III: Grand Finale
Starlight backed up against the nearest wall and watched the others approaching her. Zapp covered the air, Mistress Mare-Velous looked down from atop the building across the way, Filli-Second kept bolting from one side of the group to the other, Radiance took up a standing position next to the Masked Matter-Horn, and both Sonata and a fully powered Saddle Rager flanked the latter two, their combined bulk blocking out most of the light from the streetlamps above.
“Now would be a really good time for a brilliant plan,” Starlight hissed.
“In the party is strength, comrade. Is as true for us as for these Capitalists.”
She pursed her lips. “That’s not a bad point…” Starlight pointed at Sonata. “I want to challenge El Taco Loco to single combat. She wins, I go with you without any further struggle. I win, you set me free.”
Mistress Mare-Velous scoffed. “That isn’t how this works, criminal scum.”
“Yeah, well she was on the other side until a minute ago, so clearly you’re more willing to make compromises than you like to advertise.”
“This is a trick,” Zapp said.
“A bald-faced one at that,” Radiance said.
The Masked Matter-Horn looked at the ground for a moment. “We can’t just let you go, Red Menace. But go on, fight her if you both want.”
“Me encantaría,” Sonata said, drifting forward and stretching her shoulders.
Starlight looked Sonata in the eye as she approached. “Sonata, listen to me, we can get out of here together, I promise. Besides, you can’t have seriously wanted to trade your future, and your freedom, for tacos.”
Sonata flinched. “I'm so sick of eating them,” she whispered, “but the mask…” Then her voice took on a deeper, fuller tone: “Eso es suficiente, cariño. ¡Hagámoslo!”
Starlight ducked to one side as Sonata sailed forward with a powerful blow that shattered a hole in the brick building behind them. She lashed out with the beard, scoring a trio of small hits on Sonata’s side. The Siren roared at her and leapt again, this time catching Starlight in a crushing hug around the neck. The beard immediately went to work on infiltrating its tendrils down between Sonata’s forelegs and Starlight’s coat, pushing outward with all its might. The gap it created was just large enough for Starlight to wriggle herself out.
Then Sonata brought a foreleg around and clocked Starlight in the side of the head.
She went down like a pile of limp rags. Disorientation and a faint ringing sound soon pressed out all the other details of her world, though she had the vague impression that the beard was using itself to push and keep her upright, while also holding up a pair of thick tendrils in the style of hoofticuffs.
“I think… she might’ve hit me,” Starlight slurred.
“Bez shutok, comrade.”
Starlight’s world lurched again as the beard threw her into a dodge. Cool wind whispered past her face, possibly due to another flying leap from Sonata. “I don’t think we’re going to win,” she said, her disorientation so great that the emotion only hit her as an afterthought. “I think… we’re going to be stuck here forever. Possibly in jail…”
“Where is your fire?” the beard said, condemnation in its tone. “The Red Menace that I know would not be so quick to bow to these Capitalist sobaki.” It pulled her to the side again, then back the other way, then up and down, all while dodging heavy blows from Sonata’s forelegs. At length, the beard shot back, catching Sonata hard upon the jaw. “She would at least try, even if she knew the enemy’s party was stronger, better-equipped…”
“I don’t actually believe in Communism,” Starlight blurted.
The beard sighed. “Da, comrade. I know of your misgivings. But even you know that the strength of many ponies cannot be equaled by the strength of one alone.”
“Twilight is one pony.” Starlight sighed sadly, missing that the beard was moving her into another series of lurching evasions. “One pony who knows… so much. I just wish that I could ask her what to do here.”
“Comrade, look at me.” The beard extended out a portion of itself and formed the head of an aged, balding stallion with heavy eyebrows, and—of course—a very thick, full beard. “Perhaps you wish to make this ‘Twilight’ proud, but there is no ‘Twilight’ here to save you from the burdens that you face. But you do not need to face them alone. The party is strength, da?”
Starlight watched, half-dazed, as the beard unwound the stallion’s head into a dizzying array of tendrils that caught, turned, and returned a series of blows from Sonata. Even as she missed the action’s finer details, she felt her head begin to clear, and a sense of purpose reassert itself, and maybe—finally—she had an idea.
She narrowed her eyes, braced her own hooves against the ground, and lit her horn.
“Da,” she said, grinning.
Sonata launched herself at Starlight again, but this time she asserted control of the beard, using it to grapple the Siren’s forelegs and pull her head close to her own. Her horn flared and she clenched her teeth as she began casting a spell.
“¡No puedes ganar!”
“I don’t have to,” Starlight said. “I just have to do this…”
A spark jumped from her horn to Sonata’s mask. The Siren pressed her forelegs to her face and started screaming: “¡Abajo el capitalismo! ¡Igualdad para siempre!”
“What did you just do?” the beard asked, sounding amused.
“Oh, just a teensy bit of mind control… or, well, suggestibility,” Starlight said through a grin. “Directed at the mask, not at Sonata.”
The beard chuckled. “Bringing your strengths to the party, as I do mine?”
“Da,” she answered. “Now, El Taco Loco, those ponies would have you adhere to a system of strict costs and payment for your tacos. They may say the tacos will be limitless, but somewhere, somehow, someone will be paying for them. That means there are limits… always limits, even if they hide them from you!”
“¡Esos animales!” Sonata bellowed, whirling on the Power Ponies. “Tú, que me mantendría alejado de mis tacos ... ¡Prepárate para morir!”
They may not have understood Sonata’s words, but the Power Ponies leaned forward in their stances, readying themselves for combat.
“You are one psikh daughter of equality, comrade,” the beard said.
“Hush now,” Starlight said. “We have work to do.”
“And that is…?”
Starlight grinned. “We’re teaming up against the bad guys. The real bad guys: the Power Ponies.”
She knew Sonata would launch herself bodily at the group, and she figured Filli-Second would take that as the signal to attack her… so she waited for it to happen. When the first blow fell on her from the super-fast pony, Starlight let the beard flare out again, distracting Filli-Second and eventually landing a hit that knocked her aside. But Starlight kept her eyes focused on the rest of the Power Ponies, who watched as Saddle Rager leapt to meet Sonata in midair. The two grapplers slammed into each other, but Saddle Rager’s mass was superior, and they ended up continuing along her trajectory, eventually plowing through the hard brick edifice of an apartment building along its path.
Starlight grinned at the Power Ponies. “Catch me if you can!” she called, before she broke into a gallop toward the shattered building.
“You have plan, yes, comrade?” the beard asked, nudging her to the side of a blast of energy from Radiance. “You seem very much like you have plan.”
“Did Trotsky have a plan during the siege of Stalliongrad?”
The beard was silent for a moment before pushing her the other direction. One of Mistress Mare-Velous’ enchanted horseshoes clattered to the ground in front of her. “Comrade Trotsky was not a contemporary of that battle, comrade.”
“Details! Just keep covering me while I get to Sonata. I think I can—”
A bolt of ice from the Masked Matter-Horn exploded on the ground before her. She tripped, but the beard caught her in a mass of snaking tendrils and hoisted her back upright, all while keeping her moving at the same speed.
“Just a little farther,” Starlight said through gritted teeth.
She heard sounds of roaring and destruction from up ahead and watched as the two muscular creatures hurled chunks of metal and stone—and occasionally each other—about the ruined space.
Something gripped hard at her hind legs, causing her to stagger. Starlight brought her head around, but the beard fanned out a set of tendrils, blocking her view of the pink blur trying to hit her. Starlight looked up instead, spotting Zapp moving into position above, and with roiling black clouds brewing just behind her.
“Hold Filli-Second,” Starlight ordered. “Do it now…”
The beard levered Filli-Second up and off the ground just as a massive bolt of lightning discharged from the clouds. Starlight’s coat stood up straight beneath the military outfit, and her heart skipped a beat or two, but the beard insulated her from the worst of it. The effect on Filli-Second was much more pronounced, though; the mare jerked back, up and out of the beard’s grasp, shaking and juddering in midair. Starlight cursed under her breath; it would have been comical if it didn’t look so bloody painful.
“Idti,” the beard urged.
“Going!” Starlight vaulted across the distance to the broken building and danced into the wake of the two titans clashing in the midst of it. She ducked as Saddle Rager aimed a forehoof at her, and her heart skipped another beat amid the thought that it would have taken her head off if the blow had connected.
Saddle Rager howled with anger, grabbed a mass of broken bricks with her other forehoof, and came back around with a hail of deadly missiles. Starlight’s horn flared again, sending out a wave of force that deflected most of them.
“Sonata, are you alright?!” Starlight called.
“I’m here!” she shouted from somewhere out of sight.
Starlight grinned as she dodged another blow. “Listen, please… I realized something just a minute ago. This comic… I don’t think it’s a traditional one! The good guys aren’t acting good, and the bad guys…” She ducked behind the free-standing remnants of wall, then squeaked as Saddle Rager threw a punch that leveled it. “I think it’s kind of showing like what Karl Mare-ecks said when a society is organized for the benefit of those in charge of it, rather than those whose labor makes it work!”
“Chertovski verno,” the beard said, its approval bubbly and pervasive.
Saddle Rager bore down on Starlight, who did a quick fake to one side, then hurled herself the other way, using the beard to break her fall and bring her back to her hooves again.
“I… I don’t understand,” Sonata said, still unseen. “I thought people helped to shape and influence society through their individual actions, rather than it being, like, some big conspiracy…”
Starlight shrieked as both of Saddle Rager’s forehooves came down, straight at her. The beard flared out and formed a rigid cone that caused the hooves to impact on either side of Starlight. Starlight shrunk toward the ground, seeking to evade Saddle Rager's gnashing teeth as much as anything. “It’s… not a conspiracy!” she shouted. “It’s a metaphor! Look: the Power Ponies have all the power, but they aren’t listening to us, even though all we want is to get out of here!”
The beard pushed, both backwards into the floor beneath her, and upwards into the huge pony bearing down on her. Saddle Rager roared, and Starlight used her magic to project a shield to defend against the pony’s hot, spittle-flecked breath. “And that’s it!” Starlight shouted. “You and me… and both of our symbiotic entities that give us power… we just need to work together, and to find the strength of our shared… labor!”
“Slava Kommunizma!” the beard cheered. Then it really pushed. The force of its thrust pressed Starlight’s head backwards uncomfortably, but she smiled, realizing that her plan was working. She came up just as Saddle Rager took a few steps back, then swung a hoof at her again. But Starlight held fast, trusting in the beard to—
She staggered from the sheer force of the blow’s impact, but it didn’t kill her, and she was prepared to call that a win.
The beard roared back, bringing Starlight’s whole body around as it formed itself into a gigantic club, which slammed itself into Saddle Rager’s head with a satisfying whack. The massive pony lurched to the side.
Then Starlight spotted Sonata coming through the thick dust of the broken tenement building. The Siren moved slowly, but with purpose. She turned her eyes on Starlight and smiled. “The mask and I can both agree that what we’re up against here is just mean and unfair,” she said.
Starlight smiled back. “Da, comrade,” she said.
“Hey, that’s moya liniya, comrade,” the beard protested.
“Deal with it,” Starlight teased. Then she focused on Sonata. “Are you ready?”
“For what?”
“Follow me!” Starlight turned back toward Saddle Rager. “Hey greenie-weenie, your mother was a minotaur, and your father was… exploitative of the means of production!”
Saddle Rager brought her head around with a grimace and a roar, but Starlight was already moving, vaulting over broken stone and shattered furniture, making back toward the hole in the side of the building…
...back toward the Power Ponies.
She glanced over, making sure Sonata was floating right by her side. Then she grinned and threw her head back with a battle cry: “For Communism!”
“For Communism!” Sonata echoed. “Y tacos gratis!” she said a moment later, her voice deepening a bit for the occasion.
They passed by the fallen form of Filli-Second, who still lay twitching. Radiance stood beside her, leaning over with an array of hard-light medical apparatus… and they just passed by, letting her work on healing her comrade. But up ahead, Zapp, Mistress Mare-Velous, and the Masked Matter-Horn all turned from what looked like a close, heated argument, to watch the pair of incoming “villains.”
Sounds of thundering hooves behind her told Starlight that Saddle Rager was in hot pursuit.
The trio of heroes before them dropped into battle-ready positions. Mistress Mare-Velous readied her lasso, Zapp lifted her necklace, and the Masked Matter-Horn lowered her head, bringing her horn down to the ready.
The sound of hooves and snarling grew closer from behind.
“Now, go left!” Starlight shouted, dodging to the right.
As the “villains” dashed to either side of the trio of heroes, Starlight turned her head back. The three at first looked confused, but then brought their gazes back around to watch as Saddle Rager tried and failed to come skidding to a stop.
They shrieked as the insanely muscular pony plowed straight through their midst, scattering the group like bowling pins. Each bounced off the walls and ground a few times before rolling to their respective stops. Saddle Rager herself paused, looking about in horror at the sight of her fallen comrades. She raised a hoof toward one of them, then started tearing up and sniffling, and started to deflate before their eyes.
“What have I done?” moaned Saddle Rager.
“Nothing permanent, I’m guessing,” Starlight said. She turned to where Radiance was still bent over and working on Filli-Second. “I trust you’ll look at them as well?”
Radiance looked up and huffed. “Well, yes, assuming I can trust you not to jump me while the rest of my team is down, of course!”
Starlight grinned. “Don’t worry; ‘From each according to her ability, to each according to her needs.’ And right now, what they need is care.” She paused. “And if I could just say one more thing, it’s that I take no pleasure in this victory, and all this could have been prevented if you’d just listened to us.”
“For realzies,” Sonata added. “I just wanna go home!”
Radiance looked at both of them in turn, then at her fallen comrades, and then nodded. “You’re right. I’m sorry for the trouble. Please… just go.”
Starlight and Sonata turned back to each other, both smiling. “Did we do it?” Sonata asked. “Or, wait… whoa…” She held her forelegs out before her, and a bright flash overtook her, and for a moment her figure twisted… but then she was gone, leaving nothing but the mask behind.
“She made it,” Starlight said, grinning from ear to ear. “We did it, comrade! We—”
“I am proud of you, comrade,” the beard said, sounding sad. “In the face of great uncertainty and trial, you looked past your own hero—this Twilight that you speak of—and you found the strength in party, and equality, against the unheeding forces of Capitalism.” The beard made a sound akin to sniffling away tears. “You were the finest Communist I ever knew. Now… Dasvidanya.”
Starlight’s heart softened. “And you were the best beard I could’ve ever ho… oh—oh!”
Starlight felt her world pinch, and stretch, and soon she vanished in a mighty flash.
“Oof!”
The impact of cold crystal on her face made Starlight wish she still had a living beard. That same chill quickly permeated her coat as she lay there, groaning.
“It’s her!” called a familiar, youthful voice.
Starlight forced her eyes open and saw Spike kneeling down by her head. His eyes were wide with concern, and the nails upon his outstretched claw before her had been chewed.
“Are you okay? I’m sorry… I tried to tell you about that comic… here, the others are just in the other room! Let me go get them!”
Spike bolted from the room, shouting fit to raise Tartarus.
Starlight’s eyes searched around, eventually landing on a nearby comic.
“Dasvidanya, to you, too, comrade” she said with a smile.
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This... this was... I don't even know!!
I really liked the characterization of Starlight in this fanfic, just the joke of her being a communist pony was more than enough to have my attention but the rest of it... Man, I can't tell you how much I liked this fanfic! It is funny, at the same time is kind of serious when it needs it to be.
The moment the beard encouraged Starlight to make team with El Taco loco instead of fighting her was probably the most inspiring thing I've ever read!
Just one thing
If you're referring to the Power Ponies as a group you should use the plural, it would be better this way:
Just saying
Oh, the moment Starlight and Sonata made an alliance was amazing. Starlight is best mind-controlling pony!! But if they were a real team in the comic, what should be their name? I was thinking on something like "Los Tacomunistas"
I just saw this
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I couldn't help but remember this fanfic
Amazing work!
WHAT
He had ice axe instead
Kommunizmu