My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic: Stallion Edition

by SuperPinkBrony12

Chapter 138: Progress Report

Shining Armor smiled, he was looking forward to being back in Ponyville for the next few weeks. Aside from the guy's night at the Crystal Empire and the opening of Rarity For You, he hadn't really been involved in much. He'd missed quite a few things, including Rainbow Dash finally becoming a Wonderbolt (and Thunderlane moving up to take her spot in the reserves), Fluttershy pushing her brother to finally get a job, the Applewood Derby, and even things as insignificant as Hearth's Warming Eve (though spending it with Cadence and Flurry Heart had made up for not being with Twilight) or Starlight fixing the table map.

In fact, Starlight was very much the reason Shining was coming back to Ponyville. Having mostly entrusted the friendship lessons to his sister, Shining had gotten only occasional glimpses of Starlight's progress. But there was something troubling him. A nagging fact that he couldn't ignore.

"I don't think I've seen Starlight tackle a single friendship problem since Trixie came to town," Shining thought, as he was trotting to the castle. "Guess that makes now as good a time as any for a friendship pop quiz. I'll just stop by, see how Starlight's studies are coming along, and go from there."

However, when Shining reached the castle and trotted inside he could hardly believe the sight that awaited him. The castle was flooded with water, storm clouds hung overhead, traces of cake batter and spider webs could be seen, and most noticeable of: Starlight was in a massive heap alongside Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash. All of whom seemed to have narrowed eyes.

"Starlight?!" Shining angrily exclaimed, his eyes casting daggers at his student. "What in the name of Celestia is going on here?! How did you make such a mess?!"

Starlight gulped. "Well, I can explain, but I don't think you'll like what you hear."

---

And indeed Shining did not. After some initial cleaning up with help from Twilight and Spike, Shining pulled his student alongside and demanded of her. "You'd better have a good explanation behind what I saw earlier. I thought things were under control."

"W-well, your sister took notice of the fact that I hadn't done any friendship lessons in a while, totally not my fault they slipped my mind by the way," Starlight began with a nervous laugh. "A-anyway, I accidentally ended up scheduling a whole bunch of friendship problems all on the same day at the same time. So when I couldn't get them all done individually, I decided to try out a little something I'd come up with recently. A mix of Fiducia Compelus to speed things along, Cogeria to make my friends more open to suggestions, and then to ensure it stuck I added in a hint of Persuadere. But it turns out Fiducia Compelus needs a trigger to work, a command if you will. So I told Pinkie, Applejack, Rarity, Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash to listen to my voice, and they sort of took it too literally. They only did what I asked them to do, and nothing more. And things got quite out of hoof because of that."

Shining frowned, putting a hoof to his forehead. "Starlight, what in Equestria were you thinking?! You can't just mix spells like that, even ordinary unicorns know better than to do that! What's even worse is that you mentally manipulated your friends, brainwashed them if you will!"

"Well, they said they were okay with it when I told them what I wanted to try," Starlight protested. "I just thought it'd be a harmless combination that would sort out my problem and get things done. I wanted to impress you and Twilight, so you'd stop hounding me on my friendship lessons all the time."

"You forget that I didn't take you on to learn magic, Starlight," Shining scolded. "I specifically told you that the terms I struck when you were released into my care, were that you were to learn about friendship. Yes, I know friendship is magic, but that doesn't mean magic is what you should be learning about."

"You also wanted me to fix the table map that I sort of broke when I tampered with it," Starlight nervously laughed. "That involved having to learn magic."

Shining just shook his head. "Be that as it may, I certainly don't approve of you neglecting your studies to try and master new spells. Especially not when it leads to problems like this," He then added. "I noticed the scorch marks in the kitchen, and Pinkie tells me you caused some cakes to burn which almost set the entire castle on fire! I shouldn't have to hire a foalsitter to watch over you whenever my sister or I am not around!" The prince took a moment to take some deep breaths, before he went on to say. "I apologize if I'm being harsh on you, Starlight, but you need to realize how serious this is! You did a very bad thing, something that you should've known better than to do. There are ponies as it is who think I was wrong to let you have a second chance, and when you do stuff like this you're making me think they might have a point."

"So that's it then? One mistake, as big it was, and you're cancelling my lessons?" Starlight accused.

"No. If anything, you've proved that you've still got a ways to go before I can say your friendship lessons are even close to being done," Shining told Starlight. "And I can't be too harsh on you for this. Part of this is my fault as well, I should've kept a closer eye on your studies and made sure my intentions were clear from the start."

"You couldn't help it, you were busy being a father and a husband," Starlight protested. "Not to mention the whole changeling fiasco a while back. Like you said, I shouldn't have needed somepony to tell me what I was supposed to do."

Shining nodded again, and sighed. "My sister's still working on undoing that whammy of a combination you put on everypony back there. Once they've recovered, I expect you to apologize to them. And then you're going to clean this entire castle from top to bottom. No buts, you caused this mess so the least you can do is clean it up."

"Do you think the girls will ever forgive me for what I did?" Starlight nervously asked Shining.

"That's not for me to say I'm afraid," Shining reluctantly commented. "That's up to them. And don't think you can buy their apology with gifts or favors. "

"Is there anything else I should know about?" Starlight inquired.

"I'm gonna be putting you on a friendship probation of sorts," Shining informed his student. "After you've cleaned up the castle and apologized to Twilight's friends, you're not to learn anymore magical spells or assist in any magical situations for an entire month. And, so another incident like this doesn't occur, I'll be staying here in Ponyville to conduct your lessons myself."

"You sure? But what about Flurry Heart, or Cadence, or Sunburst and Thorax? Heck, what about the Royal Guard?" Starlight asked with concern.

Shining was quick to answer. "They'll all be fine without me, even Flurry Heart. Thorax can easily imitate me, and if I'm needed for anything I have that emergency teleportation spell I can use. Right now, what's most important, is that I start taking a more active role in teaching my student."

Author's Note:

I wanted to include something like this to address the events of "Every Little Thing She Does" in this universe, particularly the fact that I haven't had Shining Armor in Ponyville with Starlight while she's learning her lessons.

Now, the next arc is slated to commence during my mid-winter break in a few weeks, but after that and a chapter in early March, that's it for the constant updates for this fic for quite a while. I'll explain more when we get close to that point.

Comments

[Comickook]

All I can say is excellent job on this latest chapter. Yeah, great addressing of the "Every Little Thing She Does" mess (aka the last chapter before your spin on the Season 6 finale). VERY good job on the exchanges, characterizations, general wrap-up and future arc set-up in all the right places. I'll very certainly be looking forward to more of this, but will also respect that I need to be patient.

[Yoshifan30]

Yeah seriously Starlight you really need to know the difference between Friendship and Magic and I felt like that's a dark magic like manipulating their minds or something Hopefully she will learn a lesson from this