Deltarune: Friendship is Magic

This is a more “serious” continuation of this silly horse concept. I love mlp and this fits surprisingly really well???! The KFC completing the trifecta of earth, unicorn, and Pegasus ponies is just too good an opportunity to pass up.

Do you have any Hot Takes about my little pony?

So far, I don't think so actually haha? A lot of my opinions seem generally in line with average Modern Pony Fan Consensus. Unless you count "Season 5 is actually almost as good as Seasons 1 and 2 and is notably better than Seasons 3 and especially 4 (based only on the less than half of it I've seen)"

But here are a couple other stray thoughts I have that might hit the mark, although again I don't actually know how hot or controversial these are so no promises:

Spike is incapable of carrying a whole episode past the point of being okay at best, especially past Season 2. No more Spike episodes please.

I get that the whole point of the Cutie Mark Crusaders is that their episodes revolve around self-actualizing and learning to be kind and patient with yourself in regards to your coming of age and how it may feel like you lag behind in understanding what your purpose is. However, 5 seasons in it's starting to really feel like there is not much more this particular show can say about that idea, and I'd appreciate if it didn't feel like their characters hit a reset button every time a CMC episode starts, as well-meaning as it may be.

When I was a teenager I really liked how the show started to feature more action scenes and Unicorn Laser Beams the longer it went and how sometimes the bad guys were just blasted away and that was that, but now as an adult I actually like it a lot more when the villains are redeemed with idealistic love and kindness that they don't deserve in the slightest.

Except for Discord. He should have never, ever come back. Good Discord is one of the most uninteresting and aimless characters the show has to offer. Like why is he still here. I know why. But WHY.

There should have been more than one wide theatrical release film like the 2017 movie. No real reason why I think that except that I just really like that movie and I wanted another one.

Season 4 did everyone kinda dirty but especially Pinkie Pie, who feels like a fanfic rendition for like a majority of the season. It felt like for a while Pinkie Pie wasn't being written by people who really liked Pinkie Pie all that much or understood how best to user her until Rainbow Rocks onward (I have no citation for this idea, I'm sure the writing staff was not all too different between the two eras. But I know the vibes I felt as a Pinkie Pie Fan)

I don't feel like thinking of any more :)

spending every moment in a fever just to go around again o’ the joy! "it's all the same," you say "there's always another day."

self-indulgent brainweird jet set radio yoyo and nt-3000 art with lyrics from Bass Cannon by Vylet Pony..... i see a silly guy i blast him with the fucking mental illness laser

designs are based on my sibling @virtuaquarium3d's headcanon/au designs :3 (...at the time of writing this though, those arent posted so dont bother looking on that blog for them LOL)

Yeah sorry i made the sillyguy and his evil robot doppelganger start dissociating. They keep forgetting which one is the real one and which one is the fake one. Yeah theyre both too emotionally insincere and caught up in layers of lies and self-irony to acknowledge that there's a problem. Yeah thats how they got to this point in the first place. Sorry 👍

"You rotten skelton... DIE ALREADY!" Goh swung his chopsword again, and... Sans dodged.

"..."

Goh swung his sword a few more times... Sans dodging each time.

"You really are a one-trick pony, you know that?"

"SHUT UP!" Another laser blast, more missles, and Goh flying up on his jetpack and smashing the ground with his fist... all of which Sans swiftly evaded.

"..."

"Now what?"

"...Zzz..."

"He's asleep? Now's my chance!" Goh charged up and fired a massive laser at Sans, shooting several missles at him as well to be safe. Unfortunately for Goh, even in his sleep, Sans still was able to swiftly dodge all his attacks. EVEN MORE unfortunately for Goh, immediately after dodging his attacks, Sans would imprison Goh in a triangular cage of bones! "What... what the hell? How did... what did..."

"Gotcha. Boy, you just aren't as smart as you think you are, huh, Goh?"

Darkhawk Before the Dawn

Hey there, red markers. Well, I finally got a new order in! Expect some new MLP comics soon. But not immediately. As much as I hate Avengers Arena, I think abandoning immediately would also be shitty. I think we'll go until I finish this first TPB collection (up to issue 6), and then we'll do some pony comics. And then we'll get back to Arena when we're refreshed. Sound good to you guys~?

Anyways, here's the cover:

This might be the worst fucking cover I've ever reviewed. Like, I get it, the flaming logo is a reference to the Hunger Games cover. But, like, what does that tell you about this comic? Is there anything enticing about this cover to incentivise you to buy it? Like, if you didn't already know what Arena was about, would you even get that it's a Hunger Games reference? Like, we've had some terrible covers, some real liars. But know what? I'll take the lies over something empty of content. Because at least lies have substance.

So we open the comic on Day 8. Like, that seems like a lot to drop on you. I don't think this is an in media res thing either. They just expect you to accept that by issue 3, we're a full fucking week into these kids surviving on Murder Asshole Island. You'd think you'd want to do this kind of story, like, maybe not as "real time" as 52, but still roughly a day-to-day thing issue-to-issue. But no. We're on day 8 now. That's not an insignificant amount of time! You spent the whole first issue on setup and the second on Deathlocket's backstory. Couldn't we get one addressing the food situation??

Anyways, now that I've spent a whole paragraph ranting about setting alone, our focus character today is Cammi. She's monologuing to herself, discussing how there's been no further deaths (you'd think Arcade would've gotten pissy about that in a full week, given his murder boner in the first issue), but things are bubbling to a boiling point. Her assessment is that people are selfish and stupid, and "kids are like people, but worse". My assessment is shut up. I retract my like of this character I extended last issue~

So Cammi's noting how folks have divided up into groups by now, and she's so far chosen to hang out in her tree instead. Given her personality, I'm not surprised no one wants her in their group. She's noting that for four nights now, someone's been attacking groups in the dark, and she's aiming to catch them in the act. She figures Juston's a likely target, since he's not paying attention due to trying to repair his Sentinel, and she's right. The Sentinel comes online just in time to detect hostile intent approaching.

Whatever it is, it folds up the Sentinel around Juston and blasts it across the landscape. I'm just gonna tell you, he's not dead yet. You know this story, it wouldn't hesitate to show his actual death screen (everybody's been getting health meters to show their current condition, and Mettle and Red Raven both got ones for their deaths), so if you don't see a body, don't count them out yet. Cammi dodges the blast, but is then attacked while on the ground, dodging more energy blasts (a different sort than the ones that attacked Juston). The second attacker is revealed: Darkhawk, ready for a standoff.

We now cut over to a flashback for Cammi, which is good, coz I don't know anything about her. I don't follow Marvel cosmic stuff. Appropriately, we're at the Peak, the orbital headquarters of SWORD (the space counterpart to SHIELD). Agent Brand is debriefing Cammi, following her participation in the Annihilation event. Mostly Brand is confused because Cammi's just a 13-year-old girl who got abducted by aliens. She's not a mutant, a cyborg, a gamma-powered mutate, or bitten by any sort of radioactive animal. She's just a human girl with a laser gun and a lot of guts.

That's essentially what we're learning now. She and Darkhawk stare each other down, then both depower their weapons, since they realise neither is the one who just blasted Juston a minute ago. And if we're backtracking on liking Cammi, I'm going full in on Darkhawk, since he says he's also tracking whoever's attacking camps at night. It's his intention to get everyone out safely, as long as nobody succumbs to Arcade's rhetoric and jumps off the slippery slope. Someone acting like an actual fucking superhero, in other words. That's what I want~

The two of them exchange pleasantries and compare notes. After noting that Darkhawk is a bit old to be in Arcade's little teenage murder party (and yet, he's here anyway), the pair decide to split up and do a search, meeting back at Cammi's tree at dawn. Darkhawk takes the woods, while Cammi follows some footprints into some hilly snowfields. And here in the snow, she gets attacked by X-23. Now, X-23 is cool and kicks all of the ass forever, but even I somewhat doubt she could fold a Sentinel in half and chuck it over the treeline. X-23 just gets a whiff of Cammi, knows it wasn't her, and apologises, stalking off.

We get another flashback of Cammi talking to Brand. Brand's offering her extradition back to Earth, since she's wanted in seven systems. Cammi's willing to talk, in exchange for not going back to Earth. She'd rather go to alien torture prison than be stuck in a nowhere town in Alaska, where she's not pals with Drax the Destroyer. And in the middle of explaining this, that's when she's abducted to Murderworld. So if you didn't think they godmoded Arcade yet, here's him stealing someone right out of SWORD HQ.

So a lot of things happen very quickly to end the issue. Cammi returns to the meeting point, pissed that she got ambushed by X-23, and shoots her gun into the air while screaming. As you do. Apex is seen doing pushups next to the fire while repeating "Stupid. Weak. Slow." Ah, she's reviewing the comic too. And Darkhawk confronts someone in the woods, unleashing his full arsenal of powers. Something unexpected blasts him, however, and his power crystal is torn out of his chest, hanging by a chain to close the issue.

I’ll admit, this issue doesn’t infuriate me as much as the first two. I still have complaints, of course, but that’s just a part of being in this series. Darkhawk in particular is a bright spot and the only person here thinking clearly (probably due to being in his 20s), so naturally they take him out of the equation early. I still stand by the rest of the complaints, though. Jumping to day 8 does terrible things to the narrative. Cammi’s kind of unlikeable, but she’s 13, so I’ll forgive her. Anyways, this issue’s basically fine. It’s setup for future shit, not much else to say about it.

Twilight picks up the pace of her trotting as she gets closer to the site of the Canterlot Castle’s royal archives. Already stressed by the sudden disappearance of Celestia and Luna, getting word of suspicious activity from within the archives just added more on Twilight’s already huge plate of things to deal with this week. And even though she is a Princess of Equestria, Twilight’s rather unfamiliar with her surroundings here. As up until now, Celestia has forbade even her from entering. But with the Princess sisters gone, and the threat apparently being too powerful for any remaining guards there to deal with. Twilight was notified as fast as the Royal Guard could message her. And even allowed her special access to the Archives few ponies receive, because apparently whoever's there somehow found a way to bypass the protective enchantment.

Twilight only stops to look quickly in each room for any sign of the perpetrator or try to see if she can hear any potential rummaging. She only knows that this place holds very dangerous magical artifacts, to the point that if even one of these items fell in the wrong hooves. The peace Equestria savors will forever be in doubt.

Eventually, she hears the faint sounds of unicorn magic. Not that there was ever any doubt that whoever got in had powerful magic. In some ways, Twilight was just hoping it’d be some dumb prank by Discord. It’d be annoying, but at least it wouldn’t be something serious. But if it were Discord, the announcement of it being all a clever prank probably would have been obvious by now. As Twilight figures there’d be something weird in every room of the archives or whatever else the tricky draconequus would pull on her. The sounds of magic though were definitely coming from something with a horn. Twilight’s life growing up in Canterlot made her quite familiar with the sound of magic.

Twilight eventually gets to the source of the sounds she hears and she peeks into the room. Once she sees who’s here. She expresses a huge gasp. A pinkish-purple unicorn with a somewhat dark purple mane with light blue streaks. It was unmistakably Starlight Glimmer, the unicorn who had a whole town subjugated under an Equality cult due to a vendetta against Cutie Marks. Twilight had let her escape, hoping that perhaps Starlight would think over what she’s done and learn what she had done wrong. But it looks like she's only doubled down and is now making a direct threat to Equestria by breaking into the Archives.

Twilight puts up a determined face and approaches Starlight.

“Starlight Glimmer!”

Starlight perks her ears up, turns around and gives Twilight a smug grin.

“Well, if it isn’t Princess Twilight Sparkle... It’s about time you got here…”

Twilight gives a rather confused face. “Huh? You were… expecting me?”

“I knew ahead of time breaking into the archives would allow me to have a 1-on-1 with you. With none of your meddling friends or those traitors from MY village getting in the way!”

Twilight sighs. Looks like Starlight hasn’t reflected much at all if she still views the rest of the villagers in Our Town as traitors rather than ponies she had wronged.

“Starlight… is this even the time to do this? I’m already having to deal with the fact Celestia and Luna have been taken by someone that calls himself the Storm King… there’s more dire things than your grudge with me!”

Starlight rolls her eyes

“Uggggh, Well excuuuuuuuuuse me… I didn’t realize my revenge required an APPOINTMENT! Besides… you know deep down that the Princesses disappearance actually makes this the PERFECT time to enact my revenge! All your other friends are stuck at their homes watching for any sign of the Storm King’s invasion that could happen at any moment!”

Twilight just looks off to the side realizing that’s probably a good point. Another villain taking advantage of the situation another more widespread threat is causing makes sense in hindsight.

Twilight shakes her head. “Even so, what purpose do you have here?”

Starlight does a slight evil laugh. “I’ve already told you, I mostly came here to get you all on your lonesome. But… once I have you groveling at my mercy… I suppose a bonus out of this visit would be to pick up any item that feels like it could be useful for my plan to bring true Equality to Equestria!”

Twilight slightly raises her voice “That’s a lie and you know it, Starlight! I saw your village. You took everypony’s cutie marks but your own. You made yourself superior to everypony. You don’t actually believe in Equality! You only want to keep others down below you!”

This accusation angers Starlight. “And what do YOU know about equality, Princess?! The only things you’ve done since being crowned was take down that ugly centaur and disrupt my town’s harmony!”

Starlight turns her back towards Twilight. “And… if there was another way… I would much rather have some way to empower everypony equally rather than powering them down… but I have not yet found the solution… perhaps… something that’s been locked up here will allow me to do so!”

Twilight lights up her horn “You won’t get the chance…”

“Then let us fight…”

A duel between the immense magical skill of the two prodigies commences. Everything from their lasers, their teleports, and their general spells match each other or otherwise disperses the other blow-by-blow. Neither Twilight or Starlight can gain any sort of advantage. Not even from the air, as Starlight shows Twilight the ability to levitate herself. So any high ground Twilight could have made normally with her Alicorn wings was easily equaled by Starlight’s surprising skill in Magic. If they weren’t in the heat of battle or currently mortal enemies. Twilight would love to ask just how Starlight’s got her skill. But Starlight’s surely not going to tell her life story while she’s trying to blast the purple alicorn into smithereens.

After enough time, Twilight realizes this is just going to be a stalemate if they continue on like this. Twilight being an Alicorn might potentially have more magic reserves then Starlight does, but given Starlight still has barely broken a sweat. It could take hours before Starlight’s reserves begin to run low. Twilight needs to find some way to subdue Starlight soon, so she only has to worry about the Storm King’s inevitable invasion. And right now fighting Starlight directly has proven fruitless. Twilight has conflicting feelings, but she’s considering looking around the archive for something that could at least incapacitate Starlight in some fashion. Dodging more of Starlight’s blasts, Twilight makes a break for it once any nearby lasers zoom past her.

“COWARD!” Starlight calls out taunting Twilight. “Fight me like a mare!” Starlight then proceeding to give chase

Twilight takes some heavy breaths as she runs through the hallways looking at the many items. Even if she’s in the midst of battle she still has to sort of be careful with what items she decides to use. She has no time to read everything that they do. But many of them have names that are pretty much self-explanatory for the kind of messes they could make.

Thinking to herself “Phantom Scepter? No… Storm-Forged Fan? Already kind of having to worry about someone with the word storm in their name… Shadowshard? No… Silent Trinket? Maybe it’d shut Starlight’s voice up… but not her magic... Orb of Chaos? Too reminiscent of Discord! Goblet of Woe? No… Deathsong? HECK NO! ...Is that an item called FORBIDDEN FETISH?! Do I even want to know what that is?!”

Twilight’s about to give up as other items she comes across such as the Eye of Lost Hope, Tyrannical Talisman, Scroll of Faded Memories, and Glaive of Secrets didn’t sound like good ideas either and an angry Starlight was still tailing her. Twilight decides to break for it towards one last room and quickly goes around to any items.

Twilight’s sight then gets transfixed… onto a deep purple lamp.

______________________________________________________

NEXT

The High Cost

A scene from my Post-Control long fic. Read more on AO3

J A C K

“Rise and shine, buttercup. Naptime’s over.” The jibe came easy, but if she was being honest with herself?

Jack was scared shitless.

The kids didn’t need to see that, though. They needed their ‘psychotic biotic’ to be on top of her game and dishing out trash talk disguised as orders so they could all see home again.

Rodriguez stirred in her arms, blood leaking out her eyes, ears, nose and mouth. Christ, she was a mess. “Five…more… minutes… ma’am…”

Jack bit back tears and put as much steel in her voice as she could muster. “You f—forget how to duck? Come on Rodriguez. I’ve seen you survive one of those turian/krogan shitheads to the face. Don’t tell me you can’t handle a little space-squid backwash.”

They hadn’t been stationed at the front lines, but the clean-up crew still sometimes caught the tail end of a laser blast from the asshole Reaper standing guard over the beacon. Rodriguez had thrown up one hell of a barrier to save their asses, but she’d been out cold for almost five minutes after.

The Bellarmine twins stood watch at the doorway to the abandoned convenience store holding a damn good stealth barrier in place. Just enough dark matter to deflect incoming fire or shrapnel, but hardly enough to glow or sparkle to act like a big sign saying ‘I’m in here! Come kill me!’ Prangley’s idea. Kid had a hell of a brain when he remembered to use it.

“Throw me in, ma’am… I’ll show ‘em who’s….” Rodriguez passed out in her arms again, and Jack whispered a string of curses absolutely worth the swear jar tax. “Prangley, you find someone I can scream at yet?”

“Hang on…” Jason Prangley knelt over a comms device, tweaking settings and producing a whole lot static. “I had Major Coats for a minute. Sounds like they got someone through to the Beacon.”

“I don’t need a news update, Prangley, I need a goddamned EVAC!”

Jason put a hand to his ear, and held one up for quiet, listening. “This is strike team Grissom Zero. We’re at Carter and Tothill. Javalin position abandoned. Requesting nearest team location.”

Kid had a damn good head on his shoulders. He knew if he just asked for a shuttle he’d be one voice in hundreds shouting in the void. But offer to be reinforcements… Shit, he was too good to be stuck under her.

“Strike Team Grissom Zero, this is Aralakh Company.” A gravelly voice came over the radio. “We’ve got a horde of Banshees three buildings north if you want to try to regain your honor.” Of all the Krogans to pick up the damn line, it had to be the one she liked.

“Bite me.”

Grunt laughed over the radio, and Jason gave her a startled look. “Copy… Aralakh Company. We’ll make our way to you.” He set about packing up the equipment in his backpack—he was too weighed down for a biotic in the field, but they’d lost their Marine contingent in the reaper blast. Prangley had taken it upon himself to pick out the most important things and slog them around, arguing that his biotics were some of the weaker on the team. It was a bullshit line, and he knew it.

Give him enough time for his balls to drop, and he might even rival Shepard as a leader.

“Alright, kids. Everybody grab a juice. Reiley, I want you to carry Rodgriguez.” The left Bellarmine blanched at the command.

“I—I can’t carry her and hold a shield. There’s no way—”

“Relax, kid. I’ve got the shield for this one. This ain’t the class room, and you’re all two warps away from a nap. We’ve only gotta make it to the wall of angry Krogan.” He didn’t look convinced. She rolled her eyes. “Come on I’ll buy you a f—fancy pony.” It was enough. He broke into a wide smile.

“Only if it’s as pretty as Rodriguez’ unicorn, ma’am.” He nodded once to his sister, and she took over the barrier for him—though not as stealthy as when they’d been working together, it still held. He came over and hoisted the unconscious Rodriguez over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry—good form—and gave Jack a nod. “Ready to roll.”

Prangley, bless his bleeding heart, gave the order. He even had actual juice boxes he pressed into each kid’s hands as they filtered through the rubble into the next building. Unbelievable.

The next few minutes were agonizingly long. She had flashbacks to the collector base when she had to keep a swarm of skin-burrowing cyber-bugs off her squad in the middle of a fire fight. At least this time she didn’t have to specifically allow bullets through. And she was only being pelted occasionally by stray fire and shrapnel.

Seanne started to perk up. The break was doing them all some good, and the sugar had hit their blood stream. Jack felt a little better about putting them back on the field, even if they were going back to support for Grunt’s team.

Aralakh Company announced its presence with the whistle of a rocket launcher and an explosion of fire and chunks of flesh.

“Where the hell did they get a rocket launcher?” Prangley asked, in quiet awe.

“And where the hell is mine?” Seanne retorted. She moved up to the front, muscles tense and dark energy trailing her fists. “I call take down!”

“I’ll do set-up!” her brother grunted as he shifted Rodriguez’ still unconscious weight to free one hand. “Hey Teach, can you drop the wall? We’re gonna take out that Harvester before it circles back!”

She hesitated. She’d tried to hold them back from the front line once already. She was wrong—they were ready—but she couldn’t stand the thought of one of her kids getting hurt.

“Three seconds. Make it fast, Bellarmines.” She dropped the shields. Just like practice, Reiley threw his arm out and wrapped the Harvester in a stasis field of dark energy—good, he used to go to Singularity for everything.

“DIE!” Seanne screamed as she threw a blast of energy just after. She’d been working on her force. Her energy hit her brother’s field, and the opposing forces detonated—pulling in on itself before throwing the atmosphere outward and crushing the harvester’s head in the process.

“Save some for the infantry, Sunshine.” Jack put the shield back up at three seconds on the dot, just in time to deflect some assault rifle fire. More turian assholes.

“Got plenty more where—”

———————

Her head hurt.

Her face was wet. She tried to move, and realized she was on the ground.

It took a few moments to recall the flash of blue-white light as her own shield had collapsed in on itself. Something destabilized her biotics.

The kids.

She was on her feet, surveying the area. Rodriguez still unconscious on the ground. Reiley was on his knees not far, clutching his left arm. Something let out an ear-splitting scream.

“Seanne, Set-up!” Jason’s voice. Jack threw a half-hearted barrier around Reiley as she turned toward the voices.

Seanne stood with her feet planted, both hands outstretched holding up an area of dark energy around two banshees. Both of them doubled over from nerve pain.

Jason glanced over his shoulder. “Hey teach, Knock’ em down for me.”

He’d barely finished the words before she threw herself into a shockwave. The ground tore and shot gravel in every direction as the energy raced into Seanne’s area Reave.

The explosion knocked her on her ass, but she heard the dying scream of a Banshee. Bitch.

More gunfire nearby. She saw a familiar steel-blue armored head and stupid deadpan laugh. The calvary had arrived.

A Brute charged just past Reiley, but Prangley had dropped his pack of equipment and dashed forward to get him out of the way.

“Bellarmines, barriers up, and keep them that way.” Jack grabbed Rodriguez, and the group of them sprinted to the line of Krogan for cover.

“Did you steal my kill?” Grunt asked her as she passed, thrusting his head toward the dead Harvester corpse.

“Nah, you can blame that one on the Bellarmines.” She dropped Rodriguez behind cover, settling her into the least uncomfortable position she could manage. The girl moaned softly. Good. Still alive. “Maybe you should stick to the small ones. More your speed.”

Whatever ‘witty’ comeback Grunt had planned, it was cut off by another Banshee scream. Oh hell. They had only taken one out earlier.

Seanne screamed.

Her legs dangled helplessly in the air as the stretched out asari monster lifted her by her head. Jack lobbed a wall of dark energy at the thing, but not in time to stop the sickening crunch of the skull fracturing under pressure.

Seanne’s body dropped, limp.

Reiley charged, like an idiot. Jack tried to lash onto him, pull him back, do something to get his hot-headed ass back behind cover. He leaped into the air and grappled the Banshee, pinning it’s arms to the ground and knocking it out of the air.

“Teach, behind you!” Jason rocketed bast her and slammed into a Brute that had charged into the fray.

Okay, now she was pissed.

Dragging two fists into the air and down with all the fury she had been keeping squashed down, she ripped the Brute off it’s feet. It’s hulking mass slid through the rubble and into the line of fire of Aralakh Company.

By the time she turned her attention back to Reiley, he was trying to smash the Banshee’s head in with a rock.

“Damnit, Reiley! Give it space before you kill it.”

Her warning came too late. Time and space imploded in an ear-piercing screech. Reiley went down in the blast.

Enough was enough.

“Prangley, you take Rodriguez and you get your asses in cover. I don’t want to see your faces outside again until this fight is over.” Her body light up in blue flame, and she walked toward the next wave of reaper forces closing in.

“But what about—“

“Shut the hell up and get out of here!” Cerberus had stolen her life, but these Reaper assholes had stolen her family from her, and she was done playing nice.

It was time to pay the fucking piper.

How to Play as Starfire in DnD 5e

After finishing my build for Raven, I figured it was time I go through the entire team and do their builds. I’ve done Starfire before, but I wanted to give her another look before moving on to the boys. And if there’s interest, I’ll also consider doing Terra as well. But before I can build the alien princess, I must first decide how best to incorporate all of Starfire’s powers into one build.

Star Bolts

First we must answer what exactly are star bolts? And the best that I can answer is that they are orbs of condensed energy, which causes them to radiate heat and produce light. When it comes to how to implement them we need to keep a few things in mind: 1. Star bolts are quick and easy, and she hurls them in succession. 2. They most likely deal Fire or Radiant Damage 3. They are primarily a means of long-range combat, though she can use them in close quarters. 4. They can be condensed into a beam, shot out of her eyes, gathered into a large star bolt for a massive bomb, or to enclose herself in a massive star bolt that expands in every direction from her to hit all nearby enemies.

RACE Scourge Aasimar. Your body radiates light energy that harms everyone, including you.

BARBARIAN Wild Soul. When the Wild Soul Barbarian enters their rage, one of the things that can happen is firing a beam of radiant damage, but this is on a table of rolls, so it’s only a good choice if your DM would allow you to only ever use that effect. But it still only activates when you enter a rage, and can’t be used otherwise.

Zealot. While it doesn’t specify shooting beams of light, the Zealot Barbarian can deal extra radiant damage when they attack. Make her an unarmed fighter and she’s punching people with radiant hands.

MONK Sun Soul Monk. This subclass can shoot blasts and beams of radiant damage while also being good at melee combat. The downside is that Monks use Wisdom, and realistically, Wisdom should be Starfire’s lowest stat. She’s gullible, trusting, and easily misinformed. It’s sort of the same reason, I’m not even considering Light Cleric. Plus, Raven is the healer. If Starfire has healing, it takes away from Raven’s role as the support caster. Fortunately the damage is calculated with Dexterity and not Wisdom, so if crossed with a Barbarian for instance, she can still get the unarmored defense, just picking the Barbarian’s DEX+CON over the Monk’s Dex+WIS. But even then, Starfire is really more of a Stronk than a Monk.

Four Elements Monk. Fangs of the Fire Snake can add Fire to your punch which can travel 15 feet, and it’s treated as a punch, meaning that multi-classing this with a Barbarian or a Fighter can really put your muscle and Strength score to use, which is better than the Sun Soul that works by Dexterity.

Spells Light Firebolt Sacred Flame Burning Hands Guiding Bolt Aganazzar’s Scorcher Scorching Ray Fireball Flame Strike Sunbeam Sunburst

Features Magic Initiate: The only requirement necessary for this feat is to know a spell. If you’re a race like Aasimar that comes prepackaged with spells, you can absolutely use this to get cantrips like Firebolt and cast it even as a purely melee build.

Super strength

Goliath Stone’s Endurance can help reduce damage taken.

BARBARIAN By building a pure Barbarian to level 20, she can have a STR score of 24, which is definitely above mortal STR caps.

BRUTE FIGHTER The brute puts even more muscle behind everything they do, and deals extra damage.

Manual of Gainful Exercise While it is an item, it’s one that can raise Stafire’s strength above superhuman levels

Odysseys of Theros: Supernatural Gifts (Variant Rule) Unscarred. Basically the same thing as Goliath’s Stone Endurance.

Odysseys of Theros: Piety Boon (Variant Rule) Piety 50 to Magis, God of Slaughter Piety 50 to Iraos, God of Victory Piety 50 to Hesiod, God of the Sun Piety 50 to Purphoros, God of the Forge Piety 50 to Klothys, God of Destiny All of these have the potential to raise your Strength score by +2 to a maximum of 22, though of them, Iraos is probably the most appropriate.

Flight

Races Aasimar (Protector) - limited Aarakocra Dragonborn (with feat) Winged Bloodline Tiefling

Subclasses Draconic Bloodline Sorcerer Divine Soul Sorcerer Phoenix Sorcerer - limited Storm Sorcerer - limited Vengeance Paladin - limited Eagle Totem Warrior Barbarian - limited

Spells Fly Otherworldly Form (grow wings)

Items Winged Boots Wings of Flying

For race, I did consider Goliath as a valid candidate, as it allows Starfire to lift, carry and push heavy objects, reduce damage from hits she takes, and allows Starfire to easily tolerate cold climates, which don’t bother her. However, Starfire’s primary role is as the party’s blaster, dealing damage is her bread and butter. It’s hard to overlook the fact that the Aasimar adds radiant damage to its spell and melee attacks for 1 minute (10 turns) meaning that from level 3 on, once per long rest, she can deal up to 30-200 extra radiant damage if combat lasts the full 10 rounds. That extra damage is hard to ignore, especially with how much it adds up in the end. The Protector Aasimar gets to deal all that extra damage, and fly as well to boot, so we’ll pick it for Starfire’s race.

As a warrior princess, we’ll take the soldier background for Athletics, and swap out Intimidation for Acrobatics. Then we’ll pick Intimidation back up and pair it with Persuasion from our Sorcerer skills list.

We do good for the sake of goodness, not for law or personal interest. We’re Neutral Good.

SORCERER Phoenix 

Channeling more of Starfire’s comic book origins, we’ll make our powers stronger through our emotions and personality, like a Tamaranean. As a Phoenix Sorcerer, we’ll add our Charisma mod to fire spells when we use our Mantle of Flames feature. You could consider the Phoenix Spark which brings her back into the fight to be her warrior fighting spirit giving her a second wind in combat. Nourishing Flame could likewise be a flavor of her supernatural toughness, giving her the strength to carry on. Finally, her Form of the Phoenix lets her fly when she activates her Mantle of Flames.

The most important stats for Starfire are going to be Charisma, which controls the power of her star bolts, her Strength which should defy mortal expectations, and her Constitution, to let her shrug off blows. However, the only way to make everything maxed is with manuals to raise her physical stats.

STR 20 DEX 10 CON 16 INT 8 WIS 9 CHA 20

Starfire’s Spells

CANTRIPS Control Flames Create Bonfire Dancing Lights Firebolt Friends Green-Flame Blade Light

1ST LEVEL Burning Hands

2ND LEVEL Aganazzar’s Scorcher Dragon’s Breath (reflavor as eye-lasers) Scorching Ray

3RD LEVEL Fireball Fly (self only) Melf’s Minute Meteors

5TH LEVEL Immolation

6TH LEVEL Investiture of Flame Otherworldly Form Sunbeam

7TH LEVEL Delayed Blast Fireball Fire Storm

8TH LEVEL Sunburst

9TH LEVEL Meteor Swarm

Variant Rule: Mythic Odysseys of Theros

Unscarred. When you take damage, use a reaction to reduce the damage by 1d12 + your Constitution modifier. You can use this feature once per rest.

Piety. Iroas, God of Victory

+3 Cast Compelled Duel equal to your Charisma mod per long rest +10 Cast Crusader’s Mantle once per long rest, and have advantage against being frightened +25 As a bonus action, no creature can get advantage against you for 1 minute per long rest. +50 Increase your Strength or Charisma by 2 to a maximum of 22.

Looking back on our build, we’ve done pretty well. We have 4 methods of flight avilable to us: Radiant Soul, Fly spell, Otherworldly Form spell, and Form of the Phoenix. Her power is also very commendable, as she’s able to deal a lot of damage. Unfortunately, she is held back by a need to have maxed out STR which admittedly gets in the way of improving her Constitution, or taking a feat. Speaking of which, Elemental Adept would be nice for such a one-trick pony, but her Alien strength warrants such a high score. If you know your DM will be a bit more liberal with the manuals of gainful exercise or the manuals of bodily health, you can afford to spend an ASI gaining Elemental Adept, or if you don’t care about her STR score and only want to focus on her role as a magical blaster, then max out her Constitution instead and/or pick up Elemental Adept so nothing can resist your fire. But Starfire  does what she’s meant to do, hit like a truck, shrug off injuries, and rain down righteous fury from the sky.

Chapter 29: Starlight’s Mother, Part 5 - Closure At Last

Now that things settle down after the heartwarming moment between Starlight and her mother after telling her everything about when she traveled in time in a dangerous maneuver to a mother who spent most of her life protecting Equestria. Twilight continues on recapping the villains she’s faced.

Twilight: Ok… so now we’re back to Starlight saving Equestria from Chrysalis. This resulted in pretty much the rest of Chrysalis’ army to our side. So Starlight didn’t just help save us, she’s the very reason we have more allies then ever. She technically helped jumpstart our expansion to ally with as many nations outside of Equestria as possible before the school of friendship even started!

Sunset: Yes, having the Changelings on Equestria’s side certainly provide some unique allies. Helps that they get fed by simply walking around and feeling the different kinds of love that we ponies have.

Starlight: One of the Friendship School’s brightest students is a changeling!

Twilight: Indeed! Ocellus is a real book bug!

Sunset: So what else came after Queen Chrysalis’ return?

Twilight: After Queen Chrysalis was defeated again… I guess was when the Pillars of Equestria returned from Limbo along with the Pony of Shadows who just happened to be a friend they neglected named Stygian. We helped them mend their friendship, and now we have all of them walking around Equestria. It’s been kind of nice to have some ponies who know about the past to talk to

Sunset: The Pillars being back on Equestria is definitely very interesting. I imagine they all must of had some culture shock at first, but it is a great point to have ponies who lived so long ago to talk to.

Twilight: Though now we have spirit summoning, we’ll have even more to pull from! As long as they have a living relative, or if they were friends with the pillars, Celestia, or Luna.

Sunset nods

Twilight: After that though… other then the aforementioned return of Sombra. as well as Chrysalis and Tirek also returning one more time there was only one more... Though you’ll probably kind of laugh at first, given she was just a little filly… a crazy evil one… but a little filly nonetheless.

Sunset: Heh heh heh, ok… What was her name?

Twilight: Cozy Glow

*THUNDER BOOM*

The moment Twilight said Cozy Glow, time essentially froze for Sunset and the loudest thunder boom from outside is heard. Startling the group as once again Sunset Shimmer gets a huge jog to her memory. The group watches in horror as Sunset writhes around as if having a seizure. She lets out a huge scream, and lays on the floor.

Firelight: Shimmy?!

Starlight: Mother?! What’s wrong?!

Sunset heaves as if to breathe hard once again, and slowly gets back up. Once she has recovered, she faces the group with a determined face.

Sunset: …I remember everything now.

Starlight: Remember everything…? You mean… your death…? and who was responsible?

Sunset nods

Sunset: Cozy… Cozy Glow was there... The three anarchists were her and her parents!

The whole room gasps

Starlight: But wait… you died more then two decades ago… Cozy was just a filly when we met her… how does that possibly work?!

Sunset: Allow me… to explain…

I’ll begin with saying who Cozy’s parents were. Her father was a unicorn named Cheque Mace, who was a burly stallion, his Cutie Mark was the king piece of a Chessboard. Like said piece of the chessboard, he’s slow, but he was calculating and strong. Cozy’s mother was Glitterani an average sized pegasus mare. her cutie mark being the queen piece of a Chessboard. Like the Queen piece, she could be quite fast and dangerous.

What they had in common they were both narcissistic psychopaths. They could not feel love, and their only definition of friends were if they did something for them and/or gave them power, their only reason for marrying and giving birth to Cozy was to have more ponies in their ranks. As even back then, even the more antagonistic ponies wanted nothing to do with their sociopathic tendencies or thought their goal was insane.

Their goal was to take all of the magic in Equestria, either to take it for themselves so they can rule the world. Or if failing that… make sure everypony is magicless in the twisted statement of “if they couldn’t have it, no one else will”. They seeked 6 powerful artifacts capable of being conduits to gather all the magic of Equestria in one spot...

The entire rest of the group gasp recalling that’s exactly what Cozy Glow did under the School of Friendship

Sunset: To be perfectly clear of what would of even happened if they managed to succeed for long. Was that it wasn’t going to really be possible for either of them to gain power from collecting all the magic of Equestria. It most likely was going to result in Equestria becoming magicless, but even if these 3 knew that’d be the most likely result. They didn’t care, they wanted to inflict pain and suffering on the entire world.

I have no idea why they got so evil, but it may be safer to just say they were just born pretty messed up. Because there was not going to be anything redeemable about them, the elements that make up Friendship never occur to them.

They’d rather lie and mislead then be honest.

They have a twisted sense of loyalty that they say only applies to them

They are not generous at the least, and would refuse to give even the most basic needs.

They have no kindness in their hearts.

The only thing that makes them laugh is the suffering of others.

And the magic of friendship is only power to them...

I had to try to take them out somehow someway before I fully retired, as I was afraid they’d fulfill their plan within the next few years before Celestia found Twilight. I could nip them in the bud before things really got bad, and while Cheque Mace had some skill as a unicorn. I would wipe the floor with him on a 1-on-1 duel, Glitterani was fast but nothing my magic couldn’t handle, and Cozy Glow was the most unknown but she was a just a little filly who was also a Pegasus. Perhaps if there’s one thing I underestimated the most about them, was Cozy’s manipulation tactics…

*Flashback*

Sunset had just arrived in the location that would later become New Haven. The train tracks leading here hadn’t even been made yet, and there was only one building at this time that had a front and back entrance, the back leading to Nightmare Cliffs. Sunset had received a tip that’s where Cheque Mace, Glitterani, and their young daughter Cozy Glow fled once they caught wind Sunset was after them. As Sunset approaches the building, she can hear the faint sounds… of a crying child. Sunset gets a closer look, and finds a little pink pegasus filly straight in the middle of the building with curly light blue hair and bows, she had no Cutie Mark yet.  

Sunset identifies her as Cozy Glow. She approaches cautiously. Cozy Glow looks toward the front entrance and sees Sunset. Continuing to cry to try and get the sympathy of Sunset.

Cozy Glow: A…ar…are y-you… S-Sunset Shimmer? You’re the Princesses’ protege, aren’t you?

Sunset: Not anymore, really. But even so, I am here to put you and your parents into justice. You will never take the magic of Equestria away.

Cozy: Whaaaaaat? Me facing justice? But I’m only a filly! I’m not responsible for my parents’ actions!

Sunset: Even so, I don’t know what they taught you. We may try to at least see if you can be changed... if you can prove that you’re different enough from your parents.

Cozy: Oh, Golly! But I am! I-i-i-i have no choice to go with them because they’re my p-p-parents… they take p-p-pleasure in a-a-abusing me physically and emotionally. And when it comes to crimes, if I refused, they would k-k-kill m-me… and they tell me that if I was captured, I’d just end up r-r-rotting in the Canterlot dungeons… But you said they’d try to help?

Sunset isn’t completely sure she can take Cozy’s words at face value. But she wouldn’t put it past the other two to end up having a daughter that wants to be good but they abuse her to the point where they force her to go along with their plan.

Sunset: Yes, if we deem that you can be a good pony in the way your parents can’t… Equestria would welcome you...

Cozy: Wow! That sounds so swell, Sunset Shimmer! Wanna be friends?

Cozy looks at Sunset with a big grin and puppy-dog eyes.

Sunset: I… guess?

Suddenly a voice from just outside is heard

Cheque Mace: COZY!

Glitterani: How dare you betray us! We ought to destroy you along with Scumset…

Cozy: Ahhhh! Help me, Sunset! My parents are here!

Sunset puts up a determined face, and steps in front of Cozy to protect her

Sunset: Cheque Mace and Glitterani! Your life as criminals are coming to an end today! And with any luck, Cozy will be a better pony then you two ever will be.

Cheque Mace: I think you are mistaken, for it is your life that is ending today.

Sunset: Not when I have a reason to get back, once I’m finished with you.

Cheque Mace: Oh... are you talking about your “darling” Fi-Fi

Sunset goes wide-eyed

Sunset: How do you know about me and Firelight? I never even told the Princess about him…

Cheque Mace: I have more eyes then you think, Sunset. Maybe when I’m done with you, I’ll give him a visit. And show them your decapitated head!

As Cheque laughs evilly, Sunset rages and blasts both Cheque Mace and and Glitterani out of the building and gives chase leaving Cozy behind in the building. Sunset confronts Cheque and Glitterani near the edges of Nightmare Cliffs. They stand at first at a standstill, a decent length from each other in a triangle formation. Sunset on one point, Cheque Mace to the right of Sunset’s view, and Glitterani on the left.

Glitterani takes the first move, speeding towards Sunset and spins around fast enough to create a tornado. Forcing Sunset to use magic to bend some earth around her hooves so she remains stationary, so she isn’t blown away by the tornado. This however also leaves Sunset vulnerable to Cheque’s lasers without protection. Sure enough as Sunset entrenches herself, Cheque fires lasers but Sunset knows defensive shield spells that easily protect her. Glitterani just trying to fly around to distract Sunset and force her into putting down her shield just enough for Cheque Mace to get a direct hit on Sunset. But suddenly…

*THUNDER BOOM*

A lightning strike startles Glitterani as she wasn’t too far from the bolt as it struck. She stops in the air, covering her ears after the large boom, and shock of almost being seriously hurt or worse. This leaves a clean shot for Sunset to make a small hole in her shield, so she can target Glitterani. Sunset fires her shot, and she gets a direct hit on her right wing. Rendering it useless for certainly well past this fight. Glitterani falls dangerously close to just off the cliffs but just manages to land at close to the edge.

This also gets rid of the tornado that Sunset had to keep herself stationary for, now free to move however she feels. Leaving Sunset only having to deal with Cheque Mace on a 1-on-1. An advantageous position for her. Off in the distance a faint laugh of a child is heard, but Sunset ignores it as she locks eyes with Cheque Mace. The stare down as either waits for the first move.

Finally, Cheque is the first one to flinch as he fires a large blast at Sunset’s direction. She smugly smiles and says

Sunset: Check. Mate.

Just as she gracefully dodges via a backflip that transitions into a teleport closer to Cheque and fires a counter laser that curves straight at him

Cheque Mace: Noooooooooo!

The laser hits him off to the side, and off the cliff. Sunset assumes he’ll teleport before he hits the ground. Though a thud is heard, followed by the faint sounds of a splash a moment later.

All that was left now was the injured Glitterani. Sunset had basically already won swiftly, though as Sunset approached Glitterani. The sounds of a laughing child get progressively louder every so often.

Sunset: It’s over Glitterani, once I get you and your husband’s injured selves to Canterlot you are facing justice to the full extent of the law.

Glitterani just grumbles as Sunset gets closer, but as she looks up. She sees a small silhouette that is either moving forward or sideways in straight line like the Rook piece of the chessboard, and she grins smugly.

Glitterani: Not yet!

Sunset raises an eyebrow as Glitterani starts laughing, thinking she’s trying to comfort herself with sociopathic fits of laughter. Sunset thinks nothing of it as the silhouette up in the sky gets to just above where Sunset stands… and something is dropped from it. The unwary Sunset still facing Glitterani.

Sunset: Just what are you laughing a-

*SMASH*

*CRACK*

A large rock hits Sunset right at the base of her horn. It’s weight puts pressure, cracking the horn before ultimately it bends too far, and falls off, The rock also hits hard on Sunset’s forehead. She screams out in pain, and falls off on her side. Her vision keeps fading in and out of blurriness as she lays there. A full-on concussion. She also has a black eye as part of the falling rock scraped her still open right eye as it fell off. It takes a few minutes before finally Sunset can look around, she looks up wondering where the rock could of possibly come from and she now has a clear view of who dropped it.

It was Cozy Glow, who just looks at the scene with glee and sadistically jokes

Cozy: Ooooooops, golly… did I do that? Ehehehehehe

Sunset rages, she sits back up and yells at Cozy

Sunset: What… I thought you said weren’t on your parents side! You… you… you liar!

Cozy: Hey, I didn’t totally lie. They do abuse me… But I never said I didn’t like it! Ahahahahaha! Oh and by the way… Mom! I have my cutie mark!

Cozy glow shows her flank and both Sunset and Glitterani see a rook shaped cutie mark. Glitterani laughing.triumphantly

Glitterani: Hahahaha! Cozy, you are indeed one of us!

The rook cutie mark now etched into Cozy’s flank confirms this was a manipulative plan she came up with her parents the entire time.

Cozy Glow: Too bad, poor dad isn’t going to get the chance to see it. I think he had a pretty big tumble and water’s probably filling his lungs right now! But meh, we don’t need him. Right, mom?

Not even an ounce of empathy, Sunset realized then and there that the apple didn’t far from the tree. A rotten apple from a poisonous tree at that, as Cozy was just like her parents. Falling for Cozy’s lie has already cost Sunset her horn. But her magic is the only thing that’s going to reach Cozy from up there if she’s going to get any payback, so despite intense pain still throbbing from the loss of her horn. She decides to fire something, without a full horn to truly focus her magic... whatever is fired at Cozy could be almost anything. Firing something makes the pain in her head worse but something does get fired straight up at Cozy Glow.

Cozy sees the approaching blast, and freaks out before dodging just before it hits. She then proceeds to mock Sunset.

Cozy: Haha! Missed me, Shamset!

But then a slight boom is heard from up above her. Cozy at first thinks nothing of it, thinking it was just thunder. But as she looks up, the blast that Sunset blasted starts expanding into a transparent white dome with star symbols on it, Cozy is too close to it as it starts to suck her up like a vacuum cleaner. She tries to fly out of the dome’s suction but she loses strength quick, and she screams as she’s flung straight up into the dome. The dome then disappears with no sign of Cozy.

Glitterani: C-c-cozy? Cozy?! Cozy, where are you?!

Sunset takes this chance to laugh herself, albeit still through some pain. She approaches Glitterani at the edge of the cliff.

Glitterani: Stop laughing! What did you do to Cozy?!

Sunset: I didn’t think you’d have concern for anypony, even your daughter. But I’m pretty sure what got Cozy was a time travel spell. That dome is pretty classic Starswirl. But... because she broke my horn. I have no control of how far she went. She could of been sent some years to the past, maybe years into the future, or maybe she’s been sent back to the age of the dinosaurs! She may be nothing but dino-chow right now!

Sunset just looking down with a smug face. But then Glitterani gets angry, suddenly leaps up and grabs Sunset pinning her down on the ground.

Glitterani: If we’re going down… I’m taking you with me!

Glittering starts rolling them both close to the edge. This was a fall neither was likely to survive without Sunset being able to teleport to safety.

Sunset: What are you doing?! We’re both going to die if you roll us off!

Glitterani: That’s kind of the idea, you fool…

Sunset: No, wait! Please! I have a family!

Glitterani: And I had one too… before you ripped that away just now. This was exactly why we had you follow us here to these cliffs. We put on a brave face but we knew deep down you were too good... but then Cozy plotted with us a way in which even if we fail... at least we weren’t going down alone... plus whatever happens... no one will know what happened here... You’ve doomed your family to despair! And the best part is… they’ll never know what happened to you!

Sunset: Noooooooooooooooo!

Holding on tight to Sunset to make sure she fatally plunges with her. Glitterani rolls them off the edge and they start plunging down to certain death. Sunset has to act quick, and try something with her horn as it’s the only move she’s got. Sunset charges up what remains of her horn. Though Glitterani sees this and puts a hoof over the hole that was Sunset’s horn. Inside Sunset’s head a burning sensation gets hotter, hotter, and hotter as the pressure of her magic being blocked by Glitterani's hoof makes it build higher and higher until…

*BOOM*

Just a few feet before hitting the water. A big explosion from Sunset’s head envelops the two falling ponies. And if there was anything left of either of them… They were cleaned up by hungry sharks and other meat-eating water predators to eat their fill with. Sunset Shimmer and Glitterani had met their end. Cheque Mace as implied by Cozy had also fallen, he hit his head amidst falling, going unconscious as he fell into the raging waters, body sinking, and thus ultimately drowned. While Cozy was sent into a then unknown time.

*Flashback ends*

((Story continues after the break))

The entire room gasps again having been told the whole story of how Sunset died. Glitterani was ultimately the one who forced Sunset to essentially blow herself up, but without an assist from Cozy Glow breaking Sunset’s horn… Sunset would of most likely survived. So indeed, Cozy Glow had a role in the death of Sunset Shimmer. The room stays silent just processing the story.

Twilight: So… if I heard what happened correctly… Cozy Glow was sent through time… and it just happened to be somewhere over two decades into the future… where at some point she caught wind of the School of Friendship… and she manipulated us in order to infiltrate as a student in order to eventually do what she and her parents wanted to do… with assistance from Tirek.

Sunset: Wait, Cozy actually ended up collecting all of Equestria’s magic?!

Twilight: Yes… and she nearly trapped me and my friends in Tartaurus in the meantime, plus she also had your daughter trapped in the sphere of magic collected. It was thanks to a particular team of 6 students plus the Tree of Harmony intervening under the school that she was defeated. And magic was returned.

Sunset: I see… good that she was defeated quickly enough… otherwise I’m sure by now nearly all life would be dying right now…

Twilight: Huh? What do you mean?

Sunset: Remember what you learned from Jinn? Our souls are magic too, although Cozy and her Parents plan can’t collect soul magic… and neither can Tirek for that matter…  Since soul magic is a lot less tangible, as what it becomes is determined how they lived their life

But without the magic that can be taken such as the casting magic Unicorns have, Pegasi’s flight plus weather-changing abilities, as well as Earth ponies ability to tend the land… Equestria would become a depressing place that can’t do anything about the dark magic that would slowly envelop the world. And with so many unhappy or worse inhabitants, the death of life everywhere would only increase the dark magic, hastening the extinction of life. The world would return to the state of when the Sun and Moon did not move. But there’s too many clouds made of dark magic to see either sunlight or moonlight on top of it.

Twilight can only be reminded of a certain timeline she, Spike, and Starlight saw during their time travel confrontation.

Twilight: That wasteland me and Starlight saw in that timeline… That might have been if Cozy Glow and/or her parents succeeded…

Starlight’s has had her head lowered down for the whole time since hearing the full story of how her mother died, though she briefly raises her head up and goes wide-eyed having heard that the final timeline they saw could have likely been the result of Cozy succeeding. She lowers her head back down, but she seems to have a rage building up inside.

Sunset: Twilight… where is Cozy Glow right now, by chance?

Twilight: She’s trapped in stone alongside Tirek and Queen Chrysalis.

Sunset: *phew* That is such a relief. Of those three, Cozy deserves to stay in stone forever… she may just be a filly. But trust me in saying there’s no redeeming her.

I understand Chrysalis has been stubborn, but perhaps the right circumstance could do it if we can reconnect her with her army... since most of them were her own children.

I doubt Tirek could be changed easily, but he has family issues in regards to his father and his brother Scorpan that could be perhaps worked out to perhaps make him less antagonistic…

But Cozy is a lost cause that must be kept in stone, forever. It’d take outright brainwashing to erase the evil in her heart and there’s no guarantee that even works. I don’t want to know what kind of Dark magic would be released if she died.

Twilight: I admit from appearances alone… it’d seem like Cozy was the most capable of changing… but given what you’ve told me she’s done… and recalling that timeline… not even Tirek and Chrysalis wanted to wreck Equestria that badly… them ruling Equestria would still be bad… but they mostly intended on ruling over us… with an iron hoof or fist probably…  but still not exactly ending all life on the planet…

Rainbow: So wait… if Tirek, Chrysalis, and Cozy Glow’s team up succeeded in defeating us… that could of resulted in a civil war where of all situations… Tirek and Chrysalis would be the good guys?!

Sunset: By comparison… yes.

Applejack: Gosh, that’s bleak…

Apple Bloom: Ah can’t believe we helped such a monster!

Sweetie Belle: We were such suckers…

Scootaloo: If we had known Cozy was like that, we would of left her crying!

Sunset: It’s ok you three, one of Cozy’s skills was manipulation. She fooled me too when I fell for her act of not actually being in cahoots with her parents.

Rainbow Dash: And from what I heard from Sandbar and his friends at school… she had almost all of our students against them!

Twilight: She also manipulated me when joining the school in the first place, when she came into my office to enroll. She started with a sob story about how she was an orphan… and while it wasn’t exactly a lie that she was orphaned… I couldn’t tell her parents were two of the worst ponies to ever exist… let alone that Cozy Glow was from more then 2 decades ago in the past…

Though actually speaking of Cozy’s parents… if they died… what did the dark magic that came out of them become?

Sunset: The dark magic from the deaths of Cheque Mace and Glitterani unleashed a twin pair of strong Hurricanes in the ocean they died in, likely devastating any coastal cities in their path. Large enough for me to see on the planet from the soul shield. These hurricanes return every few years, but each time thanks to the cities putting up more defenses, as well as the strength of friendship magic increasing, thus weakening dark magic everywhere. Just like how the Windigoes are hardly a threat any more, those hurricanes eventually will amount to nothing.

Starlight finally speaks up

Starlight: So… if I’m hearing from you right, mother… dark magic being unleashed from the death of someone evil can be beaten back with time…?

Sunset: Well yes… but it’d still be safer to make sure they don’t di-

Starlight’s voice and anger rises with each sentence

Starlight: And not get any ounce of satisfying retribution for her role in your murder?

For manipulating me and my friends, trapping me in a sphere of Equestria’s magic… and nearly dragging me wherever it was going to go?!

For being part of the reason I never got to know you are until now?!

For being the reason my early life was so terrible?!

For trying to remove all magic from Equestria?!

AND FOR TRYING TO KILL ALL LIFE ON THE PLANET?!

I HAD THAT LITTLE MONSTER IN MY BUCKING OFFICE AT THE SCHOOL! IT IS FAR PAST TIME THIS BRAT FACED DISCIPLINE! AND SAID DISCIPLINE SHOULD BE ETERNAL DETENTION AS A PILE OF RUBBLE!

The group doesn’t know what Starlight’s about to do, but there’s plenty of concerned faces. Meanwhile, Starlight pulls out a piece of portal gum, and starts chewing.

Twilight: Starlight, what are you doing?!

Starlight blows the bubble, Starlight manages to spawn a portal to the exact spot where Cozy is trapped in stone. And she starts charging a powerful laser.

Sunset sees what she’s doing and beckons Twilight to stop her

Sunset: Twilight! You have to stop Starlight before she kills Cozy!

Twilight: On it!

Starlight blasts her laser that will both fit into the portal, and if it hits Cozy’s statue will most certainly shatter it, and thus kill Cozy. But before it even crosses the portal, Twilight gets in front and forms a shield, blocking Starlight’s blast. Starlight stops firing to speak.

Starlight: Twilight! Why are you protecting Cozy?! You heard my mother… she’s an irredeemable psychopath, and if the tables were turned… she wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing! And even if her death does release devastating dark magic… we’ll have the power to shrink it in time!

Twilight: I agree that Cozy is never going to change, but unleashing some unknown, devastating form of dark magic on what will most certainly be all of Ponyville isn’t worth the immediate satisfaction of a sudden execution! Cozy is already facing justice as a statue! You’ll just put everypony in Ponyville in danger just for the brief moment of satisfaction of killing in revenge, even if it sounds justified!

Starlight thinks for a moment before trying to blast through anyway, despite Twilight’s insistence. So Sunset puts up a determined face to talk to her daughter.

Sunset: If you won’t listen to Twilight, maybe you’ll listen to me as your mother… Yes, Cozy was partly responsible for my death. I hate her about as much as you do for it, but this isn’t the answer!

Starlight stops firing, and her rage shifts into sadness and overflowing tears

Starlight: Why isn’t it?! She didn’t directly kill you… but she may as well have! The circumstances of your death was the true reason I turned to darkness. I couldn't control what happened then, but I know what I can do to rectify that!

You would have been fine if Cozy didn’t break your horn! 

I would of had a loving mother such as you around so I wouldn’t have had such disdain for something that should have been one of the happiest moments in my life… receiving my cutie mark and knowing the pony I was destined to be… 

AND on top of that she planned on ending life as we know it!

So what if Ponyville has to deal with something like a storm of dark magic every so often… 

Won’t it feel like justice to you?!

Sunset: No! Because whatever damage the dark magic from Cozy’s death does could endanger more lives then it’s worth in exchange for the brief satisfaction of ending Cozy’s life. Letting anger fuel you as you end a life will also only end up bubbling up potential dark magic from your own soul’s magic.

Starlight: Didn’t you technically kill Cheque Mace when you blasted him off the cliff?

Sunset: In a way, I suppose I did.... But I didn’t do it intentionally, I was thinking he was going to teleport before he fell… I didn’t know he had become unconscious until Cozy implied he was dead. This is a world where emotion and morality influence our magic power and determine what our soul does after we pass, whether we add additional strength to the soul shield or become vengeful dark magic that wrecks the planet.

Putting our harshest and/or most stubborn villains in stone is our way of punishing them harshly without them unleashing dark magic that can hurt others. Killing them, even beyond the ensuing dark magic devastation… may end up only making Cozy a martyr for potential villains of the future...

Starlight: Wouldn’t leaving a statue just make something potential villains idolize or even try to free them if they’re magically adept?

Sunset: That is a possibility, but not if we outright properly educate who Cozy was and why she needs to stay as a statue… Just look at her face… even I know that Cozy’s scared look as she’s petrified is another of her manipulation moves. Before turning to stone, she acted quickly to look like she was scared and innocent, so she could perhaps one day fool an onlooker to think we petrified an innocent pony…

Or… if we destroyed her as a statue… make it seems like we executed an innocent little filly… and whatever comes down on top of Ponyville would seem like retribution from nature to some who would want to follow down Cozy’s path of psychopathic evil. In that sense, you could end up only creating more Cozy Glow’s...

Starlight’s finally stands down and takes a moment to calm down, though still at least gives a suggestion. Meanwhile, Twilight take the opportunity to closes the portal as Starlight speaks.

Starlight: Alright… I think I understand… but I think at the very least if we’re going to consider the future like this, we should then think about putting Cozy in a place where a potential future villain like her could not use the statue to idolize it or even get freed by someone adept in magic enough to reverse petrification. Do we have a super secure facility? Or you want to try putting Cozy in Tartaurus again only this time she’s a statue ON TOP of being trapped there?

Twilight ponders something

Twilight: I think I may have an idea… what if I put Cozy’s Statue in it’s own pocket dimension. And much like our gum portals. Only those with the magical authorization can access it. What good is Cozy’s manipulating petrified pose, if almost no one’s going to be able to see her?

Starlight gives a smug look that harkens back a little to her old ways before Twilight and the others befriended her.

Starlight: Hahahaha! Almost makes me want to be able to at least free Cozy’s head temporarily just so I can see her face as she hears where we’re leaving her!

Rainbow: Geez Starlight, seems you still have a little bit of that evil dictator side of you

Starlight: Maybe, but can you blame me? Cozy’s part of why I was led on the path to become one in the first place. I’m not actually serious about freeing Cozy’s head, I’m just saying... it’d be satisfying.

Sunset decides to play along with a bit of an exaggerated disappointed mother.

Sunset: Starlight Glimmer... enough of that talk and I may have to ground you for the first time! *giggles*

Starlight: Maybe, I should let you ground me just to have a taste of the mother you would have been *giggles* I even know a spell where I can play out if you had been around for my childhood

Sunburst: You mean that spell you used to try to get me to play Dragon Pit with you again?

Sunset: Oh I loved the Dragon Pit board game! I played it alot with my brother when we were kids. I would of played with you and/or Sunburst almost all the time. Too bad I won’t be able to roll dice and move the pieces. Iiiii can’t exactly touch objects aside from the floors, I have to sort of float since I can kind of fly in order to sort of go on stuff like beds, and I can’t float stuff with my horn anymore.

Starlight: Always the option to have somepony roll and move your player for you!

Sunset: That is true!

Starlight: But in all seriousness... knowing Cozy will cause no more harm nor be able to potentially manipulate somepony who doesn’t know better about her will be great to know.

Sunset turns toward Twilight

Sunset: Putting Cozy’s statue in a pocket dimension is a great idea. And in fact if you know somepony else who might have devastating effects somewhere should they die, you should probably do the same thing.

Twilight: The only other villain I can think of on that level is Zathir, I’ll definitely have to petrify him as well, and put him in the same pocket dimension as Cozy.

But until then, I think now that we’ve solved everything. We’re going to start to head back, we ought to go see how Applejack’s parents are doing with Big Mac, Sugar Belle, and Granny Smith.

Starlight: If it’s ok, Twilight… I’m going to stay the night here, to spend some more time with my mother. Since pony Spirits can be down here indefinitely, right?

Twilight: This is the first time we’re having spirits down but I suppose I can let you stay the night here with your mother. Though I’m not sure what will happen if Sunset tries to sleep, though given I’m part spirit… I might at least have a hypothesis... if a spirit goes to sleep… They may go back to the soul shield, similar to how when I go to sleep, I go back into my bottle.

Sunset: That feels like it makes sense. After all, our comet-like forms are kind of also us sleeping

Firelight is a little distraught.

Firelight: Shimmy… you’ll go back up there in the soul shield if you sleep?! I… was almost kind of looking forward to being able to have you sleep with me again… I’ve felt so lonely hoping one day you’d come back… cause I didn’t know you were dead this whole time…

Sunset smiles, touched that her husband thought about that.

Sunset: Well, I still could. I just have to not go to sleep myself. How about this… We’ll sleep in our bed tonight, and I’ll only go back to the soul shield sometime after you’ve fallen asleep. And if you want to see me again tomorrow or any other point. Just get Starlight or yourself to go see Spike to summon me down again.

Starlight: We also have a wedding between 2 of Twilight’s friends in Saddle Arabia to attend in two days. We could… perhaps summon you down so you can attend if you’d like.

Sunset: That sounds lovely, I won’t exactly know much about the 2 being wedded. But if perhaps you and Fi-Fi are going, I could definitely go.

Starlight: I think I was going to go regardless, but It’d definitely be great to see you there.

Firelight: I wasn’t going to go initially… but if you’re going to be summoned down for the wedding. Then I absolutely have to be there.

Sunset: Then of course, summon me back down on the day after tomorrow’s wedding and I’ll be there the whole way.

The room cheers and claps to have a spirit attendee.

Applejack: Heh, ya’ll could even become spirit friends with mah parents if we invite them too!

Twilight: That does sound like a pretty good idea.

Rainbow: Hey everypony! Don’t look now, but I think the storm’s over!

The whole group walks back outside, and perhaps appropriately with the skies clear… the sun itself is setting in a fitting fashion with the return of Sunset Shimmer. Starlight walks on over to the Cutie Mark Crusaders as Sunset continues talking with either the Elements of Harmony and/or Firelight

Starlight: I want to thank you three for starting me on the road to find out who I am. You deduced that I inherited my magic power from my mother. And now I know that I’m the daughter of a former Celestia protege. Whatever I do with the magic I inherited from my mother is up to me and me alone to decide. For now, I intend to use it to lead and protect the School of Friendship. But who knows what the future holds.

Apple Bloom: No problem, Starlight! Ah’m happy ya’ll got t’ see ya mother fo’ the first time just like ah did today!

Sweetie: Yeah! Your mother is amazing

Scootaloo: Definitely, one of the coolest ponies I’ve ever seen!

Starlight now turns to Sunburst and Trixie.

Starlight: So Trixie, what do you think of my mother?

Trixie: Your mother’s great, Starlight. Now I know why you’ve always been so talented. And… I’ll admit the full story of what happened made me cry a few times… ok that’s an understatement… I cried most pretty much the whole time hearing how much your mother’s death impacted your life…

Sunburst: I might just stay the night in Sire’s Hollow with you as well Starlight. Not just for my own mother and my father being back for good, but getting to know my long-lost Aunt.

Starlight: Plus, we’re cousins now… that means your plan-filled mother is my own Aunt heh heh

Stellar: That’s riiiiight, my newfound niece!

Stellar smiles and boops Starlight on her nose

Sunspot: We welcome you to the family, Starlight. We already thought of you fondly when we didn’t know you were related, but thanks to all the reveals we got today from summoning my sister… you are always welcome in me and Stellar’s household.

Firelight and Sunset walk on over. Firelight in particular turning to Stellar Flare.

Firelight: Hey Stellar, I have a suggestion…

Stellar: Yes, Firelight?

Firelight: You know the museum that we agreed to build over there?

Firelight points to the construction currently being built

Stellar: Yes, what about it?

Firelight: I want to give it an official name

Stellar: Huh? Isn’t it just going to be called the Sire’s Hollow Museum?

Firelight: That was the plan originally… but I think I have a better name and purpose for it. I’d like to call it… the Sunset Shimmer Museum. It’ll still have a section dedicated to our town, but mainly because Sunset was going to make this place her home. I think it’d have a greater purpose to sharing the world who she was. As not everypony’s going to be around for when we summon her spirit down again.

Sunset gasps, but is ultimately touched that Firelight would dedicate an entire museum to her.

Sunset: Oh Fi-Fi, you’re so sweet… You don’t need to dedicate the whole museum to me…

Firelight: Maybe I don’t need to, but I really, really want to. You deserve some recognition for keeping Equestria safe before Princess Twilight would just about finish the job by providing the peace we have now.

Suddenly, Celestia walks up from behind.

Celestia: A museum dedicated to Sunset sounds like a great idea, I still have plenty of cherished items back in the Canterlot castle related to Sunset’s time as my student that I can donate.

Sunspot: I guess that’s where I can put your horn, sis… if that isn’t too much of a reminder of what happened…

Sunset: It is a little grim… but hey, plenty of museums have real skeletons. It’d make sense that the only trace left of my body would be at my own museum.

Starlight: An interesting thing about this is because we can summon you down here, you’ll technically be able to be a tour guide for your own posthumous museum!

Sunset: Ha, that might be fun. It’d certainly make it more interactive. Maybe I can even play a bit of a prank on some guests thinking I’m just a highly advanced magic hologram. And then at some point do something that surprises guests when I suddenly say or answer something that would be impossible if I was a pre-recorded hologram!

Starlight: Now that would be funny!

Sunset: Can’t be there every day of course, but for special days I’d love to do it.

Stellar: The museum’s far from finished anyway, but we’ll love to have you back down for opening day when it is.

Sunset: Absolutely!

Sunset turns to Princess Celestia

Sunset: On another subject… Princess Celestia… I think I heard in passing somewhere that you’ll be retiring with Twilight taking your position. I don’t know what you plan to do in your retirement, but know I’ve always been proud of serving you. I know you kick yourself hard for things you see as mistakes fair or not, like Princess Luna becoming Nightmare Moon or not coming with me for my last fateful mission...

But know for every failure, you’ve maintained Equestria in balance for long enough for ponies like me, Twilight, and my daughter to make Equestria an even better place. Everypony in Equestria owes a gratitude for you whether they realize it or not. And if you get Spike to summon more of your many generations of loyal staffers and guards, they’ll say many of the same things I’m saying now. Without you… Equestria would of fallen apart long ago.

Celestia’s eyes well up with tears of joy

Celestia: Thank you, Sunset. I… really appreciate hearing that…

And um, Sunset. I can wait a little while before you do. But on an occasion you’re summoned back down, I’d really like you to meet my sister Luna.

Sunset: Oh yes, I’d love to get to meet her as well.

Celestia: In your younger days, you actually reminded me quite a bit of Luna when she herself was younger. I think you’d two would make great friends.

Sunset: I knew how much you missed her even back then, so I know she must be amazing. So I will definitely cherish seeing her for the first time. Maybe I’ll see her if you’re both at the wedding

Celestia: Yes, me and Luna will be attending the wedding. That’ll be the perfect opportunity for you to meet my sister for the first time.

Sunset approaches Celestia for another good long hug.

The group now splits between the family of both Starlight and Sunspot. The Elements of Harmony, Spike, The Cutie Mark Crusaders, Trixie, and Princess Celestia are next to a portal to Ponyville. As they all wave to each other.as they start heading out the portal. Twilight the last one to go back, and gives her goodbye before walking in.

Twilight: We’ll see you all at the wedding in two days! Goodbye Starlight, Sunset, and family!

And thus a family fully reunited after years of mystery and hardships. The family all hugging each other one more time before talking the night away. Sunset will return to the soul shield during the nighttime once everypony was asleep. But there was now a sense of closure for the entire family

UP NEXT: Chapter 30: A Pear-fect Reunion

the youngest nieces of Celestia and Luna

Cozy Glow and Princes Ordomia

two relativity plot important characters to my next gens story lol

Bios under the cut.

Name: Cozy Glow Nickname(s): Age: 27 Pronouns: She/her Identity: Trans Lesbian crush/relationship: Dating Sweetie Belle Parents: Adoptive Aunts Celestia and Luna Sibling: Princess Ordomia Special Talent: Strategy Occupation: Personal Gaurd for Ordomia Location: Canterlot Likes: Chess, Telling people what to do, being in charge, doing what she wants to do, cute cakes Dislikes: unhygienic ponies, being made fun of Bio: After the event of Cozy Glows schemes to rid the world of magic forever failed instead of begin sent to tarturus she simple got away, hiding out and plotting. she still spoke to tirek in letters but beyond that was untraceable. Then when Discord brought her, chrysalis, tirek and sombra all together  they all together schemed to use friendship to do evil. Little did they realize that learning friendship actually, taught them friendship? like who would have guessed. So when the elements and all their friends showed up to save the day something about seeing the power of friendship, what it was capable of it changed something in them. they realized how close they had all become over the last months under the discords underlying lesson. So when twilight and her friends gave out a life line, a friendly hand they took it. Chrysalis would be reunited with her people, each to forgive one another and to grow. Tirek would learn reformation by starswirl and those who knew him and his brother personally. While Cozy Glow went to Cantorlot Castle with the princesses. Cozy still had some work, she  was ready to move forward but still had a tick of scheming in herself. often still getting into trouble. This was taught out of her by her new Aunts Celestia and Luna who home schooled the filly until she learned to behave. learning lessons on using the power and abilities you have for good, to work with others and make changes for the better. Twilight often visiting to continue teaching her friendship lessons like she learned at the friendship school. Cozy Glow more or less became a fine mare as she got older, learning the lessons she was taught well, continuing her friendships with chrysalis and Tirek and rekindling old ones like with the CMC and her classmates. a few years years into Cozy Glows time living at the castle the war against darkness happened, a final all out battle of the elements of harmony versus the Force known as darkness that corrupted ponies and creatures alike into dark evil creatures. Cozy Glow had once let herself be influenced by the Darkness but was lucky to not get infected by it like many have. With her new Knowledge and skills she took to the fight, against the wishes of everyone around her she snuck out. taking her armor and skills she was taught about being a knight she arrived to the fight to help. she was there when the war ended when all the creatures of darkness were released from its influence and the entity 'defeated'. They all say defeated, they shot a big friendship laser and the darkness wasn't there when the smoke cleared. However Cozy Glow hadn't been so sure. She didn't say anything when it happened, everyone was so happy they had won. But when the smoke still spur thick in the area in the spot where the darkness was shot down, Cozy Glow swore she saw two blue eyes look right back at her before it seemed to disappear with the smoke in a gust. She decided it was a trick of  her eyes, the fear and adrenaline from the fight getting to her. she chose to celebrate with everyone else. everyone was peaceful and normal for only a month, that's what Ordomia showed up. A small Alicorn filly, just about Cozy Glows Age maybe just a few years younger at most.a wonky horn, curly purple hair and those blue eyes. the way the silently looked at Cozy Glow gave her the shivers. No one knew where the could have come from, there had only been two recorded alicorn births in the past 1000 years and they had both been off springs of alicorns. Alicorns used to be made by the first but when she passed away an Alicorn could only be made from another alicorn  once deemed worthy which could happen in many ways, but it just didn't seem possible for a filly as young as herself to be able to achieve alicorn status, nor did any of the current alicorn has anything to do with her. their was just no way to explain where she came from. Except, Cozy Glow might know. She kept her mouth shut, she didn't know how she would even say it or what it meant or if she was even right. it was a wild concept but, so was this alicorn. Cozy Glow believed that she came from the darkness. After test and study from twilight and the other she couldn't find anything saying the quite alicorn filly was dangerous, she didn't speak beyond nods and shakes, she didn't seem to know who she was or where she even was. the princesses allowed her to stay in the castle under watch for now. Cozy Glow was put on duty to watch over the young filly. She ended up being the first pony she spoke to, When Cozy Glow told her she was leaving her shift, asked the filly if she wanted anything. She got a reply, something she didn't expect. So she got her what she wanted, some water. They begun to talk, the alicorn again iterates she doesn't remember anything or where she came from. Cozy Glow tells her how she feels being in the castle, a new how you've never been to before. they talked forever, and by the end of his Cozy Glow decided she didn't think the alicorn was dangerous she just seemed scared and alone. they were friends and Cozy would stay by her side, and by her side she stayed as she became her official personal guard. They named her Ordomia, later earning the title of Princess as she showed great dedication to learning the responsibility of being an alicorn with her powers. being known for being able to change things, bring balance to them making sure everything ran smoothly. Its years of the two of them growing up side by side in the castle together with their aunts and growing family. Until the Queen Erroria Situation happened. Watching the mare she called her sister twist and change into that of a monster bent on destruction she questioned if she was wrong to have never said anything. now with ordomia back Cozy Glow has made a wall and kept her distance from Ordomia unsure if she can trust her again.

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Name: Ordomia Nickname(s): Queen Erroria Age: 25 (Maybe) Pronouns: She/her Identity: Bi Girl crush/relationship: Crush on Spike Parents: Adoptive Aunts Celestia and Luna Sibling: Cozy Glow Special Talent: Changing thing, physical objects, memories, ect Occupation: Princess, dignitary Location: Canterlot Likes: Helping, Purple, Stickers, cute band aids Dislikes: bright lights, flashing lights, crowds Bio: The Alicorn princess who appeared out of no where. thats what she had been known as across equestria, the young filly alicorn who appeared out of no where in cantorlot. She didn't have any memories to call her own, not a name or anything. she couldn't explain how she got there or why she was the way she was. she was poked and prodded by everyone and their mother trying to figure out what she was or her origins to no avail. Like she appeared out of thin air. And to be fair, she kind of did. Little no anyone, including herself's knowledge she was a vessel for what was left of Darkness. After the final big was of the elements versus Darkness's last surge of power to try and take over it was defeated. believed to have been blasted out of existence. No one saw the small wisp of darkness hurry off in the smoke. This strand of darkness coddled  itself for awhile until it was strong enough, it took shape. Using all it had to turn itself into that of what appeared to be a young teenage alicorn filly, an irresistible target to bring right into the castle, and it worked. The filly had no idea that deep inside itself it harbored a evil, but she walked around for years with the princesses, their elements of harmony and many others who had been affected or have hurt the Darkness. It swelled and grew in power until it was suitable enough for a take over. The tragedy went down one night at a dinner for the family and many other important figure heads who could make it, they were celebrating a good year in equestria and the growing connections they were making with creatures and lands outside of equestria. it was a wonderful night, Ordomia sat beside her best friend and sister Cozy glow, Celestia to her other side who was giving a lovely speech. It was sudden, this weird obsession that suddenly came over Ordomia, like the twitch she gets when she needs to make this right, to fix it. Watching her Aunt Celestia stand tall next to her speaking proudly. Princess Twilight  across the table with her kids looking up proudly at the Sun alicorn who was once her teacher. she couldn't stop thinking about how twilight didn't have her friends with her right now, family dinner, only a few ponies here. Cozy Glow asked her what was wrong noticing that her sister had grown terribly quiet, wide eyed not looking away from twilight. It took over the form of Princess Ordomia. The Darkness, it took her form and changed her. Luna who was all to familiar with what she was seeing yelled for everyone to run but it was too late, the walls were changing rapidly like slot machine images there wasn't any way to escape. Ordomias dark form emerged, Queen Erroria. a tall make out of darkness, corruption and a taste for revenge. She was no longer Ordomia, the soft spoken kind princesses was gone from her mind. after having her bad guy speech Queen Errora disappeared with all the alicorn princesses, young and old. Cozy Glow and Scroll flame were quick to act, looking for help. in cantorlot Splat and her friends and family where celebrating on their own as Happy Daze and Splats combined birthday party was happening. they asked if they would be able to get their parents, disocrd or anyone because they needed help they needed the elements or anything to stop Queen Erroria. They contacted their parents but many wouldn't be able to get their any time soon, far away at work or ect. as well as having to be honest and say, after the big war happened the elements left them, they no longer had control over then because with darkness gone the elements could rest again. Beside if twilight is missing how were they meant to use them anyways. this didn't stop the their kids and friend. Happy daze, Splat, Voyage, Bunny Hop, Majesty and Scroll flame went after Queen Erroria themselves along with Cozy Glow. When they confronted Erroria, a being made of darkness's obsession to get revenge on the princesses and elements was approached by Cozy Glow who tried to make her remember who she was and that she was hurting her family who she knew she loved. Watching Cozy Glow plead with Erroria, and Erroria showing signs of guilt in her face, Happy Daze also step forward to talk to Erroria. all of them reminding Erroria that this wasn't her, she was Ordomia the Princess who loved her family and worked hard to make sure everything was right and ok. she was their friend and a good princesses, this wasn't her, it was just a parasite clouding her mind. this lead to the Elements reawaken, claiming Happy Daze and her friends as the new elements and saving Ordomia. it removed all the darkness out of Ordomia, at the cost of setting it free back into the world. Ordomia is grateful for the help the Chapters of Now gave her, but tends to avoid them now they have moved into the castle. she feels awkward about begin evil and all. Also in honesty its been hard for her to get back into the swing of things, Cozy Glow might have been one of the ponies there for her when she was Erroria but she has been distant since they got back home. Avoiding spending time with her when she isn't on duty watching over her. Acting less like a protector and more as a guard waiting for her to take the wrong step. Princess Ordomia wants to work to patch up the bonds and trust she has broken with the ponies she cares about.

“Get the hell away from me you freak-” the man’s exclamation was cut short as a wet force shot into his legs, his body slamming against the pavement with a loud thud. A direct slime bullet shot, and the last of the gang was contained within their gooey prisons. I sighed in relief, lowering my arm. ‘I should quip, that’s what all the good heroes do right?’ “You kiss your mother with that mouth?” I said softly before realizing that no one, not even the gathering crowd could hear that. “You kiss your mother with that mouth?!” I repeated before realizing how weak that was. Baby steps... just needed to not show my face around here for a week so they’d all forget how much I fucked up. I rubbed my neck, fingers gliding along the cryo collar as it released a blast of cold air, waves of relief flooding my body. The crowd erupted in clapping, something that startled me back to the situation at hand. A small rising gang had been causing havoc over the city, something larger heroes would only keep their eyes on before attempting to resolve. They were there to help with big tasks, real villains or aliens, something that would cause real devastation. It made sense but that didn’t mean that some real low lives could sneak under the radar and cause some damage as long as they spaced what they were doing enough or kept it the damage to a minimum.  The Graveyard Gang was playing with that line and it was obvious that if it wasn’t stopped some hero would have to come down and take them out themselves. If not for me. I raised a hand sheepishly, waddling to the side of the street to meet the crowd that formed around me. “Hey... hello. Did someone call the police already? Is everyone ok?” My words were met by the sound of sirens drawing near, a large news van trailing not too far behind. A frantic woman nearly rolled out of the van, mic at the ready as she bolted through the crowd, ushering a small man lugging a camera to follow her. “Hi, hello, out of the way, Channel 9 news. Hi, I’m Sandra Stevens of Channel 9 news would you mind giving an interview about the heroic deed you just committed?”  Her words were fast and rehearsed, like she had either done this a million times or dreamt about doing it so much, the words burned into her brain. Her mic was pushed into my face, knocking against my chin and drawing a thin strand of goo onto the mic. The woman didn’t seem to notice however, her eyes laser focused on me. “I... I su-sure. I’m just not very good on camera-” “Don’t worry honey, editors make everyone look good. Cameron! Start rolling, everyone please clear the place we need a nice shot of...what do you call yourself, Miss?” “G...Grey Matter.” “Grey.” she repeated, a eyebrow raised in silent judgement. “Well Grey Matter, hope you’re ready for your 5 minutes of fame because we’re rolling.” --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My fingers ran across the laptop keys, restarting the video again for the 11th time in a row. I couldn’t stop, my first interview, my first well known appearance as a hero. And the interview was... terrible. The comments didn’t say that but I couldn’t help but notice how nervous I looked, how much I stared into the camera at times, the way I showed my powers and how one guy said it was like a bad hentai. I knew that but god when others said that made everything feel ten times worse. However other commenters were nice, saying how cool I looked, how good it was to see another hero on the streets, taking care of baddies that the others didn’t get. I felt like my ego was a metronome switching from feeling like a god to feeling like a dumbass. I readied my finger to press the replay button as the video neared the end when a knock came to my door. Strange, I didn’t expect anyone, and not many people knew where I lived. Maybe it was a neighbor coming to congratulate me? Not like I could easily disguise myself and not many other people had the consistency of tar. I slid my pants on and walked to the door, opening it to a face almost 3 inches away from  mine. “Hello-” I jumped back, arms raising and balling like huge slings, ready to attack only for them to deflate and fall to my waist as I realized who it was. “You really do stretch! It’s like you’re one big sticky hand toy. Neat, Neat...” Plastic Man commented, his neck extended to look at me further. “Mind if I come in? I’d like to talk.” “I... Y-yes of course Mr... Mr. Plastic Man I... Um.” I could feel myself beginning to melt as I went to close the door behind him, gesturing to my messy house before him. He towered over everything easily, walking past my fridge and ducking to get into my living room to observe more of the house, making eye contact with the laptop. He smiled widely to himself before shifting his eyes back at me. “Please, Mr. Plastic Man was my father, just call me Plas. And I assume you know about me from the way your fangirling?” “I... yes of course you’re an inspiration to me ever since I became like this. The way you quickly maneuver and creatively problem solve with an air of ease is inspiring. Not to mention the way your so cheerful with the public, it puts alot of people at ease, I...starting researching you because we have such similar powers.. not in a weird way just, how you do things.” I rambled trying to literally hold myself together as I felt my body begin to dribble to the floor. “I’m sorry can you excuse me-” “Go ahead, you need... help there?” He asked as I sped past him to my room, grabbing the collar and placing it around my neck. In an instant it came to life, a release of cold air wafting over my body. I returned to the living room, head craning to look at the tall hero. “No thank you, I’m alright. Sometimes when I get nervous or overheated I start to lose my form. The cold from the collar helps me keep me together.” He lowered his head, neck stretching once again to look closer at the device. “I get that, hell sometimes on summer days I gotta put myself in a freezer and become a Plas Pop or else I nearly melt down the storm drain. That’s just another thing we have in common I guess. And that’s what I came here to talk to you about.” I swallowed hard, his hand gesturing to the opened interview on the laptop. “Everyone’s been talking about the girl who took down the Graveyard Gang and word gets around fast.  So fast that even I got word of it almost as soon as it aired. Boy was I surprised when I saw you on camera, showing of a little of what you could do. Another stretcher like me! And one who’s new to the game, a fresh face. It got me thinking.” He paused, crossing his arms as he glanced towards the ground. “Things have been quite in the League, least for ol’ Plas. Much as I love my job and helping the universe, seems like I’m always backup number 54 on the list of who to call when the world’s gonna end. Which isn’t bad but it leaves a guy with alot of time on his rubber hands. So I was thinking maybe I should give the whole mentor thing a shot, take someone under my wing. Just haven’t got the chance to meet someone I could actually teach anything to, till I saw your little stunt. So what do you say? Willing to make what the Batman described as ‘A horrible decision that no one would agree to’?” This was crazy. A proposal like this? And so soon? Learning under one of the League, one of the bests? “Yes, I’d be honored to be mentored by you Plastic Man- er... P-plas. I hope I don’t disappoint you, um... you know I can’t shapeshift like you right. I can’t turn into lions or trucks... I... I can’t do alot of those things actually, just basic stretching and modifications.” “Hm? Oh well that’s ok, besides I didn’t expect you to be exactly like me, that’d just be crazy thoughts. Also that’d make you my son, and that’s just weird. You got something else that I don’t have, you got that goo shot. I can’t shoot bullets of myself at people and you said you can set up traps and knock people out in a hail of slime. That’s kick ass, we just gotta embrace that side of you and you’ll be up there with Superman at the table, talking about what multiverse crisis was your favorite.” He grinned, lowering himself to my level and wrapping an arm around my shoulder, pulling me close against his body. I felt my face grow warm as I looked away from him, my chest pounding despite the lack of heart in my breast. Now he was touching me? Telling me how cool I was? I felt myself begin to drip again, knees beginning to buckle. “Y-you really think so?” “I know so. You got spunk kid, we just gotta polish you up and you’ll be golden, Pony Boy.” The force of his palm hitting my back sent me jolting forward, his shadow looming over me. “How about you meet me outside of your place, tomorrow. 1pm. We’ll assess your abilities and work from there. Sound good? Too bad, crime never waits. I’ll see you there.” And with surprising grace he dipped out of my apartment, leaving me like it was just a frantic dream. If it wasn’t for the sting from his palm I’d assume I was merely daydreaming, but it was real. Plastic Man and me, working together. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “Come on, haven’t you ever seen Spider-Man. Leap of faith!”  “I don’t know if you’re legally allowed to reference that...” I muttered, eyeing the large gap between buildings before staring back at Plas. “I haven’t really done much uh... traversal practice. What if I fall and hit the ground I... I mean I don’t think I can die like that but-” “I won’t let you fall, I promise you. I’d be a real bad trainer if the first person I mentored became a permanent stain on 4th street. You got this!”  Plastic Man grinned widely, flashing a thumbs up and stepping back. His words echoed in my head, as I stepped back a few feet, already making my plan as I dragged a line of slick slime in front of me.  ‘I’ll run forward, using the slime to propel me even further to close the gap. Then when I get as far as I can, I’ll stretch my arms out, attach to the building and slingshot my way up to the roof.’ I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, waiting until every last bit of air left my lungs.  And then I ran. My feet slid against the slime trail like a skater on the ice as I raced towards the edge. Before I could even attempt to jump, I hit the edge, my body fling more downward then I expected. I felt the air leave my lungs, my head snapping up towards the roof top I was aiming for and snapped my arm forward, splatting against the brick a few feet down. Damn it, Damn it, I got this. I got this. I felt the tension build in my arms, threatening to snap under the pressure. Just when I thought it was going to be too much, it released. And I found myself ascending just as fast I was falling. Up against the building. A wave of pain shot through my body as I was bashed against the wall, slowly feeling the way my body spread and slowly began to peel away from the window. Just as I felt the last few strand of myself start to detach, I felt a warmth wrap around my body, lifting me up to the roof of the building. “Hey you good? I never saw anyone but me rubber band that hard into a building before.” I tried to nod my head, wheezing and groaning as I laid on my back, staring up at the titan of a man before me. “I’m ok... just the wind got knocked out.” “Mm, yeah I’m not surprised. I mean if anything I guess we found out that a fall from here would be a-ok. Painful but... if you can survive going mach one into a building a fall should be no sweat.” He stretched his arms and sat down beside me, hands forming something just out of my range of vision to mess with. “Take your time, and we can try again. Maybe something with less of a gap to fall down.” I closed my eyes, a sickening knot forming in my stomach. I fucked up the jump, and fucked it up bad. Was he disappointed? Rethinking his decision to choose me? He had been teaching me for 2 weeks now, and I couldn’t help but think that I wasn’t enough by the way he’d sometimes look away, seem upset, maybe wanting to be anywhere else but here. My body slumped forward, lingering pain in my core. “Plastic Man?” His head cocked to the side, eyes unidentifiable behind his goggles. But I couldn’t bring myself to ask him what he thought of me. The words caught in my throat, my fear too great to hear the truth. I didn’t want to seem too pitiful, too... “I’ll try better next time.” “That’s what I like to hear.” ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- “GM what were you thinking?! You know you can’t handle that kinda heat, why did you head into a burning building?! No one was in there! Everyone was safe!” I ducked my head away from Plas’ rage, watching the soot swirl around the remains of my arm. I was hurt bad, nearly melted and burned in a raging fire me and Plas tried to contain. But I was careless, eager to please a man I thought was losing interest in me. Despite the fact the building was clear I thought if I could help put out the fire before the firefighters came he would praise my boldness. But I only ended up making a fool of myself, having to had Plas rush into the building and collect me himself. He didn’t fair well himself, parts of him still goopy from harsh heat damage. “Look at me when I’m talking to you! Why did you do that.” His eyes were angry, his usual smile twisted into a disappointed frown. “I wanted to impress you-” “Impress me?! Yeah your new power to turn into a corpse was real freaking impressive Jenna. Why the hell are you trying to impress me like that-” “Because I don’t think I’m good enough to be taught by you!” I exclaimed, shocked by how I raised my voice at him. “I... I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to... I just... I feel like ever since you started to mentor me I haven’t been good enough. I’ve always been messing up and-and I feel like if I don’t do anything to impress you, you’ll just abandon me and I’ll fuck up the best thing that’s ever happened to me. I-I look up to you so much, and I feel like it’s such a privilege that you chose me I... I feel like it’s a mistake. And so I’m just waiting for you to realize that and I feel like you’re catching on so I had to do something to make sure that you didn’t fuck up with your choice.” Plas’ face immediately dropped, a look of concern replacing his scold. “Christ... I gave you Imposter Syndrome. Is this what the other people with sidekicks have to deal with... Woozy was never like this. Er...well, no he was he just didn’t have powers.” He bit his bottom lip, and sighed, inching to take a seat beside me. “I’m not good at this teaching stuff, I don’t know if you noticed. So if I made you feel like you weren’t impressing me, I swear it isn’t true. I remember when I was first getting the hang of being a hero. I was dog shit. The amount of times I did somethings stupid or tried to impress others without knowing what I was doing myself, god... and when I was part of the league? The first month was a hell, I didn’t get anything done. I still mess up, I just make it seem like I don’t cause I play it off. We all screw up, even Superman. I would know, I was there for a couple of those times, etched em right into my head.” He glanced away, tapping the side of his head where the words ‘Pantsing Incident of 05’ appeared.  “Point is we all started somewhere and we were all ass at it. You think Flash got the hang of dodging every car while he ran down the road? No, it was just that no one remembers those times cause he’s  too busy kicking ass now adays that no one cares that one time he ate asphalt. No one accept me who uses it to blackmail him occasionally because I’m petty and like to knock him down a peg every once in a while. You’re doing great.” I could feel the tears dripping down my face as he spoke, using my palm to desperately hide my emotions from him. His arm wrapped around my shoulder in a cautious, yet caring touch. “Can we just not... run into burning buildings next time we’re trying to prove something? I might not be able to get you out next time.” “Yeah, of course sir. Thank you, for believing in me, after I did that, and that you believed me in the first place.”

Reunited part 1 (Cal Kestis x reader love triangle)

(this is how y/n’s Armour looks)

word count: 2,001

summary: y/n, a former jedi and current bounty hunter attempts to capture Cal to collect a bounty however upon realizing he’s an old friend she changes her mind. (love triangle) 

When order 66 had been executed hundreds of jedis had been slaughtered by their own troops. Everything erupted into chaos soon after, and the jedi order fell. Y/n was only a padawan when it all happened. She had witnessed her master switch sides and turn against her and she had watched many of her friends parish. Although she didn’t know what became of her best friend Cal Kestis hope for his survival faded away with each day that passes. One year after the horrific events of order 66 she had been discovered by a young boy her age named Jeremy. He was a bounty hunter--like his older brother-- and in time she also adapted the skills of a bounty hunter. Now five years after the order was made, the three of them were a part of a small group (her force sensitivity and past had still been undiscovered.) And her and Jeremy’s relationship had shifted into something that no longer was as simple as a ‘friendship’. Although he could be manipulative at times and blame other people for his own faults, he was all that she really had. Without him and his gang of bounty hunters what would she do? How would she survive? So now laying atop a building on Zeffo, y/n stared through her scope contemplating all of her decisions within the past five years, including all of those people she had hunted down for a dumb bounty. Lately her line of work bothered her--especially considering the fact that being a bounty hunter went against every moral code that the jedi had taught. What if he made it to an escape pod too? Y/n thought, letting her thoughts drift back to Cal. The Star Destroyer that they were stationed at did have a few escape pods after all, so it was possible that he got away. But there were so many of them She remembered, picturing the shooting clones. She shook her head forcing her thoughts about her former friend (and crush) out.

“I have eyes on the target, he’s headed your way.” y/n heard her partner, Jeremy say through the other end of her receiver, “you ready? Remember, he’s got a droid with him.”

“That bounty's practically already ours.” She confirmed, pushing down her guilt. “Just gotta wait till he’s within range.” She stared through the scope of her rifle, ready to deliver an electrical shot, when a tiny droid came into view, it scrambled forward bouncing excitedly as it scanned something on a wall. She watched the droid some more before turning her attention to the person who followed it, moving her aim up to get the full view of who this person was. She saw it was a male, and he was wearing a dark blue colored poncho with it’s hood up, covering his identity. “Bingo.” She said under her breath.

“Keep an eye out for one of those laser swords, he’s a jedi.” upon hearing those words she froze. “He’s a jedi?” She breathed out shakily. She adjusted her blaster rifle, inspecting his waist area though her scope and sure enough, in his belt she spotted a shiny lightsaber hilt. It was clipped to the boys belt. 

“If you’re gonna shoot, better do it now.” She heard Jeremy’s voice echo through her ears. Don’t do it, a voice came into her head. “y/n!” He pressed on when she didn’t respond. She tightened her grip on the rifle’s trigger still aiming at him.  I shouldn’t. It’s wrong. She tried shaking the thoughts away, I should be helping him, he’s like me. What would my master think if he saw me now? “y/n shoot the gun!” The sound of Jeremy’s booming voice made her jump, and she wished that her fingers hadn’t been on the trigger, because it shot. It felt like time was moving in slow motion as she watched the blue electrical charge shoot towards him. “move.” She whispered desperately, not caring if Jeremy heard. Please move. Please. And the jedi ducked down to talk to the small droid, missing the bolt of electricity. y/n took a relieved breath, closing her eyes as she watched the cloaked figure’s head snap up to where the bolt had hit the building’s wall. 

“Nice shot.” Her partner commented teasingly. So he hadn’t heard her. “I got it.” His accent rang through her ears.

“no wai-“ But it was too late because by the time she looked up into the direction where Jeremy had been stationed his blast had hit the jedi in the back, shocking him with enough power to knock him unconscious. “no-no-no.” She whispered to herself, getting up. “I’ll get him.” She blurted out in desperation. 

“Don’t you need help getting him on to the ship?”

“No.” 

“You just want the droid don’t you?“

“uh-y-yeah the droid, I want the droid.“ She lied, she just needed an excuse to be alone with him so she could wake him up and get him as far from the bounty hunter group as possible. 

“Ok, fine.” He agreed much to her relief . “I get to keep the lighsaber though. I’ll round up the crew and get the ship ready for take off. Then maybe later...if you want I can take you on a date. We haven’t been on one in a while.’”

“Great.” She lied. His idea of a date always resulted in going to the nearest cantina and getting drunk out of him mind. 

“I’ll meet you on the ship.“

“ok.“ From her scope she could see that his back was facing her and that he was retreating. Y/n was on her feet within seconds and got down from the roof where she was stationed at, rushing towards the cloaked jedi she fell onto her knees, shaking his shoulder, “Hey get up.” She told him.

“boop-beep!” The jedi’s droid trilled from beside her.

“Calm down I’m on your side.” She reassured the droid, “Help me wake him up, will you?” What if someone from the crew sees me? “Hey get up!” She tried again. He began to stir before jolting awake. And when you just wake up from being electrocuted, a bounty hunter at your side is not what you want to see. The jedi’s eyes widened under the darkness of the night, and he reached for his lightsaber but she was faster and grabbed his wrist to prevent him from drawing it. Seeing this as a threat he jabbed her arm with his elbow, which she blocked and from there they had gotten into a small fight. Each trying to land a hit on the other to knock them down and in the end it was the jedi who tackled y/n down, toppling into the dirt with her.

y/n now lay on the ground with her arms pinned down beside her head. It was then when the the jedi was on top of her holding her down, that she could see him under the faint moon light. His pale complexion, his green eyes, the small freckles scattered across his face.. “Cal?” y/n asked just above a whisper, she had said it so quietly that she was almost certain he hadn’t heard her. 

“Why do you know my name?” He asked, and although his voice sounded threatening, she knew he wouldn’t hurt her. He wasn’t that type of person. Especially with growing up in the jedi order.

“It’s me.” she told him, “it’s y/n.” She tried pulling her arms out of his grasp but he only gripped onto her wrists tighter. “t-that’s impossible.” He breathed out, and something flashed in his eyes although she wasn’t sure what it was. Anger? Pain? “y/n’s d-dead.” He said quieter, “She died when the jedi order fell, now who are you!” 

“It’s really me.” She told him again 

Cal shook his head in denial, squeezing his eyes shut for a second “N-no, you’re lying. You’re just trying to get my guard down so you can turn me in. You’re a bounty hunter, I know your tricks.”

“What does your gut tell you?” y/n said softly.

“If you’re really who you say you are, prove it.”

She thought for a moment before rushing her words out at once, “When we were younglings the other kids made fun of me a-and you were the only one who ever helped me. That’s why we became friends.” He didn’t budge. “After our private lessons with our masters we used to tell each other everything we learned, and we fantasized about being heroes. We used to make bracelets together...” For a moment she thought that he hadn’t been persuaded or that he didn’t remember those highlights of her childhood. But he seemed to freeze for a second, and his mouth gaped open as if he was going to say something, but he didn’t. 

“y/n?” He asked, not recognizing the girl under the helmet, “it’s really-I...what?” He got off of her, still in disbelief as he stood.

Y/n got to her feet slowly observing his reaction before pulling her helmet off, exposing her y/h/c eyes and y/h/c hair-which was pulled back into a pony tail. Cal who had been looking at the ground now turned his head into her direction, and his mouth fell open again. Unsure of what to say he stumbled over his words for a second in disbelief. “I-you...I thought...” His eyes began to get glossy now as his emotions took over, “I thought you were dead!” He cried, trying to stifle his tears. But there was no points because they were coming out like a faucet. 

y/n bit her lip and covered her mouth with her free hand letting out a small sob before dropping her helmet and throwing her arms around her old friend. 

 “I-I t-thought that you died.” She said shakily. 

“I did too...” Cal whispered against her temple as he wrapped his arms around her. “I missed you so much.” He said with closed eyes. 

“Oh my god.” y/n said now with joy. She pulled away, still holding onto his arms as she took another look at him, “you-you grew up.” She observed. “And you’re hair is obviously different.” She laughed.

“You look so different.“ He laughed, but he then snapped back into reality and looked down to her helmet and blasters, frowning slightly. “Why-are you a bounty hunter?”

“Yeah.” She admitted embarrassed. “I just-wait. We need to get you out of here!” She said, suddenly remembering the reason she had come. “My crew, they’ll come looking for you-”

 “I can’t come.” He cut her off, “The ship’s busted, my crew and I took a hard landing. It’ll take a couple of days to get it fixed.”

She bit her lip in thought before replying. Now what? “Well, we have to keep you hidden then.” 

“Well I was staying here-”

“It’s too dangerous there, they’ll be looking.” 

“Then I can stay up in the woods.” He suggested, “There’s plenty of cover and there’s a few caves in the deeper part.” 

“Perfect.” She agreed, “I can go check up on you then.”

“Ok.“

“You should probably go now then, before someone comes here to check up on me...“

“What are you going to tell them?“ Cal asked with a worried expression.

“The truth; you got away.“ She smiled.

Cal chuckled lightly before giving her shoulders a small squeeze “be careful.“

“You’re the one with a bounty on your head.“ She reminded the boy.

He tilted his head in a playful manner. “true.” Then his tone grew serious,  “But seriously, if they try to do anything to you-“

“Look at you still trying to protect me.“ y/n smiled “You didn’t really change much. Did you?“ He blushed at this. “I’ll see you later. Stay safe.“ Cal nodded and gave her shoulders a reassuring squeeze before turning around and disappearing with BD-1. I’m so screwed y/n thought. 

Chapter 2 is up!

Woot woot folks it’s time for the painful chapter of let me be the one to save you!

Chapter Title: Red Like Anger, Red Like Blood

Chapter Wordcount: 1240

Chapter Summary: Cherri Cola and the Fabulous Four go to rescue the Girl.

Warnings: Blood, violence, and injury. Flashbacks, past character death, and generally not a fun time for anyone. This is the chapter most of the warnings in the AO3 tags are for, so please be careful.

Taglist: @wishiwasthemoon-tonight @sleevesareforlosers @stressed-depressed-emo-mess @tasteofamnesia (message me, send an ask, or reblog/reply to one of my posts if you want to be added or removed)

AO3 Link 

Chapter 1 AO3 Link

Chapter 1 Tumblr Post

(Actual fic under the cut)

It takes another few days before they’ve gathered enough information to set out, or rather, another few days before Party Poison threatens to leave with or without the necessary planning. None of them dare argue with Poison at the present moment, and so the four and Cherri Cola pile into the Trans Am that day, early in the morning. Cherri finds himself squashed into the backseat between Jet Star and Fun Ghoul, realizing with a pang that this is the Girl’s usual seat. He has no idea how they’re supposed to cram all six of them into the car after they rescue her, assuming all goes to plan, but it’s highly possible they won’t even have to worry about that. Or even if they do get the Girl and get out, it’s not unlikely that at least one of the people on this mission won’t make it back to the Trans Am.

Poison drives like a maniac, even more so than they usually do. Cherri tries not to bang into Jet or Ghoul much, but he still manages to get an elbow to the side and hit his head on Jet’s shoulder.

He doesn’t even need his ray gun yet as they burst through the barrier, plowing through the draculoids in their way, but he puts a hand on it anyways. The cold, white walls of Battery City bring back far more bad memories than good, and he finds himself on guard in a way that he rarely ever is in the desert.

They climb out of the car, exchanging only a few quick words to confirm their plan one more time as they stride towards their planned entrance. It’s quiet, almost too quiet, the air filled with anticipation. The rain pounds down around them and Cherri’s heart pounds alongside it as the first bli operatives raise their guns to shoot.

The fabulous four take them down without hesitation, quick enough that Cherri barely has time to raise his ray gun and get a single shot in as they force their way inside. Poison instantly kneels to hug the Girl, desperately clinging to her as if it’s their last goodbye--for all any of them know, it might be--and Cherri stands lookout with Jet, Kobra and Ghoul, watching the last dracs fall.

And suddenly they're not dracs anymore, it’s an exterminator and she’s lying on the ground and there’s blood pooling around her, red red red like the cherries he and his sister snacked on as children. And the fierce grin that always split her face is gone and it’s his fault, it’s all his fault, his ray gun took away that grin forever-

Jet Star is shaking his shoulder. “Cherri, we have to get out of here.”

It takes him a moment to push the memories aside, but he nods and falls into place behind the Fabulous Four as the Girl leads them out of the facility. Everything about the building is sterile and clean and the opposite of the group of killjoys who walk its halls, searching for an exit as they try to avoid the bli operatives who are looking out for them. The hallways seem nearly endless, and although no one says it, he knows they can all feel the fear of ‘what if we can’t get out’ pressing in on them.

Just as they finally near what finally seems to be an exit, the back of Cherri’s neck prickles, and he turns in time to see Korse leading far too many dracs to count towards them. The icy wrath in Korse’s eyes is terrifying, and he forces himself to lift his ray gun even as the white hallway of today blurs with the dark battlefield of his memory and the person before him shifts from a harsh-faced man dressed like he wants a vampire to bite him to a girl with cold fire in her eyes.

Laser blasts cut through the air as they fight what feels like (and very well could be) an entire squadron of dracs, more than even the most famous killjoys of all time and the desert’s best sharpshooter can take on. They begin to be overwhelmed, and Cherri's entire vision turns to red as Korse shoves his friend against the wall, red like anger and red like blood, the color of cherry soda and lipgloss and Party Poison’s hair.

His shot hits Korse in the back, and Korse’s own shot goes wide, hitting Poison’s collarbone instead of their head. They wince and slump to the ground as another lucky shot catches them in the side, but they’re alive. Korse isn’t, or maybe he is, but there’s too much red clouding Cherri’s vision to tell and he can barely think with memories rushing his head.

Loud laughter and cherry-flavored candies and the scream she uttered as she fell. Chess games and origami and a still, lifeless body belonging to ‘the other side’, as if every person on that battlefield wasn’t merely a teen trying to stand up for what they believed in or was told was right. Sunlight and smiles and blank, staring eyes that had once held a spark of life, now gone forever because of him.

In some distant corner of his mind, he registers that he’s still shooting, instincts forged in the fire of war serving him well as the dracs around them fall. Kobra is holding his sibling, their red hair spilling across his arm like blood, and Jet is holding Motorbaby, cradling her to their chest. Both of them run, and Fun Ghoul shuts the door behind them instead of following, trapping xemself and Cherri in with the dracs.

This is their last stand. Ghoul knows it and he knows that xe knows. Neither of them care a bit as they take shot after shot at the dracs, hearing the Trans Am pull away with a screech. They’re safe, Kobra and Poison and Jet are safe and back with the Girl. That’s all that matters now.

But as Ghoul flinches from a stun shot, Cherri finds that he does care. He cares about their lives because Ghoul is too young to die. Because he’s got so many things to live for. His words to Dr. Death Defying weren’t a lie; there are so many reasons for Cherri to live. So he does what anyone would do: he grabs Ghoul and jumps, propelling the two of them through the glass of the now-locked door. It shatters around them easily, and they roll across the concrete as Cherri holds the smaller killjoy tightly and uses himself to shield xem from the worst of the impact. Every shard of glass that pierces his skin is matched by a stab of pain from the memories that haven’t left, but he ignores both kinds of hurt as Dr. Death Defying’s van pulls up. They stumble towards it frantically, D reaching out to pull Ghoul into the van as Cherri half-collapses into it and Show Pony covers their backs with a few well-placed shots. NewsAGoGo steps on the gas the second everyone is safely inside, sending the van flying forward. Cherri winces as all of his wounds scream in agony, but Ghoul looks like xe’s doing even worse, blood spreading from his side and leg as xe slumps on the floor.

The last things Cherri Cola sees before he loses consciousness are Dr. Death Defying’s concerned face and the brilliant red of blood.

@flakmaniak

Timmy Turner and Finn aren’t from ensemble casts though, right? I mean, there are recurring other characters, but they’re The Main Character, with one or two nonhuman sidekicks along for the ride.

Well, yes, but that’s kind of my point, actually.

Maybe I’ll just try writing out that essay...

Early on in the run of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, series creator Lauren Faust wrote out a short article for Ms. Magazine laying out her goals and intentions for the show. I think it’s a very interesting article, so much that I kind of want to quote the whole thing, but one thing Faust said that really stuck with me was,

There are lots of different ways to be a girl. You can be sweet and shy, or bold and physical. You can be silly and friendly, or reserved and studious. You can be strong and hard working, or artistic and beautiful.

I think the show is quite successful at that, depicting many different kinds of people, er, pastel ponies, with different strengths, weaknesses, and interests without denigrating any of them.

Faust also talks about being mostly completely alienated by the girls shows of her youth, which is interesting to me because I was extremely into at least a couple of girls shows. As a little boy, I was obsessed with the My Little Pony cartoon, and then, later, Sailor Moon.

Around the late 70s and early 80s, kids shows in the US kind of bifurcated, with shows becoming very explicitly “for girls” and “for boys”. This was especially true during the 80s, and this division wasn’t just about whether you had angular, primary color robots or soft pastel horses, the characters and story structures were very different as well.

I liked the boys shows, but I also liked some of the girls shows, because they addressed feelings and ideas I had that just weren’t going to be addressed in the boys shows. I especially liked the original My Little Pony series.

Now, the 80s version of My Little Pony has a lot of flaws. Particularly, the animation is terrible even by the standards of the 80s and the voice acting can be grating. But rewatching it, I still see what I liked as a kid, which was that it paid a lot of attention to motives and feelings. Like, here are some of the motivations for villains in the show:

I remember when my villainous boss used to be nice, so maybe if I stay with her I can keep her from causing too much trouble and help her go back to how she was.

I was kidnapped by a weird monster and he’s threatened to hurt my loved ones if I don’t do his evil bidding.

I made a deal for fame and fortune with a genie and now I know he eats souls but I’m afraid if I reject him I’ll go back to being poor.\

Our Queen stole a magic rock to revitalize our frozen country, and even though she’s overbearing I have to do right by my country.

These are fairly complex motivations for a kids show, especially when you compare them to, say, Transformers or Ninja Turtles. Shredder or Megatron are just bad because they’re bad, and so are most of their minions. Even if you have somebody like, I don’t know, Jetfire, the story there is that he discovers that his old friend Starscream is bad, at which point neither character has any further compunctions about blasting his old friend with laser guns.

Meanwhile, villains in My Little Pony would be conflicted, have divided loyalties, and be genuinely unsure what the right thing to do was. Even as a very small child, I thought that was more interesting and more honest then other shows were being.

Later, I had many of the same feelings about Sailor Moon. Hell, I still do. Even in the bowdlerized American version, I could still relate to Ami wondering if being a nerd meant she wasn’t properly into the things girls are “supposed” to be into and Usagi’s complete loathing of schoolwork and studies.

Even though these shows weren’t “for” me I really loved them, because the shows that were “for” me, the boys shows, never really expressed the kinds of ideas I’m talking about here. Like, especially during the early nineties, the answer to the question, “Does being a quiet, studious nerd make me less of a boy?” was, “Yes.”

I actually remember, as a child, constantly wishing I had been born a girl, not because I had some inner girl nature, but because girls (or so it seemed from outside) were allowed to be quiet, to be studious, to talk about feelings and to like predictability and calm. The idea of a boy wanting those things was largely foreign.

So... put a pin in that.

Okay, I want to describe a young boy to you. 

He’s energetic, but a bit scatterbrained. He isn’t bookish at all; trying to sit still for long periods of time makes him antsy, and he’d rather be out in the world doing physical things than reading or thinking. In fact, he tends to act without thinking things through, and this gets him in trouble. 

Despite being energetic and physical, he isn’t really into sports; he chafes under authority so teamwork isn’t always his strong suit, even though he cares deeply about his friends. 

I would argue that I’ve just described pretty much every adolsecent male protagonist of every cartoon released over the last 15 years or so. Aang. Danny Phantom. Timmy Turner. Ben 10. Finn from Adventure Time. I’m  sure more will come to mind later. 

This character shows up again and again in boys cartoons, and he’s almost always depicted as the default, with other characters understood through their relationship to this default boy.

Okay, I’m going to get into representation politics, and specifically I’m about to criticize Adventure Time, so I think a disclaimer is in order. One of the problems with talking about representation is that you end up criticizing broad patterns, but the same people aren’t in charge of the whole media landscape, and any single instance of the pattern is probably actually extremely defensible.

So. Okay. I haven’t seen all of Adventure Time, but I’ve seen the first couple of seasons, and they are very well written, and I think Finn in particular is a very well observed character who is very true to life, and in order to change what I’m going to complain about you’d have to rework the show from the ground up. So it’s not that this is a terrible decision, but...

Okay, something that bothers me about early Adventure Time is that Princess Bubblegum is a science nerd only because Finn isn’t. Princess Bubblegum kind of represents, to Finn, the mysteries of adulthood and sexuality. She’s part of this mysterious world of women and adulthood that Finn longs for but hasn’t grown up enough, or had enough experience with, to really understand.

And so to hammer that home her personality and life are also full of things that Finn can’t understand... Like sitting still, and doing meticulous, complex experiments and researching in books.

It’s not that the show denigrates this, not at all, it’s just that it’s positioned as incomprehensible and distant from the audience stand-in character. The Boy doesn’t like to sit still and study, he likes to go on dangerous, physical adventures! And he certainly couldn’t ever prefer to sit still and study over going out and having a physical adventure. Doing that would be incomprehensible.

She’s well-written and I’m sure lots of kids relate to her, but fundamentally her nerdiness is portrayed as foreignness.

A lot of the shows I mentioned above aren’t even really ensembles, but those that kind of are, e.g. Avatar: The Last Airbender, or Ben 10 give The Boy special powers that differentiate him from the rest of the cast.

Go back to the early episodes of My Little Pony and Twilight Sparkle is kind of the viewpoint character; the framing device of the early episodes is letters she writes, but she doesn’t really have, like, one special power that the others don’t, and structurally she’s a tertiary character in a lot of episodes. 

Contrast that to Aang, who is central to the story of Avatar, the Last Airbender. Like... you can have episodes that aren’t really about him but he has a special, important power that no other character does or can have, and the fate of the whole plot rests on his shoulders. Like, if the Avatar dies the natural order is upended and the Fire Nation almost certainly wins; you could kill off any other supporting cast member and then replace them without completely upending the world.

This is not to say that any of the shows I have called out are bad or harmful, but, to go way back, I remember being genuinely upset as a child not to see boy characters who had the feelings and struggles I did, and if anything, I think the situation might be slightly worse than when I was a kid. Go back to that Lauren Faust quote up there. How many cartoons feature a boy who is “Reserved and Studious”? Dexter’s Lab... Maybe Invader Zim... How many with a boy that is “Sweet and Shy”? Have you ever seen one about a boy who is “Artistic and beautiful?”

What about a show with all those boys portrayed as friends and equals, rather than one for you to relate to and a bunch of sidekicks and side characters?

Like, one of the only male, American cartoon characters who has ever made me go, “Yeah, that’s what it was like for me as a kid” is fucking Butters from South Park.

2019 in animation - very selected summary

So, I dunno if anyone’s noticed, but this year was crazy strong when it comes to animation, both in terms of amount and quality of it. No matter what type you liked - traditional...

...3D...

...cell-shaded...

...hyper-realistic...

 - oh, wait, wait, no, my mistake, that’s clearly live-action. 

Anyway, no matter what type of animation is your favourite, this year gave you something. and I’m gonna go chronologically, listing those that I have been able to see. Keep in mind, day only has 24 hours, so I couldn’t see every new season or premiere (for example, I had no interest in OK KO, or She-Ra). Some spoilers below. And Gifs. LOTS OF gifs.

In January: we were still riding on the Spiderverse bandwagon from last year,, which culminated with an Oscar in February. And though as I’ve said, the movie would have worked better imho as a, say, Netflix series, as only two of the spider-people were properly fleshed out, I have to admit, it was a well-earned prize.

Then we were hit by the finale of Steven Universe, and while some complained about the another redemption of cosmic regime, it was an incredibly satisfying ending to a great cartoon... so much so that a whole movie and an epilogue series was made.

plus, it had a segment animated by James Baxter, so it’s automatic win..

January also blessed us with a reboot of another old-forgotten property, Carmen Sandiego, with her second season arriving in October. And it proved that reboots do make sense, but only if you actually do something with it. The story was fresh, creative, and yet, similar in its serialised form to capture the imagination of viewers. Also, grappling hooks for the win.

February was the month of dragons. Not only we got the conclusion of How to Train Your Dragon franchise, but Netlfix gave us second season of The Dragon Prince. While I still consider HTTYD 1 as the best movie of the franchise, as it cleverly told the story of a conflict without any obvious villain, HTTYD 3 was a satisfying conclusion, strengthened by the Homecoming special in November. 

TDP S2 on the other hand, did everything season 1 did, except better. For once, the studio finally broke their piggy bank and bought a new graphics card, so the choppy 15FPS animation of S1 is gone. The story got darker, more mature, yet whimsical, and it only made us hungry for more. Luckily, S3 was just around the corner.

March gave us season 2 of Craig of the Creek. I have to admit, I missed out on this cartoon in 2018, and it was a humongous mistake. CotC is quite possibly the most wholesome cartoon out there, telling amazing story about a boy, his friends, and his family, glorifying the mundane adventures in the creek to truly epic proportions. The family is especially important part, I do not remember a cartoon where bonds between family members were as well written as here. Definitely a must-watch if you have missed it as well.

On 8th of March, the International Women’s day, DC Superhero Girls 2019, aka My Little Pony But Humans And With Superpowers, started, and it was a blast. Creator. Lauren Faust, has once again proven that whatever she touches turns into gold. The shorts were funny, clever, and changed just enough of the DC universe to feel familiar, yet show us new, interesting scenarios. 

 In April, Missing Link had its premiere, showing that traditional, stop motion animation not only has place in modern times, but it can deliver spectacular scenes, though of course, we expected nothing less of studio Laika.

In May, one of Disney’s long-running series, Star vs The Forces of Evil had its finale, and that brings us to the first screech of the list. Many people complained about the direction the show has taken, some claiming it has gone off-track in S3, some saying it was S4 that dropped the quality. Some, like me, saw nothing wrong with it, but the finale let people dissatisfied. If anything, it was too short, and definitely could use an epilogue movie that would tie some of the remaining plot threads in something bigger than one single pan-shot. 

Rest in piece, laser puppies

Wait, they’re alive? Well, then... rest in piece, Hekapoo and her puppies.

This month also presented a first contender for this Summer’s line-up, Twelve Forever. The cartoon took us into wild, bizarre land of imagination, and offered quite a few very mature lessons about growing up and acknowledging one’s responsibilities. It also provided much needed representation, both in terms of colour and sexuality. 

Sadly, amidst scandals with its creator, the show was canned, though it’s also Netflix’s fault for not marketing it enough.

A-and maybe the show was just a tad too... creepy....

Also somewhere in May some Games might have been lost and some Thrones burned, but no one cares about it anymore. i think it was popular for a while, though.

However, 12 Forever was just a start. June gave us Amphibia, my personal top-bingeable cartoon of the year. Disney has hit a jackpot, giving us an incredibly creative fantasy show with rich mythology and enough emotional conflict to create fantastic storytelling. The only slight complain was the scheduling, as episodes aired daily, meaning the season was over by the end of the month. But honestly, the amount of humour and adventures with Anne in the forg world we got compensates that thousandfold. Book 2, coming in 2020, can only makes thing more interesting. 

Going for a hat-trick, in August we got the premiere of a cartoon that I was betting would be my personal favourite, Infinity Train... Until I learned of its schedule, even weirder than Amphibia’s. While Amphibia took a right turn, and gave us 20 episodes, a perfect amount for both plot and filler stories, Infinity Train... turned out to be a mini-series with just ten episodes, airing daily, two per night. And that, in my opinion, was a fatal mistake. Not only we now know that the story is not over, as Season 2 arrives in January, but the short episodes and its density gave very little time to leave an impact on us. If it was at least spaced out, then maybe I wouldn’t be so judgemental, but for me it was a blow that deflated the balloon I was clinging to since 2016 pilot. Still, there is more to come, and the story was more than interesting, so we’ll see if I get used to the pocket mini-story arcs.

September. Remember Steven Universe? That cartoon that ended? SIKE, HAVE A TV MOVIE. And by gods, old and new, what a phenomenal movie it was. A musical telling its own, contained story of betrayal, trust and finding yourself, based on Rebecca Sugar’s mis-adventure with a phone that reset itself... I have seen this movie at least ten times, and its OST is one I come back to constantly on Spotify. The songs are amazing, catchy, incredibly-well written, deep, and, as usual, send very adult messages about growing up and finding one’s identity, which SU was already famous for. Must watch.

Continuing the theme of reboots that actually make sense, Ducktales finished its second season after duck-bombs in March and May, with a heart-breaking story of Della Duck and humongous finale, extending DT’s universe to other Disney Afternoon shows. Season 3 promises even more, and DT is a golden standard of making a reboot that stays faithful to a more than half-a-century old material, while adding enough material to keep things fresh and funny for modern audience. What I’m saying is, Disney could really learn from Disney (pictured below).

But while some things start, some have to finish. October saw the end of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, a show that has taken Internet by the storm in 2010 and...

...okay, cringy brony things aside, this was a clever re-imagining of the decades-old property, and its popularity, especially amongst the people outside the target demography is a proof of its quality. The ending was perfectly serviceable, nothing that stood out, in my opinion, but it definitely didn’t disappoint either. MLP FiM will live in history as the cartoon about pastel tiny horses that made adult men cry and gave them enough passion to create years of of visual crack. And porn. Lots of porn.

November:  Just In case if one season of human and elf adventures was enough, The Dragon Prince Season 3 arrived in November, and it provided a thrilling conclusion to its first smaller story arc. Though I wish the season was longer, and it dived into the history of Elves’ and Humans’ animosities, I would be lying if I said I didn’t binge-watch it all in one sitting, gripping my chair. 

Do you like Green Eggs and Ham? Yes, yes, I do, Sam-I-am. Question: how do you take a classic poem, made purposefully of limited vocabulary, and turn it into a thirteen episode series with a beginning, middle, and end? The answer: You add bunch of weird stuff and the mother of all complicated backstories... at least by the original’s standards. And here’s the thing: this is the first Dr Seuss’ adaption where it works. Somehow the writers were able to stretch each verse of the famous poem into a surprisingly emotional story about friendship, losing and restoring hope, as well as following your dreams. Plus, it gave us Fargo-esque team of Bad Guys. Come on. 

And just in time for Christmas season, we were blessed with Klaus, a clear contender for a Christmas classic in my opinion. This STUNNINGLY beautiful traditionally animated original Netflix movie is a very, very clever reinterpretation of St. Nick’s mythos, telling a deep, and very realistic story of greed and selfishness, and how can one turn their life around by changing their life, one present at a time.

We’re about to end the year, so HOW ABOUT SOME EMOTIONAL TRAUMA, KIDS? Yes, Steven Universe Future is here, and from the looks of it, Steven’s problems are just beginning, since they mature with him. The show’s too real, man. However, it also provided much needed levity, giving us a familiar taste. Nothing more to say, as the show is still airing, and it will surely give us more emotional moments.   

And that’s a wrap for 2019. As I’ve said, it is not exhaustive by any means, and from the looks of it, 2020 is gonna be as packed as its prequel. So yeah, the world might be on fire, but at least we got some nice cartoon to binge-watch.

Happy new year everyone! At least I have time until 6th of January when the first episode of Infinity Train Season two arriWHAT DO YOU MEAN IT’S OUT ALREADY

Light of the Sun and Star Chapter 7: Tom and Pony Head Part 2

Summary: His whole life Marco Diaz has been raised by monsters, living under the cruel rule of their leader, Toffee. But one day Marco escapes into Mewni where he meets a magical princess and Mewman like himself, who begins teaching him all about her world. Together they will learn about life, love, and the lights within each of them, as they change their world forever.

Chapter Synopsis: Star, Tom and Pony reach the cave in the Forest of Certain Death but what lurks inside may harbor ill intentions for the teens, leaving Marco to have to face his fears in order to save his friend. 

Check out my other stuff on Fanfiction! 

Disclaimer: Star vs and all its characters are owned by Daron Nefcy and Disney. All rights go to them.

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“Star, Star are you in there?” Jackie called from the other side of the princess' door, knocking softly on the firm wood. Once again, the girl got no reply, just an empty silence. From next to her, Janna sighed with annoyance, leaning up against the wall with crossed arms.

“Why are we doing this again?” Janna muttered, pulling her phone from her pocket and swiping the screen to turn the device on.

Jackie turned to her partner, explaining, “Marco wasn't in his room and I thought Star would want to know.”

“They're probably still on top of the tower, watching the stars or something,” Janna said, her eyes never leaving the bright screen.

“Yeah probably. Wait,” Jackie gave her roommate a glare, raising an eyebrow at her. “How do you know they went on the tower today?”

“I saw them,” Janna replied, with a shrug.

“You were spying on them!” Jackie yelled. “What about our deal?!”

“Hey, I didn't interfere,” Janna defended, raising her hands up in surrender. “I just observed.”

“Well it's still wrong,” Jackie scolded, whipping her head back to Star's door.

“Oh so you don't want to know what those two were doing up there,” Janna said, leaning closer to Jackie with a knowing smirk. “All alone.”

Jackie looked at her friend's face out of the corner of her eye, her obvious interest shining in her bright green irises, the temptation to ask almost too much to bare. Finally, Jackie turned away from the girl with a scoff, keeping her voice sounding as disinterested as possible. “Ha, why would I care? That's there business not mine,” Jackie calmly said, with a roll of her eyes.

Janna shrugged, the smile still on her lips, as she quietly slid her phone back into her pocket. “Well when we get in there you can tell her that yourself,” she said, reaching for the knob.

“Wait!” Jackie quickly grabbed her hand just before it touched the cold metal, drawing the girl's attention to her. “You can't just pick the lock of the Princess of Mewni, Jan. You have to have standards.”

“Uh I wasn't going to pick the lock,” Janna said, pulling her hand away and grabbing the knob once again. Keeping her eyes on the skeptic Jackie, she turned the knob and threw the door open with a flourish, reveling the status of the unlocked door to her friend.

Jackie looked sheepishly at the now opened doorway, simply saying, “Oh,” following after her roommate into the dark room. The two girls looked around for any signs of the blond, calling her name often as they searched the room top to bottom. But after a few minutes it became obvious the room was empty and a disheartened Jackie sighed, leaning up against the opened windowsill in defeat. That was when she noticed the thick rope tied tightly to Star's bedframe, the rest hanging out the window blowing freely in the night breeze.

“Uh, Jan,” Jackie started, lifting the rope up so she could inspect it closer. “I think you might need to see this.”

…

The woods were dark and silent as the trio continued deeper into its heart, Tom and Pony in the lead, walking resolutely forward with no fear of the dangers that could lurk around every corner. Star followed a little slower, her eyes darting around constantly, on edge even with the knowledge that no monsters were in the area. The air felt thick with tension, though she wasn't sure if it was coming from her or the woods themselves.

Finally they seemed to reach their destination, Tom and Pony coming to a stop in front of a large cave. Star caught up with them, examining the cave with interest. It was massive, its rocky walls expanding above the treetops and stretching out into the dark treeline. As Tom had said, the entrance to the cave was blocked by a blood red magical barrier, a giant lock with chains stretching all around the cave covered the entrance, a bit of overkill in Star's opinion.

“Is this it?” Star asked pointlessly, mostly just needing to break the uncomfortable silence that seemed to consume the area.

“Yep, this is the place,” Tom proudly responded, either not noticing the tension or (more likely) not caring. “Pretty cool, huh?” He turned to Star with a grin, waiting for a response.

She gave him a weak smile, unable to quite push away the unease she was still feeling. Pony closed in on her, leaning against the girl's arm, saying, “Cooler than anything that Mango ever did, right girl?”

“Come on guys,” Star said, sounding defensive. “Marco's not that bad.”

“Oh please the wimp couldn't even handle a little danger,” Tom scoffed, rolling his eyes. “You know just because your parents make you keep those orphans in the castle doesn't mean you have to hang out with them.”

“Uh, so you gonna open the cave, we don't really have all night,” Pony interrupted, looking bored.

Star let out an annoyed sigh, resisting putting a hand to her aching head. “Let's just get this over with,” Star muttered to herself, lifting her wand up, aiming it at the enormous lock. “Super Ladybug Lockpick!” she yelled, her voice with just a hint of irritation. A burst of magic shot out of her wand, taking the form of a giant, smiling ladybug, holding an equally sized key inbetween its legs. It flew up to the lock, inserting the key which began to glow with magic inside the locking mechanism. The lock and key disappeared, the magic chains falling to the floor before dispersing from existence, the shield following quickly afterward. Star lowered the wand, Tom and Pony looking into the now opened entrance to the cave, only shadows and darkness seeming to be lurking inside. Star kept her eyes on the floor, her thoughts on Marco, unable to stop herself from wishing he was there with her and still feeling guilty for leaving him behind.

But her thoughts were interrupted as she heard a strange chittering noise coming from within the cave. Star felt a chill run up her spine as it grew louder in volume, the noise echoing around the rocky walls of the cave, before projecting into the clearing where the trio stood. Tom and Pony were frozen in shock, Star feeling shaky and unsure of the strange noise, holding her wand tightly in front of her, waiting for an attack. Finally, the sound ceased, silence filling the clearing again, only Star's heavy breathing providing any noise in the quiet area.

“Well that was weird,” Tom said. Just then thick blue vine-like things shot out of the cave, wrapping themselves around the boy's arm, making him scream. Star turned to her friend in shock, shooting a blast of magic at the ropes, forcing them to remove themselves from Tom. He panted, holding his arm in shock, staring in at the darkness of the cave with uncertainty.

“You okay?” Star breathlessly asked, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder.

“What the heck was that?!” Pony yelled and in response more vines shot out, heading right for the floating head, before getting shot out of the air by another blast from Star's wand.

“Run!” she screamed, as more vines emerged from the cave heading right for the three teens. But her friends responded to her command, running away from the cave as quickly as possible. Star shot off a few incoming vines with her wand, trying to buy them some time, before turning on her heels and following after her friends. She ran as quickly as she could, her heart pounding away in her chest, not daring to look back at the vines that were probably still closing in on her. She just focused on getting her sore legs to move fast enough to escape the vines, her exhaustion from the long day and night now catching up to her at the worst possible time. She could see Tom and Pony in front of her, running into the forest undergrowth, now free from the unwanted vines and she tried to pick up her pace.

That was when she felt something wrap around her leg, instantly pulling back on her, sending her tumbling to the hard ground. She hit the earth with a loud bang, screaming in pain as her shoulder took the impact of the fall. She looked around her with bleary vision, trying to spot her wand seeing it laying just a few feet in front of her. She gathered her strength, reaching out a hand to grab the magical device but she felt the string go taut as it began dragging her back to the cave by her ankle.

“No, no, no,” Star screamed in panic, trying to fight back against the long rope's pull and reach her wand, her hands feebly clawing at the ground. She began gaining ground on the vine, inch by inch coming closer to her wand. Finally, she was able to grab the wand, releasing a shaky sigh as she held it tightly in her hand. She aimed it at the vine wrapped around her leg, trying to come up with a spell in this panic-filled moment.

“Super Laser- Ahhhh!” Star screamed as another thick vine wrapped itself around her hand coating the wand completely, rendering it useless. Star tried to fight back against the remarkably soft vines, pulling and tugging, trying desperately to get her hand free, but she was unsuccessful as it dragged her across the ground, bringing her closer and closer to the darkness of the cave. She heard the chittering noise again echoing around the walls of the cave as she drew closer and she turned hoping to see Tom or Pony running toward her, ready to free her from her predicament. But she was alone and no one was coming to save her. “Tom! Pony!” Star screamed, calling to them, trying desperately to reach them. Star felt tears of defeat in her eyes as the vines dragged her to the very entrance of the cave. “Marco!” she screamed as loudly as she could.

And then she was dragged, still screaming, into the depths of the dark cave, disappearing from sight.

...

Marco sat alone at a table, feeling miserable, looking at the pretty plant set neatly in its small décor vase with solace. What was he even doing there, really? He should stop mopping and go back to the castle like he told Star he would. There was nothing really to do here, not without Star. But something was keeping him there, making him want to stay, though he wasn't sure what. The boy sighed in misery, placing his forehead against the cold tabletop.

Marco saw a shadow darken over his face and he looked up to see the hairy creature from before standing over him, giving him a blank, empty stare. The hooded boy opened his mouth to speak but the creature suddenly flipped its hair up, revealing the teenage girl beneath. She smiled at him giving a tiny wave. “Hey again,” she said cheerfully.

“Oh hi,” Marco softly replied, upon recognizing the girl. “Your the girl from before, right?”

“Yep,” she replied with a small, courteous nod. “Name's Kelly.”

“Marco,” the hooded boy said. Then, suddenly remembering the casual greeting he was supposed to give, he thrust his hand out in the girl's face, making her lean back awkwardly. But she took his hand, shaking it softly.

The two stood shaking hands for a moment, Marco leaning uncomfortably on the table, as an awkward silence stretched out. “You can let go of my hand now,” Kelly finally said.

“Oh sorry,” Marco quickly apologized, pulling his hand away and sitting back down.

“So is this seat taken,” the girl asked, gesturing to the chair next to Marco's.

“Uh no, go ahead,” Marco said, a smile on his face and the girl pulled out the chair taking a seat.

“So are you from around here?” Marco asked, trying to make awkward small talk with the complete stranger sitting at his table.

“Actually I work here,” Kelly explained.

“What? Where?” Marco asked, looking around.

“There.” Marco followed the girl's pointing finger to the restaurant set up beside them, the boy just now realizing that he had sat down at one of the restaurant's outdoor dining areas.

“Oh,” Marco said softly, feeling slightly embarrassed for the mistake.

“When I saw you sitting over here all alone, I wanted to come over and thank you for what you did,” Kelly explained.

“It was no big deal,” Marco shyly responded, shrinking a little into his hoodie.

“No it was a big deal. If it weren't for you, me and Tad would be dead.”

“Tad?” Marco repeated in confusion. “Who's Tad?”

Suddenly, the top of Kelly's hair seemed to come to life, eyes and a mouth appearing out of nowhere, staring down at the boy with a relaxed smile. “Hey dude,” her hair said.

There was a moment of silence as Marco just stared at the hair with wide eyes. But his smile quickly returned, as he gave the talking hair an enthusiastic wave. “Hi Tad!” he shouted, greeting him in a friendly manner.

“I really appreciate what you did for me, brah,” Tad continued. “If it weren't for you, Kells could have been hurt. And I don't know what I would have done without her.”

“Awwww, Tad,” Kelly cooed, putting a hand to her blushing cheeks.

“It's true babe. I mean you are my whole world.”

“Your just saying that because your stuck up there on my head.”

“Well yeah. But what hair would want any different when it's already got the best.”

Marco watched the two's flirting for a minute, smiling. But out of nowhere, his thoughts jumped to Star and he felt a lump wedge itself into the back of his throat. Instinctively, he turned in the direction of the forest, feeling a crushing weight begin to weigh heavily on his body as he thought of the girl. He knew he shouldn't, but he was worried about Star, hating the idea of her being out there in the middle of the woods, even if she was with her old friends. He just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, that all was not right with the princess. He knew he was probably being paranoid, he was clearly afraid of the woods, but still...

“Marco?”

Marco jumped turning to Kelly in a daze. “What?” Marco's voice squeaked, still strained from the lump. “Sorry I was...”

“Thinking about that girl from before,” Kelly guessed and she was rewarded by Marco's blushing cheeks.

“Yeah, maybe a little,” he shyly responded, not looking the girl in the eyes.

“Did she ditch you?” Tad asked.

“Huh, ditch?” Marco asked, giving the talking hair a strange look. “What's that?”

“She abandoned you to go do something else,” Kelly helpfully supplied.

“Oh,” Marco said, nodding in understanding. “Yes... and no, I guess. I told her to go on without me, because I was in the way but now...” Marco's eyes began to glaze over with pain.

“Bad move, dude.”

Marco gave Tad another confused look. “What? Why?”

“Trust me. You don't leave your girl's side, no matter what.”

“But what if me being with her makes things worse?” Marco asked. “And what if what she's doing you don't like?”

“Then you have to decide,” Kelly pitched in. “Which is better for both of you. Tad and I don't get along on everything, but we try to stick together. Sometimes it's important to know when you stay together and when you give each other space. But it has to be the decision that makes both of you happy.”

Marco looked down at the table, deep in thought. Did he make the right call? Letting Star go had seemed like the right choice at the time, but he wasn't feeling good about it at all? So did that mean he made a mistake? Should he have gone too? Should he have told her to stay? Marco sighed, rubbing his sore eyes tiredly. “Your right I should have gone with her to that cave,” he moaned.

“Wait, cave,” Kelly suddenly blurted. “What cave?”

Marco heard the concern in her voice and removed his hands from his face, looking into the girl's obviously unsettled eyes. “The one that's sealed off with magic,” Marco hesitantly said, feeling his heart rate begin to spike.

“The one in the Forest of Certain Death?” Kelly questioned, her voice quivering slightly.

“Yes.”

“Oh, Marco,” Kelly's face scrunched up, filling Marco with unease. “That cave is dangerous!” she continued, not daring to look the boy in the eyes. “They say there's a creature sealed inside, locked by an ancient magic. Though I doubt your friend would be capable of getting in or anything, I mean it would take a heck of a lot of magic to open that cave and only an idiot would be dumb enough to even try it.”

Kelly looked up shooting the boy a comforting smile, only to switch to shock as she looked at the empty table in front of her, the chair the boy had been sitting in pushed out away from the table, it's occupant already running toward the certain doom that awaited him.

...

Tom and Pony ran as far and fast as they could, putting as much distance between themselves and the cave as possible. Until finally they freed themselves from the entrapping woods, arriving in town once again. The two came to a stop, Tom panting heavily from the exhausting run. The two took a moment to catch their breath, before breaking into laughter, relieved that they had escaped unharmed.

“Man that was crazy,” Tom chocked out, inbetween panting and fits of laughter.

“Crazy, that was insane,” Pony corrected. “Bet you wouldn't have seen that in your castle, huh B-Fly?” Pony turned, expecting to see Star behind her. But she wasn't. There was no sign of the girl anywhere around the two. “B-Fly?” Pony repeated, feeling slightly concerned.

“Star?” Tom called out as well.

The two's eyes were drawn to the dark woods once again, as Tom quietly whispered, “Oh no.”

...

Marco ran up to the dark woods, already panting heavily. He brought himself to a stop just before he entered the thick foliage, looking into the dark woods uncertainty. He was scared, there was no doubt about that, but if Star really was going to the cave Kelly said she was then she might be in danger. And if something happened to her Marco didn't know what he'd do. He had to help her, he just had to.

And so despite the overwhelming fear that coursed through his body, he stepped into the woods, brushing the loose branches and bushes out of his way as he entered the dimly lit forest. Marco froze, looking around at the towering trees in terror, feeling like the woods themselves were closing in around him. He began to hyperventilate, the forest growing smaller and smaller around the boy, the edges of his vision going black as he began to lose consciousness. He tried to calm himself, to force his feet to keep moving, but they were planted in place.

“I'm sorry,” Marco whispered to the forest around him. “I'm so sorry. Toffee told me not to leave, he said it'd hurt you, but I did, Buff Frog... Buff Frog made me and now you all probably hate me.” He felt tears brimming at the edges of his eyes. “Now I can't see any of you ever again and I don't... even know why. And now...” Marco sniffed wiping the tears out of his eyes, as his breathing began to calm, the suns of his cheeks glowing faintly as he took a deep, shaky breath, determination anew in his eyes. “Star. She needs me. I can't lose her like I did my family. I have to help her.”

And with that Marco, ignoring the overwhelming fear that still consumed his body, took off at a run, pushing deeper and deeper into the forest, hoping he would come across the cave. He had no idea how long he ran through the dark woods, every second feeling like an eternity as his worry for Star's safety grew, but eventually he came into a clearing were a large cave-like structure towered over him. He paused for a minute taking in the unsettling cave, his stomach doing an uncomfortable flip, before racing in to the cave without a second thought.

Once inside, he gave a quick survey of the room, startled by how warm and inviting the inside felt compared to the cold, dark exterior. The inside of the cave felt more like a proper living area, though on a giant scale. There was a sofa and coffee table, even a fireplace, though Marco did take note that almost everything in the room seemed to be made of a yarn-like substance expertly weaved together to create furniture. On top of that, there were large piles of socks everywhere in the enormous room, scattered all over the floor, making for a make-shift carpet. There were no lamps so it was rather dark in the giant's living room, the only source of light and warmth coming from the lit fireplace, but Marco's eyes adjusted quickly, finding the room still brighter than the woods outside.

He took a few steps forward, trying to spot Star or the others, making sure to stay close to the exit in case something unexpected came running in. He called Star's name gently, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. Finally, he looked up to the fireplace once again, noticing the stockings hanging over it, curious as to why these were being treated differently than the rest of its matching companions. That was when he spotted Star, poking out of one of the socks, her eyes closed. Marco felt panic and relief in a strange mixture as he resisted the urge to scream the girl's name. He ran over to the fireplace, no longer caring about the exit, as he quickly found a path up its side, using the uneven stone as footholes as he scaled the rocky hearth. Once he reached the top he ran over to the unconscious girl. He bent down to the girl's level tapping her lightly on the shoulder.

“Star.” he hissed, trying to keep his voice as low as possible. “Star, wake up.” The girl moaned, shifting in her sleep as she slowly peeked open an eye, looking at the boy with uncertainty.

“Marco?” she whispered, the exhaustion in her voice unmistakable. She blinked, trying to get her eyes to adjust to the partially lit room. “W-Where are we?” She tried to turn so she could take surveillance of the room, but found her arms restricted. She gasped as she noticed everything below her shoulders was trapped within the scratchy sock. She tried to pull herself free, tugging against the relentless sock, but found herself unable to move. “I'm stuck,” she whispered in worry. “I-I can't move.”

She felt hands wrap around her shoulders, pulling against the entrapping weight of the sock and she looked behind her to see Marco, straining as he tried to pull the girl to freedom, his brown eyes filled with a raw determination. Star felt her cheeks blush, for just a moment forgetting to move, before she snapped herself back to reality, moving with hooded boy as one.

Finally, it became obvious to Star that there would be no escaping the sock, letting out a deep sigh. “It's no use,” she whispered, slightly out of breath. “You should go before that thing comes back and gets you too.” She looked to Marco with fearful eyes, but he didn't even budge, the determination never leaving his face as he shook his head.

“No way. I'm not leaving you here. There's got to be another way.” He thought for a moment, putting a finger to his chin, Star just watching him in silence. “Hmmmm. Wait. Where are Tom and Pony Head? Maybe if I free them first, we can all work together to get you out.”

Star eyes filled with sadness as she shook her head. “That won't work. Tom and Pony Head already escaped, I was the only one who got captured.” She gave Marco another pleading look. “So please just go, Marco. There's no reason for both of us to get taken.”

But Marco just ignored her, his brain tumbling as he tried to think of another plan to free Star. Suddenly, an idea popped into his head as he quickly asked the girl, “Where's your wand? Is it in the sock, too?”

Star's face seemed to brighten as she remembered her magical device. “Of course. Marco that's genius.” But her face fell as realization hit her. “Oh no, I don't have it.”

“What? Then where is it?” Marco asked, looking around the fireplace for any sign of it.

“I dropped it,” Star said, shaking slightly.

“Where?”

“Down there.” Star gestured with her head to the pile of socks in the middle of the room, looking like a sea of bright blue below. Marco followed her gaze, squinting as he tried to spot the wand. He took a deep breath, turning to Star. “Stay here,” he said. “I'll be right back.”

“Wait, Marco!” Star called after him in a loud whisper, but the boy was already climbing down the fireplace, his eyes jumping to the pile of socks that waited below.

Once he was on the ground he quickly went over there, digging around through the soft and scratchy socks for any sign of Star's wand. His hands were buried deep inside the pile, blindly grabbing around for anything that wasn't made of cotton or wool. “Come on, come on,” he whispered, feeling pressured to rush it. Finally, his hands bumped up against something hard and Marco smiled in victory.

That was when he heard a chittering sound above him, looking up to see the creature of the cave. It was huge, towering over the room, its massive size suddenly making sense in Marco's mind. The thing was dark blue and made 100% out of thick yarn. It stared at him in shock for a second, Marco still bent over in the pile of socks staring blankly back. Then the creature released a massive roar, which seemed to shake the walls of the furbished cave. Marco screamed, pulling his hands out from the socks, now holding the wand.

“Marco run!” Star screamed from her stocking, still tugging against the scratchy fabric, trying to break free. Marco immediately obeyed, taking off from the creature as it shoot out webs made of yarn at the boy. The boy managed to see them coming out of the corner of his eye and dodged right, the yarn webs wrapping around the legs of the table, becoming stuck. The creature pulled against the table but its arm didn't budge and it released a sigh of annoyance.

While the creature was busy freeing itself Marco ran over to the fireplace, slipping the wand in his hood pocket, before scaling the structure once again. He made his way up quickly, keeping a weary eye on the creature which was still struggling to free itself. Once on top, Marco ran over to the trapped Star, his goal in sight.

But he was stopped as thick yarn webs wrapped around his body, pulling him off the fireplace and sending him falling to the ground. “Marco!” Star screamed, finally managing to pull a hand free from the sock. Marco screamed as he fell to the floor, putting his hands feebly in front of his face in hopes of providing protection. But it was for nothing as he crash landed into the pile of socks from before, breaking his fall and preventing any serious injury. Marco sat up from the sock pile to see the creature a short distance away and quickly closing the distance as it stalked closer.

Marco jumped to his feet running away from the creature once again, trying to make it to some form of safety in the room. More yarn webs shot out at him and he dove to the floor to avoid getting hit, the webs passing over his head uselessly.

He got up once again, running behind the couch, for a moment free from the creature's vision. He panted a few times, trying to catch his breath after the exhausting incident, peeking around the side, looking for any signs of the creature and was surprised to see nothing. Marco pulled back, leaning against the couch deep in thought, when a large shadow passed over his face. He looked up to see the yarn creature, leaning over the back of the couch, glaring at him. “You know that's really bad for your couch,” Marco said.

The creature growled releasing more webs at the boy, who dropped down on all fours and crawled underneath the couch, barely avoiding getting hit. The boy crawled forward, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, trying to keep his breathing and racing heart calm as he pushed forward, trying not to think of the creature that might be waiting for him at the other end. He crawled out the other side, slowly sneaking away, the creature still looking over the back of the couch for any signs of the boy who seemed to just disappear.

Marco crept slowly forward, trying to make the least amount of sound as possible. But the creature, still confused, turned and saw the boy creeping away. Its eyes narrowed as it shot out more yarn webs, the boy too busy trying not to make noise that he didn't even notice. “Look out!” Marco felt something heavy bump into him sending him tumbling to the floor, the yarn webs passing harmlessly beside him.

Marco blinked, wondering how he had ended up on the floor, feeling a heavy, warm weight pressed up against him. He looked down to see Star laying on top of him and he felt his cheeks turn hot as her bright blue irises focused on his face, looking concerned. Marco opened his mouth to speak, but words failed him as Star moved a little closer to him, their faces becoming close to touching, her long blond hair tickling his face as she leaned over him, her eyes scanning his face for any injuries. “You okay?”

But before Marco could attempt to answer, another roar echoed throughout the cave and Star looked over to the see the creature, quickly losing patience, stalking toward them. Star grabbed the boy's hand, pulling him to his feet and dragging him behind her, as she ran for the exit.

But just as the two made it out the cave's mouth, a yarn web latched onto Marco's back, pulling him back into the depths of the cave. Marco screamed as Star tried to pull the boy out of the fabric's grip, but the two were being slowly dragged in inch by inch. The princess grunted as she dug her heels into the ground, tightening her grip on the boy's arm as much as she could without hurting him. “Don't worry Marco, I'm not letting go!” Star screamed.

But she began losing hope as the darkness slowly closed in around them, more webs wrapping around them beginning to encase their bodies in the scratchy fabric. Marco seemed to be realizing the hopelessness of their situation as well as he looked deep into Star's eyes, the two trying to enjoy what might be their last moment together.

“Hang on B-Fly!” a voice screamed from behind them and the two turned to see Tom and Pony Head racing toward the two.

“Pony!” the two screamed as one.

“Hey what about me!?” Tom yelled, fuming with anger, the flames on his cheeks igniting as he came to an abrupt stop.

“Not now T!” Pony yelled. “We gotta save B-Fly and Mango!”

“It's Marco!” Marco screamed.

“Yeah no one still cares. Charge!” With that Pony stabbed her horn deep into the yarn web, ripping some of it apart. Meanwhile, Tom snapped his fingers the rest of the webs bursting into flames and disintegrating. With the webs suddenly severed, Star and Marco felt gravity take hold of them once again as they were sent tumbling to the floor.

More webs continued to spring out of the cave, Tom and Pony laying waste to them, as they protected the two Mewmans who were still trying to recover from the terrifying ordeal. The two lay on the floor, hand in hand, panting, watching Tom and Pony in shocked silence. The two held their own against the never ending webs that seemed to shoot out of the cave's mouth, but it was obvious they couldn't hold out forever.

Until suddenly Star, logic returning to her frazzled brain, turned to Marco shouting, “Marco, quick my wand!”

“Oh right,” Marco said, pulling the wand out of his hood pocket and handing it to Star. Once the wand was back in her hands, she took a deep breath, letting the magic gather.

“Hyper Rainbow Shield!” she screamed, as magic shot out of her wand encasing the entire entrance of the cave, a purple shield immediately beginning to form. Tom and Pony relaxed as the webs finally stopped coming, bouncing off the shield harmlessly.

The four friends all took a moment to catch their breath, as the dangerous situation was finally resolved. Star helped Marco to his feet. “You okay?” she asked, still panting.

“Yeah,” Marco grunted, rubbing his head softly. “Thanks.”

“I should be thanking you,” Star said. “But how'd you know I was in trouble?”

“Someone in town told me that cave was super dangerous, so I came to make sure you were okay,” Marco explained.

“Well we had your back too, B-Fly,” Pony cut in. “There was no way we were letting our friend get turned into a sock mummy,” Pony said.

“Thanks,” Star said, giving them a grateful smile.

“So what should we do now, girl?” Pony asked. “There's still a massive rave happening in the Bounce Lounge if we hurry we can-”

“Actually,” Star interrupted. “I'm gonna take Marco back.”

“Ah come on, he's fine,” Pony said, with a roll of her eyes. “You don't have to babysit him just because he almost died.”

“Yeah why don't you send him home so you can hang out with your real friends,” Tom blurted out, before his eyes widened, realizing his mistake.

There was an awkward moment of silence as Star stared at her two friends in disbelief, realization finally entering the girl's brain. Her eyes narrowed on them and Tom and Pony both backed up a bit from the girl. But Star took a deep breath, before turning back to Marco, who just stood there awkwardly unsure what to do, shooting him a smile. “Marco why don't you go on ahead? I'll catch up.”

“O-Okay,” Marco said, before walking past the three giving them all concerned looks, heading in the direction of town.

Once he was out of sight, Star turned to her two old friends once again. “I'll right first off, Marco is my friend, one I choose to hang out with, not forced to,” she began, her voice hard. “Secondly, I'm tired. I've been tired all night and you two never even took the time to notice it. And I can see that the only way this night is going to end is if I say something. So I am.”

“But-” Tom began.

“But what Tom,” Star cut him off, shooting him a glare.

“You never would have called it a night before,” Pony said.

“Well I'm not the person I was before, Pony,” Star huffed. “I'm not some crazy party girl who can go out and do whatever I want. I have duties and responsibilities and people who look up to me. And I don't care if that makes me sound like a rubber stamp princess, because it's true.”

“Okay well, we were only trying to help,” Pony muttered.

“No you weren't,” Star exclaimed, her anger boiling. “You used me, all night long, to do all those stupid, dumb pranks. You never cared about spending time with me, you just wanted my wand so you could break the rules and rebel.”

“Hey don't pin this on us,” Tom defended. “You're the one who asked us to help you become the princess you were before.”

“Yes I did,” Star said with a sigh, her eyes for a moment looking to the ground, before jumping back up to them. “But I was wrong. I'm not the princess I was before... but maybe that's a good thing. Maybe the person I am now is better. And maybe I shouldn't be trying to change that.”

“So what you'd rather hang out with that turd than your besties,” Pony said.

“It all comes down to two options Star,” Tom added. “Us or him.”

Star looked down for a moment, thinking. Finally she looked back up at them with a hard look. “Fine.” And with that she turned on her heels and began walking in the direction Marco had gone.

“Star!” Tom called, but she didn't respond, simply walking off, leaving her two oldest friends behind. The two turned to each looking shocked and confused.

“Nice going,” Pony hissed at her friend, who looked at the ground sadly.

“She really chose him over us,” he whispered in depression.

“Why did you even ask her to?” Pony scoffed. “ Let's just give her a few days to cool of. She'll come around eventually.”

…

“Your sure they went in there?” Jackie asked looking at the dark woods, uncertainly.

“Oh yeah,” Kelly confidently replied. “He seemed pretty upset when I told him about the cave.”

“Marco in the Forest of Certain Death,” Janna pitched in. “No way. Gotta be someone else.”

“How many other boys in bright red hoods with sun cheek marks do you know?” Kelly pointed out.

“Touche.”

“I hope they're okay in there,” Jackie said, her voice quivering slightly as she looked into the danger-ridden woods with concern.

“Well if there are about four different caves located just outside of town in the Forest of Certain Death and only three of them have dangerous creatures trapped inside,” Janna stated matter-of-factly. “So we have about a one in four chance of them not getting eaten.”

“I don't even want to ask how you know that,” Jackie said, putting a palm to her forehead.

“What's in the other one?” Kelly asked the creepy girl curiously.

“Diamonds,” she answered with a shrug. “Oh and gold.”

“Oh, cool we should totally go there Tad for date night,” Kelly said, looking up at her hair.

“Sounds good to me, babe,” Tad replied. “I'll go with you, anywhere.”

“I wouldn't if I were you, it's all kinda cursed,” Janna said.

“Awww, why is there always a catch when exploring unknown caves in dark woods?” Kelly huffed in frustration. “Come on Tad, let's go home.” The two girl's watched their informant sulk off, looking upset, until a voice yelled behind them.

“Hey guys!” Jackie and Janna turned as one, looking to the wood's entrance where Marco stood waving over to them.

“Marco!” they both shouted, quickly running over to join him.

“Where have you been?” Jackie asked in concern.

“With Star,” Marco replied innocently.

“Where is Star?” Janna asked, looking around for any signs of the girl.

“She was talking to Tom and Pony Head.”

“Those two?!” Jackie exclaimed, sounding disgusted. “They were behind this.”

“Yeah,” Marco said, a little put-off by Jackie's bizarre behavior. “They've been hanging out with me and Star all night.”

“Well now the devastation makes sense,” Janna muttered under her breath, a small smile on her face. “That had Tom's handwriting all over it.”

“Don't sound so impressed,” Jackie said, shooting Janna a look.

“Actually, that was me,” a hesitant voice called from the woods and they all turned to Star, looking downcast.

“Star!” the two girls screamed, Jackie pulling her into a hug.

“Where are Tom and Pony Head?” Marco asked, looking around for them.

Star's eyes went dark for a moment. “I have no idea,” she spat. Marco felt guilt clench his gut at Star's reaction, suddenly afraid he had upset her.

“I'm sorry,” he whispered.

“For what?” Star asked in confusion.

“For ruining your night,” Marco said, keeping his eyes on the floor.

“Marco,” Star said softly, taking his hands gently into her own. Marco looked up into her eyes with shock. “You didn't ruin my night.”

“But what about Tom and Pony Head? Didn't you want to spend time with them?”

Star giggled a little. “Actually I'd much rather spend time with you” She put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “My best friend.”

“Your best... friend,” Marco repeated, his cheeks blushing slightly.

“Yep,” Star replied matter-of-factly. “Bestie for short.”

“Bestie,” Marco tried out the word, letting it sink into his brain. “I like it,” he said, giving Star another cute smile that just made her heart flutter.

“I'm glad,” she said, giving him a warm smile.

Jackie and Janna stared at the two in silence, giving each other knowing looks. Janna cleared her throat, capturing the two's attention once again. “Well you two besties might want to consider cleaning up the mess you and the others made out of town,” she said. “The people are still in revolt over that possum statue getting broken.”

“Oh yeah,” Star said sheepishly, looking at Marco. “Guess I should try to get everything fixed before morning. So much for sleep.”

“Don't worry Star, your bestie will be there beside you all night to help,” Marco said dramatically, putting a hand to his chest.

Star laughed. “Why thank you, bestie,” she said, equally as dramatic, curtsying.

The two shared a laugh for a moment before turning back to town, the two besties flashing each other a smile before heading off to spend the rest of the night together as friends.