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Chapters

1 - Memento
2 - Passing
3 - Transcend
4 - Decisive
5 - Working
6 - Accuracy
7 - Relapse
8 - Broke
10 - Expunge
11 - Surrender
12 - Feedback
13 - Causality
Epilogue
Prologue
9 - Interval

1 - Memento

Ponyville was dead and alive at the same time.

Hundreds gathered in the center square, carrying out hushed conversations under the glow of the moon above them. Dozens more filed in through a long line that stretched to the castle at the edge of town where a ring of flowers grew with each addition.

The fields to the south remained unplowed, unfinished dresses still lay draped across their mannequins, and a few clouds were unaccounted for in the sky.

Six individuals looked across the crowd from the top of the hill. They stood silent, stalwart, like shepherds watching over their flock. They draped hooves over each other’s withers with each new set of attendees that appeared.

Every so often, a few ponies came up to them to introduce themselves and share their own personal stories. Aside from the occasional question, the six remained silent throughout, content to listen. After everything was said and done, they offered their gratitude for sharing and showing up.

But even as the gathering drew on, their energy slowly dwindled until, after an entire evening of holding it in, they broke down and descended into a cacophony of wails and sobs. Like a cascade, the rest of the attendees surrendered, and soon the entire town was caught in a bitter uproar.

Eventually, once all the weeping died down, one of them produced a candle. A single lick of his fiery breath lit it ablaze, and it glowed softly against the night. He raised it into the air, allowing all to see it from every direction.

In an almost immediate response, his five companions, each as distinct as the next, raised their own flames skyward.

The crowd took it as a sign, and most of them produced candles for themselves. Scores of flames, some lit by match and others donated by other already-lit candles, flickered into life and then were raised toward the night sky. Not one single pony made a sound.

In the darkness of the night, the city of Canterlot also produced a red glow. A singular red dot appeared at the front of the mountain. The light off the moon, on an equal queue, intensified, bathing the entire land in a sheet of white. In the distance, several rainbows shot into the sky from an airborne location. And, from the far north, a river of ethereal lights coalesced forth from beyond the horizon and danced through the sky.

Several similar displays, silent voices shouting in unison, rose up throughout the rest of the magical land of Equestria.

While only a couple hundred had been admitted into the hall, one glance into the sprawling square outside revealed thousands more, packed together so well that one would be hard-pressed to find any inch of grass unclaimed. The proceedings spilled into several of Canterlot’s side streets and then some.

It was high noon, yet the sun and moon sat on opposing horizons. The lights produced by both melted together into an orangish-bluish glow. Several stars, brighter than usual, dotted the sky. Not one single attendee complained about the change in sky; most found it fitting, in fact.

Sunset Shimmer’s eyes drifted around the room which she knew could fit an entire house and have room to spare. Several spiraling pillars held the high ceiling above them. Light flooded in through several equally tall windows spanning most sides of the room, assisted by several fresh candles on the walls.

The regal hymn of the organ, charting a song full of somber notes and sweeping movements, filled the hall.

Craning her neck to look around, Sunset tried to scout out some of the other attendees. She spotted a blue-hued and haughty-looking unicorn wringing the life out of a lavender magician’s hat in the opposite row. A wall-eyed pegasus nearby held her half-asleep daughter closely. A trio of fillies huddled together, sharing low whispers that occasionally became shouts. Next to them sat a black-and-white striped equine who was not any sort of pony that Sunset knew of. The equine chanted under her breath as if in prayer. Near them sat a green unicorn who, judging from her reading glasses and the subtle wrinkles near her eyes, was rather experienced. Sunset pegged her as an author.

Grouped together on the side of the aisle opposite hers sat several ponies who all but clung to one another, and it was that which told her who they were. A mare and stallion couple clung to each other, just like they had when they arrived, and she knew there was no way to console them from the way they wailed. The captain of the guard and his alicorn wife took seats next to them, opting for a more silent route. Other ponies surrounded them that, by her guess, had some sort of relation, though Sunset didn’t take the time to pin them down exactly.

On her own side, in the same row as her, sat five ponies that contrasted each other in almost every way. The five of them dragged their hooves against the floor as they glanced determinately at everything around them. Every so often, they would yank at the black neckerchiefs around their necks as if fighting for air.

Their spitting images sat in the row in from of her. Their black attire was much more careful and prudent, making most other ponies look naked by comparison. With each passing minute, their hairs split further (or in one case fell flatter than before), their eyeliner coursed down their faces, and another shade of color drained from their coats. Layers of makeup tried and failed to hide the bags and red swells under and around their eyes. At no point during the entire past hour had they been able to silence themselves.

A small, purple dragon completed—yet contrasted—them. Spike sat at the beginning of the row with his hands perpetually twisted together as he twiddled his claws, as if he was a record that kept playing the same few seconds over and over again. And, while all the other attendees had thrown the occasional string of words, Sunset had not heard his voice since arriving.

A large, empty lavender box sat squarely on the altar. A single picture frame sat atop it, in which the image of Princess Twilight Sparkle grinned happily back at them.

* * *

Sunset shifted upright in her seat when the organ faded out and a hush fell over the room. Her old mentor, Princess Celestia, approached the empty casket.

Every second that she gazed upon her was a twist of the knife; a reminder of what had gone so wrong. She had even told herself that she would sit in the same room as Celestia for the past two days, but she still wasn’t ready.

Principal Celestia, she could deal with. Princess Celestia, she could not.

But, for Twilight’s sake, she pushed her reservations aside and contented herself to listen.

Celestia scanned the scores of wet muzzles looking attentively at her, took one last aside glance at the casket beside her, and then cleared her throat to speak.

“My little ponies,” Celestia said, “I will be brief. I know there are a lot of things to be said today, and there are quite a few of you that will want to share your own words with us.

“First, I am very pleased that so many of you could join us today. Thank you all for coming. It is hard to believe that it has been but three days.”

Celestia’s voice grabbed the entire room; it was gentle and flowing like silk but at the same time radiant and forceful.

“I have known Twilight Sparkle for many many years. When she was but a filly, I took her in as my personal protégé and spent much of her younger years teaching her magic. Since then, I have watched her exceed every expectation set upon her. And many moons ago when I sent her to Ponyville to learn about friendship... I think it is safe to say that everypony here knows how that turned out. Not only did she learn, she made it her own. In fact, she became friendship.”

At that point, she cracked a small grin. “Which worked out very well, I think, because otherwise, I might still be in Tartarus right now.”

Sunset responded with a much-needed chuckle. The audience around her did the same.

Celestia continued, sliding back into her expression from before. “I have watched as she—and her friends—learned many valuable lessons about friendship. I can still vividly recall the letters that she would send to me detailing her exploits… They were a constant joy to read.

“Twilight and her companions have also stopped numerous other foes and beasts on several occasions. And I cannot say this enough, but they also brought my dear sister back to me. I believe... that Twilight has performed several services for Equestria—for all of us. And...”

At that point, Celestia’s smile disappeared from her face. “Just over a week ago, Twilight Sparkle arrived in Canterlot in pursuit of one of her many studies. She arrived to continue her research on those caverns beneath our beloved city, those labyrinthine caverns that have been here longer than this city has.

“But, during her expedition, she found something. She found something that even I had no knowledge of. We don’t even have a name for it. And we do not know what this thing may have done had it escaped from its prison deep within those caverns, but… it must have been terrible...”

Celestia’s voice trailed off well into the distance, allowing silence to invade the room. Her ever-flowing mane seemed to slow down by the tiniest bit, but her solemn expression didn’t change. The only real visible change was the single hoof that glided up to cover her mouth.

Celestia wasn’t.

Sunset spied a small, clear orb fall from behind Celestia’s hair, and then realized it had come from the obscured eye.

Celestia was.

Sunset gnashed her teeth together and then bit down on her hoof.

It wasn’t real.

The rest of the crowd also met Celestia with a small and uncharted chorus of sniffles and wheezes.

The princess of the sun then brought her foreleg and slowly swung it outwards, using it to usher along a long, deep breath.

“And Twilight Sparkle took it upon herself to destroy it,” she said, her voice now much more unsteady.

“Three days ago, almost four, she made her final journey to that wretched place and bested that foul thing. Her farewell letter was found by her most trusted companion, Spike the dragon,” she said, motioning toward him with her hoof, “here in the castle, Spike went on to find… her remains.

“Her only possessions on her at the time of her death were a hooded cloak and a crystal ball. No doubt her tools.”

Celestia hung her head and flapped her wings against her sides. She went silent for long moments as she shook her head. When she looked back up once more to face the crowd, her expression appeared broken.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she bellowed, her booming voice casting a complete silence over the crowd, “sacrificed herself to stop the Nameless! She laid down her life to make sure that it would never bother anypony ever again. She has paid the ultimate price.”

She let out a long sigh. “Even in her last moments, she continued to commit herself to us. Twilight Sparkle thought to save Equestria, just like she has done many times over. And now she is gone for it. But I can promise you all this…” Her tone grew firm. “Even if she is now no longer with us... she will always have a place in Equestria. Now and forever more.”

Celestia stopped once more. She searched about for long, drawn out moments for words that never came. Her lips quivered and her movements were uneven.

Celestia hung her head out of resignation and stepped off the platform. She retreated to the side and took a seat next to her sister, a dark blue alicorn who appeared only a little less eternal than her elder. A few seconds later, something unspoken passed between the two sisters and they grabbed a hold of each other.

Over the course of the ceremony, several ponies took to the altar and gave eulogies of their own, some more personal than others. Some had difficulty saying what they wanted to say, however (and one had to be escorted off the stage mid-speech.).

Those without the strength to speak, like Spike in front of her, remained in the audience, enraptured all the while. Spike occasionally moved to stand only to pause at the edge of his seat and shy back into the twiddling of his thumbs.

Sunset sympathized; she couldn’t very well go up and speak either but for her own reasons. After all, she was a footnote compared to everypony else; a few sentences in the book of Twilight Sparkle’s life, maybe a few paragraphs at best. Around her sat chapters, even entire acts; all were ponies much more integral than she.

Even as her eyes remained fixed on the altar, even with it less than two rows ahead, it felt so far away. There were so many things she wanted to say. But what right did she have to speak before all of these ponies?

Sunset wanted to get all of it off her chest. She wanted to be heard. She wanted to share her slice of Twilight’s life with the world. Because maybe it would help.

But it wouldn’t fix things.

She looked at the picture on top of the coffin again and then buried her face in her hooves and sobbed to herself.

A world without Twilight Sparkle. That was her new reality.

* * *

Taking stock of Twilight’s belongings and baggage went at a sluggish pace, and even with what little there was, it took some time. At a few points along the way, work came to a complete stop. To her credit, Pinkie Pie tried cracking jokes and sharing words of encouragement but, without her usual enthusiasm, they lacked the ‘oomph’ that they needed.

But Sunset had to remind herself that, bar Spike, she knew nothing of the individuals before her. It was true that they were just like her friends at Canterlot High but they, without a doubt, were much more storied. And none of those stories included her.

What right had she to be there?

As a result, she relished the room’s welcome familiarity. There were the towering bookshelves containing tomes of all sizes, once exhausted through many late nights of studying; the rusted machines that served as eyesores whenever she had been between experiments; the sprawling window where she would content herself with watching the setting sun on lighter days, it was all there. The smaller details had been tampered with, of course (the desk, for one, had been moved), but it was still the student’s paradise.

Her eyes fell on the large hourglass in the center of the room and she smiled. Thank goodness that’s still there! she thought. She drew her eyes over its curves, observing the sparkling gold casing and the reflective glass container. The many study sessions she had spent underneath it came rushing back; the calming sounds of running sand had helped her keep her focus during those times. The sand rested at the bottom and she figured that now was not the time to disturb that; maybe that would come later. I don’t remember that much sand, though.

“The one time I didn’t go with her, this happened.” Spike sighed and curled up on the floor.

A unicorn, carrying the lingering scent of some creamy and fruity perfume, sat down beside him. “You've explored those caves with her plenty of times. You couldn’t have known,” Rarity said, draping a reassuring foreleg across his shoulder.

Pinkie Pie unceremoniously stuck her head between the two. “I dunno about you girls, but I’m more wondering how long she knew about it,” she added, failing to notice the slightly annoyed scowls those two gave her.

“And why didn’t she say anything?” Fluttershy croaked, collapsing further onto the floor.

The ponies sat around in silence.

“The one time I didn’t go with her, this happened,” Spike said.

Rainbow Dash, who flew idly above them, regarded him once again and snorted. “We could have easily taken on that Nameless!” she exclaimed, crossing her forelegs. “She should have told us about it.”

Fluttershy frowned. “I don’t know... It sounded scary...”

“Naw,” a somewhat-throaty voice interrupted. An orange earth pony placed a couple of empty journals off to the side before doubling back toward another large stack of papers. “Ah agree with Rainbow Dash on this one. Remember Tirek?” Applejack said.

“Ohhh, yes,” Fluttershy said with a stronger voice, “there was that.”

“We gave him a butt whoopin’!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed again, punching the air like she was fighting a bugbear.

Sunset observed as the six continued bouncing words off each other. Inwardly, she started to take solace in the fact that they didn’t know much more than she did. She then groaned as she remembered that there wasn’t much to begin with.

How had Twilight not at least told them?

She decided to shift her attention toward the desk where the most curious of the items rested. The first was a piece of parchment with what looked like a crudely sketched map of the path leading to the cavern (though Sunset could discern some dark spots on the page too). The second was the brown hooded cloak that Celestia had spoken of, folded square and lined up with the corner.

For the moment, she decided to focus her attention on the most peculiar of the three: a crystal ball the size of her head that sat on top of the cloak. No one had told her what role it played; only that it had played a role somehow. She was moreover interested in the way the ball behaved: she could see a clear image of the room that she stood in, but the viewpoint that it offered was much different than the placement of the ball. Moreover, she did not find herself standing in the spot she was supposed to be in.

She noted that as she looked at it from differing angles, the angle of the view also seemed to change, as if tracking her every movement and responding in kind. Her mouth twitched in response. That’s curious, she thought, levitating it off the table for a closer look.

“Wow, Twilight must’ve had a campfire in here!” Pinkie Pie suddenly exclaimed.

Sunset, and everyone else for that matter, glanced toward the stairs to find Pinkie Pie peering into a nearby disposal bin.

“There’re a lot of papers in here,” Pinkie Pie continued, briefly poking her head in. “It looks like she burned a book!”

Silence drowned the room for many moments. Sunset walked back over with curiosity, baggage and all.

Applejack, on the other hoof, didn’t even look up from the schematics she had looking over. “Okay. Ah don’t think that Twilight did that.”

“Maybe somepony else was in this room before her?” Fluttershy offered.

Several of them placed hooves (or claws in Spike’s case), toward their chins with short and occupied hums.

Pinkie Pie rose up into a tall stance and she gave each one of them a quick glance and then declared, “Changelings.”

“...Naw, that’s not it,” Applejack then said with a shake of her head, resignedly rolling up her paper.

“It should be!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, now glancing around for approval. “There was a changeling disguised as Twilight here and did all this stuff. Wrote the note? Set the book on fire? It’s fishy to me.”

“But the ball she had does look like the crystal ball Chrysalis sent us that one time,” Fluttershy noted.

“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said at length, landing on the floor, “I don’t think it was them.”

“Weeellll?” Pinkie Pie replied, zipping up and pressing herself challengingly against Rainbow Dash, “What else would you say it is, then? Huh?”

Rainbow Dash shot everyone else pleading glances but only received a few shrugs in return. She rolled her eyes. “Changelings it is.”

“Honestly,” Rarity said as she caressed Spike’s scales, “we don’t have much else. At least it would explain why Twilight didn’t want to talk to us that night.” She pointed to herself. “That’s what I really want to know.”

“And why didn’t we realize something was wrong then?” Fluttershy croaked.

“I think we should have ignored what she was saying when we came here and kicked that door down!” Rarity exclaimed, channeling a greater energy than before. “Or something like that. Then we’d know what’s what!”

That was new. If there was a moment to jump in, this was it. “I didn’t know you all came here,” Sunset said, now stepping toward them.

Applejack, having thrown the last of the papers on top of a pile, now turned. “Oh, Sunset. Ah plum forgot you were there.” She met Sunset halfway and laid a friendly hoof across her withers. “Thanks fer comin’ out today, sugarcube, and for helpin’ out tonight. It really means a lot to us.”

Sunset half-forced a smile. “No, thank you for, you know, going out of your way to come tell us in person. I know that must have been really tough.”

“Indeed, ’tis quite the odd place,” Rarity mused. “Although I’ll admit it was nice to finally be able to meet you and your Canterlot High friends, I just... eh… wish it wasn’t under these circumstances.”

“I’m sure they feel the same way about you guys and Equestria,” Sunset replied reassuringly.

“Did they already go back?” Applejack asked as she let Sunset go.

“Yeah. They boarded the train an hour ago. I’ll likely go back tomorrow…” She looked around at their looks of expectation, and quickly added, “But there’s no rush.”

“We were here,” Spike said, sitting up. “We were going to surprise Twilight with a trip to the Canterlot Opera House.”

“And then we were going to throw a big birthday party the day after that,” Pinkie Pie added.

“But...” Spike continued, “she was really really busy the first time we stopped by and didn’t wanna be disturbed. I’m her number one assistant; I should have known something was wrong when she didn’t even want me there. Second time we came around, she was gone,” he said, now arched into a slump.

Rarity responded by pulling him in.

Her birthday! Sunset mentally cried. She nodded in acknowledgment but did not speak. Her head found its way into her hooves just like it had done many times in the preceding moons. The stinging that she felt when she got the news revealed shades of itself again. I didn’t even know it was her birthday...! She didn’t even tell me. And then this happened...?

Then she remembered what she had seen at the ceremony and used her foreleg to push out a long exhale. The stinging within her subsided. “That’s too bad.”

Applejack, noting Sunset’s shift in tone, looked. “So, whatcha make of that there ball, Sunset?” she asked, pointing at the object near Sunset’s head.

Sunset backpedaled slightly and then looked to where Applejack had pointed. “Oh. Oh! I forgot I brought this over. I’m not sure what I think just yet. But it seems interesting. This was found at the scene?”

“That, and that tacky little cloak over there,” Rarity said, pointing, “but we’re not concerned about that.” She received some stares. “Well, most of us aren’t.”

“Both of those were found just outside,” Fluttershy acknowledged.

“And we know both of them are hers,” Rarity seconded. “We checked.”

Spike crossed his arms as he considered the object. “She had to have done something to it, right? I mean, it shows this tower. It’s shown the tower since we found it.”

“Probably because Twilight brought it back here,” Fluttershy said.

“There’s probably something magical going on with it,” Spike said. And then he shrugged. “But we still don’t know what.”

Sunset considered the crystal ball again. “Interesting,” she murmured, rubbing her chin. But even as the others went about their devices, she remained rooted to the spot. Did she figure something out then?

* * *

Sunset rustled the sheets as she rose from a light slumber, carried out of the embrace of the sandmare by her earlier thoughts. She emerged into a scene of darkness and silence. Her bedchamber was empty save for standard guestroom decorations, although, even in the blackness, she could make out the familiar painting of Clover the Clever high on the wall. The corridor offered less variety but that only made the patterned carpets and the high pillars that much easier to remember.

As she stepped out onto the grounds, Sunset glanced up at the moon. She frowned. I don’t remember it looking like that, she thought, noting a significant lack of the Mare in the Moon.

How many moons had gone by? How many moons had it been since she had run out on Celestia? Sunset had stopped counting. How else had this world, her home world, changed after so many years?

She’d have to ask later.

Sunset used the moonlight to illuminate her way as she trotted across the grounds. She found the tower and ascended the staircase and, after fishing the key out of the foliage just outside the door, went inside.

The room that greeted her shared the darkness of the others, but seeing it in such a manner only served to bring back several more acute memories. Even with an absence of several years, the dark could not hide the room from her, but she still calculated each step that she took past the door.

She flared her horn and a small orb of blue light appeared beside her. It wasn’t the same as the flashlight app on her cell phone but it would do. Climbing up the stairs into the study room, she sent her light into the space above where it intensified and bathed the room in a bluish glow.

Her eyes drifted toward the crystal ball which still lay on the desk. A quick glance changed her mind, however, as she didn’t immediately notice anything different from earlier.

Instead, she levitated over the piece of parchment that had been laid next to the ball. A diagram showing a network of tunnels etched itself across the paper. A simple drawing of a three-tower fortress representing Canterlot Castle sat at the very top. At the very bottom, presumably well into the mountain, a single room had been labeled with an x. The x, as Sunset understood, signified ground zero. She herself had never ventured into those caves so, while the map gave her some ideas, they ultimately amounted to nothing. Instead, she turned the map over.

A note revealed itself on the other side. It bore many of the features she expected the writing to have but, unlike the neat and precise writings she had seen through the journal between herself and Twilight, the writing on this page was haphazard, messy, and rushed.

Oh, she thought, they mentioned this note earlier, didn’t they?

That was another thought: what had Twilight been thinking up until the moment of her demise? What could have possibly compelled her so much?

Pacing around the room, Sunset read through it.

Dear everyone,

If you are reading this, it means I have lost my life repelling a great evil.

I had too little time to prepare for it. I was unable to think of any other way. My hooves were tied.

You don’t want to know what things would have happened had this thing got out. I shudder to think of it, and I take solace in the fact that I can spare you that knowledge. But I was able to shut the door on it, and in doing so, I terminated it, permanently. It will never befall Equestria.

These past years have been the best of my life. Thank you for the wonderful memories. Thank you all.

Your faithful friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Sunset scowled and fought the urge to crumple up the note in disgust. That was the grand final goodbye Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, had written for her closest companions? It couldn’t be.

Sunset went over the note again, noted the stains once more, and then turned it sideways and over and backward to see if Twilight had left anything else. Nothing.

She hummed disappointedly and abandoned it on the desk when she next passed by.

She paced several more laps around the room, trying to answer any of the various questions that she had. But, with each non-answer, her pace slowed until she was almost at a crawl.

This can’t be it. This isn’t right.

She arrived at the large window that dominated the northern edge of the space. The rest of the nighttime castle looked back at her. The silhouettes of the various towers rose up through the dark. There wasn’t a shred of light to be found.

She could hear Twilight’s voice telling her, “It’s no big deal. Don’t worry about me.” Like everything was supposed to be okay. Like it wasn’t supposed to hurt.

But it was not okay. It hurt. A lot.

Why, Twilight? she thought, feeling a heaviness in her eyes. This isn’t you. This is not you.

She tried jamming what bits and pieces of information she had together, but nothing meshed. There had to be more to it. There had to be. But there wasn’t. Twilight had died stopping a monster. Nearly everything about it was straightforward.

Except for one thing. Whirling around, she trotted toward the middle of the room. With the flare of her horn, she snatched the crystal ball off the table. Taking a seat under the hourglass in the center of the room, she stared into crystal ball, resolved to inspect its every nook and cranny until something showed itself.

Sunset could see an overhead view of the study area. She could make out the room’s delicate curvature with ease. But where the lights were off in the room she sat in, they lit the room in the picture. It’s not a live feed then. At first glance, the picture appeared the exact same as earlier.

No. There was more. Sunset looked into the crystal ball again. The sky outside was also completely dark.

Sunset nibbled on her hoof as she continued to look at the ball. So, the sky in the ball has changed to nighttime, so that must mean time has passed, she thought. She grimaced and pressed a hoof against her forehead. But that just leaves me with even more questions. Ugh.

“What makes you so special?” she asked it through gritted teeth.

As if in answer, the image in the ball changed, and then Sunset realized that something had entered the frame.

The object registered, but Sunset had to look at it a second time to make sure. And a third time. She wiped her eyes to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating. No, the crystal ball showed her exactly what she thought it was showing her.

“...Sweet Celestia.”

Contained within the image of the crystal ball was Princess Twilight Sparkle, prancing around the room as if she had never died.

2 - Passing

When the front door opened without warning, Twilight Velvet immediately looked down at the half-wrapped present in her hooves. Twilight isn’t supposed to see this until tomorrow! she internally screamed. Her eyes darted around the room before she settled on a wayward blanket to which she could cover it with.

But a tall, husky stallion entered the room instead. At that, Twilight Velvet sat back and let out a relieved sigh.

“Shining!” she exclaimed, standing up. “Welcome home!”

“…Hi, mom,” Shining Armor replied at a near whisper.

Another stallion poked his head out of the study, lit up as recognition washed over him, and then cantered out. “Shining Armor!” Night Light exclaimed, throwing his forelegs around his son. “My boy! Good to see you!”

Twilight Velvet’s eyes pushed past Shining for the moment (though not without noticing his guard uniform) to see Princess Mi Amore Cadenza right on her husband’s heels. “Cadance, good to see you too! I hope the train ride went well?”

Cadance smiled weakly. “Yes.”

But Twilight Velvet’s eyes had already passed over her as two more, grander than the next, emerged through the threshold. “…And Princess Luna?” She cowered. “And Princess Celestia!?”

The two sisters glided into the room with little fanfare.

Even Night Light suddenly jumped. The two each gave quick and respectful bows.

“You don’t have to do that, Miss Velvet,” Celestia said.

Twilight Velvet chuckled. “Oh, hahaha. Sorry, sorry. I just wish I would have known you were all coming over. I would have made us a dinner for six,” she said with a grin.

“It’s not too late; we still can you know,” Night Light suggested, rising to his hooves. “A little bit of pre-birthday action, hmm?”

At once, all four visitors cringed “…No,” Shining Armor replied, kicking at the floor, “that’s actually not what we came here for.”

Twilight Velvet paused. For the first time since he had entered, she frowned. She glanced between the four new arrivals, each of whom looked at her or looked at her husband. They seemed glued in fact. Like they were waiting for her to do something, or for something to happen.

She had every reason to believe he had other reasons for visiting, but only then did she notice the moisture around their eyes. The long and strained faces that they each wore. Something must have happened. After all, it wasn’t every day that her son returned home still in full uniform. With all four princesses in tow—

Three. Three princesses. One princess was missing.

It couldn’t be.

“Mom… Dad…” Shining Armor began, his voice crumbling by the second.

No.

A long and hard glance passed between the two parents and they gravitated toward one another. Night Light voiced it for the both of them: “Where is your sister, Shining?”

Luna stepped forward to speak, but a hoof by Celestia stayed her. Meanwhile, Cadance draped a supportive wing over her husband’s shoulder.

“Where is Twilight?” Night Light shouted, his voice cracking with worry.

Shining Armor swallowed. “There was a situation…” he began.

“What happened to Twilight?”

“Dad! I…” Shining let out a very long sigh as he tried to get the words out of his mouth. “Twily… Uh… I mean. There was a monster—”

“No...”

“She went up against it... and she lost—”

“No...”

Twilight Velvet’s world melted around her and she could hardly navigate it, much less remain upright. It couldn’t be true. She collapsed onto the floor, trying desperately to keep some sort of footing. She failed.

The tears flowed down her face before she could even tell what she was doing. Her legs refused to respond and her choked wheezes were the best that she could muster. It just could not be real.

The royal sisters, even though their expressions remained discerning, had let out a few loose tears of their own.

No, it was very real.

“I’m... so sorry!” Shining cried as Cadance sobbed into his shoulder.

“Oh my baby girl,” Night Light cried. “My baby giiiiiirrrl...!”

Twilight Velvet sank into the ground, intent on never rising ever again. In that moment, her world had surely ended.

It was late enough that all of the morning shift had already made their use of this dining hall, and that left them to eat alone. Nonetheless, the thick aroma of fresh soy eggs wafted from the nearby kitchen. Even then, the occasional servant would appear to take food to places elsewhere in the castle.

The long, finely varnished, and well-decorated table set the tone for the meal, and the room’s grand (although solitary) window offered a pleasant backdrop of the valley below, but the room itself was comparatively smaller than many of the others.

Sunset Shimmer shuddered. Years of compulsory dinner parties with plenty of prissy ponies left her feeling claustrophobic whenever she saw this place. She was thankful that the ponies (and dragon) around her acted nothing like that.

As she entered the room, she saw a couple others who had risen before her. Applejack was a given due to her life on the farm. Pinkie Pie and Spike had also beaten her there. A soft cough revealed Fluttershy arriving right behind her.

The crystal ball lay in the center of the table. Those at the table, when not taking food off of their plates, leaned over them to carefully glance into the ball.

“Morning, everypony...” Sunset half-yawned.

They responded with a mixture of responses and yawns.

She glanced at the ball. The view looked like it had been the day before: an overhead shot of the tower with nothing out of the ordinary. Sunset narrowed her eyes. No, the nighttime sky has turned back to day. So there’s a passage of time.

Sunset cleared her throat. “Anything?” she asked.

Applejack, who had taken the opportunity to stuff her face with a pancake, replied with a muffled “Nooo.”

The two newcomers took the remainder of the windowside seat cushions, which were positioned across from their companions. In short order, a pair of servants drifted out of the kitchen and wordlessly presented steaming hot plates to the both of them.

There was one thing the staff knew how to do, and that was cook. The eggs melted in Sunset’s mouth, prompting her to squirm in delight.

As silver clinked against china, Fluttershy looked around. “Where are the other two?” she asked.

Applejack spoke with an empty mouth this time. “Well, Ah knocked on their doors when Ah left. Not sure ’bout Rainbow Dash, but Rarity…?” She considered it. “She might be a while.”

The room grew silent once more as they returned to their meals. Spike contrasted them as he nearly plowed through an assortment of gems, a loud crunch punctuating each bite.

“We’re here!” a shrill voice shouted from just beyond the open door. “We’re here! Sorry we're late!”

Every one of them looked up as the final two ponies entered the room. The first, Rainbow Dash, teetered over to the table and took a seat between Applejack and Pinkie Pie.

Rarity, however, remained at the door as she took in the stares that they gave her. She then observed the numerous split ends and tangles present around the table and fluffed her glistening mane as she glided toward another empty seat. “Well, obviously, I refuse to be seen around Canterlot Castle looking like a ruffian. Some of us have standards, you know.”

“Mmhmm,” Applejack hummed. “An’ what’s yer excuse?” she asked, turning to the pegasus.

“Yeah, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash replied and slumped into her chair, letting out a long-winded groan as she did.

Applejack frowned in an irritated manner. After a moment, she reached up and grabbed her stetson before whacking Rainbow Dash with it.

Rainbow Dash jolted in her seat, revealing her bloodshot eyes. “Hah!? Wha!?”

“Up an’ at ’em, sugarcube,” she said as the servants arrived with fresh plates. She turned to the one serving Rainbow Dash. “Can ya bring this one some coffee?”

The servant nodded. The next minute Rainbow Dash dove in through sip after sip.

The meal recommenced in silence as the seven ate, each at different paces. The first to arrive finished their meals first but did not leave the table. The later arrivals took each finish as a reason to pick up the tempo but the vigor only lasted temporarily each time.

Rainbow Dash stretched in her seat. “Aw, yeah. That’s good,” she said, patting her stomach. She then turned her eyes to the crystal ball in the center of the table and rested her head on top of her hooves.

All at once, the six others turned their attention to the crystal ball and stared into it as well.

“I wonder if Twilight’ll show up again,” Rainbow Dash thought aloud.

Rarity didn’t even glance up from her plate. “I wouldn’t count on it, dear. Her appearing at all is… odd, as it is.”

“So maybe we should keep watching for if it happens again?” Fluttershy asked.

“We could, but…” Rarity set her fork onto her plate and met Fluttershy’s eyes, “I don’t think it’ll get us much anywhere.”

“If it’s anything to do with Twilight, I’ll take it,” Spike said with a snort as he flicked a few small gems across his plate.

Applejack nodded. “Exactly. We oughta keep lookin’ for Twilight’s sake. Ah know she’s… gone… and all, but all the more reason why we oughta pay attention.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “Yeah! Besides, I’m sure she just went to bed is all. She’ll be back in no time flat.”

That’s right, Sunset thought. There’s so much more to this. She thought back to what she had seen the night prior. What all of them had seen. We could see Twilight writing in her book. Writing furiously even. We could hear her muttering too!

Sunset let out a thoughtful sigh as she idly played with a wayward fluff of egg. Twilight must have known what this crystal ball was all about, but… what possible use could she have had for it?

“You look so focused, Sunny!” said an energetic voice.

Sunset blinked. “What? Huh?”

Pinkie Pie leaned over until she was right in Sunset’s ear. “I said, ‘You look so focused, Sunny!’”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah, I uh… I’ve been thinking a lot about this since last night. Heck, since long before that really, that’s why I went in the first place. I’m convinced that ball is special.”

“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.

“I can’t help but think that there’s a lot more to this thing than we’ve seen. I mean, Twilight must have thought it was important enough to have on her, right?” Sunset said with gusto. Then she thought about what she was saying and shrunk back into her seat. “Well... maybe not. I’m not sure what I think.”

“Makes sense to me,” Rainbow Dash said with a shrug.

“There’re just… too many questions,” Sunset said as she pushed some of her mane out of her face. “How is it that Twilight appeared at all? What reason would Twilight want it for? What was she writing about when we saw her last night? What was she muttering about even?”

Pinkie Pie frowned. “Couldn’t really hear it clearly, ya know?”

Sunset nodded. “All things considering, I’m kinda thinking right now that I might miss the train home.”

Applejack raised a concerned eyebrow. “Don’t ya have to go back to school?”

Sunset shook her head. “Not really. I’m pretty sure I have at least a 110% in at least three classes, plus I'm several assignments ahead.”

Applejack let her spoon clink against the plate. “You can do that?”

Pinkie Pie giggled, “She was Princess Celestia’s prized pupil!”

Applejack smirked and nodded in approval.

Sunset stood up from the cushion with a determined frown. “I am going to figure that thing out,” she declared as she levitated the ball off of the table. “And I will stay for as long as it takes.” And without another moment's hesitation, Sunset set her napkin over her finished plate and trotted toward the door.

“Wait up!” Spike called as he rushed to catch up with her with an enthusiasm in his voice that had not been heard in a long while.

* * *

As the two of them sauntered down the halls, Sunset took the opportunity to look out the window and into the city beyond.

Unlike yesterday, the square lay empty save for a small scattering of busybodies. Some lined the edges, which she guessed were engaged in business deals or friendly run-ins, while others walked across en route to destinations unknown.

The sun shined in a cloudless sky just like on any other day. The haphazard symphony of high-pitched chirps from the morning birds serenaded from the gardens nearby.

It was as if yesterday hadn’t even happened. But it had happened. So why do things look so normal?

“Weird, huh?” Spike said as if reading her mind.

“Yeah,” she replied as she continued to gaze out of the window. “Everyone is going about their lives.”

“Yeah,” he said as they rounded a corner, “And, I guess we’ll have to go back to ours too, eventually.”

“Maybe,” she said, “but the train doesn’t leave until tonight. And I think the others’ll come around.”

“Maybe.”

Sunset pursed her lips. The question she wanted to ask, she knew, was better kept to herself. But her mouth moved anyway. “And what about you?”

Spike withdrew into himself, wrapping his arms around his body and shivering. “Honestly,” he sighed, “I haven’t figured out what I'm going to do yet.”

“...Don’t you have any other family?”

“No,” Spike replied curtly. “Twilight was my entire family. She hatched me from my egg and everything.” He hugged himself even tighter. “Now that Twilight’s gone… well...”

The mare winced. I should have seen that coming. Good job, Sunset.

Spike reached up and grabbed the crystal ball out of Sunset’s magical grasp. He looked into it for long moments even though nothing worthwhile displayed inside. “What about you?”

She let off a small smile. “Well,” she began, glancing up toward the ceiling in thought, “I’ve found family in my friends, I guess. But, I’d never have gotten them if it weren't for Twilight.” She shook her head. “I don't even want to think about where I’d be right now...”

Spike nodded.

“She gave me my life,” she said. “Figuratively speaking.”

Spike raised his hand in response. “Same. Literally speaking.”

The two exchanged warm smiles and light-hearted chuckles and continued onward through the castle halls.

* * *

Fluttershy sat on the floor underneath an alcove in the bookshelves. She had hunched over the ball, poking and prodding at it every so often but to no avail. The image remained the same.

“Streamers, dear?” Rarity’s voice asked incredulously, “Really?”

Fluttershy looked up to find two ponies standing over a collection of saddlebags. Each saddlebag was, unlike the night before, now at capacity again, and all of them now lay near the study area’s desk. One of those bags, however, had several shreds of paper sticking out of it.

Rarity, who stood with the fresh aroma of several filled teacups emanating off a tray behind her, stared Pinkie Pie down with a piercing expression.

“Whaaaaaat?” Pinkie Pie wailed. “I had to bring streamers for in case of streamer emergencies.” She glanced at her saddlebags and then added, “Same reason I brought a trampoline and a sousaphone!”

Rarity deadpanned toward the saddlebags on the floor, looked back up to meet Pinkie’s innocent gaze, raised a hoof and sucked in a breath to voice her objection, then shook her head and backed off resignedly. “Just…”—she levitated the tray in front of her friend—“take your tea. Just take it.”

Pinkie Pie grabbed the cup (with her mouth) and trotted off with a carefree smile.

Rarity now lumbered over with a concerned scowl still on her face. “I say, I simply don’t know what goes through her head sometimes,” she mumbled to herself before donning a smile. “Tea, darling?”

Fluttershy giggled under her breath and nodded in response. “Thanks, Rarity.”

Rarity levitated the cup off of the tray, set it down right beside Fluttershy, and then wandered off to serve the others.

Taking a solitary sip, Fluttershy turned her attention back to the crystal ball in front of her and immediately drew a blank.

With a sigh, Fluttershy sat backward and took a moment to examine the room itself, trying to imagine Twilight Sparkle’s life before she arrived in Ponyville and the many days that she likely spent here.

When Twilight had been all but alone. Without friends, bar Spike. And, for a brief time, she had returned to that place of solitude.

Why?

Fluttershy took the ball in both of her hooves and idly fumbled with it. The ball spun in the air, with which her angle of the image changed, she but she was aware of that much.

Gosh, it would be very very nice if there was a way to move this view forward, she thought.

The scene within the ball, as if on cue, shifted in response.

Fluttershy let out a startled cry and briefly lost hold of the ball. The movement ground to a stop. She scrambled to keep it within her grasp.

Recovering, she looked again and noted the change. A contemplative grin washed over her muzzle and she took the ball in both hooves again, this time with a firmer grip. Forward. Stop. Backward. Stop.

The view in the crystal ball obeyed.

“I think I found something,” she announced.

Her four friends, one by one, gathered around.

“Sunset’s right,” Fluttershy began, holding the ball up in presentation, “there’s more to this thing than we thought. Look.”

Pinkie Pie looked straight into the ball and gasped. “Hey, yeah! Look,” she said and pointed, “the view’s near the wall!”

“It’s pretty simple when you think about it.” And then Fluttershy frowned and internally face-hoofed at her choice of words. “I mean, that’s… how you do it,” she said, slowly and carefully stringing her explanation together. “You think about… it. I thought the word forward and… it started… moving… forward,” she said before she retreated into a sip of tea.

“Fabulous,” Rarity said, jovially clapping her hooves together, “now we know how to control the view.”

“Gimme that,” Rainbow Dash suddenly interjected, snatching the ball out of Fluttershy’s hooves (which gained some raised eyebrows and one certain scowl). She angled the ball so that she was looking downward, and then she thought. The view crept toward the floor, then the scene briefly turned black. And then the crystal ball showed the first-floor living area.

Twilight Sparkle lay splayed out on the couch by the door with her head buried within an encyclopedia. Her bloodshot eyes searched through several pages per second, mumbling something about more coffee under her breath.

“Yes! Look!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed cheerfully as she set the ball back down onto the floor, “Twilight’s okay!”

Twilight’s ears twitched before she snapped her current book shut and levitated it over to a large and increasingly disorganized pile on the side. She then used her magic to grab the next book from her assortment.

Before she opened it, she rubbed a hoof down the length of her face and let out an unenergetic groan. She then consulted the journal that she had been writing in the night before, taking greater care with her consumption of contents than with previous books.

A second, empty journal right beside it went unheeded.

Fluttershy giggled happily and continued to smile even as her friends let out screams of delight. It was much like last night all over again.

Seeing Twilight again felt like watching Rainbow Dash perform a Sonic Rainboom for the first time. She wanted to jump for joy and scream whatever cheers she could think of. Strange how an image of Twilight could evoke such a feeling. I guess a lot has changed in four days…

Eventually, the five of them settled down and contented themselves to watch between sips of their tea.

And then Applejack gagged mid-drink and quickly downed her cup. “Hold on a bit. Ah want to see what she’s writin’ there,” she said as she took the ball in her hooves. The view zoomed in on where Twilight was scribbling.

A wind suddenly overtook the room, causing several books to whimper by way of their pages. It threw Twilight’s journal into a frenzy.

“Oh, horseapples!” Applejack yelled in disdain.

Twilight looked up with an annoyed frown, but she then registered the apparent light source from elsewhere in the room and shrunk back into the couch. She watched as sparks danced around before dying on whatever surface they found first. The wind grew and grew, sweeping several books and various other items off of the floor, and it finally got to a point where Twilight had no choice but to shield her eyes.

“What in the world is going on!?” Rarity cried.

“I can’t see!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, shielding her eyes.

The bright light disappeared without warning and the bedlam ceased with it, and Twilight cautiously looked up to observe the damage. Her eyes went wide. “You!?” she cried, shooting to her hooves. “What are you doing here!?”

“Who’s she talking to?” Rarity asked.

“Applejack!” Pinkie Pie said through gritted teeth.

“Yeah!” Applejack quickly nodded and moved the image into a better spot. She then readjusted her hooves on the crystal ball for a better viewing angle. And then she gasped.

A mare, who likened to a phoenix, stood up, tightly clutching what looked like a blue book within her foreleg, stood up. She shook off the sparks that still clung to her body. She flicked her red and yellow tail once to shake off some of the aftershocks and then did the same with her mane.

Pinkie Pie ground her teeth together and then all but leaped into the air. “Sunset Shimmer!”

* * *

Sunset hit her head against the underside of the cabinet, causing the glassware inside to clink in protest. “Aow!” she cried, rubbing her head. Even as her world momentarily spun, she flared her horn anyway. The first floor disappeared and her body felt like it stretched for a moment before she reappeared in the study area a mere second later with a light and airy pop.

“W-what? What?” she stammered, scrambling to find her footing as she landed.

“What in the hay is all this!?” Applejack barked, pointing to the ball.

“You—you’re not even possible!” Twilight cried.

“Listen, Twilight,” said a voice that sounded just like Sunset’s, “I have some very important things to give to you.”

Not possible.

Sunset’s ears drooped backward at the sound of her own voice. With trepidation, she slunk over to the ball, hoping she would not see what she thought she would see. But, lo and behold, there she was. An exact image of her had appeared inside the ball with Twilight.

Not possible.

“Do you even know what you’ve done!?” Twilight roared.

“I don’t understand...” Sunset said.

“I understand perfectly,” Sunset said. “Twilight, you know that spell that I just did. It won’t be able to tether off of me.”

Twilight paused, placed a hoof to her chin in thought, and then nodded. “Okay. ...I see. What do you need?”

“We need to copy what’s in this book,” she answered, holding up the blue book within her grasp.

“What’s going on!?” Spike called out, appearing at the head of the staircase.

Rarity turned to Spike with a frown. “Sunset Shimmer teleported into the ball,” she explained.

Spike nearly sprinted over to them. “But she’s right here!”

“And how much time do you have?” Twilight asked.

“Not long,” Sunset replied.

Twilight flared her horn, and the several discarded books in the area relocated across the room, leaving a clear area before them. “Then do me a favor and hold these,” she commanded, levitating over the empty journal from before and no less than two wells of ink.

“All right.”

“Of course, but she’s in there too,” Rarity replied, indicating with her hoof.

Spike peered into the ball. “Well that can’t be right,” he said, crossing his arms perplexedly.

The pages of Sunset’s book glowed, and even seemed to shake. Ink poured out of the wells that Sunset was holding and swirled about the empty journal, which squirmed and writhed about like it was a beast.

The ink, bit by bit, dripped onto the empty notebook before coalescing through the cover to their respective pages.

As they went, Sunset’s eyes drew to a spot on the floor within the image. There was a large sizeable burn mark, much like one that she had noticed downstairs. It was in the same spot and everything. She blinked. But… but… she thought.

Gritting her teeth, Twilight poured it on, trying her best to not let her knees buckle. Both books shook violently as she prepared ink-perfect copies. The original and the copy started to agree with each other and there was nowhere left for Twilight’s spell to go. Aside from the differently colored covers, for all intents and purposes, they were the same book.

“What is it that you were trying to do, dear?” Rarity asked.

Sunset’s mouth hung limp as she tried to fathom any sort of explanation, but none came. There was no explanation. There weren’t even the makings of one. This was not possible.

Twilight cut the spell off, and then clutched at her chest and panted heavily. She even wiped a few drops of sweat off of her brow.

Sunset took a cursory glance through the new notebook before galloping over to Twilight with both that and the original in her magical grasp.

The two ponies compared the books side-by-side. Their grins grew even wider with each page, blossoming into triumphant smiles by the time they reached the final set of text.

And then, without a single moment’s reprieve, Sunset Shimmer suddenly disappeared in another explosion of sparks, taking the original book with her.

And just like that, all eyes shifted onto Sunset. Discerning scowls bore down on her, and she could not help but cower.

* * *

Spike stroked his chin as he watched the scene within the ball.

Twilight Sparkle had since moved back into the study area. She poured over the new information, trying to find anything that could be useful. At times she turned to the green notebook she had worked on before the interruption. Every once in a while, she would make an intrigued “Hmmm.”

“So, first Twilight appears in this crystal ball, an’ now Sunset Shimmer,” Applejack thought aloud as she paced about deliberately. “This is gettin’ weird!”

“I don’t understand…” Sunset murmured, leaning against the hourglass for support.

“No kidding!” Rainbow Dash cried, doing her own form of pacing through the air above them. “The portal was closed the last time we checked, except somehow she was here!?”

“I’ve been at Canterlot High this whole time. I… This doesn’t make any sense.”

“She doesn't even have a way to open the portal,” Rainbow Dash continued. She paused and looked down at Sunset and raised an eyebrow. “You... don’t, right?”

“N-no,” Sunset tremulously replied, “and... even if I did...”

“You’d still need to go between Ponyville and Canterlot.”

“Plus I’d have to remember even doing it.”

Rainbow Dash grit her teeth. “Yeah,” she grumbled, “and then there’s that.”

“Well, Ah believe her when she says she weren’t here,” Applejack said, giving Sunset a calm and reassuring smile.

“Uhm, maybe the ball is a red herring?” Fluttershy suggested as she played with some dirt on the floor.

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied, “I think Twilight would have disagreed with you on that one.”

Pinkie Pie rolled onto her back. “Changelings?”

“No!” several of them shouted in unison.

“I sure hope not,” Rarity replied independently.

Twilight briefly disappeared into one of the alcoves below the bookshelves. She emerged again a few moments later, levitating a spherical object behind her.

Spike sat up with a huff, letting his expression fall. While the object that she carried looked like a pure white to him, he could tell it was made of crystal.

“Uh oh. Uh, girls,” Spike said, pointing, “she’s got a crystal ball here.”

The group packed themselves around the crystal sphere and let out a series of confused groans.

“And that’s another thing!” Spike yelled, throwing his hands into the hair, “Where did she ever get this… thing from anyway?” he said, pointing at the offensive object.

“So, there’s another thing we haven't figured out,” Rainbow Dash snorted, stamping a hoof against the floor. “Great.”

Pinkie Pie grabbed her temples and flared a grimace. “There’s too much that doesn't make sense! Make it stoooop!”

There was a long moment of silence. The seven of them looked between each other, trying to see if anyone would say it.

“I think…” Rarity finally hazarded, casting sorrowful glances at all of them, “this whole thing is over our heads.”

There it was. The stroke of death. In that moment, a pony had died, truly and effectively. Their best friend was gone.

“So then, I guess...” Sunset choked, “that’s it?”

Several frowns looked back but only one spoke, doffing her hat as she went. “That’s what it looks like, sugarcube. It’s over,” Applejack quivered.

Sunset backpedaled, looked forlornly between all of them, and then hung her head. “Okay. Okay,” she whimpered.

What could Spike do? There wasn’t any point in arguing it. Rarity was right. But then, that meant Applejack was right. He wasn’t ready, but when would he be ready?

Spike stood up, tears starting to form in his eyes. “I guess I’ll put this back then,” he said, reaching for the ball.

Twilight still sat at her desk, reading through the journal from before. Her crystal ball lay right beside it, but it did not have her attention.

Spike looked longingly at her for many long moments. The one pony that meant more than the world to him. She was there. And now it was over. There would be no more Twilight, because it was over. He wanted to reach into the ball if he could just tell her he loved her one last time. But it was over.

Finally, he sniffled. “I'm sorry, Twilight...”

Twilight Sparkle jerked so much that she accidentally bumped against the table. Her gaze immediately shifted and her facial features transformed into a horrified expression. “Spike!?” she called out.

Now Spike recoiled violently, so much so that the ball fell out of his claws. “Woah!” he exclaimed. A round of surprised cries from the others immediately rose up and added themselves in.

“Did she just talk?” Fluttershy asked.

“Did she just talk to you!?” Rainbow Dash beamed.

“Lemme see that!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, snatching the ball as it rolled past her. “Twilight!?”

“Pinkie Pie!?” Twilight cried out with greater urgency.

The seven of them exchanged glances, looking for an explanation. They turned their attention back to the alicorn within the ball, who was now looking wildly around the room.

“Hello!?”

3 - Transcend

Five mares and a dragon ascended the stairs leading up the side of the castle tower. Excited voices hosted several coinciding thoughts and ideas.

As they ascended, Spike looked at the tickets in his claw. The night at the opera started in less than an hour. He knew the show would be a good time and could only imagine how elated Twilight would feel about going.

And that said nothing for tomorrow. The rest of what they had planned for Twilight’s birthday was going to be, as they had collectively put it, “Fantabulastic!”

Rainbow Dash flew up to throw open the tower’s large wooden door only for it to click in place. “Huh?” she said as she jiggled the handle some more to no avail.

The rest of them furrowed their brows and shared uncertain glances.

Spike crossed his arms. “Huh, I thought she’d be here.”

Bits and pieces of sound emanated from the other side, but they were so low and so muffled that, even as they lent their ears in unison, none of them could pick up on what they were.

Rainbow Dash banged her hoof against the door. “Twilighhhhht!? Are you in thereeeee!?” she called.

A few seconds of silence passed. And then, finally, came a wilted, “H-Hi, everypony.” The thick wood that separated them muffled Twilight’s voice, but she still sounded mostly clear.

Rainbow Dash perked up. “Twilight! Twilight! Hey! Let us in!” she said, fumbling with the handle again.

“Sorry, girls, I can’t do that right now,” Twilight’s voice replied.

Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow. “...Why?”

“It’s… it’s dangerous to be in here right now!” Twilight’s muffled voice exclaimed.

Applejack cocked her head in earnest. “Uh, Twilight, we’ve handled dangerous things before.”

“It’s really serious business, and I can’t get you involved this time. I’m sorry, but please, trust me on this one.”

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity chuckled with the shake of her head, “we are going to go to see Don Giofilly together. You must come with us!”

“…Then go and have fun,” Twilight replied without missing a beat. “Don’t worry about me.”

Rarity backpedaled. The ears on her head flipped backward as she let out a small and somewhat offended, “Humph!”

Spike opened his mouth to speak but found that the words he wanted to say were locked away. He wasn’t sure what to say instead. He looked down at the tickets in his hands again, and then he looked back at the door. Twilight had turned down the tickets.

No, rather, she had turned down them.

Even then, the sounds from behind the door continued.

“Hey…” Pinkie Pie said, placing an ear to the door, “I hear voices. Twilight, are there other ponies in there with you?”

There was a slight thump against the door but there was no response other than “…No.”

“I hear them too,” Rainbow Dash said, now pressing her own ear against the door. “What’s going on, Twilight? Can you at least tell us what’s going on?”

“...No.”

Spike curled his fists into a ball and stepped forward. “Twilight, come on! Talk to us! Talk to me!”

“…I am sorry,” Twilight replied, her voice growing tremulous, “I just… I just—I don’t need you here right now. Please. Just, go away.”

“Twilight!” Spike cried, vainly reaching forward.

“Go away!”

All six of them recoiled. The two ponies closest to the door had to leap backward out of fear that the entire frame would burst apart on them. The others covered their mouths to suppress sharp gasps.

Spike lost his balance and fell backward onto the ground. The tickets flew out of his grasp and scattered all over the balcony, but he made no attempts to gather them.

Fluttershy let out a whimper.

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Fine,” she snorted. “Have it yer way, Twilight! Come on, y’all! Ah guess she doesn’ wanna spend her birthday with her friends after all!”

There was no response.

Applejack held up her resolve for a few moments, but as the seconds passed, her scowl dissolved. She then hung her head and slunk toward the stairs.

One by one, each of the others let go of their own reservations and followed suit.

Fluttershy shook her head. “I guess now is not a good time,” she said. “We should just try again later...”

It didn’t make sense. Twilight had never turned them down before. At least, not as far as Spike could remember.

He picked himself off the balcony floor. Twilight… doesn’t want us here? She doesn’t want me here? His hands curled into fists as his whole body shook. S-she doesn’t want me here? She doesn’t want me here.

Even as the others were out of sight, he made no attempt to hurry. He descended one step, then two. He took one last parting glance back at the still-locked door as he pursed his lips. He then slumped his shoulders and trudged down the rest of the staircase, vanishing with the others into the night.

Sunset Shimmer paced around outside of the group before her, not taking her eyes off the crystal ball for a second save to glance between the six others as they huddled around it.

Within the crystal ball, Twilight Sparkle continued glancing around the room, pacing back and forth all the while. “Spike? Pinkie Pie?”

“Why can’t she hear us anymore!?” Rarity asked at a near yell, looking questioningly between all of them.

Applejack gave a broad shrug. “Ah dunno! Ah mean, Spike was holdin’ it, then Pinkie grabbed it an’—”

“Wait,” Sunset began, pushing through a gap and pointing, “try putting your hooves on the ball.”

Applejack scooped the crystal ball off the floor in compliance. “Sugarcube, can ya hear me!?”

“Applejack?” Twilight said, now turning her attention to the apparent source of the sound: her own crystal ball. “Yes, I hear! But where are you!?”

Fluttershy started to reach out but hesitated. She felt her hoof grabbed as Applejack helped her complete the distance. That prompted her to go through with speaking. “We’re here. We’re here at the castle.”

“Fluttershy?”

“Canterlot Castle, I mean.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes as she paced around the room. “That’s... strange…” she said, “I thought all of you were in Ponyville. In fact, last I checked, you were. So what…?”

“Well, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, “you see—”

Rarity jammed a hoof into Fluttershy’s mouth before she could say anything more. “Sorry, Twilight,” Rarity said with a chuckle. “We’re a bit rattled here and...” And then she realized that she wasn’t touching the ball. “I mean—”

“It’s okay, Rarity,” Twilight said.

“Well…” Rarity did a double-take. “Wait. What? Did you hear me just now?”

“...Yes. Why?”

“Well, ain’t that interestin’,” Applejack hummed, scratching the back of her head.

“What?”

Applejack took her hooves off the ball, stepped back for a moment, and considered the picture.

Rainbow Dash replaced her. “So, Twilight!” she began, placing her own hooves on the ball. “What is that thing anyway?”

“What thing?”

“This…” The words Rainbow Dash wanted tumbled around her throat before retreating altogether. “This... ball thing! This!”

Twilight levitated the crystal ball off the desk, bringing it in front of her discerning eyes. “Well”—she thoughtfully rubbed her chin and narrowed her eyes in observance—“I first found this in the caves. You know, the ones I’ve been trying to map out over the past few weeks?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash nodded comprehendingly. “The ones you said you and Cadance were in during that thing with the changelings.”

“Well, I found this at the very bottom of the caves. There’s a hidden chamber down there,” she explained, “and nopony has found it because it’s so deep. See, when I found it, I noticed that it was showing an image of the chamber. But, no matter how I moved it around, it always showed the same spot, except at different angles.” Twilight chuckled. “Which I find that fascinating, for one, and two…”

A pair of large, blue eyes suddenly pressed themselves against the ball. It counted. “Really?” Pinkie Pie asked with her usual high and bubbly voice. “All we see is this white circle thing.”

“...That’s funny. Because it doesn’t look at all white. I mean, it’s crystal for sure and—” The beat was almost audible. “In fact, there’s a question there,” Twilight said dourly, “How in the world are you talking to me right now? ...Let alone see what I’m doing?”

“Oh, see, that’s just it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed and slapped the ball. “We have a ball of our own! And we’re pretty sure it’s yours. We just touch the ball to talk—”

“Or touch somepony who’s touchin’ the ball,” Applejack said, draping a hoof on Pinkie Pie’s withers. “An’ Ah reckon so on and so forth. Just as long as we’re connected to it somehow, you can hear us.”

“Oooh!” Twilight cooed, whirling around animatedly. “Fascinating! That means I could use this as a communication device! I knew this thing was special, but now I’ll have to look at it even more closely,” she said, zealously looking at it from top to bottom.

The mares all gave nervous chuckles.

Sunset nodded. That also means that if I’m away, then she can’t hear me. That’s useful information.

Meanwhile, Spike still stood over to the side with his arms crossed tight against his chest. He stared intently into the ball but made no movements to speak.

Sunset glanced over at him and frowned. But what could she do?

“So wait,” Twilight asked, “where are you, again?

“We’re in Canterlot Castle, you see,” Rarity replied. “We’re standing where you’re standing right now.”

A silence prevailed throughout both versions of the room. Sunset scratched her head. Yeah… she thought, that might be an issue.

Twilight, however, laughed. “Fantastic. I’m being pranked. Good one, girls. Seriously, where are you?”

Applejack shook her head. “But we are in Canterlot Castle. We’re right here just like Rarity said. We just, uh, don’t know how yet.”

“Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, “are you in an alternate dimension again?”

Twilight puffed her cheeks with uncertainty. “I… don’t think so?”

Rainbow Dash snorted, “That doesn’t look anything like another world.”

Pinkie Pie put a hoof to her chin this time, making a long and drawn out “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” Then she shrugged. “Nope. I got nothin’.”

Sunset walked over to the hourglass and leaned against the frame in thought. There were burn marks downstairs, and from what they had seen, the ones in the ball were still fresh.

She still had no answer to what they had seen and, when it came down to it, the explanation she had in mind skipped over that at best and predicated a contradiction at worst. “What if it’s time?” she thought aloud. “What if we’re looking back in time right now?”

They all looked back at her. “You really think so?” Fluttershy asked.

Spike looked over with a raised eyebrow.

Sunset nodded. “I mean, I guess. Yeah.”

“Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, turning back toward the ball, “What day is it for you?”

“Day?” Twilight considered it. “Uh… It’s... well… it’s noon here. And my birthday is in four days from today.”

“It’s noon on four days after your birthday for us,” Pinkie Pie said. And then she paused. “No. Wait. Yes. It’s four.”

Rarity thought it over. “So that means that’s eight days—wait, have to include the birthday too—so I think nine? My word, Twilight!” she gasped. “We’re nine days ahead of you!”

“Wow!”

“That’s incredible!” Twilight exclaimed. “Oh oh, that means that my crystal ball is looking nine days into the past too! Oh my, there are soooo many applications to this.” She hopped around the room like a schoolfilly. “Just think of the information that could be shared! You could potentially use this to communicate with the far future! Or, the far past! Ohhhhh!”

At that point, Spike let out a very long and labored snort. “Girls,” he said, his voice almost inaudible, “can I talk to Twilight for a minute?”

The six of them turned all at once, allowing frowns to overtake their features.

“Twi,” Applejack said, “Ah think Spike wants a word with ya.”

Twilight nodded as she landed on the floor. “Okay! Okay.”

Spike approached at that point and received the ball from them. He wandered around the room in thought, switching directions several times as he went. Finally, he said, “Hi, Twilight.”

“Hello, Spike.”

He clenched his teeth. “H-how have you been?”

Twilight kicked a hoof against the floor. “I’ve been… good! Great.”

“That’s good,” Spike said. “Since I... have the chance to, I gotta warn you about something. Something that’s going to happen in a few days.”

Sunset hummed. Oh, I see where he’s going with this.

After taking a quick glance back at the rest of them so as to drink in some support, he said, “There’s… gunna be a thing. I think you’ll encounter it in about five days. You’re going to run into this really scary thing. It’s supposed to be super powerful or something. And, as far as we know, you’ll be by yourself when you face it.”

Twilight frowned. “Spike…”

“Please, Twilight. Please. You need to get ready for it, so that it doesn’t…”

She continued to look up. She was momentarily expressionless and yet, in some way, she seemed to shrink. Her wings beat for just a moment as she shifted them about. Through shaky eyes, she finally smiled. “Okay, Spike.”

Spike frowned like a harsh skeptic, glanced between the mares around him, and swallowed. “You know about it already. Don’t you, Twilight?”

Her smile persisted but her eyes grew moist. “Yes.”

Spike shook his head in disbelief. “S-so, this is nothing new?”

With a look of longing, Twilight went over to the large window, basking in the sunlight that made it in. She glanced down toward the grounds below, studying a collection of guards as they relieved their squadmates of their shifts. “No,” she said with a pensive tone. “I’ve known since last night. I spent several hours trying to figure out what I’m dealing with. Which I have.” She paused. “I came up with a plan. I wasn’t sure about it earlier… But now? Now I know for sure what I need to do. I guess you probably already know what it is.”

Spike’s fingers squeezed nearly hard enough to crack the ball and he let out several deep and discontented breaths. With a frown, he let it out. “What?”

The mares stood their ground, firm in their stance as they readied themselves for what came next.

“In a few days’ time,” Twilight said, “I am going to take my own life.”

There was a long and pronounced pause.

What?

Hairs from mane and coat stood on end as did some scales. The precursors of a cold sweat formed on their brows. Hearts throbbed more forcefully within their chests.

Sunset reeled. Had Twilight really just said that?

Twilight Sparkle’s frown grew increasingly deeper with each passing second of silence. Hesitantly, she turned, cursed her choice of words under her breath, and then looked back out at Canterlot again.

“What…” Rarity started, placing a shaky hoof on the ball, “w-whatever do you mean?” She spoke slowly, straining as she tried to force each word out.

“I am going to sacrifice myself to stop this thing. It is the only way.”

Rarity held a hoof over her chest as if it would help her catch her wind again. “...Why?”

“T-twilight,” Spike stammered, “I don’t understand.”

Tacitly, Twilight nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s… complicated. The whole situation is unfortunate. I… I…” She exhaustedly rubbed her face.

“Twilight?”

“Spike?”

Spike swallowed. “We… we don’t know what you know. Look. I… I uh… I understand, that… you had to do what you did. But I don’t know anything about this thing you fought. Nopony knows anything about it except you. I just want to know what was so bad about this thing.”

Sunset agreed. But then why did she not? A nervous heat had overtaken her body and she shook. After something like that, she knew there was nowhere to go but down. Down, and down, and she was pretty sure they wouldn’t like what they found. But then that would have left Twilight alone.

After a few moments of reflection, Twilight nodded solemnly. “Okay. Okay. Then I’ll tell you what I can about the thing.”

The seven of them took their seats. Not that Twilight could see them or anything.

“I don’t have a name for it,” Twilight began, her voice soft, calm, and collected. “Maybe you do by now.”

“We’re just calling it the Nameless,” Spike offered.

“...Fair enough. This Nameless is a very powerful entity the like’s I’ve never heard before. And there’s nothing in the books I have. And I’m just guessing from what you’ve told me that it’s not in any other books either.

“But I have been able to glean a fair bit of information about it just from the glyphs inside the chamber.

“This chamber is deep within the caves under Canterlot,” Twilight explained, pointing in the direction of the mountain. “There’s a large chasm where not even the miners were able to build, but you can hop down it if you know where to go. It’s a mile or two down there, I think, but you’ll find a large door. This door opens to anypony that stands in front of it. Lodged in that door was where I found this ball,” she said, giving it a slight rap in acknowledgment.

“And you guys went to that place that night, huh?” Sunset asked, taking care to keep her distance from the ball.

The six others nodded silently.

“And then there’s a large, hemispherical room on the other side of that. It has to be at least the size of the castle back in Ponyville. Maybe even larger. Not sure. But there’s a lot of power there. I could feel it from the moment I entered.”

“We got that note from her and the map,” Fluttershy added with equal discretion. “We ran down there, but I think we were too late.”

“An’ it went from there,” Applejack finished.

“But the place is covered in glyphs,” Twilight continued with greater gusto as she thought about her findings. “So many symbols. It’s a very very old language but one I recognized immediately. I spent most of yesterday deciphering all of them. The place had a lot to say. It was really interesting.

“I have a pretty good idea of what I’m up against. I also know the mechanism on how this thing is sealed away, and how exactly that seal is broken.”

“And,” Spike said to the ball, “why is this Nameless so bad?”

Twilight’s breaths became panicked. She attempted to steady herself and catch her breath. Even once, she had to use her front hoof to push out a long sigh and then had to do it again. It worked for a second and then her trepidations came back with a vengeance and she was back where she started. “You don’t want to know. Please… trust me on this.”

There was not a sound from them.

The clops of Twilight’s hooves on the hard plaster floor echoed throughout the hall as she continued around the room. They momentarily subsided as she thoughtfully slowed around the hourglass, but when they came back, the reports were longer and more thoughtful.

“I already wish I could forget it,” she said finally.

Rainbow Dash surged forward at that point. “I think you should talk to us then!” she demanded. “We’ve been through a heck of a lot of things, Twilight. And I think we could take it down, just like we have every other time in the past. We can help you!”

“It’s not that simple!” Twilight hissed.

“How is it not simple!?” Rainbow Dash argued.

“I need to tell you about the seal then.”

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. “Fine! We’re listening...”

“The seal is highly intricate. In fact, it works a lot like the door in that anypony can interact with the spell; not just unicorns.

“In addition to the spell that seals the door, the door is supplemented by a wide network of small stones. Most of them are underground, and they all contain bits and pieces of information about what’s in the door; information that I could use.

“But there are a couple of problems,” Twilight said with a huff. “For one, these things reek of power and, for all intents and purposes, they are untouchable. So that makes even collecting even one very difficult.” Her muzzle swished from side to side as she thought. “Although they might be depowered in your time, so maybe…”

The seven of them exchanged hopeful smiles.

Twilight shook her head. “But, for two, there are thousands of these things. Tens of thousands. And they’re all scattered across the entire world.”

The smiles immediately faded.

Twilight ran a hoof through her mane in frustration. “I could actually do something if I had all of that information! But instead… I’m stuck with...” She paused. “I might be able to kill this thing by tricking it into the door as it closes. I’m still thinking about that particular detail, though.”

“But won’t you die if you did that?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight nodded solemnly. “Yes.”

Applejack laid a hoof on the crystal. “Why is it needed at all, Twi?”

“It’s… it’s the way this thing operates,” she said, straightening up again. “The door that seals this thing is not entirely perfect, and just from the fact that it was recorded, the whoever built it must have known it wasn’t perfect either.

“While the… what was it? Nameless. ...It can’t get through on its own, no. What it can do is get through with assistance. This thing tethers onto living things and uses their energy to eventually pass through the door.”

She let out a tired sigh. “I could feel it draining my power from the moment I stepped into that room, and even now, I am slowly growing weaker. I was tethered the moment I found that place.

“And, in a few days, it’ll have taken enough of my energy to make it through the door.”

“And you couldn’ at least tell us?” Applejack asked.

“Also no. The other part of it is it can make new tethers if I’m around any pony for any period of time. If I even spend any amount of time with you, you’ll be subject to its power too.”

“An’ why can’t we jus’ blast it with tha Rainbow Power like we did Tirek?”

“I, well…” She backpedaled. “I’m still not even sure how to use it correctly. ...It hasn’t exactly been consistent.”

Sunset groaned as several images of the Battle of the Bands came rushing back.

“Then let us at least join you at the door!” Rainbow Dash cried.

“Can’t,” Twilight asserted. “As long as it has at least one pony to tether to, it will always be able to get through.”

Rarity gulped. “You can’t seriously be suggesting—”

“It’s all or nothing, girls.” Twilight took a long, purposeful pause to let out a discontented sigh. “Do you really want me to ask you to die?”

Before Rarity could answer (she had even taken the breath to do so), Twilight shook her head. “Actually, never mind. But... even if I did, what if I accidentally bumped into somepony else? What if I accidentally ran into Sweetie Belle?”

Rarity found the air itself lodged in her throat. What came out instead was a long, desperate wheeze.

Twilight rubbed a hoof against the floor. “Or Mrs. Cake? Or Princess Cadance? Would I need to ask them to lay down their lives as well? And what if something goes terribly wrong and I’m exposed to hundreds? No, thousands?”

“For Celestia’s sake, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash thundered. “There has to be another way!”

“Believe me, Rainbow Dash, I’m trying to think of one!”

“Well try harder!”

“Yeah, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie blurted. “You can get this!”

“Indeed!” Rarity agreed.

“Girls…” Twilight winced.

“Twilight…” Fluttershy pleaded.

“You’ve got answers to everythin’. Ah’m sure you’ll pull through this too!” Applejack exclaimed.

“But…” Twilight gnashed her teeth together.

“Please, Twilight,” Spike whimpered, now on the verge of tears. “You have to! You just have to!”

Twilight Sparkle reared, spreading her wings to full length. “No!” she screamed, stomping the floor, “I can’t! Don’t you see!?”

It was as if the next heartbeat was skipped entirely. Most of them recoiled in dismay and surprise. Several hoofs flew to mouths in attempts to hush startled gasps. No one knew how to respond to that.

Twilight stood there in the center of her room, shocked by her own words. In fact, out of all of them, she was taken aback the most. She took many steps backward in horror as if she had just offended Princess Celestia to her face. She looked around the room, trying to gauge reactions that she would never see. Her knees wobbled and all of her features quivered.

Twilight buried her face within her hooves.

And then came the sounds. Even through a mask of hooves, Twilight’s cries were clearly audible.

Her body shook with each sob, and she slowly collapsed from the tall, regal form she had assumed before into a low and solitary lump on the floor.

Sunset felt a huge knot in her throat. The prostrate alicorn before her was a far cry from what she had ever imagined. Twilight was her better in all ways. Now she looked like a dog.

She had to hide her grimace. It wasn’t fair.

The others exchanged uncertain looks of astonishment which quickly melted into guilty frowns and slumped withers.

“Look…” Twilight said, standing slowly while wiping the tears from her eyes, “I don’t want anypony to die for my sake.

“And especially you, my dearest and closest friends. I am… just… so afraid,” she whimpered. “I’m afraid of losing all of you. I just… I can’t. I can’t put you at risk. You are all too important to me. I can’t even bear the thought of losing any one of you, and that’s exactly the risk I would be taking if we all went together.

“I know I can’t survive this by myself, and really this whole plan of mine is a bad idea, but…” she trailed off, looking at the ceiling forlornly, “it’s the best bad idea I have.”

No pony could even move. The seven of them sat there, letting idle tears flow down their faces.

“And besides…” Twilight croaked, hanging her head defeatedly, “in our world, time is fixed. It’s immutable. Whatever happened was always going to happen and, consequently, whatever happened can’t be changed. Is. Was. Will be.”

Sunset shuddered. And then she paused. She put a hoof to her muzzle in thought. Was that really true?

“Just the fact that you’re talking to me like this right now tells me everything,” Twilight continued. “It doesn’t matter what happens; I am going to die all the same. My fate is already sealed.”

“...Buck you, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash stammered, “Just… b-b-buck you.”

“Oh, T-twilight,” Fluttershy sobbed.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Twilight whimpered. “I am going to fail at being your friend. I…”

All of them held their breath. They looked down into the ball, following Twilight’s every movement.

Standing tall, Twilight took a deep breath and walked toward the window, levitating the ball closely behind her. She looked out over the rest of Canterlot and even reached out to touch it only for the glass to meet her. Freedom was mere feet away but entirely out of her reach.

“One time…” she thoughtfully began, “I was taught, that… yes. I don’t have all the answers. That if there are answers to find… She told me I can count on all of you, my friends, to find them.

“I’d imagine that she’s in the room right now.”

Several sets of asking eyes looked toward Sunset, and she nodded in meek acknowledgment.

Twilight closed her eyes resignedly. “I am going to die. But if… if you still have any suggestions… then I’m all ears.”

There were no responses. The six of them continued exchanging glances, trying to take solace in each other’s pain; to see if anyone else had even the briefest glimmer of an idea; to see if anyone else had the smallest notion on how they could help their best friend. None came.

Spike’s head fell on the ball in utter defeat. “Sunset Shimmer? Will you t-take this from me?”

Sunset startled, and then she nodded. “Uhm, sure. I can… do that.”

“Twilight… we’ll… need s-some time. Okay?”

“...Okay,” Twilight wheezed, her voice filled with disappointment and regret, “I understand.”

With that, Spike offered up the object. Sunset wrapped her opal-colored aura around the crystal ball and she gingerly took it from his grasp.

Spike slunk toward the stairs. “If you all need me,” he said, “I’ll be downstairs.”

Applejack started after him. “Actually, A-ah’ll come with ya,” she quivered, scooping up her empty teacup.

“Me too,” Rarity said in agreement.

The other three nodded in solidarity.

Five mares and a dragon slowly hobbled back toward the living quarters below. Sunset stood, watching their slow and labored pace; it was as if they were in no certain hurry to disappear. Only when they finally disappeared did she chance a forlorn look into the crystal ball.

Sunset felt like several daggers had been plunged into her chest. She could hardly believe that this was happening to Twilight. Had happened to Twilight. Her best friend was going to die and there was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing.

Sunset heard the light tinkle of breaking porcelain from downstairs. Immediately after that came a crashing wave of wails and screams.

4 - Decisive

Princess Luna rolled over in her bed and leered at a pile of sheets, her sheets, off to the side. She reached out with her hoof but found they lay outside her reach. Snorting, she whipped her head back onto her pillow.

The same few thoughts played through her mind again and again. They refused to leave, their resolve just as strong as it had been some time before. Had it been an hour? Three? She wasn’t sure.

Luna rolled over to look at the clock on the wall, only to find that it had fallen face-first onto the floor. She frowned. Oh, of course. That’s my fault.

The door to Luna’s room creaked open and a large, white alicorn sidled in, still adorned with her usual golden regalia. “Luna,” Celestia greeted.

Pretending to be asleep would have proven useless, Luna decided. “Greetings, Sister,” she said at length.

“How are you?”

“I’m fine, Sister dear,” Luna replied, waving dismissively. “I am just fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I am sure.”

Celestia smiled demurely. “You forgot to lower the moon tonight.”

Was it that late already? She twisted her head toward the window and her scowl deepened on seeing that, indeed, the sky outside was dark.

“Is something the matter?” Celestia asked.

I am caught. I should have known that she would see right through me, she thought. Luna rolled over on the bed and attempted to stand. “Sister… I am so…”

“Unsure?”

“Conflicted.”

Celestia remained in the doorway.

“I do not know what ails me this night,” Luna continued, “and I feel that I cannot speak of it either.”

Sucking in a breath, Celestia entered the room and pushed the door closed behind her, making sure that it clicked in place. “Luna, you can talk to me. What is on your mind?”

Luna’s only reaction was to trot over to the window. However, rather than look down at the city outside, she stared at her own slightly distorted reflection.

“Are you still upset?” Celestia asked.

Luna snorted. “Thou knowest I am not the only one upset.”

Celestia didn’t respond.

“Sister,” Luna continued, “I am well aware that thou have been skipping on some of thy royal duties.”

“We both have,” Celestia replied quietly, walking over. “You can talk to me. I can see this is eating at you.”

“She saved me from the nightmare, Sister,” Luna said. “She’s the reason why I am here tonight. You have said it yourself that we are together now because of her. She brought me back!”

She stomped her hooves against the floor, causing the very room to tremble.

“And then she goes and does this,” Luna thundered, “and I didn’t even know about it! She was here five days and we didn’t even know about it!” She gnashed her teeth together. “Sister, I did not even think to check to see how she was doing! This is most distressing!”

Luna turned her gaze down toward the floor. She took some deep breaths in an attempt to compose herself. “You were right at the ceremony. Twilight Sparkle hath done wondrous things for Equestria and saved our hides many times over. I…” Her voice fell down to a very subdued tone and she grabbed her leg with shame as she said, “I could not do the same when she needed me.

“I have failed in my duty to her. I have not repaid my debt. Now I never will get the chance.”

Celestia did something that she would never have done in front of anypony else; she sniffled.

Celestia then walked up, and just as purposefully as she had entered the room, she wrapped her forelegs around Luna.

Luna’s only reaction was to reciprocate.

They held each other for the longest time. Neither moved, and neither spoke.

“...Sister?” Luna croaked.

Celestia felt something wet hit her backside. “Yes, Luna?”

“...Why must these things happen?”

Celestia frowned and responded by holding her sister even tighter. “I don’t know, Luna. I just don’t know.”

Applejack steadied herself against the wall. Her face felt like it was going to fall off, but she resisted.

Pinkamena Diane Pie, meanwhile, sat in the corner, lost in a well of screams. The former party pony had grown a shade darker, and her once-poofy hair had fallen straight and listless. Together with Fluttershy, who had locked in an embrace with her, she produced cries that overtook the entire floor.

Rarity, meanwhile, had planted herself on the couch nearby, burying her face into the pillow. The fabric underneath her now bore stains from the makeup running down her face.

And Spike sat at the edge of that couch, having drawn near her like a magnet. But unlike the others, Spike remained silent. The tears in his eyes forgot to fall. Furthermore, he forgot how to wail as well. He appeared like a husk in the shape of a baby dragon.

Applejack shuffled toward the tower’s large entryway. A cool breeze invaded the room, blowing the door back and forth on its hinges. And as she hobbled over, her thoughts drifted toward their escapee.

On its own volition, Pinkamena’s body started doing things on its own. First, her ears flopped backward, and then her knee twitched. To top it off, her eyes then fluttered.

Applejack turned her head to the sky.

BOOM!

The castle quaked and rocked. Applejack had to place a wayward hoof on the doorframe to balance herself. She looked on as a large, multicolored disk appeared in the sky outside, accompanied by a light-and-melted-sounding reverberation.

That was Rainbow Dash somewhere above the city. And Applejack could just imagine the scream over the report.

Twilight Sparkle wanted to end her own life. Had ended her own life. Had.

There was one thing Twilight had been right about. Applejack knew so. She would have died alongside her best friend. Gladly.

BOOM!

Applejack narrowed her eyes as another rainbow appeared. And Pinkamena’s body had not stopped twitching yet.

She had not died along with her best friend. She had succeeded Twilight without choice.

She slammed a hoof against the wall, leaving a small dent. Twilight was dead. Twilight had died. Twilight was going to die.

Dead, died, would die.

Is, was, will be.

BOOM!

* * *

The rotunda stretched in a direction well beyond Sunset Shimmer’s reach. She had never once given any thought to the frays and patterns in the architecture, having focused her attention on the frays and patterns of text instead.

But her eyes had earlier fallen on a particular discoloration in the ceiling pattern and her attention had been held there since.

She could hear every detail of every report from below. It was almost a given since she had friends that held the same identities, and that helped to pick them apart. Same essences, different bodies. Funny how Twilight had once had access to two versions of each of her best friends. Even the way they cried was reminiscent of her friends from Canterlot High.

She had come to know that over the past few days.

The newest familiarity in a series of familiarities that she wanted no part of.

But now they were gone and now nothing stopped her from soaking in every reminder of her past failures. At Canterlot High, she had done one thing right. And in Equestria, she had done everything wrong.

Sunset let her head fall to the side, turning her focus to the tower on the other side of the castle, where her single greatest failure resided. She had lost Celestia because she had pushed too far.

Just like she had almost lost everything pushing too far during the Fall Formal.

And she had, evidently, pushed too far even now. And now here they all were in a situation she was sure everyone would have rather not known about. Her ears fell back on the wails from down below and she buried her head in her hooves. Good job, Sunset. You’ve managed to screw up again.

* * *

Applejack heard something touch down outside the door. She stirred from her slump against the wall. “Welcome back,” she said, knowing it was but a token gesture.

Rainbow Dash shook her mane out of her eyes and trotted inside. She entered to the despondent raising of heads. She slinked toward a lonely cushion near the back wall, and eventually collapsed into it with a long and drawn out groan.

The room was silent save for the occasional sniffle and light sob. The rhythmic tick of a clock on the wall passed around them, and all of them momentarily lost themselves in it.

“Oh, Twilight…” Fluttershy said, trailing off as she reclined against the wall.

The six shared several silent glances and offered nods of acknowledgment.

“What are we going to do with her?” Rarity mused. “This is so typical of her, honestly.”

Applejack shook her head and half-snorted, half-chortled. She then let herself sink back against the wall and adjusted her hat.

Twilight had sacrificed herself before; once with Chrysalis, once with Tirek, and now with the Nameless. Eeyup, that’s our Twilight, Applejack thought.

* * *

Sunset decided that she had put it off for long enough. How long “long enough” was escaped her, but noticing that the shadows in the room had changed had been enough of an argument. With trepidation, she floated the ball over.

“Hey, Twilight,” she said as she wrapped her hooves around it.

Twilight Sparkle, who had been writing some equations down in a journal, looked up with interest. It took her a moment more to register what was actually happening, but when she did, she let off a smile. “Sunset! How good it is to… see? No, hear you.”

“You too, Twilight,” Sunset replied warmly. “I’ve missed you so much. I know we write to each other, but still…”

“Yes. How are all of your friends doing?” she asked as she resumed her work.

Sunset blushed, “They’re doing pretty alright. They’re kind of mad at me right now, though. I um… I broke a parade float on accident.”

“You what?” Twilight asked, somewhat shocked.

“I broke an entire parade float.”

Twilight glanced up from her book once more, dumbfounded. “How did that happen?”

“I just, I just… I just accidentally the whole thing. Don’t make me talk about it. But honest, Twilight, I didn’t mean it,” Sunset said with a shrug.

Twilight snorted, stifling further laughter before resuming her writing.

Sunset rubbed her leg out of shame but let off a refreshing laugh. “anyway, that’s what’s happening with them.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s good. That’s good. And…” she said as her tone suddenly grew somber, “how are my friends doing?”

Sunset glanced toward the stairwell. The downstairs was deathly quiet, and she knew why. It only meant the tears were over. Nothing else. Except she did not know how to express that.

Twilight heard nothing but interpreted it all the same. She buried her face in her hooves. “I guess I’ve really messed up this time, huh?”

“I dunno, Twilight. I mean…” Sunset paused and tried to think of something but only managed to sigh defeatedly. “I don’t know what I would have done if I were you. How could I say if it was right?”

“It’s not what I wanted to do.”

“I know.”

“I really don’t know what else to do. I mean, there’s no way I would let them get involved. Not this time.” She paused in her writing, prodded the page with the quill a few times, and then lifted it away altogether. Twilight flipped back a page to see what else she had written, but after a solitary glance, she closed it altogether. “It’s a difficult situation.”

“I see you care a lot for them. I mean, well… Is that what friends do?”

“Of course. We look out for each other. I look after them, and they look after me. If I could, I would go to the ends of this world and back for them.” She stopped for a moment to think, and then she grinned melancholically. “This is just my way of doing that this time, I guess.”

Sunset swallowed. “You would… die for them?”

Twilight nodded. “Yes.”

Sunset flinched. Die? For another pony?

“I’ve actually thought about this from time to time,” Twilight began, nearly setting the quill down upon the page. “It’s usually after Spike’s gone to bed or something like that. But I’ve given it special thought since I came up from the chamber.

“And it’s a fact of life,” she earnestly explained. “Everypony dies eventually. It’s the price of having a life. And so I look at my friends… And I know. I know that every single one of us is going to go someday. I… I’m afraid of us being driven apart, Sunset. Death is one heck of a way to do it.”

And then Twilight Sparkle grinned. “But you know the conclusion I’ve reached? If I had to do it now so they could go on and be together for another sixty years, then I’d do it a million times over. I will always make that choice. Because some ponies are worth dying for.”

* * *

Sunset descended the staircase. Each stride took longer than the last and her gaze did not connect with anything but the floor.

Tentatively, Spike stood up and walked over, intent on meeting her halfway. “Well?” he asked.

Sunset shook her head inconclusively before she strolled over toward the kitchen area, setting her sights on the tea kettle.

“What did you talk about?” he asked again.

“We talked a little bit about the lengths we’d go for each other,” she said, gathering a cup and saucer before pouring her drink. “Like, how she would do anything for you guys. Including what she did.”

Spike hummed affirmatively.

“We know she would,” Rarity said, rolling over on the sofa. “She’s a good mare. I’m just… disappointed that she didn’t give us the chance to do the same.”

Sunset scratched the back of her head. “I just… I don’t get the whole concept. ...I don’t know if I could do what she did. And I definitely don’t feel any better knowing she did it for me. Or, I guess, you. Or Equestria. Whatever.”

“Ah reckon...” Applejack said, “the one thing we can do to help her right now is to be here for her. Ah think she could really use her friends.”

“Mmhmm,” they collectively agreed.

As she took another sip of her tea, Sunset noticed the broken remains of Applejack’s teacup near the door. She wrapped her magical aura around the shards and lifted them into the air. “I do wonder about that time stuff, though. I mean, I’ve read stuff on time when I lived here before, but most of it was theory,” she explained as she levitated the pieces into the garbage disposal.

“Oh, yeah,” Pinkamena said, “that. We had an episode where that happened once.”

Spike hummed in agreement. “Twilight traveled through time.”

Sunset tapped a hoof against the floor as she tried to decipher what they had said. “…Twilight Sparkle traveled through time?” she asked incredulously.

All six of them nodded.

“Ah don’ understand it much,” Applejack admitted, scratching her head. “Ah honestly think that Pinkie Pie can tell ya ’bout it better than Ah can.”

Sunset automatically glanced over in Pinkamena’s direction, even though she didn’t mean to.

“Yeah, this one time,” Pinkamena began, sitting up, “Twilight had a real doozy of a thing. It all started when she got a message from future Twilight. She time traveled in and was looking really bad.

“So, Twilight assumed that there was a disaster. And she spent the whole week freaking out about it, but she ended up causing it too. Like, everything that she did to prevent the thing that she was trying to prevent actually caused the thing that she was trying to prevent.”

Pinkamena straightened up as she progressed through her tale, a sign that her former energy was returning. “And so, eventually, Twilight, and Spike, and I broke into the Starswirl the Bearded Wing by politely asking a guard to let us in! And then we found a time spell where Twilight could go back in time but oooonnly for a minute, and oooonnly once in her entire lifetime.

“And then Twilight went back in time and caused the whole thing!”

“It’s like she said,” Spike concluded, “Time is fixed. ‘Is, was, will be.’”

Pinkamena let off a smile before she slumped back against the wall.

Sunset crunched down what had just been said, going over each individual sentence as she created a mental picture of exactly what they were talking about. The latter half was the fact that, apparently, a time spell existed in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing and she had never seen it. The second part was that the time loop, as Twilight had described, was stable.

But then the crux of the matter returned to her mind once more. “Time travel is possible…?” Sunset trailed off as she set the teacup and coaster on the floor in front of her.

“Yepperooni,” Pinkamena replied.

Fluttershy wiped some orphaned water from her eyes. “Maybe that’s what you were doing earlier?”

Time traveling in to have Twilight copy a book, Sunset thought.

I time traveled.

There was a long and almost palpable pause. And then Sunset rose to her hooves with a wide-eyed expression. …No.

I am going to time travel.

Sunset whirled around so fast that her mostly empty teacup fell off the saucer. She took care to right it before she turned tail once more and scurried up the stairs, leaving behind several looks of bewilderment.

She raced over to the crystal ball but found Twilight absent, supposedly outside the reach of the ball’s sound. That was no good.

With her mental wheels still running faster than she could keep up with, she instead turned her attention to the shelves. Using her magic, she yanked out book after book, fueled by what she remembered of her time in the library.

But these were not the immediate books that she wanted, and she tossed them aside with little regard to where or how they landed as she levitated more and more out of place. Cursory glances at their covers ruled them out as well.

“Sunset!” Applejack yelled, being the first to catch up, “What the hay is goin’ on?”

The others soon showed up behind her, wearing confused looks on their faces.

“I need to find a book!” Sunset said, throwing another across the room before she moved over to the ladder and started to ascend. “Remember what Twilight said? ‘Is, was, will be.’ If time is really fixed like Twilight says, then at some point here, I am going to time travel.”

“What’s that got to do with anythin’!?” Applejack thundered.

“It means”—her eyes stopped on a candidate before ultimately rejecting it—“that we’re not out of the woods.”

“Why?”

At that point, Sunset stopped. Taking a deep breath, she stepped off of the ladder. “See, it’s like this. I know magic. A lot of magic. In fact, it’s possible that I know more magic than Twilight. I even know quite a bit of dark magic; believe me.

“But time travel magic is not one of them.

“So now, what reason would I have to not only learn it but then use it for whatever it was I was doing there? There’s a contradiction here.”

Five of them let out a flurry of sharp gasps and exclamations.

Meanwhile, Pinkamena’s hair shot upward and then tangled itself into a poofy mess once more. “Oh my gosh, you’re totally right!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, jumping up and down. “It’d be a time paradox if you don’t time travel!”

“So now,” Sunset said as she glanced over the cover of another candidate, “we should think back; what was I doing exactly?”

“Oh! Oh oh oh!” Pinkie Pie said almost faster than they could register. “You came in carrying a book! And you wanted Twilight to copy what was in it!”

Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “That’s what I saw too!”

“Then that’s it,” Sunset said, “I’m going to time travel and that book is the reason why.”

“Okay,” Rarity cut in, “but what book would Twilight need? We’re in a library.” She motioned to the entire room with her hooves. “There are plenty of books for her to choose from. And I doubt the stock has changed between then and now.”

Sunset raised a hoof to her chin in thought. “That’s a good question. We have no idea where the book came from.”

“Well, Ah reckon we can’t have a book appearin’ out of thin air,” Applejack said. “It’s gotta be somewhere.”

“Twilight’s read every book in here up and down,” Spike pointed out.

“But hasn’t that what’s her face that Twilight gave this here place to—”

“Moondancer.”

“Moondancer. Hasn’t she moved some books around?”

Spike shook his head, “Yeah, but she’s only taken a few books. We talked to her three weeks ago and she hasn’t taken anything since we were here back then.”

“Yeah, but… fahne,” Applejack conceded, crossing her forelegs. “Ah know this is Twilight we’re talkin’ about.”

“Then maybe it came from outside of the collection,” Rarity suggested.

“That seems to be the case,” Sunset agreed.

“So then, the next question is where that outside is.”

“Future Sunset time traveled with the original book,” Pinkie Pie argued. “She must have got it from the future.”

Rainbow Dash sailed through the air above them. “Will time travel. I think? I’d think it’d have to be soon enough that she’s still in Equestria, though.”

Applejack nodded. “Can’t be too long from now, Ah’d say.”

“But that’s still pretty complicated,” Rainbow Dash protested. “I mean, why not just grab the book from wherever Twilight needs the book from and then just teleport in?”

“Because then she’d need to know where it was at the time,” Fluttershy replied.

“Okay… but... can’t Sunset look up library records to see which books go where?”

“That still doesn’t tell us what the mystery book is,” Rarity said, shaking her head.

Rainbow Dash groaned loudly and threw her hooves exasperatedly into the air.

Applejack gave herself a knock to the head. “Mmkay, so here’s what ah think: maybe it’s somethin’ that weren’t around back then, but might come around in a few days?”

“…I think I might know just the thing,” Fluttershy piped up.

All of them, including Sunset, shared a collective glance, almost having a short follow-up discussion through their eyes, only to arrive at a consensus.

Spike sprinted over to the ball and took it in his hands. “Twilight! Twilight!” he called.

There was no response.

“Twiiiilight!” he called again with a little more desperation.

“Yes?” Twilight replied as she reached the top of the stairs.

“That, uh, book that future Sunset gave you. Was it stuff on the Nameless?”

Twilight paused as she considered what those words meant outside of their immediate message. “Yes. That’s what it looks like. Why?”

“I want to see it,” Sunset said.

Spike relayed her request, and then he looked at Sunset discerningly.

Twilight cantered over to the desk, opened her copy of the book, and took a few cursory glances at some of the pages. “That’s what I can gather, at least. I haven’t been able to look at all of it yet. So far, a lot of this is a series of numbers. There’re some computations in here, but…”

She flipped through some more pages. “There’re some notes scribbled in the margins here, but pretty much everything else is just math.”

Sunset stared holes through the ball. The flowing curls of each letter and number appeared familiar to her.

“Honestly,” Twilight continued, “I had my doubts on whether or not it was actually Nameless, but now that I think about it, yes.” She ran her hoof along a couple of lines in the text and chuckled. “It might be a lot of numbers right now, but it might be possible to turn this into something legible.”

“So hey, we were right!” Applejack exclaimed.

“Yippee! We did it!” Pinkie Pie cheered. Within moments, there was a loud and bubbly pop before a shower of long, multicolored strands of paper rained down upon all seven of them. That was accompanied by a small round of laughter.

Except for Rarity and Sunset. But with the former, Pinkie Pie already had some consolations ready to go. “Told ya, Rarity: streamer emergencies,” Pinkie Pie said.

Rarity’s scowl deepened.

Sunset, meanwhile, looked back and forth between the pages that she could see in the book. Her frown grew deeper all the while.

“Why can’t it be regular words, though?” Rainbow Dash asked, now turning her attention back to the mare in the crystal ball. “I could read regular words,” she said with a smirk.

“Quite right,” Rarity concurred, “That’s very specific information to send back.”

“That’s because mathematics can explain lots of things,” Twilight replied. “I’m not all too surprised, really.”

She casually flipped through some more pages. “If you ask me, this is the beginnings of a very complex spell. More complex than I’ve ever seen.”

“Well, ain’t that somethin’…” Applejack cooed, though with a noticeable quiver in her voice. Her eyes drew up toward Sunset.

Rarity seemed to reach the same conclusion and looked over. “Sunset, dear?”

Sunset didn’t answer.

She shook her head. She had to be seeing things. She recognized the way this penmanship flowed, leaned, and even faltered. The writing couldn’t be familiar. Could it?

“There’s just one thing I’m a bit confused about,” Twilight said, now scrutinizing the writing itself. “This writing looks a bit familiar. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before. As in, I’ve seen it quite a bit, recently…” She leaned in to carefully discern the curls and strokes.

And then Twilight gasped. She covered her mouth to keep it in, but it was still audible. “Sunset! This… this is…”

“Yeah,” Sunset said as she placed a hoof on the crystal ball. She looked at the book in Twilight’s grasp and gulped. “That’s my hoofwriting alright. I wrote that book.”

* * *

“So, I’m going to write a spell…” Sunset trailed off for the umpteenth time.

“Yeah, yeah,” Applejack said as she leaned against the wall. “We know already.”

Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash held their own private and unrelated conversation near the kitchen area. Spike, meanwhile, was plopped on the floor next to the ball, refusing to leave it.

Sunset didn’t want to particularly bother them anyway.

“Well, we know at least one thing,” Rarity said, “and that’s that you don’t have to be here any longer than five days. You’ll know if it works or not by then.”

Sunset scratched her head. She looked over at the crystal ball for a few moments as thoughts about time came to mind. Ultimately, she didn’t partake in it.

“I just wonder what sort of spell is in there,” Fluttershy thought aloud. “I mean, that’s what Twilight said, anyway.”

“Plus, that mathematics is too fancy for me,” Applejack said, half-complaining. “Ah haven’t the foggiest what it is. Ah reckon you can tell us best.”

They went quiet for a few moments as they reflected on what they had seen. However, wandering eyes eventually fell on Sunset as Applejack’s statements soaked in. She could tell them best.

“I honestly don’t know what the spell does yet,” Sunset replied. “All I know is that I’m compelled to write it, time paradox or not. But… getting Twilight out of this mess would be a really compelling reason, right?”

Within moments, the entire scene went from several disjointed areas to one singular scene in which their attention was undivided.

“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to see this whole thing through. Maybe it’ll surprise us. Maybe we might get Twilight back. Or maybe this won’t even go anywhere and it’d be just a waste of time.” Sunset swelled as she said, “But I will do it. Because… Twilight is worth it.”

Those that had been sitting immediately stood. Each of them wore small and intrigued grins. In fact, they were almost glowing. The best part, however, was that they were looking to her. Waiting. As if she would give them some amount of direction in light of the new developments.

In fact, Sunset had them in her corner as she prepared to do something that was possibly bigger than anything she had done before.

This must be how Twilight feels all the time, she thought. And then she smiled, finding herself tickled. This is going to be interesting.

5 - Working

Queen Chrysalis approached a small ledge and looked at the floor below.

Several changelings went about their day-to-day routines as they attempted to maintain the nest. A few of them flew up to the walls and covered them with a sort of slime. The walls responded by changing shape, flexing their proverbial muscles, before returning to their enigmatic motions.

Others still buzzed around each other, engaged in aerial games as they looped and swirled around each other in intricate and indeterminable patterns. Small crowds gathered below them, throwing around several wagers on who would come out on top.

It made her smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her subjects brimming with so much energy. It was infectious, actually.

Chrysalis heard a lone drone touch down behind her. She looked back just enough to see who it was out of the corner of her eye. “Xagnax, report,” she commanded.

Her trusted lieutenant gave a quick salute. “I have the normal news, My Queen,” he buzzed. “The outer watch reports normal activity on the grounds. Zharzan has also reported back about a possible food source forty klicks south of here.”

“Excellent,” Chrysalis said without turning her head. “Send several scouts down there and take detailed surveys. I want to know what we’re eating.”

“I have saved the best news for last, My Queen. Word has come that Twilight Sparkle has died.”

Chrysalis actually paused at that point. She dragged an idle hoof across the dirt. “...What did you say?”

“Twilight Sparkle is dead.”

Had she heard that right? Her old enemy now gone from the world? Her old enemy out of the way?

Chrysalis sneered. Then she threw her head back and laughed. She snickered and snorted and guffawed and the echoes of each report carried far throughout the vast cavern; some down below even gave her quick glances.

“My Queen?”

“Oh!” she cried as she wiped away a tear. “This is rich! Twilight Sparkle gone. I love it.” She yielded to her laughing fit once more.

Xagnax suppressed a smile in order to appear presentable. “What should we do in response, My Queen?”

Chrysalis blinked. She placed a hoof to her chin in thought. Even if Twilight was gone, Shining Armor and Mi Amore Cadenza were not. And the other Princesses. And those things that Twilight Sparkle called friends. They were all there.

Her muzzle twitched. That was a thought. But a thought that would need time; it surely would not be realized soon.

“We will do nothing for now,” she concluded. “Perhaps, on a later date, I will send those putrid Equestrians my regards. ...But not now. We will continue our current trajectory. Do you have anything else to report?”

“None, My Queen.”

Chrysalis waved him off, “As you were then, lieutenant Xagnax.”

The drone bowed, and with a buzz of his wings, he sailed past her, flying off to retire for the day.

Queen Chrysalis, for a few brief moments, went back to watching over her children. A wide and malevolent grin, one so wide that even her backmost teeth were bared, spread across her features.

Sunset Shimmer glanced at the page that sat in front of Spike and frowned at how blank it was.

The six of them—Rarity had gone downstairs to answer the door—sat in a circle behind the hourglass. Sunset, per her habit, had taken a seat right next to the old (but no less clean) fixture. Each of them idly worked, busying themselves as they tried to overcome the first obstacle:

“How do we go about this?”

As the evening sun’s golden hue steadily overtook the room, the rumblings in their stomachs and their increasingly voluminous yawns became more frequent.

Twilight Sparkle lay near the hourglass in her own time, studying the book that she had copied off of Sunset Shimmer with a greater attention than she had afforded it before. Every so often, she would jot down a note or two on some scratch-parchment on the side.

“Diiiinner,” Rarity announced as she ascended the stairs, “is served.” Several trays and dishes, full of delectable delights, levitated behind her. The wettest steam, so thick it could be seen and felt from a distance, wafted off the tops, accompanied by the tender crackle and pop of heated soy.

The six on the floor rose with elated cries and even a few enthusiastic jumps. In rapid succession, they practically stole everything away from her. They set the assortment in the middle of the circle and immediately began passing out plates and utensils and otherwise serving themselves.

“Yes, well…” Rarity trailed off, taken aback.

“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said into the ball. “We got dinner!”

“That’s nice, Pinkie,” Twilight replied in a curt manner.

“Ah’m starvin’!” Applejack exclaimed as she piled on some mashed potatoes before taking a seat on the floor.

“Heh, it’s like a slumber party,” Sunset mused, taking her own seat.

“Certainly… um… we don’t have a table,” Rarity stuttered. “I mean, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time we’ve eaten on the floor, but we’re in a castle and eating on the floor is soooooo… garish.”

Several sets of eyes attached to mouths already full of food looked up at her.

Rarity scowled. Slapping a hoof against her face, she mumbled, “I don’t know why standards are so low.” With a huff, she situated herself into the circle and took a bite as well.

“But Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, nearly pouncing on the ball, “you should eat with us too!”

“No. I have to figure this out, Pinkie,” Twilight replied offhoofedly.

Rarity placed a hoof on the ball. “We are going to figure this out, so why don’t you take a break for a second and come eat with us?

“…Well,” Twilight conceded, placing a considering hoof against her chin, “I guess I could grab a sandwich from downstairs. There’s plenty of spare food in the pantry. Probably Moondancer’s doing.”

Rainbow Dash nearly fell over. “Wait wait wait,” she began, placing her hoof on the ball so Twilight could hear (which had become a common habit). “You mean to tell me there was food downstairs this whole time?”

Spike deadpanned. “Of course there’s food down below. Just graze anywhere.”

Twilight threw her head back and cackled as she disappeared down the stairs.

Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, gave him a stink-eye. “Thanks a lot for the help.”

“Yeah, even I knew where to look,” Sunset said. “You know, because I’ve lived here before.”

“Well, when was anypony gunna tell me that!?” Rainbow Dash cried.

“Uh—”

“Yeah, I didn’t even know that!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

“That would have been useful earlier, Sunset!” Rainbow Dash said.

“Um, sorry?” Sunset tried.

“We have food now though so let’s not worry ’bout it,” Applejack chided.

For the next few minutes, the seven friends (along with the eighth inside the ball who had indeed reappeared with a sandwich in tow) ate in relative silence (although they did make some small talk or occasionally asked for dishes to be passed around).

About halfway through the meal, Sunset stood up. “So hey, now that we can focus a little bit better, let’s have a serious go at this. Everyone agreed?”

Everyone nodded affirmatively.

Using her magic, Sunset drew upon a simpler spell: she created a chalkboard out of thin air and placed it near her own spot. After taking one last bite of some green beans, she levitated the chalk up toward the board. “So, besides writing off collecting those things Twilight talked about, what else do we have? Spike?”

Spike looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of him and then frowned back at Sunset.

Sunset cringed. “Okay. Well… I think…” She looked at the board. “I think we don’t really have any other options. I think we have to put collection back on the table.”

“But there’re so many…” Fluttershy squeaked. “I don’t know if we’d be able to get them all.”

Rainbow Dash snorted, “Yeah. There’d need to be a few hundred of us to do that. Which—”

Pinkie Pie gasped. “Dashie! I thought we agreed not to talk about the Mirror Pond!”

“…I wasn’t thinking about the Mirror Pond—”

“No buts! You don’t talk about the Mirror Pond. That’s the first rule of the Mirror Pond.”

“Maybe we don’t have to,” Sunset cut in, shooting Pinkie Pie a piercing glare. “Maybe we just need the most important ones, or something like that.”

“I don’t know…” Fluttershy trailed off uncertainly.

Sunset lifted the chalk up toward the board. “Well, why don’t we pretend we did that for a second,” she said and wrote the word collection on the board. “If that’s really where we’ll get our information from, then we managed to fill quite a few pages in the book Twilight got from me.” She frowned and said, “…Will manage to fill quite a few pages in the book I will give to Twilight.”

Pinkie Pie nodded, “That’s trueeeee. There were a couple hundred pages at least!”

The rest of them shrugged.

“Yeah, I guess,” Spike said. “Let’s see where this goes.”

Sunset nodded as she took the chalk and underlined the word on the board.

“So now, that must mean our task now is to figure out how to acquire these things,” Rarity said.

“Well,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “we don’t even know what to do with them when we get them.”

“That’s true…”

“You’re both right. We’ll have to figure the both of those out,” Sunset said, writing each on opposing sides of the board.

“But,” Rarity argued, “it’s not going to do us any good if we aren’t able to find them in the first place.”

Applejack wolfed down some more mashed potatoes. “Ah reckon we should start with that then.”

“What if we had a machine?” Pinkie Pie suggested, hoping to her hooves and spreading her forelegs ecstatically. “Then we could use science to track them all down! That’s what Twilight would do!”

The rest of them hummed affirmatively and exchanged nods.

Except for Spike. “Okay,” he said, “but so we build this thing, and then how would it know what to look for?”

“Ah think Twilight would be able to tell us that one,” Applejack replied.

Rarity nodded as she dug her spoon into her own share of mashed potatoes. “That’s very true. She knows more about these… What are they called? Stones? She knows more about them than anypony.”

Spike shrugged before biting down on another gem. Pinkie Pie, meanwhile, did a celebratory backflip in place.

“But won’t we still lose time if we have to take the time to build it?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset cringed.

“I mean,” Fluttershy continued, “don’t we need as much time as we can get? Four days isn’t a lot of time to cross the world. Or make the journey back.”

“I’ll need time to examine these things too. A day, maybe,” Sunset groaned.

“So, really, I guess we only have three days.”

“Some of these things might be a whole three days’ journey, even for Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried before flailing herself backward onto the hard plaster floor.

Rainbow Dash looked up from her plate of food, scowling from behind scattered bits of corn stuck to the rim of her lips.

“It’d be nice if we had a way to be back here whenever we want, like,” she said with a shrug, “uhm, some way to…”

“Do that teleportin’ thing Twilight did sometimes,” Applejack finished.

Several eyes turned Sunset who twirled her piece of chalk about and about.

And, after a moment, Sunset shook her head. “I’d need time to develop it. Sorry.”

Rainbow Dash groaned and threw her hooves into the air. “Gah! Why don’t we have enough time!?”

All of them fell back into a listlessness, idly twiddling their hooves or taking further bites of their now-cooled meals. In short order, they fell into more relaxed and uninvolved states.

Meanwhile, the sun continued to sink lower and lower.

Spike drummed his claws against his arm as he stared at his plate, his brow furrowed in a focused expression. And then he gasped. “Wait! I got it!” he exclaimed, hopping to his feet. “If that’s really it, why don’t we just get nine days’ worth of time? Let’s have Twilight do it!”

“What are you gettin’ at?” Applejack asked, raising an eyebrow.

Spike spread his arms triumphantly, “I’m saying let’s have Twilight do it! We don’t have to wait for the crystal ball because we’re already a few days ahead of Twilight. We could have Twilight find out where the stones that we want are, and we can have her think of a way to get us home! So all we have to worry about is going out and getting them.”

“Oh... for dang’s sake.” Applejack laughed and slapped her plate. “Why didn’ we think of that earlier?”

Rarity nodded with an impressed frown. “Doing it the old-fashioned way,” she said.

“We’re getting our regular time loop game on!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, pumping a hoof into the air.

“Uh, Pinkie Pie, we don’t have a ‘regular time loop game,’” Applejack replied with an amused grin.

Pinkie Pie giggled, “Don’t worry, not everypony does.”

Spike walked toward the ball. “Let’s see if Twilight could do it then go from there.” He picked it up before he finished, “And hope we don’t have to start all over.”

Twilight flinched. “What huh?” she said as her quill streaked across the page. She then looked down, saw her error, and pouted.

“Twilight,” Spike said, “we need some things from you.”

“Okay.”

“We need you to make a machine that will find these stones you were talking about.”

“Okay, Spike,” Twilight said, jotting it down on a small notepad.

“And then, when you’re done with that, we also need a way to instantly teleport home by ourselves.”

Twilight wrote that down as well. “Okay, but what do you want those for?”

Spike looked up at the rest of them for support before he looked back toward Twilight. “We’re gunna put together the spell that you have on you. We’re really close to having a plan, we just need to know if you can do that.”

“…Yes, but…” Twilight sucked in an uncertain breath. “I would need a few days.”

“Yeah yeah, we know,” Spike continued. “And then, when you do, could you hide what you come up with somewhere so we can find it?”

Twilight took a moment to flip through some pages in her journal before she used her magic to grab a book off the top shelf. Twilight idly scanned the cover for a few seconds, humming thoughtfully all the while.

She then grew wide-eyed. “Ooooh, I see what you’re doing!” she exclaimed, whirling around. She cantered toward the hourglass, and after looking it up and down, she smirked. “Okay, if I succeed in both, I’ll put them in there. Go check there now.”

Sunset, who had been drinking out of her cup at the time, suddenly spit all of it out and then pounded at whatever had remained caught.

Fluttershy stood up. “Sunset?” she asked, her voice full of concern. “Are you okay?”

Sunset straightened herself up. “Yeah yeah, Fluttershy,” she said, trying to shoo her away. “It’s nothing, I’m okay. Thanks.”

Taking one last deep breath for good measure, she turned her attention to the large hourglass. All of the sand still rested at the bottom, so she used her hoof to flip the hourglass over. It offered no resistance despite being twice her size. The soothing feel of the metal frame brought a smile to her face. It was just like old times.

After a few mesmerizing seconds of watching the sand fall (and listening for the telltale ssssh of the sand falling into the bottom chamber), she used her magic to pry the plate off of the top chamber.

On an unspoken cue, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and lifted herself above the apparatus and reached in. She then fished out a lacquered box, small enough to be carried with ease yet big enough to command a grip.

Sunset magically grabbed at a letter taped to the front of the box. An idle glance at its contents revealed another note. Unlike the fateful note of farewell, the typography was much more even and meticulous, more like the hoofwriting that she remembered.

My friends,

Hopefully you are reading this just after I told you to search the hourglass. This kit contains everything you’ll need to collect the stones.

Use it well,
Twilight Sparkle

The seven of them of them shared smiles. “Well alright then, we know she can do it,” Applejack said, jamming her hoof into the air.

“Nice going, Spike!” Rainbow Dash said as she touched back down.

Rarity leaned over. “You were fantastic, my Spiky-wikey,” she agreed as she nuzzled him on the cheek.

As Sunset took the box from Rainbow Dash, she looked at the letter again. Part of her almost couldn’t believe it. Sunset stood there and marveled at the box, completely unaware of herself levitating the plate back onto the top of the apparatus. She had seen better boxes back in her day. And she couldn’t think of a case where a box would be anything spectacular. Yet, somehow, the fact the box even existed eclipsed every other aspect of it.

Spike made this happen by forcing a time loop, she thought as her body jittered with excitement. This...!? This is incredible! I have to look more into this time stuff!

Spike blushed. “It was nothin’.”

“Are you kidding!?” Sunset cried. “That was brilliant, Spike!”

“Oh, go on!”

Sunset excitedly clapped her hooves together before turning her attention back on the box. “Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. Wait.” Sunset gave her noggin a slight rap to put herself back on focus. She looked at the note on the box again and read it over twice. A new thought formed and she threw it in with the other thoughts to see if it would blend.

“Okay,” she finally concluded, “she isn’t specific about what’s in the box. That’s good stuff.”

The other six looked over at her with questioning expressions.

“The contents of this box are in flux right now, and that’s really good for us. It gives us the chance to favorably collapse the probability function,” Sunset explained.

Everyone else besides Pinkie Pie frowned. Sunset could even see the proverbial thought shooting past their heads.

Sunset puffed her cheeks in embarrassment. “I mean uh… look. Okay, sorry, I got carried away there. Basically,” she held the object up in presentation, “anything could be inside this box until the moment we open it. We have the chance to decide what’s in the box. So, we should think about how many of us are going out to collect.”

Immediately, four sets of hooves and a set of claws went up. Sunset wasn’t sure if it was because they understood what she said or if they were just blindly following the last part.

“I should go,” Spike argued.

“...I should stay,” Fluttershy whimpered.

Rainbow Dash blew some hair out of her face. “Uhm, I don’t think that’d work out so well. I think all six of us should go.”

“Well, I’ll need some help here,” Sunset said, “since I’ll have to build something that can read the stones, and probably work with Twilight to figure out the math she’ll need for the spell.” She paused, and then added, “I’m a little rusty.”

Applejack nodded. “Spike,” she said and pointed, “you know this place up ’n down. Ah think you’d be a big help here.”

Spike mulled that over. “You got that right,” he said, beating his chest as he puffed it out pridefully.

“An’ Fluttershy… you can fly,” Applejack pointed out. “You’d be able to get to a lot of places much faster.”

Fluttershy cowered. “Yes, but I still don’t think it’s a good idea…”

“Well, why not?”

Fluttershy frowned. “Go to the furthest reaches of the world all by myself? I don’t know if I can do that…”

“Of course you can, dear,” Rarity said, draping a hoof over her friend’s withers. “You’ve helped us face down far worse things than a road trip.”

Pinkie Pie laughed and swung her foreleg around Fluttershy’s neck and said, “Yeah! Plus, we’ll be doin’ it too! You can betcha that all of us will get through this!”

“Well, um,” Fluttershy began. But then she sighed. “Oh, alright. It is for Twilight, after all.”

“Are we locking this in?” Sunset asked, glancing around for approval.

The five mares nodded.

“Twilight?” Spike called.

“Yes?” Twilight answered.

“One last thing. Everyone but Sunset and I are going out.”

“Got it.”

At that point, Sunset took hold of the box again. She examined it closely, and then she shared a nod with the others. Tentatively, she opened Twilight’s box.

Another carefully written letter greeted her. For the moment, Sunset set that aside so that she could see the contents inside. Right below where the letter had been situated sat five colored balls, each the size of a gumdrop. Somehow, Twilight’s choice of color with each seemed intentional. Scattered underneath those were an assortment of miscellaneous items, each labeled with a string of numbers.

Sunset examined one such set of numbers. She recognized latitude and longitude immediately, but the third set caught her by surprise. On closer inspection, she recognized them as meters. She figured it had to be depth.

Nodding in approval, she turned back to the letter.

Dear friends,

These five colored balls you see are a new invention! They are

Okay seriously I’ve tried writing this darn letter five times and I keep getting carried away with the technical details so I’m just going to skip that.

This is teleportation gum. You chew on it and it will instantly transport you home. I’ve managed to recreate the method Princess Celestia uses to send letters through Spike, and the gum makes sure it doesn’t happen until you use it.

It only works once, though, so use them wisely! These were pretty difficult to make!

I’ve also listed on the back of this letter several coordinates. I was able to track down twelve of them using the parameters I put into my machine.

In addition, you’ll find several items that you’ll need for the places you are going to. Each of them is labeled with their corresponding coordinate. There are extras so take what you need.

Twilight Sparkle

Spike crossed his arms and laughed nervously. “I’ve never coughed up entire ponies before. Letters, maybe, but not ponies.”

Rainbow Dash swiftly scooped up the red one and said, “Ha! Not too late to learn how, right?”

“That’s dandy,” Applejack said, taking the orange one. “Feels good to have a plan.”

Pinkie Pie did a cartwheel over toward the box. “Gum that lets us teleport across the world! This’ll be fun!” she exclaimed, nabbing the blue one.

Rarity took the purple one and gave it a once-over. “Not to mention the applications these things would have.”

“Well shucks,” Applejack replied. “Not that I’d expect anythin’ less from Twilight.”

Fluttershy, meanwhile, took the last one (the pink one), and then she looked at the other objects in the box.

“Alright,” Sunset said. She turned to the chalkboard and jotted down the several coordinates Twilight had written on the back of her letter. “Let’s talk about who’s going where.”

* * *

Steam bellowed every which way as the train sat ready to depart. Several ponies from all trots of life filed in at a relaxed pace. The conductor checked his pocket watch before eying the snack bar just inside the station door, licking his already-chapped lips all the while. Sunset watched as the others gathered on the platform.

“And my transfer is in Vanhoover,” Rarity said as she rummaged through her saddlebags for the umpteenth time. Satisfied that she had everything, she adjusted her conspicuous sunglasses and gazed toward the evening sun.

“We’ll have a few hours together, at least!” Pinkie Pie squealed. “This is going to be so exciting! I mean, trains are always exciting. Not as exciting as the time I went—” she sharply gasped before returning to her smile from before, “—but I mean, really.”

“We’ll be heading over to the docks as soon as y’all leave,” Applejack said, shifting her own saddlebags into a more comfortable position on her back.

“Ooooh, I so wish I could go where you’re going!” Rarity exclaimed with sparkles in her eyes. “Dirigibles are so... so sophisticated. So grandiose. I don’t have enough chances to ride in those. You and Fluttershy are so lucky.”

Applejack shrugged. “Meh.”

Fluttershy, meanwhile, smiled in return. “It’s okay, Rarity. At least you and Pinkie will be together.”

Over to the side, Rainbow Dash slipped on a pair of goggles so that they hung from her neck before starting some stretches. Her saddlebags had been momentarily set off to the side as she flapped her wings about and whatever else she could do to warm her muscles up.

Smiling at the others, Sunset decided to trot over. “Getting ready, huh?”

“Yeeeah,” Rainbow Dash replied in a vacant manner, “it’s gunna be a long flight.”

“You’re sure you can do it?” Sunset realized that was a bad question as soon as it left her mouth.

“Hey, nopony can cross an ocean like me,” she scoffed before starting some hoof-touches.

A loud whistle bellowed out of the engine at the other end of the platform, followed by the conductor’s authoritative, “All aboard!”

Spike looked at the five of them, but specifically at Rarity and Pinkie Pie. “Well, it’s time, I guess.”

Both mares gave each other nods.

“We’ll see all of you again in three days,” Rarity said.

“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.

“Good luck! Be safe!” Spike said.

Rarity, with a warm grin on her face, trotted over and took him into a solitary embrace. “We will, we all will.”

And without prompting, the other four friends joined in the embrace, sharing giggles and blurting well-wishes. There was a bliss about them that could not be halved even with a wedge.

It had happened so fast that Sunset could only watch. It had been a hug shared between them, friends who had been so intricately woven into each other’s lives. They had each taken cues from each other that she did not know how to detect.

And at the moment, to them, she did not exist.

She was ever the outlier.

Maybe that was how it was; how things were supposed to be.

“See you girls later!” Spike called as they broke to go their separate ways.

Two mares boarded the train and soon pulled out of the station. One pegasus took to the sky, sailing toward the horizon long past Ponyville. Two mares set out for the air docks, intent on boarding their ship toward far-off lands. All were sheltered by the radiant hue of the twilit sky.

Sunset Shimmer and Spike stood on the platform, watching their friends fade into the distance. Even as the train rounded a corner and disappeared into the mountains, as the airship-bound duo disappeared behind a street corner, and as the pegasus became a dot in the sky, the two of them sat as if they were compelled to watch.

Spike grinned and then let off a few chuckles. He stopped short of bouncing up and down as he looked to Sunset with expectation.

Sunset felt some of her hairs even starting to stand on their ends and she too chuckled.

Sharing a nod with each other, they turned back toward the tower with a completely renewed fervor. This wasn’t at all where she had expected to be at the end of this day. But she could tell from the energy everyone had that the possibilities weren’t swimming through just her head.

And Sunset smiled.

6 - Accuracy

Several scores of sparkling ponies moved about the streets below, crisscrossing each other in varied patterns as they went about their day-to-day activities. There were several visitors interwoven with the crowd, acting out tendencies more likened to tourists. It was easy to tell them apart from the locals solely by the fact that the former were not made of crystal.

The word pristine usually came to Shining Armor’s mind whenever he looked at the rest of the Crystal Empire. Today, that word had not come to him.

The city looked like it did on a completely normal day. As far as he could tell, not a single speck of dirt could be found within several hundred yards of the castle, and the population appeared as placid and carefree as ever. That was usually a cause for delight.

One of his favorite things to do, after all, was watch the citizens of the Crystal Empire as they carried on and built their lives, little by little; a definite contrast to how things had been mere years before. The prospect that the Crystal Empire had hosted the Equestria Games was just the cherry on top.

Princess Cadance stepped through the opening and joined him on the balcony. Like him, her mind was elsewhere. Nonetheless, one hoof came to rest on the banister while the other wrapped itself around his neck.

In response, Shining Armor pulled the love of his life in close. Affectionate strokes passed between the two of them as they continued to watch the city below.

Every so often, one of the citizens would look up and, partly out of sympathy, would wave at them with the quick and cheery wave characteristic of two neighbors on opposite sides of the street. Each wave given brought a smile to both their faces, and soon enough, they returned the gestures in kind.

“They know,” Cadance finally said, breaking a long silence.

Shining Armor cracked a small grin. “How are you feeling today?”

“Not as nauseous as the past few days. Ow,” she groaned, wincing as another fresh wave overtook her.

He pulled her in even tighter, though his touch remained a ginger and delicate gesture. “I’m sorry, honey.”

Cadance laid her head on his. “What about you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know.”

Several more ponies waved in unison. They automatically waved in response.

“This feels all wrong,” he continued. “For the longest time, she’s always been there. No matter how far away I was, I always thought about my little sis and all the cool and amazing things she was probably doing.

“I’ve never even imagined this world without Twily…”

Cadance let out a dejected sigh. “I know, Shining. I know. I miss her too… I… Oh stars.” She grabbed at her face and held it there for a few moments before shaking it off. “I didn’t think it would look so… same-y.”

The Crystal Empire looked exactly as it did a week ago. And the week before that. And the week before that.

Shining snorted. She has a point... We’re the only ones that’ve really changed through all this.

“And I guess…” Shining Armor softly began, “nothing’s really changed.” He took several deep and composing breaths, slowly taking on a firmer and confident stature. “Twily or no Twily, the Crystal Empire will always keep going. And that just means they’re all still depending on us to keep going.”

Cadance grinned. “That sounds more like the Shining Armor I know.” Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she pulled herself off the railing and began to saunter back inside.

Shining Armor took one last look out over the populace and smiled before following suit.

An airy whistle had been Rainbow Dash’s only companion for the past few hours. She normally tuned it out, but considering that the only other thing to notice was water, she had picked up on it quickly.

And, she decided, the constant whistle was actually fairly relaxing. The way the air caressed her hair, the way it swam underneath her, the way it fluffed her feathers, all were things she yearned for.

She couldn’t remember a time she had been airborne for such a length of time. In fact, there had never been a time where she had even come close. Another glance toward the horizon yielded nothing new. She saw water as far as the eye could see in all directions. She imagined that she was at least halfway across the ocean by this point but there was no way to tell besides baseless intuition.

The latest cloud finally disintegrated from under her and that left her on her own once more. Several hour's worth of cloud surfing had saved her wings, but there were no more clouds on the open ocean.

It would do for a while.

Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, brought her wings into her body, and then began to fall out of the sky. The listless sea far below slowly made its way up toward her. What it lacked in variety, it made up for in freedom. It was featureless and unobtrusive, two things she’d never find on land.

As she continued to fall, she tucked herself into a ball. Her body punched through the air as it flipped forward over and over. And the best part was that she was in complete and utter control. Whether or not she crashed into the water was entirely up to her. For a few brief moments, she even considered it.

Rather than dwell, Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to yank the buckle on her saddlebag. It held fast and firm.

With a smirk, she turned her attention back toward the water. Even as she continued tumbling, she remained acutely aware of how high up she was. She let herself fall even further, momentarily losing herself in the sensation.

And then, just before she hit the water, Rainbow Dash spread her wings again. Her wings caught against the air, pulling her out of the dive. And then she flapped them again, picking up even more speed. She sped across the water like a bullet.

The air resisted for a few moments. A cone formed, trying to collapse itself and push her back. Rainbow Dash smirked, driven to fly even faster. And then the air yielded.

BOOM!

The cone gave way and Rainbow Dash shot forward, now completely unrestrained. A large, multicolored ring expanded behind her, cutting into the ocean’s surface like a hot knife. The water heaved, thrown upward with tremendous force.

It wasn’t fast enough to catch up with her.

As Rainbow Dash, in a long streak of multicolored light, sped just above the surface, the water below parted, divided by the very air rushing over it. She glided over the water, riding the Sonic Rainboom for all it was worth with a huge smile on her face.

* * *

The wheels spun and spun as the train thundered along the tracks. The landscape galloped by at a breakneck pace. The trees that flashed by outside appeared to wave at the passengers as they swayed in the wind.

One of the windows slid down and a pink-maned pony stuck her head out. Feeling the breeze, Pinkie Pie let it flow through her. It met resistance as it got tangled in her mane, and in short order, a bug got caught in her teeth. That didn’t stop her, however. She gave a whoop and punched the air outside.

Rarity, meanwhile, relaxed against the opposite seat. The area around her eyes still felt moist from the cucumbers, but those eight hours were already over. Now placing her comb back into her saddlebag, she then reached into a pocket on the wall and drew out a pamphlet to do some very light reading.

The only reason Rarity recognized the name Equestrian 500 was that Rainbow Dash had been involved in that race at one point. Even as she read through the roster, she started to wonder how her friend was doing.

Rarity quickly decided there was nothing to worry about. If anything, Rainbow Dash was a certainty. She would do what they needed her to do or she would die trying.

Rarity frowned. Maybe there was reason for worry after all.

Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie had wandered over toward another booth. She was bothering a chocolate-colored colt but, judging from the fact his game box now lay forgotten on the seat, he didn’t seem to mind.

A vanilla-colored mare watched from her seat next to the colt, examining the scene with an amused expression. Briefly, she looked over and met Rarity’s gaze, and the two of them shared light-hearted chuckles and happy grins.

Rarity gazed back up at Pinkie Pie and nodded to herself. It beat traveling by herself by far. There were very few that she would rather be with.

At that point, she turned her gaze to the scenery outside. The car rattled as it rolled over a bumpy section of the tracks. They were traveling at a rapid pace after all. Her eyes wandered over the landscape as it flowed up and down.

Somewhere up ahead of them, the engine bellowed a long and drawn out whistle that resonated throughout the plains. It served as a reminder of how far away they already were, yet somehow it didn’t feel that way at all.

* * *

The early-afternoon sun filtered through the large window, directly hitting the chalkboard. Several equations and diagrams spread across its face with barely any room remaining. A layer of white smears upon its green surface held traces of numbers and strings of words.

Sunset Shimmer looked over her current work once more, ran the math one last time in her head, and then placed a hoof on the crystal ball. “I think we’ll want to integrate this function, Twilight,” she announced.

Twilight looked up at her own busy chalkboard. She hovered her piece of chalk between some of her own computations before she nodded sagely. “I agree with that. So, how should we bound it?”

Sunset stroked her chin in thought, trying to search over the data they had been going over together. Finding nothing, she flipped through the pages of what she had worked out on her own. “I say six seconds and… show me page thirty-four again?”

Twilight idly used her magic to shuffle through several pages in her master copy.

Sunset looked over Twilight’s (or rather, her future self’s) work and considered what she had. “When is A6’s kinetic energy six hundred and seven kilojoules?”

“Give me a second.” Twilight flipped her own chalkboard over and started writing a new equation on it. “Factor that out… then square that number…” The chalk danced furiously as she distributed and divided through.

“Sunset!” a voice from the stairs called. Spike then reached the landing with several bits and pieces of metal, including screws, nuts, and sheets. “I got those pieces that you wanted.”

“Great!” Sunset exclaimed. “Thanks, Spike.”

Twilight’s ears twitched but she ignored it, electing to stay focused on her calculations.

“Where you do want them?” Spike asked.

Sunset pointed toward the half-constructed apparatus in the corner. “Over there. I’ll be along in a sec.”

Spike nodded happily before walking over that way with the items he had collected.

“It’s going to be when t equals twelve point thirty-six seconds,” Twilight announced. “There’s a statistical error of twenty-three milliseconds.”

“Okay,” Sunset replied, turning back to the board, “well, that’s the general area where the upper bound is.”

“Okay, I’ll do integration up near there. It might take a little bit because I have to do this numerically, but we’ll get at least an estimate for now. I’ll improve that once we’re able to improve our numbers.”

“That sounds good. I’m going to go finish building our machine, so I’ll talk to you again later.”

“Will do!”

Sunset walked toward a small alcove underneath the upper balcony bookshelves. The beginnings of a machine the size of a dresser greeted her. Exposed boards and dangling wires lay orphaned across the fledgling device, all of which she was sure she would be able to consolidate into something that actually worked with the new materials.

Spike set the materials into a nearby corner and sat down to sort them by size and apparent use.

“How much was it?” Sunset asked, levitating the ball off to the side as she took stock.

“Oh, about two hundred bits for all of this,” Spike replied as he set some nuts into a small pile. He then produced a few receipts and handed them to her. “Had to go to a few places for some of this, but I got it.”

Sunset frowned at the numbers. “Oof. My bank isn’t gunna like that…”

“How’s work?”

“Uh… It’s going. I think we’re figuring some stuff out.”

“That’s good. How are Twilight’s readings going?”

Sunset paused in her step. Biting her lip, she doubled back on herself. “I haven’t checked in a while actually… Hold on.”

She levitated the ball back into her grasp. A glance told her that Twilight had gone into the zone. Rather than disturb her, Sunset instead thought movement commands into the ball. The scene shifted to the other side of the room to the very same alcove.

A similarly built machine chugged on in its place. Rather, it was the original machine nine days removed which Sunset had begun to repurpose into what was now going up. Twilight’s machine whirred and clicked, performing several calculations and crunching several sets of numbers as it scoured the entire band.

Sunset took her hooves off the ball. “It’s getting there. It’s not stuff we need to wait on, though.” She smiled, glancing back at Spike. “Thanks to you. I still can’t get over how ingenious that was.”

Spike chuckled and shrugged. “That was pretty good.”

* * *

The spacious window at the front of the hall offered a spectacular view of the ocean below. The constant hum of the airship’s engines whirred some distance away from them. The room’s simple architecture hid behind the lavish furniture, all clean and squeaky and not unlike the several guests milling about.

The journey was slow and listless, and that was fine in Fluttershy’s book. It allowed her to compose herself and reflect on recent days. This was not where had expected to end up after all that had happened; she wanted to be back home with her animal friends. She was positive that they were so worried about her, especially considering how she had stopped functioning in the immediately following days.

A glass of grape juice in her hoof brought her back around as she took a small sip. There were other ponies in the room, socializing with each other in flavors dictated by the small orchestral quartet off to the side. A small bar opposite the musicians showcased a large selection of fine wines and other drinks she was unfamiliar with.

“Hoowee,” a wonderstruck voice said from behind her. “If Ah’d known there’d be so many ponies here, Ah’d have brought my apple cart.”

Fluttershy giggled as her friend appeared beside her with a similarly looking glass in her hooves.

Applejack’s choice was a little stronger than her own, but not by much. “Enjoyin’ the view?” she asked as she swirled her glass.

Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, Applejack. It’s really… relaxing. The music’s nice, and nopony is giving me any mind… so it’s good. Are you doing okay?”

Applejack shrugged. “Nothin’ Ah haven’t seen before. But believe me, Ah don’t miss it.”

“Miss what?”

“This.”

Fluttershy shook her head and frowned, uncomprehending.

For a few brief moments, a sly smile flashed across Applejack’s features.

“Oh, Fluttershy,” Applejack began, a noticeable nasalness in her tone, “you simply must try the J’het la’tor, it is to die for. Anypony with the slightest bit of culture is drinking it.”

A long pause passed between the two of them. Applejack took the opportunity to grin and take a drink from her glass (which, just to top the whole thing off, she did so with graceful motions and a pompous smirk).

“That was pretty good!” Fluttershy exclaimed quietly, letting her mouth hang limp. “I thought you were Rarity for a second.”

Applejack chuckled. “Uh, that wasn’t a Rarity impression.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened for a moment before she giggled sheepishly. “Oh, that’s right. I kinda maybe sort of forgot about that part about you.”

“It weren’t nothin’, sugarcube. Ah left that life behind a long time ago.”

Fluttershy blushed. “I know. I’ll just have to remember next time.”

The two exchanged friendly giggles before they took a sip of their drinks in tandem.

“Speaking of Rarity…” Fluttershy said, adopting a more serious tone, “do you think her and the others are doing alright?”

Applejack didn’t even think about it. “We’ve all been through thick and thin. They’re all very strong.”

“And what about you?”

Applejack paused. “What about me?”

Fluttershy grabbed her foreleg. “I just hope that you’ll make it out okay too.”

Applejack let out a sigh. For a few moments, she scratched her muzzle. “Ah’ll be okay, Fluttershy,” she replied. “Ah feel really good ’bout all of this.”

“Are you sure?”

“That’s the honest truth. Ah believe in what Sunset Shimmer’s got us doin’.”

Fluttershy considered it. “You promise?”

“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Applejack said, acting out all of the accompanying motion as she went.

Fluttershy nodded and gave her friend a wide grin. “Okay. Then I think so too.”

* * *

Sunset sat in front of the window, transfixed on the tower across the way where, with any amount of luck, her old mentor was currently at. She was so lost that she nearly didn’t register the ding that sounded throughout the room. “That’s probably Twilight’s machine,” she announced.

Spike, busy installing some switches and knobs on the opposite side of the half-complete apparatus, leaned into view. “Really?”

“Yeah. I think.”

Spike nodded happily. “That’s good,” he said nonchalantly before returning to his task.

She let her eyes fix on the tower. She had no way of telling how Celestia would react to her. Or maybe it was her own sense of shame that kept her from going over. All that she knew was that any facsimile of a conversation had not happened, not even when they had been in the same room during the funeral.

She couldn’t tell if she was staring out of longing or out of fear.

“Sunset! It’s ready!” Twilight called.

Sunset snapped herself out of her stupor. She used her magic to summon the crystal ball over to her and gave Twilight a token “That’s good,” before letting out a sigh.

Spike stretched his arms and then glanced toward the window. The golden glow outside told that Celestia was about to lower the sun. He almost couldn’t believe it.

There was a grumble in his stomach and the debate was put to rest. “I think we should grab some dinner soon, Sunset.”

“I agree with you there,” she said as her own stomach started to protest.

“How are you two doing?” Twilight asked as she orbited her machine, turning off several gauges as she went.

“Tired, Twilight,” Sunset said as she picked herself up from in front of the window and headed over to where Spike sat on the floor. “We’re almost done, but wow. I think I’ve lost my touch. I’m not as fast as I used to be.”

Twilight giggled. “I guess you don’t build machines in your world, huh?”

Sunset scowled. “Not particularly, though I know how to program one. Somewhat.”

“Really?”

“Well, how do you think I was able to fake those e-mails and texts that my friends… uh… yeah.” Sunset lost a little of her vigor as she spoke. “I can get around technology.”

Spike hummed. “Definitely,” he began dryly, “after all, those pictures of Twilight were pretty, uh, first-rate.”

She glared him down. “Hey, why don’t you go talk to Snips and Snails about that? I’m sure they’ll find a few coloring books for you.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”

“Well, you’re doing some helpful stuff here, and that’s all that matters, Sunset.” Twilight flipped through a few pages in her book. “This set of parameters you included in the back of my book really helped.”

“...Oh?” Sunset stammered, pausing in place. “Well, that’s good. Uh…”

“Well,” Twilight corrected herself, “there’re lots of parameter sets here, but this one was the only one not crossed out. I’m assuming the others in this book are no good.”

Sunset blinked. “You mean, in the book that I gave you?”

“Yes. Of course, finding stones is easy. I could find about a score with any set of parameters. The hard part is knowing which ones we want…”

Sunset hazarded a glance. Several numbers and symbols took up an entire column, notating directions and ranges and other possibly desirable properties. From what she could tell, the page was one of a few, though not several. And, as Twilight had said, everything but the one was crossed out.

“But you took care of that. So thanks,” Twilight said.

Sunset chuckled nervously. “I see. I see. Cool.” However, unbeknownst to Twilight, she shot Spike an uncertain glance.

Spike looked like he had caught on. “Uh, does that mean you’re going to have to make those… uh, thingies that Twilight just said?”

Sunset shrugged nervously in a motion that said, I guess so!

“And then there’s these,” Twilight said again. She turned a few more pages, and the parameter lists disappeared. They were replaced by sets of coordinates. And there were pages and pages of them. Like the scores of parameters, the hundreds of coordinates were crossed out.

But what Sunset found especially odd (which was on top of a whole slew of odd things) was the word complete at the top of the page. Sunset scratched her chin. What does that mean?

Inside the ball, Twilight flipped onto another page. The coordinates within were not crossed out but instead had short notes next to them. Examples included Bugbear, Avalanche, and Changeling nest.

“Although I’m not sure what to do with any of this. There are a lot of extra coordinates here. Any ideas here?” Twilight asked.

Sunset let a drop of sweat meander down her face. “Uhhhhh, heheh, yeah.”

Twilight laughed. “It’s no big deal. I’m sure we’ll discover it later.”

Sunset gulped. “Yeah.”

At that point, Twilight turned her attention to the machine which was spitting out a long strand of paper. She funneled it through her hooves as it went, reading the numbers scrawled across it while her magic copied them down into a separate sheet of parchment. Eventually, she had twenty unique items.

Sunset guessed that the list would be thinned out later.

“Sunset?” Spike called, holding up a large metallic plate. “Where does this go real quick?”

After a moment’s consideration, she said, “Right there between those two panels,” and pointed at an open spot on the side.

Spike nodded, placed the piece, and then rose to his feet. “Alright. I’m ready to go and eat.”

“I’m with you there, Spike.” She turned her attention back to the mare in the crystal ball. “I’ll… think about those coordinate things later. I’m just glad to see you have your numbers, Twilight,” she said as she started to follow the dragon.

“Thanks, Sunset,” Twilight replied. “I’m pretty happy with this. These are good numbers.”

As Sunset descended the stairs after Spike, she looked into the ball to see what her friend had computed. She did have some curiosity after all. Her eyes ran across the parchment, taking in the digits. Twilight had already gone through the trouble of converting the computations into coordinates. Along her parchment were several values of latitude and longitude. Funnily enough, the numbers seemed unfamiliar.

Her heart sank.

She looked at them again, and then she looked a third time. In quick order, she concluded that what she had seen was not her imagination.

The numbers were unfamiliar.

“Uuuuhhhh, T-Twilight…” she quivered as she reached the landing and rooted herself to the spot.

Twilight froze, and then she looked up with a worried frown.

Spike, who was halfway toward the door, also stopped. He swiveled around, a half-confused and half-apprehensive frown on his face.

“I’m not sure t-those are good numbers,” Sunset stammered.

Twilight flinched. “What… What do you mean by that?”

Sunset blinked again, not quite sure what she was supposed to do. She had only taken a few looks and she hadn’t put her hoof on it yet, but the numbers that she had seen raised several red flags.

“Spike?” she called at length.

Spike gulped. “Yeah?”

“Where did you put those coordinates that we got in the box?”

After a moments’ hesitation as he tried to understand what was happening, Spike silently and uncertainly walked into the kitchen and fetched the sheet of paper off of the counter. “These?”

Sunset scoured their list up and down, taking in what they had been given. She immediately compared them to the numbers inside the ball. She took several back-and-forth glances between the two but was unable to form a connection between both papers.

“Twilight, we have a little problem here...” Sunset trailed off.

“What?” Twilight asked.

“None of your numbers look like what we have.”

* * *

The station’s glass awning shielded the whole platform from the nighttime rain. Rarity gazed at the architecture and smiled. I can spend an hour here before my train arrives.

“Well now, Pinkie,” Rarity began, trying to sound as formal and authoritative as she could, “I must be off.”

Pinkie Pie stood in the doorway to her train car with several tears in her eyes, and in short order, they shot outward, forming visible waterfalls. “Waaaah! Rarity, I’m going to miss you so much!”

Rarity chuckled, breaking the charade. “It’ll only be a couple of days at best, dear. Besides…” She pulled Pinkie Pie in for a hug. “I’m going to miss you too!”

The both of them shared sympathetic giggles as they embraced.

“I tell ya what, Rarity,” Pinkie Pie began cheerfully as they broke, “I’m going to throw us a big party when we all get back!”

“With lots of streamers?”

“With lots of streamers!”

Rarity smiled as the train whistled. “I’ll hold you to that then. Bon voyage, Pinkie. Best of luck!”

Pinkie Pie waved as she retreated back into the train car. “Bye, Rarity!” she said with a wave. The train car lurched forward, and it slowly but surely carried Pinkie Pie away.

Rarity stood there and waved for longer than necessary, even after Pinkie Pie was out of sight. Even as several train cars starts to pass by her, she didn’t move from the spot, content to see it completely pull away from the station.

She was sure it was going to be okay.

Even if one of her best friends was now increasingly out of reach, even if her other friends would be in similar situations, those situations were by no means light. She had no idea what to expect.

Yes, it was only for two days, but those were two days where anything was fair. Where she’d be all alone.

Was she ready for that?

“Byyyyeeee, Rarity!” shouted Pinkie Pie’s voice. Rarity snapped to attention once more as the caboose pulled by her, only to find that Pinkie had reappeared out on its rear platform, now waving at her. Again.

She laughed at Pinkie Pie’s antics and gave a friendly wave back. Somehow, that last act had done the trick, as Rarity dispelled those thoughts from before. Immediately feeling better, she gathered her belongings and headed toward the waiting room.

* * *

Fluttershy held onto the metal doorframe. The drop down to the ocean below was one step away. How far below was impossible to tell, and the lights from the rest of the dirigible polluted any moonlight she could have used.

Applejack held onto her stetson to keep it from blowing away. She blinked like a madmare all the while, occasionally trying to dig something out of her ear.

“Y’all ready!?” Applejack cried over the wind.

Fluttershy’s teeth chattered for a multitude of reasons. The cold night air was only one of them.

“You’ll do fahne, sugarcube!” Applejack urged. “Just remember to flap your wings when you jump!”

“…I don’t know, Applejack,” Fluttershy murmured. But even she couldn’t hear it over the cacophony of wind and engine.

“What!?”

“I mean, I’m really really really not sure of this.”

Applejack held a hoof to her ear, her expression even more curious than before.

Fluttershy paused, wishing that she didn’t have to say anything else. After a few moments of consideration, she sighed and then faked a wide grin.

“That’s tha spirit, Fluttershy!” Applejack exclaimed enthusiastically. She pumped a hoof into the air to drive the motion home before she swallowed and hit her ears again.

Fluttershy idly nodded, still keeping a smile. Turning her attention to the water below, she snuck in a gulp. The night sky wasn’t particularly inviting. But she had to.

Spreading her wings, Fluttershy let the rushing air catch her. Briefly, it tugged her at an odd angle and she tumbled, but she quickly reoriented herself. In short order, she came into a stable glide alongside the airship and looked up to the earth pony now standing in the doorway.

“See ya in a few days!” Applejack called out.

Fluttershy smiled warmly and waved. She then banked over and away, heading off through the night into parts unknown.

* * *

Ding!

Sunset nearly threw the chalk to the floor, abandoning her equation on the board entirely to scramble over to the ball. “Well!?” she asked anxiously.

Spike, who had been doing a little bit of reading near the now-completed machine, also looked up. He snapped his book shut and attentively stood up.

Twilight stirred but did not leave her current task. She hunched herself over her sprawling schematics, now wrinkled and torn in several places. After examining the front panel for the twentieth time, she all but threw the schematics aside in frustration. With that, her hairs split even further than they already were.

With a frown, she moved over toward the newest set of readings, now spilling out of the machine and into a small bin. “Nothing. I built this thing exactly how I designed it. I don’t know, Sunset…”

Sunset grimaced. “Well, maybe it was a fluke or something. What is it saying now?”

“I’ll know in a few moments.”

Sunset ignored her still-rumbling stomach and nervously glanced over at Spike. She couldn’t help but wonder how long the sky outside had been dark for (and she knew the answer to that question was past what she could measure).

Spike wiped his eyes and let off a yawn before folding his arms together.

Twilight’s eyes darted along the printed lines, again writing her interpretations down on her chalkboard. Sunset followed suit, immediately flipping the board over and, keeping her gaze fixed on the ball, performed her own breakdown of the data. Her chalk and Twilight’s chalk both dragged across their surfaces.

The last of the reads spilled out of the slot and Twilight immediately turned her attention to the numbers she had generated. “Same so far?”

Sunset glanced up her own numbers. “Yeah.”

Twilight immediately went to work on turning her numbers into actual coordinates, and Sunset swiftly followed suit.

The work was quick, and when it was done, Twilight scowled. “I’m getting the same numbers as last time, Sunset…” she grumbled.

Sunset looked over her own set of numbers. They were the exact same as the ones Twilight had calculated. They were the exact same ones from the first time.

And they were still not the same places that the others had traveled to. “But this doesn’t make any sense!” Sunset cried in disbelief. “Our methods were perfect! Everything is working right!”

Twilight frowned. “Same thing?”

“Same thing. I got the same numbers as you just now, but these are still not the numbers we need.”

Twilight reeled in disgust. “Ugggggh,” she groaned, grimacing as she rubbed her face.

Sunset frowned concernedly. “Are you okay, Twilight?”

Twilight shook her head. She silently gathered the papers containing the readings with her magic and started toward the desk. “The Nameless is still feeding off my energy, and I’m exhausted. I can’t really think straight now.” Twilight flicked the crumpled papers into a heap on top of the desk before she looked up to where she thought Sunset might be looking from. “I’ll... start a new set of readings with some different parameters. I’ll run it through the night, I suppose,” she said as she levitated the master book off of the desk and headed back over to the machine. “But, ugh… I think I’ll just wait until morning to get back on this.”

Sunset sat back with a look of chagrin. She glanced forlornly over at Spike to which his only response was to shake his head disapprovingly.

Twilight opened the book once more, took a cursory glance at the back pages, slid some dials on the machine, and then pushed a button. The apparatus whirred to life once more, whining as it went through its search.

Satisfied (but only just), she carefully laid her book beside the machine and then headed toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed, Sunset.”

Sunset sighed and let herself slump down dejectedly. “…Okay, Twilight. Go get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”

Twilight smiled weakly before turning toward the stairs. Silently, she drifted down and out of sight.

Without another moment’s hesitation, Sunset nearly threw the ball onto the floor beside her before retreating into herself, burying her face into her hooves and curling into a ball. “...Buck,” she muttered under her breath.

Spike shook his head. “Sunset?” he asked, walking over. “Are you okay?”

Sunset let out a long deep sigh. “…No.”

He rubbed the scales on the back of his neck, his expression uncertain. “What… what does this mean?”

“I’m really scared right now, Spike, because I don’t know what this means!” she blurted, throwing her hooves into the air. “Maybe it’s just Twilight is using the wrong set of parameters right now and she’ll use the right ones later, but that would mean that the book is wrong. Or maybe the book is right and she sent us the wrong numbers on accident. I just, I don’t know; it could be anything!”

“She has to be able to come up with those numbers, though!” Spike countered. “Because ‘Is, was, will be!’”

“How!?”

Spike flinched. “U-u-uh, I-I don’t know.”

“Yes!” Sunset snapped. “That’s the whole point! We should know how to do this! That was our way to do this and it didn’t work! We can’t say if our numbers are correct!”

Spike trembled. The thought seemed to hit him like a piece of cobblestone. His features contorted into an aghast expression, and his hands balled into shaky fists as he tried to contain himself. “S-so…” he said worriedly, “we might have sent them to the wrong places?”

“Yes, Spike…” Sunset trailed off, shuddering. “We have to deal with the very real possibility that we’ve sent Twilight’s friends out all by themselves to Celestia knows where for nothing.”

* * *

Several thunderclouds raged on beneath her, and Rainbow Dash knew she could use none of them. The singe marks on the bottoms of her legs attested to that. She could only see the faint outlines of ominous shapes against the light of the moon, though those shapes would occasionally flash with bright white lights.

She had learned her lesson from the last few times she had almost been struck.

The last she had checked, she was still out in the middle of the ocean, and she had not had a moment’s rest in hours. Her wings felt like they were about to fall off. The Rainboom was starting to catch up with her. With all of that considered, the harsh reality that speed was not endurance was starting to set in.

She briefly wondered what things looked like down below. The water had to be very uninviting from how the storm whipped it up. And she figured there wasn’t anything to be found down there anyway because nopony would possibly be out there.

Well, except maybe one.

Rainbow Dash flapped her wings as she approached another towering formation. It rushed up to meet her but, like every other that had come before it, she planned to soar up and over.

And then, at the most crucial moment, something pulled within her wing and then it stopped responding.

She gasped. “No!”

The cloud rushed forward and swallowed her. Wet rain, latent static, and severe winds barraged her body, the latter of which threw her every which way. Rainbow Dash tumbled about, crying out desperately as she tried to find something, anything, to stabilize herself. Her wings flapped about completely on their own, heedless of her will.

The wind slammed her pegasus body against the clouds, causing her to grunt and groan all the while. She ricocheted between several formations without much reprieve.

And then, to make matters worse, Rainbow felt a familiar sensation where all of her dropped simultaneously, and her rapid tumbling meant she could do nothing about it. She was falling out of the sky.

“Come on, darn you!” she exclaimed, but her wings still refused to cooperate. “Come on!”

Panicked, she tried to grab at a nearby cloud, but it crumbled in her grasp. The next one did the same. They managed to slow her down, but even then, she fell through them far too fast.

And then she suddenly couldn’t feel the clouds around her anymore. Rainbow Dash paled and twisted in the air. “Noooooooo!”

A bolt of lightning illuminated the water’s rough, churning surface for a few brief instants. Seconds later, in the shadow of darkness, Rainbow Dash crashed into it, and her entire world became a new black.

7 - Relapse

Mayor Mare had to put her quill down, but not before she took a mental note. Sixteen forms. Sixteen papers. That was how many she had managed to finish in a row. That was a record.

One of Sugar Cube Corner’s cupcakes lay on the edge of her desk. She had only taken a single bite out of it, and that had been at the bakery. The hot steam had long since faded and now the confection lay ready to crack and split open at any moment. Just the sight of it made her shudder.

With a sigh, she stood up from her cushion and pushed it off her desk where it landed in the trash bin where it belonged.

The Cakes would understand.

Mayor Mare sidled toward the window and looked out past the edge of the town. The fields at Sweet Apple Acres were still a barren brown, built in disorderly lumps that refused to be tamed. She squinted and imagined that she could make out the faint shape of a large pony pulling a sleigh in the farthest corner.

She turned her gaze toward the square below. The sun shone down on the grass just like on any other day, and yet the entire palette through her window appeared monotonic. The few ponies that passed through were equally so.

The market had seen much lower attendance than usual as well, both from vendor and shopper alike.

The fields and playgrounds, usually full of fillies and colts, sat empty.

Her eyes drew to the former site of the Golden Oaks Library. It had been destroyed in a battle and then eventually removed; that site was now a hole in the ground. She knew that tree had been a part of the town since before she was born, but it had recently become undeniably attached to Twilight Sparkle’s image. That tree was now gone and dead.

A new tree, a crystal tree, sprang out of the ground not far from there. Today, she had special reason to frown at it: no flowers remained around the tree. Mayor Mare was surprised at how often she had been frowning lately. She wasn’t the only one; she had noticed that, every so often, everypony would stop and look up at the castle above the town with crestfallen expressions.

After all, she found it hard to forget when a reminder towered over the rest of the town.

She placed a hoof against the curtains. Her job was to know Ponyville in and out. She had been doing just that for years. At the moment, she could not recognize what town lay outside her window.

Pinkie Pie watched an earth pony lay a pocket compass onto the corner of a map. Smoothing the paper out, he looked up through eternally cracked and dirtied glasses.

“Miss Pinkie,” he began with a deep-throttled voice, “the place you’re looking to go to is a bit difficult to travel to.”

Pinkie Pie frowned dramatically. “But come ooooon,” she whined, “there’re artifacts that I need to get! This is not how you archeologist.”

Stone Obelisk took a brief glance up the thick mist over the Crystal Mountains behind him. “I might be willing to go with you, but then again, I am the lead expeditionist in my party, and as such, I will not separate from my students for no good reason. And besides…” he said, glancing back at her with a contemptuous scowl, “you’re not even a part of this research expedition. I can hardly believe you even found our camp…”

Two younger unicorns, who had been examining a set of rocks at another folding table nearby, glanced up at them.

Pinkie Pie crossed her forelegs even tighter and stared into him. She puffed her cheeks so hard that her face turned red.

The professor’s eyes fluttered as his scowl grew wider. Finally, he sighed. “…What did you say these objects were again?”

Pinkie Pie immediately sprang up. “These things are part of a thing. It’s this really really big worldwide thing that seals this really scary thing behind a door. These stones are really powerful. And also—”

“How do you know they exist?” he asked incredulously.

Pinkie Pie wildly flailed her hooves, “Because we have numbers and a whole bunch of other stuff on them!”

“From a verifiable source?”

“Yup! We have Sunset Shimmer—”

Stone Obelisk cocked an eyebrow, “That name doesn’t ring a bell—”

She honked him on the nose, “Annnnnnnd, Princess Twilight Sparkle!”

Several heads turned up from books or poked out of tents, all with curious and wide-eyed expressions. Whatever conversations that had been going on before were momentarily suspended.

Stone Obelisk had to step back and take it in. “…That is a very verifiable source. I wonder how she is doing?” He paused to ponder his position a bit more, and then he nodded sagely. “Very well, Miss Pinkie. I will entertain this.”

“Yippee!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, leaping into the air before diving into a hug. “Ooooooh thankyouthankyouthankyou! I’m so happy!”

Stone Obelisk wriggled and writhed in her grasp, making all sorts of grunts and groans which quickly descended into gasps and wheezes.

And without warning, Pinkie Pie zipped back to where she had been before, smiling expectedly.

He quickly let off several gasping coughs, thumping madly at his chest. After a moment, he paused to catch his rhythm again. He straightened his lapel and brushed some dust off his collar. “Well, at any rate, there is just one issue that needs to be sorted out. You see, the area you wish me to take you to is difficult to get to. We will have to work out a way to travel there.”

Pinkie Pie raised her hoof his into the air, “Oh! Oh oh oh! Me! Me! Pick me! Let’s all travel by asterisk!”

Stone Obelisk deadpanned. “…What? Travel by asterisk? How does one even travel by—”

* * *

“Like that, silly,” Pinkie Pie said.

Stone Obelisk raised a bewildered eyebrow. He scanned the surroundings and shook his head. “And here I thought you had gone quiet…”

She groaned and cracked her neck. “Are we there yet…?”

“Nearly. There should be a cave just over that ridge,” he explained, trotting up the incline.

“Okie dokie lokie...” she wheezed.

The higher up the ridge they climbed, the more she found herself fighting for air. While Stone Obelisk took it in stride, Pinkie Pie felt herself grow heavier and heavier by the second. Eventually, she practically dragged her hooves through the dirt.

I want to crawl there sooooo baaad, she thought.

The hill eventually crested and the spry professor nearly bounded to the apex.

Slowly, amidst many heavy pants and breaths, Pinkie Pie caught up with him. She promptly collapsed into the dirt.

“Ho, Pinkie!” he exclaimed, almost bursting at the seams, “we are almost there! Do not lose heart just yet.”

She squinted. She could make out the faint outline of a formation through the white, ambient fog. The smallest grin pursed her lips.

“Auh, I just, hah, need a moment,” she said as she reached into her tangle of a mane and procured a small and shiny flask. Quickly, she tipped it over, slurping the orange juice as it poured out.

The professor smiled demurely.

After a moment, Pinkie Pie replaced the flask and stood up. “Well, thanks for getting me this far, at least!”

“Mmmmyes. However, I am curious,” he said inquisitively. “I am assuming that you have a good idea of what it will appear like, but say we enter that cave and it is revealed that the cave does not descend far enough.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You did mention that these objects are typically found underground.”

Tentatively, Pinkie Pie reached into her saddlebag. She pulled what looked like a glass jar the size of a muffin. Within it swirled a vortex of magical energy. She had long abandoned the thought of trying to hear what it had to say. “I think,” she began, “that’s what these things are for.”

* * *

Spike took a whiff of the dark liquid now inside the pitcher he carried in his claws. The thick and tantalizing aroma of cocoa swam through his baby dragon nostrils. The batch was ready.

Readying the tray, he pattered toward the stairs.

He saw Sunset Shimmer at the top, splayed out in front of the crystal ball. She rubbed a hoof across her face, but that did nothing to diminish the bags under her eyes.

Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, flipped through several pages of the very book she had received from a time-traveling Sunset Shimmer. Pages upon pages of equations and figures and diagrams passed by with relative speed as she noted nothing of particular interest.

A piece of chalk floated readily above her. She had already used it to note down the sections of the book that had grabbed her attention, partly because some parts had not been clear.

“You want some coffee?” Spike asked as he walked up, taking a cup in his claw and extending it in offering.

Sunset looked up with a frown. “Sure, thanks,” she said, reaching out with her hoof and taking it from him.

He smiled before setting the tray off to the side. Taking his own cup, he lay down belly-first in front of the ball as well, all without taking a single sip. “So,” Spike began, “it’s just the coornits and the perrymatters?”

Sunset nodded. “That’s right.”

“These parameters are pretty straightforward,” Twilight said. “You just cross out the ones that you don’t want to do. Agreed?”

“That sounds about right,” Sunset replied. “We just don’t know why there’re so many to begin with.”

“And we don’t know what’s going on with the coordinates. I mean, a lot of them are crossed out, so the same logic should apply. So why put all of these ones—” she flipped a page to the section containing the notated, uncrossed-out coordinates, “separately and not cross them out?”

Spike huffed, “Not to mention there’re a whole bunch of those, right?”

Sunset scratched her head. “Yes. I… I umm… think that is impossible.”

“So,” Twilight said, “now we have to figure out why I have it. …Add that to our ever-growing list of contradictions.”

Sunset thumped her head against the hard floor with a long moan. “Why must everything go so wrong!?”

Spike kicked his legs against the floor. While he had faith that Twilight could pull it off—no, that Twilight and Sunset could pull it off, their goal seemed to somehow slip further away.

If they let it. “So, I guess,” he said, “we’ll just go with the normal plan in the meantime. Right?”

Sunset shrugged defeatedly before rising to all fours. “Yeah. Let’s… let’s get to work.”

* * *

“Well? What do you think?”

“Yarrr, we can’t very well put this back together.”

“Do you think she’ll be disappointed?”

“She has two more in ’er sack.”

“Yes, but two more what?”

Rainbow Dash groaned.

“Ah, she be comin’ to.”

“Poor thing.”

A mild pain shot through her back for what felt like the first time. “Uhhh, who’s there?” she asked as she attempted to open her eyes.

A cloudless daytime sky greeted her. Several seagulls flew in lazy circles overhead, passing several squawks between themselves. A slow and steady wind caught the debris from a crashing wave nearby and coated her with a light spray.

An earth pony, carrying the strong and tired stench of salt, and (strangely enough) gills, looked down at her through his one good eye. He gave a satisfactory smirk, showing off his one golden tooth. “Welcome back. We reckoned ye were lost to Wavy Bone’s locker.”

“Hoofbeard!?” Rainbow Dash cried, bolting upright. Something pulled and snapped within her back. Letting out a sharp cry, she retreated, allowing herself to fall back onto the warm, gritty sand.

“Easy, lass,” Hoofbeard said, “don’t pull yourself out of shape.”

“You were floating out at sea when one of our mantahawk friends found you, you’re very lucky,” a female voice said.

Rainbow Dash rolled over. A pony, whose tail made up her entire lower body, perched on top of a rock. She had never seen such a pony before. No, wait, she had. Faint memories started to return. “You! You’re…!” Rainbow Dash frowned. “Uh… Help me out here…”

“Jewel,” the merpony said with a smile, indicating herself with her fin.

“Jewel! Yeeeaaah. I remember you now.”

Hoofbeard adjusted his bandana to let some dammed sweat trickle out before he sat back against the rock. “Actually, we sent the mantahawk to track ye. Jewel and I thought it curious that ye be crossing the ocean by yerself.”

Jewel chuckled. “And it seems to have paid off. You’re lucky to be alive.”

“So then, you mind telling an old shipmate why you be out here by yerself?”

Rainbow Dash rolled over and tried to lift herself onto her hooves. She moaned with each joint that popped with more pronunciation than the last. She tried flapping her wings, but they only went in every direction other than the one she wanted.

“Listen, thanks for saving me and all,” she said as she brushed the built-up sand out of her coat and tried to shake out whatever clung in her mane. “I mean, it’d be awesome to catch up with you and stuff, but I reaaaally have to get going, heh heh. Where’re my things at?” she asked, looking around.

Hoofbeard looked over at his lover with a cocked eyebrow, to which Jewel nodded affirmatively. “You see, lass, your booty be over there,” he said, pointing. “But the catch is—”

Rainbow Dash charged over to her saddlebags. She threw the flap open and dug her hoof through it. She tossed several items into the sand, making notes as she went. She nodded when she threw a small red sphere into the sand. Good, the gum’s still there.

She took out a jar containing a swirling magical vortex. She nodded again. There was one. And another. Two.

But she remembered three. And then she flipped the bag over, shook it out, and even stuck her head into it. Nothing.

“Where’s the other one!?” she cried, throwing her saddlebag into the sand. “I had three of these, where’s the other one!?”

Hoofbeard shifted, reaching for something behind him. “I wager these be what you’re lookin’ for,” he said as he produced several small and jagged shards of glass which glinted in the sunlight.

Rainbow Dash backpedaled and tripped over herself. She made several squeaks, but nothing resembling a worded response came out.

“I tried to tell ye. It must’ve happened when ye hit,” he said, yanking at his beard.

“But forget that,” Jewel said, narrowing her eyes in concern. “You’re in no condition to fly.”

Rainbow Dash clinched her teeth, “B-but, I-I-I, I have to. N-n-n-n-n-no no no,” she stammered. She smacked the area around her, throwing up several clouds of sand and dust. “No no no no-ow!” She screamed again when it proceeded to blind her.

Hoofbeard let his muzzle fall against his hoof. Questioningly, he looked over to Jewel.

She shook her head downheartedly.

“Alright, lass,” he said, “I have a proposition for ye. The truth be we know where ye be off to.”

Rainbow Dash went silent and rolled over. She stifled her remaining grunts as she continued to wipe sand from her eyes.

“Me ship be nearby. Jewel and I will take ye to where ye need to go. But first…” He cleared his throat with a loud grunt. “You’ll tell us what’s got you so worked up out here.”

Through reddened eyes, she stared him down and went to spread her wings but, to her dismay, they, just like right before the crash, failed to respond. Her snarl faded as another thought came to her: I have no idea where I’m at right now either.

She considered the two and frowned. And besides… they’re friends too, aren’t they? Yeah…

“Well, okay,” Rainbow Dash began, straightening up, “it’s like this…”

* * *

Applejack looked up once more at the beating sun. It pounded at her and every pore screamed in protest. She sweated from places she had been previously unaware of and fought the urge to wipe herself dry.

The sand swam underneath her hooves; at least, whenever it didn’t try to jump onto the two-sizes-too-big shawl across her back. Small dust-clouds blew off the tops of adjacent sand formations nearby.

With the nearest settlement a few hours behind her and the next probably a few more ahead of her, she inwardly thanked Celestia that the sun would set soon.

She grabbed her map out of her saddlebag. The landscape of dunes stretched for miles around. Ah think I’m in the right spot, she nonetheless thought, checking back and forth between the map in her hooves and the sand beneath her. Or, ’least Ah’m mighty close.

She replaced the map and then took out a small glass jar. She peered at the swirling vortex of magical energy inside and then placed her hoof on the cap. As far as she could remember, all she had to do was let the spell out, and it would do the rest.

Sucking in a breath, she twisted.

The energy contained within shot out so quickly that she lost her grip on the jar. The energy crackled loudly in the air in front of her and it burned parts of the sand below via several arcing sparks. Applejack heard a zaaaap before the ball of energy dove into the sand.

Applejack stared down for long moments. The sand blew idly by and the rest of the desert went on as if nothing had happened.

A minute passed.

She started sweating for other reasons.

Nothing.

Applejack facehooved. “Oh for land’s sake—”

Without warning, the sand in front of her heaved and jetted into the sky. A shining object shot into the air amidst the debris, captivated by a mass of sparks. Applejack had to lower her stetson just to block out the light.

A moment later, the dazzling display abruptly quit. The object plummeted to the ground, trailing smoke behind it, where it landed softly in the sand below.

Applejack looked down at the object: a small and opaque orb, easily a fraction the size of the crystal ball back in Canterlot. Its purple glow easily poked through the white-hot illumination of the desert afternoon.

She hesitantly prodded it.

Nothing happened.

Letting out a sigh of relief, she picked it up and gave it a once-over. So, she thought to herself, this here’s a stone.

* * *

Under the grey and clouded sky, the purple shine of the orb in the air bathed the entire surroundings in a stinging light. But it disappeared just as quickly as it came about.

Fluttershy’s first instinct was to reach out and catch it as it fell. But as it landed in her hooves, she mentally scolded herself, thinking that perhaps it was the teeniest tiniest bit of a problem if she maybe tried to touch it without checking to make sure it was safe to touch.

But she felt nothing. Aside from the warmth that it provided against her hooves, Fluttershy felt nothing. Nothing was trying to invade her body, at any rate.

She played with it for a few moments, giggling under her breath as she admired its features.

A voice beside her spoke in a language she didn’t recognize.

Fluttershy paled before crooking her neck over.

A diminutive and boney griffon met her gaze. The red streak lines painted across Charlok’s face scrunched together as he narrowed his eyes, and that said nothing of his beak-piercing. He spoke more of his language.

A second griffon, who dwarfed the first, ruffled his feathers. “He says that ‘you did not say it would do that,’” Milbeak said.

Fluttershy shrank and tried to hide behind her own mane. And then she took a good look around.

The village’s central square had stopped. Mothers held their kids close to their chests and several others pressed themselves against walls and ledges and clung to anything else they could find.

She sunk down, trembling against the ground. “Oh goodness,” Fluttershy whimpered, “I didn’t know that would happen, p-please don’t hurt me…”

The smaller griffon spoke again. The larger griffon then provided the translation: “Do not worry, we are only a little spooked.”

Fluttershy stopped shaking but did not rise.

Charlok looked down at the hole in the ground. He dug at it with a claw, sampled the dirt with his beak, and then he shrugged. The griffon’s throaty voice then cast itself across the village, dispersing the crowd, and then he spoke to Fluttershy again.

“You were right. There was something underneath our remote village that we did not know about,” Milbeak translated.

The pegasus nodded. “Well, uhm, thanks. But I really didn’t know...”

Charlok spoke. “We don’t fault you,” Milbeak translated.

She uncovered her head. “Really? Oh, that’s a relief,” she said, standing up.

With a nod, Charlok spoke some more in his native tongue. And Milbeak straightened up. “You did say you didn’t know what it would do. We remember,” he translated.

Taking a brief glance toward the hole in the ground, she then bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality. I really really appreciate it.”

“You... welcome,” Charlok himself replied with a smile.

* * *

Spike shook his head and glanced over at several calculus books on the side. He trailed over an intermediate algebra book as well and then to the beginner’s mathematics book in his hands. With a shake of his head, he threw it over his shoulder and ambled back to where Sunset stood.

How do they do it? he thought.

He took a seat next to the ball, letting his eyes wander toward the chalkboard as Sunset put the finishing touches on yet another differential equation, whatever that was.

“Uh-huh,” Twilight said as she flipped through another large tome, jotting down notes on a sheet of paper. “I… I had difficulties with that too at first. It’s really interesting that they exist over there. I mean, they even act the same too!”

Sunset backed away from the chalkboard, shook her forehoof with a snort and pointed “Yes!” before she turned and took a seat next to Spike. Flashing him a brief smile, she placed her hoof on the crystal ball. “You should’ve seen me the first time I met Principal Celestia. I nearly flipped!”

Spike chuckled. “You two talking about Canterlot High?”

Sunset nodded and stifled a chuckle. “Yup.”

“Oh, yeah.” Twilight giggled. “I have so many questions about that. I’d love to do research on the nature of the two worlds.”

“Well”—Sunset kicked her hindlegs around as she thought—“we could probably do that. We do have the books to communicate with after all.”

“You’re right! We do!”

“Yeah, to think that they exist in both of our worlds. All of them do. It’s just so… interesting.”

“That the two universes are so much alike!”

“But they have their own little differences too.”

“And,” Spike offered, placing his claw on the ball, “the best part is you can talk to each other, even if you can’t go between them. I mean, now that we have the message journals and all.”

The three of them shared voluminous laughs before falling into complete silence.

Sunset turned back toward the chalkboard, twiddling her mane as she went. Her eyes wandered over it for a few moments as she checked the parts she had done.

Twilight, meanwhile, turned the page in her book and then buried herself within the text.

Spike received the ball and then vacantly drummed his claws against the floor as he set his gaze on the ball itself. Now that I think about it, he thought as a chuckle escaped his lips, this stuff with the ball looks a lot like what goes on with the mirror, don’t it? Heck, everything we just described could probably describe what’s going on here. It’s like Twilight’s in another world right now.

There wasn’t a sound to be heard from between the three of them. Their devices carried on just like before.

Like Twilight’s in another world right now.

Spike blinked.

Wait, he thought.

Sunset slowly and shakily rose to all fours with bits of dry sweat forming on her brow.

It couldn’t be.

Twilight’s book slammed shut with an echoing thud. She looked up to where she thought they were watching from. “You don’t think—?”

Sunset swore as she backpedaled, bumping into the chalkboard and sending it crashing to the floor.

“You have got to be kidding me! You have to!”

“There’s no way!” Spike cried, scrambling to his feet. “I just… she can’t be in an alternate world. Right?”

Sunset held a hoof over her mouth. Her eyes oscillated back and forth as the hairs on her mane and coat stood on their ends.

“…Right?” Spike asked.

Sunset didn’t respond.

Twilight ruffled her feathers as she stood up.

Spike looked between the mare in the room and the mare in the ball. His free hand balled into a tight fist “But… but… she’s right there!” he yelled. “That’s Canterlot there! That’s Twilight there! That’s what our world looks like!”

Silent stares were all he received in return.

He pointed into the ball. “That’s not an alternate world! E-every time we’ve gone to some other world—and believe me, it wasn’t just Canterlot High either—they’ve been totally different!”

“It doesn’t have to be ‘totally different,’” Twilight countered coldly. “It could be in something small. It could be the difference between your world and my world is a street sign or… Mayor Mare could be a pegasus, or…”

Sunset swallowed and placed her hoof on the ball. “…O-or it c-could be that… our sets of coordinates are different.”

Twilight let out a long snort as she stalked over to the window again. She kicked at the floor, and her wings refused to sit comfortably at her sides. She summoned the ball after her with her magic and she spoke softly. “…Yes. That would do it. It’s entirely possible that I live in an Equestria, one… that’s like yours in every way… except that my coordinates are not your coordinates.”

Spike growled tightened his grip on the ball.

Sunset shivered without discernable end. Her teeth chattered, her eyes fluttered, and her movements were jerky. She slipped off the ball and retreated, backing away one long and strained step at a time.

Finally, she turned. And then she ran. She ran down the stairs faster than Spike could register. She ran without looking back. The sound of her charge echoed throughout the tower, only to be broken by the loud boom of the large, wooden entry door.

Twilight slapped a hoof against her face. “I need to get out of this tower…”

He did a double take. He took one step toward the stairs, and then another toward the desk. Stairs. Desk. And then he straightened up. “Twilight, I-I’ll be right back. Okay?”

“Okay,” she replied.

Spike set the ball down onto the floor before sprinting down the stairs.

* * *

Spike barged through the door at the end of the hall. The room that he entered dwarfed all the others. The ceiling loomed several floors overhead, supported by several pillars that were as still and silent as sentinels. Both aspects served to volley the report of the door slam around the room several times over.

The casket on the altar was three days gone. Now in its place, Sunset Shimmer whirled around. “Don’t come any closer!” she barked, backing toward the window.

“Sunset!” he cried, running across the room.

“Don’t come any closer, Spike!”

“Sunset! Talk to me!”

Sunset stomped at the floor and charged something on her horn. “Go away!”

He skidded on the long, red carpet leading to the altar, nearly falling forward as he did so. He had heard those words before.

Spike shook his head and balled his fists. “No. I’m not going to make the same mistake with you that I did with Twilight!”

Sunset took herself back, her wide-eyed expression etched across revolted features. The light in her horn steadied itself as she considered him at length.

He swallowed. “Please, Sunset. I just, I just wanna know what’s wrong. Please, tell me!”

Sunset’s frown grew even deeper before she snorted and averted her gaze. “I can’t deal with all of this. I don’t know how.”

Spike nodded solemnly but did not respond.

“I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I want to buck something. I want to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep. I want to hurt myself. I want to hurt someone else. I want to leave. And you know what I think?” Sunset paused to suck in a huge breath. “I think I actually don’t know what I want.”

She lifted a hoof to her mouth and chewed on it for a few moments. “Is this what it feels like when someone dies?” she asked.

Spike hesitated. “…Uh—”

She swiveled around and stared daggers at him. “Is this. What happens. When someone dies?”

He stood rooted to the spot for many moments. I don’t know, he thought as he twiddled his claws together. This is the first time it’s happened to me either. What do I tell her? He swallowed, “Sunset, I…”

Sunset gritted her teeth. “S-say we succeed,” she said with a huff, “We get all the stones we want and we end up saving Twilight’s life? But that Twilight in that ball might be from an alternate world. So even if we save her, our Twilight is still dead.

“Twilight dying was bad enough, but I’m making everything worse because I can’t let go!” she exclaimed, stomping the floor. “I’m driving myself insane because I can’t let go of the fact that she’s dead and I’m dragging you and everypony else down with me! Do you hear me!? I’ve screwed up everything because I can’t let go!”

Her horn glowed ablaze and her eyes turned white-hot. Her mane flowed in all directions as it too glowed increasingly brighter. “And what happens if another one of my friends suddenly dies, huh!? How bad are things going to get then!?”

No, Sunset, no! Spike thought. Don’t do this! Please don’t do this!

Sunset’s aura now likened her to a miniature sun. “If this is what happens when you have friends and you end up losing them,” she boomed, “then maybe I’d be better off not having friends! I want to go back to being the old me!”

Oh my Celestia! Spike thought. He took a wayward step backward before ducking underneath his arms. What was she going to do? Burn him alive? Hit him with a megaspell? Throw him out the window? The option for talking, feeble before, now shriveled up entirely. He steeled himself.

But nothing came.

He peered up from underneath his arms.

What he saw instead was a statue of a mare on the altar. She had her hooves glued to her mouth like she had just uttered a blasphemous joke in front of Celestia’s face. The color had drained from her muzzle, and bit by bit, she started to shake.

“I don’t mean that,” she said, hyperventilating, “I-I-I-I d-don’t mean that.”

Spike sighed and dropped his shoulders. “Sunset.”

“I don’t mean that.” She quivered and shrunk backward. “I d-don’t mean that. I don’t mean that.”

He took a step forward. “Sunset!”

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—”

“Sunset Shimmer!” Spike yelled, his voice near cracking, “Listen to me!”

She cringed, trembling like a leaf in the wind. But where her quick succession of breaths had echoed through the room before, now she lay deathly silent.

Spike let out a long sigh and approached her, testing his first steps to see if she would shy away before picking up the pace.

He collided with her. His arms took her into a tight and conclusive embrace. He didn’t let go even as Sunset swayed to and fro within his grasp and sucked in several short breaths as she went (although both eventually began to subside).

“I’m here, okay?” he said.

She laid her head on top of him and let out a long and weary sigh. He stroked her back like he would have done with the Cake’s toddlers.

“How do I deal with this, Spike?” she said with a broken voice.

Spike shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sunset, I just don’t know.”

“Then what do I do?”

“Hmmm?”

“Spike, y-you’re the only friend I have here. What do I do—”

Spike blinked. “But I’m not,” he interrupted as he pulled away and grabbed her by the cheeks, fixing his gaze with hers. “You have a few friends here too. Remember?”

Sunset flinched, looking around the room like she was searching for something. “You mean them? No. Those are Twilight’s friends. Not mine…”

“But they are your friends.”

“No they’re not.”

“Yes they are,” Spike replied with a harder voice than before. “Sure, maybe they’re not as close to you are they are with Twilight. Maybe they aren’t the same as your friends from Canterlot High. But they still think of you as a friend.

“And trust me, we’re all happy that you’re here.”

Sunset snorted. “I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel that way.”

Spike chuckled and crossed his arms. “We’re all in a bad way. That’s all.”

Sunset turned a shade of red and averted her gaze. She opened her mouth to speak, shut it tight again, and then shook her head. “Even if they are my friends… they aren’t here right now. I still don’t have any answers to this,” she said, hiding behind her hooves.

He frowned. “No, I guess not.”

He tapped his foot against the floor and drummed his fingers against his arm while turning his mental wheels. A long-cooked response then came to him. “But I know somepony who does.”

Sunset peered up at him questioningly.

Spike’s gaze drew to a tower outside one of the windows. He followed it upwards where it stretched outside the frame. “And ya know… I think she’d like to talk to you too.”

She bit her lip and looked over at the tower as well. She wiped a drop from her eyes and nodded solemnly. “I guess you’re right. It’s probably time. …I probably should have done it days ago.”

Spike nodded.

“Just not right now,” she said, twisting the curl in her mane. “W-why don’t we go back for now and get some more work done before the sun goes down?”

Spike grinned. “Sounds good to me,” he said, before turning toward the door.

Behind him, she gave one last look at the tower outside the window, and then followed suit.

* * *

Rarity took one last glance over the side of the carriage at the hole in the mud before humming affirmatively. “That was much less hooves-on than I expected, but I’ll gladly take it.”

She leaned back against the seat and instead looked at the stone beside her. It was glossy and vibrant like an amethyst, free from scuff marks and scratches and internal tessellations, like the whole stone had been cut uniformly into the perfect, undented sphere it was now.

Rarity thought thrice about trying to cutting it into something usable (after she got the information that she wanted out of it, of course).

Shelving the thought, she leaned forward and fished into the saddlebag on the coach’s silk carpet floor. She took out a small pamphlet-map. Only a hundred miles north? That’s convenient, she thought.

“Is everything okay back there?” a deep voice called out from the front of the cart.

A bulging stallion looked back at her through soft and rounded eyes. The crusted mud that clung to his hooves accentuated his shiny black coat. The concerned cock of his eyebrow went almost unnoticed against the vague hint of a smile perpetually plastered across his muzzle.

Rarity leaned forward and rested her gaze on everything apart from his face. “Oh, everything’s peachy, mister Range Rider. Absolutely delightful.”

“I’m right happy. But maybe it’s time we left?”

Rarity thought she heard the slow and viscous burst of a dirty bubble and she looked around again. She frowned at the trees which looked like they would fall forward under the weight of the moss and drown in the soft and runny earth at any moment. “Uh, eheh, yes. Quite so.”

The carriage lurched forward as the wheels broke out of the muddy molds around them. Range Rider’s hooves slipped here and there, prompting him to dig deeper into the mush. Soon enough, they gained enough pace that the carriage practically pulled itself.

Still, she worried, for a mud stain on the upholstery just would not do. She had half a mind to charter it for the Grand Galloping Gala. Instead, its evenly painted surfaces and lustrous padding contrasted the dank and grimy environment. She slapped herself. What was I thinking?

“So, that was a spectacle there,” he said. “Was that all what you needed to do?”

Rarity regarded the stallion once more. Oh, right, that’s what I was thinking, she thought with a smile. “Yes, of course. I got exactly what I wanted.”

“Well then, if that is the case,” he said, “then maybe it’s time for me to take you back?”

Mmmm. That molasses. I simply must keep this one for a while longer. She cleared her throat. “I’ll give you an extra hundred bits if you take me toward Grazing Gorge.”

“Are you sure?” he called back, a slight waver in his tone. “That’s a hundred miles north of here.”

“Positive. Besides, you don’t have to take me all the way there. I’ll be able to finish it off.”

Range Rider shrugged. “Grazing Gorge it is.”

“You are most kind, darling. Thank you.”

With a happy sigh, the mare reached into her saddlebag, procured a pair of cucumber slices, and then reclined against the velvet cushion.

I am so lucky that my two stones are nearly right next to each other. Who would have thought?

* * *

Normally, Sunset remembered, the pair of guards would have flanked the large ornate door. Tonight, however, they directly barred it. “The Princess has already made her position clear,” one of them said with an indifferent scowl. “You’ll have to come back later.”

Sunset shifted uncomfortably. “No, please. I must see her. It’s… it’s very important.”

“We are very sorry, miss. You must come back later.”

She grit her teeth together. It was only a door. A teleport-proof door, sure, but a door all the same. It separated her from her desire; a few feet away, but somehow incomprehensibly out of reach.

It had to be providence. Somehow, even after several dreams in the night, this was what she wanted. She wanted the door to be closed. Sunset retreated a few steps. Besides, she had no way of knowing whether she’d get a favorable reaction. A few more steps back and she’d be on her way back to the tower. It was the perfect ending.

The guard looked over Sunset’s shoulder. “Not even you, Princess Luna.”

Sunset paused and whirled around to see a dark blue alicorn looking down her nose at her. The air, which bent around the mare’s very presence, prompted Sunset to buckle by the slightest bit.

Princess Luna smirked as she considered the guards. “Oh, I’m not here to see my sister.”

The stallion in front of the door frowned. “Then I must ask that the both of you le—eeeeaaaevvve!” His body glowed with a dark blue aura as he, as well as the guard next to him, were swept off their hooves. “Help!”

“Silence, you!” Luna hissed as she magically shook the pair for good measure. She then turned her attention to Sunset and winked. “Go on through. She’s waiting.”

Sunset looked back and forth between the alicorn princess and the guard-turned-captives, and she frowned. Oh for Celestia’s sake, she just had to do that, didn’t she? Oh good… Oh good…

She took a step toward the door, and then took two steps back. After taking one last fleeting glance at Luna, Sunset sighed. The flared her horn and the massive frame creaked open, catching several times on the hinge as it turned.

Cautiously, she entered.

The crackling fireplace and sprawling velvet bed met her gaze first. Her eyes then drew to the night sky that patterned the walls, completed by a tapestry depicting a shooting star. A clock on the wall counted each passing second with a pronounced ticking noise.

Her fibers screamed that this was, in fact, Celestia’s room, and not that of her sister. Yet, even as everything demanded the same recollection as the rest of the castle, Sunset drew a blank. She tried and tried and tried some more, but no matter how she looked at it, the room was new to her.

A large, golden neck ornament and complementary shoes watched her from a rack on the back end of the desk. An equally regal tiara guarded them from the desk itself. Sunset regarded the very placement of the objects and swallowed.

Something moved through an archway on the side and she swiveled. And then Sunset Shimmer froze.

Princess Celestia gaped back at her. Even her mane had ground to a halt. Celestia inched out of the archway and came to a halt at the edge of the carpet.

One billion thoughts ran through Sunset’s head. Several pre-rehearsed conversations fought their way to the top but all fell by the wayside. The second-hand on the clock nearby took several eternities to stagger along. She could hardly breathe and yet, somehow, the need to breathe wasn’t there.

Several years wound about in a painfully slow manner, coalescing through several emotions as they went. Princess Celestia now stood in front of her. Not principal, princess.

Imposing. Pristine. Powerful. Just as a princess should be.

Petrified. Bare. Incredulous. Just like herself.

Sunset could see that the mare in front of her was trembling ever so slightly, just like she was. Maybe the mare on the opposite side of the room wasn’t Princess Celestia. Maybe, somehow, just for now, she was simply Celestia.

But, as she remembered, Celestia was angry at her.

And Celestia drew a deep breath. “Sunset…”

Sunset flinched. “C-Celestia…”

Celestia inched forward. “My stars,” she said, barely above a whisper, “you’ve returned... You’ve finally returned to me…”

Sunset flinched again. She stood, even more wide-eyed than before. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true. But it was true. Never in her wildest dreams. Not after what she did.

And then Sunset let a tear fly down her face. And then another.

Sunset surged forward. She galloped into a full sprint. She bounded straight into Celestia’s receiving embrace.

The sound of the door closing behind her went through one ear and out the other. The two of them exchanged jubilated shouts and bawling exclamations before they settled for weeping into each other.

* * *

The fire crackled as it danced back and forth before the two of them.

Sunset watched as the wood splintered and then fell apart. She dug her hooves deeper into the mattress below her, nuzzled herself deeper into Celestia’s side, and let out a degenerate sigh.

Celestia responded by curling tighter around her.

As the flames continued to reflect off her eyes, Sunset pursed her lips. “Who would have thought there was a chamber down there?”

Celestia hummed. “I still cannot believe that it was right under my muzzle, and I never even knew about it.” She flared her horn and levitated a new piece of wood out of a chute on the side of the fireplace. Celestia gingerly fed it to the flames, and they responded with a renewed vigor. “This entire …series of events went under my muzzle.”

“Was there really no clue?” Sunset asked, looking up at her mentor.

“You would think, for all the time I have been here, I would notice these things.” Celestia gravely shook her head, “But I did not.”

“Not even a little?”

Celestia closed her eyes. “There…” she began, “was one instance that struck me as odd. It was after I had lowered the sun. I was reading when I looked over at the tower that she was staying in. It was dark at the time. But, for just a few seconds, the whole tower lit up with a bright white light.

“But”—she hung her head in defeat—“curse me, I did not even think anything of it. I received the terrible news an hour or two later.”

Celestia gazed at the tower in question. “Goodness, what was she doing in those last few days?”

At that, Sunset let off a fragmented and subdued chuckle. “Y-yeah…” she said as she turned her gaze back to the blaze in front of them. Somehow, the flames took the form of Twilight’s face, and Sunset sighed with a discontent frown. And now I’m seeing things. I must be losing it.

“Princess?” Sunset asked tremulously.

“Just Celestia is fine,” Celestia replied with a smile.

“…I think I need help.”

“Certainly.”

Sunset shivered and shrunk into herself. “I-I…” She gave Celestia a few fleeting glances but averted her gaze each time. “I can’t get over her.”

“…O-Oh?”

“I can’t… deal with the fact that she’s gone. I’ve never lost anypony before. I don’t…” She took a deep breath. “I can’t deal with this. It hurts. I’m not sure if having friends is worth this.”

Celestia regarded her former student as a long frown spread across her face. Slowly, she let her eyes wander the room before she settled on a tree in the corner. Humming affirmatively, Celestia flared her horn, levitating over a small mirror shard that had dangled from one of the tree’s branches. “Sunset Shimmer,” she said, “let me tell you a story that I think may help you with this problem.”

Sunset looked up attentively.

“Once upon a time, there was a great king who was loved by many. He was very adept and brought happiness to all of his people.” Celestia narrowed her eyes and twirled the mirror shard about. “But dark forces sought to destroy everything. Slowly and slowly, he watched as his world slowly crumbled.

“But… given the chance to right what went wrong… he practically leaped on it. He gave up his mind, body, and s-soul so that his… world might be safe.”

Celestia let out a long and exasperated sigh, turning her gaze to the fire.

“…He sacrificed himself?” Sunset asked.

“Yes.”

“…Just like Twilight did?”

“Yes.”

Sunset shook her head, “But… I’ve never heard about this king. He’s never been in any books, and—”

“I know.”

Sunset quizzically tilted her head, noting that Celestia now wore the largest grimace she had ever seen.

“I never told you about him. He was a well-guarded secret. Plus this was very recent. In fact… Twilight Sparkle was there to witness it, and…” Celestia swallowed, allowing a wayward tear to drip down her face, “I was also there to watch it. Every long and painful moment of it.

“And that memory haunts me to this very day.”

Sunset tensed up, trying to push her next question back down her throat. But after a few moments, she yielded to her curiosity. “Who was he?”

Celestia glumly shook her head. “For one thousand years, he was… somepony very dear to me.”

Sunset flinched. The answer surprised her but, somehow, it didn’t. Of course.

Celestia brought the shard to face. “This piece of the magic mirror is the only thing that I have to remember him by.”

…Magic mirror? Like the one that leads back to my world? She scanned the shard in Celestia’s magical grasp. But that’s just a fragment, so the mirror she’s talking about is…

Sunset gasped under her breath. Broken.

He’s in another world. And he’s as good as gone!

“But how lucky am I…?” Celestia said.

“Huh?”

Celestia laughed the sort of long laugh that shook her entire body. “How lucky am I that I had some ponies in my life that make saying goodbye so hard?”

Sunset blinked. “But… you’re not…?”

“Of course not, Sunset. While it is, perhaps, the price that I pay for having known him, I, for the life of me, just cannot imagine a life where I never met him. I think just knowing him bettered my life. My memories of him are so precious, and even if I can never have him back, I can find the strength to carry on. It’s strength that I have thanks to him.”

“So,” Sunset said, “he was worth all that?”

At that, Celestia draped her hoof across Sunset’s back and gave her a grin. “Always.”

Well… Sunset thought, what would my life be like without my friends? What would have happened if I had never met them? She let off a faint smile. Nothing good, I guess. I’d be in a pretty bad place.

Maybe I don’t ever want to go back to a life without them. But… even then, they’ve bettered my life already.

Sunset chuckled before nestling herself into her mentor’s bosom. “I guess you’re right. Looks like I still have a lot to learn, huh?”

Celestia chuckled before turning her gaze back to the fire.

How right Spike had been. Already, Sunset could feel the vigor from before coursing through her again. The sensation was satisfying. For once, something in Equestria had gone right, more right than she could have hoped.

How could she describe it? Was it elation at being proven wrong? Relief that she had been forgiven? It nearly didn’t make any sense. After throwing everything in Celestia’s face, the prospect of being in the same room had long left her conscious.

Just by showing up, she had been forgiven. Was that really the case? Maybe she had been forgiven long beforehoof. That didn’t make sense. Parts of her didn’t want to forgive herself for the past. How could somepony else forgive her? Only a pony better than her could do that.

Sunset hummed. Celestia was better than her.

Looking up, Sunset noticed that, for the first time since the day they had met, Celestia appeared to her radiant like the sun itself.

As Sunset then decided, there was nopony else she would rather be with.

“Celestia?” she asked.

“Yes?”

Sunset smiled, turning a small shade of red, “Do you think that… uhm… I can spend the night? With you? Maybe?”

A little bit of water welled in Celestia’s eyes. Her smile, uncharacteristically, showed the slightest amount of teeth. Celestia leaned down and nuzzled Sunset on the cheek. “Of course! That would be delightful.”

The two of them shared a laugh that echoed through the night.

Sunset paused, “Well then, I should… probably go let Spike know,” she said before giggling. “He might get worried.”

“Actually,” Celestia said with a grin, “I can take care of that.”

* * *

Spike gagged and then emitted some green fire with a loud burp. The flames materialized into a scroll in the air in front of him.

He snatched it out of the air without a second thought.

Carefully, he unfurled it and let his eyes glide down the page. As he did, he toddled over toward the study area’s sprawling window, And then he looked toward Celestia’s tower with a grin. Way to go, Sunset.

Rolling the note up, he doubled back toward the crystal ball on top of the desk and switched it with the note. “I’m gunna go to bed here in a second.”

Twilight looked up and yawned as she placed the last few papers on top of a stack. “That’s all done, so I think I will too.”

Spike moved toward the stairs, intent on taking the ball to his bed like he had during the previous couple of nights, but he wasn’t able to make it two steps before he paused again.

“Hey, Twilight?” he asked. “How did I do today?”

Twilight hummed. “Spike… I think you’ve done a fantastic job over the past few days.”

He drummed his claws against the ball. “Do you think I’ve done well like… for myself?”

Twilight smiled. “Of course I do. Why do you ask?”

Spike looked back up at Celestia’s tower and smiled. Well, he thought, maybe because I’ve got this figured out after all. Or maybe I don’t, but I can do it. I can do this.

He chuckled. “It’s nothing. Good night, Twilight.”

She looked upward and smiled. “Good night, Spike.”

Taking great care, he slowly set the crystal ball back down on the desk. He waddled down the stairs, without Twilight but instead with a small smile on his face.

8 - Broke

The low, dulcet plucks of a bass guitar reverberated around the school’s practice room without a particular pattern. Applejack idly played any note that her fingers happened to hit, unsure if any of it would make for a decent song.

The human glanced at her other friends. Rarity sat in front of her laptop and switched back and forth between her Mystable page and some rough sketches from her VariantArt gallery. Fluttershy sat next to her and attentively scrutinized each new design, piping up with the occasional question. Pinkie Pie held an ear over the set’s snare drum, sticking the drumhead with one hand and adjusting a knob with the other.

Rainbow Dash burst through the door. “Nope, nothing,” she announced.

The rest of them collectively groaned.

Applejack’s fingers slipped across the strings, producing an atonal shriek. “Why in the hay hasn’t Sunset come back yet? It’s been three days for dang’s sake.”

Fluttershy shrugged. “Maybe she just needed a little more time home?”

Rainbow Dash dropped to the floor. “You think she’d at least find a way to tell us if she did that. The portal’s still open,” she said as she opened her own laptop. “I checked.”

Rarity frowned. “I guess that means we can’t exactly write to them…”

Fluttershy shook her head. “We could always go through, but, well… where would we look?”

“This ain’t lookin’ too good,” Applejack concluded.

“Well, I don’t think we can really practice without her,” Rainbow Dash said. She clicked a key on her keyboard which prompted a short ditty.

“So Ah guess you’re gunna just sit there and play Hoof Life again?”

Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “Ehem. Buck Mesa mod.”

Applejack snickered before returning to her bass guitar, now trying for a particular pattern. Things may come and things may go. Some go fast and some go slow. Few things last, that’s all I know.

The notes flowed in and out of each other, and the rest of the room slowed down as a result.

The notes that came afterward, on the other hand, jumbled together into an incoherent mess. She briefly tried to return to the tune from before, but she found that it escaped her fingers the second time around, much to her chagrin.

“Ah’m still worried ’bout her,” she said. “Like, what if she never comes back?”

Fluttershy folded her hands together and stared at the floor’s reflective tiles. “I sure wouldn’t like to lose her too…”

Pinkie Pie threw herself onto the drum set. “Yeah,” she said with a frown, “that’d be the worst thing ever.”

“I hate not being able to do anything about it,” Rarity added.

Rainbow Dash snorted. “The only thing we can do is wait. Dammit.”

Applejack crossed her arms and nodded. She turned her gaze to the window. Gosh, Sunset, Ah hope you’re safe…

Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat off of her brow, but by the time she had subsequently thrown the shovel head-first into the ground, new sweat formed in its place. The hole she currently stood in was easily the length of Hoofbeard’s ship in depth.

And Hoofbeard, who stood at the edge of the hole, too wiped the sweat off of his brow before placing his large tricorn back onto his head where it belonged. “I think we be earnin’ a break.”

Rainbow Dash nodded, flew up to meet him, and then collapsed into the sand and looked out to the sea fifty yards from their position. “I just hope Jewel is having more luck than we are.”

Hoofbeard sat back as well. “I wager they are. We have one of those treasures already now. And hopefully, by the end of the day, we will get two more.”

“I’m just glad they can go down for me. Diving is cool, but not to the bottom of the entire ocean.” She paused. “I woulda done it too,” she added.

The captain took in a deep whiff of the thick and salty air and fixed his gaze on the blue skies. He briefly tracked a pelican as it soared in idle circles before the crash of a wave broke him from his daze. His attention meandered down to a pair of coconuts hanging off of a nearby coconut tree.

“I’ve been doing a wee bit o’ thinkin’,” he half-muttered as he stood up and trotted over to the tree.

“Huh?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“I have a query, ye see. Just something I be—” he gave the tree a sharp kick and caught the coconut that fell, “—wonderin’ about.”

“Shoot.”

“Ye say she already be dead. But you’re on this quest since ye reckon you can save the lass. But, I be thinkin’: what if ye get all these treasures…” He paused as he searched for a nearby rock, found none, and settled on his shovel instead. “Ye get all these treasures, ye return home, and then nothin’ happens? What’ll you do then?”

Rainbow Dash blinked. She scratched the back of her head. “Well…”

“Say, it turns out you could not have ever done it?” Hoofbeard shook his head. “Even if you find all yer treasures and even if you scrounge up every little thing you can outta them, you still be goin’ home to a dead mare?” he asked before tapping the shovel to the coconut, breaking it in two.

Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs and tapped her hoof against the dirt and sighed. “See, Hoofy,” she began, “the way I see it, there ain’t no way I can be any worse off, because I’m there already. If she’s really dead, then… I guess it is what it is.”

Rainbow Dash stood up and puffed out her chest with a huge cheeky grin. “But I have hope, and so I’m going to fight for her.”

Hoofbeard flashed a toothy grin. “Then that be a good enough reason for me. I’ll see this dig through with ye. Coconut?”

Rainbow Dash blinked before looking at the split nut and the nectarous water contained within. Hoofbeard offered half of it to her.

She nodded. “Ya know it!”

* * *

Spike chuckled to himself. The mare beside him nearly skipped through the halls of the castle. In fact, he almost mistook her for outright floating. In short order, his steps started to match.

“I’m guessin’ it went really well, huh?” he asked with a laugh.

Sunset Shimmer giggled. “You bet it did. I’m really glad that I went.”

“That’s great!” he exclaimed as they rounded the corner.

A hallway full of doors greeted them, most of which Spike knew were locked. One opening, however, hosted a set of crisscrossing metal bars instead.

“Oh, great,” Sunset growled. Her ears folded back as she furrowed her brow.

Spike grinned and held up a golden option. “I have the key.”

Sunset frowned. “…Oh, right. Yeah.”

Chuckling, Spike placed the key into the steel lock and turned it once. It clicked loudly and the gate swung open with a metallic shriek.

Even with the colorful selection of tomes and scrolls on shelves orbiting the hourglass in the middle, the amount of brown in the room struck him first. Just looking at it made him yawn and he had to fight a sudden heavy feeling in his eyes.

And then he sneezed. Twice even. He looked around once more and ran his finger across one of the shelves, streaking through a thin layer of dust on the surface.

“Okay,” he said, squeezing the clinging dust off, “if I remember... the time spell that we used is over on that shelf there.”

The two crossed the library to the shelf in question and Sunset used her magic to grab a rolled-up piece of parchment off the top. She glanced at it quizzically and shook her head before replacing it amidst the others. The second and third turned out negative as well. On the fourth, she let out an intrigued, “Hmmmmm.”

“Find it?” he asked.

Sunset chuckled. “Nono. This isn’t it. Although... I didn’t know you could do that with gravity.”

Spike laughed. “Yeah.”

She searched through a few more before she exclaimed, “Ah! Here it is!”

He gave a toothy grin. “Cool! You have the time spell now.”

Sunset gave a cursory glance over the contents. “Huh, this is neat. I thought this spell would be more complicated, although...” she said as she ran her eyes down the page again, “this looks like it’s just a modified teleportation spell at its core that has an additional time component.”

Spike shrugged. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“…Okay.”

Sunset chuckled. “Well… Mind you, this is still a pretty complex spell by normal standards. But, heh, this is foal’s play compared to the spell we’re putting together.”

Spike grunted and shot his hand into the air. “Speakin’ of, I was thinking. It kinda looks like that spell you and Twilight are putting together is really, like, all over the place. Twilight’s good, but I’m not sure she’s that good.”

Sunset rolled her eyes, “Oh, she’ll probably just pre-cast it.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “…Uh? What?”

“Pre-casting? You know…?”

Spike frowned.

Sunset groaned and slapped her forehead. “How do you not know what pre-casting is?

Spike deadpanned. “Well duh, dragons don’t use magic.”

She scoffed and nearly pulled her own face off. “Fine, whatever. Pre-casting…” She took a moment to take a deep breath and twiddle her mane. “Most of the time, when you do magic, you perform the spell as you cast it,” she explained. “Most spells are really simple anyway so regular casting is the most convenient, plus you can change it up on the fly. But with pre-casting, you build the entire spell beforehand, and then you cast it.”

“Sooooo, it’s kinda like you’re planning it out before you perform it, right?”

“Exactly. You can change the spell however you want, but the catch is that once you cast, you have to commit to the entire length of whatever you made.”

Spike nodded. “Mmkay, I think I see. I guess that’d be useful for something that big, huh?”

“Yup,” Sunset said, turning her attention back to the time travel spell. “It’s also the basis for computational magic.”

Spike gasped. “Oh! That!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers. “That’s number twenty-two. Now I get it!”

“Uh-huh. So like for this one…”

Sunset flared her horn and concentrated on the scroll in front of her. A ball of light containing a patterned maelstrom of ethereal energy appeared above her head. The swirls took the shape of blobs at first, but as she concentrated, the shapes that orbited around the core became more jagged, more robust, and more diversified in their construction.

“All I have to do is touch my horn to this, and I’ll be on my way to the past.”

But that wouldn’t be a good idea! Spike thought. He pointed at the scroll, “Yeah, uh, you might want to read that.”

Sunset buried her face into the scroll again. She read it from top to bottom as her built spell floated just above her head, ready for casting. “You can only do this spell once per lifetime,” she murmured, parroting a line off of the bottom. “So once I perform this, I won’t be able to do it ever again.”

The ball of energy fizzled out. Sunset chuckled nervously and swallowed. “So when I do perform the time spell, I’ll have to make this count then, haha…”

Spike crossed his arms and stared her down. The floor thumped from the taps of his foot.

Sunset turned a shade redder. “…Sorry. I wasn’t going to cast it anyway. I just wanted to show pre-casting. That’s all.” She held her foreleg in shame. “…Didn’t mean to worry you.”

Spike sighed and shrugged. “It’s okay.”

Sunset looked at the scroll one last time and then furled it back up. “Listen, Spike, I have a favor to ask you.”

“Okay.”

“Later on today, after we’ve done today’s work… can you take Twilight and give me the tower for an hour or two? I-I need to do some serious thinking so that I can figure things out, and I kinda would like the place to myself.”

Spike turned toward the door, motioning with his arm for her to follow. “I could probably do that. But what do you want us to do in the meantime?”

Sunset trotted behind him. “I dunno. Just whatever. All I need is the tower.”

Spike toddled through the entryway and looked down the hall. “Sure, okay. I’ll find something for the both of us.”

Sunset used her magic to shut the door behind them. “Do you have any idea of what you’ll do?”

Spike placed the key into the lock and turned it once. Then he looked up at her with a smile. “Yeah, I got something in mind.”

* * *

Pinkie Pie glanced up the cliff face in front of her. She ran a hoof through the dry dirt underneath her hooves as she considered the steep grade. It had to be at least thrice the height of Sugar Cube Corner.

She fixed her gaze on a sizable hole in the face. She rubbed her chin as she thought about how to get up to that very hole which had to be halfway up the face by her measurements. She noticed a disturbing lack of footholds up to the opening as well.

“It’s in there?” she asked.

Stone Obelisk nodded sagely, brushing some dust off his lapel. “Yes. Both your stone and the being guarding it are in there.”

Pinkie Pie nodded. “Welp, here we are then. This is it.”

Stone Obelisk raised his eyebrow. “The end of the line.”

Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes and smirked. “My entire last four days have led to this moment.”

Stone Obelisk reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a purple orb. “Well, in that case, you will want this.”

Pinkie Pie grinned. She placed the stone into her saddlebag and simultaneously fished out another object. It was large, circular, and somehow bigger than the saddlebag itself. Pinkie Pie threw her trampoline under the opening.

Stone Obelisk looked on in abject horror as she then procured a large and curly musical instrument out of the very same saddlebag. She carefully placed the sousaphone on the ground.

He adjusted his glasses once, and then took them off to clean them. After replacing them on his face, he blinked several times and then mumbled something about buying new ones.

“I packed them because I knew I would need them,” Pinkie Pie explained.

“Y-yes, I can see that. I-I think I’ll need to contemplate everything I’ve ever known after witnessing that.”

Pinkie Pie honked him on the nose. “It’s just a saddlebag, silly!”

He deadpanned. “Then I’ll have to dedicate the rest of my life to understanding that saddlebag of yours. …After I study the stones.”

Pinkie Pie giggled.

“I must say,” he said, straightening his collar, “this has been very engaging. I’m very glad to have come on this small adventure with you.” He smiled and tipped his pith. “Farewell, Pinkie Pie.”

With that, the earth pony turned and trotted off into an opening in the rocks behind them. His hoofsteps faded into the distance, and soon enough, all traces of him left the scene altogether.

Pinkie Pie looked between the sousaphone and the trampoline, and then she turned her sights to the opening in the cliff face, imagining what sort of creature lay inside. But then again, she would find her final stone if successful.

* * *

Crystal ball in hand, Spike wound through the streets of the city. He wandered without direction, delving around corners purely on whim. Then again, even after living in Ponyville for so many years, Canterlot was like the back of his hand. Several memories of several places he had gone to with Twilight took their turn in his head and, without conscious command, his feet worked to take him there.

Within the image shown inside the crystal ball, Twilight Sparkle slumped against the desk as she poured a concoction out of one vial and into another. A small puff of smoke erupted as the ingredients interacted. She frowned.

“Well…” she said, “I just have to let this sit for half an hour and then I’ll be able to finish this gum off.”

Spike glanced another group of communicative aristocrats up and down as he passed by them. “That’s great!”

“Yes. It is,” she said, turning her gaze toward the window for a few moments.

Twilight then walked over to the chalkboard. She had drawn a diagram of a bottle on its front, much like the twelve bottles she had sitting off to the side, labeled with instructions for a simple enchantment. She flipped that over to reveal the other side: range calculations and diagrams and a set of half-finished equations atop layers of smudged chalk. She levitated a piece of chalk up and stood in front of the board for a few moments, glancing from section to section.

She then snorted and launched the chalk into the board. It broke in two on impact and both pieces clattered to the floor.

Spike furrowed his brow. “Twilight? Are you okay?”

Twilight slunk toward the window. She tried to look over the walls of the castle, frowning deeper when it became apparent that craning her neck failed to improve her view. She looked back at her wings and gave them a couple of flaps before taking to the air. Even then, she couldn’t keep a constant rhythm and wavered as a result.

With a loud “Augh!” Twilight plummeted to the floor and landed in a heap. After trying to rise to her hooves (only for them to fall out from under her), she sighed defeatedly and rested against the glass.

Spike ground his teeth together. “Twilight?”

Twilight looked into her reflection and sobbed. “I-I can feel it, Spike. …The Nameless wants out.

“I’m fighting it with every bit of my being… I’m doing everything that I can to delay it, but…” She felt at some of the split ends in her hair. “I just, I-I don’t know how much longer I can hold out!”

“Twilight…”

Twilight tried to reach toward the city but the window stopped her far short. She futilely banged her head against it and let out a distressed cry. “I guess… I want out too… I want to go someplace else. Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”

Spike groaned and used his free hand to rub his face. He held the ball close, hoping that he would somehow travel through it. He wanted to hold her tight. No, he needed to. Because she needed him.

How can I help her?

As Spike continued to walk through the street, he glanced at his surroundings. A thought came to him, but he shook his head. He knew her. He knew what she liked the most. Nothing in that tower would satisfy that.

And he wasn’t in the tower either.

Spike blinked. He skipped a step, which was punctuated by an “Oh!” He looked into the ball and said, “Hey Twilight! I know what’ll cheer you up!”

Twilight shook her head and sniffled. “…What?”

Spike reached the corner of the street and stopped there. He looked down the adjoining streets one by one and focused on the area around him, looking for details.

“So I’m standing here on this street corner,” he said, “and there’s this… smell of honey in the air. It’s thick, and hot, and I kinda wanna walk down to the bakery down the street. I can see their sign. It’s bright and it’s got bold lettering, and so every other sign looks small compared to that.”

The many nights from years ago when Twilight would sit beside his bed with a book in hoof came rushing back.

“There’s an older couple; they’re hanging out in front of the shop and they look like they’re about to smash their muffins into the other’s face from the way they’re waving them around. There’s another couple watching them down their noses from the other side and I bet they’re all, ‘How dirty.’”

The days where Twilight would dive into books, into other worlds, and not emerge until hours later, also sprang to mind.

“And there isn’t much else happening here. There are a few other ponies around. They all got like these three hundred-bit mane cuts, and their noses are so in the air, I bet they can’t see the ground. And everything else is blocky and white and all the stores on this street sort of blend together.”

Twilight continued to gaze out the window but her ears remained fixed on the ball. She stifled every sob that tried to run through her muzzle, and soon those stopped altogether.

“And the sun’s shining and there’re no clouds in the sky, but the grass is all crunchy because they had to cancel some weather a few days ago. They’ll make it up tomorrow, though. And there’s this constant whistle from the wind as it goes through all the buildings.”

Spike looked around the intersection and nodded before resuming down one of the streets. “That’s my street corner.”

Twilight continued to stare out the window, but now she sat completely silent and remained that way for a few moments. And then the smallest crack of a smile graced her muzzle.

“Did that help? Spike asked.

Twilight chuckled and wiped away a tear. “It sure did, Spike. That was beautiful. I really needed that. Thank you…”

“It was nothing, Twilight.”

“You’re really good at it though. I think you’d make Jade Singer proud.”

Spike blushed. “Haha, well, that’s what happens when I spend so much time with you.”

Twilight snickered and rolled her eyes. “Suuuurrre.”

Spike shrugged and glanced up the street. He smiled and gave himself a mental pat on the back.

Twilight looked back out the window. Without even looking, she levitated her own crystal ball over and clutched it against her chest.

Spike looked down. Even though her crystal ball still appeared as an impassible white to him, she could see something. He guessed it was still the rock cavern. She could hear their voices when they talked, but that was the full extent of their interaction.

I’m sure she could use something other than just our voices, he thought. I’ll have to ask Sunset if we can do something about that.

“Spike?” she asked.

Spike looked down, “Yeah?”

Twilight clutched her crystal ball tightly. “Can you describe more of it for me?”

Spike grinned. “Sure.”

* * *

Sunset brushed aside another object and then let out an “Aha!” Using her magic, she fished the box of candles out and then backed away from the cupboard. “Finally, I found you.”

She whirled around and grabbed a pair of bowls from the tabletop before ascending the stairs.

Thousands of books stared down at her as she reached the top, and she paid them no mind. She trotted over to the hourglass, went to set her items down, and then paused. She looked at the spot before her where a pair of incense rods and a pillow lay waiting before she turned her gaze to the sprawling window behind the hourglass.

With a chuckle, she levitated every item to the other side of the hourglass and, after giving Celestia’s tower a smile, Sunset sat.

She stood the sticks of incense and the candles around her, took a deep breath, adjusted one of the candles, and then she flared her horn. The objects flickered to life; a dull flame stood on the tip of the candles while a small, steady stream of smoke wafted off the incense.

With her magic, Sunset flipped the hourglass over. The sand within shifted and began falling through; it made a ssssh as it trickled into the bottom chamber.

She took a long whiff of the incense’s wooden smell and let out a long and wistful sigh. The human world just didn’t compare. When had she last achieved this setup? Sunset smiled. Probably just before my last midterm under Princess Celestia, huh?

Sunset took one last look at her setup, took a long whiff of the burning incense, and then she closed her eyes.

The rest of the tower melted away. All of her senses faded and, shortly after, her perception of black did so as well.

Peace.

Quiet.

Tranquility.

Sunset took a long, deep breath and opened her eyes.

An eternal plane of coalescing reds and oranges greeted her instead. Sunset peered across the idle expanse of her own mind and smirked.

“Alright,” Sunset thought, “let’s review the facts.

“We’re dealing with the prospect of parallel worlds, worlds just like this one. One staggered nine days from the other.”

A small and disembodied flame appeared in front of her face. The flame danced for a moment as an image formed within its body: a crystal ball with a large number nine painted across the front. Sunset watched as the flame started to orbit around her head.

“We don’t have any proof yet that this is the case. That was just a possibility that we thought up. If it is not the case, then we will eventually retrieve the information that’s in the book right now.”

She watched the flame as it circled around and furrowed her brow. “And if we are unable to reproduce the information in the book, or if Twilight can’t reproduce those sets of coordinates, then we’ll have proof that this parallel worlds theory is the case.

“We’ll know either way within these next couple of days. And if it’s just one world, then our course of action is clear…”

The crystal ball with the number nine paused in front of her, and Sunset grabbed it out of the air. “But not with the parallel worlds theory…”

She tossed the flame back into the expanse where it exploded into a million pieces, bathing the immediate surroundings in a glittery coat of embers. “So,” she thought, “let’s just pretend for a moment that she is in a parallel world.”

Sunset trotted forward. “Probably the first question I should ask is where do they differ from each other.”

One of the embers in front of her face mutated, taking the form of a brand new flame. This one contained the image of a clock.

“Another question would be what role the crystal ball plays in all of this.”

Another ember burst. This one hosted the image of a plain crystal ball.

“And then there’s the matter of the discrepancies in the book.” A new flame with an inequality sign appeared.

Sunset turned to the clock. “Let’s start with you. If the worlds are really divergent, then in which capacity? If it’s just like in the coordinates like Twilight said, could there be possible divergence earlier?”

She scratched her chin in thought and shook her head. “No. Up until the discrepancy with coordinates, the worlds followed each other. That can be proven by the time loop that Spike caused, since that depends on both worlds coinciding.”

The flame containing the clock wriggled and writhed as the image within changed. The new picture took the form of Spike’s disembodied head overlaid by a circular symbol. The flame began to orbit around her head.

She narrowed her eyes. “But wait,” she thought, “if that is the case, that raises another question: if Twilight is in a parallel world, how did we get a package from her through the hourglass?”

A flame with a box appeared. It swirled around her head just like Spike’s flame did.

She kept her attention on it, and then she turned her gaze to the flame containing the crystal ball. “If I want to answer that,” she thought, “I’ll have to figure this out.” She mentally called the flame in close, to which she grabbed at it and juggled it between her hooves.

“In terms of communication between our world and hers, it’s hilariously lopsided. We can see her and hear her and we can even look anywhere else to boot. But she can only hear us and what she hears comes out of her crystal ball.”

An eye and an ear versus an ear. “Information is somewhat one-way because of that. Why is this important? Because our Twilight had to receive the same set of instructions as theirs did, from… somewhere. Another version of us?

“How could that be? If the ball operates the same between both worlds, then what she should see is nine days into her past. That’s eighteen days behind us.”

Several of the flames banded together and produced an arrow.

“So that means that, at one point, while our Twilight was at the rear of this arrow, another version of us was at the head of it, just like their Twilight is at the rear of this arrow and we are at the head. We talked to their Twilight, and they talked to ours.”

The arrow mutated into two arrows, each crisscrossing the other.

Sunset stared the flame down for a few moments, examining her mental diagram. Then she snorted and slashed through it. “No, that’s not possible,” she thought. The flame disintegrated, and the former arrow rematerialized in its place. “That would mean that causality would be going in a figure-8. That completely breaks the immutability of time.”

A new flame, showcasing two parallel lines, popped into being beside the arrow. “How can I lay this arrow so that both lines are the same?”

For what seemed like an eternity, Sunset stared at the two flames, gritting her teeth together all the while. She tried to jam the arrow in between the two lines but found each permutation disgracefully asymmetric.

She allowed the arrow flame to engulf the box flame. The resulting fire glowed even brighter than the one before it. Sunset attempted to curb the flames, but they continued onward. Instead, she tried jamming the arrow again.

After a few more unsuccessful attempts, she frowned. “Okay,” she thought, “let’s try this.”

Sunset duplicated the arrow. She placed both arrows between the lines in front of her, each pointing to opposite lines. The design didn’t click. “But one of those arrows makes sense,” she thought. She played around with the second arrow, trying to make it fit. “The arrow has to point at a place nine days before it. And whatever arrow comes off of that has to point at a spot nine days before it. And then that has to point at a spot nine days before that.

“But then it’s just going back and forth between these two lines indefinitely! That’s not possible! There’s nowhere for it to go between the two worlds! It could only work if…!” Sunset paused. “If…”

Sunset looked over her mental diagram. The second arrow rotated in place as she considered her options. She moved it to the outside of her diagram so that it touched the tail of the first arrow with the line itself running between them. Only then did she see some sort of semblance of symmetry (one which ran through the arrows pointing into the lines and then the lines themselves).

Sunset backpedaled. “If there’s a third line…”

The two lines became three, and Sunset slotted the second arrow between them.

She frowned. “Okay, but now that third line is missing something. I think I have to do the same thing with this.”

A third arrow appeared, and she stuck that to the tail of the second. Sunset frowned before bringing out a fourth line. “Now the fourth one is off! I need a fifth! And a sixth! And…”

Sunset Shimmer felt a drop of sweat run down her face. “N-No way…” She stared daggers into her diagram and grit her teeth. “There will never be enough lines. T-there will never be enough worlds for this picture to work, unless…”

A shiver ran down Sunset’s spine. “So… basically… the big takeaway from this… is that there are i-infinitely many worlds. And they’re all connected through the crystal ball!”

With that, she took the crystal ball and threw it forward. The minuscule fire transformed into a raging inferno with a large, glowing infinity symbol in the very dead center, leaving singes on her coat in the process.

“Infinitely many worlds below us. And infinitely many worlds above us.”

Sunset ran a hoof through her curly mane. “Oh… bucking buck. What the buck.”

She ran her eyes over the large blaze before her with a worried expression on her face. Briefly, she assumed a fetal position in the middle of the expanse.

“Get it together, Sunset!” she cried to herself. “Get it together… You should have known this was possible after reading about omniverse theory.”

Sunset righted herself and let out a long sigh. “Okay, okay. Infinite worlds. And they only differ by the coordinates we were sent to. Why do the coordinates differ?”

A new flame, this one containing a set of numbers, appeared. The inequality symbol from earlier flew forth and mingled with it.

“It’s safe to assume that the Nameless in our world is the same Nameless in all of theirs. Otherwise, we would have some serious divergence going on. So… it’s safe to assume the data we’ll find in our world is the same as what could be found in theirs.”

Sunset placed a hoof on her chin. “But why the difference? What determines which stones we go after?

Sunset thought back to what she had seen in the book. She knew that it contained several sets of parameters for searching for stones. There was also a long list of coordinates. A good number in each set had been crossed out.

A large but docile flame which showed both aspects floomed into existence. She examined the picture within.

“We’re collecting twelve. We could reasonably say they will collect a different twelve below us. Could it be reasonable to assume that they have collected a third set of twelve above us?”

Sunset blinked. “We’re… all collecting different pieces to the same puzzle.”

A flame containing a puzzle piece appeared.

“And if that’s the case, the differences of which stones we’re chasing are completely arbitrary. The entirety of the stones will eventually be collected. And, eventually, all of the information will exist. Scattered, maybe, but it will exist.

“If all of that information was ever in one place, we’d be able to write this spell. Right?”

The docile flame fizzled into a much smaller one about a question mark. “…So, how do I access this infinite network of information?”

The smaller flames began to orbit around the raging inferno of the infinity symbol. Sunset watched as they whirled around faster and faster and she could hardly tell any two apart before long. Sunset watched, slack-jawed, as the speeding items slowly closed in on the inferno.

They hit. The inferno engulfed them before growing into a monster of a fire. Sunset had to shield her eyes for a moment as it raged at its highest capacity.

The inferno suddenly shrunk down to the size of her hoof. It was smaller and stiffer than all of the other flames before it, but unlike them, the fire glowed a hot blue color. Against the fiery-red background of the expanse, the blue flame ate every bit of her wandering attention.

Sunset crept up to it, sucked in a breath, and grabbed at the blue fire. The flame in her hoof exploded and engulfed her. Sunset’s body disintegrated and the rest of the expanse followed suit.

“Eureka!”

Sunset’s eyes flew open.

The rest of the tower greeted her. The shadows had crept to different places in the room from when she had gone under. A quick look down revealed the lingering smoke ribbons of spent incense and the globbed forms of the candle bases. The hourglass behind her was now mostly spent.

She stood up with a huff. “I know what I have to do now.”

* * *

Rarity looked up at the sun and brushed some dirt off the side of her mane. I should have paid the extra bits for the cart, she thought.

She placed the opened bottle on the ground next to her before reaching into her saddlebag for a handkerchief. The embroidered edging tore in several places and the dirtied body looked browner than its native white. Rarity let out a dejected wheeze, reached back into her saddlebag, and found no alternatives.

Oh my, this really is my last one, isn’t it? she thought. She levitated the cloth near a dirty patch on the underside of her neck, paused, and then decided the cloth was somehow dirtier than she was. “Ew,” she said with a disgusted grimace.

The flicked the cloth once and shook her head. “I am going straight to the spa when I get home,” she thought aloud. “I wonder if Princess Celestia knows any good places to—”

A loud zaaaaap pierced the air as a purple ball shot out of the mud, interrupting her train of thought as it unceremoniously splashed her. She shrieked as it hit her coat and she reeled back. That only served to throw up even more mud.

“Disgusting!”

Rarity looked up at the glowing orb above her, basking in the dazzling display of sparks. A magical aura held the stone in place for many moments, allowing Rarity to position herself underneath.

And she winced. Goodness, how long has that stone been underground in all of that dirt? And then she looked over at the worn cloth in her magical grasp. She gasped. “Ideeeaaa!”

Just as the magic spell dissolved and the stone began to drop, Rarity glided the handkerchief underneath, using it to scoop the stone right out of the air.

She let out an affirmative “Humph” as she levitated the whole package back into her saddlebag. Without so much as even a glance, she then magically pulled out a small, purple sphere. The hard object shined against the rays of the sun.

Had it really come time to chew on the teleportation gum?

Rarity chuckled, eying the object. Then she took one last look at the cliffs around her and one sour glance at the muddy ground underneath her. “Indeed. I am leaving now.”

She popped the gum into her mouth and chewed down. An explosion of a flavor that she couldn’t place cascaded through her muzzle. The energy coursed through her body, and in short order, it swallowed her whole. She could feel her entire being torn apart, bit by bit, and yet it didn’t hurt.

As her world twisted and distorted and collapsed into itself, she had one last thought. Hmmm, I wonder if anypony else has encountered anything unsavory at their sites.

My, what trouble that would be!

* * *

Fluttershy tentatively set down the lantern and reached into her saddlebag. Her eyes darted between the various tunnels snaking away from the large cavern she currently stood in.

She swallowed; she could barely see in front of her face, let alone clearly tell which tunnels went where. Or if they even existed for that matter; the telltale depressions of their mouths were her only clue of their whereabouts.

A screech shot forth from one of the adjoining tunnels. She winced under the sound and whipped her attention back toward the ground.

Still nothing.

Her hoof bumped against something round in her bag and she yanked it out in a heartbeat. The teleportation gum shone against the lantern’s light.

A cascade of cries and shrieks and the cacophony of rushing air burst from the tunnel. A drop of sweat ran down her face and she grit her teeth. “Come on, please…” she muttered.

She flipped the teleportation gum in her hoof several times while staring at the spot on the ground.

Fluttershy hoped the lantern wouldn’t decide to die.

The howls became more voluminous and drew closer still.

She began pawing at the ground. “Please go faster. Please go faster. Please please please please pretty please please. Please go faster.”

With a loud boom, the ground heaved, sending debris in all directions. The stone shot upward, bathed in a shower of sparks, and at the moment of its apex, it floated there.

Fluttershy gasped. Finally! she thought. Without a second thought, she popped the piece of gum into her mouth and positioned herself underneath the stone.

In the darkness, a set of red eyes appeared and moved against the backdrop. With every passing second, dozens more followed behind them. Their cries grew in increasing number as they emerged.

The sparks fizzled out and the stone fell into her outstretched hoof.

Fluttershy bit down.

The gum exploded and her entire body dissolved into a series of green-colored flames. The fires banded together and sailed through the air, disappearing toward the exit.

* * *

Applejack charged headlong through another patch of grass before she dared to crane her neck toward what ran behind her.

Several primates, covered from head to toe in hair, thundered behind her, hurling high-pitched and primal screams at her. Their rugged and reddened faces slipped between expressions of rage and bewilderment, but in both cases, they glared her down through beady eyes.

Applejack groaned. How in the hay did I get into this mess?

She looked forward to focus on outpacing them. Her saddlebag’s loose buckle flapped with each step, and the contents tumbled about. At times, they dug into her side and she attempted to shrug them off each time, but the pounding was starting to pile up.

As she charged through the long, yellow stalks of grass, she craned her neck to look over their tops. The path ahead appeared to thin out ahead of her. She leaped into the air for a better vantage point.

Rather, the whole earth dropped off altogether. She paled.

Applejack dug her hooves into the dirt as she landed. The dirt rebounded under her hooves and she skidded.

And then her hoof caught on something and Applejack fell face-first. Something shifted in her saddlebag.

A speeding glint caught her eye and she looked up. Her one remaining glass bottle, containing Twilight’s stone finder spell, flew through the air and then broke against the hard ground.

Zaaaaap went the spell. Applejack watched as the ball of electricity hung in the air.

The baboons behind her stood by in enraptured awe at the spell twisted and crackled about, any trace of their malevolence eroded from their features. A few even reached out at some of the sparks that arced in their direction.

Applejack lowered her stetson to block out the view. Now that the bottle was broken, the spell was cast. If there was one thing Applejack knew from the instructions, the spell had a range.

Applejack gulped. Ah’m not near where Ah need to be!

The vortex surged once, twice, and then it dimmed for a moment. No, rather, unlike the last time when the spell had rocketed into the ground, this one fizzled in midair. Several loose figments blew away in the breeze as it disassembled itself. The spell disintegrated until only its core remained, and then that disappeared in a dim flash of white light a few moments later.

A cool wind swept through the area, passing several decaying leaves through and around all of them. Everything else stayed still and silent. An eternity brushed past them.

Applejack shakily rose to her hooves.

…Ah failed.

Applejack whirled around to face the baboons who returned their attention to her in kind.

Ah failed.

One of the baboons screamed.

Their serene picture quickly dissolved into the party of shrieks and cries from before. Several pounded the dirt and bared their fangs and made several lunges toward her but never went all the way.

Applejack retreated, step by step. Step by step, the line of primates inched forward.

Applejack’s hindhoof pierced through the earth, sending several rocks tumbling into the gorge. Applejack cringed and pulled it back. “Wooooaaaah nelly.”

She grabbed her hat as she looked between the mob in front of her and the drop behind her.

She grit her teeth together. Looks like Ah’m finished.

Applejack cautiously reached in and grabbed her orange piece of gum, keeping her eyes trained on the pack all the while. She then fumbled with the strap on her saddlebag, managing to pull it tight.

She took one last look down at the earth far below and swallowed.

Applejack whirled around once more and then leaped off the edge of the cliff just as the baboons surged forward. She quickly wrapped her free hoof around her stetson to keep it from blowing away as she plummeted down the side of the cliff face.

She threw the gum into her mouth. She twisted around to take one last look at the baboons who had piled up against the edge of the cliff.

Ah’m sorry, Twilight… Ah failed you.

Applejack bit down and then exploded into a plethora of green embers that the wind scooped up and carried away.

* * *

Sunset gazed out toward the sun through the first-floor balcony. For a moment, she rested her forelegs on the balcony and pondered the rest of the sky.

She frowned. We have a storm scheduled for tomorrow, don’t we? she thought. Rain could easily get in here with this open balcony. Hmmmm.

Sunset flared her horn and fired a short and weak bolt out. However, the bolt rebounded against an invisible wall and struck the floor beside her instead.

She glanced down at the small mark left on the floor and chuckled. Well, she thought, at least that still works.

The large, blue double doors behind her creaked open and Sunset whirled around. “Spike! You’re back!”

Spike skipped through the opening. “You bet. Any luck?” he asked with a scratchy voice as he presented the ball.

Sunset used her magic to take it from him. “Lots of it. I think I’ve made a huge breakthrough.”

Spike nodded before he plopped himself on the couch. “Tell me about it?”

She grinned. “Well, for starters, I realized that we’re dealing with an infinite worlds scenario.”

He frowned. “…Uhm?”

“Basically, if Twilight’s in her world and we’re in another world, then I think there’s a third world that’s watching us from nine days into the future,” she explained. “And then there’s a fourth one watching them. And it just goes on to infinity.”

Spike frowned and crossed his arms. “Uh… yeah… So, really… it’s just like we thought, huh?”

“Yup.”

Spike’s scales flattened. “And… does that mean our Twilight is, you know… actually gone?”

Sunset swallowed. “Maybe. And we owe it to her to not let this other world’s Twilight make the same mistakes our Twilight made. We still have time to save her life.”

She leaned forward and said, “But I have a plan. It’s kind of a gamble, but if it pays off… I’ll not only save her, but ours, and every Twilight in existence.”

Spike’s jaw dropped. “You… you really think so?”

Sunset nodded. “But I have to get working on it right now.”

Spike nodded and handed the crystal ball to her. “Okay. I’ll be down here if you need me. I’ll probably be burping the girls up soon.”

Sunset turned and ascended into the study area and, after taking a moment to bask in the towering bookshelves, looked down into the ball. The view showed the living area. She surmised that Twilight had gone down there sometime before Spike had returned. She glanced around the balcony within the ball, and then, on a whim, glanced around the room in search of Twilight.

Her eyes stuck on a particular object in the room. A brown hooded cloak hung on one of the hangers.

Sunset rubbed her chin perplexedly. That must be the one she’ll wear to the door, she thought.

She shrugged and willed the view into the study area.

Twilight hunched herself over a chemistry book, flipping through several bookmarked pages as she glanced between it and the vials on the desk.

Sunset placed her hoof on the ball. “Hey, Twilight.”

Twilight’s ears twitched and she glanced upward. “Hi, Sunset. Figure anything out?”

Sunset nodded, “Yeah, I figured a lot of stuff out. I’m going to try and access the multiverse.”

Twilight ran a hoof across the page. She blinked several times and took a long, deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Do you have a plan?”

“It’s my ‘go for broke’ plan. The all or nothing. My way of getting The Answer. And to make it work, I’ll need a couple of things from you.”

“The Answer?” Twilight asked.

“That’s what I’ve decided to call the spell,” Sunset replied.

Twilight stared blankly into the page, idly flipped it, and then glanced over at her own crystal ball.

Twilight snapped her book shut and cantered over toward the desk. After swiping some loose articles out of the way, she pressed her quill against a blank notecard. “What do you need?”

Sunset smirked. “First things first: do you remember the first set of coordinates that you generated?”

“Yes?”

“Those coordinates are correct. I want you to send them through with your care package.”

Twilight wrote down a single sentence on her notecard. “Okay, I’ll do that. What else?”

Sunset quickly glanced around the bookshelves on both sides of the room, centered on the desk area, then magically grabbed down a blue sketchbook. “I want... you to let me copy your entire book.”

Twilight glanced over at her journal. “You mean, the one I copied off of you?”

“Yes,” Sunset said, stamping a hoof against the floor, “that one. I’d like to copy that through the night.”

Twilight nodded. “I think… I can enchant the journal to flip pages every few minutes. I’ll keep the ball close by if you need me to make adjustments in the night.”

Sunset clapped her hooves together. “Great, thanks.”

“Anything else?”

Sunset placed a hoof against her muzzle as she looked into the crystal ball. She glanced hard at the journal, stroking her chin all the while.

“Yes,” Sunset finally said, “there’s one last thing.”

“Alright, what is it?”

She swallowed. “Twilight? Do you trust me?”

Twilight glanced upward with a contemplative frown, and then she slowly nodded. “With my life, Sunset.”

Sunset sucked in a breath. “Okay. Alright. So, when all of this is said and done… whether or not we have The Answer for you or not… when it’s time for you to leave… I want you to burn your journal.”

10 - Expunge

Chrysalis. Failure.

Sombra. Failure.

Starswirl. Amethyst Key. Luna. Sunset Shimmer.

Twilight Sparkle… Now the latest failure.

Princess Celestia stared into the picture frame. A princess stared back at her. Her former protégé, adorned with a crown and a large dress that brought out her radiance.

But the childlike smile drew Celestia’s eyes above everything else. That smile was full of wonder at the things around her, taking in all the sights and cherishing every moment. And the eyes were the same as she had seen several years prior. Those same eyes had looked up at her when they met at that entrance exam and invariably sparkled every time afterward.

She was the one success Celestia thought she had. And Celestia had failed her.

Her regalia felt heavier than ever before.

Celestia strained under their pull. With a grimace, she stepped out of them. She practically threw every piece into its place on the rack atop the desk.

With the exception of her crown. For long moments, she held it in front of her. She gazed over every part of it.

That crown was the symbol of her place. It marked her as the ruler of Equestria. It represented and required her success.

A shiver ran down the entirety of her spine. I can’t look at this, she thought.

She went to place it on the desk like she normally had it, but it toppled into a crooked position instead. She made no attempt to correct it.

Instead, she took the picture of Twilight and drifted into the adjacent room. Celestia sidled up to another desk in the back corner. She placed the picture frame on the corner before taking a seat in front of the mirror.

Her mane required little grooming on most days. And on days like today, which were nothing but court hearings and signing documents, the physical demand was low; not enough to disturb her image.

Celestia looked her reflection up and down. She noticed every little split end, every little knot, and every little splotch of missed dirt. She noticed the slight bags under her eyes, the misplaced red in her face, and the mismatched frays of her otherwise sparkling white coat.

I look like a mess, Celestia thought as she scanned her features, trying to recognize the mare in the mirror, trying to recognize the image of a princess that peered out to her every time she stepped in front of her reflection.

But with each sweep, her frown grew deeper. Another quick glance at Twilight’s picture sealed the deal. Because I am nothing but a mess.

She gave the stranger in the mirror an accusatory glare. Who are you to be princess? she thought. Who are you to call yourself a ruler? A protector? Celestia cast a piercing glare on the reflection. How can you protect a country… when you could not even protect her…?

The more she stared at the mare in the mirror, the more she trembled. Her hooves clung to the desk like she was hanging off a cliff. She might as well have been.

And then it occurred to Celestia just who the mare in the mirror was. How could… I…?

She slammed her head onto the desk. The force of the blow sent the picture of Twilight toppling off the desk. The frame landed with an audible crack, coating the floor in a glassy dust.

Celestia rested her head there as every little thought and memory she ever had of Twilight Sparkle flowed through her mind. The friendship letters, the ascension, the rough waters at the wedding, defeating Lord Tirek... The small smiles, the warm conversations. The occasional night by the fire.

Celestia wept. Tear after tear flowed down her face and dripped onto the lacquer. A small puddle formed underneath her muzzle with each new drop as her sobs steadily grew in volume.

Twilight had done everything right. Celestia had done everything wrong. And Celestia was still alive.

And Twilight Sparkle, her better in so many ways, was not.

Celestia’s cries echoed throughout her room. The walls shook, the furniture trembled. The possibility that it could be heard well down the hall skipped over her head. They echoed into the night, into the endless void, with no reprieve in sight.

The steady pitter-patter of rain hitting the windows (or magical barrier in the case of the downstairs balcony), combined with the simultaneous crusade against the castle’s stone walls, howled throughout the tower. The rolling thunder shook the tower, vibrating several objects within into a chorus of what sounded like a metallic clang.

Spike punted one of the cushions into the wall. He watched it bounce lifelessly off the surface before he turned to another pillow and punted it as well with a frustrated cry.

On the couch, Sunset Shimmer isolated herself behind a curled-up position. Her eyes rocked from side to side in a searching manner.

Spike ignored the rumbling in his stomach and skipped over to where the others stood about.

Applejack paced about furtively. “Ah can’t believe it…”

Rarity cradled her face in her hooves. “I knew this was a long shot. I knew it.”

While Fluttershy’s eyes remained glued to the floor, the makings of a scowl flashed across her features for a brief instant.

Applejack shook her head. “Ah can’t believe it…”

Rainbow Dash thrashed her hooves against the wall once more. The resulting bangs mixed with the torrential booms from the storm outside.

“Girls,” Pinkie Pie interjected, flapping her forelegs about, “we only have a few hours left! We need to think of something!”

Spike held himself close. They weren’t in the place he wanted to be. This was not the ending he wanted.

“Whatdowedo?” Pinkie Pie cried. “Whatdowedo?”

“We should have done something else,” Rarity grumbled, crossing her forelegs.

Applejack tried to hide her face behind her stetson. “Ah was so sure this thing with the stones was gunna work.”

“And now here we are and it didn’t work.”

“But didn’t you hear what Sunset said earlier, though?” Pinkie Pie interjected. “She said that if this happened, then this us getting stones was never gunna work.”

Rarity’s eye twitched. “But that’s just it, dear! If this was never going to work, then we should have tried something else.” She snarled. “We were foolish to follow Sunset Shimmer so quickly.”

Several gasps rose up in response. Spike opened his mouth to reply but then realized doing so would have made him contradict her. Instead, he crossed his arms and grimaced.

“Rarity!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “That’s mean!”

Fluttershy shook her head. “I’m… afraid I agree with Rarity.”

“Oh for land’s sake!” Applejack threw her hooves into the air. “Can’t either of you see what’s wrong here?”

Rainbow Dash shot up. “Yeah! What’s the big idea?”

“You two are the ones to talk!” Rarity scoffed, pointing an accusatory hoof. “You didn’t even complete your tasks!”

The hairs on Rainbow Dash’s mane stood on their ends. “Oh, don’t you bucking dare.”

Applejack brandished her hoof. “Why I oughta—”

Fluttershy shook her head. “Uhm, yeah. Rarity…”

Rarity looked over with a raised eyebrow.

Fluttershy frowned. “That was really kinda mean…”

“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie yelled, “that was a really low blow!”

Rarity sighed. “Fine! But I still say that Sunset should be—”

“No. Ya know what? Fine!” Applejack exclaimed. “Blame me and Rainbow Dash! Go right on ahead! But keep Sunset out of this! We did what we could and what we could just wasn’t enough.” She pointed toward Sunset. “Ya can’t blame her for tryin’.”

“She tried harder than all of us, even!” Pinkie Pie seconded.

Rarity glowered for a moment before casting a glance at the fetal mare on the couch. Sunset’s blank expression melted her in response, and Rarity hung her head in shame.

Spike decided to barge in on that moment. “Stop it. Don’t any of you even remember what Twilight said?” he asked, pointing at the crystal ball. “She said she could do something if she had all of those stones. Sunset did exactly what Twilight talked about, we did exactly what Twilight talked about.”

Applejack snorted. “That’s right. We did the only thing we could do at the time,” she said with the stamp of her hoof. “Weren’t nothin’ else we coulda done.”

Several coughs erupted from the ball. Each cough became increasingly labored until, finally, Twilight sounded like she was about to choke. They looked to find Twilight Sparkle sprawled across the floor, rubbing her temples amidst several pained moans.

Rarity shook her head. “Well, we simply must do something else now!” she exclaimed.

“Ah know!” Applejack cried.

Fluttershy frowned. “But what?”

Applejack gnashed her teeth together. “Ah don’t know!”

Rainbow Dash looked out of the window. Past the sheets of flowing water, the sky offered tiny shreds of fleeting daylight. The sun would set soon. “Well, we need to think of something and we need to think of it now! We’re running out of time!”

A flash of lightning outside the tower lit up the room, casting their silhouettes across the walls. A loud boom accompanied it which made them shiver.

Spike could feel the ever-diminishing time choking him. The feeling worsened with every second. Somehow, he could name the dread festering in his stomach. Spike felt his body go cold and he looked at the downpour outside.

Where were they to go from there? For once, Spike had no answer.

* * *

Rarity felt another hair split as she watched the mare inside the ball. “Twilight! Tell me what you want us to do! Tell me tell me tell me!”

Twilight scowled as she folded another piece of paper and placed it on top of the stack. She levitated over the next set of readings and folded those onto the top of the stack as well. “I’m telling you like I told the others, Rarity: there’s nothing you can do now,” she replied at length. “You should have known that this was coming.”

“Out of the question. Don’t you dare tell me to give up on you.”

“I’m sorry. There really is nothing you can do. Really and truly.”

Rarity shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She passed a glance to each of the others, most of whom had gathered in a tight circle as they ran their mental wheels. Every so often, a few words of suggestion would pass between them, only to be shot down with simple rebuttals.

Twilight levitated over the various notecards and miscellaneous scribbles that had accumulated over the past few days. “I’m going to pour my remaining life energy into the door as the Nameless tries to surface. That will kill it forever,” she said before throwing the cards into the wastebasket at the head of the stairs. “And that will be the end of it.”

Rarity pounded her hoof against the ball. “But Twilight! That’ll kill you too. Don’t you even think about making the same mistake that our Twilight did!”

Twilight didn’t answer. Instead, she used her magic to grab the crystal ball before toting it down the staircase.

Rarity sighed and thought the ball’s view downward to follow.

Twilight slunk into the kitchen area where she set the ball on the counter. For a moment, she leaned against the wood, trying to catch her breath. “If I had a chance to do things differently…” she croaked, “maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t do all of this.”

Rarity saw Spike glance up out of the corner of her eye. She looked back down. “You still can! We… we might not be getting our Twilight back. I know that. But you’re not bound by what our Twilight did! You have that chance!”

“Maybe,” Twilight said, her voice just above a whisper. “My future isn’t entirely written.”

The handle to the front door jiggled, causing Twilight to spring backward in alarm. Even clear across the tower, Twilight could see the handle oscillate up and down as if somepony was trying to enter.

Rarity frowned. What in heaven’s name is going on now? she thought.

“Huh?” came Rainbow Dash’s voice from the other side of the door.

“Huh,” Spike’s voice said, “I thought she’d be here.”

A drop of sweat appeared on Twilight’s brow as she stared the door down. She raised a hoof to trot over but failed to take the first step.

Rarity gasped. “Sweet Celestia. Girls! Come quick!” she squeaked as she frantically waved them over.

Four mares and a dragon leaped up from the floor and scurried over to where Rarity sat. Rarity, in turn, hopped off the couch so they could crowd around.

“Nine days ago,” Rarity said, “we came to the castle to pick up Twilight to take her to the opera. Remember?”

Pinkie Pie gasped. “Yes! I do! I do!”

The door thumped a few times. “Twilighhhhht!?” Rainbow Dash’s voice called. “Are you in thereeeee!?”

Applejack let her mouth go slack for a moment. “No way. That’s happenin’ now?”

Twilight’s ears twitched as she listened to what Rarity had said. Swallowing, she crept toward the door and stopped just short of it. “H-Hi, everypony.”

“Twilight! Twilight! Hey! Let us in!” Rainbow Dash’s voice said as the handle jiggled again.

Rarity furrowed her brow as she thought the ball’s view closer to the door.

Twilight fought through a crestfallen expression and shook her head. “Sorry, girls, I can’t do that right now.”

“...Why?” asked Rainbow Dash’s voice.

Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wait… this is…”

Pinkie Pie jabbed a hoof toward the ball. “This is when she turned us away!”

“It’s… it’s dangerous to be in here right now!” Twilight exclaimed.

“Uh, Twilight, we’ve handled dangerous things before,” Applejack’s voice said.

“It’s really serious business, and I can’t get you involved this time. I’m sorry, but please, trust me on this one.”

“Twilight, darling,” Rarity’s voice chuckled, “we are going to go to see Don Giofilly together. You must come with us!”

“…Then go and have fun,” Twilight replied without missing a beat. “Don’t worry about me.”

Applejack furrowed her brow and touched a hoof to the ball. “Wait a sec, Twi. Listen!”

Twilight looked upward with a raised eyebrow.

“This all’s happened before!” Applejack continued. “Ya gotta talk to us this time! Don’t do the same thing our Twilight did!”

Rarity’s “Humph!” sounded through the door.

Rarity nodded. “Twilight, it’s just us. This is it! This is your chance! You said you were worried about running into other ponies. You said that if you had another chance, you’d take it. This is it!”

“Darn the tether, Twilight!” Applejack said. “Let us in!”

“Go, Twilight…” Fluttershy urged.

“Come on, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted.

“Hey…” Pinkie Pie’s voice said, “I hear voices. Twilight, are there other ponies in there with you?”

Fluttershy gasped and pointed toward the door. “We heard us…”

“Tell them, Twilight!” Rarity yelled. “Tell them! Let us in!”

Twilight ground her teeth together as she stared the door down. She reached up to turn the lock and open the door but shied away. Finally, Twilight turned and slumped against the wooden frame. She sat for what seemed like an eternity with a contemplative expression. Shades of a grimace flashed across her features.

Twilight glanced upward. “But… all of you are alive in the world above mine…?” she whispered.

Spike shuddered. “…What?”

Sunset’s head popped up from behind them. She leaned on Spike’s shoulder and watched without even acknowledging her own presence.

Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes with heavy resignation. “…No.”

A thunderclap shook the tower.

Rarity’s mouth all but fell to the floor. What… are you…?

“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash screamed.

“I hear them too,” Rainbow Dash’s voice said. “What’s going on, Twilight? Can you at least tell us what’s going on?”

Twilight shook her head. “…No.”

“Twilight Sparkle!” Rarity roared. “What are you doing!?”

Applejack banged a hoof against the ball. “What in tarnation, Twi!?”

“Oh my bucking—” Rainbow Dash cursed before placing a hoof on the ball. “No! Don’t you bucking dare!”

“Twilight, come on!” Spike’s voice exclaimed. “Talk to us! Talk to me!”

Rainbow Dash turned her attention to the door. “You have to stop her!” Rainbow cried. “Open that door!”

Rarity shuddered before turning her attention to the door as well. “Kick it down!”

“…I am sorry,” Twilight replied, her voice growing tremulous, “I just… I just—I don’t need you here right now. Please. Just, go away.”

“Twi!” Applejack cried.

“Twilight!” Spike’s voice cried.

“Twiiiiliiiight!” Pinkie Pie cried.

Fluttershy hid a sorrowful squeak behind her hooves.

Twilight gnashed her teeth together and appeared ready to tear something apart, even with her eyes still closed. A moment later, she tilted her head back and screamed into the sky, “Go away!”

Applejack frantically pounded a desperate hoof against the crystal ball. “Don’! You! Walk! Away!”

Rarity let out a short, uncontained, and somewhat-desperate scream. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not happening!

“Fine,” Applejack’s voice finally scoffed. “Have it yer way, Twilight! Ah mean, it’s not like we came all the way here just for you, anyway!”

“Don’ you walk away, you gal-dern idiot!” Applejack tremulously yelled.

Twilight remained pressed against the doorway. She held her breath, not daring to move so much as an inch from her spot.

Rainbow Dash almost collapsed to the floor. Her knees shook and her features quivered. “Uh-uhhhh… N-n-no…”

“I guess now is not a good time,” Fluttershy’s fading voice said. “We should just try again later...”

The room lay still and quiet, and the ponies within remained equally so. The roar of the torrential downpour outside returned in full force and dominated the area. Distant booms made their way in, shaking the windows and rattling the china on the counter.

Rarity let her head fall against the ball in defeat. “Oh my goddess…” she wheezed.

“She…” Fluttershy croaked.

Sunset gulped. “W-was that how it happened before?”

Applejack threw her hat to the floor. “That’s exactly how it happened before.”

That was it. It was set in stone.

Rarity heard a deep, wooden thump, and snapped to attention. She looked around for a moment before she realized it had come out of the ball. She looked.

Twilight banged the door with her hoof again before she slid down the frame. The princess let out what sounded like an agonizing scream, futilely banged against the door a few more times, and then collapsed completely into a series of shrill wails. Streams of liquid poured down Twilight’s face as her labored cries cascaded around the tower. “Oh Celestia… Oh C-Celestia… Ooooohhhhhhhhh!”

Pinkie Pie’s mane lost its volume and fell to her sides. Pinkamena then buried her face in her hooves and wept. Fluttershy buried herself into Applejack who, in turn, wordlessly held her close. Sunset hung her head defeatedly and slunk off.

The remaining three held still as statues as they looked down upon the broken mare within the ball.

* * *

Spike opened his mouth to say something but, for what seemed like the twentieth time, he growled instead and retreated. And with that, just like every other time before that, the shaking in his hands worsened.

Twilight floated several pieces off the machine, dislodging parts between the occasional sob. The various plates and beams accumulated into a pile at the very back corner of the room. Twilight threw a bunch of screws into the pile before wiping her face of dirt and water.

Several thoughts swam through Spike’s head and he couldn’t decide which one he wanted to out. But with how his entire body was shuddering and with the heat crawling up his spine, he could tell that something would out.

He scratched at another itch on his head. His hands balled into fists against his will. He tried to control his breath but found that control steadily escaping him.

Twilight sat back, examined her work, shook her head with an exasperated huff, and then walked to the desk. She used her magic to pick up the journal, the item in which she had been working over the past few days.

She flipped through several pages, sighed as she slid a hoof down some unfinished equations, and then snapped the book shut. Her eyes glazed over toward the trash bin near the stairs.

“Twilight…” Spike said.

“Yes?”

“…Why did you do it?”

Twilight sniffled. “It’s because… I… If I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: I don’t want to lose you.”

“And I don’t want to lose you either, Twilight. Please,” Spike pleaded.

“I’m so sorry, Spike, but we’re out of time. I have to go stop the Nameless or else it will get out.”

“We could have stopped it together,” he choked. “Twilight, you shoulda said something. You shoulda said anything. You shoulda let us in.”

Twilight solemnly shook her head. “Out of the question,” she said in a firm and pointed manner as she levitated over a box of matches.

Spike felt a tingle run down his spine. “What are you doing?”

“I am expunging all the data,” she said. “I have to preserve the loop.”

“But the loop is going to get you killed, Twilight! All of you!” he yelled.

“And it’s going to save you! All of you!”

The others looked up at that moment. One by one, they wandered over. They remained quiet and kept their distance, but they did so with each other.

“I chose this path, Spike,” Twilight explained. “I chose it several days ago. I will not let this monster tether to you. Not now! Not ever!”

Spike threw a claw into the air. “That’s insane! That’s crazy! Twilight!” Spike took a moment to rub his face in frustration. “Twilight… that means you’ll… die!”

“I know.”

Spike flinched. The several words that had climbed to the top of his mouth sunk down again. He knew that the response to that required words that he did not yet have.

Twilight struck a match and held the resulting flame up to her eyes. She cantered over to the trash can and stared at the countless scraps and notes that she had placed within. She dropped the match into the bin and the contents lit up. The flames danced within the receptacle and grew by the moment.

“I-I’m so scared,” Twilight quivered. “I’m… I didn’t think things would end this way. I’m so afraid…”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Twilight…”

“But I know it works! It won’t be for nothing!” she exclaimed, stamping a hoof against the floor. “You are living proof of that!”

“And what about us!? You’re going to leave us without you!” Spike fired back.

Twilight flinched.

“I already live in a world without you, Twilight. And you’re about to make another one. I’ve already lost mine, but Twilight… I need you!”

“Spike, I—”

He shook his head. “I can’t do it! I can’t. I can’t!”

“Spike!”

Spike banged his claw against the ball. “I can’t lose you again!”

Twilight reeled. Every hint of anger in her expression vanished as her mouth fell against her will. She blinked several times, trying to stave off the urge to let more tears fall. She clutched at her chest as if she was afraid her very heart would shrivel up and stop.

Spike sighed. “I can’t…”

Twilight grimaced. Her frown drew so deep that her mouth appeared like it would fall off her face. She swallowed. “Oh, Spike…” she croaked. “I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”

She trotted over to the desk. She examined its contents for a few moments and eventually settled on a small piece of paper. Said piece contained her diagram map of the caverns. She flipped it over and found the other side blank.

Spike watched with a crestfallen expression.

Twilight swallowed and levitated a quill over. “I… I know that I can’t be there for you. But… I can make sure you don’t have to worry about what happened to me. I know this won’t mean much, but I owe this to you, at least.”

The other six shared uneven glances. A few swallowed.

“Dear everyone,”

Twilight muttered the words aloud as they made them onto the paper.

“If you are reading this, it means I have lost my life repulsing a great evil.”

Pinkamena snorted, trying to stifle the shivers running down her body. In a flash, she disappeared up the stairs and shortly reappeared with the farewell note in her mouth.

“I had too little time to prepare for it. I was unable to think of any other way. My hooves were tied.”

The seven of them glanced over the contents of the letter in Pinkamena’s hooves. Strained glances passed between them as the letter slowly realized itself.

“You don’t want to know what things would have happened had this thing got out. I shudder to think of it, and I take solace in the fact that I can spare you that knowledge. But I was able to shut the door on it, and in doing so, I terminated it, permanently. It will never befall Equestria.”

Several of Twilight’s tears splattered in several locations and she bent over the desk for support. The quill paused as she looked out the window toward the newly risen moon. A moon whose face had changed since she had moved to Ponyville. A moon whose face had changed when everything began.

Twilight looked back at the paper and cursed under her breath.

“These past years have been the best of my life. Thank you for the wonderful memories. Thank you all.

“Your faithful friend,

“Twilight Sparkle”

For some moments Twilight considered her work even through her sobs. Her quill hovered over the word ‘faithful’, lingering over her choice there as if debating whether it was the right one or not. Finally, Twilight settled for throwing the quill across the room.

Spike fell onto his haunches, set the ball onto the ground, and then buried his face in his hands. He had to resist the urge to cry out several things that he knew he would regret. He had to resist the urge to hurl the ball out of frustration because he knew he would regret it. He had to resist the urge to contradict Twilight more than he already had because he knew that it would go nowhere.

Twilight wiped her face before she settled on the journal once more. She lifted it up, scanned the cover, and then turned toward the somewhat-diminished inferno within the trash bin.

Twilight tossed the journal into the trash. The flames within responded with renewed energy, streaking upward as they engulfed the tome. Twilight watched the book writhe about with a cold and lifeless expression. The blank glaze in her eyes reflected the dancing flames. As the inferno grew, the flickering glow cast itself on the walls in greater magnitudes and the crackles grew louder and louder.

This was the way it ended. Spike had known that from the start. As his mind drifted to the charred mess that Pinkie Pie had found in the trash several days ago, he knew it even more.

Nothing had changed.

11 - Surrender

Spike hopped from ledge to ledge without any real regard for where he went. The landings offered little ground and took considerable effort to peg down, but he put his full capacities to navigating them. Reaching the bottom was his only concern.

Ledge after ledge met his feet as he spiraled around the deep hole in the cavern. The ambient light from the crystalline walls gave him enough to see. Through exasperated breaths and clouded eyes, he looked down and saw the bottom.

And he saw a passageway at one end. Spike hit the ground running, heedless of the several voices behind him, heedless of the scattered bones, and heedless of the stale smell of saturated dirt.

He clutched the letter in his hand even tighter as he sped down the tunnel. He felt every drop of blood boil under his scales as he ran faster than ever before. His frantic pants echoed throughout the cavern as he bolted down the corridor.

Even as the passage turned left and started on a long spiral downward, Spike continued onward, certain that he drew close to the end. His heart beat faster and faster with each leg of the route.

He chanced a look behind him to see five ponies racing after him. The five of them bore worried frowns as they tried to keep up. Their eyes remained fixed on him all the way. He hadn’t even thought of explaining anything to them.

Reaching the bottom was his only concern. I have to get there! I have to get there!

The path eventually took another left and then Spike saw it: large and ornate double doors that rose up in front of him. Stone swirls ran up and down their height, creating intricate pictures of beings he could not recognize. In the middle, where each door met, a small and perfectly hemispherical crater dug into the grey rock.

He ran the short distance to the doorway and found two items on the ground. A clear and pristine ball made of crystal sat on the ground before the doors; he saw but failed to register the picture of the Canterlot tower within. The second item drew his attention instead: a single dusty, brown cloak sat on a charred spot of ground behind it. His body shuddered as he recognized the cloak as one that once hung in Twilight’s old abode.

The door let off a short, metallic shriek as light coursed through several previously invisible leylines within the rock. And then, with a loud groan, the stone doors slid sideways into hideaways in the wall.

Spike didn’t wait for them. As soon as enough space presented itself, he slipped through the opening between the doors.

A large, hemispherical room greeted him. A red glow emanated from the sigils lining the walls. Even the very air burned like an angry hot. Several rings adorned with several symbols, each as unique as the next, wove around something blue in the center.

Spike looked up and realized that it was a towering pillar of crystal. The structure likened itself to a tree whose roots spread across the room and stretched toward the walls. Magnitudes of branches near the top of the crystal tree held the top portions of ceiling up.

Spike saw something in the center of the pillar and stopped. He narrowed his eyes as he discerned it before all breath rushed from his lungs. His knees then gave way and he fell to the floor.

“Is that…?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she landed behind him.

The other four rushed up and stumbled to a halt as well. “What in the…?” Rarity gasped.

Spike’s eyes welled up against his will. He could not tear his eyes away from the crystal structure. He grasped the paper in his hand tighter than before. As the first drops fell down his face he let out a long wheeze. “Oh… T-Twilight… No…”

The five ponies behind him looked up to where his eyes fixed themselves on. One by one, they screamed and shouted and slung profanities. Primal voices and mannerisms burst forth from the very depths of their souls at the sight. But, all the same, the five of them eventually devolved into holding each other and crying in one voice.

At the very heart of the pillar, encased deep within the crystal, rested a solitary lavender horn. Pristine but unattached, without a body to call its own.

Twilight Sparkle scanned the grounds outside the window, taking stock of anything and everything that happened to move. In the darkness of the new night sky, only a few stray lights on the ground and even fewer in the air moved about; the telltale signs of the Lunar Guard as they patrolled.

She then turned and as she passed the desk, she levitated the crystal ball over to her.

Five ponies gathered around the crystal ball to watch Twilight as she went about. As the mare in the ball disappeared down the stairs, Applejack placed her hoof on the ball in order to follow that mare down.

Twilight sighed deeply as she reached the bottom. She took one last glance around the room, pausing at several things within. She eyed the bed on which she had slept, the counter where she prepared her meals, and the freshly watered plants around the room. Her frown deepened with each item that she passed over.

For a moment, Twilight glance at the tall hanger on which a brown hooded cloak hung at the ready. With a roll of her eyes and the shake of her head, Twilight continued on without it.

She approached the blue double doors that spelled the tower exit. “This is it, everypony,” Twilight announced with a gulp. “Time for me to go.”

The torrential downpour outside the tower seemed to, almost in response to those words, beat harder against the glass. A thunderclap shook the tower, accentuating the bedlam.

“At least take us with you, dear,” Rarity croaked.

“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed.

Twilight glanced toward her own crystal ball and nodded. “Okay. I will.”

She stepped forward and placed her hooves on the door handles. With a creak, the doors parted, and Twilight stepped outside. The Canterlot air greeted her with a low whistle and a caress of her mane. Twilight drank it in and the smallest inkling of a smile etched itself across her muzzle.

As their hearts pounded in unison, the five sucked in a collective breath.

Another thunderclap shook the tower.

Twilight flapped her wings and took to the air. She soared high into the sky, higher than the highest tip of the castle. She glanced down at the brilliant city below, laying her eyes across the crisscross of lights. Some buildings shone in the moonlight.

Twilight drew higher and higher until she flew well above where the night patrols flew at. She drew toward the mountain, taking an occasional glance at one of the towers. She spotted Luna perched in front of a telescope, looking down toward the rest of Equestria, seemingly unaware that Twilight was even there.

Applejack worked to keep the ball’s view on Twilight. Every so often, she made a correction to the course based on her own thoughts and the occasional prediction by the other four. But the more that Twilight outpaced them, the more Applejack moved toward the cave entrance instead.

Eventually, Twilight landed on a ledge well above the city. She took a better look at the city below before casting a glance at the castle, settling on Celestia’s tower in particular. She smiled briefly before venturing onward.

Twilight passed by several hut-like structures and mounds of dirt and sand as she walked toward the mountainside. The occasional table and set of tools lay around the outskirts of the site. She paid them no mind.

Spike walked up at that moment. “Where is she now?” he asked.

Pinkamena Diane Pie sighed. “Twilight’s at the entrance now.”

Spike shuddered and crossed his arms. “Well… uh… I guess we have time still.”

Rainbow Dash shook her head. “And we still can’t do anything,” she said.

Twilight looked up as the mountain met her and the cave’s mouth swallowed her whole. She cantered on, heedless of the spent torches attached to each side of the tunnel.

“I remember,” Twilight began, turning her gaze toward the crystal ball as she levitated it beside her. “I remember the first time Cadance and I got out of these caves. All this time, I had never even known these caves were here. Shows how little I got out when I lived in Canterlot.

“And then, around the time the Crystal Empire reappeared… that’s when they expanded mining operations here.”

The six listened in silence.

Twilight sighed. “And ponies got lost in here. Just like Cadance and I almost got lost in here. I wanted to make sure that never happened to anypony ever again.” She sucked in a breath. “I never even dreamed it would lead to this.”

Twilight rounded a bend in the cavern before it opened into a large chamber. Several pillars of rock held the spacious room together while piles of spent rocks and the occasional stuck shovel and pickaxe littered the floor. Several smaller tunnels ran off like tributaries on a stream. Twilight crossed the room to one tunnel, in particular, and trekked downward.

As Twilight continued onward, her expression grew somber. “I wonder…” she thought aloud, “how many others over the years have thought like me… and gone down there… and have had to sacrifice their lives just so it wouldn’t get out?”

With each passing step, the walls lost their rounded appearance in favor of a more jagged path. The dirt eventually gave way to walls of complete crystal. Smooth surfaces of all different shades of color fit together like puzzle pieces. Every piece let off a soft and almost intangible glow that, when put together, lit the cavern before her.

Twilight descended down and down and made no sign of turning back.

* * *

Sunset Shimmer wiped her brow and flipped the chalkboard over. She flared her horn again and sifted through the pile of broken chalk pieces on the floor. She then used her prize, a mere stubble of a piece, and drew out a new equation.

The numbers practically flew off her hoof and the calculations did themselves. But the more and more she wrote, the more she recognized the series of numbers. Again.

Sunset dug her head into the journal that contained all the work she had done over the past few days, again. With a frustrated groan, she wound up to throw the chalk against the board. Again.

The torrential rain gave the windows an extra battering at that moment, prompting Sunset to whirl around before she could follow through. She felt at the pounding heart in her chest before she glanced at the water cascading down the windows.

Calm down, Sunset… just stay calm! she thought to herself. She used her hoof to push out a long stream of breath and felt the beating in her chest subside.

As the storm outside eased up (but remained violent all the same), she drew back to the chalkboard in front of her and glided the chalk into a resting position.

The writing on the board still glared back at her. Sunset gave it an unsatisfied scowl. She lifted the eraser off the floor and wiped the whole side clean before flipping the board over and erasing the other side as well.

Sunset fell onto her haunches with a sigh and buried herself within the book again. Sunset skipped through several pages as she tried to find something unsolved; for some sort of key that would allow everything else to fit together.

There’s got to be something that I’ve missed! she internally screamed. There has to be! There has to!

* * *

Pinkamena stared out the balcony as the rain bounced against the magical bubble just past it. Her eyes drew toward the sky as lightning flashed through the clouds, causing them to flicker between bright and dim.

As her eyes drew along the briefly revealed contours, she counted the seconds in her mind. She counted down until the moment. Somewhere, somehow, days had turned into minutes. How in the wide wide world did we end up like this? she thought.

“Then why don’t we have Sunset go back in time again!?” a voice behind her cried. Pinkamena turned to see Rainbow Dash floating above her friends in a bellowing posture.

Spike threw his hands into the air. “I told you already: she can’t. Only once in a lifetime, remember? She already used it.”

“What if Rarity used the spell?” Applejack asked as she adjusted her hat.

Rarity shook her head. “Goodness, I’m not nearly that capable, darling.”

“Then let’s just ask Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Ah’d reckon they’d be able to do it.”

Pinkamena pushed herself off the railing. “But like,” she said, turning around, “what would they do?”

The five of them turned with disgusted snarls.

She slunk toward them. “It’s not like they know how to fix this. Even if they went back in time and tried to stop Twilight, how could they undo what that mean-meanie-pants Nameless is doing to her?”

Several of them reeled and let out distressed groans.

Spike picked a speck of dirt off his arm and flicked it across the room. “Besides, it’s not like they could help her. She’s in an alternate world.”

Fluttershy grabbed a hold of her mane and held it close. “B-but, what about our Twilight? If there’s some world above us that’s nine days into the future, couldn’t they have helped her?”

Rainbow Dash threw her hooves into the air, “Yeah! You saw how it was! They”—she pointed to the ball—“tried to come to the tower just like we did! So maybe there’s another us in some world above ours, yeah? And they talked to our Twilight!”

“Yeah!? So!?” Spike roared. “Guess what!? Our Twilight is dead! My Twilight!”

The storm outside whipped the tower with a surge in its downpour and a crack of its thunder.

“But what about theirs?” Rarity asked. “She is still there.”

Applejack swallowed. “That’s true… but how are we gunna do it?”

“Don’tcha know!? It’s out of our hooves!” Pinkamena exclaimed.

“How much time do we have?”

Rainbow Dash snatched the ball up and then landed in the middle of them. She thought the ball forward until the view showed Twilight again. “Hey, Twilight, where are you at?”

Twilight approached the edge of a large crevice and peered over the ledge into the bottomless blackness below. She whimpered once as she looked up and spied the end of a mining cart rail jutting over the far end of the expanse.

“Cadance had to fly us across on our way out,” Twilight said. She turned her attention to the hole in front of her and swallowed. “And the chamber… is down this chasm.”

“Oh word, she’s nearly there,” Rarity hissed.

A clap of thunder drowned out Rainbow Dash’s swear.

We really really really need more time! Pinkamena thought.

Applejack hurled her hat across the room with a frustrated yell and then galloped up the stairs with a determined scowl on her face.

Pinkamina asked no questions and bolted after her.

She chased Applejack, who near-missed Sunset, and they arrived in front of the study’s sprawling window.

“Somepony! Anypony!” Applejack cried. “Are you watchin’ up there? Say somethin’, please!”

Pinkamena joined her friend at the window. “We need help! We need help!” she yelled, trying to find any sort of invisible face looking down on them.

“Please! For land’s sakes!”

The rivers of spent rain unheeded them and continued to wash down the outside of the glass.

“We’ll take whatever!” Pinkamena cried. “Give us a magic spell! Give us more time! We’ll take it!”

Sunset crept up behind them and peered upward into the glass as well, a piece of chalk still clenched in her magical aura.

The other four appeared at the top of the stairs and stood there with sad and worried expressions.

“Come on! Ah know y’all can hear us!” Applejack cried.

“Say something! Say anything!”

“Answer me already!”

Pinkamena felt a pinch in her knee and gasped to herself. A pinchy knee! That means…

Applejack stamped a hoof against the floor. “Ah didn’t go all the way across the world just for you to not talk! So come on already! Talk to us you… no good... varm—”

The sky outside lit up as a bolt of lightning streaked down just outside the window. It reached out with its electric tendrils and drew down the length of the window’s metal bracings as it brushed past, sending small sparks coursing through the framework.

In the same instant, the bolt reached the ground and then the loudest boom shook the tower to its very foundations. The glass rattled, the floor shook, and dust fell from the ceiling.

Several of them screamed and ducked and plugged their ears in response, and then, in the moments following, shakily rose to their hooves again. All except Fluttershy, who remained petrified on the floor.

Pinkamena looked back at the crystal ball in Spike’s grasp.

Twilight walked in a downward spiral around the chasm. Every slow and calculated step took her a foot deeper into the mountain and closer to the door. Every so often, she would duck under a rogue crystal. Other times, the ledge cut out, forcing her to make a short leap across. All the while, Twilight’s crystal ball floated closely behind her.

Spying a shortcut, Twilight spread her wings and leaped across the gap, skipping two full revolutions down the spiral. But Twilight slammed into the wall and her hooves slipped, and she was saved only by the fact that her body refused to slide off the ledge as well.

Pinkamena felt whatever color that remained in her face drain away. Wait… she thought.

Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated scream before she stormed down the stairs in a huff.

Twilight struggled to climb onto her hooves again. She nearly made it before her legs gave way under her, only for her to try again without missing a beat. Once upright again, Twilight set forward like nothing had happened.

Twilight still journeyed to her death, and the crystal ball remained silent.

Pinkamena collapsed onto the floor. I… I…

* * *

Spike held the crystal ball close. He held it so close that nopony could have wrested it from him. He kept his eyes glued to the inside of the ball. He ignored the rain against the windows, and he ignored the scratches of Sunset’s chalk, for the only thing he wanted to attend to was Twilight.

Twilight stalked forward. The long path before her curved downward in an uncomfortably wide arc. Every bit of wall looked the same and, in the cavern’s low lighting, there was no way to tell if it would end soon.

But Spike knew better. He knew it would end soon. He knew it would all end soon.

“Twilight, there has to be another way,” Fluttershy said, placing her hoof on the ball. “Please.”

“We’ve been over this, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “there is no other way. There never was.”

“That can’t be true…”

“Darling,” Rarity said, touching her own hoof to the ball, “you can’t. You simply can’t.”

“I can. I have to,” Twilight replied. She looked further into the cavern and frowned. “It can’t be much farther now.”

Fluttershy fought back tears, and for a moment, she managed to swallow what had worked up from the pit of her chest. “Don’t go, Twilight… Don’t go. Y-you can still go back and get us.”

Spike bit his lip, wishing he had something to say. Anything to turn the conversation (and, perhaps, the mare inside the ball) around.

“It is going to try and surface soon,” Twilight coldly replied. “It’s too late to turn back.”

“No!” Fluttershy cried.

“It’s too late.”

“Oh… Twilight…” Fluttershy buried herself into Rarity and let off a sob. And then another. She burst into a maelstrom of choked cries and moans as she pressed herself deeper into her friend, especially as Rarity wrapped a hoof around her.

Applejack and Pinkamena, both of whom lay against the room’s giant window, glanced over. Neither said a word nor gave the slightest change in expression, and in short order, they returned to mindlessly watching the storm outside.

Spike ground his teeth together. First those two, and then Rainbow Dash. Now Fluttershy had succumbed.

Rarity’s cheeks turned a bright red and she growled. “Well, I am not quite ready to give up on you, Twilight Sparkle!”

Twilight shook her head and continued trotting onward.

Rarity looked up. “Spiky-wikey! Tell her!”

“Tell her what?” Spike asked.

“Something! Surely you must have something?”

Spike grimaced. “Don’t ask me,” he said and pointed to Sunset, “she’s the one with all the things.”

Sunset’s chalk danced across the board, and with each stroke, another hair on her already-messy mane popped out of place.

Rarity straightened herself. “S-Sunset!” she shouted.

Sunset dug the chalk into the board too much and the nibble of a piece shattered into a shower of dust. She looked over with wide-eyes like she had just emerged from a daze.

“Surely you have something?” Rarity asked. “Anything!?”

“Rarity, I…” Sunset stammered.

“Please, for the sake of Celestia, tell me you have something on that board of yours. Anything at all.”

Sunset was uncertain of where to keep her eyes. She went to the board, to Rarity, to the board again, to Spike, and to Rarity again. She tried to speak a couple of times, but the words fell short.

“Sunset,” Spike tried.

Sunset shivered. “I…” she tried. She looked at every nook and cranny of the board, but with each part, her colors drew paler. She stared at her work for a long time, regarding every number and every symbol.

And when she looked to the two of them again, her eyes sparkled in a plea for forgiveness. The next moment, Sunset dropped the chalk entirely. “I… don’t have anything,” she whimpered.

Spike gulped. No Sunset, don’t…

Sunset caved. She fell face-first onto the floor and shielded herself with her forelegs. She made no more sounds and made no indication that she would move from that spot.

Rarity flared her nostrils. “Oh no no no no no no! Absolutely not!” She pointed an angry hoof at Sunset. “You will stand right back up. Right now!”

Sunset did not budge.

“You will stand up! Spike!”

He averted his gaze out of shame.

Rarity recoiled. She stared into the ball for a few moments as the mare inside it continued on. Her teeth chattered as the words tried to form. “We’re…” Rarity cried as she sniffled, “we’re really here. We’re really here!”

Twilight tripped and fell into the dirt, kicking up dust as she fell. She coughed several times as she climbed back up one hoof at a time. She massaged her head and tried to stretch the rest of her body, but the painful screams she uttered afterward told of how well that had worked.

“Oh stars!” Rarity exclaimed. “Twilight! I’m sorry! I’m so so so sorry!”

Spike frowned but nonetheless continued to think the ball’s view forward.

At that moment, Twilight rounded the corner. large double doors greeted her. The ornate stone doors towered over her and Twilight stopped to admire the etched pictures on their front. But once that was done, Twilight allowed a shade of color to drain from her already-pale coat.

“I’m here,” she announced.

“Oh s-stars, I can’t look,” Rarity quivered. She turned and sobbed into Fluttershy in return.

Rainbow Dash appeared at the head of the stairs. She refused to enter the room and instead elected to rest against the banister with a sorrowful glare. Her scowl quivered, showing hints of every other conflicting emotion.

This was it. The one moment Spike never thought he would see happen. Even with the knowledge that it had taken place nine days ago, Spike felt blindsided. Twilight was about to die.

Spike glowered at it all. Twilight had died. Twilight was dead. Twilight was going to die.

Dead, died, would die.

Because this had happened nine days ago. Because it had always happened nine days ago. It would forever happen nine days ago.

Several leylines in the double doors in front of Twilight sparked to life. With a slow and wretched creak, the doors parted, revealing the chamber beyond. The entryway turned red from the light within the chamber. It was much brighter than Spike remembered.

Twilight held up her crystal ball and examined it. “Bringing this back here… Who would have guessed? Maybe in another life, I might have learned how to use this thing.” Twilight frowned. “Maybe…”

She sighed. “I have to let you go now. Sometime within the next hour, the Nameless will make its attempt. I have to concentrate.

“…I just want to let you know that I am so so grateful that I could spend these past few days with all of you. I am… So grateful that I got the chance. There’s no other way that I would have wanted to do it.” Twilight blushed, “And… I just hope you don’t remember me as a bad friend...”

“Never,” Spike huffed.

“I am going to leave the ball outside of the door.” She looked up with pleading eyes, “Okay?”

Spike balled his fist. The cycle was complete. Twilight’s crystal ball in front of the door, in its place for them to find and start the cycle anew.

No cloak, but what did that matter? Twilight was still lost either way.

Because it didn’t matter. They would always lose Twilight.

Because there was no escaping “Is, was, will be.”

Spike looked at the others.

Applejack and Pinkamena remained glued to the windows, but each had an eye in his direction.

Rainbow Dash remained in the stairwell, but now had turned away out of disgust.

Rarity and Fluttershy remained in a heap on the floor, trying their best to stifle their croaks and wheezes.

Sunset remained curled up on the floor. She made no attempt to even open her eyes and see what was happening. Her ears lay frozen atop her head as if blocking out the sound. Like she was gone. Like she had shut down.

Spike clutched the ball tighter than he ever had before. A moment later, his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. Heartbeat after heartbeat ticked by and none of them did anything to lessen the weight in his chest.

Spike sucked in a breath. He used one of his hands to push it back out. “Okay. Twilight. I… understand. Go save the world. But… I’m going to be right here, okay?”

The smallest inkling of a smile appeared on Twilight’s muzzle. “Spike…”

“Okay?”

Twilight considered those words for many long moments. And then she smiled. “Of course. I know you’ll always be there for me.”

Spike nodded. “Always.”

Twilight held her head up and nodded. She gently lay the crystal ball to rest on the ground beside her. “Okay...” Twilight said and took a deep breath. “Alright… I am ready to die.”

A tear fell down her face before she broke into a smile. “Goodbye, everypony…”

Spike said nothing.

Twilight stepped forward. Every clop of her hooves echoed throughout the cavern. They echoed throughout the tower. At a slow and deliberate pace, Twilight crossed the threshold. Every step lasted for an eternity. With every step, Twilight looked farther forward. The crystal ball behind her could only watch.

A weak thunderclap boomed outside the tower, but even when paired with the rain, it failed to silence the hoofsteps from the ball.

The double doors jerked and slid toward each other with a loud groan. The mare in the chamber paid the doors no mind as she trotted toward the center.

Spike closed his eyes.

And in that moment, by his reckoning, the doors on the life of Princess Twilight Sparkle shut tight with a resounding and eternal thud.

12 - Feedback

The cool howl of a wayward breeze washed over the valley, charting a chorus of rustling branches through the wood and on the plain. It formed streak lines with the grass as their sways reflected the moonlight.

The moon itself hung high in the sky, shining an intense blue light down upon the land, enough to make even the most isolated of crevices navigable. Several bodies sat against windowsills in awe at its magnificence.

The land of Equestria lay silent and still. The occasional animal broke the peace, but even they kept to themselves more than on most other nights. The towns and cities lay deserted as ponies remained in their homes.

Like a whisper, a name cropped up. In several little pockets, from the voices of small colts and fillies, came a name. Through hushed conversations over bedsides, a name passed between parent and offspring. When one presented questions, the other answered.

Soon afterward, bedroom lights disappeared into the night.

And then the name appeared again. The name of a late mare passed from the mother to father and then back again before it vanished back into the ether. All were wonderings of her life, who she was, and what she had gone through. They tried to fathom what those closest to her thought, how they felt, especially now that it was over.

Various ‘What If?’s presented themselves between them with their offspring as the subject. What if it had been their daughter? Their Son?

One by one, the conversations resolved with varying assurances that it would not happen. Everything was safe. Everything was okay.

Silent thanks and other expressions of gratitude followed.

One by one, in the cities and towns across Equestria, the lights went out until, finally, only the moon remained. As ponies of all shapes, sizes, colors, and identities slept soundly in their beds, the night ticked by just as it had for thousands of moons before.

The name took off through the minds of a collective unconscious. It appeared in the dreamscapes and sometimes, within unconscious ramblings, made it back into the real world.

But for a select few that had more than a name, other things took shape. A lavender alicorn appeared to them for those who had seen her. A scratched voice spoke to them for those who had heard her. She ate, she ran, she lectured, she read, and she did many other things for those who had known her.

And for many hours long into the night, the idea persevered. In that sense, that late mare lived on within the serenity of the Equestrian night.

Sunset Shimmer idly scratched her head and slumped further against the desk.

Even as she tuned out the hard, rapid pitter-patter of rain against the windows in favor of thoughts, there was little to think about. Judging from the other ponies lying about the room, staring at whatever their eyes happened to land on, she assumed that they were the same way.

Spike, on the other hoof, had disappeared downstairs with the crystal ball sometime prior. Sunset supposed that she could go find him, but to do so would have required her to rise from her position.

One thought formed in her mind. Even with Twilight now gone, nopony else wept. Nopony bothered to move about either, but even that was a step up from the absolute messes they had been before.

Sunset told herself it was easier the second time. She wasn’t sure if she believed it.

Sunset pushed back her curled mane and looked out of the room’s large window. Though a light haze had fallen over the grounds outside, the rain fell with less intensity than before. Sunset could hardly remember the last time she had heard the crack of thunder or witnessed the bright display of lighting.

She snorted at the thought. Maybe the storm would end soon.

No, she thought, it will end soon.

While Twilight, nine days ago, remained alive for within an hour more, the doors had closed behind her. The seconds counted down but she had no idea how many seconds there were to count down, nor did she care, because Twilight was as good as dead either way.

On the other side of the room, Rarity scrutinized some dust on the curb of her hoof. Fluttershy fiddled with the feathers in one of her wings. Applejack scratched at an itch in her ear. Meanwhile, the other two did nothing but lie on their backs and stare at the ceiling.

Sunset’s eyes drifted through them and then toward the large amounts of chalk dust and scattered pieces of parchment that coated the floor. She stood up with a sigh and used her magic to clear up the loose papers and stack them into a messy pile off to the side. She then summoned a broom and dustpan out of the corner of the room.

The etched sounds of her broom across the floor echoed throughout the tower. The others stirred as Sunset swept, and then they watched in full as she emptied what she had into the trash bin. Sunset swept up another pile of chalk dust, trying to capture every scrap.

How much longer did it have to be?

Sunset continued until the few grains remaining evaded her sweeps and she called that good enough. She returned the trash bin to its spot near the stairs and returned her tools to their spot in the corner. She returned to the stack of papers and moved all of them onto the desk.

Sunset sorted through them into several stacks. But as much as she tried to skim over them in her attempts to ignore them, they stuck. Every paper was a reminder of what had just happened and what was about to happen.

A few minutes later, five stacks of scribbles and mathematics took the desk. At that, Sunset collapsed once more with a dejected sigh.

Her eyes wandered the room again in search of something else to busy herself with. She felt her jaw go stiff when she found none. Sunset slumped further against the desk just like she had been before.

She was sure that if somepony was watching her from the world above theirs, they would be disappointed.

Sunset wanted it to be over. Sunset wanted to be done and reach the end. She wanted to go home and forget. She wanted to see her friends again. She wanted to move on. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to stay. She wanted to get to know these friends of Equestria. She wanted to run from friendship forever.

And she didn’t know what she wanted. Again.

* * *

As Sunset descended the stairs, the very first thing she noticed was not the open entry door, but rather the dragon sitting outside it.

She stopped at the bottom and sighed. Even across the room, the rain sounded sobering, cleansing even. Like it would wash away all her trouble.

She glanced into the kitchen. While the hardened floor had been cleaned, for the most part, she could still spot the faint burn marks of a time travel spell. Burn marks just like she had seen in an alternate world below her. Her marks.

Some things just couldn’t be washed away.

She pushed the thought out of her mind again as she headed for the open door.

The rain splashed against the deck, creating a cacophony of high-pitched splats. A single light, cubbied inside the door’s magnificent golden frame, lit the deck itself. A few guards roamed the grounds outside, evidenced by lights floating in the fog. Sunset imagined that they carried umbrellas or protective enchantments.

Spike sat on top of the banister, gazing out at what little he could see. The crystal ball remained clutched in his hands as the heavy rainfall cascaded down the both of them.

Shielding her eyes, Sunset stepped into the rain. It fought against her, attacking her mane and coat. Every drop drilled into her, but she plowed through all of it.

Sunset lifted her hooves onto the banister as a way of sitting next to him. Spike made no indication that he knew she was there, and in return, she made no fanfare to signal her arrival. For some moments, the two of them looked out at the rest of the castle.

“Well,” Spike said, after many long moments, “we tried.”

Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and look where that got us,” she said.

“Much better than suddenly finding out she’s gone though.”

Sunset nodded as she moved some hair out of her eyes. “I guess that’s true.”

Spike kicked his feet against the banister as he tracked a nearby moving light.

“Weren’t you the first one to find her?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

Sunset let out a long breath. He was talking, at the very least, but somehow, he didn’t appear against it in any capacity. Somehow, Sunset felt comfortable asking a question she knew would not have been answered a few days prior. “How did it feel?”

Spike shook his head. “It was… a lot worse than this. I mean really, I can’t even.”

“…Ah.”

“I mean, what should I say?” he said with a shrug. “I panicked. I mean, I did. I’m pretty sure I did.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “But…?”

“I… don’t really remember.”

Sunset’s chuckle escaped her mouth against her will. “Really?”

“I mean,” he said as he flipped the ball in his hands, “we probably spent at least ten minutes looking for Twilight when we came and that door behind us was open. I bet she was already dead by then.”

Sunset nodded and rolled her hoof for him to continue.

“We couldn’t find her note at first,” Spike said, “because she put her note on the back of the map. And the map was what we found. But… When we did find it…” He pointed to himself. “When I found it… I guess I didn’t wake up until we’d all ran down there and found her in that… thing.”

Sunset furrowed her brow. “I guess it must’ve been quite a shock.”

“Yeah, it must have.” Spike laughed. “I just wonder what would have happened if we had got there ten minutes earlier,” he mused. “I bet we’ll find out.”

“Huh?”

“I’ve just kinda been thinking about it, is all. We saw Twilight leave it note-side up.”

“Well then,” Sunset said, “I guess their version of you won’t miss it so easily, huh?”

“Nah, I guess not.”

The two looked into the darkness as the rain bombarded the both of them. The light from earlier had since moved further into the darkness until, at least as Sunset saw it, it instantly disappeared as it presumably rounded a corner.

Sunset felt her mane stick to her head and she shook it in an attempt to give it air.

Spike peered into the ball. The cavern lay quiet and empty save for a crystal ball on the ground. The doors towered over the scene but made no moves. Likewise, Spike made no moves to move the ball to any other spot.

Sunset adjusted her lean against the railing and cleared her throat. “I, uh,” she began, averting her eyes, “I have a small confession to make.”

Spike raised an eyebrow in response.

“I convinced Twilight to burn the book,” Sunset said. “She got rid of all her data because I asked her to.”

Spike’s expression remained unchanged for many long moments and he tapped his fingers against the ball. “And?”

Sunset frowned. “And? That’s it.”

“That’s all?”

“Yeah.”

Spike widened his eyes. “Oh,” he acknowledged, “I thought it was gunna be something big.”

Sunset shrunk. “You’re… not mad?”

“Nah.”

Sunset blushed. It sounded too absurd. “But—”

“I trust you enough to know you had a good reason for it. Right?”

Sunset shivered as the rain sent a chill through her. “Yeah.”

Spike nodded. “Can you tell me why though?”

“Yeah. It just was my way of making sure that I copied off of her,” Sunset replied. “Be pretty bad if we got them mixed up or something like that.”

Spike considered it. “Why’s that matter?”

Sunset nodded and stared back into the dark. “I had a plan. I had a thought. That what we have… is all the information that those versions of us in those lower layers would have gotten. What we started with was the result of their efforts. Our efforts only added to what was there.

“I read from a Twilight in a layer below. And then I have to add onto what’s there. That’s why it matters.

“So, when I time traveled and give Twilight her book, then maybe a version of me above us reads from her, and then adds her own information.

“I figured that if we copied each other, then we’d have more and more information each time. And then finally, somewhere at the top layer—if there is a top—they’d be able to put it all together and provide an answer. They’d send it down after the work was done.”

Sunset collapsed onto the rail. “Maybe it never existed,” she said with a sigh. “There was never a way to save Twilight. And all the work has been for nothing. An infinite amount of work for nothing.”

The rain intensified. The light bombardment turned into what felt like a flogging. And Sunset let it hit her. She felt soaked in places she didn’t know she had as the water dripped down her body. The storm howled on, sounding deafening even without the rolling thunder.

For a moment, Sunset wished that she could drown in all of it.

“Well, we still tried, I guess,” Spike asserted.

Sunset dared to glance up.

“I mean, yeah,” he continued. “I kinda hoped she’d be able to use The Answer to fake it all while still killing that Nameless. That’s what we tried to do. And it didn’t work. But we got to spend some time with Twilight before she left.”

“But we failed,” Sunset argued.

“I know.”

“And it hurts.”

Spike looked toward the sky, allowing the rain to directly splash against his face. “Oh, yeah, I know. And it’ll probably be a long time ’til I can get over it. A really long time. But I think I can kinda take it now. I think, actually… right now…” He turned and locked eyes with her. “Right now, I actually feel a bit okay with it.”

Sunset tilted her head with a quizzical expression. “Huh?”

Spike searched for his words. “You know, I mean, we know what happened now. I’m not so worried about it anymore. Besides, Twilight... she’s my hero.”

Spike caressed the crystal ball and looked into it like an adorable little foal. A grin spread across his face and he let out a sigh.

“We had a lot of fun today,” he said. Then he frowned, “Maybe not so much at the end, but…”

Sunset nodded. “Agree with you there,” she replied.

Spike chuckled. “And… we had some good moments. That thing you did with the picture was really really cool.”

Sunset chuckled. “Heh, thanks. But it’s nothing compared to the hourglass trick that you did.”

Spike blushed. “Aw, shucks.”

The two looked into the darkness as the rain became a light drizzle. Sunset could feel her hairs stuck together and decided to ignore that for a few seconds more. Sunset hummed as a rogue gust of wind blew across her face. “I gotta say, you’ve really changed in the past few days.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Me?”

Sunset nodded and smiled. “Totally. I think… I think you’ve grown up.”

“Really?”

“I do,” she said and gave him a playful slap across the back.

Spike shied away but his growing smile and his even redder face betrayed him. “That’s good.”

“Yeah,” she replied. As Sunset looked into the sky, the rain, in turn, splashed against her face. She blinked. “But it’d be kinda crappy to go through all this only to get sick from staying out in the rain. We should probably go back inside.”

Spike considered it. “Alright. Just a few more minutes though, okay?”

Sunset shook her head and smiled. She turned her gaze back toward the darkness as she straightened up on the railing. “Okay.”

* * *

Sunset shook herself, sending droplets of water flying in all directions. A floating towel captured a large bulk of them while the rest splattered against the floor. Sunset then took the towel and wiped the rest of herself down.

Spike cleaned himself in a similar fashion, wiping down the ridges lining his back. Satisfied at that, he hung his towel around his neck and leaned against the wall.

Sunset continued along, wiping drops of water off her legs. She then made quick work of her tail. Nodding to herself, Sunset hung her towel across her backside.

The two locked eyes, compared each other, and then chuckled.

A few muffled voices sounded from the upstairs, prompting the two to listen in. The voices sounded questioning, concerned, but neither Sunset nor Spike could glean anything else.

“Looks like they’re coming around,” Sunset commented.

“Yeah, there’s that.”

Instead, Sunset took the towel to her face for good measure. The faint sound of moving hooves registered in her ears, but she paid no attention to them.

Spike, however, stepped out into the living room and looked up as Applejack descended the stairs. “Heya.”

Applejack stumbled but ultimately kept her balance. “Oh, there ya two are. Ah was fixin’ to run out lookin’ for y’all.”

Sunset peeked out from under the towel. “Huh? Why?”

Applejack frowned. “Y’all might wanna get up here right quick. There’s uh… a thing goin’ on. Ya gotta come see this.”

Spike and Sunset exchanged worried glances before the both of them threw their towels to the floor. Spike grabbed the ball, and the three of them bolted up the stairs.

Four ponies had gathered in one corner of the room, but it appeared more like three of them had gathered around the fourth one. As far as Sunset could tell, Pinkamena lay propped against the wall as her body convulsed this way and that.

“What’s going on?” Sunset asked with a tremulous tone in her voice.

The former three turned around to meet them. “Sunset, Spike…” Fluttershy said.

“Pinkie Pie is having a very serious reaction,” Rarity said with a worried look on her face. “Just look.”

Pinkamena’s entire body convulsed. “I-it’s been a-a-a w-w-while, b-but I-I k-know this one!” she exclaimed as the shudders wracked her body.

“That means a doozy is about to happen,” Fluttershy said.

“Y-y-y-y-ou b-b-b-et!” And then the jitters subsided, to which Pinkamena blurted, “And it’s gunna happen right here!”

A long silence passed through the room as each of them scratched their heads in thought. The window nearby whistled from the light rain that hit it.

Rarity crossed her forelegs. “I can’t even begin to fathom what that could possibly be.”

Applejack grit her teeth together. “It wasn’ all that cut and dry at Froggy Bottom Bog either.”

Pinkamena raised a hoof into the air. “It’s gunna be something we’d never expect to happen,” she said.

“If it has nothing to do with Twilight,” Rainbow Dash snorted, “then I don’t care what it is.”

Fluttershy glanced between all of them and then settled in the object in Spike’s hands. “Uhm, what if it’s something that we’ll be able to see from here?”

Spike flipped the crystal ball in his hands once and then peered down into it. “I dunno, Fluttershy. There’s not much to look at.”

“Twilight’s crystal ball?”

“Yeah, the crystal ball in there should still show the caverns,” Spike said, pointing.

“Huuuuh. What is Twilight doing?”

Spike thought the ball’s view through the doors and into the chamber.

Twilight Sparkle remained in a sitting position amidst the steady red glow of the sigils on the walls. Every so often, in a slow rhythm, Twilight took a deep breath and let it all out again. Her eyes lay shut like she was half-asleep.

Spike shook his head. “Still waiting for it to happen,” he said with a grim frown.

“Seems like there’s nothing to see there then,” Rarity scoffed.

“Yeah. All that’s left is for us to come along and find her. And then we’ll start this whole mess allll over again.”

The others nodded and voiced several variations of “Uh-huh.”

Sunset let out a sigh. “…Yeah,” she said.

The others were right. There just wasn’t anything more to see within the ball aside from the fateful moment. Some other version of them would come along within an hour and find the ball as it was (with it looking at the caverns), and the cycle would begin anew.

Sunset blinked.

Wait.

Sunset held a hoof against her forehead as she thought. Something’s not right.

I know there were certain things that we saw over the past few days. We saw things happen. Heck, they threw us for a loop.

Just like I time traveled to give our Twilight a book, I saw their version of me time travel to give her a book. And I know, for that to happen, we have to be able to find Twilight at all. I have to find her that first night.

And if the ball in her world still looks at the caverns, then they can’t find her that first night. Sunset felt a drop of sweat form on her brow. The cloak thing I could let slide, but this…! This is a huge contradiction!

Sunset knocked against her own skull. And I have no idea what… or rather, who could possibly resolve it!

A long pause went by as a few thoughts swirled around her head, and then something clicked. Sunset peered through her mane and frowned. This isn’t over.

She cleared her throat. “Actually, could we possibly go back and talk some more about The Answer for a moment?”

“Yeah, like it would do us any good now though,” Rainbow Dash said. “Twilight’s already gone through the door and everything.”

Rarity nodded. “Quite so. After all, we couldn’t even get our voices through a wooden door, much less those massive stone ones. There is absolutely no way she’ll be able to hear us with her crystal ball sitting outside. And I doubt anything we say or do is going to convince her to come out and talk.”

“Y’all used up all the time travel spells too,” Applejack pointed out.

“Only once per lifetime,” Spike added grimly.

“Maybe that’s why it’s the doozy,” Sunset argued. “That’s the last thing we’d expect right now, right?”

Spike tapped his fingers against the ball. “Uh-huh. Aside from something coming out of nowhere and fixing everything.” He received several stares. “What?”

Rarity straightened herself. “Alright, sure. Why not? Tell us where you’d like to go with this, Sunset?”

The other five turned to her, even as another wave of spasms overtook Pinkamena’s body.

“My thought,” Sunset said, “was that we would get The Answer from the world above us. The one watching us from nine days into the future. And then, obviously, we would turn around nine days from now and give The Answer to them,” she explained, pointing at the crystal ball.

The others nodded in agreement.

Sunset glanced between the six of them and said, “Would you all agree that we’d do everything to make sure we could pass it to the world below us?”

Again, the others nodded.

Sunset turned her attention to the crystal ball and stared holes into it. The ball remained quiet, just as it had in the many long minutes before.

I can’t let up until that contradiction goes away, Sunset thought as she twisted her curly mane. I don’t know where this is going to take me…

“Okay,” Sunset said, “I’m going to ballpark this and see what happens. What if… The Answer exists but we’re not supposed to get it until the right time?”

Applejack frowned. “Sunset…” she began and tried to reach out to her.

“Just humor me, okay? What would we do with it?”

Puzzled expressions washed over their faces. As the rain outside died out, leaving only the low howl of wind as it wrapped around the tower, they kicked at the floor and scratched their heads and drummed thoughtful rhythms on whatever they could find.

And then Spike gasped. “I know what we’d do!” he said with a snap of his claws. “We would hide it where no one would look for it!”

Sunset paled. Somehow, she knew what words came next, but her mouth moved anyway. “And where might a place like that be?”

Spike pounded his chest. “That’s easy, Sunset! That’s real easy!” He let off a toothy grin and declared, “I would put it in the hourglass!”

All six mares let out sharp gasps in response.

“…Sweet Celestia!”

In a single moment, all seven of them jumped. They glanced between each other to see if it had been one of their voices. Their widened eyes then centered on the crystal ball and, at that moment, they turned completely frozen.

The ball had spoken.

“Who in the world was that!?” Rarity cried.

Fluttershy gasped. “Could it be…?”

Pinkamena’s mane and tail shot up and out and then tangled into a series of knots. “Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “Is that you!?”

More silence passed. Their hearts beat within their chests, their attention remained fixed. No one made a sound, not even to breathe.

And then finally, “Yes!” the crystal ball said with a voice that sounded just like Twilight’s. “I’m here! I’m here!”

Several cries of “Twilight!” rose up in unison as smiles spread across their faces and they jumped for joy.

But Sunset frowned. Her glance immediately fell on the mare inside the ball who appeared just the same as a few minutes before. Sunset shifted. It’s not her, she thought, but it’s…

Sunset stamped a hoof against the ground. “You! You’re the Twilight from the world above us, aren’t you!?”

“That is correct,” Twilight’s voice replied.

“That is incredible, darling,” Rarity said as she clapped her hooves together, “absolutely incredible. So you’re talking to us from nine days into the future.”

“I am. And you’re not going to believe this, but I have it. It was exactly in the place you just talked about.”

Sunset beamed, “You have The Answer!?”

“I have it right here!” Twilight’s voice yelled with triumphant strength.

“Wow!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

Rarity’s gasp barely made it past her mouth before her hooves met it. “Sunset! Do you know what this—”

“I was right!” Sunset shouted with a wide smile on her face. “I was right! It does exist! It does exist! And, we…”—her smile faded—“can’t… use it. Oh stars, we can’t get it to Twilight!”

All at once, several groans rose up between the seven of them. Sunset frowned. Eight, counting Twilight from the future.

Rarity shook her head and flipped her mane behind her head. “Alright, but Twilight, did you use The Answer in the past?”

“Yes, that sounds pretty accurate,” Twilight’s voice said, “I was… uhm, dead for a while. But, using this spell, I was able to make it so that it could be reversed and I could be brought back.”

Sunset felt her body go solid. “So… you did die?”

“Yes. I died. And then, thanks to you, I recovered.”

Rainbow Dash scowled as her ears pinned backward. “Okay, wait a minute, lemme get this straight… You’ve done this whole magic spell before and so you must’ve had it. So why couldn’t you give that to us—oh I don’t know—a little earlier when it might have counted?”

“Quite so,” Rarity said with a frown, “and you could have at least let us know you were okay a little earlier.”

The crystal ball went silent for many long moments. And then it sighed. “I forgot the spell,” Twilight’s voice croaked.

The fury in Rainbow Dash’s expression melted away. “You forgot?”

“Yes... There’re a lot of things that I forgot on account of me dying. I can’t even remember exactly how to get to the chamber. I know that map could help, but… I’m so sorry.” Twilight’s voice wavered and crumbled to a point where her voice was but a whisper. “If I had just remembered, then maybe you could have saved me in your world. Or the one you’ve been watching.”

Spike wiped a stray tear from his eyes. “Oh, Twilight…”

“I’m a really bad Twilight,” her voice said. “I’ve just felt so guilty because I watched you go through all of this for me and when you needed me to do something, I couldn’t. I’ve just… felt so awful that I am alive and your world’s me is… not.”

Applejack doffed her hat. “Twi, it ain’t your fault. This whole thing’s been mighty messed up. Ah’m just glad at least one of ya is safe.”

“I agree with Applejack,” Fluttershy seconded.

“I’m sorry,” Twilight’s voice said again.

Sunset cracked her neck. “Twilight, you said you had The Answer. Right?”

She imagined the nod on the other side. “I have the whole thing,” Twilight’s voice said. “I fished it out of the hourglass just a few seconds ago.”

Sunset nodded as she broke through the group and trotted toward the desk. Her horn lit up and the dozens of papers on top of the desk shifted around. A stack of blank papers presented itself before her and, after taking a moment of bumping them into line against the desk, she took the topmost one and turned. Sunset looked to the ceiling with a determined scowl. “Then we might as well copy it from you, just as I had originally planned.”

“That sounds good to me, but…” Twilight’s voice paused. “You’re going to need a lot more paper than that.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What? Will five more do?”

“No, it will not. This magic spell that I have on me is seventy pages long.”

Sunset balked. “Se... seventy pages!?” she cried, her jaw slackened in disbelief.

The other six exchanged confused frowns.

“Well, no bucking wonder you forgot it,” Sunset muttered as she took the whole stack instead, “that length of spell is unheard of.”

Twilight’s voice laughed. “Oh, just wait until you see how it’s laid out. It managed to compress a few hundred pages worth of information into those seventy pages.”

Sunset felt the blood rush through the veins in her head. “And here I thought the time spell was complex, and that was only a page long.” She threw her hooves into the air. “Whatever!”

At that point, Sunset turned to face the other six who had anticipatory grins on their faces. “Okay, everyone grab a quill,” she commanded as she levitated over a cupful of quills and some ink. She then passed out ten pieces of paper to each of them. “So, Twilight’s going to need all of that, huh?” she mused.

“From what I can tell, you only need to give the other me the first sixteen pages.”

Sunset nodded. “Only sixteen?”

“Yes. There is ten pages of actual spell for me, fifty-four pages for a second caster, and then a six-page library full of words that both spells use.”

Sunset blinked several times before slapping herself in the face. “It’s… a spell in two parts. Of course.”

Twilight’s voice laughed and then made the sound of a clearing throat. “Yes, speaking of spells in two parts, I’m going to transmit you some images now.”

Sunset nodded to the others, all of whom pressed their quills at the top of their papers in response. The six of them grinned toothy grins, the “we got this” sort of grins, and almost shook from the anticipation.

Sunset flared her horn. “We’re ready, Twilight.”

* * *

Sunset looked up from her half-completed page to the large image hovering above her. The image contained two sheets of paper: one for her and one for Fluttershy. For her part, Fluttershy worked feverishly, scrawling several lines without looking up.

The others wrote at an equal intensity where they had to lick their lips as their mouths ran dry and where sweat drops formed on their brows. But whereas Rarity could copy several lines without having to double check, Applejack and Rainbow Dash flip-flopped between the originals and their hoofwritten copies. The other three each fell somewhere in between.

Except for Spike who currently sat backward, knocking his feet together and watching over Rarity’s withers as she worked off of the image that she shared with Pinkie Pie.

Pinkie Pie held up her paper. “Page twenty-two is done!” she proclaimed.

Sunset placed her quill down to take a good look at the page. Several lines spanned the paper, leaving little to no margins. Symbols that she had never seen before (but knew they corresponded to an entry from the first six pages) interwove with magical sigils to create a wall of text. It sounds like computer compression, she thought.

The occasional footnote, written in a thankfully plain language, appeared in a few of the open spaces. At the very top, the word Exit headed the page, coupled with a page number. She had seen the words Entry and Library before that.

“That looks like the page that I have,” the crystal ball said after a few moments. “Here come twenty-seven and twenty-eight.”

Sunset slotted Pinkie Pie’s completed page into the growing stack and then flared her horn.

Meanwhile, Spike stood up and hopped over to where Pinkie Pie sat. The two bumped fist to hoof as he sat back down.

A high shriek echoed throughout the tower that made each of them wince and then look up as Sunset’s horn lit up in response. The horn sputtered once, and Sunset fought to keep the existing images up as a new picture sprouted out of her horn: two new pages contained in a single picture.

Sunset rotated the image so that the two could see it. Spike and Pinkie Pie responded by jabbing their quills into their respective papers and taking off.

Sunset looked back down at her own page and pressed her quill against it. She bounced it in place and thought about the Twilight that looked down on them at that very moment. How Twilight was alive in another world. That the Twilight in another world had survived.

She looked at the projected image in front of her. Her eyes ran past the symbols on the page that she meant to copy down. She knew that they were there. Her quill refused to move all the same. Copying was meant to be a simple task; all she had to do was write what she saw. She had even done a whole book the previous night, so her share of ten pages should have been easy.

Instead, Sunset snorted and threw her quill onto the parchment.

At once, everyone looked up. “Sunset?” Rarity asked with a concerned frown, “What’s the matter?”

“Sorry. I’m thinking,” Sunset replied.

“About what?”

“Oh, I’m just,” she said and pushed her mane back, “thinking about our Twilight. I can’t believe all of this.

“I mean, because the whole point of The Answer was to save Twilight and it was set up so that every Twilight in every world would get it. But… somehow, that stopped with you, Twilight.”

“Gosh, I’m… I’m so sorry,” Twilight’s voice quivered.

“I was so sure!” Sunset yelled, slamming her hoof against the parchment. “You said it yourself, Applejack, that what we saw tonight is exactly what happened before. All of our worlds act just like each other, so aside from what we did and where all of you went to collect the stones, what happens in one of them happens in all of them.”

She pointed to the ceiling—at the Twilight in the future. “And yet you’re alive, but ours isn’t.” She grabbed a hold of her own mane and pulled, hard. “So… what did we do differently!?”

A series of groans rose up from the others. Applejack pulled at her face while Rarity blushed and averted her gaze.

Not to mention what the heck the deal is with Twilight’s crystal ball not showing the tower like we first found it yet, Sunset thought.

“I imagine it’s my fault,” Twilight’s voice said. “Out of all the Twilights out there, I must have been the first one to not remember the spell.” A long, resigned pause passed and then the ball said, “I am such a terrible friend. I’ve… failed so miserably, and you’ve lost your world’s Twilight all because of me.”

“That’s nice and all,” Rainbow Dash said as she stood up, “but I don’t think this is all you, Twilight.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Rainbow, what’re you on about?”

“I mean, it was different in there too. Remember the cloak?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Fluttershy nodded, “Of course I remember the cloak. Because we found it at the door.”

Pinkie Pie giggled, “Oh yeah! Because our Twilight wore it! And… their Twilight didn’t. So there’s a difference—”

“Wait,” Twilight’s voice interrupted, “what are you talking about? What cloak?”

Everyone looked toward the ceiling at the same time as if they could glare the disembodied voice down. “You know,” Spike said, “the cloak? The one you had hanging downstairs?”

“I know which one you’re talking about, but… I never wore that.”

Spike shook his head and laughed in disbelief. “I guess our Twilight was the only one that did, then.”

Pinkie Pie waved her hoof through the air, “We did find that thing next to the ball though when we went down there.”

The crystal ball did not answer.

“Twilight?”

“I… this is weird,” Twilight’s voice stammered. “I do remember seeing a hooded figure that night. I couldn’t tell who they were, but when I tried to rush out and... um… see them off, they disappeared! But they left their cloak behind!”

Spike crossed his arms and drummed his fingers against them in thought. “And then, after that, your world’s version of us would have found that cloak.”

“Uh, doesn’t that put some cloaked pony there in our world too?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking between everyone for looks of approval.

“But that’s a problem because we had that thing checked,” Spike said. He pointed upward to where he thought she was watching and bellowed, “We traced that cloak to you, Twilight!”

“That is weird!” Twilight’s voice said.

Sunset ground her teeth together but said nothing in response. She instead looked at the others to see their reactions.

Even with all of these similarities between the worlds, Sunset thought, the Twilight we’ve been watching and the Twilight watching us are two worlds away from each other. There’s just no way she could possibly help her now!

Sunset scratched at a discoloration within the floor. Is there?

Twilight’s voice sucked in a breath. “I remember this much: they disappeared in a bright flash of light, and I saw burn marks on the ground. It was kind of like when Sunset teleported in however many days ago that was.”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Really?”

“Yeah. I even compared the two spots using my own crystal ball, because they looked so similar. …I learned how to move the view around after I died and came back.

“I guess,” Twilight’s voice said, “now that I think about it, it looked like it might have been a time travel spell.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “We saw burn marks at the door too, you know.”

“This keeps getting stranger and stranger. So, somepony time travels in, and it’s apparently me. I mean, certainly, I can’t do that because—” The crystal ball went silent.

Rainbow Dash glanced worriedly at the ceiling. “Uhm, Twilight?”

“Twi?” Applejack seconded.

A long and pregnant pause passed throughout the room. And then, “Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!” the crystal ball cried in astonishment.

“Twilight!” Spike cried. “Are you okay?”

“I... I... Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. Oh gosh. I could get by on a technicality...” Twilight’s voice said at around a million miles an hour.

“What?”

Another pause passed, and then, “L-look, y-you girls did a great job. Just… uh… stay there for two seconds. Okay?”

Sunset frowned. “Uh, okay?”

Rainbow Dash flung her completed paper into the center of the ring before she collapsed onto the floor and pouted. Rarity turned her attention back to the image in front of her and raced through a few more lines before she too, delicately, placed her paper into the center.

The other four set their quills back down on their papers and either yawned out loud or attempted to stifle them.

Sunset furrowed her brow. What is she up to?

Pinkie Pie’s body convulsed again and she yelped in response. Her voice shook as her body did. “The doozy! The doozy!”

For a moment, Sunset looked into the crystal ball. Twilight remained in her sitting position in the center of the room, oblivious to anything that had just happened. She was at a peace never attained before.

Twilight’s eyes shot open as a loud groan erupted from the doors at the head of the chamber. She whirled around as the doors quaked and rocked and then slid apart. And then she let out a gasp.

All at once, the seven let out startled cries and bunched around the crystal ball, craning their necks to see what was happening. Sunset’s horn chose that moment to cut out, and the several images that had been floating about disappeared.

And then Sunset pointed. “There’s something standing behind that door!” she exclaimed.

Within the entryway, a hooded figure stood with one hoof pressed against the crystal ball. The brown cloth shrouded their face in darkness. Sunset could barely make out some features on the bottom of the muzzle, but she had enough to tell that, whoever it was, they were frowning.

“Ah!” Rainbow Dash blurted. “They’re gunna get tethered!”

“Who goes there!?” Twilight shouted from the center of the chamber.

“No!” Pinkie Pie cried, throwing her hooves into the air, “they’re gunna ruin the whole thing!”

Sunset narrowed her eyes as she glanced at the figure. Cloaked figure…

Cloak.

She felt her heart swell within her chest, almost painfully at that. “I’m going to see who that is,” Sunset said. She grabbed the ball and thought the ball’s view forward.

The image moved at a slow and deliberate pace and crept toward the cloaked pony beyond the doorway. As the image drew closer and closer, the figure grew more discernible. Once the crystal ball’s view arrived at a clear angle, Sunset angled it up.

And then time seemingly stopped. “…Twilight Sparkle?” Sunset tremulously announced.

Twilight Sparkle looked back out from under the hood’s edge with a determined frown. Her eyes remained on the crystal ball under her hoof.

The other six sat as still as statues. A tremulous and whispered “…What?” from Fluttershy was the only reaction they afforded.

The Twilight in the center of the chamber lowered her head like she was about to charge. “Whoever you are, you need to get out of here right now!”

The hooded Twilight remained focused on her task, whatever that was.

The seven watched without a single sound.

The hooded Twilight behind the door took her hoof off the ball. No sooner after did a white light surround her. The glow grew and grew before it eclipsed her entire body.

The hooded Twilight looked up and grinned.

Sunset gasped. That’s a time spell! And it’s pulling her back! she thought.

The space around the hooded Twilight cracked, and in that instant, she vanished in a shower of white-hot sparks.

The cloak did not. It remained behind, singed from the explosion. It floated for a few moments as it rode the shockwave and upward rush of air before it started to fall.

For a moment, Sunset only heard the pounding thump of her beating heart. It had been beating fast before, but as she watched the cloak’s slow, graceful descent, it seemed like an eternity between each successive beat.

The cloak landed without making a sound.

And then silence.

Sunset blinked.

She couldn’t bear to move. She imagined her body would not budge had she wanted it to. The tower dissolved around her to the point that she could only see the crystal ball in front of her.

Just outside the door with the ball.

“That, and that tacky little cloak over there,” Rarity’s voice said in Sunset’s head, “but we’re not concerned about that.”

That was a future Twilight… A Twilight who died and came back, Sunset thought.

Twilight sprinted over from her spot in the center of the room and skidded to a halt in front of the two objects on the ground. Her eyes lay on the cloak, and she briefly regarded the burn marks underneath it, before she turned her discerning eye to the crystal ball.

“Is that… Canterlot tower!?” she cried. “My ball shows Canterlot tower!”

Sunset felt a chill run down her spine, and she shivered. Future Twilight... moved the ball?

“Why would they do that!? Why would they move it there!?” Twilight screamed.

Sunset swallowed, but even then, her throat felt dry. The room grew cold and Sunset felt frozen to the spot. The wind caressed the windows, and the resulting whistle went through one ear and out of the other.

The thought, the singular thought, swam through her head again and again and each time, her expression grew more pronounced.

“Because…” she whispered, shaking, “we… would have never… found you… that first night... otherwise…?”

Twilight looked upward with a concerned frown. “What?”

Sunset’s jaw all but hit the floor.

What happens in one world happens in all of them.

Is, was, will be.

And then Sunset screamed and shot to her hooves. “I got it!” she exclaimed, “I finally got it! I know how all of this works now!”

In one instant, the others stood up in alarm. “You what!?” Spike cried.

Sunset shook her head. “Everything makes sense now. What happens in one world happens in all of them! We didn’t do anything different after all!”

Rarity gasped. “Oh my stars! Did we… did we just do it!?”

“We…” Rainbow Dash began, tossing her mane around, “we what?”

Fluttershy’s jaw hit the floor. “Wow.”

Sunset looked back down into the ball and snorted. There’s still something we have to do! Sunset grabbed the ball again. “Twilight, can you hear me?”

“I can hear you,” Twilight replied as she continued to survey the items. “Who was that? And what were they doing here?”

“Twilight, we know who they were, we know what they did, and we know why they did it. Twilight…” she said as a grin spread across her face, “we have it! We have The Answer!”

Twilight paused as she processed the response. Then she looked up through wide eyes. “You… have it?”

“We have it.”

Applejack all but leaped into the air. “Hooey! This is the break we’ve been waitin’ for!”

Twilight glanced back into the chamber as a large, wide smile overtook her features. “Great! That’s… phenomenal! What is it?”

Sunset used her magic to summon over the stack of transcribed pages. She flipped through them and set the ones that she wanted—the first sixteen pages—aside.

“I’m going to have to send you multiple images. Can you handle that?”

Twilight chuckled. “Of course I can. How hard can it be?”

Sunset lifted the first two pages and stared at them. “Alright, here they come,” she said and flared her horn.

One shriek later, an image of two pages appeared in front of Twilight. She immediately took to examining it. Meanwhile, Sunset prepared the next two pages and, using her spell, sent them into the ball as well. Another shriek later, another image containing two more pages appeared. Twilight moved it so that it floated right next to the first image. The two continued until all sixteen pages had been sent.

Twilight looked between all the images and a ball of white light appeared before long. It appeared as a blob at first, but as Twilight concentrated, the blobs took form. The unfathomable shapes soon transformed into a patchwork of sigils and a crisscross of lines. The patterns settled onto several rotating layers. With each development, the layers grew in number; first five, then twenty, then over one hundred, and with each layer, the ball of light grew to accommodate them.

“I’m only halfway done with the spell,” Twilight mused. She looked at the pre-cast and the images surrounding her and smiled. “But I think I can take it from here.”

“Go get ’em, Twilight,” Sunset urged. “We’ll see you on the other side.”

Twilight nodded and after giving the two items on the ground another discerning glance, Twilight turned around. Her images and pre-cast followed closely behind her as she trotted, with a new spring in her step, back into the chamber.

The doors groaned once and then slid closed once more.

Sunset fell backward onto the floor with a loud groan.

“Yee haw!” Applejack said, tossing her hat into the air.

A loud and bubbly boom sounded throughout the tower as Pinkie Pie, pressed against a cyan-colored cannon, showered them with streamers of all sorts of colors. A round of laughter erupted as the strands of paper rained down on them.

“Great!” Spike said, clapping his hands together. “Now what?”

Sunset looked up toward the ceiling. “Hey, Future Twilight, are you back yet?”

“Yes,” the crystal ball said, “I’m back, I’m back.”

“Great. Come on,” Sunset said, beaming as she hunched back over her half-finished paper. “Let’s finish writing this spell down and set things right once and for all.”

* * *

The cavern’s crystalline walls zoomed by at speeds faster than Sunset cared to discern. Her eyes remained forward, split between the pages of the string-bound book in front of her face and the path that the cavern ground snaked through the mountain.

With each page, the ball of light trailing beside her grew larger and larger. The pre-cast lit the pages in front of her with increasing strength. Sunset could barely make out the taps and clops of running ponies and a dragon behind her, but she made sure they never fell behind.

The path turned left and Sunset skidded to a halt. Large double doors made of stone glared down at her, groaned, and then slid into the walls. Sunset glanced back at the six behind her and nodded once before proceeding into the chamber. The rest followed closely behind her.

The wide hemisphere of a room glowed an angry red. Lit symbols ringed around the floor and dotted the walls. But a towering tree-like crystal pillar with a purple horn stuck in the dead center arrested all attention.

Sunset stopped halfway to the pillar and let her eyes glaze back over the pages. The pre-cast continued to grow as Sunset poured more of her readings into it. Even with ten pages left, the swirling ball of light remained more complex than anything she had ever seen before.

She glanced back at the ponies and dragon behind her, all of whom looked back with intent expressions. “I don’t entirely know what this spell’s going to do,” Sunset said, “but once I start it… I won’t be able to stop it.”

The others nodded. “Well, we’re ready whenever you are,” Spike said.

Sunset swallowed and turned her attention back to the pages. Her eyes darted back and forth between working down the current page and consulting a pattern from the library pages. Line by line, the pre-cast grew.

Five pages left. Four. Three. The pre-cast sparkled as the scores of layers within rotated at unfathomable velocities.

Finally, Sunset closed the pages, letting out a breath that she had been holding since stepping into the chamber. While her eyes remained on the pre-cast in front of her, running through it every which way, her magic moved the string-bound book into Spike’s waiting grasp behind.

“Here goes!” Sunset announced.

Spike drew back and let out a burst of green fire. The papers burned within until nothing remained. The green embers then sailed out of the room and then disappeared around the corner.

Sunset drew in a breath and touched her horn to the spell.

The ball of light flashed once and then streamed into Sunset’s horn. Her horn lit up in response as a wave of energy pulsated through her body. Sunset could feel her insides rock as it interpreted the pre-cast. It felt like the crack of a whip. Sunset held her breath as a means to bide it, but the burning grew hotter and hotter with each passing second.

And then Sunset felt a red and orange aura around her. She felt the white-hot glow in her eyes and the raw magic around her grate against her skin. Sunset rose off the floor, and regardless of how she kicked at the air, the spell refused to let her back down.

Her insides tingled, and for a moment, she felt a crack shoot up her horn. Just like she had after putting the Element of Magic on at the Fall Formal, she thought her insides would then rip apart.

The aura shot out. Several tendrils made beelines for the ponies behind her. They cried out and screamed as it scooped them up. And then another, like an afterthought, took a hold of Spike as well.

Sunset looked back behind her as they writhed about and she let out a shocked, “No!”

Her six captives cried out in pain as the spell poked and prodded at them, although the spell treated Spike with comparative tameness. Their cries reached a crescendo as a set of white pillars of light sprang out and engulfed them. For a moment, the ponies disappeared entirely.

A set of new ponies emerged. Ponies that looked much like the old ones but appeared much more extravagant. Colors from all parts of the rainbow striped through their manes and tails, both of which had grown to unproportioned lengths. Each of them, even within the grasp of Sunset’s aura, glowed with white auras of their own.

“The Rainbow Power!” Rainbow Dash cried.

Sunset blinked. For a moment, she wondered if anything had happened to her own body, but she did not look.

“It’s draining me!” Rarity cried as she struggled against the magic around her.

Spike gasped. “The spell! It called the Rainbow Power and it’s trying to use it to power itself!”

Pinkie Pie fought against it enough to look straight ahead. “Sunset!”

Sunset had to fight against her own aura just to reach back toward them but found herself too far away. “Girls! I…!”

Applejack let out an exhausted grunt before she craned her neck and surveyed the aura around her. She smiled and went limp. “You got this, Sunset. Ah trust ya...”

Fluttershy looked over and, despite her pained expression, she nodded. “Me too,” she said. The aura around her, in response, loosened its grip.

The others looked up to Sunset and threw out determined grins. Even Spike, who floated below in an untransformed state, smiled up at her.

Sunset smiled and nodded affirmatively. And then the ravaging cackle of magic within her turned warm and vibrant.

She turned her attention back to the pillar before her and let the spell run its course. Where the spell had been a raging inferno inside her before, much like the Element of Magic had been, this felt like a coursing river.

The light from her horn, now at a blinding intensity, reached toward the rest of the cavern. The walls rumbled and the lights within the symbols all over pulsated. The crystal pillar in the center of the room shook and swayed.

The pillar did not shatter as Sunset expected it to. Instead, the crystal melted. It cascaded downward, leaving the trapped horn floating in place, before it spread across the floor like a puddle. And then the puddle rotated. The molten crystal ran slow like molasses but appeared clear like water.

Sunset felt a powerful surge of energy run into her horn. Sparks jumped off the end and she struggled to keep conscious, but instead of fighting it like before, she concentrated on funneling it through. The energy emerged through the tip and spread to all directions, rocketing off to speeds faster than she could fathom. She could feel the spell reaching for something, or somethings, but couldn’t readily tell what.

Seconds later, a purple orb appeared before her. And then another, then a score, then a few hundred. Many more appeared out of thin air and swirled around the center of the room, counter to the liquid below.

Stones, Sunset thought.

One by one, the stones dove into the liquid. Several splashes dotted the surface as each orb disappeared. With each addition, the rotating pool spun faster and faster, turning purple as a result.

The room rumbled with such intensity that small specks of dirt and dust sheeted off the ceiling. As more and more stones teleported into the room and then kamikazed into the liquid, the hum turned into a ground-shaking roar from the quaking of the walls and the sheer velocity of the whirlpool below.

And then the purple horn that floated in the center of the room lit up and sucked the molten crystal up toward it. The liquid spiraled around the horn at first and then swallowed it whole. As more and more rose up, the liquid compacted into a solitary sphere around it.

And then the sphere exploded in a bright white flash. An outburst of pure, saturated energy rose up in a hot column of light so bright that, even behind shielded eyes, Sunset found herself blinded. The roar reached its apex, deafening her as well.

She winced under its power for many moments before it died just enough for her to take a peek, something the ponies and dragon behind her followed suit in.

Twilight Sparkle stared back at them through white-lit eyes and an unconscious frown. Her rainbow-like hair and tail swayed with the energy that flowed through them. Animated by the spell itself, Twilight floated before them with her wings spread to their full length.

Sunset’s mouth hung limp for many moments before she managed to curve it into a small smile.

And then Twilight’s body sucked the column into itself and, with one last flash of light, all the tugs and pulls of the spell broke down.

All at once, all eight of them found themselves thrown to the floor.

Sunset’s world faded out and then she fell to the unconscious.

13 - Causality

A cloudless night allowed the moon to take precedence over the land of Equestria. While dull compared to previous nights, the white ball in the sky shone with a still-impressive ferocity. A sheet of stagnant air complimented it, leading to an overall stillness that few appreciated.

A low rumble rose from the ground. The earth vibrated, sending reverberations throughout the trees, through the plains, and finally into buildings. The tremors grew in intensity; water sloshed about within their basins and bell towers hummed as their metallic bells resonated.

The residents of Ponyville rushed out of their homes. They glanced around with worried expressions as they wiped the slumber from their eyes. Neighbor turned to neighbor and fledgling rumors spread about.

Was it a monster? An earthquake?

The citizens of Canterlot cried out as a pillar of light erupted from the mountaintop. The incomprehensible energy radiating off the beam blew through their manes and even caused some to lose their balance. It bent the very air around it and, to a degree, it even pulled on the city below.

In one of the northern parts of Equestria, a dark and bulky stallion silently watched the light show on the horizon. He stroked his hoof through the hairs on his chin and hummed to himself.

The citizens of the Crystal Empire also looked up at the light on the horizon but with wonder. Their coats shimmered and sparkled as they soaked it in. Their ruling couple did much of the same from a balcony on the Crystal Palace.

The end of the pillar reached into the heavens. It surpassed Cloudsdale in height and only stretched higher from there. The light grew in strength and blinded those below. The roar crescendoed and the shaking grew to a point where wall decorations dropped to the floors below.

In a small village in the middle of nowhere, two griffons watched the beam rise up and up. They quietly spoke in their native languages, just like several other griffons nearby.

Just as it looked like the beam would reach the moon, the tip exploded with a loud bang. A large set of star-shapes appeared in the sky: one monolithic, purple star-like figure with five white companion stars. The constellation eclipsed the moon, covering the land in a warming, lavender-colored glow.

In Canterlot, two alicorn sisters appeared on one of the castle’s balconies. They looked toward the blazing stars above them. The younger looked to the older as the latter considered a large stack of paper that had appeared in her fireplace. The older then glanced back up toward the symbol with a smile on her face.

In the city below, a unicorn stallion and unicorn mare rushed into each other’s embrace at the mere sight of the mark. They shouted out of joy as tears fell from their eyes.

Amidst a collection of tents near the base of the Crystal Mountains, an earth pony adjusted his glasses once and hummed to himself. His students sat in fascination, throwing around hypotheses on what it could mean.

Out on the open sea, a salty sea-dog and a mermare looked up toward the symbol in front of the moon and let out a hearty laugh.

In the Badlands, a changeling queen snorted at the sight. She whirled around and stomped back through an opening in the hive.

The pillar of light flashed once before it pulled the star out of the sky and receded into the mountain. The rumbling dwindled down to a light shiver and then faded into the night altogether. The mountain spoke no more, and Equestria fell silent.

High above the plain, a single floating figure looked down upon the mountaintop. He considered what had just happened and smiled, baring his fang.

“Well well well, it’s about time,” Discord the draconequus said with a chuckle before downing another handful of popcorn.

Sunset Shimmer knew only darkness. She could feel a pulsating sensation within her chest, and she soon figured that out to be a beating heart. That at least told her that she wasn’t dead.

She tried to move around but couldn’t tell if her body was reacting to her commands. Did she have a body? In her darkness, having a body had no meaning. But wait, again, she had a heartbeat. So she had a body. It just would not obey.

But when it came down to it, she could not find any energy to move said theoretical body. She was drained, just like the night that she had crawled out of a crater.

Feeling returned to where her eyes were supposed to be, and she opened them. Her blurred vision faded into a large, hemispherical room with dozens of symbols on the walls and floor. But where she remembered red, a cool purple glow lit the area. The air nipped at her coat but did not bite like a chill nor burn like a warmth.

She blinked once and craned her neck to see five ponies (who appeared much closer to how she remembered them than they were before) and a dragon on the floor behind her. They lay sprawled out every which way. She could see some paleness in their coats and, for a moment, she worried.

But they breathed, and that gave her some relief.

With a smile, Sunset rolled over to face the center of the room. Like the others, Twilight Sparkle lay on the floor, perfectly still as she slept, save for the steady heave as she breathed. Sunset chuckled at the sight.

Sunset wiped some of the drowsiness from her face and when she looked next, Twilight’s eyes had popped open. Rather, Twilight stared at her. Her face remained expressionless, but the smallest twinkle in Twilight’s eyes spoke to her.

Sunset grunted. She tried to lift herself to her hooves, only to have them fall out beneath her. Instead, Sunset crawled, dragging herself across the floor. She used her magic to help lift herself up and ease her work.

Even then, her trek was slow. Even when she slid forward, Twilight seemed no closer. But unlike before, Sunset felt okay with that. They didn’t have minutes or hours like before, but years. Lifetimes.

Sunset went until she joined Twilight in the center of the room. At that point, she flopped onto her side with an exhausted sigh.

“Hey, Twilight,” she said.

Twilight’s expression remained unchanged.

“I… never thought I’d see you again,” Sunset continued. “In the flesh, I mean. I’m so glad you’re back. You did it. You beat the Nameless.”

The corners of Twilight’s mouth managed to curve into a grin.

Sunset chuckled. “Whoever thought we’d be here, huh?” she mused.

Twilight tried to lift her head so that she could see over Sunset, anxious to see the rest of her friends.

Sunset looked over her withers. “They’re alright. I think we’re all a little low on energy right now,” she said before she looked Twilight in the eye. “Especially you, huh?”

Twilight nodded.

Sunset smiled. “There’s no rush.”

Twilight groaned and lifted a hoof off the floor. She extended it, stretched it even, before she let it fall to the ground in front of Sunset. Twilight retained her intent stare.

Sunset considered it for a moment and reached out with her own hoof. She found she had to move closer just for it to reach and strained to shift forward. Their hooves connected and held firm.

Twilight smiled and looked up at her. Sunset could see the twinkle in her eyes; she looked like she was about to cry out of sheer joy.

Sunset, in response, held on even tighter. “You’re welcome. Anything for you.”

With a smile, Twilight closed her eyes once more and drifted back into her unconscious.

Sunset’s heart swelled within her chest.

She smiled to herself and closed her eyes as well, content to welcome the sandmare back. She had one last thought before she disappeared once more:

We did it.

* * *

Sunset’s hooves dug into the ground as she trotted along. The crystal walls had since changed back into dirt ones and a few mining tools lay here and there. Long, unlit torches jutted out of the walls at frequent intervals.

She looked over her withers at the weary souls behind her. The six of them shuffled (or, in Rainbow Dash’s case, flew) along, letting out occasional yawns as they went. They traveled close together, neck to neck. Sunset smiled as Fluttershy listed several things that she planned to do when they returned to Ponyville. Rarity soon followed.

Finally, Sunset looked at the figure straddled across her back. Twilight remained asleep, unaware of what conversations occurred behind them.

A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Sunset straightened up as they approached it, gaining a noticeable length in her stride. “We’re almost there,” she announced.

Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes. “No kidding? It looks a little bright out there.”

“Probably because we’ve been in the dark so long,” Rarity replied.

Sunset laughed. “Yeah. We sure have.”

They drew closer and closer and the light, in turn, grew brighter. When they finally reached the mouth of the cave, they all had to shield their eyes.

The sun’s rays caressed them, splashing color into their coats. It peeked out from the edge of the horizon, initiating a dance with the cool and increasingly blue sky.

Sunset beamed. “Twilight,” she said. “Twilight.”

She did not stir.

“Twilight, look,” she said, using her magic to shake Twilight. “It’s morning already.”

Twilight blinked once before she looked up as well. She stared into the sky, centering on the bright ball above. As a light wind blew through her mane and tickled her coat, Twilight took a long whiff of the air.

With a happy sigh, Twilight fell against Sunset’s back again and returned to a blissful rest.

The other six sprinted past them and plowed their way into a group of ponies that had been standing at the far end of the site. “Princess Celestia!” several of them cried at once.

Celestia smiled. “My little ponies, how good it is to see all of you,” she said. She looked through each of them and then raised an eyebrow. “But whatever are all of you doing here?”

All at once, they looked back to Sunset who crept toward them with a blush on her face. She, in turn, motioned to the mare on her back.

The guards gasped in unison before they shot glances at each other for breaking protocol. Princess Celestia failed to notice through her own wide-eyed expression. “By the stars…” she half-whispered.

Twilight looked up once, and with a weak smile, waved back.

Celestia stared for a long while. She placed a hoof over her mouth in an attempt to control her breath, and her mane seemed to freeze in place. Her eyes drifted from the mare on Sunset’s back to someplace far above the mountain and back again.

“Could it be?” she wheezed.

“Yepperoni!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she danced around. “We totally did! It was a long fight and we fought hard and then we kinda didn’t fight but then we did this real hard thinking stuff and then whoosh,” she said, arching a hoof through the air, “we kinda did it.”

Rarity nodded. “We did. Although really, Twilight helped us a lot along the way.”

Celestia blinked. “Twilight… helped you with this?”

Rarity giggled. “It’s… complicated.”

“Short version is yes,” Sunset added.

Celestia threw her head back and laughed. Her loud giggles echoed off the mountainside and could likely be heard in the city below.

Her guards looked up at her in questioning. “Princess?” one of them asked out of concern.

Celestia wiped a tear from her eyes. “Oh my goodness. I guess I should have known this was happening all along. I mean, after that spectacle last night…”

Applejack frowned. “Spectacle?”

“We”—Celestia motioned to her guards—“were preparing to mount an expedition into the cave, in light of the magical surge last night,” Princess Celestia said. And then she smiled as she peered over at Twilight. “But I can see that is no longer necessary.”

Spike crossed his arms. “Yeah, but, we should probably still make sure she’s okay and everything.”

Celestia nodded. “Yes, I agree. We should get her to Canterlot General. Come, my little ponies.”

* * *

Sunset’s attention drifted back and forth between Twilight and the nurse watching her. The nurse, for his part, ran down a list on the clipboard floating in front of him. The heart monitor on the wall beeped in a constant rhythm while several numbers underneath went to statistics that Sunset had never studied.

The others sat around the edges of the room, each well out of the way while the nurse went about his checks. Rarity washed some dirt off her face using a sink on the wall. Rainbow Dash sat with a hoof against the window, staring out at the afternoon sun. The other four sat in the corner where they talked in hushed whispers (with the exception of Pinkie Pie whose voice trumped the others).

Nurse Heartbeat took a quick glance at the papers underneath before he nodded. “Well,” he said, “it looks like most everything checks out. Vitals are fine, brain function is normal. She’s very low on her nutrient levels and we will need to take a couple of days to correct that.”

“But she’ll be okay though, right?” Rainbow Dash asked.

“Well, after… what… happened…” the nurse said as he read off the clipboard, hints of disbelief in his voice, “there isn’t anything that we did not expect. All things considering, she looks really good. I expect we’ll be able to discharge her within two or three days tops.”

“Wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” Rarity said. “Thank you so much.”

The nurse flared his horn and used his magic to slot the clipboard back onto the front of the bed. “You’re welcome. All she needs is a little bit of rest right now, so don’t all of you visit for too long, okay?”

“You got it, doc,” Rainbow Dash said.

That’s a nurse, Sunset thought.

Nurse Heartbeat kept his smile as he exited the room and turned down the hall.

Sunset lay back against the wall and sighed. She looked around the varnished wooden padding on the walls, the painting of a tree just next to the door, and the crystal-clear windows. She had imagined it to be sterile (and it probably was), but this felt warm. She felt composed and relaxed. She felt like she had a clear head.

Despite the hospital gown, Twilight appeared just she had at any other time. She slept with a foal-like smile spread across her face as she clutched an extra pillow to her chest.

Sunset nodded to herself. Things are going to go back to normal, huh?

Pinkie Pie scooted across the room and draped herself over the edge of the bed. The others giggled in response, even as Pinkie Pie batted at Twilight’s mane.

Spike’s hands met Rarity’s hooves as they watched, and the two, even though their attention remained on Twilight, grew a shade redder in response.

Applejack hid her belly-throttled laughter behind her hat. She grabbed a hold of her cushion to keep her balance.

Rainbow Dash reclined against the windowsill and let out a long yawn, letting her eyes stray back toward the clear blue skies above.

Fluttershy smiled. She smiled the sort of smile that lit the room. Not too big, but not too small. A smile just right, one that could not have possibly been broken within that moment.

Twilight remained blissfully asleep. She let out a moan as she shifted in the bed.

Sunset felt fuzzy inside just from watching all of it. A world with Twilight Sparkle. That was her new reality.

How things were meant to be.

Sunset scratched at an itch behind her ear. But… it’s not completely over yet. We have our Twilight, but… She looked at Twilight and frowned. There are other worlds below ours that don’t yet.

She crossed her forelegs. I have to go make sure they can get The Answer and get theirs back too.

Sunset looked up. “Spike?” she asked.

Spike looked over. “What?”

“You sent The Answer to the princess, right?”

Spike raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I did. Did it right before you did that spell.”

Sunset stood up and sidled toward the door. “Okay, okay. I’m going to go put it you-know-where.”

Spike nodded and turned his attention back to the mare in the bed. “Alright, you go ahead and do that.”

Sunset took one last look at Twilight and bit her lip. “I guess I’ll see you all later,” she said.

“Are you heading home afterward?” Spike asked.

Sunset nodded in response. “Yeah. I’m catching the afternoon train.”

He regarded her for a moment before he grinned. “Okay. See ya later.”

The others looked up and smiled.

Sunset looked over to Twilight one last time as a wide grin spread across her face. She almost did not want to go. No, she did not want to go. But somehow, she had every reason to go too.

Twilight was with her friends.

Because things were how they were meant to be.

Sunset hummed to herself and then stepped out of the room.

She only managed a few steps before a pair of unicorns rounded a corner in front of her. They charged straight at her. Sunset flinched and then recoiled entirely, but then the pair moved off to the side as if to get by.

Sunset frowned. Hey, I remember those two. She looked at them as they slid past her; a blue-coated stallion and a grey-coated mare.

The two unicorns dove into the door that she had just come out of. A batch of cries erupted from within a moment later, among them a “My baby girl! My baby’s girl’s alive!” from what had to be the stallion.

And through a pause, a subdued reply of “Mom… Dad…” rang out to her.

“Oh, Twilight!”

Sunset smiled. Her chest swelled, and she could not suppress the giggle that brushed past her lips. At that, she continued onward.

And yet, in those endless halls, Sunset heard only her hoofsteps. They echoed throughout the hall for only her to hear.

* * *

Sunset entered the tower, letting the door creak shut behind her. She fetched the stack of papers out of her otherwise-packed saddlebag and looked over them once. She flipped through the pages of The Answer once while the rest of her magic lay her saddlebag next to the door.

She looked around the room. For the past five days, it had been her home once more. For the past five days, Sunset had relived days long past. Years, even. For once since arriving, Sunset could focus on the tower without drawing herself back to Twilight. She could focus on the memories of what had once been her home.

Sunset looked over toward the living room where several cushions lay strewn about. She smiled as she imagined six ponies, a dragon, and a crystal ball all huddled around a card game on the floor. And then she imagined another scene where the eight had posed for a picture, where that picture then sent itself across time and space.

Sunset blinked. That had all happened the day before.

With a worried frown, Sunset ascended the stairs into the study area and levitated The Answer onto the desk.

Sunset looked at the hourglass, the one spot she had always gone to. Sunset again smiled as she imagined six ponies, a dragon, and a crystal ball huddled next to it as they bounced ideas off of a chalkboard. And then she imagined them as they argued over the origins of a book.

That had been a few days ago.

She furrowed her brow. Somehow, as she looked, any memory she could think of was with them. Everywhere she looked, she could see them. She could hear them as they talked, laughed, cried, and slept.

Today, the tower seemed quiet, like a ghost of its former self. Something was definitely missing. Six somethings, in fact.

Sunset shook her head and instead strolled over to where the crystal ball sat on the floor. “Twilight?” she called. “Can you hear me?”

For a moment the ball remained silent. And then, “Huh? Yes? Sunset?”

“Hey.”

“Hi.”

“I just came from the hospital,” Sunset said.

“I know, I saw,” Twilight’s voice replied.

Sunset strolled over to the window. She looked across the rest of the grounds, and then her eyes glided up the magnificent towers of the main castle. She considered their shining contours and their perfect curves.

“Maybe I left a little too fast,” Sunset mused.

The voice in the ball did not respond.

“Anyway,” Sunset continued with a shake of her head, “I’ve been thinking a lot about it and I’m pretty sure of what all you did last night.”

“Oh?” Twilight’s voice asked.

“The burn mark downstairs made us think that only one pony time traveled in when in fact it was two. I time traveled first, leaving the initial mark. Then you time traveled, using my mark to mask your entry.

“I imagine that you immediately grabbed the cloak off the hook so that nopony would see you. You then went upstairs, looked at the map to remember how to get to the chamber, and then teleported to the door. You opened the door for yourself while setting the crystal ball up so that we… well… your world’s version of us could later find you in the crystal ball.”

Sunset shrugged, “Because none of this would have ever happened if I hadn’t spotted you in the crystal ball that first night.”

Twilight’s voice laughed. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. How did you figure it out?”

“The note was found map-side up instead of note-side up like you had left it just after writing it. I knew somepony had turned it over. Cloak is obvious because you had to conceal your identity. Both of those place you in the tower at some point.”

“Okay, that’s pretty smart. But how did you know it was that specific spot?”

“Princess Celestia saw a bright flash of light come from the tower that night. You know, the kind of light that a time spell produces.”

“Really? That’s interesting.”

“And nowhere else in the tower had burn marks.”

The crystal ball went silent. And then, “I can see why you were Celestia’s star pupil once!”

Sunset laughed as she turned around to face the hourglass. She used her magic to lift the top off the apparatus just like she had several days prior. After leaning the lid against the golden frame, Sunset ran her eyes down the glass, catching her reflection among its curves.

“I just wonder though,” she said as she levitated The Answer over to herself, “what are you doing in Canterlot anyway? I thought you would be home by now.”

Sunset could imagine the nod on the other side of the crystal ball. “That’s right. I’ve spent the last few days in Ponyville just trying to settle myself back in. I mean, when I wasn’t watching you all and the mess that I caused. But… yesterday, the girls had to talk to the princess and insisted that I come with, except they locked me in this tower with my family while they went and talked.”

Sunset grinned. So, they will bring Twilight back here nine days from now, huh? she thought.

“I will be honest, I was a little bit irked by all that, but now I understand what all of them were doing. They were making sure that I closed the loop.” The voice in the ball paused, and then added, “Plus they also wanted to do what they were going to do before this whole mess. So I’m going to Don Giofilly later tonight.”

“Yeah, and in doing so, you passed two obstacles that I thought were impossible.”

The ball considered it. “Which are?” Twilight’s voice asked.

“That there’s no way to travel between the worlds.”

“Hmmmm. You’re right. There’s no way to travel between the worlds. But then I remembered that the worlds act a lot alike. So I figured that if I did something in my world, then it would happen in their world too. It was just a matter of figuring out what.”

“Right. But you chose time travel. So secondly, you managed to time travel despite the once-per-lifetime rule.”

“I remember that rule too. And then I realized that, having died and come back, I technically started a new lifetime and thus wasn’t bound by the once-per-lifetime rule. So I could use it again.”

Sunset shook her head. “Which that is… really smart. You’re a genius, Twilight.”

“I knew, in that moment, that I could do it. That my job… was to travel back in time and open that door… so that I could receive The Answer from you and be saved.” Twilight’s voice giggled. “I screamed. I about gave Cadance a heart attack. You should have seen it!”

“Ha. I bet you scared them pretty good.”

“I did! You should have seen them when I found The Answer in the hourglass, too.”

“Which,” Sunset said as she held up the stack of papers, “I’m about to make possible.”

“Which your world’s version of me will find… and then they’ll do what I did. Although... I do wonder how much locality the loop has. I mean, I would think this wouldn’t happen wherever we first published The Answer.”

“Yeah, they’d do things very differently I guess.” Sunset shrugged. “But buck that. Not my problem.”

“Same could be said about whatever world started with no information. Or whatever is below that. I wonder what they did.”

“Buck that.”

“Maybe I’ll look into this in the coming months. This concept of the infinite is so fascinating!”

Sunset half-snorted, half-chuckled. “Well, have fun with that.”

“Anyway, before you put that into the hourglass… I actually have one last page to send to you.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. One last page? We… are missing a page? She nodded and summoned over a quill and a new sheet of paper. “Okay, okay, I’m ready to copy it down.”

Sunset flared her horn as the crystal ball let out a shriek. An image formed in front of her and she took a moment to glance at the image within. To her surprise, the page contained not numbers or equations like she expected but, rather, plain text.

A cover page, she realized.

The Answer

Written by Sunset Shimmer

Co-written by Twilight Sparkle

Data collection by Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, and Spike

This one-time-use spell is the product of several realities’ worth of work and represents the love of close friends who went above and beyond for one dear to them

Sunset blushed as she copied her own name down from the image before her. I… they gave me top billing. It’s like they… attributed this… to me. Her smile grew wider and wider with each name that she took down, and by the time she reached the summary, Sunset beamed with pride. She wiped away a few tears as she completed her work and held it up to really drink it in.

She took the completed copy and bound it to the stack. After that, she placed the stack of papers into the basin and lifted the lid back onto the top of the hourglass. She then used her hoof to flip the hourglass over.

“It’s done,” Sunset announced.

Sunset hummed as she watched the sand trickle down between the chambers. The grains, so fine that she could not distinguish one from another, flowed past each other on their way to the bottom. A small mound appeared on top of the papers and soon enough, the papers disappeared entirely into the sand.

“Sunset…” Twilight’s voice quivered, “I have a… confession to make.”

Sunset hummed absentmindedly.

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since I came back. And I’ve made a huge mistake. You can’t tell anypony else, okay?”

Sunset blinked and looked up toward the ceiling. “…Okay?”

Twilight’s voice sucked in a breath. “Rainbow Dash was right. She said that we could have used the Rainbow Power to defeat the Nameless. It would have worked. I know it would have worked.”

Sunset swallowed. No way… Can that be right? she thought.

“I underestimated friendship,” Twilight’s voice continued. “Even though it has helped us through so many things before, I got so scared… I… It clouded my judgment. This whole mess really is my fault.”

Sunset shook her head. “It would have worked?”

“It would have worked.”

Sunset felt her eyes drag themselves to the floor. A shiver overtook her and her whole body felt numb. The past few days of heartache and sadness had happened because Twilight had clouded judgment?

Sunset grabbed at her head and tried to force it out. But the thought clung to her head. The despair came rushing back. The anguish, the sorrow. And the joy.

She paused. What was joy doing there? What was determination doing there? What was hope doing there?

What were the other six doing there?

As she thought about it, everything else was there because the other six were there.

Because it should have been an awful time. But, thanks to them, it had not been so much. They had given her positive things during a negative time, and she had done the same for them. Sure, the days had been filled with despair and anguish and sorrow, but they had given each other joy and hope and reasons to stay determined.

None of that would have been possible without them, huh? she thought to herself.

Sunset half-snorted, half laughed. “Now I know I messed up,” she muttered. With a sigh, she turned back to the crystal ball and stared at it intently.

“What?”

She messed with her curled mane and her eyes shifted about as she thought. With each moment, her mouth curled more into a grin. “Hey, Twilight?” she finally asked.

“Yes?”

Sunset sucked in a breath. “Before the funeral… we all got to talking and they told me about this friendship diary that all of you put together. That’s a thing, right?”

“Yes. I usually keep it in the castle library back home. Though I have it with me right now. I’ve gone through some of it over the past few days.

Sunset smiled before she headed over toward the desk. She grabbed one more piece of parchment and set her quill against it. “Well, I was going to wait until I got to the portal to write this, but… maybe I should write something now.”

Twilight’s voice hummed. “You’re… going to make a diary entry?”

“Yeah.”

There was a pause. And then, “Okay.”

Sunset began writing, dictating as she wrote.

“Dear Diary,

“Once upon a time, I learned that the magic of friendship doesn't just exist in Equestria, but everywhere. That you can seek it out, or you can be alone.

“I was taught that friendship is everywhere, but never could I have seen it more prominently than this past week. The spark of friendship transcends all borders. Whether separated by a few miles, a few days, or maybe even a few worlds, if you look for it, you will find it.

“And maybe that’s all you need.

“At first, I didn’t look for it because I did not think I would gain it. Likewise, a wise pony that I know didn’t look for it at first because she was afraid to lose it. But in the end, we looked for it and found what we needed.

“The best of friends can help each other get through troubled times. They’ll share the burden of your hurt even if they feel the exact same way, and maybe that makes it that much easier. You can count on your friends to help you find a way through.

“Because no matter the circumstances, wonderful things happen when you reach out or let yourself be reached.

“Yours truly,
“Sunset Shimmer”

Sunset set the quill down and looked over her writing. After a once-over, she gave herself a satisfied nod and levitated the crystal ball over.

“That…” Twilight’s voice said, “is a good entry. I think… I should try to learn from that.”

Sunset smirked. “Are you reading all of that from your own copy?” she asked.

“I was.”

“You will be.”

Their laughter echoed off the walls into parts of the tower unknown.

“I should mention that a couple words were changed in my version,” Twilight’s voice said. “Just another example of world divergence, I guess.”

Sunset trotted down the stairs with both ball and paper behind her. She slid her diary draft into her saddlebag and then lifted the whole thing onto her back. She then nodded to herself. “I really want to tell the others goodbye. I wish I had done that at the hospital…”

“Well… Let me see...” The crystal ball didn’t answer for a moment. Sunset could not tell what Twilight was doing in a world several days into the future.

Sunset opened the doors to the tower. She looked back once and levitated the crystal ball onto one of the cushions.

“Okay. I just checked to see if the others were still at the hospital in your world. So, if you said something, I didn’t hear you,” Twilight’s voice said.

“And?”

“I couldn’t find them. It… looks like they left.”

Sunset’s eyes fell to the floor. “…O-oh,” she stammered.

“But… don’t worry about it too much, okay?”

Sunset stared back into the empty tower. Even with the bright white and blue palette that looked back at her, even with the cushions that littered the floor, even with all the books upstairs—more than most ponies could want—the tower felt empty.

And it was her fault.

“Sure...” Sunset croaked after a few moments. “Thanks for checking for me.”

“You’re welcome.”

Sunset stepped into the doorway but paused. She turned. “And, before I forget… I’ve been hoping that I might be able to say this to you. And I think now is the best time to do it.” She grinned. “Happy birthday, Twilight. Or, birthdays. However you want to call it.”

Twilight’s voice giggled. “Thanks, Sunset. It means a lot to me. Tell everyone at Canterlot High that I said, ‘Hi.’”

With a nod, Sunset turned outward once more and slunk through the doorframe. Her magic grabbed a hold of the double doors and pulled them closed. The double doors locked with a click, and after one last longing look, Sunset descended the staircase.

* * *

Canterlot’s train station was a building that Sunset could swear was halfway made out of windows. She trotted inside and slid into the ticket line. As the ponies in front of her conducted their business, her eyes glued themselves to the clock on the wall, watching it tick on.

Finally, she reached the front. The stallion behind the counter looked at her from behind his thick spectacles and pulled at his half-greying beard. “How can I help you today?” he asked with a worn and tired voice.

Sunset used her magic to fish her bits out from her saddlebag and tossed them onto the counter. “One-way to Ponyville, please…”

“One-way to Ponyville,” he echoed as he scooped the bits into a register. The stallion reached under the counter and slapped a train ticket onto the countertop. “Your train leaves in about two hours. You will want to be here at the station at least thirty minutes before it arrives.”

Sunset nodded. “Thanks.”

“Have a wonderful day and hope you have a safe trip!” the stallion said with a smile.

Sunset slunk toward one of the windows and tossed her saddlebag against it before taking a seat herself. Her eyes drifted toward the drop-off a few yards past the tracks and Sunset saw the vista beyond. Her eyes glazed across the plains below, tracking a small stream that meandered through the landscape. And then she followed it back up before going over its length a third time.

And she let her mind wander. She let it wander to the last few days. She let it wander to thoughts of those who had been with her through them.

She wanted to see them one more time. She wanted to tell them goodbye. She wanted more time with them. She wanted to feel what she had felt when she was with them.

This time, Sunset knew what she wanted.

* * *

“Sunset.”

The word went in one ear and out the other.

“Sunset!”

Somepony is calling my name?

She blinked.

“Sunset Shimmer!”

Sunset whirled around to find Rainbow Dash leaning in dangerously close to her face.

Rainbow Dash snorted and stood up. “It’s like you’re deaf or something.”

Sunset scrambled to her hooves. She looked past Rainbow Dash to find the other five nearly staring at her with half-smirks. “Oh! I…!” she said, turning red. “You’re here! I thought you’d have gone back to Twilight by now.”

“Well of course we’d like to be with Twilight,” Rarity said, “but we have all the time in the world for her. You, on the other hoof, are more important right now.”

Sunset recoiled against the glass, looking between their bright, smiling faces.

She then chuckled under her breath and wrapped a hoof around her own foreleg. “I um… I left that hospital without properly saying goodbye properly and…”

“What?” Applejack asked. “Did ya think that we weren’t gunna see ya off?”

Sunset blinked. Seeing me off? She rubbed the back of her head. “I guess I didn’t. I forgot all about it. I’m not very good with these kinds of things yet.”

Spike laughed. “That’s why I asked you if you were leaving later, so that we could meet you here.”

“We wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Sunset turned red and let out a relieved giggle, not letting up even as she wiped a tear from her eye. “You all are the best.”

“Attention passengers,” echoed a voice throughout the station, “the train from Hollow Shades will arrive in the station momentarily with continuing service to Ponyville and Las Pegasus. All customers embarking to those locations should gather their belongings and make their way onto the platform.”

Sunset levitated her saddlebag onto her back. “That’s me.”

Fluttershy stepped toward the sliding glass doors. “Should we all head out there then?”

Sunset nodded and started for the door.

A flurry of gasps enveloped the building as several ponies dropped to the floor. Sunset looked up to see what could cause such a reaction and spotted Princess Celestia standing in the doorway to the station. An older stallion, dressed in a tailored red coat, stood by her side, using his magic to steal a glance at his pocket watch.

Celestia searched for a moment before locking her gaze on Sunset. She smiled and glided forward.

Sunset turned to the other six. “I’ll meet you all out on the platform, okay?”

Her friends nodded with a flurry of affirmative hums as they stepped through the doors and out onto the platform.

Sunset turned back toward the princess as the latter approached her. She bowed. “Princess.”

Celestia leaned forward, “You do not have to bow to me, Sunset,” she said with a smile.

Sunset climbed back onto all fours. “What are you doing here?”

“I heard that you might be leaving. I thought I should see you off.”

“Well, I’m glad you came,” Sunset said with a chuckle.

“Although I also came here…” Celestia said, clearing her throat, “to see if you’d be willing to spend an extra day here in Canterlot.”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “An extra day?”

Celestia motioned with her head toward the five ponies and dragon out on the platform. “They told me some of the details. They said that you had a lot to do with what has happened. So… I had planned on holding a ceremony in celebration of your efforts.”

“A ceremony just for me…?”

Celestia nodded. “Of course.”

Sunset looked back out onto the platform. A ceremony just for me... she thought.

But then her eyes fell on the six. As they talked about something that Sunset could only guess at, even in their equine forms, they reminded her of the people waiting for her back home.

Sunset held up a hoof. “I appreciate that, Princess, but… I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Oh?”

“I really have to get home to my friends at Canterlot High. I’m sure they are so worried about me.” She kicked at the floor. “I’ve been away from them for nearly six days and I never even told them I was still here.”

Celestia paused for a moment as she thought those words over. Her wings rustled at her sides as she looked down to Sunset. And then she smiled and nodded. “I understand. You must miss them very much.”

“I do.”

Celestia chuckled. “Well,” she said, drawing up, “Twilight was right about you. I’m so glad.”

Sunset blinked. “About what?” she asked.

“You’ve really changed.”

Sunset smiled. “Thanks. But I’ve still got a long ways to go.”

“Perhaps.”

Sunset sighed and rubbed the moisture from her eyes. “And, really, I’m still pretty worn out.”

“It has been a very long ordeal for all of us. But I suppose it has been especially long for you,” Celestia said. She looked out the window and drew her own eyes toward the orange glows of the sky and her setting sun. “And, in a few short hours, you will be home with your friends again, safe and sound.”

Sunset looked out the window as well. “Yeah…” she trailed off.

The telltale rumble of an oncoming locomotive shook the walls and a loud whistle sounded from outside. The mishmash of steam and the in-and-out of hydraulics grew louder as the engine pulled into view. Several carriages behind it ground to a halt as they lined up with the station’s platform.

“I wish…” Sunset started.

“Hmmmm?”

“I wish I could have spent more time catching up with you. There’re so many things I want to tell you about. All the things that I’ve learned ever since I found friendship, all the things that I’ve experienced. …And all the things that I’ve missed after I ran away.”

Celestia looked on as several ponies stepped off the train. At the same time, several more ponies filed out of the sliding door to meet the new arrivals. Bits of laughter and cheer rose up as ponies reunited.

She glanced down at the stallion to her side. “Kibitz?”

The stallion drew a notepad out of his coat pocket and scribbled something down. “I’ll take care of things here, Princess. Do as you wish.”

Celestia smiled and then sauntered over to the ticket counter. The ponies in line edged away as she approached, allowing her to pass and approach the attendant. “One ticket to Ponyville, if you please.”

The stallion behind the counter stood at his full height. “Of course, Princess Celestia!”

Celestia smiled and turned back to Sunset. “I would be more than happy to listen to all of it on the way there. That is if you’d like,” she said with a wink.

A smile spread across Sunset’s face faster than she could move it herself. “That would be great.”

Nodding, Celestia stepped through the sliding glass doors and out onto the platform. Sunset (and, a fair distance behind them, Kibitz as well) followed.

Celestia stopped at the entrance to the car and turned. “I will find a seat for the two of us.”

Sunset nodded. “See you in a second.”

As Princess Celestia boarded the train and disappeared into the car, Kibitz strolled up to the conductor and whispered into his ear. The conductor considered it, checked his watch, and then nodded.

Sunset turned to the six behind her. She looked into each of their eyes and blushed. “Well… it’s been a blast,” she said. “This is it.”

“These past few days sure’ve been somethin’,” Applejack said with a smirk.

“They sure have!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “That was… fun? But… let’s not do that again.”

The seven of them laughed in response to that.

“Well, we all won in the end, didn’t we?” Pinkie Pie said, looking around.

“We did, and I’m tired,” Spike said.

“Anyway, we sure appreciate all that ya did,” Applejack said with a tip of her hat. “We owe ya.”

“This was all you,” Rainbow Dash added.

Sunset frowned. “No, it wasn’t,” she replied.

Rarity stepped forward. “Sunset Shimmer… You were the one that kept us going, even when we… doubted you. You were the one that figured out these other worlds and how they worked. You figured out those nasty contradictions and set us all on the right path. My, you were the one that found Twilight to begin with.” She motioned to the other five. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that we don’t know where we would be without you. You… have given us our lives back.”

Fluttershy nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Sunset. For everything that you did for Twilight.”

Sunset held up a hoof. “Please, girls. You give me way too much credit. I could not have done with without all of you,” she said, placing a hoof to her chest. She let her head hang, and for some moments, she stared at the platform’s wooden floor.

“You made me feel like I had a place in this world again,” she said. “You girls… you all went to the ends of the world for Twilight.” Sunset pointed to herself and laughed. “I just sat in a tower and wrote stuff.”

The others giggled along.

Sunset turned. “And Spike, you saw me go to a dark place, and you picked me right back up. You helped me with so many things and…” She shook her head and chuckled. “Twilight couldn’t ask for a better assistant.”

Spike beamed and beat a fist against his chest.

Sunset could feel some water welling up in her eyes. “I think it’s all of you that helped me the most. I am… so happy that I got to meet all of you. And I’m going to miss all of you.”

The train let out a long whistle that made them jump. They looked over to the conductor who remained on the platform. He met their stares and rolled his hooves in a “wrap it up” motion.

“I have to go, I guess,” Sunset muttered.

She looked back toward the five ponies and a dragon, all of whom smiled back at her. Six individuals with whom she had made friends with.

These friends of Equestria.

Her friends.

“But, after all, I’m just a portal away.” Sunset took a breath as she thought about her next words and she eventually grinned. “This isn’t goodbye; it’s just goodbye until next time!”

The six swarmed her, scooping her up in a multi-faceted embrace. Their forelegs locked together and their voices mingled as they let forth several well-wishes and compliments and many, many other things in between. Sunset grabbed onto them as well, wishing that she never had to let go.

All at once, the seven broke. Sunset turned and stepped into the train car. After one last wave to them, she too, like Celestia before her, disappeared into the car.

The train’s engine let out another whistle and lurched forward. The rhythmic sound of steam as it pushed and pulled bellowed up as it shot smoke into the air. The train gained speed and as it did it drew farther and farther away.

Finally, the train disappeared around the corner, bound for someplace far beyond the city.

Epilogue

Sunset Shimmer’s world twisted about, but it bent her less and less with every passing moment. Finally, it stopped just enough where Sunset could move on her own. She put her hoof—no, that changed into a foot somewhere along the line—forward.

Her foot hit concrete. At that, she planted her other foot on the concrete as well and looked up. She saw a black sky that faded into blue and, near the far-off horizon, red. A few stars poked their way through, and with each moment, more and more appeared out of hiding.

Her eyes drifted downward to find a sizable building arcing around her. The faded red bricks rose up higher than most buildings in Equestria. Canterlot High, in its own way, resembled a palace.

“And we were able to repair our float right in time for the parade,” a voice said. It sounded like Fluttershy.

Sunset’s eyes centered on the front steps. Several lanterns lit the features on several individuals. Several individuals that she recognized. Her best friends. While most sat on the steps, two of them sat on folding chairs that faced the center of their circle. She could see what looked like flat boxes lying around but could not tell what they were.

But at the very top of their circle, to her surprise, sat Principal Celestia who she shifted in her seat and smiled. “Well, I am very pleased to hear that, I’m sure Sunset would be happy to know you recovered.”

At once, five of them slumped in their seats. “Yeah…” Pinkie Pie said, voicing it for them.

Sunset chuckled to herself and stepped forward. “Hey, everyone,” she greeted.

The six humans before her whirled around in their seats. After a moment of taking her in, they shot to their feet. “Sunset!” they cried in unison.

“You came back!” Rarity exclaimed.

Sunset blushed. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be gone so long. It’s just… some things came up and I really had to take care of them.”

Rainbow Dash laughed. “And here we were thinking about heading home for the night.”

Sunset frowned. “Huh?”

“Well,” Fluttershy said, “we’ve been here for a few hours already.”

“Sorry, Sunny,” Pinkie Pie said, pointing to a box on the ground, “pizza’s already cold.”

Sunset’s eyes drifted down to the boxes on the ground and she noticed the label emblazoned across their surfaces. …Right.

She shook her head, “What are all of you doing here? I thought being on the grounds at night was against the rules?”

“Which is why I am here,” Celestia said as she leaned against the handrail. “This has been a difficult time for all of us, but especially for you six. And they… they have come here practically every night for the past few days hoping that you might show up. And I can’t and won’t say no to that.”

Sunset held a hand to her mouth to hide her chuckle. But the red in her face gave her away.

“So, Sunset,” Rainbow Dash asked, “what all held you up so long?”

There was the question. Sunset grinned. “I was… on a very interesting adventure.”

“Yeah?

“We learned a lot about what happened. Actually, we kinda… sorta… shaped it. Really hard.”

They met Sunset with confused frowns and raised eyebrows.

“I mean,” Sunset continued, “time travel got involved… and… parallel worlds got involved… It was confusing at times. But we were there in those days leading up to Twilight going down.”

Rarity, after exchanging glances with the others, said, “So… you changed the past?”

Sunset shook her head. “No, it’s like… we were always a part of it. Is, was, will be.”

“Soooooooo,” Pinkie Pie began, “what? What actually happened then?”

Sunset felt a smile spread across her face. The smile showed her teeth, and behind those teeth, she tried and failed to stifle her giggles. With each moment, she lost more of her control, and her laughter grew in volume.

“Sunset Shimmer?” Celestia asked with a concerned tone.

Sunset beamed at them as her giggling continued.

Fluttershy gasped. “No way!” she exclaimed, pointing straight at her. “You can’t possibly say…”

Sunset nodded. “I can!”

Rarity’s eyes widened and she gasped. “Are you say—are you saying what I think you’re saying!?”

“We figured it out. We made it happen. She’s doing fine.” Sunset giggled. “She says ‘Hi,’ by the way.”

The humans before her jumped for joy and shouted all sorts of exclamations and cheers before finding the girl closest to them and scooping them into an embrace. All except Rainbow Dash who sprang up higher than Sunset thought possible and punched the air, and Celestia who stood with her arms crossed and with a grin spread across her face.

“That’s amazing!” Rarity shouted.

“Yay!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

Applejack broke her hug first and turned to Sunset. “That’s mighty swell! Ya gotta tell us all about it!”

“I’d be happy to tell you all about it,” Sunset said as she cracked a smile. “Just… not right now though. It’s a really long story and I’m—” she wiped away a baggy feeling in her eyes, “—about ready to pass out in my bed…”

“And,” Celestia interjected, “it is very late. So I’m going to have to lock the front doors up now.” She pointed to all the boxes and lanterns on the ground. “Set all of this in my truck,” she instructed with a knowing smile. “I’ll take care of it.”

The girls nodded and picked up several items and hauled them across the lawn. At that point, Sunset noticed the line of cars parked on the curbside. While she recognized the station wagons and compact cars, the pickup truck was unfamiliar. She headed in that direction with the folding chairs.

One by one, the six of them set the items into the back of the pickup and then gathered on the sidewalk.

Sunset turned to face them. “I can’t wait to catch up with all of you. I’ve… got so much to say. And I’m sure a lot has happened here too. I learned so much these past few days and I…” She looked between each of them, all of whom looked back at her with smiles on their faces. “I’ve missed all of you so much. It’s so good to be home with you girls again.”

And with that, her five friends drew toward her and took her into one large group hug. As they took her, Sunset could feel a warmth within herself, one which, somehow, she knew had been there all along.

As they broke, Sunset looked to the sky. “So… I might sleep in. Does three-ish tomorrow at the café sound good to everyone?”

They met her with a flurry of nods, “Uh-huh”s, and “Mm-hmm”s.

Sunset looked up as Principal Celestia approached them once more. Celestia paused as she noticed Sunset’s glance.

Sunset’s friends followed suit and looked up as well.

Celestia shook her head. “It would be unprofessional,” she asserted.

“Technically, so is this. Please,” Sunset pleaded, “we’ll buy, even. It’s the least we can do for tonight, I think.”

Even behind a stoic frown, Sunset could spot the twinkle in Celestia’s eye. “I’ll think about it,” Celestia replied. “You girls have a good night.”

“You too!” they all replied in unison.

As Celestia climbed inside her truck, Sunset turned to her friends. “I’m going to go get some shut-eye. See all of you tomorrow!”

The rest of them broke and responded with “Goodnight!”s of their own and then headed their separate ways.

Sunset watched as each of them filed into their cars (or, in Rarity’s case, hopped into Applejack’s car). With the roar of their engines, her friends pulled out and drove around corners, disappearing for the night.

Sunset turned her gaze toward the reds on the horizon. The picturesque glow of the ever-receding blue and red calmed her with its serenity. As a nightly wind blew through her hair, as a cool howl brushed past her, she knew that nothing could cut it. It was there just like on any other night. And just like it would be on nights to come.

After all, the full, lively twilight above her had to mean only one thing. Sunset Shimmer knew that much.

Author's Note

And with this, Feedback draws to a close.

I hope you enjoyed this story! You have my sincerest thanks for making it to this point and I hope that it was well, well worth it.

This story is over, but it is not the end. You may find the sequel, Substitute, here

Until next time~

For a post-script, see this blog post
Further commentary of multiverse mechanics available here

Prologue

The vibrating book in her backpack had to mean only one thing. Sunset Shimmer knew that much.

The halls of Canterlot High School bustled with life as several conversations crowded the air and students of all sorts brushed past each other. Gaggles of teenage girls shared giggles over cell phones as they shot texts to friends on opposite ends of the building. Exam review guides took to the air in the form of paper airplanes and were met with several playful attempts to swat them out of the sky.

As soon as Sunset found a gap within the crowd, she slung her backpack off her shoulder and fished inside. She pulled the book out and flipped to the latest page.

Meet in front of the statue as soon as you can.

Sunset frowned. She glanced at the previous pages and compared their neat and steady lettering to the blocky and jagged writing on this one. Twilight didn’t write this, she thought.

Snapping the book shut, Sunset picked herself up and dipped into the next hallway. She brushed past student after student as she wove through the halls, hoping that the message didn’t herald some new disaster. The school was two for two in that regard after all.

Sunset passed through the school’s tall, circular foyer and opened the glass doors at the front, emerging into the sunlight beyond. She looked down the lawn at the statue of a horse stuck in a rearing pose. A group of humans huddled in front of it, each glancing about every direction. They ran their eyes at the bricks in the building, the concrete street behind them, and, more often than not, themselves. Everything but her.

Had they informed Twilight? Was this an intervention? Maybe that was why they had beaten her here. “H-hey girls!” she said with an unsteady wave.

A small, purple dog emerged from below them and looked up at her with a wide-eyed expression. “Sunset!” Spike exclaimed as he leaped up toward her.

She laughed as she scooped him out of the air and pulled him in close. “Hey, Spike! Good to see you!”

The humans watched through crossed arms and token chuckles.

As she situated him in her arms, she looked back up and tried, and failed, to find Twilight within them. She instead turned her gaze to meet the five staring back at her and swallowed. I might as well get this over with…

“Listen…” Sunset said, kicking the ground, “I need to apologize. Again. I didn’t mean to break the parade float, okay? I’m… I didn’t mean to do it…”

The five girls reeled for a moment before turning to each other, silently sharing an entire conversation through perplexed expressions and light shrugs.

“Sunset…” Spike trailed off.

Fluttershy brushed her long, pink hair out from in front of her face. “What are you talking about, exactly?”

Sunset frowned. “Uh…”

Applejack jumped a foot into the air. “What in tarnation!?” she cried, pointing over Sunset’s shoulder.

Sunset whirled around to find that five similarly appearing humans had appeared at the school’s entrance. She went to respond but then found her double-take. The five in front of her looked like the five behind her, even down to the very clothes on their bodies.

Somehow, she knew, the years of dealing with Princess Celestia’s double were about to pay off.

The rest of them, however, erupted into a short burst of sharp gasps and perturbed expressions as it hit them full force. They stared intently at each other to see who would move first. And then, after a rapid-fire of gasps, the doubles rushed forward to meet each other, inspecting each other as they would themselves in the mirror. At times, they even tried to parrot one another.

Sunset watched with careful eyes. Half of the humans moved in jerky, uncoordinated, and even unenergetic manners when compared to their doubles. They curled their hands like hooves and their legs seemed to betray them with every step; Sunset herself had been through that phase before. And that cinched it.

“You look like you’re all from Equestria, aren’t you?” she asked with a grin. “You must be Twilight’s friends.”

All ten of the doubles stopped, and then half of them—the guilty half—nodded.

Sunset nodded and smiled the sort of “I knew it” smile. “Great!” she exclaimed. “Welcome to Canterlot High! Maybe we can give you the tour when Twilight comes through,” she said.

The five Rainbooms (she assumed) lit up at the mention of Twilight’s name. They squirmed about as they shot each other smiles as wide as their faces and clapped their hands together with glee.

“I mean, she is coming, right?” Sunset asked quizzically, now turning her attention back to the Equestrians.

The five Equestrians shrunk down, turning their gazes toward any place in the courtyard but her. They took hold of themselves as knots moved up and down their throats.

At that point, Spike rolled himself out of Sunset’s arms. The metal collar around his neck clinked as he landed. He plodded back toward the Equestrians as if he had to concentrate on putting one paw in front of the other.

Sunset’s smile faded as her eyes darted worriedly between the five Equestrians. “Right?”

Spike shook his head and turned to her. “Sunset…” he said, “there’s something we need to tell the school… but we wanted you to hear about it first.”

“T-tell me… what? Spike, where is Twilight?”

The Equestrians looked up through sullen grimaces, save Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. The former turned her back to them to hide her disgust and the latter kept her eyes glued to the concrete. Applejack removed her stetson and held it to her chest with a pleading look in her eyes.

The Rainbooms now stood by in complete and utter silence. Their eyes grew wider with every moment.

Sunset felt a shiver run down her spine and she swallowed. “Where… is Twilight Sparkle?”

With water in his eyes and a quivering frown on his muzzle, Spike said, “Sunset, that’s why we’re here. S-something has happened…”

9 - Interval

Two dozen fillies and colts filled the playground with idle laughter and playful screams. Some kicked up dirt as they ran around trying to tag each other while others traded crayons at the picnic table and subsequently returned to their doodles.

Three fillies sat under a tree on the outlier of the grounds, huddled around a notepad containing a few choice words.

The pegasus shrugged. “Chimney sweeping?” Scootaloo suggested.

The earth pony shook her head. “Coal shovelin’,” Apple Bloom said.

“Hole digging?”

“Uhh, minin’?

The unicorn shook her head. “No. That’s not it,” Sweetie Belle said.

The three collectively glanced toward an ash gray colt as he, instead of riding the seesaw like the colt across from him, stood next to it and pushed it up and down with his hooves. The soft grunts he made with each push gained a playful giggle from the seesaw rider.

Sweetie Belle grinned, banged the ground in excitement, and then stood up with a huff. “I think I know what Hard Whack’s special talent is!”

Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. “Ya do?”

“Sure! I think he’d be a metal worker!”

“An’ why’d you say that?”

Sweetie Belle pointed. “Duh, because he spends a lot of time working with really tough objects. You remember two weeks ago when the printing presses got all messed up because some metal parts went bad? He went home and made some new ones.”

Scootaloo hopped to her hooves. “Hey, yeah! I remember that! Miss Cheerilee said that they were working much better than they were before!”

Apple Bloom nodded. “Metalworkin’, huh? That actually sounds good and all. Write that one down, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom said.

Scootaloo nodded and jotted it down on the notepad. “And what about Rumble over there?” she asked, pointing toward a grey pegasus colt as he caught a frisbee and threw it back.

“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle said, “good question.”

“If he’s anythin’ like Thunderlane,” Apple Bloom said, “Ah’d guess Rumble’d be good at storm clouds.”

The other two fillies gave affirmative hums as Scootaloo wrote down another line on the paper.

Scootaloo traced a hoof down all four lines and then nodded. “Yeah, I think this is what we’ll be able to get to this week.”

“Gosh,” Sweetie Belle said, “do you girls think that Twilight would think we’re doing the right thing here?”

The other two shrunk down. “Yeah…” they sighed in unison.

“Ah think she’d be right proud of us,” Apple Bloom said.

“She was all over our thing with Troubleshoes,” Scootaloo added.

“I can’t believe she’s gone!” Sweetie Belle squeaked before burying her face into her hooves.

Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked across the playground once more. Even then, the fillies and colts continued on, oblivious to their devices. A group of colts from the class below them, none of whom had cutie marks to call their own, started a game of foursquare in the corner.

Scootaloo snorted and jammed a hoof into the air. “Come on, girls, what’s say we get started? For Twilight!”

Apple Bloom nodded and met her hoof to Scootaloo’s. “Fer Twilight!”

Sweetie Belle looked between the two, giggled, and met her hoof to theirs. “Yeah. For Twilight!”

Sunset Shimmer pushed her mane out of her eyes as she looked at the four ponies before her. While they made idle conversation, dropping hints and teasers at their escapades of the last few days, she glanced back down at the small collection of parchments on the floor.

Sunset took the opportunity to add a few lines to the page before glancing over at Spike as he grasped at his stomach.

Spike heaved and nearly keeled over when a large burp escaped him. The discharge also let off a large, green ember that swirled about the air. The flames condensed into the form of a pony. A second later, Pinkie Pie landed on the floor with a thud.

Pinkie Pie gagged and pressed a hoof against her mouth to suppress something in her throat. As she undid her saddlebag, she scanned the room, focused on the crystal ball, and snatched it up. “Augh! Twiliiiight! These taste like baked bads!”

Twilight Sparkle, who hunched over a small, lacquered box, laughed between coughs. “It’s teleportation gum! Were you expecting it to be strawberry flavored!?”

Pinkie Pie massaged her tongue. “My poor taste buds… Ick!”

Spike scowled, clutching himself. “Your taste buds? Try my stomach…” He splayed himself across the floor and let out a long and pained moan.

Sunset frowned for a moment before turning her attention back to the new arrival. “So,” she said, “Pinkie Pie, do you have anything for me?”

Pinkie Pie gave Sunset a wide-eyed stare before leaping into the air. “I do! I do! Here, lemme see…” She reached back into her saddlebag and grabbed two purple orbs. “Here you go!”

“Nice.” Sunset grinned and magically grabbed him. “Thanks.”

Rarity gave her mane a quick fluff and then cleared her throat. “So that’s all of us back now,” she said before narrowing her eyes. “What’s the damage?”

Sunset swirled Pinkie Pie’s stones around her own head. “Well, with these two, we now have ten stones… out of the twelve that we set out to get.”

Pinkie Pie’s hair all but shot into the air. “What!?”

“Oh good heavens, no,” Rarity muttered.

Fluttershy hid her look of surprise behind both of her forehooves. “Oh Celestia…”

Sunset glanced over toward Rainbow Dash and Applejack, who each did their level best to hide themselves behinds hooves and hats.

Sunset shrugged. “I’m not worried,” she said.

The five mares met her with close variances of “Huh?”

Sunset met their stares. “I’m... I’m not.”

Rarity gave a nervous chuckle. “I don’t know how you can even say that, dear. We’re short. We don’t have everything that we need. I don’t know how you can say you’re not worried.”

Sunset brushed her mane out of her face again. “Well, because there’ve been some really big developments here over the past three days. The game’s changed. Not entirely in the best of ways, but...” She stomped the floor, “Either way, it’s not so much that we have to collect every single one we come across, we just… have to do our part. We’re ten stones further than where we started.”

She glanced between them as she backed up toward the stairs. “I think I can make it work. So really, girls,” she said, focusing her attention on Applejack and Rainbow Dash, “don’t let yourselves get beat up over this, okay?”

The two mares yielded enough to engage again but kept to their shelly postures.

“Waaaaaaaait a darn second!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, waving her hoof in the air like a schoolfilly. “How are you gunna make ten work?”

Sunset shrugged. “Have Spike explain it to you,” she said. She glanced over at him. “You think you can do that?”

Spike groaned and rolled across the floor. “I’ll do it already. Gosh,” he said, still grasping at his stomach.

Sunset giggled. “Thanks. You’re the best.” She turned back to the mares. “I’m going to go upstairs and put all this together.”

“But what should we do, dear?” Rarity asked.

The others looked up at Sunset expectedly.

She shrugged. “Hang out? Relax? I dunno.”

“But there must be so much left to do!” Rarity cried. “Surely, there must be something—”

“All that’s left to do,” Sunset interrupted, “is record the information on this stuff, and I can do that on my own. I’m… probably the only one that could do it anyways, haha.”

The roar of a coughing fit rose from within the crystal ball. The six mares and dragon craned their necks to look at the object with several worried frowns on their faces. Twilight draped herself over her book, letting out short, muffled cries as she massaged her temples.

Spike crossed his arms. “She’s getting worse…”

Applejack adjusted her hat. “Today’s the last day, ain’t it?”

Rainbow Dash appeared to melt into grayscale at those words.

Sunset nodded solemnly. “It’s do or die time.”

Applejack grimaced. “Auh, could’ja not say those words?”

Sunset cringed. “Oh crap. Sorry.”

Snorting, Applejack turned to the rest of them, “Then, Ah think, maybe we oughta be there for her today. Especially since we been out who knows where.”

“I’d like to spend some time with Twilight too,” Fluttershy said.

“Me too,” Rarity seconded.

“I think she really needs you today too,” Sunset said, casting another glance on the ball.

Rarity suppressed a gasp. “Say, Pinkie, do you recall what we discussed when you left the station?”

Pinkie Pie gasped so hard that even her mane gasped. “Oh! Uh…” And then she gasped again. “Yes! Yes! I remember now. Lots of streamers!”

Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Throw Twilight a party?”

“I could figure it out!”

“Ya sure?”

Sunset nodded “It’s not a bad idea.”

Spike rolled over. “I could go for that.”

“I’ll be up there if you need me,” Sunset said. She then turned and crept up the stairs.

* * *

Spike folded his arms together and studied the five mare’s expressions.

Applejack, who had removed her stetson, placed it back on her head. “So… it’s kinda all or nothin’, huh?”

“That’s what Sunset’s saying,” Spike replied.

A silence passed between the others.

“Well, Ah guess Ah get it. Or not. Ah don’t know about all this infinite stuff. This whole thing’s mighty weird, but…” Applejack scratched her head.

“Twilight being in an alternate world is kinda cool,” Rainbow Dash said. She then frowned. “Uh, I guess that’s not so cool for our Twilight though.”

“But hey!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “We could totally save their Twilight. She’s not dead yet, you know.”

“But ours could very definitely be dead,” Rarity said.

“Mmmmyeah. But ours doesn’t have to be either,” Pinkie Pie said, “if what we’re doing right now works out.”

Rarity shook her head. “What we’re doing right now is a monumental gamble. And I simply don’t know how I feel about that.”

Fluttershy sighed. “I don’t really know what’s going on. I mean, the idea of saving every Twilight, especially ours, sounds great and all—”

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Yeah. And this does it.”

Fluttershy frowned. “It seems… It seems like a bit of a stretch.”

“Quite right,” Rarity agreed. “Now, I stand with all of you when I say that I want it to succeed, but Fluttershy’s right. This is a long shot.”

Spike shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s what we have, I guess.”

Applejack nodded. “All we gotta do for now is trust Sunset to know what she’s doin’. Ah know Ah do.”

* * *

Rainbow Dash batted an unused streamer, sending it to unfurl itself across the floor. She then took a seat, shook some of the water out of her mane, and glanced back toward the apple-bobbing tub. Finally, she looked over at Applejack who leaned against the wall with a half-eaten apple and a proud smile.

And Rainbow Dash frowned. I’ll beat you next time for sure!

Her gaze wandered over the decorations. Several long lines of colored paper wove from wall to wall, perimetering several balloons that clung to the ceiling.

Pinkie Pie pronked toward the haphazardly put-together punch table nearby and poured herself a cup. In one fell swoop, she downed it and tossed the paper cup into the trash bin before moving on.

Rainbow Dash’s gaze drifted toward the crystal ball on one of the cushions. “Hey! Pinkie Pie!” she called out.

Pinkie Pie landed on a point. “Yeah, Dashie?”

“Can you roll Twilight over here?”

“Yup yup!” Pinkie Pie replied as she steered over to the ball and rolled it off the pillow.

Rarity came by at that moment and the ball rolled right into her, prompting her to trip and subsequently smack the ball away. She landed with an audible “Oof!” She then stood and dusted off the offended area. “What the deuce just happened?”

Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves. “Woah! Easy there!” she cried and scrambled over to retrieve the ball.

“Why, whatever are you doing?” Rarity asked, narrowing her glare.

“Pinkie Pie was just passing me the ball. You got in the way.”

Rarity scowled. “That is no way to treat Twilight Sparkle.”

Rainbow Dash frowned. “We weren’t throwing it or anything.”

“None of that! Now, I’ll just take that right off your hooves,” Rarity said, enveloping her aura around the crystal ball.

Rainbow Dash hopped on top of the ball. “Hey! I had it first!”

Rarity jiggled the ball. “Get off it, you ruffian! I am confiscating it from you!”

Rainbow Dash pulled against Rarity’s magic, furiously flapping her wings. “As if!”

“Ugh! Let go, Rainbow Dash!”

“No way!”

“Tug of war! Tug of war!” Pinkie Pie chanted. “Tug of war!”

“It’s mine!” Rarity barked.

“Mine!” Rainbow Dash roared back.

Pinkie Pie scurried over with a shrill “HereRarityletmehelp!” before she all but threw herself on top of Rarity.

Rarity’s yelp was the only thing that Rainbow Dash heard before all resistance disappeared. The next thing that she knew, she had careened headfirst into the wall behind her. The vague feeling of an object flying out of her grasp registered before she landed on the floor in a heap.

“What’s going on here, girls?” Fluttershy asked, emerging from the kitchen area with what looked like two muffins tucked under her wings.

The ball careened right into Fluttershy’s face and she fell backward with an audible yelp, scattering her delectables across the floor. The ball soared over her for a few moments as small and imaginary breezies danced around Fluttershy’s dazed muzzle.

Rainbow Dash grimaced as she watched the ball begin its downward descent. But, to her relief, Fluttershy came to quickly enough to catch it.

“What…?” Fluttershy said, blinking as she tried to comprehend the object in her grasp.

“Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie called, leaping off Rarity. “Roll the ball over here!”

“Huh?” she asked before looking down at said ball. She then smiled innocently. “Oh, okay,” she said and let it go.

Applejack walked over at that moment and intercepted the ball mid-roll. “What in the hay are y’all doin’?” she asked with a firm and demanding tone, casting a cross expression between all ponies.

Spike appeared next to her and crossed his arms.

Rarity scrambled off the floor. “These buffoons are being all-around disrespectful to Twilight!”

Rainbow Dash snorted. “It was an accident!”

“I helped Rarity play tug-of-war with Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie Pie chimed in gleefully.

Rarity snorted. “Helped!?”

Fluttershy raised a hoof. “Was I helpful?” she slurred.

“All of you settle down right now!” Applejack barked. “What’d you think Twilight would say if she knew what y’all were up to?”

“Up to what!?” the mare in the ball exclaimed.

The room collectively groaned to varying degrees of distress.

“Aw shucks,” Applejack grumbled. “Twilight, they’re all throwin’ this here ball you’re in around and stuff.”

Twilight deadpanned. “Girls! I am not a toy!”

In a single fell swoop, the entire room grew silent. Uncertain glances passed between the six of them as Twilight’s choice of words circulated.

Spike blinked and then touched his claw against the crystal ball. “...Did you really just call yourself a ‘toy’?”

“I—” Twilight frowned as some color disappeared from her face. “Oh no…”

Rarity narrowed her eyes and laid her hoof on the ball as well. “Why ever would you say you’re a toy, Twilight?”

“No... You said you dropped me and—” Twilight stamped the floor. “No! You dropped the ball.”

“That you’re in.”

“Yes.”

Rainbow Dash felt several pieces of water well up in her eyes as she struggled to contain the torrent building up from her chest. She fell backward, unleashing it in all its fury. “Bwahahahahaaha! Twilight’s a toy now!”

“Maybe she was always a toy!” Pinkie Pie blurted.

“She’s not a toy!” Applejack barked.

“I am not a toy!” Twilight seconded.

Spike threw his hands into the air. “Seriously? Since when were Twilight and the ball the same thing?”

“Twilight started it,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.

Applejack shook her head. “Well, fahne. Ah guess we all sorta dropped the ball on this one,” she said.

A long silence passed through the room. Pinkie Pie raised a hoof. “Uh, Applejack?”

Applejack threw her stetson to the ground. “Oh, hayseed.”

Twilight snorted. “I hate all of you.”

“Oh poo,” Rarity replied, placing her hoof on Applejack’s withers, “you don’t mean that.”

“Of course she doesn’t hate us,” Fluttershy replied cheerfully, “she just really really really really dislikes us.”

Twilight blew her mane out of her face and buried her face in her hooves with a defiant huff.

Rainbow Dash squinted and stared the alicorn in the ball down. She laid a hoof on the ball and thought it near Twilight’s face, and there she spotted the smallest upturn on the corner of her lips. Ha! She’s actually trying not to laugh. I bucking knew it.

“How the hay did all this start anyway?” Applejack asked.

“I had Pinkie Pie try to roll it to me because I was going to say something,” Rainbow Dash explained.

“And?” Applejack asked. “What were you gunna tell her?”

At that, Rainbow Dash snapped to attention. The gears in her brain whirred and clanked about as she worked to rewind herself to her thoughts from before. A second passed. And then several. She realized that, even after that, she hadn’t found it.

Rainbow Dash chuckled. “…I forgot.”

* * *

Sunset held an ear to the large, cylindrical machine and listened to the thumps and whirs. She perked her ear, imagining the airy whine of several lasers shooting into the stone somewhere within.

Nodding to herself, she trotted over to the desk. Her attention landed on a rustled blue notebook filled with pages upon pages of fresh ink.

Sunset sat down on the velvet cushion and summoned over a stack of paper containing several readings and results. Her eyes scrolled across the several numbers and figures within the text. As she did so, she used her magic to turn the blue notebook to a blank page.

She then levitated a quill over and jotted down her findings, keeping a careful eye on the readings themselves, only looking over occasionally to check her transcription. She went line by line, number by number, and bit by bit.

She reached the final page of readings and gave her notes one last glance before she gave an affirmative hum. She set the stack of readings off to the side and then turned to a small slip of scratch paper on the corner of the desk. She looked down the list of coordinates on that paper, half of which were crossed out.

She located one of the remaining ones and ran her quill across it once. And then only five remained.

Sunset hummed. What should I do about the two that we missed? she thought. I should go ahead and figure that out.

She located the two items in question on the list and decided to start with the top one first. Applejack missed one because of monkeys, she thought. She was attacked not far from her destination. Might be safe to assume they were acting territorially? That’s definitely a danger spot.

She hovered over the set of coordinates in question, hummed in thought, and then wrote the word Monkeys next to it in a similar manner to the notated ones found in the book. Now those that come after me will know to take care over there.

Sunset shifted in her seat. And what about the one Rainbow Dash missed…? She missed that because… She glanced up at the desk and shook her head. …Because she tried to fly across an ocean all by herself.

She felt a vessel pop in her head. “Typical,” she growled.

She sighed. I’ll just leave that unmarked. Some other version of us can get that.

With that, she folded the book shut and nodded. Well, that’s all for the moment. There’s not much else I can do right now…

Sunset heard a fit of laughter from the room below. With curiosity, she stood up and trotted downstairs.

She found the six others gathered on a circle of cushions with what looked like a collection of cards spread across the carpet in the middle. It was an organized collection of cards, even. Sunset craned her neck to look through them and, upon seeing the design of the cards, recognized that it was, in fact, a card game.

Only Pinkie Pie remained standing. She looked heavily engaged in a grand tale of intrigue and suspense. The very air swelled as she rose up, holding the crystal ball with one hoof and making increasingly broader gestures with the other as she neared the climax.

“…And so,” Pinkie Pie said, “he shouted to Sammy as he pulled the steering wheel on the carriage, ‘Better Nate than lever!’ before running the snake over.”

Most of them erupted into roaring laughter and fell backward in their seats. Those next to each other leaned on each other for support as they attempted to belay the tears from sliding down reddened faces. This only served to provoke Pinkie into a celebratory backflip.

Fluttershy was the sole exception. She flip-flopped between a smile and a whimper, shifting uncomfortably in her seat all the while. Eventually, Fluttershy placed a hoof to her mouth, trying to hide the full-on grin that had appeared on her muzzle.

Sunset heard Twilight’s laughter through them solely because she had been looking for it. Then again, that was the clever thing about the crystal ball; even a pony nine days behind them could enjoy Pinkie Pie’s grand joke, and enjoy it she did.

It was as if Twilight was with them. Like today was just like any other regular nothing-was-wrong day. How things were before the mess. Twilight was with them.

Twilight was with her friends.

“Don’t lie, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said, pointing, “you thought that was funny too.”

“Ooookay, I guess it was a little funny,” Fluttershy said with a small giggle.

After a few more moments, Spike cleared his throat. “So Fluttershy, are you two going or what?”

The pegasus nodded and motioned for the ball. Fluttershy looked at the cards in her hand, whispered into the crystal ball, and then looked out at each of them. “Okay, so Twilight and I are going to move our Surprise to Applejack and Pinkie Pie’s problem,” she announced, moving a card around the board, “and then we’ll also play our Firefly there. And then we’re going to put a troublemaker on Rainbow Dash and Spike’s problem.”

Several exclamations rose up as the mares and dragon took in the end result and threw around several variations of the phrase “double solve.”

Rainbow Dash lay a hoof on Fluttershy’s withers. “For buck’s sake, Twilight.”

“What?” Twilight asked as she sat with an innocent smile on her face.

Rainbow Dash looked down at her hand. “I have to discard half my cards now. Thanks a lot.”

She snorted. “Oh, you didn’t stop us? That’s too bad.”

“Pffft,” Rainbow Dash snorted, “smack-talk is not very princess-y, Twilight.”

“Oh no. We’re usually much subtler about that. I don’t think you’d even be able to tell that we’re doing it.”

Sunset smiled as the two of them, soon three when Rarity joined in, continued to bicker onward, discussing the move in full. Her eyes glazed over the other four who happily watched from their seats.

Somehow, the prospect that Twilight was supposed to die did not even exist. It was as if they had forgotten all about it. Sunset watched as the seven of them lived in the moment, enjoyed each other, jested at each other, comforted each other, laughed with each other, and many other things she couldn’t put her hoof on.

It was the way things were supposed to be.

Cracking a grin, Sunset silently began retreating up the stairs.

“Hey, Sunset!” Pinkie’s voice called out to her.

Sunset paused in her tracks and looked back. She found the six of them looking over at her expectedly. “Hey,” she said tentatively.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Sunset blushed uncertainly. “I uh, I just had a moment. I just thought I would check up on all of you.” She took a few more steps up the stairs.

Rainbow Dash scratched at her face. “Do you still have a moment?”

Sunset paused again. Her heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. Why?”

Rainbow Dash waved her over, “Then get over here already! We’re playing four teams to thirty victory points and Rarity needs a partner.”

Sunset blinked. They weren’t inviting her over, were they? “What?”

“Come on, Sunset!”

“Yeah, come on over! We even saved a seat for you!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, patting an empty cushion.

The rest of them remained silent behind warm and inviting grins.

Sunset blushed, taken aback. Her thoughts flip-flopped back and forth between the machine upstairs and the friends in front of her.

Sunset paused. Friends in front of her. Was it really possible? Her mind ran back to what Spike had said two days prior: ‘But they still consider you a friend.’ Twilight’s friends considered her a friend.

They are my friends too.

Sunset smiled. “Yeah, I’d love to,” she said and walked over to them.

* * *

Sunset’s eyes skipped across the sheet of paper in front of her. She flipped it over and examined the contents on the back as well before she nodded to herself. “Hey, Spike!” she called.

“Yeah?” he replied.

“You remember that thing for cheering up Twilight that you asked me about?”

“Yeah.”

She presented the paper to him. “I just finished it.”

Spike gasped. “For real!?”

She nodded.

He pumped his fist. “That’s great! Thanks, Sunset!”

Applejack turned her head at that moment. “You what now?”

“I just wrote a small spell,” Sunset said.

“Yeah, what kind?” Applejack asked as the other four mares converged.

Sunset gazed toward the nearly setting sun outside the window, judging the time. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see some pegasi outside already moving a few rainclouds into place in preparation for the coming rainstorm.

“Well, it’s a spell in two parts,” Sunset explained. “My spell takes a snapshot of what I’m seeing and converts it into sound; the other half of the spell takes what you hear, converts it into an image, and then displays it in front of you.”

Rarity stepped forward with a small frown. “I see what you’re getting at. So, you would use your spell to have somepony on the other side of the room perhaps be able to see what you see?”

Sunset nodded reluctantly. “…Something like that. I mean, you can’t do like a continuous thing. It’s only one picture at a time.”

The mares looked at each other with uncertainty. “Uh, yeah,” Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes. “That sounds very useful and all…”

Sunset grinned. “Well, wait ’til you see what we do with it. Where’s the ball at?”

Fluttershy held up the object in question. “Here it is.”

Sunset levitated the ball out of Fluttershy’s grasp. “Hey, Twilight!”

Twilight rolled over. “Yes?”

“I have a quick spell that I want you to learn.”

Twilight blinked, and then she stood up with an enthusiastic huff. “Sure! Okay. What is it?”

Sunset adjusted her view. “Grab that paper on the desk over there.”

Twilight cantered over to the desk and summoned a quill from its holder. She dipped it into the inkwell. “Ready.”

Sunset cleared her throat and turned her eyes to her own sheet of paper. “Tau beta gamma epsilon tau tau pi alpha omega thirty-six…” Sunset continued down the sheet of paper as she read the instructions.

Twilight dutifully wrote down each sigil. She stopped once to cough and nearly fell against the desk another time, but she recovered each time and eventually transcribed the spell. She eventually began nodding. “Oh, I see what this spell does. It’s going to take what I hear and turn it into an image.”

“Yeah, pretty much,” Sunset replied.

“Huh. What’re you going to do with that?”

Sunset smiled. “Stay where you are and you’ll see.” She flared her horn and summoned a mirror set within an intricately sculpted golden frame. Sunset set it in front of the seven of them and then motioned for them. “Gather around, everyone.”

Rarity gasped. “Ah! Are you doing what I think you are doing, Sunset?”

“Yup.”

“Good heavens!” Rarity exclaimed. “You are an absolute genius, Sunset Shimmer!”

“I see it too,” Fluttershy seconded.

“What’s she doin’? What’s she doin’?” Pinkie Pie asked, trying to climb over everypony.

Rarity smiled. “You’ll see, darling.”

The six of them gathered around Sunset and looked into the mirror. Sunset held the crystal ball against her chest as the other ponies clung to her in kind. Spike took a position in front of them. She could feel them as they brushed about and tried to get comfortable. Soon enough, they settled into a definite pose.

Keeping her eyes on the mirror, Sunset thought the ball’s view so that she could see Twilight’s face in the crystal ball’s reflection. “Eyes on me, everyone. Are you ready, Twilight?” Sunset asked.

Twilight flared her horn and smiled. “I’m ready!”

Sunset grinned and flared her own horn. “Say cheeeeese!”

“Cheeeeeese!” they all said.

Sunset’s horn produced a short but deafening shriek that made even Sunset herself wince. The form faltered as they reeled about, but they recovered shortly after.

Inside the crystal ball, Twilight also winced at the sound, but then her horn flashed in response. Twilight glanced up as her horn shot a beam of light out, creating a small screen in front of her. She blinked once. “This is…”

She saw the image of six mares and a dragon huddled intimately together, all with broad, toothy smiles on their faces. An eighth face, her own face, looked out from within a crystal ball.

It was just like she was with them, her friends.

Sunset looked into the ball and silently motioned for the others to do as well. The seven gathered.

“Woah,” Rainbow Dash cooed.

Twilight approached the picture. She reached out for it, only to pout when her hoof passed right through it. At that, she stepped back and decided to gaze at it in earnest. And then she giggled.

Pinkie Pie slapped herself in the face. “Oh my gosh! Wow!”

Twilight’s eyes welled up and she hid a smile behind her hoof. “It’s… it’s beautiful. I… I don’t know what to say.”

Spike chuckled. “That’s pretty sweet. Better than anything I coulda come up with,” he said, giving Sunset a pat on the back.

The other mares hugged each other as they watched, letting some loose tears fall down their faces.

“I wish I could save it,” Twilight cried. A tear slid down her muzzle and she giggled. The more she giggled, the more tears she shed.

“Thank you, Sunset Shimmer,” Twilight said.

Sunset giggled along. “Y-you’re welcome, Twilight.”

“I hope all of you don’t mind if I,” she paused to let off a cough, “just stare at this picture for a while, do you?”

The seven of them nodded. “Take yer time, Twilight,” Applejack said. “We’ll be here when ya want us.”

“Talk to you in a bit!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

* * *

Spike twisted himself further into the couch cushion and let off a contented sigh. He pat his belly and gave a satisfied burp as he glanced at the crumbs on the plate beside him.

He glanced toward Applejack and Rarity who debated over a small assortment of wines in front of them. He watched as his favorite unicorn explained the taste of each and who might be apt to drink them while Applejack would occasionally acknowledge.

He then blinked as Applejack launched into a long-winded explanation of wine culture and what determined which wines were popular and where they would be kept at parties and dozens of other things that Spike (and, by her flabbergasted expression, Rarity as well) hadn’t even dreamed of considering.

Rarity had nothing to say in response. That caused Applejack to chuckle.

Spike turned his head as he noticed Sunset descend the stairs. She looked around the room for a moment before setting her eyes on him.

Spike sat up in his seat.

She continued to stare him down and then motioned him over.

Spike gulped. It’s time.

He hopped off the couch and ran over to fetch the crystal ball off of its cushion. He then met up with her and they ascended the stairs together.

“I’ve pretty much put all the numbers in,” Sunset said, “and I’ve done as many calculations as I could. But what we have isn’t enough to save Twilight.”

Spike grit his teeth together. “Uhm, so does that mean...?”

“Not yet,” she said with the shake of her head. “Remember that I figured this was going to happen. We’re still on track.”

The two arrived in the study area, to which he followed her over toward the machine in the back corner.

He scratched his head. “That… reaching into the universe thing that you talked about?”

“Accessing the omniverse,” she corrected.

“And how does that work?”

“Well, we have more information than she does. And the layer above us will have more information than we do. It’s a feedback loop.” She scanned through several pages of her book, checking that everything had been accounted for.

Finally, Sunset snapped the book shut. “It’s just a matter of sending the complete set of information back down to us.”

Spike twirled the crystal ball in his hands as he watched.

“There’s only one more thing to do,” she said as she trotted back over to the desk, “and that’s to time travel and have Twilight copy this book.”

He nodded. “And then what?”

“We’ll either get The Answer from the layer above us… or it never existed in the first place.”

Spike picked up the scroll containing the time spell off the desk. “And we’ll either be able to get Twilight back or… we were never gunna get her back.”

“Yup.”

Spike nodded. “Moment of truth then,” he said as he unfurled the scroll.

“Yeah. I can only use this spell once in my entire lifetime.” Sunset gulped. “I sure hope I can make this count.”

Spike glanced back over the desk, mentally checking each item that he thought she would need. Yet the question he had escaped his mouth anyway. “You sure you have everything?”

Sunset let out a long breath. “…I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”

“Then let’s do it.”

Sunset flared her horn. She scanned the lines of the spell before her and a ball of ethereal energy appeared above her head. Spike watched as the pre-cast took form, spawning several sigils within the vortex much like the ones he had seen a day prior. He even tried to double check the spell itself, even though it was an entirely foreign language to him.

Sunset glanced at the spell above her head and, with another sigh, she tapped her horn to it.

Her horn sucked the orb of light into itself before it began glowing a bright white. It was the sort of light that suddenly brought back memories of Twilight in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing. The time spell. The white light grew brighter and brighter, and as it did, a wind overtook the room. It threw the several papers on the desk back into the shelves and sent several nearby books tumbling across the floor.

Sunset disappeared in an explosion of sparks.

Spike crossed his arms and leaned against the desk. He took the moment to glance at the dark clouds outside the window. Drops of water slid down the outer face of the glass; new drops joined them every so often. The first clap of thunder boomed in the distance, signifying the beginning of a shower that would last at least a few hours.

He then glanced around the room again; first at the centerpiece hourglass and its golden construction, then at the tall bookshelves that orbited the room. For a moment, he tried to remember some of the books just by their bindings. The machine in the corner sat without so much as a sound, a day’s worth of work completed.

He then grabbed the crystal ball off the desk again and juggled it within his hands. He whistled a short and jaunty tune but, to his chagrin, found that it ended sooner than he would have liked.

He had seen the spell before. Even if those memories contained large amounts of ice cream and a stomach ache that he had not forgotten, he could also remember that Twilight had been gone for a minute. From the looks of what he had seen a few days before, Sunset had managed two minutes.

Spike scowled. This is the longest two minutes of my life, he thought.

The air in front of him began to glow again, and Spike shielded his eyes. With a loud pop, Sunset reappeared in a shower of white sparks.

Spike stood at attention. “Well!?” he hastily asked.

Sunset let out a long, deep sigh of relief. She chuckled once before levitating the book onto the desk.

She then looked upward. “Okay!” she yelled, “it’s done!”

Spike looked up. Even though the patterned ceiling was the only thing above them, he looked all the same as if he would see somepony watching from above.

Sunset stepped forward. “We’ve done our part! We’re done! Pass The Answer down to us!”

Spike expected to hear a voice. Any voice. Some sort of confirmation. A set of instructions.

The answer to everything they had worked on.

Their salvation.

“We’ve done our job, okay?” Sunset called again. “We need The Answer right now! We’ve done our part!”

Spike blinked as nothing happened. His scales stood on their ends and he took labored breaths. No.

A worried look spread across Sunset’s features. “Do us a solid!” she cried. “Please! It’s time! And we’ve done our part! Give us something!”

The crystal ball remained silent.

Spike started to shake. There was just no way. It wasn’t happening. It wasn’t.

Sunset didn’t register herself backing into the desk. “We… we’ve done o-our part… W-we… w-w-w-we… Ah… A-Ah…”

Spike held his head. “No way… we didn’t fail.”

“Ahhhhhhhhh…! A-Ah! Ah-hahaha…”

“Please Celestia no…”

No response. None came.