Starlight Glimmer wins
Yeah yeah yeah, I should be working on Strange, and I am, as well as several of my other projects. But after seeing cutie unmarked, I wanted to write this quick fic. So sue me. I don't own MLP or any of it's characters.
Starlight looked at the world Twilight had brought her to. The ponies around her didn't look like the ponies from Equestria; they were all exactly the same shade of gray in fur and mane, and their faces, were all covered with expressionless masks.
"What the hey is this?" Starlight growled at Twilight.
"This is the world you would have made if my friends and I hadn't stopped you. I wanted to show you how your actions affected others, I thought it would be effective to hit somewhere close to heart."
Twilight waved her hoof at Starlight, "come on, don't you want to see your wonderful utopia of equality?"
Starlight followed in a daze. The only sound in the town was hoof steps. Clip clop clip clop clip clop. Not a single word, leaving Starlight to only focus on the world around her. There was a certain beauty to it. The sameness, but it was counteracted to the overall wrongness that Starlight felt in her gut. Above the town lied a giant palace. Some knowledge about the world flowed into her mind. Every house had one seed planted in it, all of which had the same type of tree, it was a requirement of every citizen to water their plant daily. If caught not doing so, they'd be locked away until they could be given a sentence with the ruler. (Starlight Glimmer)
Every pony had the equal cutie-mark that Starlight had given her followers in The Town. Alt Starlight Glimmer had focused all her magical energy into persuasion and sedatives for those who weren't quick to believe her claim that cutie marks were actually a contagious illness that spread chaos, anger and hatred among ponies. Being filled with such things were considered a fate worse then death among most ponies.
Any other plant or animal type was grown in the out lands, a farming area filled with chaos. It was where ponies who stood outside the law went. They were branded with cutie marks, so if they came back, they'd be immediately taken to Starlight Glimmer, any outland pony found in the now small town of Equestria was to be sentenced to death.
As for Celestia and Luna, they considered Starlight Glimmer's land as it's own territory, and didn't want to declare war. Despite this, there were many reports of brawls happening between the True Equestrians and the Equillites. Even though there ideas were different, they were great business partners . What the Equillites lacked in food, they returned in labor. Several hundred ponies, some criminals others not were given to the True Equestrians each year.
There was one thing the True Equestrians and the Equillites agreed upon was that the underground cutie mark trades needed to stop. There was someone in Alt Starlight Glimmer's closed circle that needed to be erased, so Alt Starlight Glimmer killed all of them and replaced them with more of the common ponies.
The trades continued as if nothing happened.
Starlight was thinking about these things when a female earth pony bumped into her. "Oh, pardon me... Wait your fur, it's not gray," she turned and looked at Twilight, "and neither is yours! Oh dearie me, are you True Equestrians?" Twilight quickly caught on, "yes, we're here to see Starlight Glimmer to, um-" "Talk about the illegal cutie mark exchanges." Starlight said with a bright smile.
The ponies fur physically blanched, "o-o-of course, let me call a group of guards who'll take you to the palace straight away." She got out a black whistle and blew into it. Two ponies appeared, a large male pegasus and a wiry looking female unicorn. The pegasus held down Twilight and the unicorn created a barrier between the earth pony and Starlight.
"We have two irregularities that fit Citizen Starlight's description 5 moons ago."The earth pony said.
The unicorn gave a sadistic grin, "Of course we'll send them right where they belong." The unicorns horn glowed a gray-blue and Starlight couldn't remember anything after.
Starlight woke up in a fancy room with gray walls and dark magenta curtains. On a tray next to her bed was a plate of cheese and crackers on it was a note in familiar hand writing.
Hello my time traveling self,
This is you, well sort of you... you know what, when I talk about you I'm going to call you time travel Starlight and I'll be Citizen Starlight. Not all of my memories of this time period have come back, so I'm going to suppose that you're scared and confused. Well don't be, I'll give you all of your memories it won't be too hard with our technology. Not only that, but I know you have the paper. Rip it and leave yourself in this time period forever I'll let you be my co-Citizen and together we can get rid of those no good cutie-marks and those cutie-mark traders. I'll send a guard to bring you downstairs to bargain with me and talk about the best way to kill Twilight Sparkle.
Love Citizen Starlight Glimmer
A few minutes later time travel Starlight was sipping tea with Citizen Starlight. Citizen Starlight tried to make small talk, but time travel Starlight wasn't paying attention. She had only one thing on her mind. Twilight. Sure Starlight wanted to bang her up a bit, maybe ruin her life and destroy her friendship out of pure vengeance, but did she deserve to die?
"Enough with the small talk, I can tell that I'm boring you time travel me. So tell me, do you have any qualms about the way I run things?"
Time travel Starlight put her hoof on her chin, "How long have you been running this operation?"
"About a year, but I know this'll be a dynasty that will last forever and change the world for the better."
Time travel Starlight chuckled, then laughed louder, and louder.
"What's so funny?" Citizen Starlight asked.
"Oh future me,"she laughed, "I just realize how ridiculous this is. The idea of this kind of society working at all."
"Well," Citizen Starlight said, "why not?"
"Look around you 'Citizen' Starlight, you're just like every other leader before you. You don't live simplistically or similarly to the ponies around you. You're not gray like the other ponies. No, you and I were too afraid of loosing power to lower ourselves to the ranks of commoners. You say you have these beliefs, you claim you can make a world of perfect equality, but what about your world is equal? You know what Citizen Starlight, you're a hypocrite. You're so desperate to keep your own power that you'll make up whatever's necessary to keep ponies from being better then you." Starlight smirked, "This future will never exist, do you know why?"
Citizen Starlight shook her head, she didn't remember any of this from her timeline.
"Because I will never be as pathetic and fake as you are." She spat, and the world around her became dust. The only thing left was a purple alicorn.
"Starlight, did you just-" Twilight started.
Starlight shrugged, "I just decided to get over myself and my overblown ego." She put her head down, "I'm just sorry I wasted so much time, and ruined so many lives before deciding to change myself."
Twilight smiled, "it may take some work to convince the world you've changed. And you'll need much more then an, "I'm sorry to make it up to the people of your town-"
"I'll do whatever it takes to prove that I changed." She said with an equally large smile.
"Good to hear Starlight, because you have a lot of work to do."