//------------------------------//
// Colliding Fates 
// Story: Student of Friendship 
// by zalla661 
//------------------------------//

Starlight was focused.

Oh so focused.

Her magic enveloped her horn as she levitated herself off the ground, lifting herself ten feet in the air. Once in place, she overlapped a second layer of magic and lifted several books from a pile nearby. Twilight sat in a chair nearby, watching her student's demonstration of her magical talents to gauge for herself just where she stood in her magical studies. So far she had been thoroughly impressed.

Starlight had shown herself to be at a level on par with Twilight but was far more flexible with its use. She did things that Twilight never even thought of. She was amazed to find out Starlight's flight spell was just a much more advanced version of a basic levitation spell. It was a bit more complicated than simply lifting herself in the air but Twilight would look into it some other time. For now, she needed to assess Starlight's full potential.

"OK, Star. Show me what you've got."

Feeling her new mentor's encouragement, Starlight quickly began spinning the books around herself. Around and around they spun, faster and faster to the point to where they all became a blur. Following was a blinding flash that engulfed the room forcing the alicorn to avert her gaze or be blinded by the light. Once it cleared Starlight landed on the ground, nearly toppling over from magical exhaustion but Twilight caught her, using her body to support her student's.

"Thanks." Starlight said, panting heavily.

"Don't worry about it, Star," she said, leading the mare to her seat next to the table. "So, what exactly did you do?" Twilight asked her student, whiles she levitated the single book left from where her student had cast her spell. She inspected the new book, it was red leather, its pages all brand new looking. It wasn't very heavy and looked to be only two-hundred pages long. Flipping through, Twilight found the pages to be more numerous than what physically fit into the leather cover. After what had to be over six hundred pages she closed the book and stared wide eyed at her exhausted student, who was busy wiping sweat from her coat.

"Uh, Starlight?"

"Hmm?"

"What did you do?"Twilight asked, her eye twitching a bit, “Where are all of my books?"

The pink unicorn perked up, saying, "Oh, it's simple. I used a mending spell for fixing broken materials, specifically fabrics, and combined the books together with an advanced condensing spell and the 'Everlasting All Enchantment' for making lots of books into one! Pretty cool, huh?"

The mare's enthusiasm didn't last long. For when her eyes met her newly appointed mentor she reeled back at the sight of Twilight's angry face. She felt a bit uneasy from the alicorns intense glare. Her twitching eye made her feel even worse as the burning anger seemed to burn in the mares eyes. That was until twilight literally burst into flames hovering over Starlight who scooted back against the chair fearing for her life. the next words that came from twilight seemed to be the very embodiment of damnation itself.

"Where are my books?"

"They-they're gone?" the unincorn saw her mentors anger build up and quickly added, "B-but it's all in one book now! So think of all the time you'll save from having not to reorganize-"

"I like reorganizing the library, Starlight Glimmer."

"Uhh... Sooo, how about we talk about something other than books then?"

*Twitch.* Twitch.* That seemed to be the last straw for the Purple princess. "Starlight. Could you please go outside and make a new friend, please? I think we have done enough studying for today."

Starlight nodded quickly, making a beeline for the exit, "Sure I uh, I'llgonowandseeyoulaterbye!"

In an instant the mare was gone, leaving Twilight alone as she held the book in her hooves. She cradled it like it was her child, rocking it back and forth gently in her arms. As Starlight stood just outside she could have sworn she heard singing as she tiptoed down the hall.

Once safely away from the 'Twilight Zone', Starlight hummed to herself feeling a bit bad for ruining Twilight's books, even if she did condense them down to one for her.

"Stupid. Stupid! Why'd I do that? Ugh. I should really make it up to her, but how?" she wondered to herself.

Walking out of the castle, Starlight passed by her least favorite pony of all. Standing at her post, at the entrance of the castle stood the tall armored figure of Thunderclap who grunted as she passed by. Starlight stuck her tongue out at her as she passed by the mare. She didn't move but the ever so slight twitch of her eye left indicating her irritation but was forced to remain at her post.

Starlight, proud of her accomplishment trotted down the road heading deep into Ponyville. Though petty as it was, she really didn't like the brown unicorn mare. Sure, in time maybe they could be friends, but right now they were bitter rivals. What Thunderclap said still bothered Starlight to no end. What connections did she mean she had? And how did she learn about this post in less than a days time? What was the mare's motivation?

The answers eluded her. It was truly a mystery she wished to close, but life seemed to have other plans for her. Not paying attention to where she was going, she ran straight into another pony who was carrying some flowers, knocking both of them over. Recovering first, Starlight gasped and quickly got up to help the other pony.

"Excuse me miss, are you alright?" Starlight asked the pony, helping her up.

The mare was an earth pony with soft, cream colored fur, a short but well trimmed deep red and pink highlighted mane, and emerald eyes. The mare looked up at Starlight and then down to a pile of roses she'd been carrying. Gasping, she quickly tried to recover the roses but found several were bruised on their petals. The pink unicorn slowly began to feel bad as the mare started to breath heavily looking down at her ruined roses.

"Oh no! The petals! The horror! THE HORROR! RUINED! ALL RUINED MY WHOLE STOCK!" The mare screamed, suddenly falling to the ground, her left leg twitching slightly.

"Uh, sorry?" Starlight asked, not sure of what to do. She then realized several heads were turning to face her, "Uh, do you need help miss?"

"That mare destroyed Rose's roses!"

"How awful!"	

"What a fiend-wait. Is that Starlight Glimmer?"

"Guess it's not enough she stole cutie marks, now she's a thug too!" The familiar voice of Anvil cut through the crowd.

Starlight heard the crowd murmur. Some seemed convinced she was up to no good, using Twilight's naivete to her advantage to rise to power again. Other, more reasonable ponies seemed convinced that Rose was simply overreacting like she and the other flower mares were famously known for. In the end though, the majority of the crowd was against her still, and Anvil led the charge.

"I'll bet she did it on purpose! Poor Roseluck works so hard on her roses, along with her friends and they're always ruined!" Anvil yelled over the crowd.  

“Seriously what's that mares problem?” Starlight thought to herself angrily, “What did I ever do to her?”'

The yellow mare stepped over the fallen Rose and lifted her up, gently placing her on her back. Turning to face Starlight with an intense glare, she pointed to her and accusingly saying, "You have a lot to answer for, Starlight Glimmer! Princess Twilight will hear about this! Let's get her!"

Following those words came chaos. Absolute chaos. Turning tail to flee, Starlight ran through the streets of Ponyville trying to evade the angry mob of ponies. As she ran, she pushed past other ponies apologizing profusely as she did. Though there weren't that many ponies chasing her, she didn't want to fight them. She could have easily won, even being out numbered twenty to one, but she didn't want to use force unless she had too. Even back when she fled Twilight and her town followers, she could have easily beat them in a fight. Starlight was no fool though. She knew there was a time and place for everything. She with held using magic, hoping to set an example and show Twilight that she was changing for the better. But it would not last.  

Rounding a corner, Starlight didn't realize a small group had broken off from the main one chasing her and doubled back to surround her. Pegasi flew overhead and the earth ponies and unicorns stood on the ground. Around another corner she went ,and there she was met with the second group that broke off and now stood in her path. The other closed in behind her, leaving her with nowhere to run. She was surrounded with no hope of escape.

From the crowd, Amber Anvil approached, the group splitting to let her pass, "This is it Starlight Glimmer. You're surrounded. Surrender now and we might go easy on you."

"Oh come on, Amber Anvil! What's your problem?" Starlight asked, earning a heated glare from the yellow mare.

"Oh, so cute!" the mare said sarcastically. "What? Can't get out of this one? You know if you hurt us the Princess will see you as the monster that you really are and never give you another chance," the mare said mockingly to the unicorn, "Surrender. NOW."

Starlight stood defiantly, "No."

Amber's ear flopped once and her eye twitched angrily but turned to a wicked grin right after. "Very well then. Let it not be said I didn't give you a chance. Let's show her what happens to those who mess with our town!" The crowd cheered and closed in on Starlight. "Never again are we going to subjugate ourselves to tyrant unicorns! This is PONYVILLE and we won't let anypony take us over again!"

Starlight looked shocked at what was being said by the earth pony mare. “She is a madmare!” Starlight thought feeling slightly uneasy. She knew from her own experience, fear can make ponies do crazy things. "Guess I have no choice."

Biting her lip, Starlight used her signature spell, condensing down a shield spell, then with all the force she could muster, forced the energy barrier outwards, pushing everypony away. The only one who remained even remotely in place was Amber Anvil. The yellow mare dug her hooves in the ground, only sliding an inch at best, but the distraction was enough for Starlight to slip by without an real use of force.

Running without stopping, Starlight made her way back to the castle. She was met with no force whatsoever, having a great head start on her pursuers. Confident she was in the clear, Starlight made a beeline for the castle, eager to reach the safety of the walls, but as luck would have it ,she ran face first into the side of a large wagon with a red roof on it. Falling to the floor in a daze, she struggled to get up when she then felt a clay pot fall on her head. Blue dust covered her as she felt her body slowly change, becoming smaller and smaller. In her daze she barely realized a tall blue mare had approached from the blindside of the wagon and walked over to her.

"Stupid filly! What have you done?! Do you know how long it took Trixie to harvest all that-"

Slowly, Starlight began to lose consisnceness and darkness took hold of her.

*Hours Later*

Starlight groaned, rubbing her sore head tenderly with her hooves on the spot where she collided with the wagon. Starlight was worried. She could barely move and her body felt heavy. She swore under her breath as she rubbed her horn which had taken the brunt of the force. Slowly, her senses began to come back. First was her vision. She saw a large room of some sort. It was very cluttered, with a bed she laid on, a large bookshelf, and a large chest at the end. To her left where the bookshelf was, was a large desk with several scrolls on it and lots of alchemist items scattered about. Directly to the left of the bed was a large coat stand with a black tattered cloak. Across from her was a single wooden door with a red trim around it.

Then her smell came back. The smell of burned fur assaulted her nostrils. She gagged slightly and covered her nose with the blanket to protect her sensitive nose. Following that was her hearing. From outside she could hear voices talking. One seemed to talk very fast and loudly, proclaiming itself 'great and powerful', the other had a heavy accent and spoke in rhymes.

Listening, she couldn't make out what was being said but it sounded like two mares were talking. Suddenly the door flew open and a large azure blue unicorn mare strolled in with a zebra behind her. Both mares walked over to the bed and looked down at her. Starlight felt very small. Too small. Something was amiss here, but for the life of her she couldn't figure out what.

Then the blue unicorn sat on the bed beside her and asked, "What's your name, little filly?"

"I-I'm Starlight Glimmer ma'am," she replied in a squeaky voice. The unicorn smiled rubbing Starlight's head.

"Trixie is glad you're alright. Trixie thought you were badly hurt and brought you to her friend." The unicorn looked at the zebra mare, her Mohawk mane making her seem enormous to Starlight. "Thanks again, Zecora."

The striped mare replied, "Fear not, dear. Your troubles, I will not turn away. If you are in need, I will help without delay."

The mare named Trixie looked down at Starlight, continuing to rub her mane. The pink unicorn purred like a kitten as the mare rubbed her cheek and scratched her sore head. Trixie and Zecora smiled at her cute response. Then Trixie pick up Starlight and held her in her arms. That's when it clicked in the pink unicorn's mind. She was small! So very small.

"Wha-what happened to me?" She cried out, looking at her tiny hooves and touching her face, "Why am I so small!"

Trixie and Zecora looked worriedly at the small panicked filly. Zecora then looked closer at the pink filly who was slowly starting to hiccup and cry in Trixie's arm. There she saw a speck of blue on her mane and scowled at Trixie, who shied away from her glance.

"Trixie? Care to explain to me, why tears of blue I see?"

"Why Trixie has no idea!" she replied to Zecora quickly. "Nothing at all!"

The zebra gave her the most unamused stare she could muster. Finally, after a minute of silence, Trixie sighed, setting Starlight down on the bed.

"Fine, Zecora. I may have accidentally dropped the poison joke pollen on her when she ran into my wagon."