I think it's Tuesday… no Wednesday, I was asleep for a day, it's definitely Wednesday." He said with a nod of his head.
"Hmmmm… that means it's been three days since I last slept! Wow, I guess time really DOES pass by really fast when you're searching for treasure." She said shrugging.
"Wait, Treasure?" Star asked.
"The one at the end of the map that you gave me for Hearth's Warming day." She explained.
"You still haven't found that?" he asked.
She shook her head "Nope, I got near the end but I can't find it anywhere!" she exclaimed.
"Let me see the map." He asked.
She took out the map and pointed to a point in the map "See! I searched all around here but I can't find it!" she exclaimed.
"Um Pinkie? The map is upside down." He pointed out.
"The Earth is round silly, there is no up or down!" she said rolling her eyes.
Star raised an eyebrow to her "The Earth may not have an up or down, but that paper does." He pointed out.
She looked at the map, then back to Star, then back to the map "So it does… so it does." She then got an inch away from Star's face and stared right into his eyes accusingly "You're a psychic aren't you!" she exclaimed.
Star rolled his eyes "Yes Pinkie, I'm psychic." He replied sarcastically.
She gasped "Tell me everything that will happen to us and our friends tomorrow!" she exclaimed.
"You are going to have an awesome day, Twilight is going to learn something new, Applejack is going to be working in the orchards later than usual, Rainbow Dash is going to crash into a tree, Rarity is going to rip a stitch in a dress she is working on and have to restart, and Fluttershy is going to cower in a tree." He complied with a shrug of his shoulders.
Pinkie eyed him suspiciously again before pointing at her eyes, then to Star before backing away and climbing up the stairs to her room.
Star shrugged again and left to his own home to get a good night's rest. When he woke up in the morning he found all kinds of animals in his house, there were a bunch of birds and butterflies, a few foxes, bunnies and owls, and a hedgehog. After opening the door and letting out all of these animals he looked around to see how they had all gotten in, he saw one of his windows was open and he was once again reminded of the gaping hole in his roof "I need to get that fixed" he decided before making his breakfast.
When he opened his fridge he found a jar that looked to be filled with a rainbow, attached to it was a note that read To Star from the Apple Family, it also had a label, it read Zap Apple Jam, and thus he was struck with a sudden inspiration.
After failing about 40 or so times he made cupcakes that looked and tasted decent, then he filled one with Zap Apple Jam, after decorating it with pink frosting and sprinkles he took a bite, then another, then ate the rest of the batch of cupcakes "That was a great breakfast" he thought to himself with a smile.
First things first he decided to ask if Twilight would put the illusions over him to make him look like he used to when he was referred to as Midnight Star, he wanted to resume his life to what he referred to as "normal" as soon as possible.
When he arrived at the library it was a mess, it looked like a tornado had gone through there, he chuckled at how likely that actually was. Soon enough he found Twilight, she was in the library's basement focusing on a book with a determined look "Hey Twilight, what are you doing?" he asked.
She turned to him and smiled "Thank you so much for this book, this has the most challenging, useful, and strange spells in it I have ever read!"
"So, what's with upstairs? It looks like a tornado thrashed through there." He asked.
She smiled bashfully "Well you see… I kinda tried to perform one of the more difficult spells in this book." She explained.
"Which was…?" he asked.
"The future sight spell, I had to see something." She said vaguely.
After hearing this Star burst out laughing "What's so funny?" she asked.
Eventually his laughter died down enough for him to speak "That's the most useless spell ever invented!" he exclaimed between snickers.
Twilight raised an eyebrow "I don't know what you mean, this could be one of the most useful spells ever invented or discovered." This caused Star to break out laughing even more, with a sigh she asked him "Why is this the most useless spell ever?"
"Because first of all, if you use it then whatever you see can't happen, because you already know what is going to happen it can't happen because things will have happened differently, and even if they didn't that spell only shows what would happen in the future if absolutely nothing changed from the exact moment you cast the spell." He explained before laughing again.
"I can see why that would be ridiculous, even laughable, but why do you think it's THAT funny?" she asked.
"I'm laughing at the irony of the situation, after you all left yesterday Pinkie got it in her head that I was a psychic, and now I bet she is going around trying to see if any of it is going to come true." He explained.
"And why is that ironic?" she asked.
"Because I just caused one of the things I guessed." He answered.
"Which was…?" she prompted him to explain.
"That you would learn something new today." He answered.
Twilight let out a slight chuckle "That is amusing." She agreed.
"Twilight, I was wondering if you could put the illusions on me that will make me look like Midnight Star again, I want people to look at me like I was a normal pony again, not like I was some sort of idol or something." He asked.
Twilight agreed and placed illusionary spells on him that made his wings invisible, his horn appear broken, and the scar on his face appear to be real, but if you were to touch where his wings or horn were, you would still feel them ,and you wouldn't be able to feel the scar on his face.
After thanking her he decided to go home, grab his cloak and check on how Davenport was doing holding down the fort, he had yet to receive a letter from his boss telling him if he had anything to do.
He was shocked when he arrived at where Quills and Sofas had been, and HAD was the correct term because the building was nowhere to be seen, in its place was a large pile of rubble, inside the rubble there were a few sofas here and there and a few small crates that he assumed still had quills in them "What happened here?" he thought in surprise.
Luckily for him Davenport was just barely leaving the pile of rubble dragging a few things "What happened?" Star asked.
Davenport put down the boxes he had been dragging "Hey there kid, so I was watching the shop while you were "preoccupied" and whaddya know it, outta nowhere a dragon steps on the shop and crushes it! My insurance doesn't cover dragon attacks, I'm going to have to fix this whole thing myself. Also, why are ya in a wheelchair?" he asked.
He couldn't say that it was because of the dragon because Davenport would have heard the story about how apparently Prince Starlight Sky had defeated the dragon and in a few different versions of the story, thrown him into a volcano, trapped him in a magical prison, or banished him to the moon, or Star's favorite, that he had trapped the dragon in a magical prison inside a volcano on the moon.
"I fell off of a hill and broke my leg." He replied honestly, it had broken when he had jumped off of that cliff and slid down the dragon, he hit the ground quite hard.
"How bad is it?" Davenport asked.
"I'll be on my feet again in a week and a half." Star reassured him.
Davenport simply nodded at this and began to move things out of the rubble again "If you want I will help you with rebuilding this thing." Star offered.
"I won't be able to pay you." He warned.
Star shrugged "I still have about 2000 bits left, I will be fine." He reassured him.
"Then I would appreciate the help, now, would you mind helping me drag out what's left of the shops contents?" he asked.
For the next 2 hours Star helped Davenport salvage what they could out of the shop, which actually a lot of the sofas and quill boxes survived, while a few didn't.
Once they were done Davenport thanked him and left to take everything to a storage container that he had rented.
With nothing else to do with his day he decided to try and practice flying for his race with Rainbow Dash in… "I have to race Rainbow Dash in two days and I still don't know how to fly, I'm doomed." He decided.
Regardless, he decided to practice at least being able to fly in the first place. After a few hours of trying he found that he took to flying rather naturally, also, he flew at a decent speed, as in he would be able to match pace with Fluttershy "Not too bad, once I get used to it I might be able to fly as fast as Rainbow Dash does when she flies lazily around town!" he thought excited.
Just then he was approached by his friends, all of whom were following Pinkie, he flew down and landed in his wheelchair waiting for them.
When they reached him he was greeted by Pinkie shouting "Tell me the future again!"
Raising his eyebrow prompting her to continue she did "I had an awesome day today, Twilight learned something new, Rainbow Dash flew into a tree, Applejack was working later than usual out in the orchards, Rarity ripped a stitch in her dress making her restart and Fluttershy WAS cowering in a tree when I found her! Everything happened just like you said it would!" she exclaimed.
Star chuckled at this "I'm not psychic." He said simply.
"But everything you said was going to happen came true!" she exclaimed.
"You had an awesome day today because you got to try and solve the mystery of whether or not I was psychic, Twilight learned something new from the spell book that I reminded her to read today, Rarity ripped a stitch in her dress when you went to ask her if she ripped a stitch in a dress today, Rainbow crashed into a tree when you tried to call her down and ask if she had run into a tree today, Fluttershy was cowering in a tree because you surprised her, and Applejack had to work later in the fields than usual because you distracted her so it took her longer to get her work done." He explained.
"But how did you know all of that would happen?" Pinkie demanded.
Star shrugged "Common sense, mostly cause and effect guessing, one thing leads to another etcetera etcetera."
"So you were just pretending to be psychic?" Pinkie asked in disappointment.
"Yep, but anypony can do that." Star pointed out.
"How?" she asked eagerly.
"Just guess vague things that are obviously going to happen in that pony's future, things like "You are going to have a long and happy life" or "You are going to get a great gift on your next birthday."" He explained.
"Never mind girls he's not actually psychic." Pinkie said in disappointment.
They all shared a shrug and left without another word. Deciding that he was done for the day he went back to his home to get some rest, where he found a letter on his bed, he then sat down and read it.
Dear Starlight Sky (Yes I used your full name =P) "Did my mother put a smiley face on this letter?" he thought before continuing to read it.
I am writing you this letter to ask how you are doing after that dragon attack, because I have a visitor here that claims to have been told that you are dead, which I know for a fact you are not, I would like you to come and meet this visitor and clarify the situation.
Your loving mother,
Celestia
Star went to sleep that night with his mind full of questions.