Twilight Gets a Puppy
Season 5
By TDR
The Conjuration Map,
Episode Two,
Part Two
[ Outside of Our Town]
The trio at the small camp were not surprised at the appearance of a scroll out of thin air at the unicorns horn. Though all three were curious as to what it had to say.
“Okay we got a message back from bravo team. Seems PFC Buttercup worked with Snow Drop before joining the guard.” Snowy Path offered.
“Which one was she?” Slipstream asked.
“The green earth pony mare with the black hair we left at point two. Snow Drop is based out of Manehatten, so I got that correct. She doesn't know this mine, but the SOP for the company when mining is to build a town for the workers and she says the description of the layout of this place is too odd for it to be a mining town, so it was likely exploratory mining and this Starlight bought the land and built the town after the company pulled up stake. Snow Drop exploratory mining SOP was to dig numerous channels to the core of a mountain and then a vertical shaft out the middle to the top and connect all the tunnels to it. The mountain of that size should have at least forty or so exploratory tunnels dug into it from various heights and locations around the mountain itself.”
“Sounds like a perfect monster nest to me.” Slipstream grumbled.
“Probably. Though this isn't exactly useful to us.” Snowy Path pointed out.
Rahs considered flicking his ears as the other two watched the cant.
“Yeah... maybe the target is in the mines and not the town.” Snowy Path considered. “Something to consider and to pass onto the Bearer's when they return.”
[Our Town]
“This place just gets weirder and weirder.” Rainbow Dash muttered as the group trotted along a worn path.
“At least you didn't have to eat those muffins. I've accidentally eaten cardboard that tasted better.” Pinkie Pie groaned.
“I'm delighted you're interested in our cutie mark vault. We hope someday every pony in Equestria will make a pilgrimage here to our little village to have theirs removed too, and our message of perfectly equal friendship can finally spread across the land.” Starlight beamed.
“Errrr yeah.... that's a bit..... optimistic really.” Twilight considered, picking her words. This had to have something to do with why they were here. The very idea of having ones cutie- marks removed was abhorrent, and that everyone here still seemed interested in cutie marks, save Starlight. Something was clearly wrong here. Rahs' report on the moon dogs in the area was odd as well, they all seemed to even dream about cutie marks, yet the moon dogs looked like they weren't getting enough food. Did cutie marks have something to do with the Oneiroi? Twilight made a note that studying the link again might be needed, though she already had a rather long list. Better still, where was Starlight's moon dog?
“Just through here! Behold! Our cutie mark vault!” Starlight gestured after leading the group into a cave just outside the edge of town.
The gathered mares all stopped and gawked at the massive glass wall filled with little boxes, each containing a single floating cutie mark inside it.
The brief silence was finally broken by Fluttershy.
“What the shit?”
[ Bayston]
Adagio stared into her drink as the music played in the background. Her sisters were on stage, playing for the crowd that was currently beating the fool out of itself in a classic bar room brawl.
This was not optimal at all. They might still be in Equestria, but they were forced to keep a low profile. Worse still was she had yet to figure out a way to augment her powers. Sure, she wasn't exactly weak, and of the three of them she knew more magic than the others, hence why she stuck with a unicorn disguise rather than any other, granted being a cross between the goddess of sea ponies and whatever her father was supposed to be didn't exactly make the most inconspicuous of normal forms. Still thanks to their mothers side of things they could adopt land forms that resembled ponies rather than be stuck in their Siren forms.
Of course sea ponies as a whole could alter themselves as they needed to. Like the nox-cal, sea ponies were three distinct tribes under one name.
The Kelpie, which tended to be the largest and most hardy of the three, they resembled earth ponies on land. Aria more closely followed them then any other. In the water the Kelpie looked more like sharks crossed with ponies than anything else, their Siren forms had a lot of that look.
The Mer were the pegasi equivalent. Fast, flighty, and in control of the currents more than any of the other three. They were the ones everyone thought of when some one mentioned sea ponies, likely due to their wanderlust matching the Thestrils and the Pegasi, they tended to want to be every where. While the land form didn't have wings per say, the long gossamer fins they possessed looked like wings despite not being able to provide true flight beyond gliding and fluttering about. Sonata tended to ignore that most of the time somehow, though her younger sister still rarely flew.
Then there were the unicorn equivalents, the ones that very rarely every left the deeper waters. While some of them did have horns, most of them tended to also have squid tendrils in their natural forms both as limbs and around their maws. While on land they did resemble unicorns however but it was rare that this tribe left the water. Adagio thankfully only took after them in terms of power rather than the looks the Innsmouth had. Though there were a few occasions in the human world she wouldn't have minded tentacles, particularly when they traveled through Japan.
Still with her ability to boost her magic limited since her gems destruction she had to come up with other ideas. One she had come up with should tip the odds in their favor next time some one tried to stop them. She couldn't wait to turn the tables on that goddess. Sure she couldn't kill her, but tormenting her for stopping them was a decent enough payback.
After all, the mare might be the goddess of magic, but if the magic came from another world, or something she hadn't studied before, the few moments of surprise would be more than enough to catch her off guard.
Though Adagio doubted the same trick would work twice on the purple alicorn.
[Cutie mark vault ]
“I've never seen anything like this.” Twilight muttered looking at the vault and the mass of floating cutie marks. There had to be one here for every one in the town with plenty of space left to spare.
“And here is the Staff of Sameness. It was one of the great mage Medowbrook's nine enchanted items. We are incredibly fortunate to have it here. This is the tool that allows us to free ourselves from our marks! I'm curious, how did the subject of the vault come up?”
“Oh, some ponies were telling us how much they missed their cutie marks, and..” Pinkie Pie ranted.
“Pinkie!” Twilight snapped.
“Oops...”
“Were they? Well, it seems you inspire all sorts of free thinking, don't you?” Starlight frowned.
“Any one else getting serious 'Flavor-aid cult' vibes here?” Rainbow Dash offered.
“Ah am a might concerned that that staff don't smell like magic...”Applejack offered.
“Well, w-we certainly didn't intend to cause any disruptions to your charming little..” Rarity began.
“Good.” Starlight stated flatly before grinning wide the staff yanked from the pedestal.” Let's just make sure of that, shall we?”
“What?” Twilight demanded before a wash of magic from the staff enveloped the group.
A chorus of screams filled the cave as the girls cutie marks were yanked from them. The marks floating in the air before quickly being sealed away in jars bay the cackling unicorn.
“Aw. I don't blame you for what you tried to do here today. You've spent your whole lives thinking those marks are a good thing.” Starlight smirked.
“Give them back!” Twilight demanded, her horn sparking as she tired to focus on a spell and failed.
“Well, now you can spend the rest of your lives here with us! And we'll teach you just how much better life can be without your cutie marks!” Starlight chuckled.
“You're not gonna win. Rahs will save us” Pinkie Pie cried out.
“Who?” Starlight questioned.
“Him.” Pinkie pointed.
Starlight glanced back not seeing anyone or anything in the direction the pink mare pointed.
“Umm?” Starlight blinked.
“Oh no! Him,... him... come on, Him.” Pinkie demanded gesturing wildly. ”Rahs this is a super dramatic moment, where are you?”
How can this magic affect Applejack at all? I thought even necromancy magic was eaten promptly by her biology. Heck, she even ate Starswirl's sure-death, magical atomic bomb before it hit the girls within the same room before.
One thing I'd like to point out. Even their magic were stripped from them, it surely doesn't affect their physical strength, right? Who would have prevent them from escape in the town? I don't recall there is any guards in this town.
Another thing I am curious about. If something magical happen to Twilight, wouldn't Rahs notice it right away? Since he is magically connected to her.
RAHS. COME ON MAN. 0 out of 5 stars. The dogs actor was late and ruined it.
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this shall be explained
When Fluttershy curses, you know its bad.
Hmmm.... Lucy you's got some splain' to do.
Besides the minor confusion based gripes which I'll trust to be explained. TDR is very good at keeping things within the lore he creates. its a fun chapter pinkie balling out Rahs made me chuckle and get werid stares from my SO. Keep up the good work!
Well put
aww crap
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In the show it did. It made them all physically, and mentally, the exact same. They had different personalities still, but literally EVERYTHING else was the same. Rainbow couldn't even out fly how fast, or really how slow, the other effected ponies could, very slowly, Jog. As seen at the end of the episode.
It effected everything. From Quarkyness such as AJ's 'Countryism', aka phrases. To Rarity unable to tell if something was good or bad Fashion or not, to Pinkie unable to tell jokes or be able to feel happiness, to Fluttershy unable to understand animals. It takes away more than Magic, it literally stripes away EVERYTHING.
And you didn't run WHY‽
Erm how come aj didn't wolf out and chomp the spell
Wouldn’t applejack thanks to her current existence have eaten the magic being used on her?
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Yeah that wouldn’t the intense magic make her change as well
Well, rahs might be dead.
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I have a feeling that camps 1 then 2 just got their invade signal as I imagine that rahs either suddenly went unconscious or started growling very badly. I hope a message gets back to canterlot for either an orbital bombardment or calling in dr choppy.
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Does being docile also include the 'inability to walk out of the fence-less town with no obvious guards'? Exclude the case of imprisonment, I still could not see how this kind of town would prevent anyone from escaping - anything short of magic barrier (but that would automatically tell the town you still have magic).
Which is precisely my point, what Starlight does removes not only the magical assistance ponies get from their cutie marks but also any semblance of skill they might have developed over the course of their lives
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In the show Starlight looked them up in a house and tried essentially brainwash them.
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I'm a bit of a fan of the 'spell averages everyone. thus a 100% baker would be knocked down to 5% as everyone in the town averages to 5%. I'm not doing that here, but i rather liked that idea.
Personally I blame Starlight and her philosophy... but I don't like Starlight and her philosophy so I'm probably really biased in my opinion
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That is not working, as the goddess of magic, twilight has enough magic that even split she can do something. Not talking about that rarety with nightmare is also far above average.
Hm, not counting Rahs, if word of this gets out, Starlight's going to have at least four other gods (Celestia, Luna, Cadence and Chrysalis) and three demi-gods (Spike, Sunset and Sombra) on her case. That isn't a recipe for a lot life.
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WARNING
This entire comment is me ranting about Starlight, so feel free to ignore it if you'd like.
If you still wish to read it then feel free to do so too.
And if everyone is that lowest 5% in everything then this town is really just doomed to end one day soon.
I mean really, they have no innovation, no decent protection, no education, no decent doctors (if they even have any), no decent food (I suspect they might even have some difficulty feeding everyone in town), I don't think they have any kids and I'd be curious to see how that would completely destroy Starlight’s little cult due to the internal conflicts the parents will end up feeling.
And the whole thing is lead by a hypocritical fool of mare who seems to think that the stagnation she's doing everything in her power to promote won't lead to death.
There are literal monsters in the world that eats ponies and if every pony is stuck in that lowest 5% then they sure as Tartarus won't be able to defend themselves and the monsters will see any town as an all you can eat buffé.
And then there are all the other races, there is no way they would all just sit by and watch the resources of Equestria go to waste if the ponies suddenly became pathetically weak and incapable of defending themselves.
In absolute short: Starlight’s plan essentially dooms evey pony she takes the cutie mark from, stagnation and death awaits all ponies if she succeeds and she's so hypoctical and has to be willfully ignorant of the consequences of what her actions will lead to if she thinks what she wants to achieve is a great idea
Sorry about the rant but I really don't like Starlight at this point in her life.
Granted I'm not a fan of her after she changes either but that has more to do with that I feel she never received any actual punishment for everything she did
If you've read this far thank you for you're patience
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Don’t think so, unconscious or severely impaired is my belief, bad enough to call in a caffeinated Luna
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Agreed. She should have been pilloried for this two-parter alone. Even assuming that the other villagers signed up, this counts as six cases of assault.
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That's going to add another god and demi-god to the list of creatures that would like to have some very harsh words with Starlight.
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Don’t forget about jynx, if I’ve read the innuendo right she has taken over for Forthe and that bitch will have more than very harsh words for her.
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I’ll laugh my arse of if rahs turns out/is meant to be Linked to starlight. That’ll be a trope pulled right from dc with twilight accidentally created her own (temporary) nemesis.
Dagnabbit, I would have at least expected Twilight’s reflexes to be better than that; she could have at least put up a shield or something before they got blasted.
I am not sure if any one has said anything on this but HOW did starlights spell work on applejack? seems like a MASSIVE plot hole to me since she also casted it on twilight who is an alicorn and everyone else AT THE SAME TIME! HENCE A MASSIVE PLOT HOLE especially since twilight was ALWAYS complaining about how it took her a while to get spells to stick to Rahs
....runing out of ideas or is the anticlimax the joke here...if your not going to change anything in an episode you might as well skip it...i mean you had to resort to cut away gags in this....
they were funny cut away gags but still
Pinkie was right about the dramatic moment.
Just wrong about which one Rahs’s is going to pick. After all, the hero doesn’t show up to save the day until all hope is lost.
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keep in mind how i numbered these chapters.
Well... unless you surprise me in the later chapters, it seems even you can't make this mess of an episode make any sense or be the slightest bit not shit.
Apparently Google is so ad driven now, I cant even find the old story through simple name search.
If this isnt dramatic enough for Rahs, just what monsters exist in that runic summoning framework inside the mountain?
Oh dear. Considering the link that Rahs, Spike, Twilight & Shining Armor all share, the removal of Twilight’s cutie Mark makes me wonder how it affects the others.
Is Twilight still a goddess even without her Cutie Mark? Or is she a mortal pony again?
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That's why I said 'Another god'. The demi-god is Jynx.
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She has a portfolio and she's not a child of a god, so not a demi-god but a full fledged one.
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Hmm, promoting "equality" by making everyone equally terrible...
Somehow I'm now remined of Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut by that.
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Can't say if i will or won't impress you, but this next chapter is the ending of the episode.
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Ahh, we're missing last ep's part one! Can't believe I missed that!
Pinkie, if you expect him to make a dramatic entrance right when and where you expect it, it wouldn’t be that dramatic if he did, now would it?
But as I said before: since the god of theatre is involved, we can be fairly certain of a few things:
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I have the distinct feeling that removing the cutie mark from the Goddess of Friendship & Magic (and books and Tuesdays) is a Very Bad Idea®, and not just because it’s going to piss off more than a few powerful beings — more along the lines of, “Begin reinserting the graphite-tipped control rods into Reactor No. 4 of the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin Nuclear Power Plant following the safety test,” bad.
Hmmm, so foreshadowing something major in those tunnels, or just setting up Starlight's escape?
Something else siphoning off part of it... or just their overall lowered magical capacities due to 'Equalization' messing with how much magic the Moon Dogs can get from the dreams?
Okay than..... this is a think that happened and.... I have no idea how to process this one. Anypony else but Fluttershy would feel a tad forced for the sake of making the story different then canon for the sake of making it different but... Fluttershy of all ponies.... that is awkward and also hilarious at the same time.
And here I thought that Sonata would be the Hentai enthusiast of the group.
And the whole "Everything even vaguely pony related gets three tribes matching up to the main three" thing kind of starts wearing a bit thin fast....
No.. no that is not enough.....
You idiot.... you petty, shortsighted, moron.... yes piss off a being who already nearly turned your family into fish fritters, by all means. "Oh but I can catch her by surprise for a few moments!" yeah and then when she overcomes that, she gets even more pissed! And that is not even counting then having to deal with another pissed of and highly protective god, a demigod who gives zero fucks about making idiots suffer and is very, very creative in how to do so, and ye another sibling who... oh right.... Crushed into neutronium a dragonic monster who even gods feared... with his mind alone! Before even getting into the rest of the Main 6, Sombra.............. wow you are a freaking idiot!
Pffffffffffffffffffttttttttttttttttttttttt, That's a good one Pinkie.... very nice.
Damnit Drama Dog! Stop being useless
So, it did work on Twilight, and can somehow mess with a god.... though would it still apply if Twilight was killed and recovered? How does this even work given Twilight is, again, a god and so isn't running on the same sot of power as other ponies.... what about non-pony gods who don't have cutie marks?
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The thing is, Starlight didn't just remove the cutie marks, she replaced them with the = mark as well, and we see that mark pulsing when the Mane 6 start acting a bit too unique and causing them to instantly lose some of that, so you have two different issues at work, not just one to deal with. Given the cutie mark swap spell she pulled on Tia and Luna had no impact at all on either's personalities, it's pretty clear it's the = that is causing everypony to be so diminished on all counts.
On the 'you can just leave' thing, yes..that is why they were kept locked up. As for the rest of the town, it's a cult, that is what cults do, screw with your head to the point that you don't want to leave.
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Yes, it's almost like the highly irrational mare with a penchant for not thinking her ideas through all the way before doing them... is doing something irrational and poorly thought out.
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It does not effect all of them, that's been the way things have worked since the start. Effects cast on Rahs directly affect all of the siblings, affects on one of the others effects only them and Rahs, not the other two.
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Really it's only the 4 groups. Crystal Ponies, Ponies, and Noxcal did this because because all of them are base ponies.
Seaponies did it because it's what i did in a previous story and i just liked the idea.
Would the Spell take Shining Armors Mark to?
Solomon could enslave a god but... Isnt it odd how a god can be reduced to mortal strength.
Twilight can still kamikaze run against Starlight Glimmer. The perks of imortality
How is the Spell effecting Spike i wonder...
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Indeed, Drama Dog better make it up...
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Right on all counts. But it is simple, there needs to be a 'but' otherwise 'no story'.
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Meh... She use lethal force before vs Pirates and Peta so it kinda lost the boom behind her non kind actions...
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Plot conviniently needs a 'because they didn't'
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Probably the element of surprise...
I am surprised Statlight's magic can effect this version of applejack, since sameness doesn't exactly prevent witch dog from coming out and literally beating her to pieces....magic is weird would be my answer to this.
At this point I would run that nice little bit of bone on her head through that bitch... Worst case scenario of course.
But lucky they have guard laying in the back and waiting.