To Boldly Hoof It

by HeatherIsBestPlayer

Ch 16. The Battle (part 2)

“Are you ready… to become an alicorn?” Starswirl asked Blueblood.

Blueblood stared at Starswirl, shocked at what the elderly pony had said. This was not what he had been expecting as his destiny. His shock then quickly transformed into confusion.

And he also felt offended.

“What!?” Blueblood exclaimed.

Starswirl appeared surprised by Blueblood’s outburst. “Beg pardon?”

Blueblood continued while he glared at Starswirl, very upset. “Are you saying there’s something wrong with my body the way it is!?”

Starswirl's eyes widened in surprise. “What? No, I-”

Blueblood cut Starswirl off. “I’ll have you know my body is perfect just the way it is! Look at this body!” Blueblood posed for Starswirl, so that he could get a good look at his entire well built body. “I’m sexy and I know it! I work out! Also, what would even be the point of me changing species? What’s wrong with being a unicorn?”

“Nothing…” Starswirl said, “but wouldn’t you rather be an alicorn?”

“NO!” Blueblood said, holding his head up proudly. “I’m proud to be a unicorn.”

“But aren’t alicorns better?” asked Starswirl.

Blueblood gaped at Starswirl, appalled at what the elderly alicorn had just said. “OF COURSE NOT!” Blueblood shouted angrily. “THAT’S RASIST! Or… speciesist. One of those things. Anyway, no species is better than any other! That’s one of the things we’re taught in school as children! Granted, I never paid much attention in school, but I still got the message! Me turning into an alicorn because it’s ‘better’ would be like… a donkey… or a griffon turning into a pony because it’s ‘better’, and I know that’s not right! Every species has it’s own individual strengths and weaknesses, pros and cons, benefits and costs. Yes, I know I say some speciesist things sometimes, but I’m just joking when I say those things! I don’t actually think those things!”

“But Blueblood…” Starswirl looked at Blueblood in concern. “This is your destiny!”

Blueblood thought for a moment about that. “Well… if that’s my destiny, then… buck destiny! I’m saying no!”

Starswirl stared at Blueblood in silence for a long moment after that. Then… a smile appeared on Starswirl’s face. “Congratulations, Blueblood,” he finally said. “That was exactly the answer I wanted to hear.”

Blueblood was taken aback by that response. Now he was even more confused.

Starswirl’s horn began to glow with magic. Blueblood watched as both of the elderly pony’s big wings also glowed with magic, and then began to fade away, becoming transparent like a ghost, before disappearing all together.

Blueblood stared at the now wingless Starswirl in utter confusion. “Your wings?” he asked.

“They weren’t real,” Starswirl said. “They were just an allusion created by a simple spell I cast on myself before you got here. I’m not an alicorn, Blueblood. I’m a unicorn! I’ve always been a unicorn, and I will always be a unicorn. And that isn’t a bad thing at all. I apologize for the deception, Blueblood, but it was necessary to make sure I could rely on you.”

“What do you mean? WHAT THE HECK IS GOING ON HERE?” Blueblood demanded, becoming impatient.

Starswirl walked up in front of Blueblood and looked him in the eye. “I need your help, son.”

………………

The Defiant bridge lurched as the ship was nicked by another blast from the Ascendency.

“OUR SHIELDS ARE FAILING!” Sunset shrieked. “WE CAN’T TAKE ANOTHER HIT!”

“Then lets make sure we don’t get hit!” Trixie shouted up at Dumbbell and Hoops at the helm controls. She rubbed her hooves through her mane as she struggled to come up with an idea about what they could do. She thought about their ship and what it was capable of, but she couldn’t come up with much. They didn’t have a lot of firepower, and their shields were almost gone, their speed and agility were okay, but nothing impressive, and their ship was tiny compared to the Ascendency.

Wait! They were tiny! Maybe they could use that to there advantage. She looked at the enemy ship. Its weapons seemed to all be long range, good at hitting things far away from the ship, but it looked like it would have some difficulty hitting a tiny moving target that was right up next to the ship. She got an idea.

“Maybe we can use our small size to our advantage!” she spoke up to everyone around her on the bridge. She then pointed at the image of the Ascendency on the viewscreen. “Take us in closer to that ship! Get us as close to their hull as you can without hitting their shield bubble!”

They all looked at her like she was insane!

“CLOSER!?” exclaimed Dumbbell. “We should be flying away from that thing!”

“JUST DO IT! TRIXIE HAS A PLAN!” she shouted back at him. “They wont be able to hit us with their weapons if we stay close to them.”

After a few seconds, the others expressions all changed from confusion to understanding, and they nodded.

Dumbbell flew them in closer to the Ascendency, dodging another powerful blast from the enemy ship as they did. Up next to the gigantic ship’s hull, their ship was like a tiny pebble.

“That’s it, just keep us close, and keep moving around them,” Trixie said while Dumbbell and Hoops put their gamer skills to the max as they worked the ship’s helm controls, trying to keep them as close as they could to the Ascendency without bumping into it’s shield bubble. They were flying around the enemy ship like a fly buzzing around a pony’s head.

………………

“Where are they?” Rarity asked, having not seen the Defiant on the viewscreen for several seconds now.

One of the crewponies at a computer console responded. “They’re… flying around right close up to our ship,” the stallion said in a confused voice.

“What the hay are they doing?” Rarity asked thoughtfully. “Oh well. Just get them.”

“Sure you don’t want me to do this?” Shining Armor asked in annoyance, standing off to the side of the bridge.

“No, darling, I can handle this,” Rarity said to him, holding up her hoof to stop him from interfering. Then she looked back at the viewscreen. “Tickle me, do I not laugh? Prick me, do I not bleed? Wrong me… do I not revenge?” she muttered under her breath.

………………

Back on the Heart Star, Princess Celestia and the other ponies in engineering were still trying to repair the spell-amplifying array. The Princess was still waiting for them to find somepony who could speak French to translate the video instructions playing on the large computer screen in the room.

“Princess,” the magenta mare scientist from before said as she walked up to Celestia. “We’ve done a check, and no pony on the Heart Star can speak French.”

Celestia sighed, rubbing her hooves against her temples. Then a new idea came to her. She looked down at the Earth pony mare in front of her. “Turn on the computer’s French translator!”

“Yes, your highness,” said the mare, bowing her head before trotting over to the controls for the computer screen. “Why didn’t we just do that before?”

After the mare pressed a few buttons with her hooves, Celestia was surprised when the image of a griffon suddenly appeared on the computer screen. She quickly recognized the griffon as the famous baker, Gustave.

“Bonjour!” Gustave said. “I am Gustave, your French instructor. To continue this lesson in French, press 1 now.”

Celestia and the rest of the ponies in engineering all gaped at the screen in complete bewilderment.

“That doesn’t even make any sense!” Celestia exclaimed, throwing her front hoves into the air above her head. “How could anypony learn French from an instructor who is only speaking French?”

“I now understand why we didn’t just do this before,” said the magenta mare scientist in mild amusement.

………………

In a different part of the Heart Star, Gilda was sitting on her haunches on a metal bench in a prison cell. Across from her, sitting on the bench against the opposite wall of the cell, was Doctor Whooves. She had been surprised to find him in the cell when she had first been thrown into it earlier.

“So Celestia caused Luna to become Nightmare Moon on purpose, and accidentally created the changelings?” the Doctor said after Gilda had finished explaining everything that had happened to her and her friends up till now. “Boy, I always suspected Celestia had some skeletons in her closet, but this…” He shook his head. “Blimey!”

“Yep,” Gilda said. “So can’t you use your sonic screwdriver or something to get us out of here?”

The Doctor sighed. “Unfortunately they took my sonic screwdriver when they imprisoned me! I’ve tried looking for other means of escaping this cell, but it’s no good. This cell is magically sealed. It can only be opened from the outside.” He let out a groan. “I hate magic.”

Gilda also groaned. The door of the cell didn’t have any bars, so she couldn’t reach her arm through and open the cell. The door only had a small slot for food to slide through, and for talking through, and her beacon had been in her Robocop armor, which they had taken off of her when she had been knocked out, so teleporting out of this place wasn’t an option either.

Her thoughts changed to Lightning Dust. This was all her fault. At the moment, she hated Lightning Dust. How could her supposed best friend have done this to her? She knew Lightning Dust wanted to be a Wonderbolt, but she hadn’t thought she would stab her in the back to become one.

Suddenly they heard the sound of hoofsteps approaching from outside the cell. A few seconds later, the steps stopped outside their cell, and the slot on the door opened up, letting in a stream of light from outside. Then a pony’s face appeared outside the slot. Gilda scowled when she saw who it was.

“What are you doing here?” spat Gilda at Lightning Dust. “Come to gloat, traitor?”

“Tell me the truth,” Lightning Dust said to Gilda, ignoring her question. “Were you being honest when you said what Celestia did to Luna, and the changelings too?”

“Yes,” said Gilda. “Like I said, we learned it from Luna herself. That was what was in her head that she wanted us to know! Come on, Lightning, I’m Gilda, your best friend… well, FORMER best friend! Would I lie to you?”

“Um…” began Lightning Dust.

“You know what, don’t answer that,” Gilda quickly said. “But I’m telling the truth this time! You have to believe me!”

Lightning Dust stared at Gilda for several seconds, looking like she was considering. After a few seconds, she said, “I believe you.”

Suddenly Gilda heard a few small clicking noises, and then the cell door swung open, revealing Lightning Dust standing alone outside.

“Well, come on! Don’t you know a jail break when you see one?” said Lightning Dust with a smirk.

Gilda and the Doctor got up off of the benches and stared at her. “What about becoming a Wonderbolt?” asked Gilda, raising an eyebrow at the pegasus.

“Oh…” Lightning Dust looked away. “I just figured… I don’t need Celestia to become a Wonderbolt! I’ll do it myself! And even if I don’t… well… who wants to be a Wonderbolt anyway? They SUCK! I heard three of them got knocked unconscious in the air once by a flailing mare who they were trying to save from falling to her death, and another time, when there was a dragon attack on Ponyville, they were totally useless! So… yeah. Why bother joining those losers? I’m already way better than they’ll ever be! I’ve saved the world!”

In that instant, Gilda couldn’t be mad a Lightning Dust any more. Gilda smirked, and then walked up to Lightning Dust. “I knew you missed me,” she said, quickly grabbing Lightning Dust in a headlock, before she could react, and giving the pegasus a noogie.

“Oh, shut up!” Lightning Dust growled as she escaped the headlock and pushed away from Gilda. “You’re not that awesome.”

“Am too!” Gilda shot back, though still smiling.

“Ladies, if you don’t mind, might we get out of here now?” asked the Doctor as he walked up to the two.

They both turned their heads to stare at him.

“Call me lady again, and I’ll deck you in the schnoz,” said Gilda.

The Doctor raised his eyebrow at Gilda, unfazed by the griffon’s threat. “In that case… ALLONS-Y!”

The Doctor took off galloping out of the cell and proceeded down the corridor out of the cellblock. Gilda and Lightning Dust quickly hurried off after him.

………………

“You need my help?” Blueblood said to Starswirl. He was so confused at that moment. He was probably more confused then he had ever been in his entire life.

Starswirl nodded. “Yes. That’s the reason I called you here.”

“Called me here?” inquired Blueblood, not knowing what Starswirl meant.

“Yes,” Starswirl said. “Those dreams you have been having, I sent them to you, in the hopes that you would come here. And you did.”

Blueblood remembered the dreams he had been having. “You sent those dreams to me?” Then something occurred to Blueblood. “And Trixie and Sunset’s dreams? The ones that showed them the spell to enter Luna’s mind?”

Starswirl nodded. “Yes, I sent them those dreams as well.”

“How?” asked Blueblood. “Why? And how are you here alive right now? I watched you DIE!”

Starswirl held up a hoof to silence Blueblood. “Calm down, young Prince. I understand you must have a lot of questions, and I will answer all of them.”

Blueblood scowled, but he obeyed.

Starswirl began. “I was indeed dead. As you may recall, my remains were launched into space as a final tribute to me. Against all odds, they flew into the plot hole, and the plot hole somehow granted me new life.”

“That’s… incredible!” said Blueblood, truly amazed.

Starswirl continued. “This place… it is quite different from our universe. It exists outside our universe, and the laws of time and space have no meaning here. As such, I gained the ability to see all places at every moment in history at once. To be quite honest, it gave me quite a headache.”

“What is this place, exactly?” asked Blueblood out of curiosity, gesturing around him at their cosmic surroundings.

“That… is a bit complicated,” said Starswirl. “We are… in a realm that serves as a buffer zone between our universe, and the universe where the writers exist.”

“The writers?” asked Blueblood.

“Yes. They are the creators of our universe, and many other universes, and all of the characters within them, like us. But I’ll get to them later. Anyway, I guess you could say we are… atop the fourth wall.”

Blueblood was now paying attention to Starswirl with complete interest.

“Anyway,” continued Starswirl, “after I came here, I discovered some things that deeply concerned me, the truth about Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, the changelings, and fact that the plot hole is going to destroy the whole of creation if it is not stopped.”

“The plot hole! Yes!” said Blueblood. “That’s why I came here! To find a way to stop the plot hole from destroying the universe!”

“That is also the reason why I called you here, Blueblood,” said Starswirl. “I need your help to restore balance to the universe.”

Then something occurred to Blueblood. “Hold on. If all you needed to do was tell me these things, why didn’t you just tell me them in the dreams you sent me instead of making me come here?”

“Because it was too dangerous! Going inside another ponies mind was dangerous to their mental state. You saw what happened to Princess Luna because I lingered in her mind for too long, didn’t you? It put her into a coma! Had I tried the same with you or another pony, it might have killed you! I could only risk sending you small clues to help you along. Anymore then that, and you might have ended up no better then Princess Luna is now, or worse.”

“Oh,” said Blueblood. “Well then… why can’t you stop the plot hole yourself?”

“I can’t leave the plot hole, Blueblood,” Starswirl explained. “If I leave, I’ll be reduced back to nothing more then a pile of ashes in an urn. If I want to stay alive, I have to stay here… forever.”

Blueblood felt sorry for Starswirl, but he kept his mind on the situation at hoof. “But I can leave?”

“You can leave this place whenever you want, Blueblood.”

That was a big relief to Blueblood. He had been worried he was stuck in this place. “Okay, then tell me how to stop the plot hole!”

“Patience, my boy,” said Starswirl. “If you’re going to save the universe, then I have more to teach you then just that. There is much you need to know.”

“But there’s no time!” Blueblood protested. “My friends are in danger NOW!”

“Actually, we have all the time we could ever need,” Starswirl said with a chuckle. “Like I said, time has no meaning in this place, because it exists outside of our universe. We could spend what might seem like an hour in here talking, but out there, it is literally whatever time we want it to be. You can chose to leave this place and go wherever and whenever you want.”

“Wow!” said Blueblood, amazed by this information.

“Sit,” Starswirl said, motioning for Blueblood to sit down.

Starswirl and Blueblood both sat down on their haunches beside each other.

“Blueblood, you came in here because I told you your destiny was in here, didn’t you?” Starswirl asked.

“Yes,” Blueblood nodded. “But also because I thought my destiny was to stop the plot hole.”

“Well there is something you need to know,” Starswirl said. “A truth that so many ponies don’t realize. You see… there is no such thing as destiny.”

Blueblood stared at Starswirl in shock. “No destiny!?”

Starswirl shook his head. “No. There cannot be. If there were, and the future was already set in stone, then there would be no free will in the world. But all living creatures have free will, so there for, things like destiny cannot exist. Many try to fool themselves into believing that they are meant for something to try to make themselves feel better about themselves, that there is predetermined plan for them, but it is a lie. None of us are meant to do anything. We are born, we live, and then we die, and during that time we make the best choices we can. When you and your friends saved the world from Queen Chrysalis and King Sombra, you didn’t do it because you were destined to. You did it because you chose to of your own free will, just as the Element Bearers were not destined to become the Element Bearers. They became them because they made the choice to go and find the Elements of Harmony that night when Nightmare Moon returned. You see, great ponies are not chosen. Great ponies are the ones who make the choice. And that is an encouraging fact, Blueblood.”

“It is?” asked Blueblood, still shocked at what Starswirl was telling him. How could not being destined for anything special be an encouraging fact?

“Yes,” continued Starswirl, “because it means that it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t mater if you’re rich or poor, or have great magic or none, or have wings, or horn, or neither, or both, or have a royal title or are a commoner, or even what species you are. None of that matters! All that maters is what we as individuals choose to do with our lives. If you put your mind to it, and work hard at something, and don’t give up, you can accomplish anything you want in life.”

“But what about cutiemarks?” asked Blueblood, glancing down at his own compass rose cutiemark on his flank.

“Ah, yes. Cutiemarks,” Starswirl said with a nod. “Well, Blueblood, you see… just like power levels in the anime series ‘Dragonball Z’, cutiemarks are bullshit!”

Blueblood was surprised to hear profanity come from Starswirl the Bearded.

Starswirl continued talking. “No mark on your flank can tell you your limitations, or what to do with your life! The only one who can decide that is yourself. Everypony has the potential to do whatever they want with their life! All they have to do is put their minds to it, and work hard at it, and any pony can accomplish anything! Cutiemarks came about long ago simply to show a pony’s natural special talent or personality trait that they had, in order to show ponies that there was something special about them, but then the plot hole began changing things, and ponies forgot the cutiemark’s true purpose. Now, instead of thinking for themselves, ponies rely purely on their cutiemarks to tell them what to do with their lives, believing that the mark is their destiny, and has total control of them and their lives. It’s dreadful!”

“But what does any of this have to do with stopping the plot hole?” asked Blueblood impatiently. As interesting as he found what Starswirl was telling him, he just didn’t feel like it was helping him stop the plot hole from destroying the universe.

Starswirl looked annoyed that he had been interrupted, but he spoke calmly. “Blueblood, if you want to save the universe, then you have to understand what I’m trying to teach you. Only if you understand these things will you be able to know how to save the universe from the plot hole, as well as prevent this catastrophe from ever happening again.”

Blueblood let out a sigh of impatiens, but nodded and allowed Starswirl to continue.

Starswirl grinned. “I’m going to tell you a secret, Blueblood. A secret I’ve been keeping my entire life. My cutiemark that I’ve been showing off for all these years… Its fake.”

Blueblood was shocked. “Fake?”

Starswirl stood up on all fours. “Here is my true cutiemark that I have been concealing my whole life.” He lifted his cloak up so that Blueblood could see his flank. Blueblood looked at it closely, seeing, to his surprise, the image of a pair of barber’s scissors and a comb.”

“Barber’s scissors and a comb?” Blueblood asked.

Starswirl nodded. “I remember the day I got my cutiemark, back when I was just a little colt. Mane and tail styling was my special talent. And I was very good at it too. The only problem was it wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life. I wanted to study magic. I didn’t care if it wasn’t my special talent or my destiny. I wanted to dedicate my life to magic and become a great sorcerer. But I new my parents and teachers would never give me the chance when they saw my cutiemark wasn’t magic related. So… before anypony noticed my cutiemark, I covered it up with a fake one, and continued to do so for the rest of my life. It wasn’t easy, but it fooled ponies, and I was granted the chance to study magic with professional teachers. As you can imagine, my schooling wasn’t easy, since I wasn’t truly naturally talented at magic like my fellow classmates, but I worked hard, and never gave up. And it paid off. It took me many decades, but I eventually became one of the most skilled ponies in magic that ever lived. I defied my so-called ‘destiny’, Blueblood, and I don’t regret it for one second.”

Blueblood gaped at Starswirl in utter amazement. He could hardly believe what he had just heard. Starswirl the Bearded had not been naturally gifted with magic. He had defied his cutiemark, and it had actually paid off for him. This meant so many things in their history books were false!

However, something was still bothering Blueblood.

“But Starswirl, if we’re all just characters in a story, like you said, then doesn’t that mean we don’t really have free will at all? That everything we do and say is being controlled by the writers?”

Starswirl smiled at him. “Well… yes and no. Listen closely, Blueblood, because what I’m about to tell you is very important. It is true, we are characters in a story, and everything that happens in that story is written by the writer, but… in truly good stories, the writers are not supposed to just write whatever they want. It is the writer’s job to listen to the characters in the story, and then write the characters the way the characters tell the writer to write them. For you see, in a good story, characters truly do take on a life of their own. Even fictional characters, like us. Just because we’re fictional doesn’t mean we aren’t alive. The characters and the writer form a sort of symbiotic relationship. We need them to write us so that we exist, and they need us to tell them what to write. The writer’s job is to write a fictional story exactly like it might actually happen as if it were real, with sense and logic. That way the suspension of disbelief can be maintained. Only if the suspension of disbelief is maintained can a fictional universe, and all the characters in it, exist. But without sense and logic, plot holes will be created, and will destroy our universe, and all of us with it, and we will all cease to exist. So you see, we are supposed to be written… with the freedom to choose our lives for ourselves. Do you understand?”

“I think so,” said Blueblood, nodding as his brain processed everything Starswirl had told him. It was all so complicated, but incredible. These beings called writers, who existed in another realm, made entire universes and characters! But at the same time, they needed the characters just as much as the characters needed them, because the writers wrote what the characters told them to write in order to make the story the best they could.

But he still didn’t understand how any of this would help him stop the plot hole from destroying the universe.

Author's Note:

Hello, again. Another cliff hanger. I was originally going to make this chapter and the next chapter one chapter, but it was just so long that I decided to split it into two. So tell me what you all think. Your honest opinion is valuable to me. I just love hearing from you guys. I'll try to have the next chapter up as soon as I can.

Comments

[Alistairmir77]

That was awesome

[HeatherIsBestPlayer]

5163547 Thank you. I'm glad you like this story.