Starlight Glimmer and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

by Emperor

Chapter 2

“You can’t be serious,” I said as I got up from my desk, quickly pacing around to face Red Durum. That probably wasn’t his real name, but I had more important things to worry about, if what he had mentioned was the truth. But that’s just it, the devil on my shoulder whispered into my ear. How do you know he’s telling the truth? He’s a changeling, as he just admitted. He must be using you for another changeling plot. My body went along with my personal devil. “Another thousand-year-old threat to Equestria comes back from the dead, and I have to face it? That’s ludicrous!” I scoffed.

“From Tartarus, actually, not from the dead,” Red Durum droned. “Nightmare Moon, Discord and the Crystal Empire all come back from being sealed away after a thousand years, and it offends you to suggest that a fourth tyrant will have returned in that time span?”

I recoiled as surely as if I had been smacked in the jaw by his hoof.

“Lord Tirek is able to smell magic,” Red Durum carried on, bulldozing me over before I could voice any further objections. “Somehow, whatever it is you do with the Staff of Sameness stops him from smelling it. We’re working based purely on guesswork right now, but we think his sense of magic is like our sense of emotions.” He narrowed his eyes, looking at at me. Those creepy, solid-blue eyes disgusted me. “It’s been difficult for me to feed here, because of your Unmarking spell. I can tell you still have your Mark, however, because it’s no problem to feed off you. Ah, just like that, the revulsion you felt when I said that.” I felt like he was mocking me. “Your disgust tastes terrible, but the potency of it is still magnitudes above what everypony else has, even the fillies and colts who haven’t yet found their Cutie Mark and then been subsequently Unmarked.”

My stomach roiled, but I held my gut tight. I would not be squeamish, not in front of this person, whether he thought of himself as a pony or as a changeling. No, perhaps I should be happy? Even a changeling had decided to live in our village, no matter that he was doing it to spy on us.

But he still hadn’t explained enough. “Fine,” I grudgingly admitted. “Let’s say you’re right, and we are the only ones who have not been targeted by Tirek yet. How would we even still stand a chance against what sounds like another dark god from beyond? I’m just a unicorn, you know. I’m not a Princess. I don’t have the power to lift a sun or a moon into the sky, and from what you’ve said, he must have sucked magic out of four of them. And what’s to stop him from doing the same to me?”

Red Durum grimaced. I hated that look, because I could tell exactly what kind of frown it was. It wasn’t the frown of being at a loss on how to proceed. It was a frown of knowing exactly what to say, except what he needed to say was so horrifying it didn’t bear talking about unless it was absolutely necessary.

Red Durum sighed, and then he said, “What do you know about the way changelings can take love and other emotions from ponies?”

I racked my brains for a few seconds, before I blurted out, “Nothing. Practically nothing. I’ve been living here for several years, you know, studying and practicing magic. What little of news I’ve heard comes either from the newspapers we get, a few days outdated, or from the ponies who come into town from time to time.”

“Curses,” said Red Durum. He took a deep breath, then exhaled. Perhaps it was good that he stayed untransformed, barring his now solid-blue eyes. It was easy for me to understand how a pony felt, such as the way Red Durum was emoting now with his sagging shoulders. It would be difficult for me to empathise with him if it was difficult for me to read his changeling biology.

“Changelings can feed off of residual emotion in the air,” Red Durum said. “Residual emotion is leaked all the time by ponies as they walk around, though the stronger and more positive the emotion, the better. It’s why changelings are responsible for the funding and production of many romance movies,” he chuckled.

What. My blank blanked out at that, not even able to form it as an actual question.

Red Durum was unaware of how he had given me a temporary brain malfunction, and continued. “However, we can also forcibly extract emotion from a pony. It’s not desirable. After all, it leaves our victim weak, and they can tell something has been done to them, which usually blows our cover. But Tirek, what he’s done is an order of magnitude worse than that. He forcibly rips away all the magic from a pony. Pegasi can no longer fly, Earth ponies can no longer truly feel the earth under their hooves, and unicorns can no longer cast any magic. In a sense, it’s like he made them Equal beyond your wildest dreams.”

“That’s not equal,” I whispered.

Red Durum snorted. “Of course it is. It’s just that you knew where to draw the line.”

I winced, remembering some of the wilder ideas that we had to toss out, but he was right. Still, I wasn’t quite ready to believe him. “How do I know this isn’t some set-up, then?” I asked, biting my tongue in between lines. I hated this. Red Durum was a changeling, a being who could feed on love, and I had no idea what the full scope of his abilities were. He stated he could sense my emotions, and that could mean anything from peripheral knowledge of my mood to outright being able to read my mind. “Maybe the Princesses are still around, and you’re just bluffing me to do something stupid to provide a distraction for another changeling invasion? Somepony could have just had an accident in Manehatten.”

The other pony, I still couldn’t help but think of him as a pony, just looked at me for several seconds. Then his nose twitched, before he wrinkled it. Was he contemplating something, or holding back his frustration? Suddenly, I wasn’t quite so sure of my talent in reading ponies. Or was it just Red Durum who I was unsure of, and I could still understand other ponies easily?

Then he closed his eyes. When he opened them back up, they were brown again, with white sclera and black pupils. “Have you looked outside yet?”

“Not since the moon was raised,” I said, moving over to my windowsill, curtains laying heavily over top. “Why, what should I be looking at?” I asked, using magic to open the curtains. It took a few seconds for me to understand what I was looking at. When I did, it felt like I had just been sucker-punched, as I forcibly exhaled all the spare breath in my body. “Oh. Oh.”

The moon was as bright as always tonight. For the last few years, it had looked a little odd, being a near-uniform bright white colour, after the Mare in the Moon had disappeared. Before, I thought the figure was just the coincidental arrangement of several lunar maria, only to learn otherwise after Nightmare Moon had appeared.

Now, however, the Mare in the Moon had reappeared.

It looked a little different, though. The horn was shorter, the ‘eye’ was a little more rounded, and the shape itself almost seemed to be tinted purple. But there was no doubt that somepony had just been sealed in the moon again.

“You see now?” Red Durum asked, walking up beside me. “Tirek has defeated all four Princesses. I don’t know what he did with the other three, but the last one he banished into the moon.”

I sucked in a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. I took in another deep breath. Then I started laughing.

Red Durum stood impassively beside me even as my laughter descended into a fit of hysteria. Somehow, his mere presence stopped me from truly falling into the pit of despair that awaited me. At one point, my body tried to convulse with more laughter, only to choke as I was short on breath. I sat down on my haunches, beating my chest with a hoof to get control over myself. I was better than the ponies I had to soothe this morning. I would get over this on my own.

Slowly, I regained control of myself, forcing my rapid breathing away for a longer, calmer pattern of inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale. I wiped the tears from my muzzle, and looked up at Red Durum. “Even if you have a spell to stop Tirek from stealing my magic, that still doesn’t change the fact that he’s overwhelmingly powerful. You just said yourself he stole the magic of four princesses, as well as Discord. How could I even hope to match him?”

Red Durum closed his eyes. “You won’t like it.”

“Try me,” I said, defiant.

He told me.

He was right. I didn’t like it.

“Gi-give me a few minutes,” I said. Finally able to stand up again, I used it to achieve the momentous task of walking around to my desk and sitting in my chair instead. I put my journal and notes away, and held my head up in my hooves. I needed a plan.

I was hardly a tactician or a strategist, or even a grand manipulator. I had raw wit, but I didn’t have the experience to go with it. I had only a few tools, and the aid of a single changeling, who had a mental link to other changelings. I had to face up against a madbeast who had become a virtual dark god by stealing the magic of others. But I had fooled this entire village of ponies for two straight years into believing that I had truly removed my Cutie Mark. Deep down, there was a part of me that I didn’t like. It was a part that had gotten me through two years without the village falling apart. It was a part that was going to have take front stage to avert this crisis that affected all of Equestria, and by proxy my village.

The Staff of Sameness leaned against the wall behind me. Good. I was going to need it. Thankfully, from how Red Durum had talked, it seemed he hadn’t clued in that the Staff was fake, and it was my own spell that did all the work. I didn’t think it really made a difference at this point since he knew I still had my Cutie Mark. However, it made me feel more secure that I still had a secret he didn’t know, and that was good enough.

I looked back up at Red Durum, staring him in his brown eyes. “You and I need to go over a few details to keep our story straight. After that, I want you to fetch Double Diamond and...hmm...Night Glider.” The pegasus mare was probably the second pony I would go with after Double Diamond for helping me in a tough situation.

He saluted me, falling into line as surely as if he were any other pony of Our Town, each who looked up to me as the leader who held them together. Perhaps he truly was one of my ponies. “Yes, Starlight Glimmer.”

---


“Starlight, what’s going on?” Double Diamond asked as he came into my office slash bedroom. “The Mare in the Moon is back. Did you get a message or something?”

Red Durum had worked quick after I told him the story to stick to, retrieving both Double Diamond and Night Glider. The latter pony fidgeted as she came in. Night Glider was nowhere near as used to being in here as Double Diamond was, and it showed.

“Sort of,” I said, still sitting down at my desk. “The Princesses have been defeated.”

“What?!” Night Glider cried out, her nervousness in my room overcome by pure shock. “No, how can that be?!”

“An evil monster named Tirek, who was formerly imprisoned in Tartarus, before he broke out,” Red Durum spoke up, and Night Glider and Double Diamond both spun around to face him. “The explosion in Manehatten this morning was his doing.”

“Another one?” Double Diamond asked. “Well, surely the group that defeated Nightmare Moon and Discord can stop him?”

Red Durum shook his head. “They’ve been all stripped out of their magic. That’s what Tirek can do. He’s a centaur monster locked away in Tartarus for stealing magic from others in the past. From what I understand, Tirek took...decisive measures to ensure they’ve been separated from one another, too, so they can’t rally and defeat him with some unforeseen power. It’s not just the Princesses Tirek ripped their power from, though. Tirek went around to every single town and village in Equestria, wherever he could find magic. He stole magic from nearly all the unicorns, Earth ponies and pegasi in Equestria. All the ponies of Cloudsdale have now been grounded, no longer able to live on the clouds. We’re the only ones left with any magic.”

“We’re the only ones?” Night Glider asked, finally getting control of herself. “But how can that be? We still have our magic, don’t we? Oh,” she uttered, looking at her flank as she clued in. “It’s because of these, isn’t it?”

“That’s our best guess,” Red Durum said. “That the Unmarking does something to you, which makes us a blind spot in Tirek’s senses. Perhaps he relies on the Cutie Mark magic to find more ponies, which would explain why the fillies and colts who haven’t gotten their Cutie Mark and been subsequently Unmarked haven’t lured him in yet, either.”

“Then this is a disaster,” said Double Diamond.. “If what you say is true, it’s only a matter of time before he stumbles upon us. Eventually, one of the foals will get their Cutie Marks. Even if we Unmark her or him, in the worst-case scenario, Tirek might realise there are ponies here and come after us.”

I found myself surprised, but let out a small grin. Of all the ponies affected by the Unmarking, Double Diamond was the most cool-minded, rational one. Perhaps it was because he was the one who sparked the Founding of Our Town that he was able to keep his assertiveness and independence, even after being Equalised. Whatever the case, it was a good thing he didn’t descend into a panic, as I imagined many ponies would at learning of the current events.

He made a good point, even though he didn’t realise it wasn’t quite true. Tirek must have been aware that there were ponies up here: he just didn’t care, because there was only one pony who had kept her Cutie Mark.

But then, perhaps that might change. Now that Tirek had defeated all four Princesses, he might begin to target all those lone hermits such as me as well, time and effort spent to hunt down a single pony be damned. It would be a surprise there was more than one pony up here, but if he had conquered an entire nation, a single village with a hundred odd ponies wouldn’t be his end.

We had to take the fight to Tirek, before he took the fight to us.

“But wait,” Double Diamond trailed off. I could practically see the gears turning in his head as he looked between myself, Red Durum, and the moon, and he finally asked the question that we had been dreading. “How do you know about all of this? None of us have left the town since then, and there’s no way anybody could have delivered a message by teleportation magic if all the ponies in Equestria have lost their magic.”

I sighed. “You may as well tell them, Red.”

Two sets of inquisitive eyes flickered over to Red Durum, and for the first time he actually looked apprehensive. I took it for a good sign. Even past the barely-restrained panic at the thought of facing Tirek, I still worried about relations between ponies in my village. Red Durum actually seemed to care about the opinions of his fellow villagers. If even a changeling was accepted into our village, a changeling who was openly known as a changeling, then we had hit a major trotstone.

“I...am...a...a changeling,” Red said, finally getting the words out.

Night Glider reacted quickly, her jitters setting her off. Everypony in the room could see her hoof as she moved in for the attack.

I reacted quicker.

“Night Glider!” I scolded her, as I held her in my magical grip for the second time that day.

The pegasus had enough control over her own body that she could turn her head around, and she practically hissed as she face me. “But he’s a changeling, Starlight Glimmer! He just admitted it! Who knows what he’s done with the real Red Durum?” She narrowed her eyes, as Night Glider seemed to think of something else. “Or are you a changeling as well?”

“That’s enough,” I said. I chanced a look at Double Diamond. The white-coated Earth pony was on guard, his full body tensed and coiled up to strike at once if he saw something he didn’t like, but he was still restraining himself. Had I more time to plan, perhaps I could have eased the two into finding out Red Durum was a changeling. I didn’t have time, however, and so I would need to strong-hoof these two if they showed any dissent. The accusation from Night Glider rankled. Even if I could understand why she would think I was a changeling, it still hurt that she didn't trust me. “Red Durum is Red Durum. Er,” I stuttered, realising how that tautology sounded. “That is, there was no Red Durum the pony, this is a form he developed on his own. That’s why he never had a Cutie Mark, either. I don’t know how the Staff of Sameness would have reacted to him, and he’s said as much that he faked being Markless for that same reason.”

“Hmm,” Double Diamond hummed, copying one of my own mannerisms as he looked between me, Night Glider, and Red Durum. Looking back to the changeling-cum-pony, he asked, “So you’re the one who get the message, then?”

“I am,” Red Durum confirmed. “Changelings are able to telepathically send messages over long distances to one another.”

“Does it rely on magic?” Double Diamond continued.

Red Durum seemed to realise where he was going with the questions, and nodded, before saying, “Whatever it is Tirek does, he can’t sense changelings. We’ve lost a few of our undercover scouts simply because they were in towns he ransacked, but otherwise we’ve been able to stay out of his way.”

“And how do we know this isn’t some plot by the changelings, then?” Double Diamond asked, continuing to press on. Beside him, Night Glider seemed to calm down, watching the back and forth between the changeling and the pony. Taking a risk, I let go of my grip on her. The conversation seemed to be covering the same things I had went over with Red Durum, but it would be good for Night Glider and Double Diamond to understand the situation as well.

“If it were, do you think we’d even bother with plotting?” Red Durum snapped back, frustration clear on his face. He pointed one hoof at the window to the moon up in the sky. “If our Queen could do that, then there’d be no need to continue skulking about.”

“Yes, and saying things like that makes us less likely to trust you,” Night Glider retorted. “Hey, speaking of your Queen, is she going to fight Tirek?”

“N-no!” Red Durum shouted, suddenly turning rigid. “She can’t!”

I turned to face him at that declaration. Night Glider had asked a good question. I frowned. I hadn’t thought of that, and it was something I should have. “Why not?” I asked.

Red Durum still shuddered, as if Night Glider’s question was more than just offensive, but an outright existential threat. “It’s our biology,” he explained. “Changelings are able to absorb emotions from others, both residual emotion and active emotions.” I doubt he even realised that most of what he was saying was jargon that completely flew over Night Glider’s head. “We convert it to magic for our own use. The problem is that it’s a two-way thing. Though we’re able to absorb energy easily, other creatures could just as easily absorb energy from us, and we’re far more susceptible to it than ponies would be. We just haven’t had to deal with any being that could do such a thing since Star Swirl banished something called the Sirens. Tirek might not be able to find us, but if we went to fight him, it’d be like offering ourselves up on a food platter.”

I bit my lip. Again, I couldn’t really tell if Red Durum was stating the truth or not, but at this point it was irrelevant. The changelings either wouldn’t or couldn’t fight Tirek, but in either case they weren’t fighting him, full stop. That left it up to us...to me.

Double Diamond seemed to have come to the same conclusion. “So that leaves it up to us to fight him? OK, so what were you thinking? That somehow the Staff of Sameness does something to us that will stop him from stealing our magic as well? And then what? Tirek still has the power of every Princess. There’s no way I could fight him.”

“Actually, there is a way,” I said, lifting the Staff of Sameness up from its spot on the wall behind me.

“What? What is it?” Night Glider asked. “This is preposterous. I can’t see any method we have to defeat somepony who’s stolen the magic of everypony in Equestria.”

Not ‘somepony’, ‘someone’, I corrected her in my head. If this worked, and we won against Tirek, Red Durum might continue to live in the village. If that happened, we would have to adjust our terminology.

Then I scoffed at myself. Why am I thinking about this at a time like this? Get yourself together, Starlight Glimmer. “Actually, there is a way, at least, we think,” I said. I gulped, as I finally got up from my sitting position at the desk, and walked around to the front.

Double Diamond and Night Glider both spotted it immediately. Simultaneously, their eyes widened and their jaws dropped. Double Diamond recovered first. With a hint of trepidation in his voice, he asked, “Starlight...why...why would you-?” He cut himself off, unable to even finish the question.

There, on my thighs, was my true Cutie Mark: a star with two streams like comet tails coming off of it. I no longer bore an Equal Cutie Mark. Double Diamond and Night Glider didn’t know that I had just washed off my fur, but the effect was the same. The two staggered, as if me ‘gaining’ my Cutie Mark again was a more horrifying revelation than that of a mad godbeast taking over Equestria and banishing the Princesses.

Perhaps it was.

“I, I have to,” I stuttered, feeling revulsion again. “There’s something about Cutie Marks that is both vital and yet antithetical to Tirek’s magic. When he steals a pony’s magic, their Cutie Mark disappears, yet he can’t sense a filly without a Cutie Mark. Cutie Marks are a weakness, yet they’re the only weapon left that can stop him. We, we, I, I have to-” I couldn’t even complete the sentence, quickly galloping over to my wastebucket. I dry heaved, having already gotten any traces of food and drink out of my system when originally hearing what I had to do from Red Durum.

“To stand a chance of winning against Tirek, Starlight Glimmer must consume every last Cutie Mark in the Cutie Mark Vault,” Red Durum finished for me.

I was wrong. There was still a little bit of stomach acid left in me that threatened to exit out my throat, burning away at my very being.

Author's Note:

And juuuust like that, Dark tag gets added. I think what happens in the next chapter should be the darkest thing in this story, though. The idea of Starlight 'eating' the Cutie Marks of her fellow villagers to supercharge her magic was what sparked this fiction. In this case, her magic will be directed at Tirek, in the process doing a little bit of breaking the cutie. Perhaps in another story, GlimGlam could be evil and use it to take over Equestria.

Comments

[Pontiac56]

Holy Shit, that is both an awesome and yet terrifying idea. Though I am concerned about whether the effort will be worth it. Cutie Marks are a different sort of magic then normal, but even still, Starlight only has like 100 or so of them, compared to the absorbed magic of all of Equestria, Discord, and the Princesses. Even super charged Starlight is still entering into this as an ant trying to fight a boot.

[Heidao]

Hmm, compared to eating their magic, what would eating someone's potential do?

[Jatheus]

I did not see that coming. It’s an interesting plan, but the math doesn’t add up. I can’t see even how with the strength of a hundred ponies she could hope to stand a chance in combat against Tirek. I’m interested to see how this plays out.

Good chapter!