Sharing Beat Up Stories

by Graglithan The Greater

Secrets Hidden in the Starlight

It took only a moment for Twilight to light her horn and pull Starlight off of the rope. In a moment of being carried over to the couch in the room below, the pink unicorn found herself sitting in front of nearly everyone she was afraid of sitting in front of. Both Rarities, both Fluttershy, Princess Twilight, and worst of all, Sunset Shimmer, the one person she’d consider a friend.

A friend she’d been able to become penpals with over the past month, who was now staring at her like Starlight wasn’t the person Sunset thought she knew.

It didn’t help that all six of the Crusaders had also been rounded up and three of them were getting the lecture of a lifetime from their sisters, two of which had returned along with Sunset. It made her want to try and distract herself with the arguments, but every time she tried, Twilight turned her back to looking at them.

Clearing her throat, Twilight raised an eyebrow but still looked concerned for her friend. “Starlight, please, what is going on?”

Starlight leaned back in her seat and rested her head on her hoof, and a strained smile only served to worsen her predicament. “Going on? Nothing’s going on. Why would anything be going on? All that’s going on is that we’re all having a nice conversation, right? Right.”

Sunset trotted over and the sweat pouring down Starlight’s face got slightly worse. “I just risked coming back to Equestria, and possibly running into my former mentor, because of what Applebloom and her friends did. On top of that, despite saying you’ve never been on that side of the portal, there are posters with your name on them, and what I can only assume would be what you look like on that side.” The amber unicorn stared Starlight in the eye with a frown and shook her head. “We’ve been talking to each other for months, and I want to think of you as a friend. If you don’t know anything about it, just say so. But please, don’t lie to me.”

It was enough to make Starlight drop her head in shame. “I... I...” A tear trickled down her cheek before she sat properly and looked at her hooves. “I’m sorry.”

A hoof landed on her shoulder, and the pink unicorn looked up to see Twilight looking at her with a hint of disappointment in her eyes, but a small smile nonetheless. “It’s okay, but please, Starlight, tell the truth.”

Starlight rubbed her eyes a bit before she looked up again. “Well... I guess I should start with one part of all this first.” She rubbed at her foreleg nervously. “I... might not exactly be this world’s Starlight Glimmer.”

Twilight blinked in surprise for a moment and put a hoof to her chin in thought. “Huh, that... with everything that’s happened today, actually makes sense.”

Both Sunset and Starlight froze for a moment, looking straight at the princess. “Huh?”

Twilight turned to her desk, and levitated a copy of the missing person poster to herself, a small smile on her face that hinted at amusement. “Well, I was going over the poster when Sunset brought a copy over here, and I noticed a particular detail that struck me as odd.” The lavender princess pointed at the date with a hoof. “This poster says you went missing about a thirty-seven days ago based on the calendar that Sunset gave me from the human world. At first, I didn’t think much of it, but when I consider that we found you roughly a month ago, and you were practically starving, the facts support your claim.” She rolled up the poster and set it down again, before turning back to the two. “It would also explain why you had trouble with four legs and didn’t remember our prior interactions. You couldn’t remember them because they never happened to you specifically.” She frowned and glanced at the portal in worry. “But what I don’t understand is how you ended up here. I’ve kept this portal in my castle for months now, and I never saw you exit it.”

“That’s... part of what I need to explain.” Starlight sighed and slumped into the cushions. “I’m just not sure you’ll believe me,” or want to talk to me after, the pink unicorn added silently as she glanced to Sunset out of the corner of her eye.

Sunset sat down next to her, looking over in concern. “Well, don’t keep us waiting.”

Starlight took a deep breath and thought back to when her predicament started. “For as long as I can remember, I lived with my dad in a small suburb called Sire’s Hollow. He homeschooled me, so I didn’t have many friends, especially with how he kept babying me no matter how old I was. The only other kid I could really call one was my neighbor, Sunburst. He was homeschooled too, but then his mom sent him to a private school because I was a ‘bad influence,’ and I never really got to see him again aside from the occasional arguments between our parents, so I poured myself into my books to cope.” She glared at nothing for a moment. “It didn’t help that apparently there was someone at the school who’d caught his eye, and he wouldn’t stop going on and on to himself about how she got some secret science project approved by the school. It was like I wasn’t even there half the time.”

Sunset nudged her friend a bit and raised an eyebrow. “Starlight, I know you’re pouring your heart out to us right now, and honestly, I can understand how you felt. Being abandoned by a friend hurts a lot more than people are willing to admit, and I don’t mean to sound like a jerk right now, but what does that have to do with you being here?”

The pink unicorn sat up for a moment and turned to her hopefully-still-friend. “I’m getting to that.” She sighed and slumped back into the cushions. “For a while, it was okay, but then I got further and further into my projects and research. I was obsessed with showing up a girl I’d never even met before when I found this weird energy frequency coming from the neighboring school. It was like nothing I had ever seen before, and I managed to set up a system that would collect the ambient traces of it from the air. It wasn’t long before I started to experiment with it.” She grimaced and looked away. “One of the projects... didn’t go so well.”

Twilight and Sunset both gasped slightly and shared a glance with each other before going to hug the saddened pink unicorn. “Oh, Starlight.”

Starlight accepted it readily. “It was a small scale teleporter. Just... send an apple from here to there. That’s all I was trying to do. Only instead it ripped a hole in reality, and I found myself staring at a world full of magic.” She smiled at the memory, seeing all the vivid colors dancing through the basement as she stared into the midst of what she would soon learn was Whitetail Woods. “I couldn’t believe it. I’d been planning to make a small device to help with being exceptionally lazy with my keys, and made a gateway to another dimension instead! I was so elated! I could finally show Sunburst that I was better than that other girl, and finally, have my friend again!” Her smile died as she looked back down. “Only, instead I found myself being pulled and squished like taffy before landing in the middle of the forest as a pony after tripping on a loose cable. I was given but a moment to get my bearings and look back before seeing the portal close with a pop, along with any feelings of awe I had at that moment.”

The hug from the amber unicorn got a bit tighter around Starlight. “I’m glad you’re okay. Especially after hearing you went through that.” Sunset then slowly let go of the hug, unsure if she should leave the mare without comfort, and looked between her friend and the portal. “But, if you’ve known about the mirror portal since then, why didn’t you go through? You could have been home ages ago.”

Starlight turned to look at the portal herself, a trace of longing in her eyes. “I... I'm afraid. Afraid that it won’t take me to my home, and that when I get there, I’ll be encroaching on another me’s life. I don't want to do that.”

Twilight smiled sympathetically as she stopped her hug and left a hoof on Starlight’s shoulder. “That’s a reasonable fear, to not be sure that you’ll ever be able to get home.” The princess fell into a small frown as she sighed. “There is a problem with you being here though. Our world’s Starlight? She’s technically a wanted felon at the moment and would be guilty of some serious charges if you hadn’t shown up. On paper, I’ve pardoned her, but she’s still running around somewhere in Equestria doing who knows what.”

Starlight’s ears fell as she sighed. “I... I know. I just hope I didn’t cause anything bad to happen by being here.”

A thought came to Sunset as she rubbed her chin. “That school you mentioned. It wouldn’t happen to be Canterlot High School, would it?”

“I think? It had been a while since I actually looked into the name when I started collecting the energy from there. It... just didn’t seem very important at the time.” She blushed and went back to trying to smother herself with the couch cushions. “And now I realize how stupidly irresponsible that was.”

The amber unicorn smiled as she looked to the portal for a moment. “Well, then I think I need to check a few things. Do you remember your old address?” Starlight nodded from under the pillow. “I’m going to head back over and check it out to see if it is your home. Would there be anything notable to let me know it’s the same world?”

Starlight lit up her horn and pulled a small key from her mane. “This should let you into the basement. That’s where my lab and, um, kite collection would be.”

Sunset took the key in her magic, an act that made her unusually giddy in Twilight’s opinion and put it in her mane. “Alright, I’ll message you through the journal about what I find.”

Twilight perked up and looked at Sunset as she realized something. “The Journal! If you’re all over here, who has the journal!?”

“I left it with Pinkie.” Sunset chuckled as Twilight’s jaw dropped slightly. “Twilight, you and I both know that when it’s something this important, we can usually count on her.” She eyed the portal for a moment, picturing in her mind the Pinkest of fillies bouncing through like a giddy child. “On that note though, I should probably head back before she does get any ideas.”

Fluttershy and her counterpart both perked up as they caught the last part of the conversation before the smaller of the two flapped her wings and gently glided over. “Oh, you’re heading back already?”

“Yeah, I need to check something out really fast.” Sunset smiled and glanced at how well she was managing in the air. “And you better let me know what it’s like to suddenly have wings at your beck and call. You look like you’re having fun.”

The butterscotch filly giggled and nodded as her counterpart hovered next to her in the air. “Guilty.”

Meanwhile, A small blue filly was glaring up at her flying friend. “Stupid Fluttershy, being all tall and in the air and stuff.” She glanced at her own wings, both of which she deemed to be un-awesomely small, before letting out a grunt and smacking her head into the table she was sitting at. “I wanna be in the air already!”

Watching a younger version of her idol sulking, Scootaloo looked up at the Rainbow she’d known for years. “Wow, you weren’t kidding, you really did have smaller wings as a filly.”

“Told you.” The cerulean pegasus smirked. “You’ll grow them out eventually.”

“Cool.”

Author's Note:

Holy CRAP I am on a ROLL!

That being said, it may be quite a while before I can do something like two chapters published on the same day again. It'll all depend on how often I have a day off work, and that's a pretty low number right now.

Be sure to comment below what you think, and do whatever you guys and girls do with your free time.

I don't know, I'm not psychic. Though that'd be really cool now that I'm thinking about it.

Comments

[Anon E Moose]

Wait, then where's the equestrian Starlight?!

[Graglithan The Greater]

9098619
Probably still running around and stalking Twilight.

[Demous_Abyss]

9098619
hanging out with trixie somewhere probably

Depending on when this takes place in the timeline

[Vaguely Demented]

9098625
Wow. If she is stalking Twilight she is bound to be confused/intrigued by having a double present.

[RolkFlameraven]

Well this explains things. Wonder if Sunset is going to find a Starlight in that house? Pony Starlight should have been stalking Twi by this time and couldn't have missed 'herself'.

So Sunburst is at Crystal Prep and has a thing for SciTwi who doesn't even know he exists? I feel bad for all three of them.

[FanOfMostEverything]

Oh, right. That's why I'm confised; I forgot the time battle hasn't happened yet. We're just after Anon-a-Miss, and while that comes with some continuity issues, it's definitely before the Friendship Games. Whoops.

I suspect Starlight misremembered the school. And that there may be a hint of human Twiburst at work. I'm okay with this.

That pardon feels very premature. Pony Starlight is still unrepentantly at large. Still, that's Twilight's prerogative.

Also, d'aww, tiny Dashie.

This cleared up a lot. Now to see what the situation is with human Firelight.

[Scholarly-Cimmerian]

This was nice. I do feel quite bad for poor Starlight, having fallen into another world and all. (Great work adapting her backstory to the EG world, while actually making her sympathetic, given that her reaction to Sunburst moving away was to want to show him up, not start up Pony Jonestown and all...)

I gotta say, I'm kind of interested to see the two Starlights meet.

Human-World Starlight: "I can't believe that there's a me who's THIS crazy!"

[Noctis Prism]

Oh my, well that does explain the confusion and is surprising how they made similar ages. Though if one accounts for different portal mechanics it makes sense.

[Csquared08]

Your dialogue punctuation continues to be a disaster

I actually don't think I've posted this on your stuff before, so here's a handy guide from a handy guy on how to do dialogue punctuation correctly:

This is a recurring issue with your writing. If a speech tag follows after the dialogue, there should be no capitalization. If an action tag follows, capitalization is required. Here’s a very useful list of examples:

Attribution of Dialogue (Dialogue Tagging)

Wrong:
✖ "Hi there," the pink pony grinned. (It should be a period: ‘grinned’ isn’t a ‘speaking’ verb.)
✖ "Hi there." The pink pony said. (This should be a comma; no capitalization should be used)
✖ "Hi there"! the pink pony shouted! (Punctuation of dialogue belongs inside the quotes.)
✖ "Hi there!" The pink pony shouted! (Don’t capitalize "the"; treat the "!" as a comma.)

Correct:
✔ "Hi there," the pink pony giggled. (She giggled while saying the words.)
✔ "Hi there." The pink pony giggled. (She said those words, then giggled.)
✔ "Hi there." The pink pony grinned. (The word 'grinned' isn't a 'speaking' verb.)
✔ "Hi there!" the pink pony shouted. (Exclamations and queries replace the comma.)