“She’s getting away!”
“We’ll never find her in there!”
Twilight took a moment to ponder what she should do, after a moment; she had her answer. “Come on girls, we can’t let her escape!” She quickly started running inside the cave where Starlight Glimmer, ex leader of Our Town, had escaped too. As she ran, she heard her friends catch up to her, giving her confidence that they would come out with Starlight and ensure that she would not take anypony’s cutie mark again. She was not planning on imprisoning her, unless her hooves were forced of course, she had been intrigued by the other’s ideals and wanted to know where that deep rooted hate for cutie marks came from. She wanted to try something that she had been working on and Starlight was the perfect candidate to do just that. She just hoped that catching Starlight would not be too much trouble…
But hoping sometimes gets you nowhere as she would soon realize.
As for Starlight she felt her heart thumping wildly against her chest, she thought that those fools would not give her any chase but here she was getting tailed by the six elements of harmony. To say that she was terrified of what they would do to her once captured was an understatement. Would they banish her to Tartarus? Freeze her in Stone? Her mind kept playing more and more scenarios which made her come to the conclusion that she had to escape by any means necessary. She could hear the clops of hooves getting louder, meaning that she was running out of time, she needed to think of something and do it fast or her life was over and everything she had worked towards would have been for nothing.
Starlight charged her horn as much as she physically could and released a beam of magic towards the roof of the tunnel. As soon as this happened, the whole cave started to shake, and the roof started to collapse behind the lilac unicorn. “Everypony, look out!” Said Applejack as she dodged and weaved so as not to get crushed by the falling rock. Twilight looked behind her and noticed that she was a bit ahead than she had thought and had not noticed that she was leaving them behind. The lavender mare turned around to help but suddenly a sizable part of the ceiling fell, all but separating twilight and the others. “Girls!” She shouted to the other side in panic; she quickly got a response, to her relief. “We are fine darling; we’ll try and find another way, don’t let that mare escape!” Shouted Rarity from the other side. “But-” “No buts! Keep going and remember to use your wings and what I taught you!” Yelled Rainbow Dash. Knowing that there was no point in arguing she continued her chase.
…
Starlight looked back and realized that she was not being chased anymore, she must have gotten them, while she did feel a tinge of remorse over injuring them, they should have known not to mess with her or her things. Though thinking back maybe she should have been less greedy, she should have just tried to get them out of her village as soon as possible but when she saw the princes, she knew that if she succeeded in taking her and her friend’s cutie marks, she could have made a bigger impact on the world, spreading equality everywhere and getting rid of those stupid marks for good. She should have stuck to her original plan, she should have stayed complaisant, but she could not, she always wanted more, but every time she just felt emptier.
‘And now look at you, you have no village, your old friends ditched you for some idiots that don’t know what they’re talking about and know you’re in a stupid cave all on your own.’
She kept slowly trotting as she kept thinking over the events that had transpired. Starlight noted that the path was now nothing more than a thin bridge that extended further than her vision allowed her to see, and the drop looked to be extremely far if she had to guess. ‘Great, I’ve never gone this far in, who knows how long it's going to take me to get out…’ She could feel her anger rising as she thought about her situation, on the ponies that had usurped her and especially Princess Twilight. Who was she to lecture her on friendship? She didn’t care if she was the so-called ‘Princess of friendship’, she did not know anything about her or how harmful those dreaded marks are. If anything, she should agree with her, she was smart, she even replicated her spell quite easily just by watching her do it. How could someone as smart as her be so naive?
‘Ugh, if only I hadn’t left that Pegasus leave, the princess would have been under my control… wait, what’s that sound?’ She could hear the fast-approaching clopping of hooves from behind, which caused her to turn around in a panic. To make matters worse it was none other than the princess herself! Life could not be against her if it tried.
‘Fantastic.’
Starlight quickly charged up her horn, staking as much magic as she could and quickly released all of it in hopes of getting rid of her at once. To her surprise, Twilight jumped over her beam and spread her wings to glide above. Starlight tried to aim upwards, but preemptively Twilight used her teleportation spell and appeared behind her. Starlight tried to do the same but before she could she was tackled before her teleportation spell went off. Before either of them touched the ground both were teleported, the speed of the tackle carried over and Starlight smacked her back against the wall, leaving her gasping for air. As for Twilight her face hit the wall so hard it made a crack on it, making her lose consciousness. But that was not even the worst part, her teleportation spell had ditched them to the side of the bridge, above the infinite looking drop. They both started to fall, Starlight tried to teleport her and Twilight back on the bridge, but she realized that she was burnt out. “No, no, no, Twilight wake up!”
She tried to wake her but to no avail. Suddenly, Starlight felt a sharp pain in her back, she must have hit something protruding out of the wall, then soon after she felt her horn crack. She felt as if her head had split in two.
Then it all went dark.
…
Twilight opened her eyes to find nothing but darkness, she stayed put for a few moments, trying to remember where she was, and soon enough it all came back to her. ‘Starlight… the cave… I tried to catch her and…’ before she could finish her train of thought she felt something steer below her. Somehow she had not noticed that she had been lying on top of something. Quickly she stood up but quickly fell on her rump, she then realized how much her body ached. Twilight lit up her horn to see if she had broken anything and sure enough, one of her wings was broken. Yet before she could panic, she heard a pained groan from where she had been. Quickly, the lavender unicorn made her light brighter to see where the sound had come from and what she saw shocked her.
“Starlight?!” She called out but the lilac pony remained silent. Twilight got closer to see in what type of condition she was in, it was not good to say the least. One of her hind legs was twisted, her nose was bloodied, she was shaking, and worst of all, half of her horn seemed to be missing its upper half. ‘Oh buck.’ Twilight quickly made her way towards Starlight and checked her more thoroughly and upon closer inspection her back had deep gashes and the blood had matted out most of her fur. Quickly the princess charged her horn and released a thin magical bean and started to cauterize the wounds, Starlight did not move during the procedure, but Twilight was sure she was going to feel that once she woke up.
‘Hopefully she does wake up…’
Twilight moved towards her bent leg; she had no supplies for this so she decided that for the time being she should try to make a fire. The question was how will she make a fire when they are surrounded by rocks? She could pluck a few of her feathers but it wouldn’t work plus she was pretty sure that could mean destroying her lungs with toxins (apparently, they cause air pollution, so she really did not want to risk it.) That left her with one option, which would be to cut off part of her main and half of her tail, it wouldn’t last long but it was better than nothing. Before cutting her mane, she glanced briefly at Starlight and sighed. “Hopefully this will be worth it…”
…
Starlight awoke, startled. She tried to move but quickly closed her eyes and winced from the pain in her back and leg. “Hey, don’t move! You are too injured to get up.” She heard a voice call out to her, but it felt so distant. The lilac mage decided to listen and lay down once more. She could feel somepony was very close to her, she could feel their fur against her, for the time being she wouldn’t complain, it was freezing. Then she realized something, something was off about her magic. She raised her hoof and went to touch her horn and as soon as she did her heart dropped. “W-Wha- Where is my horn?! What happened to my horn?!” “Starlight rela-” Now more awake than before, she quickly got up and looked at her surroundings and spotted Twilight giving her a nervous smile. “What. Did. You. Do?!” She asked more terrified than angry, Twilight quickly arose from her spot near the fire and tried to get closer to Starlight, but she reflexively took a step back. “Hey, I didn’t do anything… If I remember correctly, we both fell after you teleported us and I got knocked out in the process, you must have broken it when you hit the floor…” The ex-leader thought about it for a few moments and she does remember hitting her back and… “Wait, my back is…” She looked back and it seemed as if her wounds had been closed.
‘Did she heal my wounds?’
“Sorry I did what I could, I don’t really know much healing magic and didn’t have any medical supplies so I had to improvise, also you should probably lay down before you pass out, you look a bit… wobbly.” She was about to protest but the three Twilights made a good point, she did feel dizzy still. As she started to lay back down, she hissed in pain as she remembered that her leg was twisted. “Do you need any-” “No!” Starlight quickly replied, making Twilight lower her head slightly, but still held her gaze on the other.
‘I don’t need this… Why is everything going so wrong? What else is going to be taken away from me?!’
Before she could continue her train of thought Twilight started to walk over to her cautiously, which made every hair in Starlight’s body stand up. ‘W-what is she doing?’ Twilight noticed this and gave a small smile. “Relax, I just thought I’d give you this, you won’t be able to use it until its fully healed since it might cause a miniature explosion in your head, and I don’t think I have to explain why that would be a bad thing.” Starlight fixed her eyes on what Twilight had been levitating and it caught her by surprise. “You really are going to give me my horn back? Just like that? After everything I did?” The princess pondered over the question for a few seconds, it wasn’t the smartest idea, she knew that, but she was curious of where this could go and like she said it’ll take a while, so Starlight won’t be a real threat for at least a few days. “I don’t see why not. A horn it’s a very Important part of a unicorn’s identity, I don’t think it would be fair to deprive you of that.”
Starlight looked towards the levitating horn and then back to twilight, trying to scan any dishonesty in her features but there were none. “You are a fool princess, didn’t take you for the reckless type.” Starlight grabbed the horn with her hooves and connected it to the other half. Twilight did respond to her comment which irked the lilac mare, instead she went to her original spot and looked at the now dwindling fire that she had made. Starlight then noticed something, how had the princess made a fire in here, there was nothing but rocks and a few crystals around? She glanced at Twilight who hadn’t taken her eyes off the fire and noticed that her mane seemed shorter. ‘She must have used her mane to make the fire…’ This surprised her to say the least, she could have just cut out her mane instead, she was her enemy after all.
‘She’s even more of an idiot than I thought…’
With that last thought she laid down once more to rest her eyes for a bit. She knew Twilight was probably making some plan in her head on where to go from here, so she decided to let her do it, she just wanted some silence for a bit. After a few seconds she dozed off.