Chapter 7
An hour later, and the other girls followed Pinkie and Fluttershy back to the collapsed tunnel where Twilight and Starlight were trapped. Once the path was open, the purple alicorn stepped through, carrying the now sleeping Starlight Glimmer behind her.
"Wake her up so I can chew her flank off!" Rainbow shouted as she made to dive for the unconscious unicorn, but was stopped by a blue aura.
"Rainbow, dear!" Rarity scolded her friend. "We need to keep a level head right now. We're down here in these ghastly mines and need to find our way back out so we can all get back to the train station."
"And let the royal guards have all the fun?!" Rainbow retorted, a bit of a glare on her face.
"That's enough, Rainbow," Twilight intervened. "We've had enough trouble for one day, so let's do like Rarity suggested and get out of here and to the train station."
The three other mares present voiced their agreement, as well as Rarity giving a nod.
Rainbow pouted, knowing she wouldn't win an argument against all of her friends. "Fine," she acquiesced, "Let's get out of here and head home."
Rainbow, Rarity, Pinkie, Fluttershy and Applejack began heading back up the tunnel they'd came down. Twilight, however, stopped and placed Starlight on the ground.
"What're ya doin'?" Applejack asked Twilight, pausing her step.
"I'm waking her up."
Applejack raised her brow upon hearing that. "Y'all sure that's a good idea? I mean, she did just make a break for it and led us on a chase through these here mines."
"I'm not carrying her the whole way to the train, AJ, and I want her to endure the march across the desert there just like the rest of us."
AJ was going to rebut the statement, but decided to let it go. "Alright, I ain't yer ma, but I reserve the right to say ah told ya so if she gets away again."
"Duly noted," Twilight answered as she cast a counter-spell to her previous sleep spell. After a few moments, Starlight woke back up.
"On your hooves and get moving," Twilight ordered in a stern tone of voice, "and don't you dare try anything else."
Starlight looked up at the mare, and then at her flanks. Her ears pinned back against her head as she quietly got back to her hooves.
"AJ," Twilight then addressed her friend, "lead the way up. I'm staying behind her. If she tries anything, I'll stop her before she gets the chance."
Applejack didn't say anything, but gave a nod as she started moving to catch up with the others.
"Move," Twilight barked at Starlight, a strong push to the mare's flanks to get her moving. After a momentary stumble, Starlight followed AJ up and out, Twilight following closely behind.
The sextet of mares and their prisoner reached the surface and began making their way across the desert to the end of the railway. No conversations were held, and no quips were heard from the restrained unicorn. The only sounds heard were the falling of hooves against ground.
Applejack and Rainbow Dash were at the front of the group, with Fluttershy, Rarity and Pinkie Pie in the center. Directly behind them were Twilight and Starlight, the latter ahead of the former. The lavender alicorn glared at the lilac unicorn in front of her, ready to give her a zap in the flanks if she dared to slow down or try to make another escape.
Starlight, however, made no further effort to be as difficult as possible. Instead, the unicorn was rather cooperative, or more accurately, passive. She cooperated only in the sense that she had no other choice, instead of actually wanting to do what she was told.
Her hooves clip-clopped across the ground almost in time with the other mares trudging across the desert. Her face, where a scowl or smug grin once sat, now held a blank expression.
Whenever she could, she would sneak a subtle glance back at her flanks and the placeholder cutie mark that sat there. Her earlier self had been frustrated by her inability to completely eliminate cutie marks, so she settled on creating a false one that encompassed the core of her ideals: everypony was equal.
She remembered her first experiments with the spell, on the first ponies she had found and convinced to come to her village. Back then, they had voiced their concern and opposition to the spell, but she had assured them that what they were giving up was worth far less than what they would be gaining.
Her memories eventually led her to where it had all started way back when, when her best friend in the whole world left her, the feelings of isolation and abandonment that she felt, and ultimately, to the moment that she herself had earned her cutie mark.
Years earlier...
Starlight Glimmer, a filly just barely out of foalhood, her mane done in pig tails, sits scowling on a sofa in her childhood home.
"Starlight, you can't go your whole life without getting your cutie mark," Firelight, her father, pointed out to her, a sad tone in his voice. "Everypony finds their special talent at some point. It's part of your destiny."
Starlight turned her scowl towards her father. "BUT I DON'T WANT IT!"
The stallion looked at his daughter with worry. "Sweetheart, why wouldn't you want a cutie mark?"
"BECAUSE THEY'RE EVIL!" she spat back, crossing her hooves over her barrel and pouting.
"Starlight, cutie marks aren't evil."
"Then why did they take Sunburst away?!"
"Starlight, Sunburst's cutie mark didn't take him away from here. He went to Canterlot because of how much talent he has with magic. If you keep working at it, you could go to school with him in Canterlot too."
Starlight averted her gaze. "He doesn't wanna see me anymore."
"Sweetheart-"
"I don't care!" Starlight cut her father off. "I don't want a cutie mark! I never want a cutie mark!"
With her piece said, the filly bolts from the living room and out of the house, her father calling after her.
"STARLIGHT!" he pleaded to her, but his pleas fell on willfully-deaf ears.
The young unicorn filly galloped away from her home and into a nearby forest. Weaving between trees, bushes, briers, brambles and the occasional boulder here and there, Starlight eventually found herself alone in a clearing with a boulder large enough to climb onto and rest a bit away from the edge. The young mare did just that, sitting atop the stone and pouting.
"Stupid cutie marks!" she said to herself. "Why do ponies have them anyways? They don't really do all that much anyhow!"
"Tell us our destiny? HA! You gotta have a pretty narrow mind to think some magic picture on your flank tells you how the rest of your life is gonna go!"
"Well, I'm certainly not gonna let that happen to me!"
Starlight then stood up on the boulder and made a loud declaration.
"I'm not letting some picture on my flank end tell me how to live my life! I'm never gonna get a cutie mark, and if I ever do, I'll find a way to get rid of it for good!"
The impassioned speech the mare gave to nopony in particular had gotten her all fired up and full of vitriol. Needing to let off the steam, she spied another boulder just a bit inside the treeline on the opposite side of the clearing. Focusing her magic, she let out a loud yell as she sent a cutting beam of magic in its direction.
As soon as the spell connected, the boulder, and anything in the immediate vicinity of it exploded into dust and splinters. Starlight squeaked as she dropped down behind the boulder she was on and covered her head with her hooves. Pieces of the boulder and trees began pelting the ground around her, a few skipping off the boulder she was hiding behind. Once the sounds stopped, Starlight uncovered her head and looked at where she had aimed her spell.
The boulder, and a radius of about ten pony-lengths of forest were no more. The trees just outside the radius were tilted away from the blast, some almost completely uprooted from the force of the spell.
"Wow!" Starlight said in amazement. "I had no idea I was that powerful."
Stepping out from behind the boulder to examine the damage more closely, the filly saw that some of the pieces of wood nearest the epicenter had undergone a drastic transformation, the sudden heat and pressure release being so great that it actually turned some of the particles to diamond, if the small white gemstones were to be believed.
"I just wanted to get out my frustrations, but I ended up really doing a number on that boulder," she commented as she examined the few pieces she saw remaining of it. "I know that unicorns that are really feeling particular emotions often get a boost to the spells they're casting, but this looks like I could match the princess with raw power alone. Well, maybe if I train myself more."
Starlight then smiled. "Imagine me, becoming so powerful I could take on Princess Celestia in a duel. I could beat her and become an alicorn myself!"
The filly started to do a happy dance, realizing what kind of a goal could lay before her. She couldn't recall a time she had felt so happy in all her life!
Then, she felt it. A sudden tingling on her flanks. A fear and revulsion suddenly overcame her as she looked back at her flanks, silently hoping that there was nothing there.
Alas, there was.
Almost as though it were a tattoo on bare skin, Starlight saw an eight-pointed purple-and-white star, with two teal streaks directly above it.
There were no words from the filly as her face scowled, then turned into one filled with rage. She screamed as loud as she had ever screamed before, so much that almost anypony within earshot would come running and expect her to be attacked by a bear or something similar.
"NOOOOO!" she cried out as she dropped to her flanks. "NO! NO! NO! I DON'T WANT IT! I DON'T WANT A CUTIE MARK!"
Starlight began crying as she tried in vain to rub it off of her flanks, but her efforts were futile, and the mark stayed. She sat there for a few moments weeping, until her tears had eventually ran themselves out and left the girl with nothing but choked sobs.
Eventually, her sobbing ceased, and a look of determination clear on her muzzle.
"I will not keep this cursed thing," she promised to herself. "I will find a way to remove it, and but rid of it, permanently!"
For Starlight the filly, getting a cutie mark was the worst thing that could happen to her. As she became an adult, she made peace with the fact that it had happened, and begrudgingly admitted that her father had been right about the whole "unavoidable" thing. Nonetheless, she swore to rid herself of the thing, somehow.
She had met her first followers, and they worked together to help her craft the spell, under the false pretense that it could be used as a therapy tool for couples. Take the two cutie marks and switch them around, and let that pony walk the proverbial "mile in their horseshoes", as it were.
Starlight remembered the moment well when she had used the spell on them. They had looked at her with such feelings of betrayal in their eyes, but they said nothing else as she had assured them that they would help create a utopia where all ponies could truly be equal, and things such as a special talent couldn't drive a wedge between one pony and another.
Now, though...
Starlight regretted ever having the idea to create that spell. The feelings that she underwent as it had its effect on her for the first time were something she wouldn't wish on anypony.
The sudden weakness. The intense apathy. The pressure in her mind to acquiesce to those feelings that discouraged her from wanting to retaliate against Twilight.
All of it was horrible, but the last one really hit home. She had remembered clear as day what Sugar Belle and Ancient Tome had told her.
"You took away our individuality, and with it, our sense of self."
"When you took our cutie marks, you took away the very things that made us us.
Starlight gave those remarks no thought or care, dismissing them as the diatribes of ponies that were angry because they felt they had been betrayed.
Now, she understood. She had betrayed them. All of them had either made peace with the fact she had taken their cutie marks, convinced that they were giving them up to help build a better future, or had been convinced to do so in order to join the village.
She had taken so many cutie marks over the years, but had never had her own removed. She never went through what all of them had.
She tried to justify it when the farce had been revealed, claiming that the spell could only be carried out by her, and that she needed her cutie mark to be able to perform it.
Nopony listened; they only heard lies and betrayal, and chased her out of her village, and forced her into those caves where she was captured.
She was brought back, and the ponies in town punished her the only way they saw fit. They'd taken her mark and left her with the equal sign that had become the symbol of her village.
The feelings of guilt began weighing on Starlight as she kept moving behind the group, and just ahead of the alicorn who would zap her if she dared to even slow just a little. They were welling up in her chest, and the unicorn was doing her best not to sob, though small trickles of tears were forming in the corners of her eyes.
"We're almost there!" Rainbow had called out, jumping up and hovering a few ponies above the group as she pointed with a hoof towards the horizon.
Sure enough, the outline of the train station was coming into view, and Starlight could see a train was sitting there, the conductor having turned the locomotive around on the crude turntable some of her ponies had built before leaving Equestria behind for the promises of her village.
Starlight winced at the thought, another sack of weight on the scale that was her heart.
"What happened?" a guard asked as he approached the group.
"Our prisoner attempted to make an escape," Twilight explained as she moved in front of her friends. "We've recaptured her and made sure she wouldn't attempt it a second time."
The guard bowed his head briefly and raised it again to meet her. "Very well, your highness. We'll take over watching the prisoner from here." He turned around and gestured to another pair of guards, one unicorn and one pegasus, who moved on either side of Starlight.
"Move forward," the guard on her left said, while the one on her right smacked her flanks with a spear, causing her to yelp a bit as she moved forward.
She was led onto the train and into a private car. The guard from her left side had went in first and cast a spell on the single window in the compartment; an enchantment to prevent her escape, most likely.
"You can't get out through that window," the guard explained. "Even if you open it fully, the barrier will stop you."
Starlight blinked, not expecting to be allowed to open the window.
"You'll be given a meal at our evening mess," he continued, "but I wouldn't expect vegetable quiche and potato soup."
The second guard gave her flanks another slap, moving the mare forward. "I wouldn't try making an escape through this door, either," he warned her. "The guards have already been warned of your previous attempt and are going to be doubly cautious."
The two guards then left and closed the door. A shimmering sound told Starlight that another enchantment had been placed on the door, this one most likely keeping the door completely shut unless opened from the outside.
Left as alone as could be for the moment, Starlight's emotions finally collapsed down onto her conscience, and the mare proceeded to bolt for the cot in the cabin, grabbing the pillow resting there, stuffing her face into it, and sobbing so hard and for so long, the mare had actually cried herself to sleep.
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Bravo. I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that this is perhaps the only proper way to reform Starlight. It always felt cheap to me that she never had to experience what she did to the inhabitants of 'Our Town'. Also, not to say I necessarily have anything against canon!reformed Starlight, but I think this could believably lead to a version of her who's more considerate about how she uses her magic.
Yes, it’s back.
11722587
I’ve felt that way about her and a lot of villains.
I think this warrants a "Teen" rating since it's a bit violent for an E rating, including the swearing. Maybe also an "Alternate Universe" tag since the Mane 6 are more aggressive than they are in canon, plus I can't exactly see Starlight becoming good friends with them after this.
11739922
I hope not.