Like any other day, the sun rose over Ponyville and Twilight Sparkle’s assistant started breakfast before waking his friend Twilight Sparkle.
Twilight rolled out of bed and slowly shook herself awake before she hobbled over to her bathroom and stepping into a cold shower to become fully awake. She stepped out into the warm air of her home, now fully awake, and walked downstairs searching for her breakfast.
She found Spike setting the table with plates piled with pancakes. As she sat down to eat her companion broke the silence by asking what her plan for the day was. She told him that her plan was to explore the ruins in the Everfree forest by herself hoping for less interruptions than the last time she had tried.
She finished her breakfast and stepped outside into the brisk air of the outdoors, careful to avoid being noticed by anypony.
She started the long walk along the uneven streets of Ponyville and slowly made her way to the Everfree forest still being careful not to be noticed by anypony in the orange glow of the early morning sun.
As she reached the Everfree she contemplated the things that she had done in it, ranging from clearing evil beasts from it to meeting her best friends. As she thought of all these events she continued along the old path to the ruins, unaware of what lie in wait for her there.
A clean up of the forest was happening and thus empty crates built to hold the many evil creatures of the Everfree were strewn about around the ruins.
The plan was fairly simple, start at the ruins (around the center of the forest) and slowly make a circle outwards, capturing ever evil beast the teams encountered on the way. So far it had been a great success, making the dark forest a semi safe area for all ponies. The princess even planned on rebuilding the ruins to resemble their former luster. despite this, the clean up crews had been told not to enter the ruins and had obeyed.
The reason for this was Twilight. She had been worried that the crews would remove or otherwise disrupt something important in the castle.
As she reached the castle she saw a large crow sitting on a crate. The crow was strange and appeared to be sizing up her.
Just as she was about to ignore it and continue along, the thing spoke. It did not speak in a language that she recognized but instead seemed to speak directly into her mind.
‘dO NOt EnTEr heRe,’ The beast spoke unevenly, ‘yOur PATh is ClOUdEd WitH MaNY ghOsts Of yOU.’
‘I don't understand,’ Twilight stuttered, ‘What do you mean many ghosts of me, and what are you?’
‘It Is As It sOunDS nEw OnE, thERE arE mAny ghOSts Of WhAt cAn bE, And WAs, And wAS nOt, nOt alL TRavELlinG AT thE saME SPEeD, aND ALL trAvELIng ACrOSs yoUr LInE. bEwArE fOr thEy ALL cOnvErgE hErE. sOmE dIE And sOmE LIvE. sOmE OLd sOmE yoUng. sOmE cOntInUE sOmE stOp. sOmE mOvE On, sOmE dOn't. ALL wILL tUrn AgAInst you.’
‘I don't understand, what do you mean? There can only be one of me...’ Twilight cried out to the large bird.
‘THe eQUinE SPecIES hAs ALWaYs HAd tHAt IlLUsiON. ThaT THerE MuST bE ONly OnE oF EVerYtHInG LeT mE ShOW yOU.’
The bird spread its wings and lunged at Twilight, who closed her eyes expecting impact instead the bird became larger and larger until eventually it enveloped the entire world.
Twilight opened her eyes and saw nothing but darkness.
‘What is this?’ Twilight shouted to the darkness.
‘Where am I? What do you want me to see?’ She continued.
A bubble of light opened in front of her, showing her the path she had been on. There were long strands of intangible light crisscrossing the entire area, making it look like a deformed hopscotch board. Along the trails ponies began to appear, hundreds of them. Some of them Twilight recognized as workers and some she had never seen before.
Then she started noticing.
Every one of the ponies wasn't exactly the same. They each had differences. Some of these differences were major and some minor. That and they seemed to all be on different trails of light.
‘THEse arE JUSt ThE eQUiNEs frOm TodAY.’ The bird-thing spoke, this time it’s voice much louder. ‘lET mE sHOW yOU YoUr LInE.’ The blackness seemed to shift and the amount of ponies slowly disappeared, one at a time until only one line was left.
Twilight saw herself. Twenty or thirty of herself actually. All different. A few stood where she was and looked at the bird, more continued forward ignoring the bird. They were all different; some young some old, some clean some dirty, some attacked some safe. All moved towards the ruins.
‘sEE NoW SMall pONy?’ The bird asked.
‘I see, but what does this mean? There is only one of me!’ Twilight shouted at the blackness.
‘thE ERROR iN yOUR pERcePTions Is tWOfOld. oNE IS tHAt tHERe caN be OnLY OnE OF yoU. ThE OTHer IS thaT tHEse Are YOU. THesE ArE YOus THat hAVe MadE DiFFEreNt chOIceS TO gET hERE. GHostS oF OThER REalitIes.’
Twilight sat silently for a moment, contemplating what she had just heard. Slowly her fright and shock faded into anger. There was only one of her! She could not possibly be just a new one of these other Twilights! She was unique!
‘What do you want from me bird? Because all I’ve seen so far in your ‘tour’ is that you don't make any sense!’ Twilight raged.
The bird said nothing and the darkness faded revealing that the bird had gone and that time had not moved.
Twilight looked around, now with more questions than before, and continued onwards to the ruins, disregarding the bird’s warning and hoping that answers lied within.
As Twilight walked into the ruin she noticed that the floor seemed to be steeped downwards, which was odd considering that the castle didn’t have many underground rooms. She continued and started noticing things on the walls that weren’t supposed to be there. Small scraps of pictures and paint as well as pre-lit torches as the light from the surface started to fade away.
As she reached the first almost complete picture she looked closely at it.
She reeled back very quickly. The picture depicted her mother and father standing over a dead Shining Armor with Twilight holding a bloody knife in her hoof, something which had most definitely not happened.
Twilight looked closer and noticed the picture seemed very real.
She continued on, and the pictures seemed to multiply along each wall and along with paint lines going along behind them. The pictures showed Twilight at different ages, but each new line showed her at a younger age. Each showed events slightly differently.
This one depicted her without any friends in the library with faint graves in the background.
This one showed her on a gallows.
This one, her with blank eyes standing over the princesses.
She continued, looking at the pictures and noting the differences.
Abruptly every timeline (for that was what she was sure they were) ended at the same spot, the ruins.
All the lines hit the ruins at different times, but none of the lines progressed beyond that point in time.
As she reached the farthest line she saw herself looking at the ruins and the bird.
This picture chilled her. for it was exactly how she looked when she had arrived to the ruins.
She continued forward from there, horrified that her line didn’t continue. She also finally got a look at the strange wallpaper clearly for the first time, hundreds of her balloon lined the walls, empty with pegasi flying around them.
As she walked deeper and deeper into the bowels of the intestines of the ancient ruins, she started to piece together possible explanations of what was happening here. She thought to herself that maybe someone was trying to prank her, but quickly ruled out that possibility because she knew that no one could put together all the photos she had seen along with the corridor.
She thought that it definitely wasn't true and that it was just a test made by Celestia but again ruled that theory out as she knew her teacher wasn't likely to give her a test without telling her.
She kept thinking about possibilities and ruling them out for various reasons.
Before Twilight could come to a solid conclusion, she came to the end to the extremely long corridor.
At the end there was a small red door. The same door, in fact, that was on the front of her home in the library. The door was identical in every way, even down to the scratches on each half.
She finally got up her nerves and opened the door and quickly stepped inside.
A pitch blackness encompassed her as soon as she stepped inside and she stumbled around for a couple of seconds until a bright warm orange yellow light illuminated the room, revealing it to be a large dome shaped building with strange small orbs floating in the air displaying events in history as they floated through the air.
Twilight did not notice this. No, instead she noticed the source of the light. A white alicorn with her wings unfurled and a small frown upon her royal lips.
‘Twilight Sparkle. You have the potential to be a great hero against an enemy more powerful than any other that you have ever faced. But you are imperfect, so I ask you, are you ready to be my champion?’ Celestia asked the quivering Twilight.
‘Wh-Who are you?’ Twilight stuttered in pure shock, reeling back in shock and terror.
‘Well I’m your teacher and your friend and your princess..’
‘that’s not possible. the princess is kind and generous and always happy.’ Twilight said in a small whisper.
‘Would you like me to explain what’s going on, Twilight Sparkle?’
Twilight thought about the situation laid out in front of her. Her teacher in a cave under the ruins of her former castle, that shouldn't really even exist. A hall filled with what Twilight could only see as different versions of her. And a strange large bird-thing that showed her the different hers.
For the first time since the day started, Twilight was sure.
‘Yes, I would like that very much, teacher.’
Celestia smiled a small smile, that looked rather dishonest when paired with her sad eyes, and began.
‘A very long time ago, I had a premonition of the coming of a terrible beast to all of Equestria. I told my sister and we searched for an answer to what we could do about it. Eventually we found an answer in the zebras. They had a potion to give me a better look at what I could do. I had to find a champion and have them overcome many dangerous tasks and challenges. One such challenge was destroying Nightmare Moon. I had to sacrifice my sister to prepare my champion.’ Celestia paused, grimacing at the past events, ‘To do this I talked with Luna and got her to agree to my plan, though it would cause her much pain. I erased her memory of that conversation and planted thoughts of hate and anger. I waited a thousand years, always searching for a champion before I was presented you as a student. I realized that you would be my champion as I trained you. You continuously proved yourself and showed me that you would be my champion. However, when I released Nightmare Moon, you barely defeated her and returned to me… broken? Misled? Somehow the fight had changed you to be a darker pony, one that was not suited to be my champion. She found this hidden passage and went to the very end with me before trying to end my life. She nearly succeed but I barely killed her. She was the first failure I created.’ Celestia stopped and gauged her student’s reaction. She simply sat there, looking as if she had more questions than before and needed to ask one, ‘So, do you have any questions so far, my faithful student?’
Twilight looked up at the taller pony and asked one of the questions burning in her mind, ‘Why don't I remember attacking you or barely surviving the fight with Princess Luna? And what do you mean, “The first failure you created”? And also, why ar-’ She was cut off as the princess began again.
‘In time, Twilight.’ She said, with another small smile. ‘After you had died, I searched for an answer again. This time I found it in dark magic.’ Twilight gasped, ‘I know,’ the princess said, ‘I know that it is forbidden and it shames me that I had to turn to it for help. But you don't understand how desperate I was. I needed a champion to fight the ever approaching monster. The spell I found and used wasn't a resurrection spell or anything like that.’ The princess paused again, looking hopefully at her student, as the revelation brought her much shame and after a few seconds continued, ‘It was a simple spell really, it involved very few components and even less time to prepare. I used this black magic spell to send myself back in time. I know that it wasn't the correct thing to do, to run away from my problems without waiting and fixing them. But it was the only way to fix the issue at the time. So I went back in time. I only did it to correct my mistakes and create a true champion.’ Celestia finished her explanation and moved on, ‘I went back and sent Luna to the moon again, after explaining of course, and waited for you to come back to me, which did eventually happen. This time I tried to correct my mistake, again I failed and had to start over. After that I started keeping records of what I changed each time, and which event I changed in the hall that the first Twilight attacked me. I also performed the spell here to keep the hall the same throughout the years.’ Celestia stopped briefly to catch her breath before starting again before Twilight could ask another question, ‘This worked and I continued to change things through many iterations of you. I kept you until you reached the point where you would come to this cave and I would test to see if you were my champion. Until She arrived. The first Twilight on the hall outside. She was broken from the start, she killed Shining Armour and was presented to me as a prisoner instead of a student. I taught her as I taught the others but she continued to grow more and more evil. Since Shining was dead, she didn’t have to fight Chrysalis and saw her as a mentor. When she finally arrived here to this cave she couldn’t take the realization that she wasn't the first and her mind finally broke, filled only with hate she ripped apart the hallway’s pictures. Quite the task considering that she was one of the more recent Twilights.’
‘What did you do to her?’ Twilight said, her voice hoarse after her long silence.
‘I locked her in a box and took her with me every time I went back.’
‘Why not just kill her?’
‘I figured that she was so powerful that she would just find a way to come back or break the timeline and come after me.’
‘So you locked her in a box? Can't she just magic out? Or just break out?’
‘Observant small child, but no, she can't. The exposure to timetravel stripped her of her magic, and she never read the book on escaping boxes and other precarious situations.’
‘So matter what she does, she can't escape and isn't able to use magic? Why does she not die from starvation or kill herself?’
‘Simple, I trapped her in a moment of time, so unless she repents she will never move forward in time and will stay in the box.’ Celestia looked sad and ashamed for a moment, but the look quickly left her face as she continued with her explanation, ‘After I left her timeline I decided to introduce the factor of responsibility and friendship. So I engineered a situation where you made friends and I made the elements to give to you. I also locked away some of your power from the beginning to ensure that you couldn't do certain challenges without your friends. Even with all of this, on a rare occasion, something would go wrong.’ Celestia’s horn glowed again as a globe that was floating above Twilight moved down so she could get a better look at it.
In the strange floating orb Twilight saw another version of her, but instead of being a small alicorn, as she was in the current timeline, she was very tall, like Celestia or Luna, but instead of sharing the throne with the other princesses, she appeared standing over them, their bodies not moving. Twilight realized that the sun princess's body was an illusion and guessed that she had escaped to try again.
‘After a while I realized that the rare “Mad Twilight” as I call them, were caused by miscalculations in the sealing of your powers.’ The princess looked down at her student and smiled, ‘Luckily I rectified this after that, one of the few good things that I have done over the course of my search.’ She again smiled.
‘So if you go on with your search there will not be any more of these Mad Twilights?’
‘Of course there is always a small chance that one will form, but those moving forward will not be that way because of a magic restriction, but because of external influences or experiences.’
‘Well at least there’s that.’ Twilight said as she sat down and sighed, ‘But it’s still worrying that you’ve been doing this Princess. Also, just how many times have you? How old are you? And what happens to the celestia of that timeline?’ She questioned her teacher.
Celestia moved to the entrance of the cavern and turned slightly, motioning with her head for Twilight to follow her; Twilight of course complied, eager to have her questions answered and to move from the cold rock that was poking her flank.
‘As the millenia moved on I went through many many universes. From what I count on the walls here in this hall,’ Celestia briefly motioned at the wall with her hoof, ‘I have been through something like 1735 different timelines. Which would make me something like, 1,736,261 years old.’ Celestia stopped for a moment and let her words sink in while they continued walking down the corridor, the torches flickering out of existence one by one as they passed them, ‘And each celestia, discluding the first jump I made, all now reside within my head, as a kind of moral system, giving me advice and guiding certain actions that they believe I am too emotional over. With each jump I leave a false celestia behind to govern that timeline and save the entire universe in a kind of pocket, with time standing still for all of it’s inhabitants, very much so like this hall, so that they may exist even with the actual timelines being changed. Even with that most of the inhabitants die with the transition. I did not wish to kill entire universes in my quest, and this was the best I could do. However, there are some drawbacks. Eventually whatever is coming, the thing I need the champion for, will reach us and destroy all of the worlds.’ Celestia stopped again as Twilight noticed that there were no longer torches and the light from the surface came creeping in from the surface.
‘The time has come,’ The now grim looking Celestia spoke, ‘You will be judged upon your worth.’ As she spoke a strange warm, tickling light enveloped Twilight, making it hard for her to see.
Suddenly the light went from a tickling sensation to a thousand pins and needles all over her skin, piercing into her body and into her very being.
‘Ahh---ahhhhhhhhh’ Twilight screamed, writhing in pain within the pale yellow orange light, looking up in time to see her teacher’s horn glowing in the same color, ‘Help m-’ Twilight choked on invisible blood gushing through her mouth and nose, ‘P-rin-cess’ Twilight.
‘I’m sorry my faithful student. You have been judged unworthy, this is the fate that awaited you.’
‘S-o y-ou’re do-in-g t-t-this? K-k-kil-l-ing m-me?’ Twilight asked, tears from the invisible pain and betrayal streaming down her face and turning the ground below her into mud in small patches. The vicious immortal turned and started walking away, horn glowing, turning to say ‘Yes.’ without a hint of remorse in her voice.
Twilight continued sobbing and cursed the pony she had once called a friend. The Princess continued walking, unfazed by the flood of tears coming from behind her and finally heard her student cry out in what she knew was her final breath, she had heard it many times, as she vanished into yet another timeline, bearing the cries of the people dying in the timeline, to try again to find a champion to defeat the evil she knew was coming.
Author's Note
Little side project that I've been working on. The 'bird' bit lasted a bit long for my taste, but I left it because I kind of like it's dialogue. Also, to clarify a few bits, Every time Celestia or Princess is in lower case it's because they're not the Prime. The Princess lied and has been destroying universes, not 'preserving' them. And finally, it's really hard to write a character like Celestia to be evil without coming to parts where she doesn't sound like one. Sorry bout that.