My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Stallion Edition

by SuperPinkBrony12

Chapter 106: Cutie Re-Marked

The villagers soon approached the cave where the vault of cutie marks rested, but no matter what they did the vault refused to open.

Suddenly, Double Diamond came rushing forward with the useless stick was The Staff of Sameness. "Stand back, everypony! I've got this!" He shouted, and hurled the stick through the air with a flick of his head! The stick struck the glass, producing several noticeable cracks, and then one by one all of the villagers got their cutie marks back. And when they did, their manes and tails returned to their original style, and their coats gleamed brightly with all sorts of different shades of blue, pink, red, white, yellow, and any color you could think of.

Double Diamond watched, as the last cutie marks to be restored, were those that belonged to the three villagers who had been the least content with life under Starlight's rule. Party Favor was the first to get his mark back, a balloon animal with streamers. His coat became light blue, and his mane and tail became curly and poofy, as they regained their two tone blue color.

Next was Sugar Belle, whose cutie mark was a cherry topped cupcake with four jellybeans. Her coat turned a pinkish-purple in color, and her mane and tail took on a loosely styled curly appearance, as they became a moderate magenta in color. Sugar Belle smiled, as she used her magic to insert two blueish-green colored beads into her mane and tail. "Much better." She said to herself.

Night Glider followed, as her cutie mark was a crescent moon surrounded by two feathers. Her coat became dark blue, and her mane and tail became wavy, as they regained their colors of white and blueish-gray.

It was then that Double Diamond felt a small tingle on his flank, as he saw his own cutie mark come back to him, a trio of blue snowflakes. His coat became a bright white in color, as bright as freshly fallen snow, and although his mane and tail didn't change much in appearance, their white and grayish tones stood out more clearly now. "I'm sorry for all the trouble I caused you all, working for Starlight for all this time and never once questioning her actions," Double Diamond apologized. "And Party Favor, I'm sorry I roped you into working directly under Starlight, in exchange for my silence about your secret meetings with Sugar Belle and Night Glider. I'll understand if you want to throw me out of the village and say Starlight and I deserve each other."

"Oh lighten up, Double D," Party Favor lightly teased. "Starlight fooled us all, who are we to say you can't stay here? Besides, you could've ratted us out to Starlight whenever you wanted, but you didn't. So you weren't all bad."

"Gosh, that really means me a lot to me." Double Diamond smiled in reply.

"Not for nothing, ponies, but now's not the time for celebrating," Night Glider interrupted. "We've got to help Prince Shining Armor and his friends, Starlight still has their cutie marks! They helped us, now it's our turn to return the favor!"

---

Outside Starlight's cottage, the six stallions were searching all around for a way inside. The door was locked, and without their cutie marks, Thunderlane and Soarin didn't have the ability to fly up to the roof top and enter through the chimney.

As the stallions searched, they noticed cutie marks zooming past them, no doubt in search of their owners. "Even without my cutie mark, I can tell this is beautiful!" Fancy Pants exclaimed. "I've never seen anything like it."

But Shining had only one goal in his mind at the moment, bringing Starlight Glimmer to justice. "Starlight!" He bellowed, pounding furiously on the door. "I know you're in there, and I know you can hear me! It's over, you've lost! Come out now, there's no need to drag this out any longer!"

From inside her cottage, Starlight payed Shining no attention. She was too busy dwelling on her own feelings. "After everything I've worked so hard for, these ungrateful stallions come along and ruin my work!" She grumbled to herself. "Why can't they understand?! I'm saving these ponies from the heartache and suffering I went through, all thanks to those accursed cutie marks! I should've turned them away as soon as they came here, but no, I tried to be hospitable!" Then, eyeing the six cutie marks in jars that rested on a nearby table, she added. "They think they can just come to my village and disrupt my way of life? Well then, let's see how they like spending the rest of their lives without their precious cutie marks! They took away everything that was so important to me, now it's my turn to return the favor! Turnabout is fair play!"

Meanwhile, outside the cottage, the six stallions' efforts to break down the cottage door were suddenly interrupted by a whistle.

Looking up, the stallions noticed the appearances of Double Diamond, Party Favor, Sugar Belle, and Night Glider. "Need some help, boys?" Night Glider offered, before she took to the skies and shouted. "Stand back, everypony! Time for a little breaking and entering!" Night Glider effortlessly kicked the door in, and the six stallions and their four friends, all charged inside.

"Leave no stone unturned!" Soarin encouraged. "We can't let Starlight get away with this!"

Thunderlane immediately rushed to the table he'd seen Starlight place the jars of cutie marks on last night, but they weren't there. He gasped, as he then noticed that Starlight had hastily left a secret passageway in her bedroom exposed. "They're gone! Starlight took off with them!" Thunderlane exclaimed.

"Then we've gotta go after her!" Big Macintosh demanded.

---

The ten ponies rushed through the secret passage, which took them to the outskirts of the village and towards the nearby mountains. Starlight was already a ways away, and with each passing second she seemed to be widening the gap!

"Where does she think she's going?!" Soarin wondered outloud.

"I think I might have an idea!" Party Favor replied, and blew up a couple of balloons into the shape of binoculars. "She's headed for the pass! If she makes it into those mountains, we'll never find her!" He explained.

"Why?" Braeburn asked, as he then examined the balloon binoculars. "Cool binoculars by the way, Party Favor."

Party Favor blushed at the compliment, as Sugar Belle explained. "There's a whole network of caves up there in the mountains! Your cutie marks will be gone forever if Starlight reaches them!"

"Then let's get movin', ya'll! Now's not the time for idle chit-chat, now's the time for action!" Big Macintosh shouted, but the six stallions found that they couldn't really trot (or fly in Soarin and Thunderlane's cases) fast, as every time they tried to do so the equal sign on their rumps would start pulsating and slow them down.

It didn't take long for Starlight to notice she was being chased. For safety reasons, she had opted to move the jars to a wagon that she pulled behind her. Night Glider and Sugar Belle were the first two to catch up to her and start trying to attack her. "Are you really all so willing to give up everything just because of these strangers?!" Starlight hissed, using her magic to shoot down banks of snow in the hopes that it might stop her attackers. "Have you forgotten that it was I who took interest in you and made you feel wanted?"

"And yet you lied to us all along!" Sugar Belle firmly replied. "We gave up everything for you, because we thought you were our friend! But you only saw us as your puppets, your pawns. Ponies to use as you saw fit. These stallions may be strangers, but it's clear that they care about us for who we are, not for what we can do for them!"

Meanwhile, from a distance, Soarin was commenting. "I still can't believe this is all happening, we are the ones who need saving. Funny how this all turned out."

"Well, if we hadn't come here to help them out," Shining explained. "Then these villagers would still be living under Starlight's rules! We freed them from Starlight's control, so now it's their turn to help us!"

"And I know they can do it, nopony likes being taken for granted." Thunderlane agreed.

---

Sensing an opening, Sugar Belle used her magic to scoop up some of the snow and shouted at Starlight. "Hey, Starlight! What do you think of my baking now?!" She then hurled the snow towards Starlight as she added. "This is my newest recipe-snow pie! Here, have some, on the house!"

The snow hit Starlight with a thud, causing the cutie mark jars to fly out of her wagon! "No you don't!" Starlight said firmly, as she used her magic to grab the jars and put them back on the wagon, then she ran across the bridge. "This is as far as you go! These cutie marks are mine forever!" She bellowed, before she used her magic to destroy the bridge completely. "Don't get in my way, just give up already!" She added in a jeering voice, then rushed ahead as fast as she could.

Fortunately, Party Favor was able to use his balloon skills to construct a make-shift bridge. Surprisingly, a balloon bridge was quite sturdy, as pony after pony bounced across it without incident. But the delay still allowed Starlight to further increase the distance between herself and her pursuers.

"She's gonna get away!" Soarin shouted, as he saw Starlight was drawing close to the caves. "Somepony do something, quick!"

Just then, Double Diamond noticed a pair of blue colored skis sticking out of a snowbank. He realized at once why they seemed so familiar to him. "Whoa! These are my old skis! This is where I first met Starlight!"

"Maybe you can reminisce another time! She's almost to the caves!" Night Glider insisted.

Double Diamond smirked, he had an idea. "Hey, Night Glider?" He asked. "Feel like an air drop?"

"It's crazy, but it just might work! I sure hope you know what you're doing though, Double Diamond!" Night Glider replied, before she scooped him and his skis up, carrying stallion and skis high into the air.

Starlight, unaware of any of this, could see the entrance to the caves just up ahead. "I've done it! Now I can slip away and let those stallions see just how it feels to be inferior to everyone else!" She thought to herself, as she took the jars ou of the wagon. But then suddenly, Starlight heard a shout.

"Cowabunga!" Double Diamond yelled, as he descended from above, heading straight for Starlight.

"What?! Oh no! Stop!" Starlight bellowed, but Double Diamond payed no attention.

"End of the line for you, Starlight! Consider this payback for all the times you used me for your own goals!" Double Diamond snarled, as he turned away from Starlight, thus avoiding a direct hit.

"Fool, you missed by a mile!" Starlight taunted.

"Wasn't aiming for you!" Double Diamond smiled, before a massive snowbank tumbled down and buried Starlight! Without Starlight's magic, the jars had nothing to hold them up. They fell to the ground and shattered, the cutie marks stored within them zipping back towards their rightful owners and returning them to normal.

"Yee-haw!" Big Macintosh proudly proclaimed. "Alright, finally I can buck like a five-bit snake herder in an Appleloosa ranch house again!" Then he blushed and gasped as he realized what he'd just said. "Oops, don't know how that slipped out!"

"Well, at least ya got your countryisms back, cousin Big Mac," Braeburn chuckled. "And don't worry, I know you're not that kind of pony. I ain't either, I only found out about it 'cause of that one time Sheriff Silverstar and I worked undercover as bouncers at one of them ranch houses." No one said a word.

---

The six stallions rushed to join the four villagers, and just as they did so they saw Starlight emerge from the snowbank, her eyes filled with rage. "That does it, nomore miss nice pony!" She bellowed, steam blowing out of her nostrils. "Up 'til now, I've refrained from striking you all directly! I've tried to be nice, I've tried to reason with you all! But if you'd rather see me as the bad guy, well guess what, wish granted!" She fired off a tremendous magic blast, aimed directly at the four ponies responsible for thwarting her attempt to make off with six cutie marks!

Fortunately for all involved, Shining Armor charged forward with his horn sparking to life! He quickly conjured up a protective shield that eventually managed to push back and dispell Starlight's offense strike.

"Wh– I studied that spell for years!" Starlight complained. "My emotions power me, and in all my life I've never been as angry as I am! My anger should've given me the edge! How did you-"

"While I may not be as magically gifted as my sister, I still studied a good deal of my magic to join the royal guards," Shining explained to Starlight. "But eventually I came to learn that there's a magic far greater than any spell or spell caster, the magic of friendship. It's that magic that allowed me to ascend to alicornhood, and it's that magic which brought me here and led to your defeat. And for the record, Miss. Glimmer, shield spells are my speciality. But then, you probably should've guessed that, seeing as my cutie mark is a shield."

"Bu-bu-bu..." Starlight stuttered, unable to comprehend this turn of events. She was slowly reduced to growls, as she glared at the six stallions responsible for ruining her life's work.

"It's over, Starlight!" Shining said firmly. "You've been beaten! But, since I'm a forgiving pony, I'll give you a choice. Surrender and come with me peacefully to Princess Celestia, and I might be able to get you a reduced sentence. Or resist me, and I'll be forced to subdue you by whatever means necessary. It's your choice, but I suggest you go with the former, we don't have to be enemies! Whatever caused you to hate cutie marks, it doesn't have to define who you are!"

But Starlight only rolled her eyes. "Now who's full of it?!" She remarked. "Spare me your sentimental nonsense, 'hero'! I gave these ponies real friendships they never could've had otherwise!"

"How do you know that?! You never even gave us a chance!" Double Diamond hissed.

Starlight only narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth, as she added. "I promise you, this isn't over! You may have won the battle, but I will win the war! One day, you'll all see, see just what kind of misery and heartache cutie marks can bring! And when you do, don't come crying to me!" Shining could've sworn he saw a few faint tears form in Starlight's eyes, even as she charged up her horn and disappeared in a blinding flash of light!

"She went into the caves!" Soarin realized. "We've got to go after her! She couldn't have gotten far!"

"No!" Double Diamond protested. "We'll never find her in there, I know those caves well enough to know Starlight could be anywhere! We could end up on a wild goose chase!"

"So, that's it then? We let the bad guy get away?" Soarin complained.

"We have no choice. For all we know, Starlight didn't actually run into the caves," Shining explained. "It could've all been a clever ruse to distract us. She could've easily teleported somewhere else. The only thing we can do, is prepare for whenever she comes back. And hope that, when she's had a chance to think it over, she realizes that you all have taught her something." He said to the villagers.

"Oh, but it's you who have taught us something," Party Favor replied with a smile. "Something very important. We all came to this village because we were searching for something that was missing from our lives. We thought Starlight had given it to us when she stripped us of our cutie marks, but now... now it seems it was in front of us all along. It's us!"

"I take it that means you'll be staying in the village?" Shining asked them. "I could inform Princess Celestia of your situation, I'm sure she could find homes for all of you, places where you'd belong."

"But that village, is our home!" Night Glider insisted firmly. "I'm not going anywhere, and neither is anypony else."

"This is the chance of a lifetime, a chance for all four of us to truly get to know each other again for the very first time!" Double Diamond affirmed.

"And I finally have a chance to bake something besides terrible muffins!" Sugar Belle added, before everyone laughed.

Author's Note:

And so, with this arc winding down, we come to the climax. A few things had to be changed considering the circumstances of this universe and Shining's character.

I opted to toss in a few faint bits of foreshadowing to Starlight's motivations in "The Cutie Re-Mark", which I'll probably do in November. I also decided to draw on an observation I noticed, despite how angry she was, Starlight never once directly assaulted the villagers while she was carrying the cutie marks.

Thanks to comickook for the suggestion on Shining telling Starlight about shield spells.

Only one chapter remains and then this arc draws to a close, but you'll be surprised at what's added to it.

Comments

[Comickook]

Once again, superb job on this chapter. The exchanges were well done (particularly the reason Starlight gave for NOT going on the offensive at first despite having a clear power advantage over her pursuers at the time). And thanks again for using one of my dialogue ideas enough to use at least part of it. I really appreciate that too. I'm definitely going to be looking forward to more of this, but will also understand if real life gets in the way of your writing.

[Yoshifan30]

Meanwhile, from a distance, Soarin was commenting. "I still can't believe this is all happening, we are the ones who need saving. Funny how this all turned out."

I know right thats why I love how things work out and how the new characters help them out

[Yoshifan30]

The six stallions rushed to join the four villagers, and just as they did so they saw Starlight emerge from the snowbank, her eyes filled with rage. "That does it, nomore miss nice pony!" She bellowed, steam blowing out of her nostrils. "Up 'til now, I've refrained from striking you all directly! I've tried to be nice, I've tried to reason with you all! But if you'd rather see me as the bad guy, well guess what, wish granted!" She fired off a tremendous magic blast, aimed directly at the four ponies responsible for thwarting her attempt to make off with six cutie marks!

[Yoshifan30]

Starlight only narrowed her eyes and grit her teeth, as she added. "I promise you, this isn't over! You may have won the battle, but I will win the war! One day, you'll all see, see just what kind of misery and heartache cutie marks can bring! And when you do, don't come crying to me!" Shining could've sworn he saw a few faint tears form in Starlight's eyes, even as she charged up her horn and disappeared in a blinding flash of light!

Yup we will see her again in season 5 Finale And why she's like this