A lot of things unnerved Sunset Shimmer right now. Obviously she could start with the fact that her bed was being used in lieu of a real hospital bed. While it was true that she was no stranger to back-alley medicine—her arrangement with Flim and Flam, and Blueblood's organization by association, was a necessary part of living in this world without an ID or health card—she'd never expected her apartment to become an infirmary. At least the occupant had been treated somewhere more sterile, sparing her bed the inevitable bloodstains a surgery would have left.

Next came the occupant of her bed. Silver Script, for all intents and purposes, had died from her injuries right there in the auditorium, and only the quick actions of Sonata Dusk and Twilight had brought her back from the brink—and kept her there—long enough for some of Blueblood's doctors to whisk her off to a private clinic to stitch her up. That the woman was alive at all was a testament to just how much a factor sheer luck and magic played in her survival; against all odds, the slug managed to slip through her small intestine leaving next to no damage, while tearing through two muscle groups in her lower back and nearly obliterating a portion of her large intestine upon exit.

How it had missed any major veins or arteries honestly had the doctors astounded, but Sunset suspected it had a lot to do with the magic used to keep her stable, as well as the combat stimulant Silver had concocted. She had suspicions that the stims were layered with a minor regenerative, but she couldn't say with any certainty; it had been a number of years since she'd even thought about alchemy. She wasn't averse to deferring the question to someone qualified these days, but seeing as the only person in the room was working on her seventh day of uninterrupted sleep, she was stuck for an answer.

That, however, was the biggest problem. The woman had been unconscious for several days now, and she'd made no sign of stirring. Had she any experience with dream magic, Sunset would have attempted to make contact, but for now, all she could do was wait and see.

It wasn't like she was caring for Silver all on her own, though. Sonata Dusk—Silver's pet, as Rainbow had taken to calling her—rarely left the woman's side since that night. The bitter part of Sunset insisted that the siren only cared about keeping Silver around long enough to restore power to Adagio and Aria, and then out come the daggers. Deep down, however, she wasn't so sure. Watching the girl reminded her of a photo she'd seen of a dog that won't leave the side of its deceased master; she could see where Dash got the pet analogy. She couldn't bring herself to ask Sonata why she cared so much, because she had her suspicions about the answer.

All-in-all, though, Sonata wasn't that bad a house guest as far as guests went. While she was on the Pinkie end of the ditz spectrum, she was tidy, didn't make a whole lot of noise, and didn't use up all the hot water. More importantly, she was making an effort to do better by helping care for Silver. The girl wanted to redeem herself.

Her friends had all stopped in from time to time to check in on her, and to see if she needed anything. Twilight had researched how to change an IV bag and maintain a drainage bag and was more than willing to teach both of them how to keep it going until Silver Script awoke—if she ever woke at again. Even with the valuables Silver'd brought with her and the money the mare had acquired, Sunset wasn't keen on finding out how long it would last if it was put solely toward maintaining a coma patient.

As it stood, the only thing keeping Sunset from gathering the girls, casting the time spell, and starting again from zero was the fact that their foe, whatever it was, hadn't made a peep since the dance. In all the timelines thus far, including the one the previous—and now verified dead—Silver Script had been present for had experienced further sightings of the strange, spiderlike horrors by this point. In fact, half an hour ago, the girls should have been clearing out an abandoned factory of the things. Aside from the photos taken by braver CHS and Crystal Prep students, which were now 'old news' as far as the social media went, there was just... nothing.

It was terrifying knowing that the ax was once again hovering over her neck, but no longer having a sense of when, or even if the next strike would come.

With a sigh, she stared down at Silver. It was important that she ask the woman what her link with the creature was, so being unable to get the answer she needed was eating away at her already frayed nerves. What was it that Silver Script had been making so long ago that, even today, the pain of its loss festered within her—even driving her to hate Twilight enough to want her dead? More chillingly, why had everyone heard the same, haunting call within their minds after both Silvers had died?

There was a rapping on the door—three gentle knocks—before it opened to reveal the tired face of Sonata Dusk. "Um, Sunset?" she murmured, still somewhat uncomfortable that she was imposing on her former foe. "I finished making your dinner. If you wanna break for food and then have a rest, I'll watch over her for a bit."

"What about you?" Sunset asked, arching her brow. "I haven't seen you eat once since you started watching over her. You must be exhausted."

A frown creased the siren's face, accentuating the bags under her eyes. "Haven't been hungry," was her reply. Her hand drifted up to the gem hanging at her neck, and her fingers danced along its edges. "It probably seems like I'm being selfish, but I really want her to wake up." She let out a gentle whimper as she took a seat at the bedside, wrapping the woman's hands in hers. "She's been so kind to me in spite of who I am and what I did, and she gave me something I haven't had since you and your friends defeated me and my sisters: hope for a better life."

Tears ran down Sonata's face, even as she buried her face in the bedding. "Seeing her like this, it's like watching hope die, because I know that if she dies before she can help them, my sisters will die too..."

~ 13 ~

"Aren't you tired?" whispers a small voice in the back of my mind.

That is to say, I suppose, the voice whispers from 'behind' me. Here I am, trapped within my head, not unlike the time I spent fading in and out of consciousness when the Aqua Regia of my Equestria did all those unspeakable things. Though, I suppose that isn't quite accurate either. Although it's roughly the same room, black obsidian walls and all, it's also different. It's much cleaner, and though the bookcases still appear scorched, they're cleaner and filled with books and moving photos—memories, really.

Rather than a disturbing face-like wall before me, I can see the world outside in a third person perspective. I don't know how long I've lain in that bed, but both Sunset Shimmer and Sonata Dusk are there, caring for me. It feels like I've been here forever, alternating between watching and waking, and every time I look out at the world, it's a different time of day. I want to—I need to—wake up, but it's just so hard.

I turn to face the voice, only to find another new addition to my mind: a fifth wall and matching door. Curiously enough, this wall reminds me almost of those rice-paper and bamboo walls so prevalent in Neighponese architecture, and rather than an outward opening door, I can see a sliding door that blends almost seamlessly into the wall. The only reason I even know it's there is the patterning of an unfamiliar marking on the paper. As I look at the door, I can see it's slightly ajar, just enough to allow me to see darkness beyond.

"Every time you die and come back, it's a bit harder," comes that familiar whisper. "Nopony is supposed to come back from death at all. Yet here you've done it three times, and each time you have, you've changed. How do you keep going on like this? Why are you so determined?"

I blink and rub at my eyes with a limb that momentarily transforms from hand to hoof and back again. "Three times? No, see I've only died twice."

There comes a giggle I haven't heard in ages. It couldn't be, though. "Maybe in the literal sense you've only died twice," it croons, each intonation reminding me more and more of my own voice. "But was our becoming Silver Script in the first place not a death in and of itself?"

I nod, catching their meaning. If there is anything left of Soren Friedrich in me, it hides itself very well. After all, humanity and maleness aside, I had to evolve and become someone else—someone more—in order to fit in with my new home. Based on that line of thinking, the second time I changed following death was when I ended up with my cockatrice eye, and I regained hope in addition to the obvious.

"Good, so we haven't suffered brain damage yet," the voice states clearly, as though reading my mind. "Can you guess how we've changed this time?"

Now I know why this all seems so fucking familiar.

"The real question," I say, striding up to the door and sliding it open, "is when the fuck this all happened."

Standing before me, looking rather smug, unicorn. No, it's not Lyra; it's me, or at least, the unicorn me I'd gotten used to seeing reflected on the walls of Twilight's castle whenever I'd transformed myself to get over my phobia of magic. It's not entirely the same pony that I'm seeing, however. For one, her eyes aren't heterochromatic. Whereas only my left eye is blue because of the cockatrice magic concentrated in the right, both of her eyes are blue like they were when I first became a pony.

I mean, I kinda get why she doesn't have wings; she's a goddamned unicorn, but not an alicorn. I just don't get why I would suddenly be having a unicorn memory redundancy, never mind one so damn chatty. Dying doesn't just fucking change what species you are in another world, at least, I don't think so. Certainly not literally, right?

"This is fucking bullshit, I know," she agrees before I've even spoken. She steps out through the doorway and saunters into the center of the room. Conjuring a cushion, she sits down and smiles at me. "Though if you think about it, it might make sense. The mirror portal seems to be designed to adapt your body to a form appropriate to this world, but the one thing it can't do is change a soul because it would be literally changing who you are."

That's right; the soul is the integral part of who you are, and the only real way of changing how it is reflected is to accept such changes as a part of who you are. But if I'm still in the human world, wouldn't my mind and soul become more human again, rather than a unicorn, complete with a memory redundancy despite the absence of a horn?

"Nah, don't overthink it," she replies, knowing full well my thought processes. Conjuring up another cushion beside her, she pats it and invites me over to sit. "What have we been doing a lot of since we got here? Have we been doing much to acknowledge our nature as a pegasus?"

Upon sitting down beside myself, I realize that, aside from bursts of horizontal momentum, I haven't been very pegasus-like at all since I got here. Instead, I inadvertently exploited a loophole with the mirror, allowing myself access to my magic reserves in a way that the previous me couldn't. Even though I was using the magical energies of a pegasus pony, I was wielding it like a unicorn would.

"Bingo!" The unicorn me claps her hooves. "We've been spending so much time playing the unicorn that when we crossed back over from the Nexus, our first thoughts were of resolve to continue using magic to help this world, so that must've altered a big part of our being."

I suppose I'm not really surprised by all this as I could be, though. I spent enough time as Lyra that I still have some lingering memories, which carried over when I was 'playing unicorn' with Twilight for my own benefit. In effect, I've taken my fear, conquered it, and made it reality multiple times. I honestly should've expected it sooner.

"One question though," I ask myself, turning to look her in the eyes. "How come your eyes are normal?"

She just grins at me and giggles like an idiot. "We can't all be paint-huffing subnormals, or we'll never tell each other apart." Turning to the viewport, she frowns. "You gotta wake up now, though. We've got shit to do."

She might be right, but I know what she's really trying to distract me from—that concern that's been lingering in my deceased counterpart's mind up until this world's Silver killed her. Somehow... it doesn't hurt knowing that I won't be the iteration of Silver Script that Ice Blossom will meet on the other side. Stupid wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey afterlife.

Maybe it's for the best, though. If I'm no longer weighed down trying to be the me I know she'll meet, maybe I can actually move on and evolve as a person and pony. I'm probably not the prime iteration of Silver Script any more, but maybe that's a good thing. Even if I'm not the 'prime me' as far as the universe is concerned, any more, I am who I am.

~ 13 ~

The repeated swearing of Silver Script drew Sonata out of her nap with a mixture of elation and alarm. It took her a good couple of moments before it registered in her mind that Silver was sitting up in the bed, clutching her belly in pain. That alarm quickly faded into annoyance when she realized that the pain the woman was experiencing was self-sustaining; because of the tissue damage, sitting up on her own volition was straining unhealed wounds, forcing her to tense and strain more.

"Lie down, please," Sonata instructed, using bit of magic to calm the woman. From her chair beside the head of the bed, she leaned closer. "You're only hurting yourself more by trying to sit up."

"It's a good thing that other me is fucking dead, or I'd be murdering the fucking shit out of her," responded Silver, who'd bitten down on her lip hard enough to draw blood. Her pained rictus faded slightly and she became more aware of her surroundings as Sonata eased her back.

Reaching out with her free hand, she gave Sonata's hair a weak tousle before letting her arm fall limp. "Heya kiddo, g-great work out there," she rasped. "You're a real star..."

In spite of this praise, Sonata couldn't bring herself to reflect the pride in herself that was present in Silver's voice. No matter how hard she tried, she her mind kept drifting back to her earlier conversation with Sunset Shimmer, and how selfish her motivations sounded. That doubt had lingered and festered over the last week, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't quite convince herself that she did it because it was the right thing to do.

"Easy, kiddo." There was a pained smile on her face. "I've been in this sort of position enough times to know what you're probably thinking." A cough wracked her body, and in spite of the blatantly obvious surge of pain, the smile on her face didn't abate. "Doesn't matter why you do the right thing so long as you did the right thing without any expectation of reward from those you helped."

Tears flooded Sonata's eyes, and soon enough she'd buried her face in the blankets. "But I did." She sobbed into the bedding, and when the woman's hand returned to her head. Even as her head was lifted back up, her sobbing and trembling intensified. "I helped because I wanted you to be proud of me... so you'd help my sisters. Since everything fell apart, you're the first person to really give me a chance, and... and... there's just something about you that makes me want to do better."

Silver closed her eyes and patted the bed beside her. "Come, sit."

Sonata nodded and then moved onto the edge of the bed. Before she could even ask why she needed to be closer, magic seized hold of the collar of her shirt and yanked her down into the open arms of Silver Script. Almost immediately, she pulled her into as strong a hug as she could manage.

"Never delude yourself into thinking that helping your family is a selfish thing to do," said Silver. It was hard for Sonata to turn her head in this position, but she could see the tears in the woman's eyes when she managed it. "A long time ago, I listened to my parents and left and never returned; I couldn't stay on that planet without dying from mana deprivation, and they couldn't come to terms with what I'd become.

"I left and let them live out their days in denial, and they convinced themselves that I'd merely gone missing," she continued. "They're probably dead now, and they'll never get to meet their granddaughters." She sucked in a breath and released Sonata, who quickly returned to her chair. "It's one of my biggest regrets, not trying harder to get them to accept me. In everything I went through in my first years in Equestria, I never had the support I didn't realize I needed the most. I just let them push me away because I thought it selfish to do otherwise.

"It's not selfish to want the best for your sisters at all." Her body shuddered and she broke into a coughing laugh. "You helped others because you thought it would help the ones you love, in spite of how you've been treated by them, right? That's the most admirable thing of all. It's why I prepared the stones for your sisters in parallel, based on your own."

She cracked open her right eye and looked to Sonata. "Go on and get Sunset. She's gotta have all sorts of questions, and there's a lot I need to tell her. Hell, get Twilight as well. She'll probably be intrigued." As Sonata rose, she seized her wrist. "Food, first, though. I'm fuckin' starving."

~ 13 ~

You probably know what a homunculus is, but for the sake of those of us not in the know, I'll explain. A homunculus is an artificial lifeform created through the use of alchemy. Next to a philosopher's stone, it's the single most difficult thing an alchemist can create. Depending on the conditions of its creation, it can take on the form of a pony, a griffon, or a dragon... hell, if you somehow have access to the genetic material, you could even make it take the form of a human being. They're capable of whatever their genetic base would have been.

Homunculi are very intelligent, mature quickly, and once they've reached peak maturity, they simply stop aging. To put it plainly, they never die from natural causes. This makes them ideal assistants for busy alchemists, or for those who've lived long enough but never had kids, a homunculus can become as close to family as you can get. If treated right, they can be the most loyal companions out there and will care for you well into your Twilight years.

With how useful they sound, you'd think you'd hear more of them; fact of the matter is that most ponies go their entire lives without even hearing of them, never mind seeing one. There are a couple of reasons for that. As mentioned before, they are the single most difficult thing an alchemist can legally make, primarily because conditions for their creation have to be kept perfect up until their genetic infusion, but also because they require permission from the crown to even attempt, and if they don't approve of your choice in genetic material, your work is seized. Somepony attempted to create an alicorn homunculus in an attempt to seize power a few hundred years ago, until Celestia put the kibosh to it and enacted the restrictions we have today.

That takes me to why we're talking about homunculi. When my girls Aqua Pura and Aqua Clara were really young, I was still kind of a mess. Given the conditions of their conception, I spent much of my pregnancy in a mental health facility in Ponyville, and even after I was cleared for release, I wasn't entirely stable. I found it hard to connect to others, and trusting strangers was practically out of the question. Ideally, I probably should've stayed in Ponyville with Lyra, Bon-Bon and their daughter Honeydew, but I wanted to make a fresh start and accepted a position offered to me by Princess Cadance and her husband.

So I was practically all by myself up in the Crystal Empire, trying to finish my alchemical doctorate, all while raising two unicorn fillies when I was still very much traumatized by magic. Even if she didn't have an empire to run, Cadance was dealing with her firstborn, Etherea, at the time so I couldn't ask her for help. I was really out of my depth, so I applied for permission to create a homunculus to help me raise my foals and whatnot.

Lo and behold, Celestia granted me permission without a second thought. For a long while, things were going great. The girls weren't too problematic, even if I was running on coffee and homemade stimulants almost nonstop when sleep wasn't an option, and I managed to keep ahead of my workload. I'd even managed to connect with a local circle of mothers and make some friends.

One day, it all went wrong. I went into my lab, like I'd done countless afternoons prior, to check the readiness of the homunculus for genetic infusion. It had finally developed consciousness and was even beginning to pick up on speech, despite remaining little more than black mist in a thaumic containment vessel. I was writing down my findings when suddenly I was floored by intense physical pain. Not only did I feel like I was literally being torn apart at the atomic level, but l was able to observe that I was becoming transparent. It went on for what felt like hours, and even the world around me flickered as if time itself was trying to stop me from existing.

Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Almost everything in my lab was untouched, but the containment unit had shattered, and the incomplete homunculus was gone. I was gutted, sure, but the screaming of the twins pushed it from my memory. It was just a failed experiment, and whatever had happened to me had also affected the girls, even if they have no memory of it today. So my work on the matter was packed up and put into storage.

What I later found out about that day in particular was that a number things had happened concurrently. Firstly, rips in reality were torn between this world and Equestria. While not enough to compromise the containment unit alone, the added temporal skirmish between Starlight Glimmer and Princess Twilight putting me and everything I'd ever done into a state of momentary flux was enough to compromise it.

I figured at the time that my homunculus had just stopped existing, but something one of the guides in the afterlife said to me when I died again struck me as odd. She mentioned the Great Old Ones. Now, I dunno what that means to all of you, but when I hear it, I think eldritch abominations from beyond the reaches of space and time. It's just a theory, but I think that this... this thing that's been attacking this world time and time again is my homunculus. I think it merged with a Great Old One in the rift between realities during a moment of temporal flux.

~ 13 ~

The three young women gathered at the table gape at me as I down a glass of water with gusto. It's not hard to imagine why they're staring. After everything I've just said, there's probably a lot going through their heads. Twilight's probably freaking out knowing that she helped create a hybrid Lovecraftian abomination that has the potential for childish intellect AND doesn't die naturally, in addition to whatever powers such a thing possesses. Sonata, obviously, looks lost and wondering why she's a part of the briefing at all. Sunset, though...

She looks to be struggling with admiration for the fact that I created a successful homunculus, while fear for what it's become. To some extent, she might even realize the implications of all of this, and what I'm likely to ask her to do. That in itself is going to be a big point of contention for her, because it's going to mean opening the portal to Equestria, and putting her home at risk as well.

Rather than wait for her to speak up, however, I make use of the wheelchair that has been loaned to us by the Bluebloods in order to visit the stack of pizzas on the counter. Of course the meat lover's pizza is on the bottom, but it's not that hard to get all four boxes onto my lap. It'd be so much easier if I could walk, but the three of them insist I shouldn't even be sitting upright, never mind walking. Fuck that noise, though.

Fighting back a wince, I wheel back to the group of girls and dole out the individual pizzas. "Look, Sunset," I say, sitting the vegetarian in front of her. "I know why you'll object to breaking the lockdown you put on the link between this world and Equestria. It's tied into the setup for the spell you used to loop back to your save point so many times, and it uses a lot of magic, doesn't it?"

She nods, taking a bite of vegetarian pizza, even as I continue to speak. "You have something we didn't have this time: my potions." I pause to demolish an entire slice of pizza before spreading my hands emphatically. "I know for a fact that there's enough mana regen potions for the seven of you to completely burn out several times before running out of potions. You'd only need to break the lockdown, send me through to get what I need to fix this mess, and then just shut down the portal from your end. When I'm ready again, I can get Princess Twilight to open it from the other side and come back through."

"You don't even know that it'll work!" she growls, gesturing at the wheelchair. "You could hardly defend yourself when you were on your two feet, and now you're asking me to just let you shoulder everything yourself when you can't even stand."

I look away. "That was a cheap shot, and you know it." True on both fronts. The me from the failed timeline did get a cheap shot in on me, and that's the only reason I didn't do more; if life were an anime or video game, there would likely have been a drawn-out battle and a shitload of collateral damage. Her statement is also a cheap shot in the fact that she's hitting me while I'm down. "Besides, I'm not going to let this world be consumed again. There's more at stake than just the fates of here and Equestria.

"Between the offspring of my mistake and your meddling with time, the entire afterlife is in flux." Another slice of pizza disappears into my ravenous gullet, and I barely miss a beat. "So many duplicate souls from the aborted timelines of this world have flooded in that the guide for departed human souls, Charon, can hardly keep up. Epona, the guide for ponies, panicked when she saw two of me, worried that whatever was happening here was happening to Equestria now, too."

"Wait, you've been to the afterlife?" Twilight whipped out a notebook and a pencil, her eyes wide. "What's it like? How many of the guides have you met? This is—"

"Not relevant at this time," Sunset and I both say in unison, giving her a look. Our gazes shift toward one another, and we share a hollow laugh.

I wheel away from the group and get as close to the window as I can. It's already dusk, so there's no way we'll be going anywhere today. Not that I should. I'm still fucking wrecked after being out for several days, and the only reason I'm not using magic to push myself around is because I am stubborn like that. Ideally, I should still be in bed, but this can't wait.

"Anyway, Sunset," I say, peering over my shoulder at her. "I need to do this, and not just because I hold a part in being responsible for all of this. The homunculus seems to have retained some memory of the previous timelines, and it recognizes me as its mother or maker to some extent. Whereas it'll likely react poorly if you force a confrontation, I think that I can resolve this without any further bloodshed."

It goes unsaid as I stare her down, but I brought it into the world, and circumstances beyond its control made it into a monster. It was forced to take a form before it was intellectually ready, and it became little more than an instinct-driven monster because of it. If I can fix this, I have to try.

After several moments of apparent internal debate, she nods. "Alright; we'll play it your way." With a tilt of her head, Sunset indicates Sonata. "What about her?"

I shrug. "After she gives her sisters the modified crystals I made for them, I'd actually like her to come with me to Equestria."

Sonata gives me a wide-eyed look as she nearly drops a slice of taco pizza. A chorus of "What? Why!?" erupts from the trio.

"If you want the practical answer as to why, I'm going to have a hard time getting around until I can get some honest-to-God medical attention from experienced mages." I look down at my legs, which—while functional—don't have the strength to hold me up, even without all the mending muscles eliciting pain with every movement. Thank fuck for painkillers, I tell you. "Sentimentality wise, I thought I'd repay her for helping to take care of me by bringing her home, if only temporarily."

Author's Note

So here we go. Silver feels like she's responsible for the mess threatening both worlds, so she needs to try to stop it before things get worse.

Unlike many previous chapters, which have been named for music already linked in the chapter, no song is included in this chapter. That said, there is a melody that I had in mind while writing this chapter. 'Wander my Friends', which shared a leitmotif with other songs across the re-imagined Battlestar Galactica TV series [the other tracks being 'A Good Lighter', 'Reuniting the Fleet', 'Admiral and Commander', and 'Farewell Apollo']. It's always been a favorite of mine, because despite the almost somber melody and lyrics, it's a song of hope. I also chose the name because it because it indicates a breaking of the fellowship, so to speak.