Equality's Truth
Starlight’s voice was heard slightly muffled over a loudspeaker in a room devoid of anything save a set of window drapes and a bed. “In sameness there is peace. Exceptionalism is a lie. Free yourself from your aura mark. Choose equality as your special talent. Difference is frustration. To excel is to fail.” In the room were Rarity, who was looking at the window drapes seemingly lost in trying to figure them out, Pinkie Pie who was lying on the bed looking at the ceiling moving her mouth as if she was trying to recite recipes, Fluttershy was in a corner balled up crying over what happened last afternoon, Twilight, who was in another corner sitting down seemingly at a loss of something she was trying to remember. All the while Applejack and Rainbow Dash were throwing their collective weight at the door trying to break it down and bust out. Noticeably Applejack’s sword and Rainbow Dash’s quiver and bow were not on their respective owner, as were all other weapons the group had.
“BULL STRENGTH!” The paladin screamed as she tried to cast the spell only for the equal signs on her pauldrons to flash and the spell to fail as she tried to break down the door once more by herself, as Rainbow Dash stepped to the side. Applejack’s hair, eye and skin tone then shifted gray a shade much the whole Discord incident. “Buck!” She kicked the door angry with the latest failure.
“You almost had it Applejack,” Pinkie tried to cheer on the paladin, but that went over like a lead balloon… “Hey, Foxhelm, you know the Mythbusters proved that a balloon made out of lead foil can still float when filled with helium as long as there are no holes in it and/or doesn’t tear during the ninety-sixth episode of the show, right?” Pinkie reminded the author.
“Be your best by never being your best.” Starlight’s voice continued to come from the loudspeaker and sounded more suppressed.
“Ugh,” Twilight growled as she started to strike the wall, “We've gotta find a way out of here! I can't take much more of that voice!” She screamed trying to conjure a ball of magic to blast the speaker system, only of it to fizzle out because she was more or less cut off from her magic, much like the rest of her friends.
Rarity finally spoke up shedding tears, casing her eye-liner to run (and it should be noted that she wears only oil-based) in what could be considered borderline whining, “Oh, this is horrible!”
Fluttershy got up from sulked in the corner, finished crying and thought she was over what happened and could, therefore, comfort her friend, “There, there, Rarity…” She said while she hugged Rarity and pat the enchantress on her back, “It's not so bad…”
“Yes, it is!” The fashion savant decried as she broke the hug. As she pointed to the drapes, “Look at those drapes!” She grabbed one and held it in front of her for Fluttershy to get a good look at the drapes, “I have no idea if they're tacky or not!” she was on the verge of breaking down into tears.
“Well, I think they're nice,” Fluttershy commented with a sincere smile.
Rarity’s tiara’s new equal signs pulsated and Rarity’s eyes, hair, skin tone went a shade gray and started to cry again, “So do I!”
Fluttershy looked away from after patting Rarity on the shoulder when she saw a bird on the windowsill and heard it tweeting. She gasped in delight and went to it,“Oh, thank goodness! Can you help us, little birdie?” The bird, a blue jay, tweeted back at Fluttershy. As Fluttershy tried to understand what the bird chirped her equal sign brooch pulsated and her hair, eye and skin tone took a shade of gray. Not noticing her change, “Go on, now! Fly away and get us help!” The bird just tweeted and then flew off, however, Fluttershy didn’t know if the bird understood her or not as it seemed to fly away, like it didn't care, “Oh, even tweets don't make sense anymore!”
Applejack had gone back to try forcing the door open, “Did they ever?” she asked with a few grunts. After a few more shoves nothing, “Ah give up. This is hopeless.”
“I don't know!” Pinkie leaped from the bed with a smile on her face, clearly trying to find some laughter in their predicament, “Maybe it'll be super fun to be all the same!” The equal sign on Pinkie’s hat pulsated and her hair, skin, eyes, etc went on shade gray as she gave a slight frown, “Sort of. More pleasant than fun, I guess…” the jester trailed off.
Twilight shook her head as she finally could articulate what has been on her mind, “Something odd about that staff. I know I haven't studied all the forms and types of magic as much as I should have while I attended Princess Celestia’s School for The Gifted, but I'm pretty sure Mage Meadowbrook only had eight magical items, not nine. One of the reasons for that is that eight is the only consistent perfectly symmetrical single digit non-zero number in a base nine or a base ten system…” Everyone else then glared at Twilight, and scowled with the unspoken message of ‘get to the point,’. “Sorry, but as I was before the tangent, not a single one of those items was a staff. And there is the title of the staff to consider. ‘The Staff of Sameness’, that sounds more like a botched literal translation of an item used by people, namely the Magicborns, from the Far East, you know the homeland of the another legendary, Mistmane.”
“You mean the old woman from the story with the flower?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Rarity gave a huff, “There is so much more to the Mistmane-no-Ryokō than just woman and a flower. Honestly Dashie, you would go ballistic if anyone grossly simplified the Salvantio Flashis Magnis to a soldier with a shield. As Applejack would also lose it if someone was to write off the Rockfoot Saga as just story about a man with a shovel.”
“Okay, wah get it, Rares.” Applejack pointed out trying to end the tangent discussion, “Can wah get back to Twilight’s point? Ah really don’t want to repeat any more of bein’ trapped under the stage when the Sirens were tryin' tah take our power than wah currently are,” The others nodded. “So Twilight what have yah come up with, or will yah had and have plenty of time to try to think about it.”
Starlight’s voice was again heard over the speaker system, as the recording went on it faded in and out and seemed to echo as well, “...Choose equality as your special talent. Difference is frustration. To excel is to fail. Be your best by never being your best. Conformity will set you free. Accept your limitations, and happiness will follow. You're no better than your friends.” There was an abrupt end to the messages before the group looked to each other, sans Twilight as she was in thought.
Twilight then smiled as her eyes opened up wide happily with a clear ‘eureka!’ on her face and in her eyes, “I've got it! I know how we can get out!”
Rainbow sighed before she expressed the thoughts that she and the others had on trying to get out, “Forget it, Twilight. That door's not opening. Applejack and I would have busted it down by now.”
Rarity then taped on the window getting everyone’s attention to focus on it and showing that the window was not wide enough for anyone of them to try to squeeze through… maybe Pinkie, but there are things that even she just cannot do, “And I'm afraid the windows are much too small for escape.”
Twilight raised her left hand with her index finger up, “But there is a third way.”
“Of course!” Pinkie exclaimed as she jumped to the wall and started to examine it extremely closely in a cartoonish manner as only she could, “Eventually the wind and the weather will wear down the walls until they start to crumble! Then all we have to do is wait for a big enough hole to form and we can just walk out! It's the perfect plan!” She cheered as she pulled everyone into a group hug and gave one of her signature smiles. The equal sign on her hat then pulsated again. Her hair, eyes, and skin tone then took another shade closer to gray. She ended the hug and more or less let everyone else fall to the floor and in a bored tone, “I guess.”
As the other five got back to their feet and brushed themselves off, “Okay a fourth way out.” Twilight had to concede that point as it was a possibility, not probable, but still possible. “But we don't actually have to escape,” she continued as she looked at her friends, “They'll just let us out when they think we've accepted their philosophy!”
“But they're never gonna believe wah all switched over in just one night.” Applejack pointed out.
Twilight placed her hand on the paladin’s shoulder as she gave her reply, “There's one of us they might believe.” There was a moment of silence as Twilight turned to look at Fluttershy and one by one the others did likewise.
Fluttershy looked at herself confused. She was thinking that they were looking at someone else, “Oh!” only to realize that they were all looking squarely at her, “Me?!”
“I am with Fluttershy on this,” Rarity called out as everyone turned to look at her, “I am by far the better actress and much of my differences can be written off as due to my dramatic nature.” Rarity then leaned against the wall in her signature dramatic way.
“If this is a debate, Ah vote for sending Pinkie Pie,” Applejack challenged as she threw her two cents in. “She grew up on rock farm much more strict than this here cult.” Pinkie turned to challenge Applejack’s comment, “Ah talkin’ about Limestone as the eldest child and sister, not your parents, Sugarcube,” Pinkie closed her mouth and stepped back as if to say, ‘never mind.’
Rainbow hovered over to and stood beside Fluttershy, “Those facts might be true, but Fluttershy has been saying how great this place is since we got here! If anyone is going to get past their initial suspicions it would be her.” Rainbow, like the others, didn’t know what Twilight was planning, but she was going to support it.
“But that's because everyone seemed to be so nice and their village is so pretty, and, and…” Fluttershy trailed off as she herself connected the dots along with Applejack and Rarity. “Oh, you're right. They probably would believe me.” She looked down to the floor, “I hate to lie to them. They've been so welcoming and friendly…” she then noticed the frowns on all her friends’ faces as they each pointed to the equal signs that had replaced their aura marks, weakly she looked to the floor again, “aside from locking us in here and trying to brainwash us into abandoning the things that make us special…” After a few seconds of thought, Fluttershy looked back up to her friends and with a breath to collect herself, she knew she was the realistic option, it was time for her to step up, “Okay. I'll do it.”
“Woo-hoo!”, Pinkie cheered only for the equal sign to pulsated again as everything took on another shade of gray, “I mean, cool.” she said flatly.
Fluttershy turned back to Twilight as everyone was clearly nervous about the gray-shift that befell Pinkie Pie, and sought some sort of guidance, “But what do I do once I'm out?” the druid asked.
“You've gotta find a way to get our aura marks back, I don’t know how. Once you are let out, you’re on your own until you find something out and can sneak back to tell us. I am sorry but there is nothing else I can tell you at this point.” Fluttershy then gulped at Twilight's answer, as it was clear she was even more on her own than she could imagine.
Outside of the house, Starlight stood next to apparatus that allowed her to speak into the house, have since turned off the pre-recorded readings of captions of her manifesto. She took hold of a radio handheld microphone attachment to the apparatus and spoke into it as Double Diamond removed the series of door bars and unlocked a series of locks that kept people in the education house, “Oh, good morning!” Once Starlight finished, Double Diamond opened the door to let the six out. After putting the handheld microphone attachment, “I trust you had a pleasant night?” Starlight continued. The six scowled at Starlight. Starlight nodded and Double Diamond went inside and more or forced them out of the house, “This way, please. There are some friends who'd like to see you.” As the last of the six were more or less forced out of the house, Starlight called to the rest of the town and they went to gather in front of the education house, “Gather round, friends, gather round!” She gestured to the six still speaking to the villagers, “We've come to ask if any of our new arrivals are ready to join us!” As she turned her attention to the six and gestured to the villagers. “There are so many friends to be made once you realize you don't need your aura marks or the talents that come with them.”
“We have a welcome ceremony for new friends!” Double Diamond tried to pitch idea of joining the village, “The whole village joins together to build you your own cottage—”
“Not interested!” Rainbow cut him off right there, “You may have them now, but we're going to get our aura marks back!” She continued to challenge.
Applejack added to the vocalization of the group’s defiance to join the village at this point, “Y'all don't understand, do ya? Yah can't force anybody to be friends! It doesn't work like that!”
“Please, join us!” One of the villagers called out.
“We love new friends!” another one shouted as if desperate to get the six to join them.
Starlight saw the slightly growing panic, and then began to calm them, “It's all right, everybody.” As everyone else was unsure, Starlight continued, “This is a perfectly normal part of the equalization process for those who haven't…” she trailed off for a second to articulated her next point, “quite seen the light yet.” They all waited a few seconds, and it seemed that none of the six wanted to join, she turned to Double Diamond and nodded for him to direct the six back into the education house, “We'll try again tomorrow once you've had a bit more time to consider our philosophy!”
Fluttershy, who was the last to exit the house and was going to be the first forced back in, “I'd like to join!” she declared and turned to face the villagers. The people began to chatter happily that one of the new arrivals wanted to join them.
Twilight and the other four gasped in horror and terror at what was just said, “Fluttershy? How could you?!” Twilight started to tear up, “What about all the talks we had about Spike and his maturing? When you and Rainbow found the right pet for her? What about the Vampire Fruit Bat incident? The times you modeled for Rarity? Our book-club? Don’t they mean anything?”
Fluttershy stepped out of the line and to the side, “Magiville while pleasant, has never been all the welcoming to me, many a time the people there overwhelmed me and tried to make me what I’m not, especially with Nightmare Night. But these people, they don’t care about forcing me into situations that make me panic. And if giving up my aura mark means I get to stay in this lovely village with these lovely people, then I'll do it. I hope you’ll see the truth soon.” Fluttershy then forced the others in, Twilight being the last and the druid slammed the door right in Twilight’s face.
Fluttershy turned to the villagers and was embraced by Starlight before she too turned to the village, “Another has accepted the truth of aura marks! We have a new friend, everybody!” Starlight declared with everyone chattered and cheered almost blissfully that their commune has grown by one more. However, Starlight raised her hand and everyone fell silent. She turned back to Fluttershy, and then back to the village, “Now, there's one more order of business. It seems some in our midst might be... dissatisfied with the village life!” Everyone gasped at the accusation, who would dare to want to go back to the the life of an aura mark, of having your destiny tied to one thing, to be identified with only one talent, to end up only to find others better at what you believe you were the best at or to never be acknowledged for what you could do, who would dare wish to be crushed by the unforgiving world they all left. Starlight closed her eyes sadly and looked at the ground for a second as everyone was still getting over the initial shock, “Unfortunately, it's all too true, my friends!” She raised her head and wiped away a tear before she turned to the recent convert, “Will you kindly tell us the names of those friends who so desperately miss their aura marks that they would sneak around in the shadows talking to strangers about it?” The way Starlight emphasized the word ‘friends’ caused Fluttershy to have a slight shiver, almost as if her act was almost seen through. “Just so we can be sure your intentions are indeed pure.” Starlight finished informed as she focused her full attention on Fluttershy.
Fluttershy gulped, she had no idea how to proceed, she wasn’t expecting identity purity test, “Um, I don't know who they were, exactly. Um, I'm sorry. I don't know your names and faces yet.” she tried to not answer the question. It was a lie, but given how little time she actually interacted with Party Favor, Sugar Belle and Night Glider, just maybe Starlight would believe it.
“Oh, nonsense!” Starlight countered with a slight laugh, like a school-teacher that caught a student in a lie, while also clever enough to not call it out, but instead afforded the student a chance to set the record straight, “Obviously they must have asked you directly,” She turned back to the villagers and gestured to them so that she could see whom Fluttershy would lead her too, she had to know who the weak links were less the chain breaks, “Kindly point them out!”
Before Fluttershy could respond, “It was me!” Party Favor shouted making everyone turn to him, next to him were Night Glider and Sugar Belle. He took a few steps forward as the commune parted for him to walk up to Starlight and Fluttershy and fell to his knees clearly pleading for forgiveness, “It was only me! But I only wanted it back for a little while!”
Starlight was not fully sold on this confession, with her left eyebrow rosed she questioned Party Favor, “And you're quite certain it was only you?”
Party Favor cried in remorse, “I just wanted to remember what it was like.”
“And no thought to the pain you'd cause your friends.” Starlight’s voice was calm but firm and sad, as she stepped back. She shook her head before she turned to Double Diamond. “Such selfishness,” she nodded and the Earthborn walked over to behind Party Favor.
“I'm sorry, everybody!” As Party Favor spoke he was taken by his shoulder by Double Diamond and dragged towards the education house. Double Diamond opened the door and threw Party Favor into the house before Party Favor could speak. Once in the house, Party Favor got back to his feet and called out to the villagers, “I never wanted to leave the village! I love all of—” Double Diamond slammed the door right in his face before Party Favor finished.
Inside the room, after he recovered from having the door slammed in his face, Party Favor started to have something that seemed to be a cross between a nervous breakdown and a panic attack, “What was I thinking?!” He began to run around the room breathing heavily trying to collect himself, “I can't believe I even considered asking for my aura mark back.”
“Don't worry. Fluttershy will have us out of here in no time!” Rainbow Dash said as she tried to calm the guy down.
“Didn't you see what just happened out there?!” He shouted as he tried to beat at the door trying to get out again. He turned away from the door hyperventilating all the while, “Your friend has accepted our way! You will all accept our way! It's only a matter of time!” only to break down into the joyless laughter of those whose minds had snapped.
Rainbow looked at Applejack and Rarity, “Well, this guy's a barrel of laughs.”
“Laughs don't come in barrels.” Pinkie pointed out flatly, her hair slowly began to lose its bounciness, still a long way from the ‘Pinkamena flat’ but still a telltale warning of how little time the five in the education house actually had, “They come from inside you via the rapid constriction and expansion of your diaphragm and lungs and various other physiological activities as part of your body's response to delight.” After a second, “I am sounding more and more like Maud if not more monotone.”
Applejack walked to Twilight, and kept her voice hushed so not to be heard by Party Favor as his panic attack and mental breakdown continued, “So what are we gonna do while Fluttershy's out there lookin' for our,” Applejack then leaned into Twilight’s right ear to whisper the last part of her question, “aura marks?”
Twilight turned to look at Applejack, “We have to stay as positive as we can. If Party Favor sees how much we really do like each other, even though we're all different, maybe we can use him to spread our message to the rest of the village.” Applejack half-closed her eyes and raised her left eyebrow and did not believe that for a second. Twilight gave a nervous laugh which confirmed the paladin’s suspicions that Twilight had not planned for Fluttershy having to call any of the three that spoke to them out or having any one of them joining them in the education house. Before Applejack could counter the lack-of-a-plan the loudspeaker crackled getting all five of the women to look to the loudspeaker.
Starlight’s voice was heard again over the loudspeaker.“To excel is to fail,” the voice continued to recite various lines and verses of from her manifesto on equality through the rejection of the aura marks, under the voices of the five women’s voices.
“Let's hope they don't convert any of us first.” Rarity more or less panicked as she and the others witnessed Party Favor huddling in a corner speaking some sort of montage to collect himself.
“And tah think Ah was tempted tah introduce that harlot Sugar Belle tah Big Mac.” Applejack bemoaned
At that same time, Fluttershy and Starlight walked towards what was Party Favor’s house from the education house as most of the residents went about their day two of the female and one of the male town’s folk said women and a man greeted the recently converted druid with a “Welcome!”
“Goodness,” Fluttershy giggled as she waved back with a big open mouth and closed-eyed smile, much like a happy blissful child. Once they passed a few more, she turned back to Starlight, still smiling, “you really are the nicest people I've ever met.”
Starlight smiled in response, her suspicions about Fluttershy’s conversion gone, “Normally all new friends stay with me until their cottage is completed.” Starlight informed as she gave a copy of the key for Party Favor’s cottage to the druid, “But with Party Favor in the Education House for re-education following your friend’s arrive making him question our philosophy. At least for tonight, you are to utilize it.” At that point, they arrived at Party Favor’s house, and Fluttershy opened it, as the two walked in, “Let's get you settled in, and then you can enjoy all that our little village has to offer.” Fluttershy smiled with her eyes closed and mouth shut before she gave her signature, ‘yay’, which gave Starlight a good and hearty laugh.
Later that night, Fluttershy shuck out of the home she was staying in, through the flume of the chimney. She coughed a few times as she floated down to the ground, “Brrrrrr!” she shivered, and rubbed the sides of her chest. She had forgotten how cold nights can get in a desert, but remembered that while rubbing one’s arms gives a superficial feeling of warmth, it’s the torso that people need to be concerned about with regards to hypothermia, a sufficiently warm core will radiate enough heat to overcome the stings of cold on the extremities. She sighed as she tried to creep and sneak into the cave where the aura mark vault was, “Get the aura marks back. That's all you've gotta do, Fluttershy. Just sneak through the dark up to that spooky old cave with the scary magical staff and get the aura marks back,” she whispered to herself trying to maintain her psyche for what she was striving to achieve as she did her best to keep to the shadows and remain unnoticed. As she reached Starlight’s house, “Okay, you're doing great. The cave's beyond this house, just a four-minute walk, so a fifteen-second flight if I…” She stopped when she thought she spotted something and hide behind Starlight’s house. Cautiously she crept around and looked to see the front door. There she saw Double Diamond take off a backpack and take out of it six mason jars, in one was her aura mark and in the other five were her friends’. In the doorway was Starlight.
“Excellent work, Double Diamond.” Starlight said as she examined each of the jars and handing them back to Double Diamond, with Fluttershy’s first and Pinkie Pie’s last as she examined Twilight’s aura mark.
“Of course,” Double Diamond said as he accepted them and began to put them back into the pack, “but I don't understand why you wanted me to bring them here.” He pulled Fluttershy out utterly confused as to why these six had to be separate from the rest. “Fluttershy is one of us now. Surely she can be trusted.” He countered before he placed back into the pack.
Starlight shook her head as she called Double Diamond’s attention to Twilight’s aura mark as she took the pack and placed it into the bag, “This one belongs to a princess. It could be very important to our cause.”
“But if Twilight Sparkle becomes our friend, then why do we care about this old aura mark?” Double Diamond pointed out not able to reconcile Starlight's unstated intent with the messages in her manifesto and their philosophy, they just seemed to run contradictory to one another.
Starlight gave a frown as she took the pack from Double Diamond, “I just want to keep them close until everything is…” she trailed until she found the right word, “settled.” Double Diamond seemed very much unconvinced but before he could question farther, “You may go, Double Diamond.” and she shut the door in front of Double Diamond. Reluctantly he left and headed back to his house.
“Oh, dear. How am I ever going to get the aura marks back now?” Fluttershy panicked, the aura marks were no longer in the cave, which was a good thing as they were much closer to her and her friends, but with them in Starlight’s house, it meant having to sneak in and get out with all six aura marks. She was not stealthy, maybe if she took the form of an animal like a badger or something that would live in the area that could get in and out and wouldn’t raise any alarms. But given what she saw befall Twilight and Applejack when they tried to use their magic, it was doubtful she could use her own without her aura mark. She then hard a crash.
After she heard the crash, Fluttershy hovered to see into Starlight’s bedroom as Starlight exclaimed an “Ow!” followed by a bucket rolling. As Fluttershy peered into the room she saw, look at her dress seeing that it was almost soaked. “Ugh! Starlight, you clumsy fool!” She took off the skirt of her dress with light turquoise colored magic coming from the focus gem, just like the magic that came from the Staff of Sameness when Twilight’s aura mark was removed. But Fluttershy was focused more so on what else was in front of her. Without her dress Starlight skin tone, hair color and eye color were in truth a shade or two brighter than everyone else, much like how Fluttershy and her friends were before their aura marks were removed. Starlight was mostly focused on her dress and the equal signs on it. The water from the bucket seemed to wash one of them away revealing a four-pointed star purple in color over a white four-pointed star perpendicular to it with two glimmering streams both having the similar two tones of blue. Starlight happened to have some paint and an equal sign stencil and paint of over the reveal mark, after she used her magic to dry the dress, utterly unaware that her secret was found out before she undid her ponytail and slipped into a nightgown and then into her bed, ready for a night’s sleep.
Fluttershy then ducked under the window, as she remained quiet for longer than she thought she could. She then crept to be behind the house on the farthest side from the rest of the village. Once there and in the clear, she finally gasped “Oh, no…” she muttered as she kept as low as she could, she had to tell Twilight and find a way to reveal the truth to the villagers.
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The cat's out of the bag! And more foreshadowing!
How is she still doing that? She's been equalized.
8507744
It's the last thing she could until the process took hold. Also this is Pinkie Pie and to quote Commander Firebrand "Don't question it."
By the way, how do you feel about the headcanon of Sentry and Magnus being related?
8507839
With Magnus being a great-great-great (point having been made) uncle to Sentry (which is my headcanon)
8507921
Oh gosh! Yes!
What was with that random fact involving mythbusters? Ie, what’s the significance of it?
8843933
It's a fourth wall break joke.