> My Little Pony: The Cutie Map Alternate Ending
>  by Hopeful Soul
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> Chapter 1
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My Little Pony: The Cutie Map Alternate Ending


        Things were getting intense but grim for the six ponies that have saved Equestria dozens of times. Not long ago, Princess Twilight and her friends discovered something quite special about her new castle; it contained within it a magical map that would call them to certain parts of Equestria to solve friendship problems. And after traveling to where the map told them to go, they arrived in an odd town where all the ponies wore creepy smiles and had the same cutie mark.
        They also met a unicorn mare named Starlight Glimmer, the leader of the town who believed that ponies could only be happy if they were all equal. After showing them the cutie mark vault, where all the town’s residence’s cutie marks were stored, she revealed that she was the one who took them. 
They soon realized it was a trap, but before they could do anything, Starlight used her spell to rob them of their cutie marks, and in essence a part of who they were also.
Twilight and her friends were soon imprisoned and forced to listen to Starlight’s brainwashing voice over and over while they tried to figure out a plan to get their cutie marks back and expose her. Thanks to Fluttershy, they learned that Starlight had not removed her own cutie mark as she did the others, and then made sure that all the residents of the town saw that. It was then that she showed her true colors, how insane she really was and fled, with the Mane Six’s cutie marks in tow.
The townspeople soon chased after her and on the way, they managed to break the cutie mark vault and get their cutie marks back. After which, four of them, Night Glider, Double Diamond, Party Favor and Sugar Belle, lead the charge with the Mane Six following close behind. It was a long and desperate chase, and if they weren’t able to stop her from fleeing into the mountains, they would never be able to find her.
Thankfully, using their special talents that Starlight took away from them, they managed to break the containers holding the Mane Six’s cutie marks and restored them all to normal.
However, once Starlight reached the entrance to the cave, Double Diamond and the others tried to stop her and she attempted to blast them all with a magical beam that destroyed a bridge not too long ago during their chase. But at the last second Twilight teleported in front of them and used the shield spell she saw Starlight previously used to protect them, shocking her.
“Wh– I studied that spell for years! How can you—” Starlight stuttered, still in shock.
“I studied magic for years too! But what I didn’t know then was that studying could only take me so far. Each of my friends has taught me something different about myself!” Twilight proclaimed as she glanced at her friends fondly. “It was their unique gifts and passions and personalities that helped bring out the magic inside of me! I never would have learned that I represent the element of magic without these five! And I certainly wouldn't be here to stop you now!”
Starlight just scowled, unwilling to listen to her. “Spare me your sentimental nonsense! I gave these ponies real friendships they never could’ve had otherwise!”
“How do you know that?!” Double Diamond demanded. “You never even gave us a chance!”
It was then that Twilight saw that Starlight was about to try something else, her horn was glowing and her face was madder then she had ever seen her, she was obviously furious that she had failed and nopony was willing to share her ideals and was about to escape or try to harm them all again, either way Twilight knew she couldn’t let that happen.
As Starlight’s horn glowed brighter and brighter as she prepared her next trick, Twilight quickly acted fast and charged up her own horn as well.
“No!” she cried as she fired a magical beam just as blinding light shined from Starlight’s horn, because the light was so intense and bright it blinded Twilight a bit and affected her aim also. So, instead of striking Starlight in the chest and knocking her out like she had originally planned in her head the beam went upward and went right through Starlight’s horn. After which the light faded, much to the unicorn’s surprise.
“Huh? What? I…” she began before suddenly…
Snap!
That sound was almost deafening, especially for Starlight and before long the top part of her horn suddenly broke off, much to her shock and horror. The piece then began to fall to the ground, during which time seemed to slow down greatly for Starlight, like she couldn’t believe what had just happened and it was taking longer for her mind to register what happened also.
Her eyes slowly travelled down along with broken part of her horn which finally hit the ground and rolled near her hooves. She gazed down on it with an open mouth and a shattered mind.
Her pursuers also had shocked expressions on their faces, none of them expected what just happened to happen, especially not Twilight. If they hadn’t been there, none of them would have believed it; Twilight had just managed to sever Starlight’s horn, therefore making her unable to use magic again, and it filled the young Princess with great guilt.
Eventually, the former leader of Equaltown managed to find her voice and speak again, though she was still shell-shocked by what had happened.
        “How… how did you…? No! It’s-It’s not possible!?” she exclaimed in disbelief as she felt the spot where her horn used to be, but felt only a rough stub on her forehead. It was then that she realized that what happened really did happen.
        Twilight stepped forward a bit, still filled with guilt and sympathy as she tried to console Starlight. “Starlight… I… I’m so sorry… I-I didn’t mean to…” she tried to say, but Starlight angrily cut her off before she could do so.        
        “My horn… what have you done to me…?” Starlight Glimmer’s voice trailed off for a moment as her eyes, already burning with rage, narrowed further to wrathful blue pinpricks as she glared at the Princess of Friendship. “You! How dare you! Don’t you try and lie about your intent and then attempt to appeal to me with your sympathy, Sparkle!”
        The former cult leader’s words and sheer audacity left Twilight and the rest of the Mane Six completely a gasp. “How dare I?” the alicorn retorted, finally finding her words once again. “You know what our intent actually was, Starlight Glimmer? What it still is?”
        Starlight Glimmer growled, baring her teeth and seething all the while. “Let me guess: dungeon? Some kind of exile or banishment? No, no, no, too simple. A parade, with me as the main attraction. You were going to best me by shattering my horn, then bill me shamelessly as but the latest conquest by the high, the mighty, the virtuous saviors of Equestria: the Elements of Harmony!”
        The unicorn’s body language made it clear to Twilight and the others that what Starlight Glimmer was saying was, if not in whole then in part, a genuine expectation of consequences from her defeat.
        “Coo coo, coo coo…” Pinkie muttered quietly to the others.
        “Sssh! Pinkie!” Fluttershy shushed her.
        It was now Twilight’s turn to feel the rising tide of anger; it was like bile rising in her throat and left a bitter taste in her mouth. “You know what, Glimmer? Your horn, the downfall of your reign over this town of ponies?” Her voice was almost venomous and thrumming with shock-induced fury, saddening some of her friends that such an emotional response had become possible. “You brought this all on yourself. We were going to give you the genuine benefit of the doubt, offer you our friendship and help you to form a better and realistic view of Equestria, of cutie marks, of what it truly means to be a pony! I tried to talk some sense into you. But you wouldn’t listen to me! To us!”
        “More lies from a corrupt Princess of a corrupt Equestria!” Starlight Glimmer shot back. “None of you will ever truly understand, let alone appreciate what it was I was trying to do here!”
        “UGH! HAVE YOU LEARNED NOTHING FROM TODAY?” Twilight snarled, her guilt and sympathy near a breaking point, like water in a tea kettle that threatened to evaporate completely away. 
        Were it not for her own anger, Starlight Glimmer would have grimaced from the infuriated tsunami of words that was about to broil forth from the alicorn princess. 
“What you will never understand is that friendship is not about what makes ponies the same, and how personal differences must be sacrificed in favor of forcing others to be the same in order to live in harmony! Friendship is about reconciling those differences! Distinct and sometimes even opposing traits is what makes friendships strong and vibrant! How we resolve them is what defines us as friends! Traits might get in the way from time to time, but if you can work through it together your friendship will be stronger then ever!”
        “She’s right! But you don’t know anything about that! Do you?” Rainbow questioned, scathingly.
        “Yeah, you wouldn’t understand a thing about it, and you know why?” Applejack added.
        “Ok, why!?” Starlight demanded, angrily.
        “Because you Starlight Glimmer are nothing more then a jealous little foal,” Rarity stated. “What else could have spurred somepony to do something as insane as brainwashing other ponies into your twisted little regime?! You my dear… lack elegance!”
        “Exactly! You turned your back on real friendship and became a monster.” Twilight agreed.
        “But it doesn’t have to be that way Starlight, we can help you.” Fluttershy urged her.
        “Yeah, because otherwise things are going to have to get interesting! Like very nice ponies with a very big net kind of interesting!” Pinkie added with her usual cheer and ‘squee’.
        “I. AM. NOT. INSANE!” Starlight bellowed, nearly blowing their manes back with the force of her yell.
        “Uh… you sure about that?” Rainbow Dash questioned, flatly.
        “Then prove it to us, Starlight Glimmer!” Twilight said with a long, drawn out sigh. The alicorn mare was slightly beginning to get a grip on her anger. “This is your last chance to take the reasonable route. I’m sorry about what has happened to your horn, I really am, regardless of what you may think. It’s all up to you now what happens next. We can become your friends, or we can remain your enemies. The choice is yours. But please, don’t do something you’ll regret, let us help you.”
        “Never! You and your friends arrived in my village and ruined my utopia!” Starlight spat.
        “Your ‘utopia’ was a joke, and so are you for that matter!” Rainbow shot back.
        “You don’t know anything about me!” Starlight hissed.
        “And you don’t know a thing about us!” Applejack countered. “Now stand down missy or we’ll have to…”
        “Enough!” Starlight snapped. “Even without my horn, I will never allow ponies like you a victory you do not deserve! Try and stop me!” Not even hesitating to await a response, the mare bolted towards the tunnel entrance at the base of the mountains.
        “Starlight! Wait!” Twilight called out.
        “She’s getting away!” Party Favor cried.
        “Quick! Stop her!” Night Glider added.
        Just as Starlight was on the cusp of disappearing into the shadows of the tunnel, she was met by one of Twilight’s spells, which managed to reach her before she got too far out of range.
        Intended to momentarily freeze Starlight’s muscles in their tracks so the others could catch her, the alicorn’s magic instead reacted with Starlight’s own unstable energy as it radiated out from her horn due to the emotionally charged mare’s thought processes. The resulting collision of one spell with another failed spell of teleportation was enough to indeed teleport Starlight, but it was not to any destination she could have possibly intended.
        The flash blinded them all.
        Starlight now found herself in a place laden with a reeking smell of rotten eggs, surrounded by soot-blackened rocks the size of houses or bigger.
 Sulfur and brimstone swirled in the burning hot air in a thick miasma, and before she could say anything or register where she was the unicorn’s eyes widened as she picked up a hint of ash and smoke in the smelly air as well. She turned around slowly, and her eyes again widened almost further than was physically possible.
The massive reptilian bodies of great dragons were nearby, and each one was staring at her with mixtures of xenophobic anger, amusement at the presence of so small an intruder, and perhaps most frightening of all: hunger. They growled at her while she shook with fear.
“Uh-oh…” she said with a gulp and that was all she could say before one of the dragons roared in her face before she screamed at the top of her lungs.
        Back in another corner of Equestria, almost half a continent away, Twilight and the others were staring at where Starlight had been running just moments ago, many of them shocked by the odd discharge of magic that had just happened.
        “Hey… where the heck did she go?!” Rainbow questioned to nobody in particular.
        “She’s gone!” Pinkie gasped.
        “Uh… Twilight? Where exactly did you send her?” Applejack inquired.
        “I-I don’t know! It-It was an accident!” Twilight protested. “She could have ended up anywhere… Why didn’t she just listen to reason? It didn’t have to be this way…”
        As Twilight stared at her own hooves and the snow-covered stone ground despondently, Pinkie Pie was the first to approach her. Pinkie’s muzzle was scrunched into a rare frown upon her face as she did so. “Aw, don’t be sad Twilight. I mean… we did all we could…  you did all you could!”
        “Starlight made her own choice, darling, you tried” Rarity chimed in, joining the earth pony and alicorn. Twilight slumped down onto her haunches, and Rarity laid a comforting hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. 
        “You said it yourself, Twi.” Rainbow Dash threw in. “It was all up to her what happened next!” At this point, everyone else present was now gather around Twilight to offer their mutual support to one another.
        “I guess some ponies are just beyond saving…” Fluttershy concluded sadly. “Thank goodness cases like this are so rare.”
        “I’ll say.” Applejack agreed.
        “I know… I just wish she could have learned what you’ve taught her.” Twilight said to Party Favor and the other three.
        “It’s you who have taught us something. We all came to this village because we were searching for something missing from our lives. We thought Starlight had given it to us, but now... now it seems it was in front of us all along. It’s us!” Party Favor said as he turned and smiled at his three friends before they all embraced.
“Does that mean you’ll stay in the village?” Twilight asked, hopefully.
“It’s our home. I’m not going anywhere.” Night Glider said, smiling proudly.
“This is a chance for all of us to get to know each other again for the very first time!” Double Diamond stated, pleased.
“And I finally have a chance to bake something besides terrible muffins!” Sugar Belle expressed with relief before they all burst out laughing, happy that the crisis was over. 
As for Starlight Glimmer… she’s probably wishing she had taken them up on their offer, especially since she was currently running for her life with dragons nipping at her heels, all the way towards the slowly setting sun.

Fin