If Starlight Didn't Have Plot Armor

by MooseWhisker

In Which Starlight gets Royally Messed Up

Twilight sensed the spell Starlight had flung at her immediately upon arrival, and teleported behind the unicorn. Taking a moment to lock her sights, Twilight fired a beam of concentrated magic directly at Starlight's back, hoping to end the fight without being noticed.

Starlight hadn't expected Twilight to evade her first spell, anticipating having the element of surprise on her side, but she was nothing if not adaptable. IT was painfully obvious that Twilight was about to hit her with some sort of counterattack. What Twilight didn't know was that Starlight had been meticulously studying combat magic for the past year, in case it might come to a fight. With as much determination as she had, there weren't many ponies in existence that could last 10 seconds in a magic duel against her, much less win. Starlight grinned as she threw up a powerful shield spell, she wasn't going to go down easily.

Unfortunately for Starlight, Twilight had spent her entire life studying magic, and was the most knowledgeable mage on the planet, save for possibly Celestia herself. On top of that, Twilight was the bearer of the element of magic, and an alicorn. There was no living being on the planet that would stand a chance against her in a no-holds-barred magic duel.

Starlight didn't have time to react as her shield spell shattered, not even slowing Twilight's blast down. She was thrown hundreds of meters from where she had originally stood, skidding several dozen more meters before coming to a painful stop right before the edge of the cloud. She struggled back to her hooves but she didn't even have time to turn around before she was violently ripped away from the could she had been standing on.

Given the circumstances, Twilight didn't feel the need to be gentle when picking Starlight up. In the half second it took her to swing Starlight around and slam her into a nearby cloud, she cast the cloud walking spell on Starlight 3 separate times. While one instance of the cloud walking spell would make clouds feel rather fluffy, each additional spell made them a lot less forgiving.

Starlight cried out as she was slammed against a cloud that felt harder than steel. Her head was swimming, partly from the pain, and partly from confusion on how Twilight was able to overpower her so easily. She was a magical prodigy. It made no sense that Twilight would be able to beat her so easily.

Once her vision had cleared up, she was greeted by the sight of an extremely pissed off alicorn. This would ordinarily be terrifying enough, but the fact that Twilight's horn was lit up with a spell microseconds away from being cast almost made Starlight wet herself with fear. She didn't even have time to wince as Twilight's sleeping spell washed over her, and she was out like a light.

---

"So you just knocked her out? That doesn't seem like something you'd usually do."

"Well, yes. Ordinarily I wouldn't resort to violence, but given that she was messing with time magic and screwing with destiny, I felt that force was necessary."

"Well, you certainly didn't under-do it. She's purple from all the bruises you gave her"

"Ummm... she's usually purple, Celestia. Didn't you know that already?"

"Yes, well. A mare can make a joke every now and then, can't she?"

"Well I suppose... Oh it looks like she's waking up!"

Starlight's everything hurt. It felt like the weather ponies had slacked off and allowed a dense fog to cloud her mind. It hurt to move, it hurt to breath, it even hurt to think. The thing that hurt the most, however, was her pride. She had no idea Twilight Sparkle could throw so much magic around like it was no big deal. She had been watching the purple princess for the better part of a year, and never saw much of anything that might give away just how much power she was packing.

Slowly, Starlight opened her eyes. She appeared to be in a large room in the Ponyville castle. Dozens of ponies looked back at her. Princesses Celestia and Luna were standing slightly behind Twilight, the former with a stern look on her face, while the latter was outright scowling. Behind the princesses were the rest of the elements of harmony and spike. The rest of the room was filled with rows upon rows of royal guard ponies. Looking around, she noticed that all of the unicorns in the room had their horns lit, sans Rarity.

"Before we ask any questions," Twilight said. "Do you have anything you'd like to say?"

Starlight blinked a couple times. "Doesn't this seem like overkill? I'm just one pony, and half of you look ready to fry me if I so much as sneeze."

"You used time magic to mess with the timeline and endanger every living being in this world. If anything, I think we probably have less ponies here than we should." Princess Luna said curtly.

Starlight didn't know how to respond to that. Luckily she didn't have to as Twilight picked up the reigns from there.

"Do you have any idea how dangerous messing with time magic in the way you did is? You could have destroyed everything there is, or ever could be. I have half a mind to just charge you with genocide and send you to the moon."

Starlight's eyes widened. "Genocide? I haven't done anything that would even come close to genocide!"

"Starlight, when you sent me forwards in time, I came out in a completely different world. Everypony was completely different, and we were at war with the Crystal Empire. Even if we disregard all the ponies that died in that conflict, every living creature in that world is gone now. It's a miracle that this world didn't seem to be affected at all."

"That's not how time magic works!" Starlight interrupted. "Any alternate timelines created will run parallel to our world, so nothing really happened to that world."

"Where did you get that idea? Certainly not from reading the spell you made. While Starswirl's original spell might have that property, the modifications you made to it took that out. Did you honestly think that changing one thing in something as complex as time magic wouldn't affect literally everything else about it? Did you even check to make sure that your modifications wouldn't have any unintended side effects."

"I... well... no, I didn't." Starlight felt incredibly stupid in this moment.

Twilight said nothing for a bit, letting Starlight stew in the silence. "Maybe in the future, you should think before you do something incredibly dumb."

Starlight bowed her head. What could she say to that? Twilight was right.

"You have broken so many laws in so many ways, I don't think there's enough paper in the castle to write them all down on. I could be completely justified in just disabling your magic and letting you rot in the deepest cell in the royal prison for the rest of your life, and I'm incredibly tempted to do just that. However, unlike you, I think before I do anything drastic, so I'll only ask this once, and you better have an incredible answer if you want to see the sun ever again. What was your motive?"

"It's.. sort of complicated..." Starlight said weakly.

"Well you better start explaining."

"I... You took everything from me! I had everything figured out! I was happy, I was leading my town to a brighter future where everypony could get along, and nobody would ever have to be envious of another. And then you showed up and ruined it in just a couple days. My entire life's work just... gone. In two days I went from everything to nothing, and it's all your fault!"

"First of all," Twilight said. "You were running a cult, which is highly illegal in Equestria. Second of all, petty vengeance seems like quite a small reason to resort to something as dangerous as time magic."

"That's not the only reason. Do you have any idea how hard it is to see someone who's responsible for ruining your life to have everything work out for her? You had status, a huge home, a vast network of friends, you had everything you ever wanted, and I had nothing!"

"You did all this because you were jealous? I think if you wanted to have friends, starting a cult is probably the worst way to go about doing it."

"Yeah, well... I tried doing friendship the normal way, and it never worked out!"

"Okay, so you were mad that you were bad at making friends?"

"No! I wasn't bad at making friends. Friendship is just... The world didn't want me to have friends!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Really? How about this: If you can convince me that every single one of your failed friendships were not your fault, then I'll let you go free."

Everyone in the room let out an audible gasp at this.

"Twilight, are you sure that's wise?" Princess Celestia asked. "Surely there's a better way to prove a point than risk letting her go free."

"I know what I'm doing!" Twilight shot back before turning back to Starlight Glimmer. "Do we have a deal?"

Starlight could hardly believe this. All she had to do was tell her story, and She'd be free to go! She wouldn't even have to lie!

"Okay, so Double Diamond-" Starlight began.

"Double Diamond was a member of your cult, not a friend." Twilight interrupted. "Friendship requires a give and take, and you only ever took from members of your cult. Friendship can never exist between two ponies as long as one sees themself as better than the other. Next."

"But that's not true! If you really believe that, then none of you princesses would have any friends!" Starlight argued.

"We do not see ourselves as better than any other pony, Starlight Glimmer." Princess Celestia cut in. "Longer lived, yes. More knowledgeable in certain areas, certainly. But we are not better than anypony, just more experienced."

"Quite right." Twilight agreed. "Next."

Starlight grit her teeth, obviously she wasn't going to convince Twilight that any of the ponies in her old village were her friends. "Before I founded my village, I had a friend named Sunburst. We were best friends, and did everything together. Then one day he got his cutie mark, and got shipped off to Celestia's School for Gifted Unicorns, and I never saw him again! Destiny itself broke us apart, so I'd like to see you find a way to make me responsible for this!"

"Did you ever visit Sunburst?"

Starlight blinked. "Well... no I didn't-"

"Did you ever write a letter?"

"Umm... No-"

"Did you ever apply to get into the same school? I don't doubt that you would've been able to get in."

"Well... when you put it that way it makes it seem a lot worse than it actually is but..." Starlight stopped. She couldn't think of anything to say to make her situation look any better.

"If you have nothing else to say, then I think it's fair to conclude that your friendship with Sunburst failed because neither of you put in the effort to keep it going after he left for school. Next."

No more words came out of Starlight's mouth. She just looked down at the floor.

"That's it? That's the only friend you ever had?" Twilight asked in disbelief.

Starlight didn't say anything, but just nodded her head.

"Let me get this straight. You started a cult, stole cutie marks from dozens of ponies, stole scrolls containing time magic, used said time magic to alter the timeline, putting the lives of countless ponies in jeopardy, destroyed an entire world, and attacked a kid, just because a friend moved away when you were little? Am I understanding this correctly?"

"Well when you put it all in context, it does seem a bit extreme." Starlight said lamely.

Twilight looked back at Princess Celestia, completely bewildered. They seemed to have an entire conversation in the few seconds they shared eye contact. When Twilight turned back to face Starlight, she cleared her throat. "Starlight Glimmer, as punishment for your many, many crimes, I'm sentencing you to ten thousand hours of community service. While you are completing your punishment, you will be monitored by no less than 3 royal guard ponies at all times. You will be prohibited from using magic unless it is directly necessary for the task you are doing. In that case, I myself will be monitoring you directly to make sure you don't try anything funny. Do you understand your punishment?"

Starlight was at a loss for words. "Ten thousand hours? That'll take years to do!"

"Three years of working 12 hours a day for 6 days a week." Twilight said. "It's more lenient than I think you deserve, but my hope is that by working for ponies you will understand them more and come out of it a better pony. Once your time is completed, we'll see if you need more. Until then, my ruling is final."

Author's Note:

I can't be the only one that thinks it's utter nonsense that Starlight is able to match Twilight in magical skill and knowledge. Twilight spent her entire life studying magic, whereas Starlight spent her life running a cult. Even if Starlight was a magical prodigy, there's still a massive gap in skill and practice.

Comments

[Xarmar13]

I would have tacked on that Starlight was tampering with the very foundation of civilization by stealing cutie marks. The proof of that was the subpar craftsponyship of the food and clothing in town. If Sugar Belle made those pastries that were rock hard and she was supposed to be a talented baker, then one's talent was part of their cutie marks. Talent is needed to farm and build a decent house and to make fashionable clothing. Without talent, civilization is built on a shoddy foundation.

Starlight's cult was built on a lousy foundation since all it took was a splash of water to cause it all to come tumbling down. Years of work, for what amounted to a foal's sandcastle on the beach.

[Xp45]

I'm not here to argue this story or your quality, just playing a little bit of devil's advocate here, although I'm unsure if you've heard any of this.

Twilight and Starlight are both innate prodigies, and you are correct in that Twilight spent most of her entire life studying, but I'd like to raise the point her studies were diversified, covering pretty much everything, not just magic, from cooking to biology to history, a result of Twi's personality but also the fact she pursued higher college level education, which necessitated more diverse courses of study, which she happily undertook.
Starlight did not got to an equestrian school, chances are she left home before she was even an adult, basing off of the state her room was preserved in. We don't know exactly what she was doing during her formative years but based on context clues it seems aside from the occasional foal play, she and Sunburst spent their time living and breathing magic practices, although it's heavily implied Star never cared much for the study itself, so with Sunburst's guidance eventually developing a kind of instinct guided form of magic practice. I believe this is part of her cutie mark's meaning, and why I desperately hoped we got an explanation as to how she earned it. Yes it's reminiscent of a falling star, but the melding positions of the wisps into a fused joint star at the end. This I believe represents Staright's true magical talent, beyond just her innate power. Star excels at the combination of spells to achieve new, greater effects. We see this numerous times from her Duplication spell, mind control spell, love and dissipation blast, and crystal shield lattice. We also know her magic is emotionally powered, the stronger she's feeling the stronger her magic, and Trixie even relates this to her power level in S5. If being upset about losing Sunburst gave her that much of a boost, losing everything, and becoming the firebomb she was in the S5 finale likely added substantially to this. We know she spent at least years after leaving before she formed her village, from her line at the end of the premier. "I spent years studying that!" Even if that just means the spell network necessary to pull off her Cutie mark spell, it implies years spent studying magic's finer aspects, not including her years spent doing who knows what, earning her magic based cutie mark, during the gap from Sunburst to the Village.

TLDR on that point, Twilight and Starlight are about the same age, Twilight spent her life studying everything. Starlight spent hers single mindedly focused on magic and the magic powered solutions to her problems. the maybe couple of years Starlight was running her village, Twilight was becoming a princess. I see no significant differential in study times or opportunities between the two.

Additionally, Twilight may be the element of magic and an Alicorn, but the element of magic has far more to do with the magic of friendship than raw power, as demonstrated by it's very summoning. It wasn't summoned by Twilight's magic power, that failed, it was summoned by her understanding and actualization of Friendship's magic. I don't see it pertaining at all to Twilight's power. Her being an Alicorn is a very valid point, considering the implications of the Tirek Battle. However, I raise a counter. Starlight almost never engages in direct magical power slugs with the Princess, where she knows she's likely to lose. She uses a shield spell preciset twice, once to block a rapid fire laser, which clearly had more of a high explosive than penetrative property, and the final shit where they're both exhausted. Otherwise she dodges, sidesteps, or redirects Twi's attacks, never going head on, and never trading.

I've got some more to say if you wanna debate some more but I'll leave the Devil's worm here for now.

[Pete100]

I mean we’ve never actually seen the true powers of an alicorn, so who knows?

[BirdsBooksBrownies]

The Starlight cult was built on Lowest Common Denominator thinking. I've heard some suggestions that it's a good thing she wasn't a tribalist on top of everything else.

As to this story, I pretty much agree that the show did a massive disservice and letdown when this powerful dangerous antagonist was cleared of all charges because she had a sob story and it was a one hug/song redemption.

Now don't get me wrong, I don't HATE Starlight as a character, she had a lot going for her and even post-reformation she had some good moments. It's just the way her redemption was written that bugs me.

---

But for those of you who enjoy a darker take on things there's a couple of artists on Deviantart.com who did some amazing world building on a delightfully demented version of Starlight.