"No.”
Starlight looked up at Twilight through her tears. She began to pull her hoof back as her face tensed with anger once again. "It wasn't my fault!” she snarled, “I was there, ready to keep our friendship alive! Sunburst was the one who let things fall apart!" She gripped the time-scroll tighter in her telekinetic grasp, and firmly stood her ground on the cloud she stood upon.
"But did you just wait, or did you actually try to stay friends with Sunburst?" Twilight asked, standing a few feet in front of Starlight, Spike sitting tightly on her back.
"I was 11! Do you really think I could just go to Canterlot looking for him?! If he wanted to keep in touch, he should've called or wrote to me!"
Twilight’s eyebrows furrowed in worry. "So maybe that friendship didn't work out, but that doesn't mean that all friendships will end that way! Please, Starlight, you're walling yourself in a room of fear!"
"What I'm 'walling' myself in, is reality! And the reality is, not every pony is important enough for her friends to stick by! Not every ending is a happy ending, Twilight! But you wouldn't know that would you? Because your life is perfect! You're an Alicorn Princess, you're surrounded by friends, and you've never had your greatest source of happiness ripped away from you! So you know what? For once in your life, you’re going to know what it feels like to lose!"
"Starlight I–"
Twilight gasped, as she witnessed her fear come to fruition.
Starlight, her face tense with hatred and a vile glare in her eyes, pulled the two ends of the scroll apart, splitting it and destroying the time-spell.
Twilight's heart nearly stopped. Spike gripped Twilight’s mane all the more. There was no longer a reset button, no longer an eraser; this was now the only chance left. Worst of all, Twilight and Spike no longer had a way to return home. Eyes wide and teary, and her mouth agape, she couldn’t help but stare at the point where the time scroll was last whole.
Watching Twilight, Starlight released the halves into the windy Cloudsdale air. "You feel that? That’s what it feels like to lose the friends you cherish so much!”
Twilight continued to stare as tears began to run down her face.
With that, Starlight levitated herself up, turned, and blasted a turquoise beam toward a speeding Rainbow Dash. The beam hit the filly, entrapping her in a bulky crystal structure, which stopped her momentum and pulled her straight towards the ground below.
Twilight felt a yank on her mane from a more alert Spike, bringing her out of her catatonic state.
“Huh?” Twilight exclaimed, looking around to try and figure out what had occurred in the past few seconds.
Spike pointed down towards the large crystal boulder that was falling through the sky. Twilight gasped before swooping down and racing toward the entrapped filly as fast as she possibly could.
Upon reaching a reasonable distance, Twilight powered up her horn, preparing an ultrasonic vibration spell. She aimed, and fired. A continuous stream of sound-waves, at the resonant frequency for the crystal structure, hit the young Rainbow Dash’s prison, and after a few seconds, caused the crystal to burst into thousands of small shards.
Twilight dove under Rainbow, catching her in her forelegs, and immediately began flying back up towards Cloudsdale.
In a few moments, Twilight had landed, and was gently setting the filly on the clouds.
The young Rainbow Dash, processing what had just occurred, turned her gaze up towards her rescuer.
“Y-You saved my life! I-I thought I was gonna die, but then you just swooped in out of nowhere Miss-” Rainbow gasped. “–Wait, you’re an Alicorn!? My life just got saved by an Alicorn!?” she shouted, with a volume so loud it even rivaled instances of shouting from her adult years.
Everypony in the vicinity whipped their heads around. Immediately, ponies began flooding over to Twilight, asking her questions: who she was, what she was doing at a Cloudsdale summer flight camp, and where she came from.
Twilight, who was now surrounded by a sea of mostly young ponies, looked past the crowd as best she could, trying to find Starlight Glimmer. She finally spotted what she was looking for: a light pink coat, with a purple, aquamarine-streaked tail.
Twilight teleported herself and Spike above the crowd, and zoomed over to the pony she intended to apprehend.
As she flew away, a certain shout came out of the crowd. “Wait! I never got to thank you, or get your name!” the young Rainbow called out, but it was unheard by Twilight.
Meanwhile, the pink pony was being thrown to the ground, and found herself pinned under a very angry alicorn.
“That's enough of all this, Star–” Twilight froze, anger vanishing from her face.
“W-Who the hay are you?” the frightened mare asked. She had sea-green eyes and was a pegasus; clearly not Starlight.
“O-oh… Sorry,” Twilight’s face turned slightly red and she immediately backed off the mare, who hastily dashed away. She continued looking around to try and find Starlight, but saw nopony that matched the delinquent unicorn.
Twilight took off into the main city, and began to ask nearly everypony on the street if they had seen a light pink self-levitating unicorn, with a purple, aquamarine-streaked mane.
“Nope, sorry.”
“Can’t say that I have.”
“Not in Cloudsdale.”
Flying up higher to take another look around, Twilight let out a stressful sigh. “Where is she!?” she whined, nervously darting her eyes all over.
“Where do you think she is?” Spike asked, gripping her mane.
“I don’t know, Spike! She could have anything planned!”
“You mean like turning Princess Celestia against us!?”
“Spike! That’s–“ Twilight paused, biting her lip as she thought. “...not out of the question,” she sighed. “We’re really in trouble this time...” she lamented, shaking her head, before diving back towards the crowds of Cloudsdale ponies to continue her search.
I like this premise. I've not seen this particular take on Starlight's time rampage yet and it's nice to see Twilight and Spike on their own once in a while.
I found the beginning to have issues but it gets better once Starlight destroys the time scroll for good.
More specifically, while I was able to get a good feeling of what Starlight was doing and what was going through her mind thanks to the description ("through her tears," "as the crack in her armor of anger began to seal back up" and "Starlight's face had grown tense once again") and her dialogue (italics, exclamation points, the content of her lines itself), I didn't have anything about Twilight other than she was "standing a few feet in front of Starlight, Spike sitting tightly on her back."
As I said, it gets better. Starlight traps her in the past, Twilight finally reacts, and Spike even joins the story properly.
I liked that Twilight channeled her magic into ultrasonic vibrations to free filly Rainbow Dash rather than into a canceling spell or a more generic destructive spell. It shows that she's versed in science in addition to magic.
Incidentally, I find myself wondering if Rainbow will go and track Twilight down later on in. She did never get to thank her for saving her life, after all. It might make for an interesting surprise down the line, especially if this story keeps restricting itself to Twilight and Spike's points of view.
I suggest actually writing down the numerals, since finding a sudden "14" or "12" in narration can feel jarring. The word 'unicorn' gets capitalized at random as well, and I suspect it has something to do with your spellchecker.
9618887
Ooh! A detailed comment with a bit of constructive criticism; I've been waiting for one of these! So thank you, I like hearing about readers' thoughts and analysis of story elements.
The beginning. Yeah, looking back in comparison to the rest of the story, I did kind of sideline Twilight and Spike too much. I think this ended up happening because I was trying to give enough focus on Starlight's motivations to ultimately destroy the spell for real; to make the split from the original episode plausible. I think I worried about Starlight so much I ended up making Twilight and Spike not quite as relevant as they should've been.
The bit about RD possibly tracking down Twilight is interesting, because (Spoilers!) that's my plan, but I wasn't intending it as a surprise, though the idea sounds tempting. Gonna talk to my editor and maybe a couple friends for input on which way to write that, because now I'm torn.
I also changed the numbers that were less than twenty to actual words (save for "10-Bit", since that's the actual coin title), along with having changed all mention of races to lowercase. The thing with the races might have been related to spell-check (I forget now though), but I think I was going back and forth on whether I wanted the races in lowercase or uppercase, but ultimately decided that it wouldn't be uppercase in actual Ponish unless it were referring to a nationality or language of sorts (since we don't capitalize "human" or anything in our own language).
But again, thank you very much for the input, it thrills me to see detailed comments!
9619776
I found Starlight's dialogue enough on its own to convey her absolute, dephtless contempt towards Twilight, because it felt credible. When Starlight looks at Twilight, she sees someone whose only definitive loss was a library—a rent-free gift from on high—and she had six friends to help her pick up the pieces anyway. Starlight had to make do with one, and he's the reason she had to pick up her own pieces in the first place.
Twilight should consider herself lucky Starlight settled for preventing the Sonic Rainboom. I'm sure she'd be much delighted with the wreck little Twi would have been if her Big Brother Best Friend Forever had vanished from her life, never to return, without the best foalsitter in the history of foalsitting around to help her through the pain.
The description around the dialogue is external enough to work as Twilight and Spike's point of view, outside of "as the crack in her armor of anger began to seal back up." I feel this sounds more lyrical than what Twilight would actually think, and although Spike might use it due to his love of bombastic comic books, I think he'd do so in a later retelling (probably acting out the scene, too) as opposed to what his actual thoughts would look like as the two of them are dealing with the cornered, unhinged sociopath right now.
I believe this is only necessary if you're gunning for an intimate point of view instead of a more detached one, however. In the latter case, though, the line feels quite lonely as the only metaphor of the entire chapter, especially when it happens as soon as the second paragraph and then there's no similar style in the narration afterward.
Going back to the dialogue, I'd say Starlight's lines are good enough to work entirely on their own in a (possibly entirely italicized) flashback. Not here since there's no pause between her last words and Twilight springing into action, but still an interesting thought if the story had been written differently (starting around the time she pounced on the pegasus she mistook for Starlight, perhaps?).
Then again, Starlight's hateful barbs at Twilight do make a most delightful introduction to this story. And the so, so simple "No." was already a damn good start.
This would remain a surprise if (as mentioned) the narration continues to be solely from Twilight and Spike's points of view, which was what I expected after reading two chapters of exactly that. If it shifts to Rainbow's, of course, then the surprise will be lost—at least if the shift occurs before she finds Twilight again.
It may be worth it to weigh up the pros and cons of the pov-shift's timing if this is what you had in store. It might also be worth it to weigh the pros and cons of including her point of view in the story to begin with, but that might lead to some unpleasant scorching and burning of completed work with no way to make sure it was the right decision.
You're welcome.
will we see glimmer again?
oh dear
11432357
For the sake of the Story? - Probably!
For my own delight and opinion? - Hopefully never again!
You do realize you basically trapped all of us in time you crazy lady 😡
What a way to start off the story and this is going to be very tough when it comes to time traveling so after Starlight shows the past she begins to rip off the paper of the time spell and Twilight tried to reason with her but it was too late now basically they are trapped in time and starlight made her move and trapped Rainbow Dash again and Twilight saved her but now the question is how the heck is she going to get back to her timeline without screwing up the past and stopping Starlight