Do you mind? Control
DO YOU MIND? CONTROL
“Hey Twilight, can I talk to you for a second?” Starlight asked, approaching Twilight as she was deep in her library, drowning in the sheer amount of books.
Twilight turned around, setting her book down to talk to her newest pupil, “Sure, Starlight. What’s bothering you?”
Starlight shifted her hooves on the floor uncomfortably, wondering what would the best way to ask this question would be. “Well, remember a while back when I, you know, mind controlled all of our friends into doing my bidding because I was too lazy to solve a friendship problem? UGH! That sounded so much better in my head!"
Twilight nodded, though her eyes began to narrow in confusion. “Yes, I remember the incident, but why do you want to talk about it again? Didn’t you already apologize to the rest of our friends? I mean, we all sat on the roof and chillaxed, whatever the heck that means, afterward."
Starlight sighed, “Yes we did make up, but that isn’t the problem. The problem is that it’s hard to take advice about what not to do from somepony who did the same exact thing, not only once, but multiple bucking times!"
"Starlight, language," said Twilight with a glare. "I'd rather you not use such words in my castle. This is the Castle of Friendship, after all, not the Castle of Profanity. Besides, I'd rather not have Spike hear that word yet."
Starlight shot her a look. "Twilight, you're avoiding what I said. I'm not sure about this, but I think the abuse of mental magic is more important than Spike learning about curse words."
"Fine," Twilight said, clearly defeated. "So maybe I've used mental magic once or twice, but they were all for good reasons that helped my friends.
Thankfully, I knew you would be stubborn and asked a certain spirit of chaos to give me a list of every important time you’ve used or contemplated using mental magic.”
Twilight’s eye twitched and her hoof began tapping the floor. “B-but...” She began before Starlight cut her off
About halfway through the list, Starlight paused mid-sentence. "Okay, what? Discord made an entire page ranting about something, just give me a second. Oh, I see." She finished, angling a glare that would rival Celestia's at Twilight.
"Our glorious Princess of Friendship here wanted to use a reformation spell, which, if I remember correctly, makes somepony act as their complete opposite. Say, if you were to use it on Fluttershy, she would turn into a complete jerk."
Twilight turned away and shuddered, remembering the day that did happen. The Elements of Harmony were useless and their friendship nearly obliterated.
Starlight began to walk up to Twilight their muzzles touching, Twilight backed away uncomfortable with the lack of personal space.
“If I remember correctly, you had to deal with a spell similar to that of a reformation spell when Discord escaped,” Starlight reminded her. Twilight flinched being able to tell where this was going.
"Well, yes. But that was before Discord got reformed. Had Fluttershy not done what she did, Equestria would have become a land of chaos by now. And I've seen firsthoof what that's like, Starlight."
Starlight remained unfazed by Twilight’s slight jab at her actions regarding time travel, “Yes, but wasn’t I the one told not to rely too much on magic? That whole incident with the dam I was told about could have been resolved earlier if you had tried to make friends with Discord instead of letting a previous experience cloud your judgement. Maybe Fluttershy should have been made the Princess of Friendship.”
Twilight's mind immediately thought of what Fluttershy would say as a Princess of Friendship, "Um, I'd like you all to stop this war now, please. If you don't mind me saying to, that is." Twilight shook her head and the thought disappeared.
"While that may be true, it didn't happen and nothing bad would have come out of it!" Twilight shot back, stamping her hoof to the floor, only to see Starlight's smile larger than it was before.
“That’s what you think, Twilight. Remember that without light there always will be darkness. Discord is the spirit of chaos, if he had been brainwashed, oh, I’m sorry, 'reformed', what would have happened to the balance of Equestria? We would have two beings of order and from what you saw in-” Starlight put her head down reminiscing “-Our Town, you of all ponies should recognize that order can be just as scary as chaos, if not more so. If you disagree, I could show you a thought projection spell of my previous town-” Starlight got a look on her face that looked rather sarcastic “-I know ever so much how much you and your friends loved the smiles there. And think about it, my spell could put these smiles in HD."
Twilight waved her hooves in front of her rapidly. "No, that really isn't needed. You've gotten your point across, I was wrong about Discord, okay?"
Starlight interrupted her mid sentence, “actually from I’ve heard from your friends that would be the second time” Starlight looked puzzled, “Something about some inside joke you took way too seriously.”
Twilight’s eye twitched. “As I was saying, I was wrong about Discord. But still, that’s only one example, and as such, I have no reason to believe this conspiracy of yours.”
Starlight smiled at Twilight “Oh you foolish fool who foolishly thought I was foolish enough to have just one example. Who ever said I was done?"
Suddenly, a letter poofed up in front of Starlight through purple flames. Grabbing it with her magic, she unfolded it. “Oh, it’s from Discord,” Starlight said, her eyes moving down the parchment. “He says, 'Three points for the reference, another good one and you can be upgraded to my apprentice.”
Starlight looked at Twilight, “Do you have any idea what this even means? It makes no sense, wait, no, never mind. Forgot who we’re talking about here.” Starlight blasted the letter with a blue beam from her horn obliterating it and leaving a fresh burn mark on the floor.
Twilight gave Starlight a look, “Do you really want to give more work to my assistant? Also we’ve gotten off topic, what was your next example?"
Starlight levitated the other, unblasted letter back to herself. “Yes, sorry about that. Example two, changing the eating habits of other life forms like what you did with the fruit bats."
Twilight facehoofed, “How was that bad? Doing so helped save Applejack's farm! It didn’t have any negative repercussions for the bats from what we've seen afterwards.”
Starlight gave Twilight yet another glare, “Yes, Twilight, it didn’t. But tell me, have you ever seen the vampire fruits bats since you placed that spell on them?"
Twilight was about to remark on that statement, but then the answer hit her, and hard. She hadn’t, in fact, seen the fruit bats since that incident. Why was that?
Starlight started trotting around Twilight rather menacingly, chanting a phrase that sounded eerily familiar, “Stop the bats, stop the bats. Make them go and not come back." They never came back, Twilight. They all just disappeared as if they weren’t needed since they had served their purpose. Or maybe, they all died out, their natural diet sabotaged by another power, and as such, they never had the strength to go on.” Starlight shook her head and gave Twilight a look that reeked of disappointment.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle the Princess of friendship might have just committed mass genocide because she decided to play Celestia.”
Starlight turned around and looked at the pony in front of her who was a mess. Her eyes, ears, and wings were all twitching rapidly, unable to comprehend the theory said to her. Starlight smiled, her point had been brought across. “But hey,” Starlight remarked. “That's just a theory, a pony’s theory”
A letter, once again, popped up out of nowhere, this one impaling itself on the front of Starlights horn. “Ugh,” She sighed. “what does this one say? "Dear Starlight Glimmer, that was a stretch. you could have gone for so many more, I mean you could have said something like "You can’t handle the truth," but you wasted it! All apprentice opportunities have been revoked, goodbye!”
Starlight’s eye twitched and she levitated the letter away, “Okay, you know what? I’m not even going to try to understand what he says anymore. Anyway, back to you. Anything else you want to say?”
Twilight lifted her head up, “Okay I get the point. I’ve screwed up multiple times, but there’s probably more you want to say, so go on.”
Starlight froze mid-gloat, “Horsefeathers! Those are the only examples I know of. Ugh, I was enjoying knowing I was right, what can I do now?!”
She was interrupted by one of the doors on the left opening. Through which came Spike, eyes drooping. “What’s going on? I was having a great dream about Rarity, marshmallows, and crabs when I was woken up-” Spike yawned “-I heard something about magical manipulation, were you talking about Lesson Zero?””
Starlight tilted her head confused, “What's Lesson Zero? Is it something I should know about?”
Twilight started making frantic gestures at Spike, not wanting to hear that embarrassing tale. Spike, however, remained oblivious to Twilight’s plight.
“She really hasn’t told you about it? Well, since I want to get back to sleep, I'll give you the short version. Twilight mind controlled the majority of the town so that she could get some pleasure. Colts, fillies, it didn't matter, nopony was really safe. I believe Big Macintosh was affected the worst."
A long time of silence lasted and Twilight looked at Starlight, her face turning multiple shades of red, “It wasn't like that at all!”
Starlight glared at Twilight and said, “Yeah, your face says otherwise. I think I’m gonna have a private conversation with Celestia now." Her horn started glowing and in a flash she was gone
Spike was puzzled, “No seriously I don’t get it. You used a stallion and fillies to your advantage, what’s wrong with that?"