Reflections

Chapters

2 - Audience
3 - Preparations
5 - Defeat
6 - Collapse
7 - Ghosts
8 - Algorithm
9 - Mechanics
10 - Lines
11 - Experiment
12 - Sincerity
14 - Uncertainty
15 - Planning
16 - Inconsistency
17 - Workspace
18 - Opening
19 - Anxiety
20 - History
21 - Melancholia
22 - Stymied
23 - Jumbled
24 - Vexation
25 - Hunting
26 - Zeroed
27 - Existence
28 - Reflections I
29 - Reflections II
30 - Reflections III
31 - Absolution
Appendix
1 - Familiar
4 - Blaze
13 - Collision
32 - Time

2 - Audience

Twilight Sparkle sat as tall as she possibly could in her position atop the dais. Mi Amore Cadenza sat right beside her, albeit on the throne itself, looking at the same spot Twilight did. Cadance’s throne consisted of several gigantic, crystalline gems, including one which towered over the rest of the throne. The two somehow appeared untouchable under its protection.

A carpet led its way down the ramp and stretched all the way to the ornate double doors on the far side of the chamber. Shining Armor stood at the halfway point.

The mysterious mare, Crystal Faire, stood at the center of attention. Gone was her cloak, as it was folded away in some room somewhere. Crystal easily stood a hoof or two taller than Cadance herself. Her coat, whilst containing a few mismatched frays, looked just like any other. Her tail was neatly curled and contoured just like her mane.

Shining circled about as he eyed every inch of her. He leaned in close to examine specific marks on her body, especially the strange, crystalline tree which served as her cutie mark.

Several guards, armed with spears and clad in full sets of armor, ringed around the two and watched in silence.

And Crystal stared into the distance with a glazed expression.

After a moment, Shining looked up at Twilight and Cadance and nodded gravely.

Twilight and Cadance exchanged glances and then returned the gesture.

“Well,” Cadance began, “you seem real enough. And I guess we should thank you for protecting Flurry Heart from… whoever they were. But you must understand…”

“You’re impossible,” Twilight finished. “You really are.”

Crystal snorted and cracked her neck. “Yes, I am. To the uninitiated, anyway.”

“Excuse me? Uninitiated?” Twilight asked.

“Yes. I am sure you have many questions. I have all the time in the world, so I will answer almost any question you may have.”

“Okay then,” Cadance said. “For starters—”

“But first…” Crystal interrupted, raising a hoof into the air. “I want to make this interesting for me as well. So…” She stroked her muzzle for a moment and then smirked. “Let’s do this: when you want to ask a question, just raise your hoof. Then I will answer it.”

Cadance looked down from the throne with her eyebrow raised. She exchanged uncertain glances with Shining, and then she shifted in her seat. “That’s… Uh… That’s a strange request.”

It was, but Twilight wanted answers. “I don’t see why not,” she said. “I mean, I agree, but it can’t hurt.”

“You think so?” Cadance asked, looking over.

“Yes. Let’s go with it.”

“Alright then,” Cadance said, nodding, “I guess we’ll do that.”

Shining Armor raised a hoof.

Crystal looked back at him and pointed. “You want to know who I am and where I come from,” she said.

Shining blinked and then nodded. “Yeah… that was my question.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “I would suppose that’s the golden question. Very well.”

She unfurled her gigantic wings and stood at her full height. “My name is Crystal Faire, but your reality knows me as Flurry Heart. You may call me that if you wish. And I…” she said, cracking a smirk, “am from an alternate reality.”

The throne room remained silent for many moments. All eyes, including those of the guards, turned to stare at her.

“A-alternate reality?” Cadance asked.

Crystal nodded. “Yes. An alternate reality, though one much like this one. An alternate timeline, if you want.” She turned to Twilight. “I am sure that you have some experience with such concepts. As I can see, you romped through time with Starlight Glimmer here just recently, didn’t you?”

Twilight blinked. First the Crystal Heart, now this. “Yes… that’s right. You know of that?”

“Of course I do. Don’t worry, your adventure through time is fairly typical of a Flurry Heart timeline.”

Twilight stroked her chin. Typical of a Flurry Heart timeline, huh?

Shining, his brow furrowed in uncertainty, raised his hoof, lowered it, then raised it again.

Crystal turned to him. “I’m sure you want to know what my reality was like, right?” she asked.

Shining, after spending a moment looking at her curiously, nodded.

“Yes, tell us,” Cadance added. “I’d also like to hear about it.”

Crystal frowned. “Well, there isn’t too much to tell. I did say that it was much like this one. But I never broke the Crystal Heart there. That’s the only difference which I may tell you about.”

“But there are similarities,” Cadance said.

“Yes. And there always are. Constants and variables and all that.”

“Is that so?” Cadance asked. She then raised a hoof.

“Example?” Crystal replied. “Well, I exist in every timeline. Well—” she shrugged, “—in some way, shape, or form.”

“Sounds interesting,” Shining said. He paused to stroke his chin. “Wait, are you sure about that?” he asked with a quiver in his voice.

Crystal rolled her eyes. “From what I’ve seen—and I’ve seen a lot—yeah. I’m sure. Like I said, I might be a Princess Prism or a Queen Skyla over in those other places. Or I’m dead. Or I don’t make it to birth. Still...”

I wonder… Twilight thought, are there timelines different from ours that still give us Flurry Heart?

Twilight raised her hoof into the air.

Crystal pointed at her. “Yes, Twilight Sparkle. Being named Flurry Heart is a high probability whenever the Crystal Heart is destroyed. But, as to how things get there, there are any number of ways in which that can happen.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. Crystal sat with a smug smirk on her muzzle.

That… was a good guess, Twilight thought. She knew what my question was going to be. She’s known what all of our questions were going to be.

“That’s interesting,” Cadance said. “I’m guessing that, if you know all that, you probably know why we,” she paused to laugh, “named her Flurry Heart.”

Crystal nodded. “I do.”

Right. But that all depends on that one event, Twilight thought. But she just said that they don’t always get there the same way. So… does Starlight Glimmer…?

Twilight raised her hoof again.

Crystal chuckled. “And yes, Twilight. Sometimes, you do not travel through time with Starlight Glimmer, and yet a Flurry Heart may happen regardless. Just the same like Starlight Glimmer may happen, but she never breaks the Crystal Heart.” Her smile grew wider and she said, “Time converges in some ways, and it diverges in many others.”

Twilight shot to her hooves. There was no way that had been a lucky guess. Knowing privy information was one thing, but this mare knew her thoughts.

Cadance looked over in alarm. Shining, meanwhile, continued staring holes into the mare in front of him.

Words, all which tried to explain how, became lodged in Twilight’s throat.

Crystal tilted her head and chuckled. “You seem perplexed, Twilight.”

Twilight’s heart beat within her chest, and as she cautiously stepped down the ramp leading from the throne, her eyes remained glued on the mare at the bottom. Yet even with the most intense stare that she could muster, Crystal remained unfazed. The guards parted to let Twilight into the circle.

“Y-you know…” Twilight stammered, shuffling up to within inches of Crystal’s muzzle, “you… know everything we’re about to ask. Even before we ask it.”

Crystal’s grin grew wider.

“I want to know how,” Twilight continued. “Tell me.”

Crystal chuckled again. The air beside her head flashed, and a wine glass, halfway filled with cognac, appeared beside her. She eyed the contents as she sloshed it about. “Well, you see, Twilight, one doesn’t travel the multiverse for as long as I have without… picking up a few things. And it is true that I’ve seen these situations a million times. I know how these dice fall. But…” She looked back up at Twilight and said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

She leaned in close and whispered, “I can see everything. Past, present, and future. …Would you like to know your future, Twilight Sparkle?”

Twilight felt like a pinprick underneath Crystal’s gaze. Her eyes remained locked with the mare across from her. The mare, who was supposedly her niece, now glared back at her with a devilish sneer. Her glare, punctuated by the scar across her right eye, nearly pressed Twilight into the floor.

A shiver ran up and down Twilight’s spine, and she shook her head. “I-I’m not sure if I’m c-comfortable with that.”

Crystal snorted and took a sip from her glass. “I see. I don’t expect you to be,” she said as she swished the cognac some more. She tilted it as if offering it to Twilight, hummed when Twilight failed to respond, and then made it disappear with a bit of magic.

Words, which had been dancing about Twilight’s mind, came forth. “I want to know… Why are you here?”

Cadance stood up and trotted down the ramp. “Yes, Crystal Faire… what brings you here?”

Crystal licked her lips and then trotted over to the windows, admiring the morning sunbeams that filtered through. Her hoofsteps echoed throughout the audience chamber all the while. Everypony, guards included, followed her with their eyes.

“Well, as I said… I am from an alternate timeline. I travel across time and space.” Crystal spun around to face them. “And it is no accident that I have come to you today.”

Crystal stepped forward. “You see, I am on a mission. I travel across the multiverse, to timelines like this one and beyond, to… intervene. I ensure good futures, and I prevent bad ones. As you have certainly seen by now, there are any number of entities and horrors that would like to bring harm to Equestria, her ponies, and all others here and beyond who lead peaceful lives.

“And so…” Crystal Faire said, standing as a silhouette in the sun’s rays, “I am here to save your world.”

Twilight, Shining, and Cadance froze in place. Bits of wide-eyed expression flashed across the guards’ otherwise stoic faces.

“Save our world?” Twilight croaked. “We… need saving?”

Crystal nodded. “Yes.”

Cadance swallowed and stepped forward. “What… could we possibly need saving from?”

“Any number of things. It could have been Tirek, or it could have been Starlight. It could be the Storm King ransacking Seaquestria. Or it could be the collapse of the Griffon Kingdom. It’s different every time. But you…” Crystal continued while pointing at each of them, “had a double-whammy. Two threats, one right after another. Although I am sure they would have butted heads later. Still…

“You were on track to lose to one or both of them.” A sly smile appeared on her muzzle as she said, “Thankfully, I am here to rebalance the terms.”

Twilight shuddered. “Y-you mean, we would have… lost?” Her knees gave out and she fell to her haunches. “I don’t…”

Cadance stamped her hoof. “That’s ridiculous. I don’t believe that.”

“That’s right,” Shining Armor seconded. “Whatever it was that they were planning to do with Flurry Heart, I know we would have gone after them and made them give her back.”

“Y… yes! We’d fix everything!” Twilight exclaimed.

Crystal’s gaze turned toward the high, arching ceiling. She considered the long banners hanging just above the throne as well as the several smaller ones lining the length of the room. And she sighed.

“With the guards doing training exercises outside the castle, they would have been quick, and they would have been decisive. Do you remember this dagger?” she asked with a plain tone as she made one appear out of thin air. “This dagger… was their plan.”

All color rushed out of Cadance’s face, and she too fell to her haunches. Shining wobbled in place and grasped at his chest.

“But, appearing as I did,” Crystal said as she made the dagger disappear before eying them again, “and preventing the worst as I did, I have, ultimately, put all of their plans to ruin.”

Shining swallowed and locked eyes with Cadance. “I’m going to her,” he said at last.

He broke into a sprint toward the other end of the chamber without even checking for his wife’s response. A pair of crystal guards opened a set of double doors at the end of the chamber. Shining Armor disappeared around a corner, presumably thundering toward the nursery.

Cadance turned her attention back to Crystal and stood back up. “I…”

Twilight wiped some drops of sweat off her brow and looked up. “Who is they?” she asked.

“Oh,” Crystal said, “you know. They… are not important. Not now, at least. That just leaves the other thing…”

Twilight stared at the mare for a few instants before climbing to her hooves. “You… said there were two of them.”

“Yes,” Crystal replied. “I did. And there are. But, for now, I would suggest you take a moment to pull yourself together.” She leaned forward with her brow arched. “I would suspect that this is a lot to take in, hmmm?”

Another drop of sweat ran down Twilight’s muzzle, and she shook her head. “No. N-no. Whatever is going to threaten us… or threaten Equestria… I have to… I have to…”

“Relax, Auntie Twilight. You still have several hours before you should worry about it.”

“If this is something that’s about to happen, then I need to go stop it right now! I need to prepare!”

A smile twitched across Crystal’s muzzle, and she shook her head. “Oh… You are very predictable. You see, I could tell you and you would run off and do just that. But, in this case, it’s better to wait. I already know how this pans out because I’ve panned it out a thousand times before.”

Twilight’s lip quivered as she searched for words to say. None came to her.

Crystal looked out the window again. “So, I will tell you what… I will return this afternoon to talk more about what’s next.” She smiled. “That should give you all day to pick yourself back up. And it will give me some time to sightsee and the like.”

Cadance trotted up beside Twilight but said nothing.

Crystal turned her gaze to Cadance. “Any objections to that, Mother?”

Cadance stood with her mouth wide open. She stood there for a long moment, staring Crystal down. Finally, she vacantly shook her head.

With one last soft smile, Crystal lit her horn. “Then I will see you later,” she said. And with a white flash, she disappeared.

And both Twilight and Cadance remained, staring at the spot in silence.

* * *

Twilight and Cadance opened the doors to the nursery and stumbled through. They found Shining cradling Flurry Heart right beside the bed.

He looked up as they ambled over to him, and he offered Flurry up just in time for Cadance to take her with her magic.

“Meem,” Flurry Heart cooed and reached up toward Cadance’s muzzle.

Cadance’s face grew wetter by the second. Even as Flurry continued cooing at her, looking up with starry eyes full of wonder, Cadance could only stare.

And then Cadance swept Flurry into a tight embrace and sobbed. “Ohhhhhh, my daughter…”

“How can this be…?” Twilight croaked. “I don’t…”

Shining stood up. “That mare…” he said, his lip quivering, “it can’t be… her. It just can’t be her.”

“I never would have guessed…” Cadance continued, trying to breathe through her tears, “I never would have wished… that our daughter would grow up to be… that…”

“That scar on her face…” Shining mumbled. His muzzle twitched, and then he locked eyes with Cadance.

And both their eyes, followed by Twilight’s, drew down toward Flurry’s clean, luscious, and vibrant face. And Flurry Heart reached up at them, cooing all the while.

“Ohhhhhhh,” Cadance whimpered and hugged Flurry tight again.

“Maam?” Flurry warbled.

Shining massaged his brow. “I really don’t know what to think. I can’t imagine that mare being my daughter.”

Twilight looked over, frowning. “She’s not what I imagine either. I… I’ve thought about what she’d be like when she’s all grown up, but…”

“She… said she came from someplace else,” Shining continued. “She isn’t… our daughter.”

Cadance grimaced. “But she is. In a way. If we believe what she says, anyway.”

Twilight held herself and ground her teeth together. “She knew about my journey through time with Starlight.”

“And she knew about the Crystal Heart. She knew who was there.”

“She knew what we were going to say and do even before we did ourselves.”

“And here she is saying she’s from the future… and that she can see the future…” Cadance sighed. “I think she might be the real deal.”

“And it’s not like I haven’t seen this thing before; I’ve met my future self before.” Twilight paused. “I mean, it was only a week into the future, but still.”

“Then, if Crystal Faire… or Flurry Heart, or whatever she wants us to call her…” Shining said.

Twilight straightened up. “If she’s really here to do what she says she’s here to do… and her intentions are good…” She shrugged. “Maybe we should give her a chance?”

Cadance sat stroking Flurry Heart’s back for a few moments. She took in a deep breath and used her hoof to push it back out. “Well… she put on an impressive display… but I’m not sure if I trust her.”

“Me either. Even if she is our daughter from some… other reality.” Shining’s muzzle twitched, and he shook his head. “At the same time, if she is our daughter… then I would want to trust her all the way.”

“She says she wants to save us,” Twilight said. “Let’s hope she means it.”

Cadance smiled. “I’m sure you’ll be plenty helpful there, Twilight. You always are.”

Twilight blushed but said nothing.

Shining stood up. “If you’re willing to go along with it, then I am too.”

“Me three,” Cadance added.

Shining grunted in order to grab Cadance’s attention. He then took Flurry and held her close. “Meanwhile, we shouldn’t let Flurry out of our sight,” he said. “Just to be safe.”

“We still have all day before she says she’ll come back,” Twilight said. “Why don’t we spend it together?”

“Sure. And then you and Crystal Faire can go to work on… whatever it is tonight when she gets back from who knows where.” Shining sighed. “This won’t be as stress-free as I would have liked your visit to be, but we’ll make do.”

Twilight cracked a much-needed smile. “Yes. We will.”

3 - Preparations

Twilight Sparkle squinted in the light of the mid-afternoon sun as she sunk deeper into the cushion beneath her. Images of Crystal Faire’s scarred face flashed through her mind again, but Flurry Heart’s giggles and snorts dashed those just as quickly.

“Even then,” Cadance said, chuckling, “being Dragon Lord must have been exciting. Even if he only did it for ten seconds.”

“I know I’d be proud of Spike too,” Shining added as he drew circles in Flurry’s chest.

“Eee mumum,” Flurry said while trying, futilely, to reach up and touch her father’s nose.

Shining looked down at her, smiled, then leaned forward and blew a zerbert into her belly. Flurry squirmed and roared with laughter.

Twilight giggled as well and turned back to Cadance. “Yes. My little Spike is all grown up. He’s becoming a fine young dragon.”

“I can imagine,” Cadance said.

“He’ll be just as big as you are before you know it,” Shining said. “And, well, he is a dragon. I guess, someday, he’ll be even bigger.”

“Huh. Sure. He might even outgrow the castle,” Cadance said. “Makes me wonder if he’ll go live someplace nearby.”

“Or if he’ll go live with the dragons,” Shining added.

“Well, no matter where he goes, or what he does, or whatever happens to him,” Twilight said with a grin, “he’ll always be my Spike.”

The double doors creaked open and they all turned in response. The smiles disappeared from their muzzles as they stood up. Crystal Faire stood in the doorway. She wore, once again, the cloak from the night before.

Crystal trotted into the room without shutting the door behind her. Flurry watched Crystal approached and then cooed curiously. Crystal stared at Flurry even while the latter tried to reach up and bat at her all while making assorted coos and warbles. Finally, Crystal chuckled and batted back. The two poked at each other which prompted Flurry to laugh like a hyena.

Meanwhile, the others exchanged glances and shared nervous chuckles.

Crystal drew back and turned to Twilight. “Well, I have returned. And there is much for us to discuss, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes. I suppose there is.”

“I’m still in a rather sightseeing mood. So… I was hoping that you would join me for a walk.”

Twilight looked at Shining and Cadance for guidance. They exchanged glances and nodded back.

“Fine by me,” Twilight said.

“We’ll be right here when you get back,” Cadance said.

“Go get them, Twily. Save the day for us,” Shining added as he wrapped a hoof about his wife’s withers.

Twilight smiled. “I will.” She turned to Crystal and nodded. “Let’s go.”

Crystal nodded and led Twilight toward the door. Twilight looked back one last time at Shining and Cadance, the latter of whom cradled Flurry in her hooves. All three wore smiles on their muzzles.

Twilight smiled and waved before exiting the room and shutting the doors behind her.

* * *

“I see,” Twilight said, “so it was an entire cult of ponies. Not just those four.”

Crystal nodded in response. “Their intention was to disrupt the royal lineage here. It was the first part of a plan to start installing themselves into positions of power. But they are otherwise very skittish and typically don’t even make it this far.” She shook her head, whipping her mane back into place. “They know by now that their plans have failed spectacularly and, now that they are on the map, they won’t have the nerve to try anything else from now on.”

The two trotted around the very edges of the Crystal Empire. The Crystal Palace, which reached into the heavens, stood like a sentinel in the distance.

Twilight looked up to admire how it sparkled in the sun. She thought of the crystal ponies who lived in the shadow of the castle yet, at the same time, lived in the light.

She then thought of those that lived in actual shadow, and her smile faded.

“So then, what about this other thing?” Twilight asked.

Crystal cleared her throat. “Right. The other thing. This is the villain which you will face within the next few hours. I have no doubt that, armed with what I will tell you, you should be able to deal with it no problem.”

“Tell me about it?”

“Miasmus is a parasitic entity. He is… much like the Tantabus, which I’m sure exists over here.”

Twilight nodded.

“Now, you shouldn’t have encountered him at all before now. It’s very rare that Miasmus makes it past step one of his plan to take over Equestria.” Crystal paused. “But, of course, in this timeline, he actually does, which is why you’ll have to deal with him.”

“I didn’t know those kinds of creatures could even be male,” Twilight said. Her muzzle curled into a small grin. “That’s fascinating.”

At that, Crystal paused, and then she pinched the bridge of her nose and sighed. “That… I swear. Miasmus is an it, but for some reason, it identifies as male. I don’t know why.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, if it feels like it’s male, then we’ll just call him that.”

Crystal shrugged. “Regardless, he can’t survive for long on his own, so he nestles himself within hosts and essentially makes their bodies his own.” She looked over Twilight and added, “That’s how he survives.” She shook her head and said, “But he picked the wrong host a while back and he usually just dies out in the middle of nowhere.”

Twilight hummed in thought. “So, I’m guessing that he caught a break this time.”

“By sheer dumb luck,” Crystal said, punctuating her words by punting a rock as they passed over it. “Miasmus is grossly incompetent. He also happens to think that he’s all that. …I had to teach myself not to laugh at him on sight.”

Twilight hung her head. “But if that’s right, and we lost to this thing… What does that say about us?”

Crystal snorted. “Again, dumb luck. Had you been in Ponyville yesterday, you would have caught him and summarily defeated him during the beginning of stage two.”

Twilight let out a sigh of relief. “Okay.”

“Honestly, this situation that you’re in right now with Miasmus being on the upswing is pretty rare by itself.” Crystal narrowed her eyes. “The fact that you’ve also been dealt a double-whammy situation is just as rare. So this is interesting.”

“The fact that we had two threats at the exact same time, you mean,” Twilight said. “I’m guessing there have been other times where it’s been like this?”

“Yes. I’ve even seen triple-whammies before. And…” Crystal’s muzzle scrunched up as she thought. “I think the most I’ve seen is a quad. But that was such a long ago.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “You mean, a long time ago for you.”

Crystal chuckled. “Of course.”

“I see. So… what’s step two, exactly?”

“Step two…” Crystal trailed off, “was you, your friends, your student, and Celestia.”

Twilight froze midstep. She felt a shiver run up and down her spine, and her fur stood on end. She looked over at Crystal with a quivering jaw. “My friends… Celestia…” She swallowed. “Crystal… Where is he right now? Can you see him?”

Crystal smirked and said, “I can see everything, Twilight. Let’s see...” before gazing blankly into the distance. Her pupils swayed from side to side and her smirk turned more into a frown with each passing second.

Finally, Crystal furrowed her brow and mouthed the words “What the?” under her breath. She whirled around and started toward the mountains.

“Crystal?” Twilight asked. “Tell me where Miasmus is right now.”

Crystal stopped after a few steps and glanced back at Twilight with a dazed expression. “Oh, right. He… Miasmus… He is closing in on them.”

“How long?”

Crystal considered it. “Not too long.”

Twilight shook her head in slow disbelief and then in vehement anger. “No… No no no no! You should have told me earlier!” she yelled. “I have to be there for them!”

Crystal merely hummed in acknowledgment before she spread her wings and took to the air.

Twilight frowned. “Crystal!” she cried before flapping her wings and taking off behind her.

Crystal ignored her and flew in the direction of the mountains.

“Crystal! You need to talk to me right now!” Twilight seethed. “If Miasmus is about to have my friends, then I need to go help them right now!”

Crystal continued onward, still scanning the ground below. “Y-yeah,” she mumbled in response.

Twilight gripped her head and breathed in and out at a rapid pace. “Oh stars, oh stars, I can’t even begin to imagine what he’s doing to them right now. Oh stars…”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Crystal said without looking over. “I’ve dealt with Miasmus any number of times. I could fix it.”

“Fix it!? If what you’re telling me is accurate, he’s already there!” Twilight yelled, kicking the air underneath her.

“Sure,” Crystal vacantly replied.

Twilight opened her mouth to speak then closed it again. Crystal was ignoring the situation. “I don’t… I can’t. How are you not concerned about this?”

Crystal blinked and then finally looked over. “S-sorry. I’m just…”

“And where are you going, anyway?”

Crystal frowned. “Uh, you see, when I was looking for Miasmus just a bit ago, I saw something strange.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “And what exactly was so strange, huh?” she asked, her tone sharp.

Crystal pointed at something on the ground. “That there,” she replied.

Twilight turned her gaze down to where Crystal pointed. Situated within a large depression at the base of the mountain was what looked like a small, black hemisphere. The object sat sticking halfway into the ground. The very air around it rushed into it like a vacuum. Most snow around the object had vanished.

And then a small, black sphere with the same look and consistency appeared just above the hemisphere’s surface, and the hemisphere, in turn, reached toward it with something like a tendril and swallowed it whole, growing in size at the same time.

Twilight’s jaw twitched and she, now like Crystal beside her, stared at it with intensity. “What is that?”

Crystal looked over and nodded. “That’s… what I want to find out.”

The two swooped down and landed on the lip of the depression (which had to be at least a hoofball field in diameter by Twilight’s reckoning and was slowly expanding). The Crystal Empire lay a fair ways behind them, so far, in fact, that the tallest spire could not see the black object in the depression. Air rushed past the two of them, just enough to blow their manes about but not enough to rob them of their footing.

“No, really,” Twilight said, “what is that?”

After a moment of staring it down, Crystal shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know!?” Twilight yelled. She sighed. “Didn’t you say that you can see everything? Past, present, and future?”

Crystal’s muzzle twitched. “I… did. But…” She scratched her muzzle and scanned the snow-covered ground. She then lit her horn and plucked a rock from underneath the snow. She levitated it whilst keeping an eye glued to the strange hemisphere.

“I can see past, present, and future,” Crystal said with a wavering tone, “but… when I look at this spot… I see nothing.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. She found her lingering thoughts of her friends and the rest of Ponyville shelved for the moment and she turned her attention to the spot as well.

Crystal tossed the rock up and down once, twice, and then hurled it wholesale toward the black, bubbly object. The rock disappeared past the event horizon. The black object continued sucking in snow and air and dust like before.

“It’s… a hole,” Crystal said.

The hole, almost in response, suddenly expanded by a quarter of its size. Another hole appeared to the side, and it grew and grew, and then the two merged together. The winds increased in intensity from there.

Crystal lit her horn and formed a barrier around the site, encasing both holes. With that, the gales subsided, and all the dust and snow, which had been flying through the air, either splashed against the barrier or dropped to the earth again.

Crystal hummed and stroked her muzzle.

“Hole?” Twilight asked. “What kind of hole?”

“I have some ideas, but...” Crystal continued to stare for a few moments. She then turned to Twilight and said, “Well, it would seem that I have to change my plans. I was going to take you to Ponyville in about an hour from now so that you could deal with Miasmus. I was going to be there to make sure it went well. But…” Crystal pointed to the strange holes. “I have to figure this thing out.”

Twilight frowned. “But what about what you came here to do?”

“Changed plans, Twilight. I don’t know what this is, but this needs my attention.”

Twilight glared Crystal down. “Alright, fine. Admittedly, I think that this is strange too. And fascinating. And I’d like to study whatever this”—she pointed at the hole—“phenomenon is. But I need to go to them.”

Crystal raised her eyebrow.

“I understand if you want to stay here,” Twilight continued, “but… if that means that you won’t be helping me to save my friends and stop Miasmus, then so be it.”

Crystal tilted her head in consideration. Her mouth moved a few times as if about to form words. Finally, she hummed. “You would still go? You don’t even know how to defeat him.”

“No. I don’t. But I will try anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Crystal asked. After a pause, she said, “You know you’ll be taking your chances without me there to help you.”

Twilight nodded. “It’s a struggle. It always is. But my friends… they’re like family to me. Kind of like you are, in a way. And they… they make my life worth living.”

Twilight pressed a hoof to her chest. “They are worth taking a chance for.”

The hole, still contained within Crystal’s bubble, expanded. A few more, much smaller holes appeared just above its surface then joined up with the main hole. Pieces of ground fell into the horizon, never to return.

Crystal kept her eyes on the display. Her muzzle shifted from side to side in thought. And then Crystal turned her attention back to Twilight.

Twilight stood at her full height, trying to appear as tall and confident as possible.

“I see,” Crystal said. She looked back at the hole. “No, I won’t be joining you. But… if you are so insistent on going now, then the least that I can do is tell you how to beat him.”

* * *

The wind blew through Twilight’s mane as she soared through the air. The Crystal Empire lay at her back with its spires gradually withdrawing past the horizon. Twilight knew that, soon enough, she would not be able to see it at all.

The snow-covered ground steadily passed underneath her. The air, already cold, chilled her even more as she blew through it. It made her shiver a few times.

The other shivers originated from her thoughts. Crystal’s last words ran through her mind over and over again.

“Focus on Celestia. Concentrated magical bursts will overload and dislodge him. Above all, trust no one.”

Twilight sucked in a breath. She beat her wings and surged forward. Miasmus…

Ponyville had not yet poked its way out from beyond the horizon. That was at least an hour or two yet. Even still, her eyes remained focused on the point where she knew it would be.

This thing… if he’s after them… If he already has them…

The air whistled in her ears as she flew which served to further elevate her heart rate.

And he’s a thing that… takes hosts… if he already has them…

Twilight swallowed, letting several chills creep down her spine. I… I might have to use magic against them.

Am I prepared to do that?

* * *

Crystal paced about the perimeter of her barrier. The anomaly itself grew by an inch or two on occasion but otherwise held steady.

She funneled a spell through her horn, and a cloud of magic materialized within the barrier. The cloud hung back from the event horizon and Crystal eyed it closely. Her spell then replied with a short string of information which spoke of the vacuum within the barrier.

It sucked all the air out, Crystal thought. But I knew that.

She then commanded the cloud to move. The magical cloud poked at the hole, prodded at it, and then penetrated the blackness. The bits of cloud still outside fed her the same information from before, but those parts of the cloud within the void fed her new things. Things that felt like gibberish. Things that Crystal could not recognize.

Crystal frowned and tried to pull those bits of cloud out. The bits still in actual space pulled back with no difficulty. The submerged bit of cloud, however, never reappeared. Crystal could feel her spell still floating somewhere in the void but she could not tell where it was exactly.

She channeled more energy into her horn in an effort to move the disconnected part of her spell. She felt it respond, and it continued feeding her jumbled information, and it felt like it was moving about. But, with every bit she moved it, her spell seemed to scatter. Eventually, it seemed that, despite sending her the same unusual data as before, the cloud had dissipated.

Crystal disconnected from the lost parts, and the sensation that the cloud fed her faded out. She frowned, discontinued the parts of the cloud still within the barrier, and she felt energy draw back into her horn.

What in the hell is going on? she thought. It’s like… where did my spell actually go?

She trotted forward and laid a hoof against the barrier. And why is it just this timeline? Only this timeline?

Crystal felt a shiver run down her spine. What does this mean?

She looked over her withers and stared into space. Her thoughts tumbled together for a moment as several images fought for attention. Then, finally, her image of Twilight Sparkle won out, and Crystal blinked.

She cocked her head in the direction of Ponyville. She imagined a mare flying through the skies at neck-breaking speeds. She imagined a being of energy sitting within his hosts. She heard his laughs. She heard shouts and cries and the sound of wood snapping.

And Crystal looked back at the hole. A smaller hole appeared between the larger one and her barrier, almost taking a chunk out of it in the process. The second hole floated above the first, just as idle as its brother.

Crystal snorted. Twilight’s fine. Everything’s fine. ...Probably.

5 - Defeat

A cloaked figure popped into existence several meters away from the seven. Said figure whirled around and shot a blast of magic which barreled right into Starlight Glimmer and threw her across the plaza.

The other five jumped in surprise only for similar blasts to send them hurtling and tumbling as well, each hit garnering loud cries from each of them.

Twilight Sparkle’s eyes popped open, and she blinked several times as she tried to register what had happened. She glanced up, noticed the cloaked figure, and then noticed the lack of other figures around her. She looked around and spotted the still bodies of her friends nearby.

Twilight felt her world turn still and cold and she looked up at the figure.

The figure threw her hood off and her long and curly mane bounced into place. “Twilight!” Crystal Faire exclaimed as she trotted over.

Twilight coughed and tried to climb to her hooves. “Crystal…” she wheezed.

Crystal bent down and lifted Twilight up. “Are you okay?” She looked Twilight up and down.

Twilight’s whole body ached, and several tremors shooting through her nearly caused her to lose all footing. With each passing second, however, that paled in comparison to the boiling sensation building up within. Eventually, Twilight bared teeth. “Did… you just shoot my friends?” Twilight said, her voice reaching a yell. “Did you just shoot my friends!?”

Crystal tilted her head and raised her eyebrow.

Rarity moaned and rolled over. “Ooooh, good heavens…”

Twilight gasped again and whirled around. “Rarity!” she cried as she stumbled in their direction.

Crystal hummed and followed behind.

Rainbow Dash groaned and rolled over. “Ohhhh. Twilight?”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight cried. She reached the two of them and let her eyes dart over their every inch. She saw the dark marks where, evidently, Crystal’s blasts had hit, and Twilight frowned. “Are you okay? Please tell me you’re okay!”

Applejack, who lay nearby, grumbled, coughed, rolled over, and tried to stand. “What happened?”

Rarity rolled over and looked up at Twilight. She blinked several times, her eyes opening more and more each time. And then Rarity glanced past Twilight and her eyes went wide. “Good heavens!” Rarity exclaimed. “Why… is everything on fire!?”

“Fire!?” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, springing to her hooves. She whirled around, her expression glazed and disoriented. She then grabbed her head, teetered, and eventually collapsed again.

“Oh, this is just awful,” Fluttershy said, rolling over. “Whatever happened to Ponyville…”

Twilight trotted over to Fluttershy and bent down to examine her friend.

Applejack teetered about. “Mah head. Whatever it was that we got hit by, it sure was one heck of a doozy.”

Crystal cleared her throat. “Long story short,” she said, “there was an entity inside you which took complete control of you. All this happened while under its influence.”

Several of them groaned in response. Twilight’s frown deepened and she turned to face Crystal.

Crystal shook her head. “Twilight, I know what you are about to say. I should have brought you here a couple hours earlier. This has gotten out of hoof.”

“Or,” Twilight said, “maybe you should have taken care of Miasmus when he was out in the Badlands.”

Crystal scowled. “I prefer to tip the balance instead of outright solving the problem. I wanted you to defeat Miasmus from the get-go.” She ran a hoof through her mane and sighed and glanced at the burning buildings. “But sure, I dropped the ball a little if I let it get to this point. You can go ahead and blame that on me.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “Right. Okay.”

Crystal trotted over and knelt down, looking Twilight in the eyes. “When I sent you on your way, you were on track to finish Miasmus off.” She paused. “I want to know what happened.”

Starlight stirred and opened her eyes. She groaned, arched her back, and then simply lay there in the snow. Her eyes shot back and forth between the two of them.

The other five glanced over.

“Who’s Miasmus?” Starlight slurred.

“He’s the parasite that took control of you,” Twilight said. “I… had a way to stop him. But… I didn’t act on it fast enough.”

“Had you taken shots much earlier, you would have actually won,” Crystal said.

“And I didn’t…” She couldn’t find the strength to look at her friends. “I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to hurt you. But… I thought that I was prepared to do what I needed to do… and I didn’t deliver.”

Crystal licked her lips, stood up, and then moved over to Pinkie Pie to check her over. “I’ve been keeping an eye on these events, Twilight,” she said. “Even from the moment you left the Crystal Empire, I checked to make sure that you were on track to defeat Miasmus. I didn’t let you go until I was sure these events would go as planned.”

Crystal nodded to herself and lifted Pinkie Pie to her hooves. She then turned her attention to Rarity. “So then, when I checked again about twenty minutes ago, you weren’t on track to win anymore. That’s… incredibly strange.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Okay, wait. Let me get this straight. Are you saying something happened along the way that… changed my destiny?”

“Apparently, yes,” Crystal said as she looked Rarity up and down. When Rarity stood up on her own, Crystal turned to Twilight again. “So, when I noticed that you no longer were going to defeat Miasmus, I retraced your steps. Most everything was ordinary, but…” She stroked her chin. “Tell me, did you happen to pass over a very deep well on the way over here?”

Twilight nodded. “I did. It… uh, it weirded me out, just a little, actually.”

Crystal nodded. “Enough to affect the outcome. Remember how I stayed in the Crystal Empire to study that hole? Well… it turns out that there’s another one of those holes at the bottom of that well that you flew over.”

“Hole?” Rarity asked.

Twilight blinked, and then she paced around. Her mind raced as it singled in on that thought and practically ignored all her other senses; the sights and sounds of a burning town disappeared from her mind. “More holes? But…” She shook her head and turned. “So there’re two now. And… are there more? Crystal, did you see any more?”

“I did,” Crystal replied.

Twilight’s throat went dry. She leaned forward and said, “I need to know what’s going on.”

Crystal frowned. “I don’t know for sure,” she whispered.

“Then do you have ideas?” Twilight whispered back.

Some color drained from Crystal’s face. “I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

“I hate to interrupt,” Starlight cut in as she climbed to her hooves. She looked to Crystal. “I don’t know who you are or what you two are going on about, but there’re some other problems here. Princess Celestia…”

Rainbow Dash gasped. “Hey! Yeah! I remember now.” She zipped up to Twilight. “See, when you went up north, Princess Celestia wanted to meet up with all of us in the castle.”

“We all met up there, and we assumed that she had some sort of important mission for us,” Rarity said.

“But then she does all sorts of glowy crap and… energy tentacles,” Rainbow Dash said.

Fluttershy shivered. “That’s the last thing that I remember.”

Pinkie Pie zipped up to Twilight. “There’s something wrong with her! I just know it!”

Twilight growled. “Miasmus. Where is he now?” she asked.

Crystal hummed thoughtfully. “Few seconds away, tops.”

“Oh, hayseed!” Applejack exclaimed and adjusted her stetson.

At that moment, a magical blast sailed over their heads, prompting everypony save Crystal to shriek and duck. They whirled around to find Princess Celestia emerging from between a pair of buildings, both of which crumbled around her.

Celestia smirked. “Well, well, well. What do we have here?”

“Miasmus!” Twilight yelled.

Celestia’s eyes fell on Crystal and her smile faded. “You there, in the cloak.”

Crystal looked over and hummed in questioning.

“Who are you?” Celestia asked.

Crystal’s muzzle twitched as she turned back to Twilight. “As expected.”

Twilight swallowed. “You knew he was coming.”

Crystal shrugged. “I saw it. You know what I’m about, Twilight.”

“I asked you a question,” Celestia said, her tone commanding.

Crystal stroked her chin. “Course, when you’ve been at this for as long as I have, you learn habits and how they’ll react to situations.”

“You… did mention that you’ve done this sort of thing before,” Twilight said. “I guess Miasmus usually comes running when this sort of thing happens.”

Crystal’s stomach grumbled with such volume that everypony could hear it. They all stared at her, and she, in turn, patted the offending area and chuckled.

She stared into the distance for a moment, her expression remaining unchanged as her horn lit up. What looked like two pieces of bread with lettuce and tomato between them appeared in the air in front of her, and she nodded. “Nice.”

Everypony stared at her, dumbfounded.

“A… sandwich?” Starlight asked.

Crystal snorted. “Well, it turns out that I’m hungry.”

Now Celestia’s face had turned red and she stared at Crystal with the intensity of a thousand suns. “You will pay attention to me,” she growled, coursing energy into her horn.

Crystal shook her head. “No,” she said, stuffing the sandwich into her mouth.

Starlight threw her hooves into the air. “Are you kidding? How are you not taking this… thing seriously!?”

“I can’t recall the last time I took him seriously,” Crystal mumbled, her mouth full. She swallowed and then conjured a napkin which she used to wipe her lips.

Celestia snorted so hard that smoke shot from her nostrils. She reeled back and shot at them.

Her blast came within a meter but hit nothing. Whereas everypony else reactively ducked, Crystal remained standing with her expression unchanged.

“See,” Crystal said, “this is what I’m talking about. He’s maybe ten meters away from us and we’re standing still.” She rolled her eyes and took another bite of her sandwich. “No business missing that shot, really.”

Celestia’s face turned even redder and her features trembled.

“You knew,” Twilight said, climbing back to her hooves. “You knew he would miss because you saw it in the future.”

Crystal chuckled. “Well, and he can’t hit the broadside of Canterlot Castle. As I said… he has not earned my taking him seriously.”

Celestia flared her wings to their full span and took to the air. Her eyes glowed white-hot and such energy coursed through her that she shined against the flames. “Insolent foals!” she screamed, her booming voice shaking the ground. “You will turn your attention to me, lest I smite you with my power! I will not be ignored!”

She fired an intensely bright, several-meters-wide blast at them. A barrier spontaneously encased the eight which absorbed parts of the blast and deflected others, the latter of which plowed into a nearby building. Everypony inside the barrier looked up, noticed the magic coursing through Crystal’s horn, and then sighed in relief.

As the blast subsided, all Celestia could do was stare in disbelief. Her jaw dropped at the sight of the barrier’s perfectly intact surface.

Crystal massaged her ear and stood up. She looked up at Celestia, shoved the last bits of her sandwich into her mouth, swallowed, and then turned to Twilight. “Whatever. Listen, I normally don’t like to rob you of experience, but… I really do want to get back to the Crystal Empire and run more tests on that thing.” She took another look at Celestia. “So… I’ll just take care of him quickly and call it good. Sound acceptable?”

Twilight mulled it over. “Just be careful, okay?”

Crystal nodded and then disappeared in a flash of light.

Celestia gasped and threw up a barrier spell just as Crystal reappeared right above her. Crystal drove all four of her hooves into the barrier which shattered in Celestia’s face. The force prompted Celestia to cry out as it sent her hurtling straight toward the ground.

“Princess Celestia!” Rarity exclaimed.

Fluttershy covered her face. “Oh dear…”

Twilight winced. “I said careful, Crystal Faire!” she cried, nearly pulling her own mane out in the process.

Crystal flipped over in the air and shot a blast of her own at Celestia which, while not nearly as intense, still burned the air. It slammed into Celestia who, in turn, screamed at the top of her lungs before she smashed into the ground.

Twilight’s friends cried out in surprise at that and then again when a dark blue blob oozed out of Celestia’s skin and then flew off. It jiggled as it landed nearby.

And then the clearing grew quiet and still.

Crystal touched down right beside Celestia, examined her for a moment, and then turned and approached the blob.

Twilight’s eyes darted between Crystal and her mentor lying in the snow.

Celestia groaned. Her eyes shot open and she blinked several times. Much of the color had returned to her face, and her expression, while lost, contained life.

“Princess Celestia!” Twilight raced over.

The others followed suit. Those in front, Twilight especially, slid in the snow as they came to Celestia’s side.

Celestia rolled over with a dazed expression. “Twilight? Where am I?” she asked, blinking several times in rapid succession.

Twilight cradled Celestia’s head. “Princess Celestia!” She hugged her close. “You’re okay!”

“My head is throbbing,” Celestia said.

“You ain’t the only one, Princess,” Applejack said.

“It’s a long story, but I’ll tell you all about it later,” Twilight said. “I promise.”

A few meters away, Crystal grunted as the blob moved. She looked at it down her nose as it shuffled and stirred. It then turned toward Crystal, compressed itself, and then leaped at her.

Crystal didn’t even flinch. “I don’t think so,” she said as she shot energy at it which knocked it backward.

The blob tumbled through the snow and rolled to a stop some distance away.

“You are finished, Miasmus,” Crystal warned. “Give up.”

The other eight looked on in silence, watching with scowls and intense glares.

Crystal lit her horn, and several square pieces of glass materialized in the air behind her. The pieces slowly rotated in place but otherwise remained idle.

Miasmus oozed about a few meters away. His features expanded and contracted. Then he turned toward her and lunged again.

And Crystal slapped him down with her bare hooves.

Celestia groaned and tried to pick herself off the ground. She faltered at first, only succeeding when Twilight grabbed a hold of her and helped her up.

Miasmus backed away, circled around, and then tried to jump at Crystal one more time.

Crystal scowled and wrapped her magic around Miasmus’ blobby form. Miasmus lashed out but couldn’t break through her magic. And then he paused when a blood vessel appeared to pop within Crystal’s forehead.

A split second later, she leaned in close. Her expression contorted into a malicious frown. “Let me make something clear to you. You are done. If you continue to resist, I will break you.” She moved her magic, lifting him above her head.

The split second where Miasmus tried to lash out again was the split second when Crystal moved her magic down, slamming his blobular form into the ground. The report sounded like thunder and even prompted some gasps from the ponies nearby.

Crystal lifted him out of the crater and brought him to face her again. “Because I can promise you… that if you want to test me… you will fail. So… do yourself a favor… ensure that you live to see tomorrow… and yield.”

The spectators collectively held their breath.

A good deal of his surfaces still faced Crystal as if considering her. His innards swirled about at a snail’s pace and he even momentarily locked up. Finally, however, Miasmus’ form relaxed and withdrew.

Crystal smirked. “Good boy.”

With that, she levitated the pieces of glass forward and formed a box around Miasmus with them. She then set the box on the ground and looked back at Twilight.

Twilight let out the breath that she had been holding and trotted forward. “So, that’s it, then?”

Crystal shook her head. “Believe it or not, the probability hasn’t collapsed all the way. We just need to wait until the guards get here. That’s about five minutes, give or take.” She turned, smirking. “But that’s what I’m here for.”

Twilight cracked a smile and allowed herself to collapse with a sigh.

The others looked at each other and smiled. Celestia nodded in approval. Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy hugged each other.

“However,” Celestia said as she motioned toward the numerous infernos around them, “there is still the matter of Ponyville being on fire.”

Crystal nodded. “I’ll get these put out. Leave it to me,” she said.

She turned toward the nearest building and lit her horn. A layer of magic descended on the flames, smothering them out. Said magic coalesced over the walls and floors of the building, climbing over the remains of countertops and burned and twisted household objects as it chased and caught more flames. With one building done, Crystal moved onto the next.

She wrapped her magic around Miasmus’ container and levitated it before taking to the air herself. “Actually,” she said, “putting out all the fires will give me a chance to straighten out what actually happened with everypony else. So, I’ll be back.”

Twilight nodded. “Don’t take too long.”

Crystal nodded and sailed into the nearest street. She dove into a flaming house and then she was gone.

Twilight sighed and turned toward the others. “Everypony okay?”

Starlight rubbed her forehead. “I have a massive migraine and I feel like I could sleep for a couple days straight. But… yeah.”

Pinkie Pie flopped onto the ground. “Yepperoni.”

The rest nodded in agreement.

“Well, it’s done, I suppose,” Rarity said. “The day is saved.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash said. “Good job, Twilight.”

Twilight lowered her head in shame. “I didn’t save the day, to be honest. Actually, Crystal Faire saved me. I… would have lost to Miasmus.”

Fluttershy shook her head, her mouth turning into her signature delicate smile. “I know, Twilight. But that’s okay. We lost to, uhm, Miasmus too. We can’t win them all the time.”

Rainbow Dash jammed a hoof into the air. “Yeah. Still, I’m sure you gave him a hard time.”

Twilight thought about it and shrugged. “I guess you’re right. I mean, I guess I did figure out what his game was.”

“An’ that’s a good thing,” Applejack said. “Ah’ll wanna hear all ’bout that later.”

Twilight chuckled, looking at Starlight in particular. “Besides. It wouldn’t be the first time somepony else has had to save us.”

Starlight swelled with pride in response.

“But that mare,” Celestia said, now looking at the spot where Crystal had disappeared, “she looked very familiar.”

“She had some… somewhat savage and uncouth methods,” Rarity said. “They worked… of course.”

“It was forceful, for sure,” Applejack said. “If ya ask me, that was exactly what that dumb ol’ thing needed.”

“He needed a flank-whoopin’,” Rainbow Dash concurred.

Twilight hummed but said nothing. She could see pegasi in the distance still trying to whip together rainclouds. Some flew from group to group, perhaps to spread word about something she could only guess at. The buildings immediately around them now lay idle and unlit.

“Crystal Faire? Is that what her name is?” Celestia asked.

Twilight nodded. “That’s her name.”

Rarity frowned. “Wherever did you find somepony like her?”

“She came to us, actually,” Twilight replied. “She saved Flurry Heart’s life last night.”

The others, especially Celestia, perked up. All at once, their gazes centered on her, prompting Twilight to draw into herself.

“What happened?” Applejack asked, her brow furrowing.

Twilight shuddered. “Well… there were these strange ponies… and they came for Flurry.”

Pinkie Pie gasped. Her usual exaggeration, however, caught up with her as another wave of pain shot across her features and she clutched her head. “Owwie…”

“Take it easy, Pinkie,” Twilight warned. She scanned the rest of their faces, seeing similar shock on them. “But Crystal defeated them. We don’t have to worry about them anymore. Everything else is a long story.”

“Goodness,” Rarity replied. “That sounds dreadful. But at least they’re all safe?”

Twilight nodded. “Absolutely.”

“You know,” Starlight began, “now that I think about it, she kinda looks a little familiar. I feel like I know her from somewhere.”

Twilight swallowed.

“Yeah…” Rainbow Dash agreed. “I kinda got the same thing.”

“Yes, it’s strange,” Celestia said. “This Crystal Faire… she looks much like Flurry Heart herself.”

The others gave various affirmatives.

Twilight frowned and stared at the ground, even as the others considered the charred shambles of Ponyville around them. Not like any Flurry Heart I ever imagined.

6 - Collapse

More and more guards descended into the plaza. Twilight Sparkle watched them congregate as she simultaneously scanned the rest of Ponyville for any signs of remaining fires. A few sweeps revealed nothing, and a knot in her chest loosened at that point.

She flew back into the plaza and touched down amongst her friends. A few guards, all non-pegasi, silently loitered around them. Her friends, meanwhile, remained largely quiet, content to nurse their wounds and aches.

Princess Celestia conversed with one of her guards a few meters away. Another guard flew in from above, landed in front of her, spoke a few words, and then saluted. Celestia dismissed the two and trotted back toward Twilight.

“I don’t see any more fires,” Twilight said.

“Excellent,” Celestia replied. “And my guards tell me that, as far as they can tell, anyway, the worst anypony has had through this whole crisis were a few burns and cuts. Otherwise, everypony is alive and safe.”

Twilight felt her entire body loosen up. “That’s a relief.”

“Indeed it is. This could have all gone very badly.”

Probably, Twilight thought.

Celestia craned her neck. “All we need now is for Crystal Faire to return with Miasmus so that we can put him away for good.”

Twilight scanned the skies again. “I agree.” Her expression remained colorless. “I’m glad to hear that everypony is alright, but still… The damage to Ponyville…”

“It is substantial, indeed.”

“This is even worse than the parasprites.”

“They’ll be insured by the crown,” Celestia said. “I can guarantee that much.”

Twilight smiled. “I’m glad to hear that. I just hope we’ll have Ponyville rebuilt by the time we wrap up winter,” Twilight said. “I know that’s still a month away. But, even then…”

Celestia chuckled, wrapped a wing around Twilight, and pulled her in. “I have confidence that it will happen. You always pull through, Twilight.”

“Thanks.”

Nearby, Rainbow Dash rolled over and groaned out loud. The others, who lay with her, winced in response.

Celestia hummed and trotted in their direction. Twilight followed closely behind.

“Don’t you worry, everypony,” Twilight said. “I’m sure we can have Zecora whip something up that’ll make you feel better, at least.”

“That sounds lovely, darling,” Rarity murmured.

“We should keep these six under tight security until we’re sure that Ponyville has the story straight,” Celestia said, addressing the captain of the guard in particular.

“Yes, Your Highness,” she replied, saluting.

“Just hang in there, alright?” Twilight said.

Her friends smiled weakly before returning to their dozing states.

Twilight turned her attention back toward the sky, keeping her eyes peeled for Crystal to return.

A minute later, she heard a low rumble and felt the ground shake beneath her hooves. At first, she chalked it up as shivering in the cold, but then she noticed some of the guards glancing at the ground.

Celestia frowned. “Was… that a tremor that I felt?”

“Did... everypony else feel that?” Twilight asked.

At that moment, Crystal Faire appeared in a flash of white light. The glass box containing Miasmus’ blobby form floated within her magic. Her hooves touched snow, but the box remained in her magical grasp. Her cloak flapped in the low breeze that swept through the town.

And her eyes darted about every direction, sweat drops clung to her brow, and her whole body fidgeted. She practically ran up to the guards and proclaimed, “I am back.”

Celestia strolled over. “There you are. May we take Miasmus off of your hooves, now?”

Crystal nodded and dropped the box in place. “Here he is.”

Twilight trotted up. “Crystal?”

Crystal didn’t even look over. “Twilight, I’m leaving for the Crystal Empire right now. I’ve brought Miasmus back. Take him.”

Celestia lit her horn and scooted the box closer to herself. “We have him. Thank you.”

Crystal spread her wings and shot into the air, flying northward. She didn’t even look back at them, even when Miasmus rattled the box.

“Somepony is in a hurry,” Pinkie Pie mumbled.

Applejack frowned. “She did say she wanted to go back up there.”

Twilight intently watched as Crystal departed. She thought about her behavior immediately before, and about how Crystal had arrived, she assumed, by teleportation. And now Crystal was flying away. Twilight could practically see the red flags.

“I know, but something is wrong,” Twilight muttered, stroking her chin. She whirled around to face Celestia. “I need to go after her.”

Celestia nodded. “Then do so, Twilight. We will be right here.”

Starlight rolled over and nodded. “Don’t worry about us.”

Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Fluttershy smiled. Rainbow Dash waved. Applejack tipped her stetson.

Twilight smiled back and then lit her horn, disappearing in a bright flash of light.

* * *

Twilight eventually reappeared above her own castle and shook her head. And then she looked down and saw a familiar figure standing on the castle roof, and she gasped.

She lit her horn and teleported to the same spot. “Crystal!”

“This isn’t right,” Crystal muttered, her gaze fixed on the horizon.

“I could tell!” Twilight exclaimed, storming up. “I could see it. You have to tell me what’s going on.”

Crystal swallowed. “I’m trying to get to the Crystal Empire.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you teleport here all the way from the Crystal Empire?”

Crystal nodded. “I did.”

Twilight shook her head. “Then just teleport back. You’re obviously carrying the magic needed to jump that whole distance.”

Crystal zipped over, grabbed Twilight, and held her up. “That’s just it! I tried to teleport back there, but I can’t! The spell is failing!”

“Failing?”

Crystal nearly came muzzle to muzzle. “It’s shorting out! It’s not working! It’s like I’m trying to teleport to someplace I can’t actually go to.”

Crystal dropped Twilight and crept back toward the edge of the roof to stare at the horizon again. “And I don’t—”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight interrupted. “What is going on?”

Crystal remained silent for a few moments, especially as Twilight trotted up alongside her to look out as well. The earth far below rumbled again, and the castle beneath them shuddered.

“You know how, when we were up there, we were looking at that hole?” Crystal asked. “Right? And I told you… that I could see just about everything… except for that hole?”

Twilight felt a shudder run down her spine. “Oh… Crystal…” She swallowed. “Did… Can you see the Crystal Empire? Right now?”

The color drained from Crystal’s face and she turned to face Twilight in full. “I can’t see anything north of Galloping Gorge.”

Twilight felt her heart stop. No! Cadance! Shining! Flurry!

The two whirled when a large black dot appeared on the horizon. Said dot lay partly obscured by the horizon, but it still appeared like the size of the moon.

“By the stars…” Crystal mumbled.

The earth rumbled and roared. The tremors shook the castle and the shaking, in turn, nearly threw them off their hooves. Around where Twilight had flown over the deep well, the entire earth caved in on itself and the land immediately around it jumped and got torn apart by, evidently, gale-force winds.

A short distance away, the ground heaved and spewed large chunks of earth into the air. The chunks slowed in their ascent but never stopped. Some chunks bounced off each other and went in opposite directions, horizontally and vertically, like gravity did not exist there.

Twilight’s mouth hung open but she could not find the strength to speak. Crystal, as well, bore a similarly horrified expression.

The dot on the horizon suddenly grew to twice its size, and then a second hole appeared just above it. The two expanded and eventually met and merged. The entire effect looked like film burning bit by bit.

Several smaller holes appeared in irregular intervals across the plains and began expanding. Above, the once stationary cloud layer raced across the sky.

A loud crack pierced the entire landscape as, in the distance, several chunks of earth underneath Canterlot gave way and fell down the mountainside. Canterlot, in turn, cracked and crumbled and then started sliding off the mountainside. Towers crumbled and collapsed and parts of the city snapped in two before entire segments broke away and fell.

“Noooooooo!” Twilight cried, futilely reaching out.

Then, with a thunderous roar, the entire city toppled off the mountainside and smashed against the base of the mountain. The land shook from the force of the impact. Even more debris sailed high, shrouding the air with dust.

Twilight whirled. “Crystal!” she screamed.

Crystal remained catatonic, watching it all in silence.

Behind them, all of Ponyville heaved and then collapsed downward. The castle below them teetered and sank a few meters. The earth all around them jumped over itself, rumbling and tumbling and roaring all the while. Ahead, what had once been singular patches of black now covered the entire sky.

And the blackness expanded, now covering the ground less than a few kilometers away. And it raced in their direction. Hole after hole appeared, combined together, and ate more of the scenery. Harsh winds stripped the plains of entire slabs of land. The entirety of the Canterlotian mountain range broke into several city-sized chunks which flew upward directly into an awaiting black patch which ate them wholesale.

Twilight screamed and latched onto Crystal. That, in turn, broke Crystal out of her stupor and she screamed as well. The holes crept toward them and they watched as time and space ripped apart even at the hills leading into Ponyville.

Finally, Crystal Faire shifted. Twilight’s world folded together. All her senses collapsed into a single point, and then, for a moment, Twilight herself did not exist.

Reality folded back out again, and her senses returned all at once; dank and rotting smells and the bite of chilled air hit her like a carriage. What she did not feel, however, was something underneath her hooves. Both Twilight and Crystal then fell out of the sky.

Twilight pushed herself away and tried to get her wings to open. Both mares screamed on the way down but they erratically flapped their wings all the same, enough to slow them down but not enough to stop them from crashing into the ground.

Twilight’s heart pounded and she flailed about, half-convinced that she had to run. Her eyes stung but she forced them open, afraid that something would expand toward her and swallow her whole. But she saw a complete landscape. Her mind couldn’t process anything other than that, but the lack of holes in reality served to mitigate some of the chaos.

Crystal scrambled to her hooves and stumbled about. The last of her terrified screams left her before her expression curled into an angry snarl and she belted out several unsavory words in quick succession.

Twilight rolled over and tried to stand up. Everything about the soil underneath her hooves felt wrong. It felt tainted, poisoned. She teetered about, recoiling from the wrong sensations. “Crystal! What the hay just happened!?”

Crystal whirled, going wide-eyed on making eye contact with Twilight. She then turned away, swearing again. “I didn’t even know that I could—”

“Crystal!”

Crystal felt at the cloak that she wore and shook her head. “No. I shouldn’t be surprised…”

Twilight snorted and went to step forward but backpedaled when she felt something hard underhoof. She used her magic to lift—several objects it turned out—them to examine what they were. They looked like bottle caps, each bearing a different logo. One read Sunrise Sarsaparilla and another Sparkle-Cola.

Twilight lifted her head and actually looked around. Messy and irregular clouds, much like those she knew existed over the Everfree, covered the entire land. They carried a sickly green tint to them. Blackened trees, bent in odd shapes, occasionally dotted the landscape. She could see pink clouds hanging over Canterlot in the distance. The sight made her shiver.

She hurled the bottle caps away and turned. “Crystal! Look at me! You need to tell me what happened!” Twilight yelled. “I… What happened!? Where are we!?”

Crystal trembled. “I… brought you along. I didn’t—”

“Crystal!”

“I… We’re in another reality, Twilight. This is another timeline.”

“So? What? We… traveled?” Twilight whirled around, surveying the landscape again. “This is an alternate timeline?”

“This… I guess I also jumped two hundred years into the future.” Crystal scratched the back of her mane. “Which… it’s one of those timelines.”

“This looks awful!”

“Yeah, well, it takes everything going wrong to get here. This is worst-case scenario. I didn’t mean to bring us here.”

Twilight resisted the urge to hurl. She turned back to Crystal. “So, why did you!?”

Crystal’s stare was full of fire. “I panicked! Okay!? The timeline… it was collapsing,and I needed a way out, so I picked this at random—”

“Wait. Wait!” Twilight held up a hoof and narrowed her eyes. She said, venomously, “Say that again.”

“The timeline… was collapsing, and…”

Twilight stared with such intensity that whatever words would have left Crystal’s mouth next died at her lips. A cold wind blew through the area, whispering in their ears.

The words passed through Twilight’s lips: “Collapsing…?” She started shaking. “You… knew. You knew what was going on.”

Crystal sighed. “Well… I mean…”

Twilight broke into a sprint and barreled headlong right into Crystal. The two tumbled across the ground, traveling several meters only for them to end up with Crystal in the dirt and Twilight standing over her.

“You knew!?” Twilight shouted. “You knew what was happening!?”

“I had ideas!” Crystal shouted back, her face turning red. “I was hoping it wasn’t that!”

“Hoping!?” Twilight stamped the ground next to Crystal’s ear. “Didn’t you tell me that you traveled the entire multiverse? You know what… Celestia above, whatever it means when a timeline collapses. How did you not know what all that was!?”

Crystal squirmed. “I’ve seen collapsed timelines before, yes! But I’ve… I’ve never actually seen one in the process of collapsing, never mind actually been in one!”

“I thought you could see the future! How did you not see all that was happening when you got here!?”

“I’m not omniscient!” Crystal yelled back, visibly sweating. “I can see it if I’m looking at it, but I can’t look everywhere at once.”

Twilight stared at Crystal but held her words back.

“Twilight, look. I really had no idea that the timeline was in the process of collapsing when I got there.” Crystal swallowed. “I didn’t even know they could collapse. I just thought that was the state of the multiverse. I swear on everything that is good, Twilight!”

Twilight continued staring down at Crystal, her expression still a stern frown. Crystal pressed herself against the ground and as far away from Twilight as possible.

Twilight straightened up, and her expression softened but still remained stern. “Fine. Well. You need to take me back,” she said. “You need to take me back right now.”

Crystal swallowed. “I can’t.”

Twilight’s expression hardened again. “Don’t you give me that! Take me back! Now!”

“I can’t! I told you; it’s collapsed! It… it doesn’t exist anymore!”

Twilight’s heart skipped a beat. She tilted her head, running those words through her mind again. “Doesn’t… exist? I-I don’t understand.”

“That’s what it means for a timeline to be collapsed,” Crystal answered. “It doesn’t exist anymore.”

The world around Twilight grew cold. “Doesn’t exist? So… Equestria?”

“Doesn’t exist.”

Twilight backpedaled. “My… My friends? What—”

“They don’t exist, Twilight. They have been erased. Everypony has been erased. Everypony, and everything…”

Twilight continued backpedaling, far enough for Crystal to roll over.

“No…” Twilight gasped, her face turning wet. “No…”

Crystal stood up and looked back at Twilight. She frowned but remained silent.

“No… No…” Tears started falling down Twilight’s muzzle and her breathing intensified. “No no no! No!” Her legs gave out underneath her and she collapsed. “No… I don’t believe it.”

Crystal’s frown deepened. The wind whistled through the area, bringing new but equally rotten smells.

She turned and saw some figures on a nearby hill. She scowled and lit her horn, simultaneously throwing an intense stare. The figures quickly disappeared behind the lip in response.

Crystal snorted. “Raiders,” she muttered.

“My… friends,” Twilight whimpered. “Princess Celestia. Cadance… Shining Armor.” She glanced up at Crystal. “Flurry Heart.”

Crystal frowned. “Breathe, Twilight. Breathe. I am sure that this is a lot to process. Take a second here.” She knelt down and cradled Twilight.

Twilight broke down into sobs. She spent a good few minutes sitting there, letting her tears fall and letting her cries carry across the barren landscape. Crystal stayed with her all the while, caressing Twilight like a mother holding a crying baby.

Eventually, Twilight sniffed and her crying subsided. She looked up at Crystal and blinked. “Oh, goodness…”

“Feeling better?” Crystal asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No!” she croaked.

Crystal sighed. “Just breathe it out, Twilight. Okay?”

“Oh by the stars… Oh stars!”

Crystal patted Twilight on the back while keeping her gaze on a swivel. “Breathe… breathe…”

Twilight stared up at Crystal for the longest time and then furrowed her brow. “You’re… I… You’re so calm about this. Crystal…?”

“Sure.”

“I don’t… They’re gone, Crystal. Shining… Cadance… you.”

“I know. But,” Crystal said, “it is what it is. I’ll just be more aware next time, I guess.”

Twilight snorted, rolled out of Crystal’s grasp and stood up. “…You’re not bothered by this?”

Crystal’s frown deepened. “Not particularly. Somewhat, but not greatly.”

“…You don’t feel anything for them,” Twilight croaked.

“It’s hard to feel for anypony when everypony you meet is a ghost of somepony you once knew,” Crystal said.

“What does that even mean?”

Crystal went to speak but then paused. “Twilight… I’ve been to several timelines around the block. I know thousands of Shining Armors and Mi Amore Cadenzas, and thousands of you. I mean, okay, I admit it, this was a big loss.” She shrugged. “But it’s not like there aren’t infinitely many others exactly like them. What’s one less?”

“Even still!” Twilight exclaimed, “that was my Cadence! My big brother! I’ve known them my whole life! They were special to me.”

“And I recognize that! I really do. You have every right to feel the way that you do right now. But you have to understand that it’s not like that for me.” Crystal’s expression grew solemn and she turned her gaze to the ground. “Not anymore,” she murmured.

“Anymore?”

Crystal continued staring at the irradiated dirt. She kicked at it and then sighed. “This thing… This thing where your timeline died, your home timeline…” Crystal looked up. “You aren’t the only one who has gone through that. I can promise you that.”

Twilight paused to consider Crystal in full. Several moments passed between them as those last words sank into Twilight’s mind.

“Either way,” Crystal said, standing straight, “there’s still the matter of where to take you from here. You sure wouldn’t want to live in this forsaken place.”

Twilight shook her head. “N-no. I... don’t think I would.”

Crystal strode over to Twilight. “Gather close,” she instructed. “I’d rather not spend a moment longer here.”

Once Twilight did so, Crystal nodded and closed her eyes. Her horn remained unlit.

Nonetheless, Twilight’s world folded together again into a single point. Some indeterminable amount of time later, it folded out again and Twilight landed on a solid surface.

Gone were the gag-inducing smells and the corrupted dirt. As more senses returned, Twilight glanced up and spotted crystalline walls and high ceilings. Several small thrones orbited her position, with all but one bearing familiar symbols.

Twilight looked down and saw a map of Equestria projecting from the surface she stood on like a hologram. She recognized it as the Cutie Map.

And that meant she now stood in her castle. Her fully intact, not-destroyed castle. “We’re… back?”

“This is not precisely your timeline, but… more or less,” Crystal said.

Twilight looked around the room, almost afraid that she would find something out of place. Everything looked okay at first, but then Twilight looked up and noticed something missing; the tree roots which had once hung in this throne room. Those tree roots which her friends had brought over from the Golden Oak Library. From its remains, anyway.

Twilight swallowed. “And… where am I in this timeline?”

Crystal, after a long and pregnant moment, smiled slyly. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

The double doors at the end of the room creaked open. A unicorn mare, her coat a heliotrope color and her mane and tail a purple accented by grayish aquamarine highlights, stepped through the doorway, eyeing them with surprise. “T-Twilight?”

Twilight gasped. “Starlight Glimmer!”

“What are you doing here? What is going on? I heard a loud noise, and…” Starlight narrowed her eyes. “Twilight… didn’t you say you were going to the Everfree today?”

Crystal cut Twilight off before the latter could respond. “Starlight Glimmer, could you be a dear and give us a few minutes?”

Starlight frowned. “Who are you?”

Crystal chuckled. “Nopony you need to worry about.”

Twilight remained silent for several moments and contemplated Starlight’s presence. She felt a compulsion to ask, in return, if Starlight was supposed to be in Ponyville recovering from Miasmus. That was certainly not the case, and yet Starlight stood before her unharmed.

Starlight stood before her very much alive and okay.

Twilight swallowed and nodded. “It’s okay, Starlight. Wait outside, okay?”

“Are you sure?” Starlight asked, frowning.

Twilight nodded and feigned a smile.

Starlight took one last look at Crystal then turned and trotted back toward the doors. She grabbed them with her magic and pulled them shut behind her.

Twilight kept staring for long moments and then turned. “Starlight… she’s okay.”

“So is everypony else,” Crystal replied. “Here, they are.”

“My friends are okay. Everypony… Cadance and Shining… Flurry Heart?”

Crystal stared into space for a moment, nodding her head from side to side. “…Yes. I can confirm. Flurry Heart is okay.”

Twilight sighed in relief. “I see.”

“Most everything is how you know it.” She shrugged. “But I can’t really, readily, tell what’s different. I suppose you’ll have to find out on your own.”

The words went in through one ear and out the other. Nonetheless, Twilight stepped off the Map. She looked back up at Crystal, still unsure of whether or not she wanted to smile, or if she was even capable.

Crystal blushed and she kicked the table in shame. “I would suppose that this is goodbye.”

Twilight paused. “So… that’s it? You’re leaving? You’re… just going to leave me here?”

“That I am. This is the best that I can do for you.” Crystal shrugged. “I suspect this will take some getting used to, and I don’t know what it will be worth, but… you’ll be able to return to your life here.”

“After what just happened!?” Twilight shuddered. “I-I don’t know if I can!”

“You can, and you will.” Crystal snorted and averted her gaze. “And regardless, there isn’t anything more that I can do for you. This is the best that I can manage.”

“And so, what?” Twilight felt her insides growing hot and she channeled that into powering her own voice. “You’re going to leave and go who knows where?”

“That is exactly what I am going to do. I have to press on and continue my work.” Crystal looked down her nose at Twilight. “I doubt that you and I will see each other again.”

“I don’t even know if I want to! You show up, you let Ponyville destroyed, you let that happen to my friends…” Twilight’s voice lost some of its power and she croaked, “And then you allowed all that to happen.”

“I never said that I was perfect.”

“I expected more.”

Crystal furrowed her brow. “Then tell me whatever it is that you want.”

Twilight stared deep into Crystal’s eyes and said, “I want to go home.”

Crystal opened her mouth to speak but ended up averting her gaze and swallowing whatever words she might have been thinking of instead. Eventually, she turned away with only a token “I’m sorry.”

Twilight stood there and said nothing.

Crystal sighed and stood up to her full height again. “Farewell, Twilight Sparkle.”

And with a bang, Crystal Faire disappeared.

Twilight stared at the spot with her heart twisted into a knot. She didn’t know what to think. She had no thoughts. Was this all real? She wasn’t sure.

Her legs gave way and she fell on her haunches. Her eyes drew over the room like she was drinking it in for the first time. It was off. Everything was off.

The doors behind her creaked open and Starlight and Spike stood in the doorway. Their eyes immediately found her. Spike had his claws folded together and the both of them waited in silence.

Twilight glanced back long enough to register their presence and then returned to scanning the room. She sat in silence for the longest time.

Finally, she stood up, turned, and went to them.

7 - Ghosts

Twilight Sparkle rolled over in her bed and groaned. There were just too many thoughts running through her head. What had really happened? Why had it happened? Where was she really?

Her castle looked the same. Yes, the tree roots were missing from the throne room, but everything else was as she had left it.

Almost. Twilight lit her horn and a light appeared within her bed space. The drawn curtains on her canopy bed kept the light from escaping. She looked through the cloth and magically grabbed a calendar off the dresser on the opposite side of the room. She levitated it over and looked at the date again.

If I take her at her word… I’m still a couple of months behind, Twilight thought, flipping between months. Hearth’s Warming hasn’t happened yet. And… we haven’t even had the first snow yet.

She sighed. I mean, we still don’t have to deal with Chrysalis anymore, but…

She nodded to herself. “I guess there are just some things I’ll have to do again, right?”

She started to mentally map certain tasks to whichever days she had done them. She thought about lessons she had planned out for Starlight and remembered the ones which hadn’t gone as well as she had hoped. Thoughts of improvements to those lessons swam through her mind. She thought about those get-togethers with her friends and their gossip, how Rarity would brag about landing a big client, which had come as a pleasant surprise at the time, and about how Rainbow Dash would complain at the thought of Tank hibernating for the winter.

Twilight tossed the calendar onto the bedspread and buried her face in her hooves. “This is ridiculous.”

It didn’t seem real, even. She had been in the Crystal Empire spending quality time with her family not even a day ago. Sure, Starlight’s lessons and the oncoming Winter Wrap Up had been at the back of her mind, but they had been things at the time.

Twilight swallowed. Had it really only been twenty-four hours? Had any of that actually happened?

It felt like her bed. It looked like her room. Everything was there. Most everything.

Twilight lay back and sank into the pillow. She stared at the canopy above her, trying to wrap her head around it.

What time was it? Did the time even matter?

She sat back up and levitated the calendar back over. Obviously, she had to look over it again, just to be sure.

* * *

Twilight rubbed her eyes, but that, again, did nothing to ease the heaviness she felt in them. She yawned as well, but that didn’t help either.

“Wow, Twilight,” Spike said. The baby dragon trotted with his arms crossed right beside her, looking up at her. “Sleep much?”

“Not in the slightest,” Twilight replied, squinting in the morning sun. “I was up all night.”

“We can tell,” Starlight Glimmer said, her eyebrow raised. “Were you up studying?”

“No,” Twilight said. “I just had a lot on my mind.”

“Like what?”

Twilight frowned. “Well… it’s complicated. And honestly, I’m not all that sure.”

Spike frowned. “You wanna talk about it?”

“I’m sorry, Spike. I don’t think I can.” She cracked a smile. “But don’t worry about me; I’m sure breakfast will wake me up in no time.”

Both Spike and Starlight smiled and nodded before turning their eyes forward.

The grass, at least, felt great under Twilight’s hooves. A couple months of snow had dulled the senses, and to feel grass again felt fantastic. Twilight chuckled; winter was just around the corner, again, so this wouldn’t last long.

Twilight loved Ponyville mornings when the air stuck just right and felt cool against her coat. She could see a few ponies out and about already, trotting by their lonesome with content smiles on their faces. A few fillies and colts passed by, no doubt on their way to the schoolhouse. The grass, coated in dew, sank under her hooves.

Twilight looked around; she knew Ponyville well, almost like the back of her hoof. The houses and shops looked just like she remembered them, from the timber frames and thatched roofs to the freshly painted signs still missing chips in their midsections.

Everything seemed in place. Everypony looked the same.

And then Twilight caught a glimpse of some luscious tree branches in the distance and she perked up. Said branches, evidently, belonged to a very large tree. There had only ever been one such tree in Ponyville which fit that description.

Twilight broke into a longer stride. She outpaced Starlight and Spike, who exchanged confused glances and followed behind.

Twilight made it further down the street and stopped in front of what she had seen. In that moment, all her breath left her.

The tree in question towered over her in nearly every aspect. The occasional window situated itself within the sides of the tree, with some boasting balconies. She saw the lantern hanging above one window and then she saw the beehive hanging off one of the branches. Twilight licked her dried lips on seeing the front door adorned with a familiar candlestick design.

Spike caught up and looked at her with his eyebrow raised.

Starlight flanked Twilight’s other side. “Twilight? Are you feeling okay?”

“The Golden Oak Library,” Twilight croaked. “It’s…”

Spike frowned. “What about it?”

“It’s here?”

Spike paused and then twiddled his claws together. “Well, yeah? I mean, it’s been here ever since we moved to Ponyville. Remember?”

Twilight blinked and stepped forward. Her heart beat in time with her slow, careful steps. She approached the door, and rather than knock, she simply wrapped her magic around the handle and swung the unlocked door open.

While still somewhat dark in the morning light, Twilight could make out everything: the bookshelves built into the wooden walls, the wooden horse head that sat on the middle table, and the grand sun painted on most of the ceiling. She looked around and spotted those places where the wood grains spiraled together in those places she expected them to, and where the heart patterns spanning every other step on the staircase, while mostly alike, differed in their orientation and size. She saw all the little details she was sure nopony else had ever noticed. It was all there.

And she shivered. “Hello?”

“Moondancer?” Spike called. “You in here?”

Twilight frowned. Moondancer?

“Coming!” a voice called from upstairs.

What?

A yellowish mare appeared at the top of the stairs. She wore large, square spectacles on her muzzle and wore her mane in a bun. A large, black sweater hung within her cerise-colored magic. She squinted at them in the morning light. Then she gasped. “Oh, Twilight, what brings you here this early?” she asked.

Twilight swallowed. “Moondancer?”

“Yes, hello,” Moondancer said, trotting down the steps. “Is there something that I can help you with?” She turned to the others. “Hello, Spike. Hello, Starlight.”

Starlight blushed and meekly waved. “Hi.”

“Yeah, Twilight,” Spike asked. “Why are we here anyway?”

Twilight’s expression drew blank. She just stared at Moondancer and tried to think of something to say. There were any number of things. Finally, she chose her most obvious question: “How are you here right now? In Ponyville?”

Moondancer raised one of her large eyebrows. “Uhm… I live here?”

Twilight’s jaw twitched as she considered it. “I don’t understand.”

Moondancer shrunk. “Twilight? Don’t you remember?”

Twilight flinched. “Uh…”

“You offered her the library, Twilight,” Starlight said.

“Yeah,” Spike said before raising a claw into the air. “Way back when you two made up in Canterlot.”

“And I kinda became the librarian after that,” Moondancer added. Her frown deepened. “Remember?”

Twilight listened carefully and eventually scratched her head. “Oh, okay. I guess. Sorry, I’m really out of it this morning.”

“I can tell.”

“We’re taking her to breakfast right now,” Starlight said. “Hopefully some good food with some good friends will wake her up.”

Moondancer smiled. “That sounds like a good idea. Well, don’t let me keep you waiting.”

Twilight feigned a smile and waved goodbye, but even when the three of them turned back toward the door, her veins ran cold. The library is still here… and Moondancer’s living in it now. That’s why the roots are missing from my throne room.

The door clicked shut behind them. But… that’s not right. Moondancer lives in Canterlot. And… the library…

* * *

Twilight chewed slowly through her bagel. Pinkie Pie’s baking was as soft as she remembered. The smells of freshly baked bread and the sweet scents of cakes and other confections filled her nostrils; they too were as she remembered them. The inside of Sugarcube Corner looked like it had been made entirely out of sweets, with candy canes and gumdrops lining the walls, all in the places she remembered.

She set the bagel back on her plate and sighed.

“Sugarcube?” Applejack asked. “What all’s got ya down?”

Twilight glanced up. Rarity, Fluttershy, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash, all of whom had joined them at the table, looked back with concerned frowns. Pinkie Pie, who passed by with a tray of donuts on her back, glanced over in concern.

“It’s nothing,” Twilight replied.

Starlight leaned over the table. “Twilight, even I can see that it’s not nothing. Something’s got you in a funk.”

Spike, who sat on a stool right beside Twilight, nodded solemnly and bit into a ruby.

Twilight shook her head. “No, really, it’s nothing. Don’t you worry about me, okay?”

Rarity wiped some bread crumbs off her muzzle and let her frown deepen. “Are you certain, darling?”

Twilight feigned a smile. “I’m okay. Really.”

“If you say so,” Fluttershy said, grabbing a donut off of her plate. “You know you can talk to us about anything.”

“I know,” Twilight said.

“We’re your friends, Twilight,” Pinkie Pie added as she stuck her head in. “That’s never gunna change.”

The others hummed affirmatively.

“Thanks, girls,” Twilight said, feeling herself lift up.

Pinkie Pie smiled and then looked over at Starlight. “By the way, here’s your muffin,” she said. She bumped the tray on her back which shot a muffin into the air in an arc toward Starlight’s plate.

Starlight caught it with her magic before it even hit. She held it up in a toasting gesture and said, “Thanks, Pinkie,” before she bit right into it.

Pinkie Pie said nothing. Instead, she laid a hoof on Rainbow Dash’s withers.

When Starlight lifted the muffin away from her mouth, Rainbow Dash snickered. Pinkie Pie giggled as well.

Starlight blinked and raised an eyebrow at them. “Huh?”

Applejack looked over and chuckled, Spike snickered, and Fluttershy smiled.

Twilight looked up to see a large blue spot on the end of Starlight’s muzzle and sat up in her seat.

Starlight herself looked down her muzzle and snorted. She levitated the muffin up and examined its insides, finding a blueberry-like filling within. She chuckled and held it up for all to see. “Very funny, Pinkie. This isn’t my muffin.”

“Nope,” Pinkie Pie said, “that’s not your muffin.” She presented an identical one and said, “This is.”

Starlight took the new muffin in her magic and brought it close to her face and eyed it with careful scrutiny. She raised an eyebrow at Pinkie Pie, but the smallest curl in her lips, telling of an amused smile, broke any sort of charade she wanted to put on.

“How did it taste, though?” Pinkie Pie asked.

Starlight hummed. “It tasted great, actually.”

Pinkie Pie giggled.

Rarity sighed and fanned herself. “Oh, Pinkie, you must stop yourself. You’re giving me flashbacks here.”

“Aw, come on, that was a good one!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

Fluttershy nodded, giggling. “It kinda was.”

Rainbow Dash placed her forehooves on the table and stood over them. “Hey, don’t forget, I came up with it first.”

“Oh, and here we are,” Rarity said, rolling her eyes.

Twilight set her bagel down. “Well, she did. And sure, replacing all of the Filly Guide cookies with those rainbow joke cookies was pretty clever.”

Rainbow Dash beamed and lifted herself up, standing tall and proud.

Twilight chuckled. “Too bad you spilled all that to Pinkie Pie before you even did it; you let us turn that joke right on you. And, well,” she said with a shrug, “being a zompony sure was fun!”

The rest of the table went silent and everyone turned their attention to Twilight. Twilight, in turn, looked around at them. Her smile faded with each confused frown that she passed by.

Rarity sighed. “If only,” she said before lifted her coffee mug to her mouth.

“Well, we did,” Twilight asserted. Her eyes darted between them, looking for confirmation.

“Uh, Twilight…” Applejack said, “that didn’t happen.”

Rainbow Dash laughed. “Haha, yeah. I did get the jump on all you with those cookies. You didn’t even see it coming.”

Twilight felt something hot and bothersome creep up her spine. A levitation spell, which had been coursing through her horn before, fizzled out. She sat back in her seat. “I don’t—”

Starlight leaned forward. “Twilight?”

The others eyed Twilight closely.

Twilight rubbed at her temples. Her breaths were heavy and long-winded. It was not how she remembered it. She knew what had happened. She had been there when it happened. And yet it had not happened.

Twilight swallowed. It was wrong.

She looked up at Starlight. “I… tell me this: Flurry Heart… she broke the Crystal Heart, right?”

Starlight nodded. “And we put it back together,” she replied.

“And you and I, we traveled through time together, right?”

Starlight rubbed her foreleg. “Yeah… Thankfully those awful alternate timelines are just an awful memory.” She looked back up. “Right?”

Twilight nodded solemnly and licked her dry lips. Her eyes fell on Rarity’s cup of coffee, and the she reached for it and downed the whole thing in one gulp. She set the mug back down on the coaster in front of Rarity with a sigh.

Rarity didn’t even look at it. Instead, she leaned across the table. “Twilight?”

“And Rainbow Dash,” Twilight said, pointing, “you went to a Daring Do convention and got caught up going after the Seven-Sided Chest of Chicomoztoc with some stallion named Quibble Pants. Right?”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Uh, yeah. You were there, remember?”

Twilight swallowed. She looked at Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy and said, “And the both of you played on Ponyville’s buckball team versus Appleloosa.”

Fluttershy exchanged frowns with Pinkie Pie. “What’s buckball?” Fluttershy asked.

Twilight froze. She grabbed and massaged her head to try and ease the sudden pounding within. She could feel some sweat drops on her brow and, in some ways, the world around her blurred. “Who… who won the Equestria Games?”

Applejack frowned. “Cloudsdale. By one medal.”

“Games went off without a hitch, though,” Spike said.

No, there had been a hitch. There had been a near-miss during the archery portion involving frozen clouds. And Ponyville won by one medal. This was not how she knew it.

They did not know things as she knew.

More drops of sweat formed on her brow.

First the library, then Moondancer, now things which she had definitely experienced with her friends. With her friends.

This is another timeline, the words ran through Twilight’s mind. Things are not as I know them here. Nothing is as I know it here.

She swallowed. Nopony is as I know them here.

“Twilight?” Applejack asked. “You lookin’ like you done seen a ghost.”

“It’s hard to feel for anypony when everypony you meet is a ghost of somepony you once knew,” Crystal Faire’s voice echoed through her head.

Twilight sucked in a breath and scanned each of their faces. They looked just like her friends, and they sounded just like her friends. And they were her friends in nearly every other sense of the word, but were they her friends?

Starlight slammed both hooves on the table, rattling plate and cup alike. “Enough! Twilight, there is something wrong with you. All of us can see it. Please… Twilight, talk to us.”

Fluttershy nodded, holding her hooves close to her face. “Yes, Twilight. Talk to us. If something is bothering you, we’re here for you.”

“That’s right,” Rarity said. “We’re your friends.”

The others offered similar affirmations and nods.

Twilight looked up. She saw Fluttershy’s eternally forgiving smile and the ever-present sparkle in Rarity’s eye. She saw a Rainbow Dash still as enthralled about Daring Do as Twilight knew her to be. She saw a Starlight whom she had still romped through time with. She saw Applejack wearing her stetson at the exact angle that it always was. Pinkie Pie, hovering behind the others, still carried her boundless energy, shifting every few seconds when she couldn’t keep still.

She saw her Spike with every scale in place and with each and every bit of shine and occasional chipping that she knew him to have. She saw the way he folded his claws together, twiddling them as he looked up with widened and wet eyes.

They were her friends in many of the ways she remembered them.

And right now, these seven are my friends.

Twilight smiled and let a tear fall down her face. “You’re right. You are my friends, I know that.”

Starlight smiled. “Of course. We’re here for you, Twilight. And whatever it is that’s got you all bothered like this…” She motioned to the others. “We want to help you with it.”

“Eeyup. You can tell us what ails ya, Twi,” Applejack said. “We’re here.”

Images of Canterlot falling off the side of the mountain and black filling the sky crossed her mind. Images of Ponyville caving into a void came to her soon after. She had thoughts of friends and relatives and many others trying to flee but getting swept up regardless. She had thoughts of a place that was no longer.

Twilight bit her lip and shook her head. “Well… yes. There is something wrong.”

The others leaned forward.

But I could never prove it. They would think I’m crazy, she thought. What do I tell them: I’m from an alternate timeline? That it… collapsed? That there is some me out in the Everfree and who knows what happened to her?

Twilight sighed. “I… don’t really… It’s complicated. And I don’t know if I can talk about it right now. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to talk about it.”

“Twilight…” Starlight said, frowning.

“But, girls,” Twilight said, looking around at each of their faces and smiling, “I really appreciate that you’re here for me. I really do. Because all of you are the best friends anypony could ask for.”

They smiled in response but said nothing.

Twilight sighed. Whether it was in relief or just out of stress was lost to her. “Listen. I just… I have to sort some things out on my own. Just… bear with me for a while. Do that for me, please?”

After a moment of silence, Pinkie Pie nodded. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she said, complete with motions.

“Hear, hear,” Applejack said, punching the air.

“Loud and clear, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash said, smirking so wide that her teeth glistened in the morning light.

“Thanks, girls,” Twilight said. “And don’t worry too much about me. I’ll be fine. I’m sure.”

* * *

The castle balcony was quiet. That was how Twilight wanted it.

She shifted on the cushion that she had brought with her and gazed across Equestria. Her eyes wandered over the familiar rolling hills and the lively blues and greens therein. Her eyes drew toward the faint outline of Cloudsdale in the skies far away and then toward the much clearer outlines of Canterlot on the mountain closer by.

If the low solar angle and orange creeping into the sky were anything to go by, she had been up there for several hours.

She imagined Princess Celestia finishing her royal duties for the day. She pictured her mom and dad sitting and eating within their homely dining room. She pictured Shining Armor and Cadance frantically trying to get Flurry Heart changed. Thoughts of her friends settling down for the evening flashed across her mind.

As far as she knew, Spike was glossing over his latest comic. Pretty soon, she knew, he’d tell her all about the Power Ponies defeating the master of chaos as he ushered in an alien invasion on Maretropolis.

Twilight giggled. Oh, Spike, just wait until the next few issues where they stop a robot army from dropping a city from the sky. Part of her smile faded. At least, I’m sure that’s going to happen.

She shifted. What if that doesn’t happen? What if there’s a change there? And what else is already changed? How can I be sure of anything?

She hummed in thought and glanced toward the sky. Crystal Faire… Wherever you’re at right now… whenever you’re at right now… Is this how you feel?

Twilight sighed and nestled herself further into the cushion. Well… At any rate… I guess this will take some getting adjusted to. Knowing that there are so many different timelines out there… Knowing that I’m a refugee…

I have friends here. She furrowed her brow and struck the floor. I have friends here. I can do this. I can get through this. Because I have the best friends anypony could ask for. They can help me, I’m sure.

Twilight paused. Crystal…

“This thing…” Crystal’s voice said in her mind, “this thing where your timeline died, your home timeline… You aren’t the only one who has gone through that.”

She’s a refugee too, Twilight thought, from someplace I can only guess at. Did she… ever have friends to help her get through it? How did she deal with it?

Twilight shook her head. I guess it doesn’t really matter now. I don’t think that I’ll be seeing her again. She’s traveling an infinite multiverse.

I wonder… She stroked her chin. This infinite multiverse… I wonder about it. The possibilities… The physics…

The sun sank lower and the shadows grew longer. Ponyville stood relatively quiet and still, and the rest of Equestria kept its peace. But Twilight ignored it as one thought kept replaying in her mind.

The multiverse…

8 - Algorithm

Morning light filtered in and lit the dining room. Twilight Sparkle stared into space; that just so happened to run into the wall on the far side of the room. Her hooves rested on the lacquered wooden table that took up the center of the room. Several plates containing soy eggs and hay bacon and, in one case, sapphires lay placed around her, but none of them were things that she could readily recognize in her trance. Hints of a wet, steamy smell filled her nostrils and the clink of china filled her ears, but she tuned those out.

As far as Twilight knew, the only thing she could discern were the words running through her mind.

Multiverse…

“Twilight…”

Twilight snapped to attention. “Huh?”

Spike, who sat nearby, looked back at her with a raised eyebrow. “Twilight? You okay? You’re spacing out a little bit.”

Twilight blinked and then shook her head. “O-oh. Sorry, Spike. I have a lot on my mind.”

Starlight Glimmer, who sat directly opposite Spike, frowned and put her fork down. “Yeah, that’s what you said yesterday, and the day before that.”

“Past few days, really,” Spike added.

“Look, I know you said you couldn’t talk about what was going on,” Starlight said as she placed both forelegs on the table and leaned forward, “but this is really eating away at you, Twilight.”

Twilight slumped in her seat. “I know. And I know you’re all worried about me.”

“You’ve been poring over a lot of history books these past few days,” Spike said. He popped a sapphire into his mouth and chewed, the crunch sounding throughout the room. “I mean, it’s not like history changed, right?”

Twilight blushed and chuckled nervously.

“Seriously, Twilight,” Starlight said, banging her hooves on the table. “I think you and I had enough of that.”

Twilight scratched the back of her head. “I know, I know. History hasn’t changed. I can see that.”

Starlight sighed. “Well, then, what do you have planned for today?”

“Well,” Twilight said as she jabbed her fork into her soy eggs, “I don’t think I’ll be studying history.”

Spike threw his claws up. “Finally.”

“But there are some other things that I need to do,” Twilight continued. “Actually, I wanted to finish brushing up on my history first before I got to this other thing.”

Spike, who had been preparing to chomp down on another sapphire, practically hurled it back into his bowl and crossed his arms with a snort.

Starlight shrugged. “Like what?”

“Top secret,” Twilight replied.

“...Top secret?” Starlight asked.

Twilight sprang up in her seat and blurted, “Yup! Top Secret!” She chuckled nervously.

Both Starlight and Spike looked at her with incredulous frowns. They exchanged glances and their frowns deepened. They shook their heads and stared her down in disbelief.

* * *

Twilight locked the door behind her and turned toward the center of the room. The crystalline walls, constructed in three-dimensional mosaics, reflected her in their many iridescent faces. Shelves upon shelves of potion tomes and dissertations on matrix theory circled her like the rings around a bullseye.

In one corner of the room stood a magic mirror. Several idle compressors and pumps sat in a structure which housed the mirror. A brown, hardcover book bearing Celestia’s cutie mark lay nestled inside a niche at the top of the machine.

Twilight lit her horn and levitated the book out of the niche and set it on a nearby table. Better safe than sorry, she thought.

She turned and examined the rest of the room. “Okay... so... I should teleport-proof the room,” she thought aloud. She lit her horn and shot a beam at the ceiling. The beam exploded into a plethora of sparks which landed on every surface in the room.

Twilight tapped her chin. Her eyes drew toward the windows. She pulled those shut with her magic and then blasted them with another spell which would seal them tight. She nodded.

“Just a...” she said, blasting the room again, “sound-proof spell, an—” she blasted the room a third time, “—anti-scrying spell... and voila! I should be totally by myself now.”

She turned to a chalkboard which sat in another corner of the room. A table right beside it hosted a teapot and a cup full of steaming jasmine tea, as well as a stack of papers and a quill and inkwell right beside that. Twilight walked toward it and levitated over a box of chalk. She undid the top, took out a piece, and flipped it in her magic.

“Let’s do this,” she said.

She wrote the word multiverse on the board. After staring at it for a bit, she underlined it and nodded.

“So,” she thought aloud, “what do I know so far?

“Crystal Faire travels alternate timelines. But... how do they actually work?

“There has to be some sort of physics behind this,” she said, scratching her chin. “There has to be. And I won’t rest until I figure it out.”

Twilight sighed. “I probably won’t be able to rest until I figure this out.”

She floated the cup of jasmine tea over and took a sip. She hummed in delight at the sweet and flowery taste, even licking her lips after replacing the cup on the table.

“Nonetheless, if she’s traveling timelines, then there must some sort of mechanism behind it.”

Twilight drew a straight line across the width of the board. “Let’s say that this is a singular timeline. Let’s say... that was the timeline that I knew. As far as I can tell, everything up until the last few years is the exact same.” She then drew a large dot near one end of the line. “And then here’s the point where we defeated King Sombra and that much is the same too. That much is in the history books already. And so is everything before that.

“So maybe I can treat this as a point of divergence,” she said as she poked the dot. “But... it’s possible that there are small details earlier than that where things are different, but there’s no way I could know about any of that so, just for now, I’ll assume that most things or all things through this point are constant.

“So then, how could this all work? If Crystal goes around saving timelines where something goes wrong... there’s a problem.”

Twilight drew several lines branching off the main line. “It could be one differentiation event here which causes a bad timeline, and another differentiation event later which causes another bad timeline.”

Her chalk floated from tangent timeline to tangent timeline. “And it’s possible to go from one over here to another over there. And, in traveling over here...” She poked the line. “Crystal could fix this bad timeline. And there are two problems with this.”

She twirled the chalk in her magical grasp. “The first is that for some time interval dt, there are infinitely many differentiation events. For another dt, there are another infinitely many differentiation events, per infinitely many timelines spawned by that first differentiation event.

“And second... and this one’s a doozy,” she said and took a long deep breath, “Crystal Faire appearing by herself should be a differentiation event by itself, right? If that’s the case, then there would be some timeline in which she appears... and another where she does not appear.”

She drew a cartoonish version of Crystal in the upper corner of the board which thick lines and exaggerated proportions, except the wings which seemed normal in comparison. She considered her drawing, added a line through one of the eyes to signify Crystal’s scar, and then nodded. She then drew a copy right next to it with a large X over it.

“If that’s the case, then everything that Crystal is doing means nothing. She doesn’t actually fix timelines; she just creates alternate versions of those bad timelines which are fixed. Those bad timelines still exist afterward.”

She tilted her head and considered what she had written down. Her eyes briefly flickered over the board and she shook her head. “I highly doubt she’d be willing to do much of anything if that were the case. So maybe I should run on the opposite assumption that she is not a differentiation event. That… would require her having an intrinsic probability of zero.”

She frowned. “It’s not an entirely one hundred percent safe assumption, but there’s stuff about it that I like.

“And,” she turned back to the board, “if that’s the case, and her traveling to those timelines is to change their course and she can do so successfully, then that would imply that the timelines themselves are mutable.” She poked a couple of timelines with her piece of chalk.

Twilight nodded and levitated the eraser and erased the first picture of Crystal Faire, leaving the second with the X over it. “I guess I could live with that. The next question would be in what capacity can she change timelines, but that… isn’t something I could possibly ascertain, so I guess I’ll just have to leave that.”

She frowned, lifted the cup off the table, and downed the rest of the jasmine tea. She wiped her muzzle dry with her foreleg and sighed. “That leaves the other problem… The infinite differentiation,” she said as she lifted the teapot and poured another cup.

“There are a couple of problems with that. The first is that she would have to have some way to look through all that. I’ll speculate on how she does that later.”

Twilight traced a circle around a point on her diagram where a timeline branched off from the main line. Her chalk floated up to the X’ed out picture of Crystal Faire, and from there she drew an arrow to the point she had just circled. “If Crystal herself is in some timeline… how does infinite differentiation come into play?”

She floated two pieces of paper over and set the two apart. She then put her quill to the first one.

She picked up a paper and wrote on it. “If there is no differentiation while she’s in a timeline… Then the infinitely many timelines would just turn into one single timeline once she decides to go there. Nevermind the fact that that would be an exception to established rules, but… while it would conserve the number of Crystal Faires traveling the multiverse, the total number of timelines would decrease.”

She shuffled some papers around and began writing on a blank piece. “But, on the other hoof, if differentiation still happens, there would be infinitely many timelines created with a Crystal Faire in them who could then travel the multiverse.”

She set the papers down on the table and then poured herself a new cup of tea with her magic. She then floated the cup over. “I don’t think I really believe either case. The number of timelines shouldn’t decrease, but the alternative gives rise to an infinitely many and always increasing number of Crystal Faires.”

She shook her hoof at the ceiling and groaned. “This non-conservation just… doesn’t sit right!”

She downed the entire cup of jasmine tea in one gulp and then fell back, splaying herself across the floor. The cup bounced across the floor and rolled to a stop against the mirror portal. She stared at the tessellated ceiling and briefly lost herself in the straight lines and the geometric shapes.

Twilight crossed her forelegs and stared at the board. “It doesn’t seem like either base assumption can be true. It… would be nice if there were some third explanation which lies in between the two.” She ran a hoof through her mane and sighed. “But that’s another thing I could spend my whole life speculating about and never get anywhere.

“There are plenty of other questions to which I could only speculate. Given that places like Canterlot High and that mirror reality are accessible from here... is that part of a single timeline? What ends up constituting a single timeline? Are there rules which dictate where and when Crystal can go to? Are there conditions? How exactly does her travel power work? Where did it come from?”

Twilight’s expression darkened and her features fell. “And what causes timelines to collapse? Why… did my timeline collapse?” she muttered under her breath.

She turned her attention back to the teapot, picked her cup off the floor, and then filled it full again. She took a drink, paused, took another drink, and then stared into what remained and saw her reflection.

She turned back to the board and erased the whole side. She tapped the chalk against the board and hummed thoughtfully as she stared at the now-blank canvas.

She wrote a quick summary of her thoughts on the left-hand side.

- King Sombra point of divergence
- Timelines are mutable
- Crystal Faire not a differentiation event
- There exists an as-of-yet unknown model
for timeline manipulation

Twilight stepped back and nodded. “Alrighty. That seems like a fair enough set of conclusions.

“So now, about actually seeing through all that.” Twilight stared into space for a few moments as she tried to grasp infinitely many timelines, and then she regressed to simply trying to understand infinity itself. “I just… can’t imagine she’s actually able to see through all of it at once. She’s a pony, for Celestia’s sake.” Twilight shrugged and twirled the chalk in her magic. “Well… if she can actually look through all of that at once, then it’s not a problem, really. I don’t know how she does it.

“But if I had to think about looking at an infinite number of timelines… I’d like to be able to narrow it down. It would be nice to filter for things that I’m looking for in a timeline. I wonder if I can come up with some examples…”

* * *

Twilight yawned and glanced upward. Sunbeams streamed through the windows on one side of the room. The west side, she figured. It had been a while since she had seen a clock as she had never placed one within the library, but between the light above and the now-empty teapot, she knew enough.

She cracked her neck and returned to the book in front of her. The open page contained several paragraphs detailing a grandfather paradox; the potential to travel back in time and prevent one’s own existence. It was not anything terribly new; she had encountered it in some of her favorite fictions before, of course. But I like how this weighs predestination paradoxes versus immutable timelines, she thought.

She flipped to the next page where the book started on the topic of ontological paradoxes. Hmm. Objects or information becoming or creating their past selves. That’s also interesting. It looks like this is related to the predestination paradox.

Twilight giggled. Time is fascinating.

A loud bang from close by made her jump what seemed like several meters from her seat. She heard a cry that could have been her own voice. She clutched at her chest, afraid that her heart would go shooting out. When it did not, she whirled around.

A cloaked figure stood in front of her chalkboard. The brown fabric lay draped across their features but the hood was down, allowing Twilight a view of the back of their head. She saw long curls, their colors a gradient of cerise and violet with a punctuating blue stripe, hanging down past their withers. From what Twilight could tell, the figure was a mare.

And all breath left her. She knew who it was, but who it was just could not be.

The figure scanned the board for a few moments, read over Twilight’s careful notes on the multiverse among other things, and then turned. Twilight immediately recognized the scar running across the mare’s right eye.

Twilight swallowed and, shakily, rose to her hooves. “…Crystal Faire?”

“We meet again, Twilight Sparkle,” Crystal Faire said with a sly smile.

9 - Mechanics

The library remained silent around them. Twilight Sparkle stood her ground, but she trembled on the inside. A million thoughts raced through her head, most of which concerned the mare who stared back at her.

There was just no way she could be there. Not now. There was no reason she should be there.

Crystal Faire chuckled. “Remarkable work, Twilight Sparkle. But I would expect this much from you.”

Twilight swallowed. “Crystal Faire… what are you doing here?”

“You’re going to have to forgive me. I just… happened to be looking around. This caught my eye.”

Twilight briefly glanced at her own work. “That? I don’t… What are you really here for?”

Crystal went wide-eyed and backpedaled. “No no, I mean it. I came here specifically to look at this.”

Twilight felt some of her muscles relax but she kept a firm footing all the same. “You’re… not here to fix this timeline?”

Crystal shook her head and turned toward the board again. “No. Not at all. I came here for this.” She glanced over her withers. “I promise.”

Twilight held her words. Her raised eyebrow and incredulous frown remained unfazed. Finally, she used her forehoof to usher out a long sigh. “Alright, fine. I’ll take your word for it. But… I don’t get it. I never thought that I would see you again.”

“Funnily enough, I thought the same thing. And I’d usually have forgotten by this point. Truth is…” Crystal looked back with flushed cheeks. “I… well… I became worried about you.”

Twilight felt her own cheeks go red, but her frown persisted. “Really?”

Crystal nodded.

Twilight flipped her book shut and left it on the table as she trotted toward the board. “I want to believe you. I really do. Part of me does.”

Crystal raised an eyebrow. “But…?”

Twilight sighed. “I don’t know. I guess… I kinda see where you’re getting at. I… haven’t been all that sure what’s real and what isn’t…” She shook her head and averted her gaze. “I’m not sure if anypony I know is as I know them. I’m thinking that they aren’t. And you know thousands of other versions of me. You know thousands of other versions of everypony, I guess.”

Crystal chuckled. “Yes, that pretty much sums it up. I find it hard to have meaningful relationships with anypony because of that.”

The two remained silent.

Twilight shrugged. “But I guess no other Twilight has experienced what I have, huh?”

Crystal chuckled. “True. Very true. That’s something we experienced. But…” She turned back to the board. “That… used to be true, but not anymore.”

“Hmm?” Twilight raised an eyebrow.

“I mean, this…” Crystal rapped the board. “You’re right. Differentiation is a thing. I dropped you off, the timeline split and differentiated… And there are other timelines where you have undertaken this same work after I dropped you off.”

“Infinitely many timelines,” Twilight finished.

“Exactly. And… there were some timelines where you got a bit further than you are now.” She motioned at the conclusions. “I mean, everything that you did commit on, you got right. But…” Crystal stared into the distance and eventually pressed her hoof against her chin. “That’s odd…”

Twilight’s body froze. “Odd? Uh oh, Crystal…”

Crystal continued scratching her chin for several moments and her muzzle twitched a few times. “Uh, what the hay? I said there were other timelines… and they’re all differentiated timelines from after I dropped you off. I, uh… can’t find any of them anymore.”

“Uh… where did they go?” Twilight tremulously asked.

“I… have some ideas. I wonder if… Hmmm… I mean… timeline mutability is also a thing. You got that right as well.” Crystal scratched her head as she continued staring at the board. “I… think that might have factored into what happened. I mean… they were in a weird state to begin with,” she mumbled.

Twilight frowned. “Well, that’s not terribly illuminating, but… okay. Should I be worried?”

Crystal shook her head. “No, no. I think it’s just mechanics that even I was not aware of, and…”

Twilight let out a breath that she did not know that she had been holding.

“Well,” Crystal said as she sprang up and clapped her hooves together, “either way, I take that back. You were and still are the only Twilight in the entire multiverse who has gone through what you have.”

“Huh, that’s interesting.” Twilight scratched her head. “But how exactly does that work? I don’t get it.”

Crystal shrugged and floated some of Twilight’s papers over. She shuffled through them, reading them one at a time. “Well, regardless, you’ve been getting pretty into the multiverse problem so… I was thinking I could fill in some of the gaps for you. Because, honestly,” she paused to scrutinize one of the papers in particular, “you’ve… already thought of some things which never occurred to me.”

For the first time since Crystal reappeared, Twilight cracked a smirk. “Oh ho ho. Is that right?”

Crystal went red in the face and puffed her cheeks. “Well… I mean, you always had a knack for this sort of thing. I’m not as intellectually capable of these things as you are...” She held up one of Twilight’s papers which contained some instructions labeled Rapid Status Change Filter. “Seriously, something like this could have made my life a great deal easier.”

Twilight trotted over, her smirk growing wider with each step. “Hmmm, well, what can I say? Nonetheless, I think I’ll take you up on that offer. Actually—” she stopped in front of Crystal with her eyes full of stars, “—I want to know as much as I can about it.”

Crystal chuckled. “I could give you a peek if you want. We could chat while I work.”

“You mean…” Twilight tilted her head, “go to other timelines?”

“If you want. It’s up to you.”

“Well, how long would we be gone?”

Crystal smirked. “You’d be back before even an instant passes here.”

“Before an instant, huh?” Twilight stroked her chin and nodded. “Sounds like a deal.”

“So be it.” Crystal drew in close and motioned for Twilight to draw close in return. “Now, let’s see if I can do this properly…”

Twilight stood up straight and mentally steeled herself for whatever came next.

Crystal Faire shifted. Twilight’s world folded together. All her senses collapsed into a single point, and for a moment, Twilight herself did not exist.

Reality folded back out and her senses returned all at once; she felt something fluffy underhoof and the air felt nice and cool. Twilight looked up and saw the infinite night sky with millions of stars and a bright full moon. She looked immediately below her and finally recognized the fluffy feeling as standing on a cloud.

Crystal, who stood right by her, adjusted her cloak and looked over. “Made it in one piece?”

Twilight nodded. “I’m all here.”

“That’s good. I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to do it.”

Twilight stood up straight and started toward the edge of the cloud. “Where are we? When are we?”

Crystal followed suit. “Our first stop. This is a key point in time.”

Twilight reached the edge of the cloud and looked over the side. She spotted a tall structure made of crystal. It reached toward the heavens and ended in a single sharp point, and the base of it stood on four legs. An entire crystal city stretched out from there with several streets arranged into a six-pointed star-like pattern.

“The Crystal Empire,” Twilight said. She squinted, trying to see the city more clearly. “Are those… tents? And lights?” She lent her ear toward some cacophony down below. “And… is that… music?”

“This is the night after King Sombra’s defeat. The festivities are still on.” Crystal leaned forward with a dastardly grin on her face and whispered, “And I know what deed my parents just finished doing.”

Twilight blushed and averted her gaze. “Oh, you don’t say?”

Crystal threw her head back and laughed.

“Uhhh, you said that this was a key point in time?”

Crystal nodded and plopped down on the cloud. “I did. And it is. Here, take a seat,” she said, patting the spot right beside her, “you’ve been up all day.”

Twilight nodded and took a seat as well. The two watched the festivities from atop the cloud. Ponies looked like dots weaving around each other and occasionally stopping to mingle. The sounds, while dispersed and unclear, gave hints of a lively tune.

“I… I determined that,” Twilight said, “in the timeline that I’ve been in these past few days… everything up through King Sombra is how I remember it.”

“That’s right. And, actually, that’s a constant. It’s like… this moment is the focal point of the observable multiverse. This, and everything before it, is constant across every timeline that I can see and access.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Really? You’re sure about that?”

“Positive.”

“That’s strange, I guess. There has to be some timeline out there where this doesn’t happen.”

Crystal snorted. “Well, if there is, then I can’t see it.” She leaned over and whispered, “I like to think it exists, but it really doesn’t matter because I can’t go there anyway.”

The melodic tones down below faded and were replaced by thunderous applause and cheers. Some lights flickered and shifted into cooler hues, and soon enough, the music started all over again albeit at a subdued tempo.

“It’s… strange,” Crystal started. “I can’t go back before this moment. I… don’t understand why that is.”

“I’d imagine that’s something that you’ve thought about quite a bit, huh?”

Crystal rested her head on her forelegs and drew her eyes up and down the streets. “I’ve often thought it might be tied to me. This could be the first moment of my existence. Either way, even when you’re as traveled as I am… the whole multiverse is still strange.”

Twilight laid down as well. “Yes. Yes it is.”

They continued watching the crystal ponies as their paths waltzed from stall to stall. The song below mixed with whistling air which provided them enough to listen to.

“I would suspect that you’ve been pretty busy adjusting in these past few days,” Crystal said as she drew circles in the cloud.

“Yes… It’s been a little bit difficult. But… I thought you would have an idea of it. I’m sure you’ve gone through it at some point.”

Crystal hummed in response.

“Although,” Twilight chuckled, “I figured you would know already. You can see the past, present, and future, right? I’m sure you looked.”

“Ehhhhh,” Crystal shrugged, “I saw it but didn’t really pay attention to it.”

Twilight frowned. “Oh.”

Crystal stared into space for a few moments and then chuckled. “Well, I’m up to speed now. This thing with you playing a zompony when Rainbow Dash replaced the Filly Guide cookies…” She raised an eyebrow. “What exactly was that about?”

Twilight giggled and made a shooing motion. “Oh, you know, that’s just something that happened.”

Crystal nodded. “In your home timeline, I guess?”

“Yes… It happened.”

“I… I guess I’d like to hear more about what it was like. From you.”

Twilight lifted her head and met Crystal’s eyes. Crystal looked back with a certain shine in her eyes. It was the sort of shine that she had not before seen in Crystal’s eyes but had seen all the time in Flurry Heart’s. For just a moment, despite Crystal’s matured appearance and despite her scars, Twilight could clearly see her niece.

And so she sat up and smiled. “Sure.”

* * *

The two of them stared at the daytime sky. A light wind blew across the Equestrian plains. The grass around them, which reached halfway up their legs, swayed and danced in the breeze.

“It’s a nice day out,” Twilight said. “I could stay here a while.”

Crystal chuckled but shook her head and lit her horn. “Unfortunately, business is business.”

The sun, which hung high in the sky, skidded toward the horizon. The sky changed colors from blue to orange, to red, and then, finally, to a bluish-purplish color as the sun disappeared and the moon appeared on the opposite horizon. The moon rose high into the sky and then swerved toward a position not along the usual path.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked.

“I am… using the moon to shield this world from a meteor storm.”

Twilight looked up, watching it with a raised eyebrow. She then shrugged. “Well, I’ve moved the sun and moon before as well, I guess. But... isn’t that something that Princess Luna could do?”

Crystal chuckled. “Of course. But, you see, in this timeline, it’s you who moves the sun and moon.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “That’s interesting, but why would I do that? That’s what Princess Celestia and Princess Luna do.”

“Well, here, Celestia and Luna have gone missing.”

Twilight jumped. “What!?”

“Indeed. They went missing after your coronation and that was two years ago.”

Twilight felt a migraine come on within the span of a few seconds and she pinched the bridge of her brow. “Please tell me you aren’t serious. Missing!? For two years!?” she yelled.

Crystal watched as the moon slowed to a stop and then turned to Twilight and placed a hoof on her withers. “Hey, relax, I know where they’ve gone.”

“You’re supposed to fix the multiverse, Crystal! Them going missing is not that!”

Crystal hummed. “I know, I could easily prevent it. But, you see, I’ve found that if I let them go missing but still protect Equestria from the meteors, that paves the way for some really nice developments. Plus, you know, they do eventually come back.” She paused. “Eventually.”

Crystal glanced back up at the moon. “Preventing the storm is the important thing, though. Because that would have destroyed much of Equestria and left it vulnerable, and that would prompt Grogar into declaring war.”

Twilight gasped. “Grogar is real!?”

“Sorry if I’m ruining Gusty the Great for you.” Crystal patted Twilight on the back. “Don’t worry, though, you usually don’t have to deal with him at all.”

Twilight collapsed, grasping her head as more waves of pain shot through. “I don’t believe this.”

Crystal sighed. “Relax, Twilight. Really, relax.”

Twilight took several long and deep breaths and stood up. She used her forehoof to push out one last sigh. “Okay, okay. I’m fine. I’m okay. Just… tell me that Celestia and Luna are okay.”

Crystal nodded. “That’s my typical follow-up on the Sweetie Honey series.” At Twilight’s raised eyebrow, she added, “That’s what I call this set of realities. There’s a figure that emerges during the war that typically ends up single-hoofedly deciding the war. Still, it’s not fun for anypony, so I prevent the whole thing whenever I can.”

Twilight nodded. “And you do things this way because of the developments?”

Crystal nodded. “It makes Equestria and her ponies many times stronger in the end. The more able they are to fend for themselves, the less I have to intervene.” Then she giggled as the moon twitched, and she responded by focusing more energy into her horn. “And there she is. This timeline’s Twilight is trying to move the moon back down. Trying. I have her outmatched as it is.”

“I see, I see. So…” Twilight pursed her lips together as her mental gears tried to change direction. “These developments… how did you figure out things would work out that way?”

Crystal flinched. “Trial and error,” she eventually answered.

“Trial and error? You’ve…” The words died on her lips.

“You already know that I don’t have a perfect track record. I carry within me tremendous power… The power which millions of realities have given me…” Crystal looked down at her. “But… at the end of the day, I am just a pony. I make mistakes from time to time.”

Twilight nodded solemnly. “I see. And I understand. But your heart’s in the right place, at least.”

Crystal smiled. “Yeah. I do what I can and hope that it helps everypony out.”

“Yes.”

Crystal looked back at the moon and hummed a tune to herself. The moon shuddered and then stood still. She smiled.

“Listen,” Crystal said, turning to Twilight, “we’re going to be here for a while since I have to keep the moon in place for the duration of the storm. So… I wanted to take the opportunity to show you something.”

“What is it?”

“I want to give you an idea of what I see. I want to show you the multiverse.”

Twilight stood up straight and nodded. “Okay, show me.”

Crystal coursed even more energy through her horn and the already-darkened space around them darkened even more. And then, before Twilight could blink, the area around her lit up, and she had to shield her eyes with a foreleg.

When Twilight’s eyes had a chance to adjust to the brightness, she lowered her foreleg and squinted in the light. Her vision regained focus, and she saw the source of the light—no, sources. She gasped.

They were lines! There had to be millions, no, billions upon billions of lines. They were magenta in color with splashes of a strong pink and were as thin as strings. She could see countless numbers of them in every direction she turned. Above her head, every line seemed to split into a billion other lines which all crisscrossed each other.

Twilight shuffled across the ground, looking at all the lines in awe. She stumbled around and her gaze darted this way and that as she tried to look at them all. Her jaw dropped with every new line she encountered.

“I-I...”

The lines glowed, strangely radiating energy that made her coat stand on end. She saw them everywhere she turned. Finally, her legs gave way and she collapsed onto the grass.

Crystal chuckled and trotted to Twilight’s side. “Twilight… meet the multiverse.”

The lines, timelines, shimmered in response.

“This…?”

Crystal caressed one of the timelines in front of Twilight. “Every single one of these lines represents some reality. These are all timelines. And this is but a small fraction of how many there actually are."

Twilight nodded slowly and directed all her facilities into standing up. “This is a timeline.” Her eyes followed to where a billion lines branched off from it. “And… that’s a point of divergence.”

“Very good. And what you see is just one way to look at all this,” Crystal replied. She pointed to the line immediately in front of Twilight and said, “This is a distorted view, but this whole length is a single moment in time. Those branches are in the next moment in time. I can look at this and tell you the state of the world.”

Twilight reached out, almost as if to touch it, but she stopped short. “You can read this?”

Crystal leaned forward to examine the line for herself. “Let’s see. This one… Discord ends up having a child named Pandora… who is a draconequus, hmmm, Maud Pie and Trixie Lulamoon are married… Oh! Seems that I have a little sister named Skyla. A pegasus, it seems.”

Twilight sucked in a breath and turned to Crystal. “And… you can read all that… just from this?”

“I can. In this stretch, here… Skyla just called me ‘Flurry Fart.’”

Twilight stared at the line with enough intensity to melt steel, and yet it told her nothing. She only saw coalescing reds and pinks within. She couldn’t see a Skyla. She couldn’t see Trixie or Maud. She certainly couldn’t see some draconequus named Pandora.

“That’s… incredible,” she murmured.

Crystal chuckled and placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

Twilight blinked and glanced at all the other timelines surrounding them. She looked through all angles she could and briefly even tried to count them, but she quickly gave up. Finally, she shook her head. “There are so many timelines here but… how do you see through all this?” She motioned to all the timelines around them. “The multiverse… it’s infinitely big.”

Crystal nodded. “Yes, the multiverse is big. But I have some tools that help keep it manageable; one of which you spent a good deal of today thinking up.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Filters.”

“Yes. I’ve pretty much filtered all the quantum mechanical effects and everything outside of Equestria and her light cone. That narrowed it down a lot.” Crystal paused, then added, “Those are the core filters. I can put some auxiliary ones on depending on general time period, divergence based on physical locality, and stuff like that.”

“I see,” Twilight replied. A grin stretched across her face. “You have a quantum mechanical filter?”

Crystal scratched her head. “It… wasn’t easy. And it took me a long time to figure it all out. I… could dare say I’ll be the world’s foremost expert on quantum mechanics for the next five thousand years, probably.”

Twilight’s goofy grin grew even wider, and she finally pointed between Crystal and herself. “You and I are going to have a lot of science to discuss.”

Crystal shied away. “Please no.”

Twilight stamped the ground. “Come on. Do you know how often I get to speak to anypony about that subject? I crave it! Indulge me, Crystal!”

“I would prefer not to.”

Twilight’s smile faded and she ended up puffing her cheeks out and snorting and pouting.

Crystal ignored her and coursed some energy through her horn. The lines shifted and started to glide north. The lines passed through the both of them but they remained unfazed. She watched with careful scrutiny while Twilight returned to her wondrous, starry-eyed stare.

“Something else I want to show you,” Crystal said. The lines ground to a halt and then expanded. Some lines, which reached the very outliers of the hill they stood on, disappeared into nothingness. Eventually, only a few score remained within the area, with one right in front of the two. She focused on the line and it expanded; the divergences that had been characteristic of every other timeline vanished and the line seemed to grow even thinner than it already was.

And Twilight saw something which distinguished it from every other line she had seen thus far: part of it looked crystallized. She squinted even as the line settled into a final form and then noted that even the crystallized parts were not uniformly so; some parts were more hardened than others.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Crystal pointed at the line. “This here is the timeline where you’ve been spending these past few days.”

Twilight blinked, glanced at Crystal to make sure she had heard right, then glanced at the line with even greater intensity. Her eyes drew a line from the bottom up. The bottom had some shine to it unlike many of the other timelines, then it briefly turned into hard crystal. The length just above that looked glossy and viscous but remained almost entirely crystallized, and then it turned into hard crystal again. The top-most part of the line looked just as hazy as every other timeline she had seen.

“Here is how I see this,” Crystal said. She pointed to the lowest part and said, “This shiny part here is the timeline before we arrived. Everything before when I arrive always does this. This is good, we like this. These hard-crystallized parts here—” she pointed to the two hardened spots, “—are the intervals of time where I was present within the timeline. These hazy parts afterward are untouched.”

“What about this viscous part in the middle, between those parts where you were there?” Twilight asked.

“That, I’m not so sure. I’m still thinking about it, but I have an idea.”

“Tell me about it.”

Crystal stroked her chin and nodded. A new image appeared before them showing several small line segments all spouting from a single point. She reached out and then pulled, and the image followed her hoof as she brought it close.

“This represents differentiating timelines,” Twilight said.

“Right. And what I can do is get right in the middle of that and prevent the differentiation from happening.” Crystal traced her hoof up the middle of the image and the line segments responded by folding up and meeting at the center. The shape they made consisted of a single line with no strands out of place. “And so, all of these timelines are now, effectively, one single timeline.”

Twilight cooed with interest.

“I call it threading realities together. This is my bread and butter. I have the ability to thread a set of timelines together into one effective timeline over some specific interval…” Crystal traced her hoof down the image and everything above the halfway point unfurled. “And then I only have to intervene one time. Everything after this will be fixed.”

“So these bits here are unthreaded,” Twilight said and pointed to the unfurled bits. “Do these bits differentiate?”

“Yes. Threaded portions of timelines don’t differentiate, unthreaded portions of timelines do.”

“I see. It’s… like the entire multiverse is unthreaded timelines, really. It’s just groups of timelines unthreading between each moment and the next.”

Crystal’s eyes widened and she nodded. “Could be. Never really thought about it that way.”

Twilight stroked her chin. “Ooooh, I like that. That would conserve the total amount of timelines for all time.”

“Well, anyway, you remember how I was saying there used to be infinitely many of you working on the problem and then it was just you?” She then pointed at the almost-crystallized parts of the larger timeline again. “I think that might be what happened here.”

“So… then… everything from the moment you dropped me off,” Twilight pointed at the lower of the two hardened spots, “decided to thread together into a single effective timeline?”

Crystal shrugged. “That’s what I’m thinking.”

“Why?”

“Beats me.”

* * *

Twilight looked at the green lockers, the blue-colored swirls across the floor, and the blocky light fixtures recessed within the ceiling. It all looked familiar.

She then looked down at her own hooves, flicked her tail to make sure it was still there, and then hummed. “Sooo… bridge realm, huh?”

Crystal, with her hood loosely pulled over her head, nodded. “In this timeline, they haven’t figured out the book trick to force the mirror portal open. That bridge realm is their alternative. Normally, they can’t continue on through the other side like we did, however,” she said as she looked over and smirked, “so they’ll be in for a shock.”

Twilight considered it. “You overrode the safeties.”

“Temporarily,” Crystal affirmed. “I know how Starswirl made these things.”

“I see.” Twilight chuckled. “Huh, I thought I would be human over here. Never thought I’d walk through CHS as a pony.”

The two rounded the corner into another empty hall. It looked just like the last one, with the occasional classroom door dividing the lockers.

Crystal chuckled. “Oh, just you wait and see. I remember seeing a timeline where the mirror portal screws up and you get stuck at Canterlot High for a while… as a pony. A really small one at that.” She held her foreleg up, indicating a height that didn’t even reach a quarter of the way up the lockers. She chuckled. “You were Sunset’s little Twilight for a while.”

“Oh, what fun,” Twilight replied sarcastically. “She’d have a field day with that.”

The two continued on. Their eyes wandered over the lockers and the ceiling. As they passed by a room with an open door, Crystal lit her horn and pulled it almost shut; it made no sound as it swung on its hinges. She chuckled as they walked by.

“But that begs the next question, although I have an idea of what to expect here…” Twilight said. “Canterlot High… It’s also part of the timeline, right?”

“Yes. It is.”

“So, what exactly constitutes a timeline, then? Canterlot High is obviously a part.” Twilight leaned in close. “Could there be other realities that are considered parts of a timeline?”

Crystal nodded. “Of course. That mirror world that you went to a while back, some of the other places Starswirl visited when he first started experimenting with inter-dimensional travel… there are even some parallel realities which look like alternate timelines.” She paused and swished her muzzle from side to side as she thought. “They are alternate timelines in a sense, but, because they’re interacting with Equestria, which is a really important distinction, that makes them part of this single system of realities. They are all parts of a single timeline.”

She looked over as they reached a balcony. “And your standard differentiation rules apply to the whole system.”

The floor opened up, showing the main foyer a floor below. A pair of Wondercolts flags hung from the part of the railing just above the main entrance, as well as from several other places around the railing. The foyer itself hosted some trophy cases and opened to hallways on either side. A few papers, taped to the walls here and there, advertised upcoming events and promoted club memberships.

Crystal hopped over the railing. Her wings shot out from underneath her cloak and she sailed down toward the first floor. Upon landing, she turned to look up at Twilight. At that, Twilight unfurled her own wings, leaped over the side, and glided down as well.

Twilight glanced at the glass doors that made up the front entrance and spotted the snowfall outside. She watched several snowflakes as they floated down and joined the sheet covering the grounds.

“You know, you still haven’t told me what we’re here for,” she said. “When are we, exactly?”

“We are not very long after the Anon-a-miss affair,” Crystal replied.

“Oh! I remember that.” She glanced back out the doors and watched the snow fall. “That was during wintertime. Sounds about right.”

The two continued into the next hall where more green lockers and square lights met them.

“There is an additional complication this time around,” Crystal said. “That bridge realm that we passed through on the way here… Something is about to go down there.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay. But how does us coming all the way over here factor into that?”

“Twilight, this timeline’s Twilight, has an alarm set up for whenever that place is occupied,” Crystal explained. “But… Princess Celestia and Princess Luna are visiting and the three would have gone into town during a crucial moment. Us passing through tripped the alarm, and thus they no longer will leave.”

“So they’ll be able to react when whatever happens starts happening.”

The two rounded the corner into another, shorter hall.

“Exactly. And I can confirm that is going to happen…” Crystal paused. “Hmmm… it looks like… they are going to then fail at this rate—which happens.” She looked over at Twilight and nodded. “That just means we move on to stage two.”

“Which is?”

“Direct intervention.”

“Oh.”

The hallway ended at another intersection where they came across a vending machine. The two stopped in front of it and they stared at all the contents. Ice cream bars and packets containing cracker and cheese combos hung from several slots within.

Twilight licked her lips and rubbed her stomach right as it growled. “I wish I had some human money right about now.”

Crystal lit her horn. A pair of potato chip bags within the machine disappeared in a white flash and reappeared right in front of Crystal’s face. She passed one to Twilight. “Well, we’ll just pay with services rendered.”

Twilight cooed with interest and grabbed the bag with her own magic.

While Crystal started back down the way they came, she used her magic to tear her bag open and then popped a few chips into her mouth.

Twilight followed whilst using her magic to do the same. “Ugh,” she said with a snarl, “using magic here doesn’t feel quite right.”

“I know, right?”

Twilight crunched down on a few chips herself. Then, once she swallowed, she said, “I’m thinking, though. It sounds like you can still see the timelines from here.”

“Plain as day.”

“Could you do that if you were human?” Twilight asked.

Crystal, ready to throw some more chips into her mouth, instead set them back into the bag. “Yes. I’d prefer not to be human, but… yes, I could.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and said, “Fascinating.”

“I can even travel from here. In fact…” she said, shaking her head, “I have yet to encounter a scenario where I can’t use both of those abilities.”

“So… Human form?”

“Doesn’t block it.”

“…Chrysalis’ throne?”

“Doesn’t block it.”

“That’s incredible!” Twilight explained. A wide smile spread across her face and she even skipped along for a short distance.

The two reentered the foyer and Crystal paused and glanced toward the ceiling. Her muzzle remained shut and her ears perked up. She heard some pointed conversations from the floor above and nodded. “Alright, that sounds like Photo Finish and her assistants. I imagine that they are taking Pinkie Pie… who has passed out… to the teacher’s lounge. The other five have probably passed out by now too. They might be already there.”

“Probably?” Twilight raised an eyebrow as she threw more chips into her mouth. “You don’t know?”

Crystal chuckled. “Ah, right. There are limitations. You see, when I’m looking at a timeline, I can’t see Canterlot High or anything like that. I haven’t managed to expand my gaze past just the reality which Equestria sits in just yet—I am, however, working on it even now and I’m pretty confident that I will get there someday.” She threw some chips into her mouth and chewed. “For now, I’m as blind as a bat here,” she mumbled.

Twilight felt a drop of sweat form on her brow. “Oh. That would have been good to know a little earlier.”

Crystal shrugged and swallowed her food. “I get by.” She crumpled up her potato chip bag and shot it into a trash bin on the opposite side of the room.

“Well, can you travel to other Canterlot Highs?” Twilight asked.

“I can only use the travel ability to get to places that I can see, so no going between Canterlot Highs. That’s the other limitation.”

Twilight bit her lip and nodded. “I see.”

Crystal continued listening as Twilight snacked down. Finally, Twilight crumpled her own bag up, levitated it to the trash bin, and dropped it inside.

“Time yet?” Twilight asked.

Crystal nodded. “Yeah, let’s go.”

The two trotted up the stairs which made a U-turn and deposited them on the second floor of the foyer. They followed the balcony to the nearest hall and trotted into it. Crystal jerked her head back, throwing her hood off. She then shook her curls out and let them hang at their full length.

They eventually reached a door with a placard next to it which read Teacher’s Lounge. Several teenagers and an adult version of Time Turner loitered around the entrance. They all jumped as Crystal and Twilight trotted up.

Crystal used her magic to open the door, turned to the humans, and smirked. “Sup?”

The humans’ jaws all but fell to the floor. One of them, Pixel Pizazz, who stood with her friends Photo Finish and Violet Blurr, eventually raised a hand and vacantly waved. Vinyl Scratch, meanwhile, composed herself and flashed a salute.

The two ponies filed through the door and shut it behind them. The teacher’s lounge itself, not much bigger than half a classroom, hosted several tables and chairs on one side. The other side hosted a long countertop with built-in cabinets and a sink. A microwave oven sat at the end of the countertop right next to the vending machine.

“I really don’t think they were supposed to see us,” Twilight said.

Crystal shrugged. “Eh. They’ve seen weirder.”

They meandered through the room and made their way over to a tall, wall-mounted mirror which hung by itself at one end of the room.

Crystal stopped in front of it and turned to face Twilight. “Just out of curiosity… You wouldn’t happen to know a Sunrunner, would you?”

Twilight frowned and shook her head. “I’ve never heard of them. Why?”

“Didn’t think so. Nevertheless…” Crystal cracked a smile and said, “Let’s get this done.”

Together, the two of them filed through the mirror. Twilight’s world twisted just like it did when traveling through the mirror portal in the base of the Wondercolt statue. They reemerged in a cavernous space. Only a few cushions, a table, and some privacy screen off to the side served as decoration. Two large and ornate mirrors, much like the one they had just passed through, stood at her end and the opposite end of the cavern, respectively.

The two thus turned their attention to the many occupants within the cavern: she saw herself huddled with her dragon assistant Spike, Pinkie Pie, Princess Celestia, and Princess Luna on one side. Her eyes drew over the other occupants, all of whom were human. She saw Principal Celestia, Vice Principal Luna, Flash Sentry, and the Crusaders. The last was one she could not readily recognize, but she appeared like the human world’s version of Radiant Hope. All of them had huddled around a few figures lying unconscious on the ground in the middle of the space who Twilight guessed were Sunset Shimmer and the rest of the Rainbooms.

And all the occupants had all turned toward them at once. A moment of awkward silence passed before they all belted out a series of gasps and startled cries, and those who had been crouched down shot to their hooves and feet.

“What the hay!?” Twilight Sparkle, her counterpart, blurted.

Crystal let out a laugh and nudged Twilight.

Twilight, in turn, blushed and meekly waved.

Crystal stepped toward the congregation. “You all probably have a lot of questions. I’ll give you all an umbrella answer that time sliding is involved and leave it at that. I think you’ll all agree that there are more pertinent matters,” she said with an authoritatively sharp tone as she pointed to the several unconscious figures, “so let’s just return to the business at hoof, hmmm?”

Everyone exchanged uncertain glances and offered no words of reply.

“Excellent. Princess Luna,” Crystal said, turning, “you are about to mount an expedition with Twilight Sparkle here into the shared dream state, correct?”

Princess Luna, after glancing around, nodded. “That I am… You see, these six have been targeted by something most unsavory.”

“So I am aware. I can confirm that it’s a fragment of the Nightmare.”

Princess Luna’s features fell, and she stole glances at her Twilight Sparkle and Princess Celestia, both of whom (along with several others) looked equally dismayed. “Nightmare…” she murmured as her features darkened. “So… it is as I suspected.”

Crystal leaned forward. “You are going to need some extra defense against it. That is why I am here.”

This timeline’s Twilight Sparkle shakily raised a hoof and pointed. “And... this other me? Wh…”

“She is only here to observe,” Crystal replied. “You need not worry about her presence.”

Twilight blushed.

Crystal turned back. “I bid that you take me with you, Princess Luna.” She pointed at the six on the ground and said, with an intense glare, “Their lives and your success are going to depend on it.”

Princess Luna remained silent for many moments. Her gaze remained locked with Crystal’s. A drop of sweat appeared on her brow.

Finally, Princess Luna stood at her full height. “I don’t know who you are or how you came to be. How you—” she motioned toward the mirror which served as the exit to Canterlot High, “—broke the rules, or how—” she motioned to Twilight, “—she can even exist.” She paused and stared for a few moments more. And then she nodded. “But if you are here to help, then we’ll take it.”

Crystal bowed. “Thank you.”

Princess Luna motioned toward her Twilight Sparkle and said, “You can take a spot next to her.”

Principal Celestia, who stood nearby, adjusted her jacket and turned to the others. “Alright, alright, everyone, let’s back up and give them some space.”

While Twilight sidled toward the rest of the humans, Crystal Faire joined Twilight Sparkle at one end of the circle. Once the two of them had laid down, Princess Luna lit her horn. Several white tendrils came out of it and made first contact with the six unconscious girls. She then connected threads to Twilight Sparkle and Crystal, and within instants, the two of them fell unconscious as well.

The bridge realm fell silent save for the whirrs of Princess Luna’s magic. Everyone stood by and watched with bated breath. Shortly after, the human Sweetie Belle shuffled over to Spike and the Equestrian Pinkie Pie and they began whispering amongst each other. Principal Celestia and the presumed Radiant Hope started whispering as well.

Twilight, meanwhile, stroked her chin and thought about some of the things she had just heard about. I don’t understand the whole situation here. I feel like I’m out of the loop, she thought. But, I guess, to Crystal, this is just another day in the office, huh?

She cracked a smile. Interacting realities… Threading timelines… King Sombra is the grand point of divergence… It seems like a lot of my ideas ended up being true.

But there are still other questions. There are still so many things that I need to know.

At that point, she nodded to herself. We still have much to talk about.

10 - Lines

The room was filled with a mixture of idle conversation and metal clinking against china. Ponies of all shapes and sizes gathered around the clothed tables dotted about. Most ponies wore bow-ties and simple dresses and had their manes and tails sleeked and designed. The room itself was shaped like a donut with its outer wall a series of glass windows that stretched from the floor to ceiling and its inner wall solid save for a few doors.

Twilight Sparkle glanced out the window and saw a landscape of lights far below. She imagined they were at least a kilometer up, maybe two. It was hard to gauge given the night sky outside. She shuddered and buried her face into her menu.

Crystal Faire, who sat opposite her, chuckled. Her cloak lay folded on one corner of the table. She too had an open menu in front of her, but it lay flat on the table.

A new pony, carrying two glasses within a magical aura, approached the table. His exterior looked metallic and shiny and his eyes looked cybernetic. Twilight couldn’t find an organic part on this pony. And yet, despite all that, he looked just like Savior Fare from Ponyville, complete with a mustache and a sleek albeit equally metallic mane.

“And here we are,” the waiter said as he set the drinks on the table. His voice, while containing a few electrical qualities, sounded just like a normal stallion’s. “Sparkling Chardonnay for Miss Faire, and Water with Lemon for Miss Sparkle.”

Crystal received hers and took a sip from her glass.

The waiter then lit his mechanical horn and levitated a pen and paper from his coat pocket. “Are we ready to order?”

“We are,” Crystal replied.

“Excellent. What may I get for you this evening?”

Crystal folded her menu together and glanced up. “So… I’ll have the Lasagna, with the Caesar Salad beforehoof. She’s going to have the Fettuccine Alfredo, with House Salad beforehoof. Hold the peppers. And… the two of us are going to split some Bruschetta.”

Twilight nodded and folded her menu together as well.

The waiter jotted down the order and then tucked the items back into his pocket. “Excellent. I will get these orders in for you,” he replied as he picked the menus up with his magic. “Let me know if you require anything else.”

Both mares replied with “Thanks” as he took his leave.

Twilight chuckled. “I never even told you what I wanted.”

“Oh, Twilight, please,” Crystal replied with a roll of her eyes.

“I know, I know. You read the future.”

Crystal giggled and took another sip of her wine.

Twilight watched the waiter visit another table, no doubt checking on other patrons. “Robot ponies,” she said. “How far are we?”

“About two thousand years, give or take.”

“What a fascinating place,” Twilight said. She glanced back out the window and noticed similar structures not far away. They were buildings, just like the one they sat in, which stretched from the ground to the same height and beyond. Carriages, seemingly self-propelled, zipped through the air this way and that; Twilight could tell from their headlights.

“Sometimes, I’ll get bored, and I’ll just take a while and develop futures like this one,” Crystal explained. “This one took a while to build up.”

“You made all this?”

Crystal shrugged. “Well, I steered it this way, if that’s what you mean.”

“Sure. Wow, I’d like to see more of this place.” Twilight sighed as she laid her chin on her hooves. “What prompted you to do all this, though?”

Crystal reached up and stroked the scar the went up and down her right eye. “Well, I needed to get this fixed. This future had the tools to make that happen.”

Twilight stared at Crystal’s scar. She briefly tried to imagine what had done it. Crystal was a master of the multiverse. Surely, Twilight thought, it must have been something pretty incredible to have done that to her.

She grunted. “I wonder about that scar. How did you get that?”

“This?”

“Yes. Did you get that in a monster attack? Did some… villain do that to you?”

Crystal laughed. “Actually, uh, I grew bored one day, and so I tried juggling knives.”

Twilight cringed. “That’s… even worse.”

“I was quite dumb. There was a long while where I didn’t have a right eye.”

“Yeah.” Twilight stroked her chin. “Wow. I’m… honestly, I’m actually a little disappointed. I thought I would hear one amazing story.”

“Sorry.”

Twilight shook her head. “Anyway, you came here and got all fixed up, huh?”

“Yeah. I kept the scar as a reminder to not be so careless, though.” Crystal snickered. “It’s a bit funny, actually, this makes me look a little bit intimidating. You can imagine how desirable that is. I like how it looks, at least.”

Twilight took a sip of her water and licked her lips. “So, what does this timeline look like, exactly?”

“Hmmm?”

“As a line, I mean.”

Crystal stared for a few moments before her eyes went wide. “Oh! Yeah. I see what you mean.” She lit her horn and the image of a line formed above the middle of the table.

Twilight looked at it and spotted many sections of all sizes. Most parts were shiny, but every so often, she found a very thin crystallized segment. Her eyes drew toward the top of the line where, after one last, very thin crystallized segment, the line became almost but not quite crystallized.

She pointed to some of the crystallized segments. “So these are the points where you came to this timeline. You were busy.”

“That I was,” Crystal replied.

“So, these in-between bits, these shiny parts…” Twilight said, pointing, “you mentioned that these are okay. You mentioned…” she said, scratching her chin, “that when you visit a timeline… everything before that moment turns into this.”

Crystal nodded. “Also right.”

“What do these mean, exactly?”

Crystal stopped to take a sip of her wine and then leaned forward in her seat. “Right. So, obviously, I’ve never been to this semi-crystallized region. But this is set in stone. There is no changing these parts. I can’t thread it with other timelines, I can’t travel there, nothing.”

“Why?”

“I think it’s because if I could do either of those things, then I could run events such that this—” she pointed to the crystallized layer above it, “—never happens. But it did happen for me. So… it would be a paradox.”

Twilight folded her hooves together and nodded. “That makes sense.”

“I can’t revisit these crystallized portions either.”

Twilight sipped on her water. With her magic, she plucked the lemon slice from the rim of the glass and squeezed its juices into the water, replaced the lemon slice onto the rim, and swished the contents about. She took another sip, noted the hints of a sour flavor within, and nodded.

She turned her attention back to the line. “So… as far as any one timeline is concerned… you only have one shot at getting things right.”

Crystal frowned and turned her eyes toward the window. “Yeah.”

Twilight looked past the line and studied Crystal’s saddened expression. Crystal was probably thinking about what had happened.

“You know that awful future that I accidentally took you to that first time? I automatically failed it just by going there.” Crystal shrugged. “I can’t prevent it anymore.”

Twilight frowned. “…Failed mine when it collapsed?”

“…Yeah.”

Twilight turned and glanced out the window as well. She watched as some flying carriages flew this way and that at speeds that would have made Rainbow Dash smile.

A nearby table shared some laughter which, while not uproarious by any means, managed to draw Twilight’s attention. She studied their expressions and found genuine smiles and from-the-heart laughter. She spotted the emptied wine glasses and the crumbs across their plates. She saw a busser, a flesh-and-blood mare, stop by and place their plates on her back while exchanging warm smiles with them.

“It looks like you got this one right,” Twilight said.

Crystal raised an eyebrow and eventually nodded and sat up. “Sure. I did good. I think. I do think about the times when I’ve… not done good.” She turned to look out the window again. “Live and learn, I guess.”

Twilight turned her gaze toward the window as well and the two of them watched the world outside. Several lights moved up and down lines which curved and stretched into the distance. The faint silhouettes of ponies moved within the lights of adjacent buildings.

Soon enough, their mechanical waiter returned with two bowls in his magical grasp. “Here we are, your salads,” he said as he placed their respective dishes in front of them. “Are you two doing okay so far?”

They looked up and nodded. Crystal voiced it with, “Yes.”

“Excellent. Your food should be out shortly,” he said.

The two nodded, and the waiter took his leave. Twilight glanced at Crystal’s bowl which hosted lettuce, shredded cheese, and some croutons. She then looked at her own bowl which was a mixture of different lettuces, onions, and the occasional olive.

And Twilight chuckled. “Both of these look good,” she said.

Crystal took a bite and nodded. “Taste good too.”

Twilight ran her fork through her salad to mix the dressing in and then took a bite as well. She could taste the onion heat that she had been looking for. She took a few more bites in silence.

Crystal eventually pointed her fork at Twilight. “Speaking of your timeline… I wanted to show you something.”

Twilight swallowed her food and nodded. “Okay.”

Crystal lit her horn again and another line segment appeared. The very bottom was completely crystallized while a long section just above that looked almost as hard as those crystallized portions. A short length looked shiny before the very tip looked like hard crystal.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. Where previous line segments faded near the top, this one simply ended. The tip looked jagged and uneven.

Images of holes in space and time filled her mind. She imagined reality slowly burning away at several spots. She imagined it all coming to an end.

She knew what she was looking at, and yet her mouth moved anyway and she said, “What… timeline am I looking at?”

Crystal pointed at the line segment with her fork. “This is yours, Twilight. Your home timeline.”

Twilight set her fork into her salad and narrowed her eyes. “You… It does exist.”

“This part does. But everything after this doesn’t. It’s collapsed, remember?”

Twilight’s hooves banged the table. “But this part still does! We… we could go there! You could take me there!”

“I can’t travel before any point that I’ve already been,” Crystal whispered deliberately. “It’s semi-crystallized already.”

Twilight kept staring at Crystal but said nothing.

“It’s a hard and fast rule, Twilight. I explained that to you.” Crystal set her fork down as well and stared at the line segment. “Doesn’t matter how we want to look at this; I’m cut off from this timeline forever.”

Twilight stared at Crystal for a few moments more before turning her attention to the line segment. She shifted in her seat and nodded solemnly. “Yes… you’re right.”

Twilight reached out and batted at the line and whimpered when her hoof went straight through. At that, she sat back, folded her hooves together, and murmured, “Will you… break this down for me?”

“Absolutely,” Crystal said, lifting a hoof to point at the timeline. “This… what you’re seeing now is a timespan of several years. At the very bottom is where you and Starlight appeared at the Rainboom. We travel up, we arrive at the point where you met your friends and subsequently defeated Nightmare Moon. Here, you defeated Discord and saved Equestria again. Here, you stopped Queen Chrysalis and then attended Mother and Father’s wedding.”

Where I… Twilight thought, went to the Grand Galloping Gala with them, discovered my cutie mark connection with them, saved Applejack’s farm, stopped dragon smoke from covering Equestria…

“And here is where you stopped King Sombra,” Crystal finished. “Everything up until this point is constant across all timelines. Everything diverges after that.” She pointed toward the sections that looked almost crystallized. “Here, you ascended to alicornhood, returned the Elements of Harmony to the Tree of Harmony, and then you defeated Tirek here, went on your first Cutie Map mission…”

Bested Trixie in a duel, met Daring Do with the girls, attended the Equestria Games, amended my relationship with Moondancer…

“And then here, where this section ends,” Crystal pointed at the boundary between the strange, almost-crystallized portion and the semi-crystallized portion, “is where you romped through time with Starlight Glimmer.”

Twilight blinked and looked at Crystal again. “I… Okay. Why does this stretch of time look like it’s almost crystallized but isn’t quite there?”

“This quasi-crystallized section signifies parts which are locked time-wise; time travel being the usual suspect. Or, rather, it’s the part of the timeline within the light cone of the time travel event.” Crystal pointed at the entire section and said, “There are a few of these here and there, but you don’t see them on every timeline. I can decrystallize these by preventing whatever is causing the time lock. But I can’t travel into a quasi-crystallized section.”

Twilight stroked her chin and hummed in thought. “Because… if you did, in this case, you might prevent somepony from going back in time. But, you can only thread timelines going forward in time. So… you would still have a pony appearing in the past because of time travel, and yet there would be nopony in the future to travel back to that past. It would be a discontinuity.”

Crystal, who had jabbed her salad with her fork, looked at Twilight with a raised eyebrow. Eventually, she nodded. “That is exactly right.”

Twilight leaned forward. “I also noticed that with the timeline that we’re in right now. Everything after this moment should be time-locked, right? Otherwise, you would be in two time periods at once.”

Crystal smiled. “Also true! But… I can jump forward.”

“Really?”

“There isn’t anything that prevents me from trying to go to some part of a timeline that I can’t access,” Crystal explained. “But if I get denied, I end up right back where I was, and you wouldn’t even notice I had even tried anything. But… that small amount of latency in the travel gives the future enough time to decrystallize, so it ends up working.”

Twilight nodded. “I see. That makes sense.”

Crystal chuckled. “Anyway, I am impressed that you’ve kept up with this so far.”

Twilight blushed and popped some leaves and onion slices into her mouth. So… quasi-crystallized for time-locked segments, semi-crystallized for areas of time leading up to crystallized parts, and then there’s crystallized and non-crystallized. She stroked her chin. Possibly… concurrently-crystallized for everything that threaded together?

Crystal took a bite, chewed, swallowed, and then said, “Either way, you know what these parts afterward are about.” Her hoof traced up the crystallized segment before it reached the top, and Crystal frowned. “And… obviously, everything after this…”

Twilight popped another few leaves into her mouth.

“I wish I could tell you why. I… don’t understand it. I still don’t.” Crystal looked at Twilight with pleading eyes and said, “I’m sorry.”

Twilight continued chewing in silence. Her eyes drew up toward the line segment in the middle of the table and thought about what it signified. She thought about friends and family; their voices and faces flashed through her mind.

And then she looked past it and into Crystal’s eyes.

“This thing…” Crystal’s voice said in Twilight’s head, “this thing where your timeline died, your home timeline… You aren’t the only one who has gone through that. I can promise you that.”

“Crystal?” she croaked.

Crystal leaned forward. “Yes?”

Twilight remained silent for another moment and then said, “I was… wondering… could you show me your timeline? Since you’ve shown me mine.”

Crystal set the fork into her own salad bowl. She swallowed once, twice, and then took a sip from her wine glass. She then nodded solemnly and lit her horn.

Twilight’s timeline moved off to the side and a new line segment formed in the previously occupied spot. Unlike every other timeline that Twilight had seen, this new line segment was entirely crystallized from faded bottom to abrupt top.

Twilight stared at it but couldn’t glean anything else from it. Its red and purple colors, coalesced together, told of things that she could not decipher. And yet Twilight knew that the line segment in front of her contained an entire history.

“This is your home timeline?” she asked.

“Was.” Crystal bit into her salad again. Her eyes wavered everywhere else but the line itself.

Twilight’s muzzle twitched. “Do you… Do you think you could tell me a little bit about it? I want to know what it was like. I… want to know what your life was like.”

Crystal continued chewing in silence. Her eyes remained elsewhere. She remained silent even after she swallowed her food.

“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to,” Twilight added.

Crystal shook her head. “No, no, it’s fine. I just needed a moment there.” She sighed and leaned against the table as she stared at the line herself. “This was my home timeline. You’re right, it had a lot of things in common with yours. You defeated Tirek, you time traveled with Starlight Glimmer… Obviously, I didn’t break the Crystal Heart when I was born.”

Some color disappeared from Crystal’s muzzle and she folded her hooves together. “The truth is… I’ve been able to see the timelines my whole life. And I’ve yet to find anyone else in the entire multiverse who could do that.” She popped a crouton into her mouth and chewed for a few moments. “I couldn’t travel between them when I was a filly, but I could still see them. I struggled with it a little bit when I was growing up. Mother and Father sometimes thought that I was suffering from a mental illness.”

“You told them about it and they didn’t believe you?” Twilight asked.

“No, not entirely. I wasn’t entirely convinced that it was legitimate either. They did recognize that I could have been right but, even for how strange our world is, that seemed far-fetched.”

“I could see that.”

Crystal giggled and shook her head. “But they were so supportive of me and they did everything they could to help me cope with it. They were always smiling and telling me that things were okay. But... seeing this line now, I know they spent a lot of nights talking and crying about it. They struggled with it just as much as I did.

“And then you were there… Auntie Twilight and I ended up becoming very close.” She chuckled and sat up in her seat. “I remember this one time where she spent the entire week trying to prove that me seeing the timelines was actually a thing. She failed. But still!”

Twilight’s chest swelled with pride. “Well, I am the B.A.E.,” she said.

“That you are.”

“Knowing what we know now, you really were seeing the timelines. You had knowledge of the future. Or, at least, possible futures. Did you use that at all?”

“I did. We lived very peaceful lives and so I ended up not having to use it for all that much; most of the terrible things that I saw—and I saw many terrible things, I even struggled with it for a while but Auntie Twilight helped me cope with that—those were all outside Equestria or in places I would never go. Mostly, I could just say what room Mother was in when I needed her, or I could say what stories Father would tell when he returned home from training with the guard.” Crystal nodded her head from side to side. “I was pretty accurate a lot of the time. It’s part of the reason why Mother and Father and you were so patient with me; that was their proof that it could have been real.”

Twilight took a bite from her salad and nodded in silence.

“I did all sorts of stuff like that when I was a filly. But I ended up predicting some major things too. I foresaw a formal treaty between the dragons and Equestria and eventually attended the signing ceremony between Dragon Lord Ember and Princess Celestia. I also foresaw you,” she pointed at Twilight, “getting married, and then I ended up going to the wedding.”

Twilight’s muzzle curled into a wry smile. “Oh, is that right?”

“Yes, and even then, after all that, I still wasn’t sure about whether or not seeing the timelines was a legitimate thing.” Crystal’s smile faded and her features grew pale. “And then… not long after that… I predicted that I would lose my Auntie Twilight in an accident.”

Twilight cringed.

“And then... when it actually happened… that was when I knew for certain that the power was the real deal.”

Twilight sat in silence for a few seconds and then nodded solemnly. “So… I… I died?”

“Yes.” Crystal reached up and pointed at a spot on the line segment. “Right there, at that moment, you did.”

Twilight swallowed. “What happened after that?”

Crystal sucked in a breath. “Well, the nation mourned. I think morale across Equestria dropped off a cliff. Father… never really recovered from it. …I lost him soon after that.”

Twilight’s hoof shot to her mouth and she gasped.

“I became a recluse for a while after that. Mother… She didn’t really smile for a long while afterward. Auntie… my other auntie, she ran away. And Princess Luna pretty much had to take over for Princess Celestia for a month after it happened. Luna got sloppy, even. Equestria went somewhat downhill after that.”

“I see…”

“But I made a vow after that. I knew that the power was real, and that everything that I saw, good and terrible, was real. And I knew I could influence reality, and I could shape the future.” Crystal punched the air. “I vowed that I would use the power for good.”

“And so that’s what you have been doing. I see,” Twilight said. “I’m glad that you keep doing it… We could have been in a lot of trouble if you had decided to use that power for evil, huh?”

Crystal, after a long moment, shuddered and nodded solemnly. “Yes… indeed.”

Twilight twiddled her forehooves together and said, “I kinda wanted to ask… do you miss them?”

Crystal frowned and nodded solemnly. “Very much. I lived through that reality with them, and I’d quit this life if it meant I could go back. Mother and Father, you and Sunset Shimmer, your friends, the royal sisters…” Crystal shook her head in disbelief. “I knew them. They were the ponies that I grew up with, had memories with, went through highs and lows with…”

“I think I know what that feels like now,” Twilight said. “You had all those experiences with them… lived a life with them… These past few days, I’ve been looking at everypony around me, and I’m just not sure.”

Crystal chuckled. “Yeah… It’s something, isn’t it?”

“That’s how you felt about Cadance and Shining Armor… about me.”

Crystal stared at her mostly empty bowl. “That’s right. You… you aren’t the Twilight who helped raise me… or the Twilight that tried to help me cope with what I saw… You’re not the Twilight that died when I was young.”

The two sat in silence for several moments. While Crystal’s eyes remained on her plate, Twilight’s gaze slowly locked onto the mare sitting opposite her.

“But I am the Twilight that’s traveled the multiverse with you,” Twilight eventually said. She raised an eyebrow. “That has to mean something, right?”

After a pregnant moment, Crystal giggled. “You know, maybe it does.”

At that moment, the mechanical waiter returned carrying several plates within his magical aura. “Your food has arrived,” he said.

The magic coursing through Crystal’s horn faded and the timelines above the table disappeared. She pushed her plate out of the way, and then Twilight did the same.

The first plate sported several layers of pasta and sauce. “Lasagna for Miss Faire,” the waiter said. The second contained a mountain of buttery noodles; “Fettucine Alfredo for Miss Sparkle…” The last had several pieces of grilled bread with tomato toppings, which the waiter set in the middle; “And your split Bruschetta. Is there anything else that I might procure for you at this time?”

“No, thank you, we’re all set,” Crystal replied.

The waiter bowed and, with his head held high, left them.

Crystal twirled her fork and cleaved her piece of lasagna in two. She then sliced a corner off it and lifted that into her mouth. Her features lit up and she moaned as she chewed. Twilight, meanwhile, twisted several noodles around her own fork until a ball had formed on the end. She popped that into her mouth and momentarily lost herself to the (just right amount of) cheesy flavor.

She started to replay the entire conversation in her mind but only in bits and pieces. She frowned when she realized that something had stuck out.

Several minutes passed. While Crystal ate with a content smile on her face, Twilight’s expression grew more focused; her brow furrowed and her muzzle scrunched up. Her chewing intensified, and she eventually stared at nothing but the plate. Something had definitely stuck out.

Crystal eventually put her fork back down. “Twilight? Are you feeling okay?”

Twilight nodded.

“You’re looking like something’s wrong over there,” Crystal added.

Twilight swallowed her food and waved her hoof in a dismissive manner. “I wouldn’t say that. I mean…”

Crystal raised an eyebrow.

Twilight shook her head. “I think there’s something wrong, but I… can’t… quite put my hoof on it.” She jabbed her fork into the bowl and started rolling more noodles. “Just give me a minute, I’ll probably think of what it is.”

Crystal rolled her eyes and gathered another bite.

A few moments of silence passed between the two of them as they each ate their meals.

Twilight hummed and swallowed her food. She lifted a piece of bruschetta off the center plate and held it close to her mouth. “You said that everything before and including King Sombra is constant across all timelines, right?” she asked.

Crystal, who had a mouth full of food, nodded. “That’s right,” she eventually said after swallowing.

Twilight popped the piece of bruschetta into her mouth and chewed. She could taste the garlic coating and salt. The tomatoes, much colder than the bread itself, stuck out with every chomp. She chewed in silence, and as she did, her brow furrowed more and more.

Eventually, Twilight swallowed. “And… if Starlight and I traveled through time, that means Starlight and I appeared at the moment of the Rainboom in all timelines, right?”

Crystal nodded. “Also right.”

Twilight nodded and took a sip of her water. She twisted some noodles around her fork but, even after a lump had accrued at the end, she didn’t lift to take a bite. She kept twisting and twisting. She took another sip and set the fork down.

She frowned, looked up at Crystal, and said, “But… there are timelines where Starlight and I did not travel through time. Right?”

Crystal, who had been in the middle of chewing her food, stopped. Her eyes remained fixed on her plate before moving up to Twilight. One of her eyebrows cocked up and stayed there.

Twilight leaned across the table. “Right?”

Crystal chewed, swallowed, and then nodded. “Y-yes…” she stammered. “T-that is also right. O-oh—”

There it was. “That’s what’s bothering me, and I think you see it too. Crystal… there’s a discontinuity—”

“Oh. Oh!” Crystal hid a surprised expression behind her hooves.

Twilight steadied herself against the table and stared Crystal down. She watched every little twitch and every eye dart.

Crystal swallowed and steadied herself against the table as well. “You and Starlight appearing at the Rainboom happens in all timelines, but… there are timelines in which you don’t go back to the Rainboom!”

“That’s not possible,” Twilight said through grit teeth.

Crystal pulled on her mane. “But… it… that’s how it is. I don’t…”

The two stared at each other for long moments. Diners around them, engrossed in their own conversations, carried on around them. Metal clinking against china and the low murmur of idle conversations filled the silence. Neither Crystal nor Twilight noticed.

Twilight finally shook her head. “So… first we learn that timelines can collapse, now there’s a discontinuity.”

Crystal flopped her head into her hooves and groaned.

“There must be…” Twilight bit her lip, “things… things at work that we don’t understand. Why would a timeline collapse? What does that? Why the discontinuity? What does that?”

After a moment of silence, Crystal added, “That thing where your timeline threaded together after the fact… I guess I have a lot to learn.”

Twilight sighed and took a drink from her water. After tilting the glass most of the way, thus downing the drink, she shook the remaining ice about and set it at the edge of the table. Crystal glanced up, lit her horn, and Twilight’s glass refilled with water from seemingly nowhere. Twilight chuckled and took another drink.

Crystal remained silent. Her magic sloshed the remaining bits of her wine about. Twilight took a moment to wrap more noodles around her fork and took a bite.

Crystal lifted her head, and after another moment, she chuckled. “Huh, that is a good idea, isn’t it?” she muttered.

Twilight raised an eyebrow and hummed in questioning.

“So… here’s an idea. When we get done eating here…” Crystal’s muzzle curled into a sly smile. “What’s say we run an experiment?”

Twilight paused in her chewing.

“Think about it,” Crystal said, “with your brains and my abilities, we could actually figure out some of those things. We could have a better understanding of how these multiversal mechanics actually work. I know I’d find it useful, and I know this sort of thing is your jam.” She leaned across the table. “What do you say?”

Twilight chewed the rest of her bite, swallowed, and then looked up at Crystal with a growing grin on her face. She chuckled and said, “Crystal… you had me at experiment.”

Crystal’s face lit up. “You’ll do it?”

“Of course! Actually…” Twilight stroked her chin, “I have a couple things in mind… Oh! This is going to be so exciting! I wonder what we’re going to find!”

“Then it’s settled!” Crystal exclaimed, slapping the table. “But let’s finish our meal first. We can talk all about this when we get back.”

Twilight nodded. “Yes, you’re right.” She stuck her fork back into her food and resumed eating.

She remained silent even as Crystal returned to her own food. Twilight’s body turned on autopilot, gathering bites without her being aware of it. Her mind, instead, occupied itself with lists and documentation and methodologies. Hypotheses and thoughts on how to test them bounced around her head.

And Twilight shuddered with excitement.

11 - Experiment

Reality folded back into being and Twilight Sparkle landed on a familiar hardened floor. She looked up and saw the familiar crystalline walls and the bookshelves which ringed around the room. The tables and the mirror portal apparatus stood in their usual places.

Crystal Faire, who stood beside her, turned and walked toward the chalkboard. She used her magic to lift the eraser and began wiping the board clean.

Twilight trotted behind her and, after taking one last look at her work, said, “So, I was thinking…”

“Yes?” Crystal replied.

“That thing where the timelines snapped together when you came to visit… Everything threaded together such that I was still the only Twilight, right?”

Crystal kept her eyes toward erasing the board. “You’re calling that concurrently-crystallized, right?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s… right. I’m… sure that I said it in some conversation that we might have held a few minutes from now.”

“Of course. What about it?”

Twilight leaned in close. “We should try it again so that we’re sure it’s consistent. And we need to know what caused it to happen in the first place.” She pointed to herself and said, “I was displaced, remember?”

“Yeah.”

Twilight stroked her chin. “I was wondering if that had anything to do with it. We should also see if displacement continues even if you return to your original timeline. And also—”

“We could test for all that, sure, but—” Crystal stepped back, nodded at the now-clear chalkboard, and then looked over, “—let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”

Twilight blushed and giggled nervously. “Sorry, I just have so many thoughts. I’m so excited! I can’t wait to get started!”

Crystal chuckled. “I’m sure, I’m sure. But… before that…” She turned and trotted toward one side of the room with the eraser still in her magical grasp. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to see about.”

Twilight tilted her head. “Oh? And what’s that?”

Crystal stopped a few meters away from the bookshelf and tossed the eraser up and down. “Well… it’s something I noticed. I’m going to do something here just because I want to see where this goes.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow.

Crystal lobbed the eraser toward the bookshelf. It flew a couple of meters before it bounced off something invisible and clattered to the floor. Whatever it hit made a startled cry.

Twilight gasped. She eyed the cloud of dust that the collision had thrown off the eraser and watched as it settled into the form of a pony.

Crystal snickered.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “Starlight Glimmer!?”

Starlight Glimmer faded into being and wiped some chalk dust off her muzzle. “What the hay! You knew I was there?”

Crystal snickered even harder.

“Starlight!” Twilight exclaimed as she rushed over. “How the…? You’ve been here this whole time?”

Starlight met eyes with Twilight and blushed. “Uh… yeah… All day, actually.”

“That was an invisibility spell. I…” Twilight blushed and grumbled, “I didn’t even know you could do that.”

“Well, I wanted to know what your top secret stuff was…” Starlight rubbed the back of her head with a guilty frown across her muzzle. “So… uh… I snuck in as you were setting up, and I was, you know, kinda hoping to leave a lot sooner.”

“Because she teleport-proofed the room, right?” Crystal asked.

Twilight frowned. “Yeah, I did. Starlight, I can’t believe you. You were spying on me!?”

“Well…” Starlight began.

“I can’t believe you! How could you spy on me!?”

“I was worried! I wanted to know what was nagging at you so that I could help you, maybe.”

Twilight pinched the bridge of her snout and sighed.

“Well, in fairness,” Crystal said as she turned around, “it was also probabilistic anyhow. There were timelines where she didn’t spy on you. I just happened to pick one where she did.”

Starlight blinked and frowned at Crystal. “Uh… what?”

“Starlight…” Twilight began, “I… appreciate that you’re thinking of me. But, really…”

Crystal chuckled and leaned in. “Plus, Twilight, you did enchant the room so nopony could spy on you. So… you were obviously expecting something.”

A long pause passed between the three of them as Crystal and Starlight stared Twilight down.

Twilight went red in the face and swallowed. “Err… Well, that’s a fair point, I guess.”

Crystal turned. “So, Starlight, the question is how much of what you heard did you actually understand.”

Starlight’s eyes flicked from side to side as she hummed thoughtfully. “Well… I uh… I understood some of it. I guess. I don’t know.”

“Thought so,” Crystal said.

“I mean, I’ve done some stuff with timelines before, believe it or not,” Starlight said, chuckling. “But, uh, what you were talking about got really stupid really quickly, and I got lost. Also, I think that there were things that she said that I couldn’t hear.”

Twilight frowned.

“But… when you appeared out of nowhere a couple minutes ago, the two of you talked… Twilight…” Starlight said, turning, “you said something… something about having trouble looking at reality. At us, even.” She raised an eyebrow and asked, “What gives?”

Crystal looked over with a raised eyebrow.

Twilight sighed. “Well… You see… There are other realities out there. They are so much like this one, but they aren’t exactly the same. I’ve…” She chewed on her next words for a moment. “I’ve been in them at one point or another.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really? I mean…” She grimaced. “I mean, we’ve been to alternate timelines before, you and I. But they were radically different—”

“These aren’t,” Twilight interrupted. “They’re only different in the smallest details. It’s hard to distinguish them from one another.” She turned to Crystal and smiled. “But I think I’m getting the hang of it.”

Starlight turned to Crystal. “And you’re some sort of time traveler?”

“Of a sort,” Crystal replied.

“I mean, I remember you from several days ago,” Starlight said. She scratched her head and mumbled, “I guess some things make sense now.”

“Indeed. As a matter of fact, the two of us just returned from visiting some other timelines. Although, I suppose for you, not even an instant passed, hmmm?”

Starlight scratched her head. “You jumped spots to me.”

Crystal smirked. “Quite. Anyway, this has been fun, and all… but…” Crystal picked Starlight up with her magic and floated her toward the door. “Twilight and I have some business to do.”

Starlight flailed about. “Like what!?” she cried.

“Just some experiments that the two of us want to run,” Crystal said.

Starlight frowned. “Okay?”

Twilight scratched her chin. “Well, Starlight… since you are here, though… I think you might be able to help us out.”

Both Crystal and Starlight blinked and looked back at her and asked, “What?”

Twilight stepped forward. “Well, you have experience with other timelines, after all. Not the way that the two of us do, sure…”

Crystal raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure?”

Starlight puffed her cheeks out and then lit her horn. She teleported out of Crystal’s grasp and reappeared a meter away.

“I’m positive,” Twilight replied. “Starlight is a good friend and I know that I can count on her to help us out.”

“…Even though she doesn’t yet grasp what we’re dealing with?” Crystal grumbled.

Twilight giggled and raised an eyebrow. “Crystal Faire… You know what I’m about.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “…I do.”

“Besides, she has some experience. That’s a good thing!”

Starlight puffed her chest out and smiled with pride.

“I suppose it can’t hurt.” Crystal hummed whilst nodding from side to side. She paced about for a few moments, her expression loosening with every step. “Actually, it’s given me an idea or two. Huh, I think this could work out.”

“I’m so glad to hear you agree!” Twilight turned and hugged Starlight. “This is exciting! We’re going to do an experiment together! I’m glad you could join us.”

Starlight chuckled. “Well, happy to help…”

“So, now we have three experts on time, at least,” Twilight said. “That should be helpful. I wish we had more.”

Starlight hummed as she scratched her chin. “Maybe we should ask Spike? Although I think he said he was going to Rarity’s.”

Crystal stared off into space for a moment. “Yes, he’s there right now. Oh…” She smiled. “It looks like he’s having a great time over there. Phenomenal, even.”

“Oh really?” Twilight asked, tilted her head.

Starlight threw her head back and laughed. “Well!”

“Wait,” Twilight said, “how do you see it turning out?”

Crystal stared again. “I see… well, there’s a significant probability of it being a really nice dinner. I think I’ll even... make that probability a certainty.”

“Well then,” Twilight giggled, “maybe I’ll let my little casanova have it this time.”

Starlight clapped her hooves together. “Right! So… so… yeah. That does just leave the three of us.”

Crystal hummed as she drew circles on the hard floor.

“It’s a shame. I don’t know anypony else who knows even a bit of time travel,” Twilight said.

“Me neither,” Starlight agreed.

Crystal drew more circles into the floor. Her lips puckered and unpuckered as she thought. “I… don’t personally know anypony either. But—” she looked up, “—there is somepony that I know of who springs to mind…”

* * *

The mirror portal shimmered, and a mare of amber coat emerged. Her hind hooves touched the ground but she, strangely, stayed upright. She wobbled for a second and then finally dropped onto all four hooves. Both her curly mane and tail, striped with red and yellow, bounced as she landed.

“Sunset Shimmer!” Twilight exclaimed as she bounced in place. “Hi!”

Sunset Shimmer cracked some joints in her neck and then waved. “How’s it going?” She turned. “Hey, Starlight, how are ya?”

Starlight, hesitantly, waved back. “Uh, hi! Do… Have we met?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Uhhhhhh… yeah. We’ve met. Don’t you remember?”

Starlight frowned in response. “No…?”

Crystal wrapped a hoof around Starlight and pulled her close. “Starlight Glimmer, meet Sunset Shimmer. We are in a timeline in which the two of you have met.”

Sunset’s expression fell. “Uh, excuse me?”

Starlight blinked and glanced at Crystal with a befuddled frown. “We’re in a timeline where…” She jumped and sharply gasped. “Wait. That’s what that teleport was!?”

“Yes, that was me bringing you into another timeline.”

Twilight nodded in agreement.

Sunset tilted her head in confusion. “What timeline, then? Which one are you from?”

Crystal stepped forward. “Ah, Sunset, we’re not from the timelines that you know. Actually, our definition isn’t the same. What you know as alternate timelines are just sub-components of a single timeline in our definition.”

Sunset scratched her head. “…Oooookay.”

“As I understand it, you have already dealt with the Nameless and some things related to it.”

Sunset nodded.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “The what?”

Sunset’s eyes widened and she looked between the two. “Really?”

Crystal nodded.

“Wow. That’s… well…” Sunset scratched her head.

Crystal motioned with her head toward Twilight and Starlight and said, “Why don’t you tell them a little bit about it?”

Sunset straightened up. “Well… there’s this thing under Canterlot. We called it the Nameless. It’s in those caves there. It’s a monster. And, well, some really bad things happened to you,” she said, pointing to Twilight, “and—”

“What sort of bad thing?” Twilight interrupted.

“You don’t wanna know,” Sunset sharply replied. “Either way, during all this, I also started dealing with an infinite number of realities. I used that to master the problem that I was dealing with.”

Crystal smiled.

“I later met some ponies who… they’re a different type of pony entirely. And their queen, Adamantine… she was really nice, but she kinda got backed into a corner...” Sunset frowned and kicked the ground. “I wish I could have done more for her.” She shook her head. “But, during that time, I got involved with alternate timelines and all that.”

“I see,” Twilight replied.

Sunset glanced at Starlight and bit her lip. “I’ll… I’ll spare you the details on that, but whatever.”

“Interestingly enough,” Crystal said as she turned to Twilight, “everything that she just described, these things with the Nameless, happened in my home timeline too. And it is something I have accounted for and built filters around.”

“Fascinating,” Twilight said, stroking her chin. “I can see why you thought of her.”

Crystal chuckled. “More than just that.”

“That’s kinda cool,” Starlight said. “Infinite worlds and alternate timelines, huh?”

Crystal stepped forward. “I think it’s time that I actually introduce myself. My name is Crystal Faire. I’m Twilight’s niece, daughter of Princess Cadance and Prince Shining Armor, and time slider.”

At once, both Starlight and Sunset gasped. “No way! You…” Starlight squinted as her eyes ran over every inch of Crystal. “By Celestia, I thought I vaguely recognized you. Holy hay, you are…”

Sunset tapped a hoof against her chin and looked Crystal up and down. “Huh, that’s interesting. Time slider, huh?”

“Yes,” Crystal replied. “And as to why I’m here, why all of us are here, is that Twilight and I want to run an experiment. Starlight here has agreed to help, and, Sunset, we could use your assistance as well.”

Sunset continued stroking her chin. She cautiously narrowed her eyes. “Hmm, and what exactly are you experimenting?”

Crystal smirked. “The multiverse. We intend to figure out exactly how these infinitely many realities work.”

Sunset frowned. “You can actually do that? Are you sure?”

“I am. And, as we experiment, I will show them to you.”

Sunset stood in silence for a few moments. Her eyes remained mostly on Crystal, but they briefly meandered over Twilight and Starlight. “How long will it take?”

“I don’t know, but you’ll be back in an instant.”

Sunset stroked her chin for a few moments more. Finally, she smiled.

* * *

Twilight packed the sheets of paper into a neat stack and placed them on the table. She turned and repositioned some sticks of chalk on the edge of the chalkboard. She then turned and closely scrutinized the seven lined-up images before her: each looked like several timelines diverging from one point at the bottom. Despite how closely she looked at the images, she couldn’t find anything different about them.

Crystal trotted up, magic coursing through her horn. “Good to go?” she asked.

“I am. Just to make sure one last time,” Twilight said, “this one on the left is me.”

“Yes. If these lines disappear once I travel to other timelines with Starlight and Sunset, then,” Crystal shrugged, “we’ll know that I can’t sustain spells across timelines.”

“And if that happens, you’ll just let me know what you see when you get back and we’ll compile our notes.”

“Right. These lines cover about one hour, so we shouldn’t have any problems seeing anything.”

“Great,” Twilight said, looking past Crystal as Sunset and Starlight trotted up. “Are you two ready?”

Sunset nodded. “I think so. This is going to be interesting, huh?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight replied. “You’ll get to see how all this works.”

“And how she works, I guess,” Starlight added.

“I chose these,” Crystal said, motioning toward the timelines, “because they’re quick fixes. Shouldn’t take me thirty seconds for any of them.”

“It’s efficient, at least.” Twilight lit her horn and floated a piece of chalk to her side. “I’m ready.”

Crystal nodded and turned to the other two. “Let’s get started then. Gather around.”

Starlight and Sunset drew close to Crystal. Crystal shifted, and in a single loud bang, the three of them instantaneously vanished.

Twilight winced at the sound, but the ringing quickly subsided. She then looked over and found that the timelines which Crystal had formed with her magic still floated in the space before her.

She felt her hairs stand on end and, slowly, a smile spread across her face. “Okay!” she exclaimed. She whirled around to face the board and started to write. “Crystal can sustain spells across timelines.”

She twirled the chalk in her magical grasp and turned back to the timelines. “Alright! Now… let’s see what happens!”

She pointed the chalk at the set of timelines on the far left. “The three of them went from here to here,” Twilight said, pointing her chalk at the line right next to it. “Meanwhile, the one I’m in…” She looked it up and down; it appeared crystallized but not as hardened as it should have been.

She hummed and set the chalk down. “It’s… quasi-crystallized. That signifies time-locked segments. Hmm. Why is that?”

Twilight chalked some words onto the board. “I’ll just make a note of this for now.”

She leaned forward to examine the first line again. Her eyes drew toward the bottom where she saw the makings of a crystallized bit. Her muzzle curled into a frown. Her eyes shifted to the second set and saw a crystallized bit forming at its bottom as well. On closer inspection, she saw the set of lines furling together and meeting at the top of the newly crystallized sections.

“This is her threading the timelines together. Everything after this point can still diverge, but then she’s threading those diverging timelines together too.

“So, both my timeline and the one they went to are crystallizing. What does this mean? Crystal is sustaining this image spell from another timeline. Time is passing for her in that timeline…”

Twilight scratched her chin and looked at the two timelines again.

“I’m seeing that passage of time from here.” Twilight gasped. “That… that makes sense! She herself is in another timeline but she is reaching into this one via the image spell, so it’s like existing in both at the same time. So whatever amount of time passes wherever she is… the same amount of time has to pass here as well!”

She whirled around to face the chalkboard again and started to write. “This is a fascinating result! I didn’t even think we’d get anything like this!”

Twilight shivered. We aren’t even a minute into this and already…! What else are we going to find!?

She punctuated the end of her sentence by hitting the chalkboard with the chalk itself. She set the stick back down and turned back to the images.

“Anyway, I suspect that Crystal is done in this second timeline. Now… she’ll travel with Starlight to this third timeline and leave Sunset in the second one.”

In an instant, the second set of timelines changed from a quasi-crystallized state into a mostly solid and viscous one. The bottom sections still appeared entirely crystallized but Twilight could see the boundary where, evidently, Crystal had departed.

“Okay, this timeline, which Sunset is still in, just turned concurrently-crystallized. If I am correct… all these diverging timelines will snap together into one single timeline when Crystal returns to pick her up.”

“Nonetheless, this pretty much confirms the hypothesis,” she said as she wrote her thoughts on the board. “As to why this happens at all… it would conserve the number of Sunsets in the multiverse, I think, just like the amount of myself was conserved.”

Twilight turned to the third line and watched the bottommost parts crystallize. “That’s Crystal there.” She stole a glance at her own timeline which was still slowly crystallizing. “The passage of time still rings true despite the fact that Crystal changed timelines.”

Twilight sat there in silence for several moments. The images changed again as the third set of timelines, the timelines which Starlight was in, turned viscous. Concurrently-crystallized, Twilight noted.

The second set of timelines, where Crystal had once left Sunset, folded together up to a certain point. Everything after that hardened into an almost-crystallized state with the bottommost parts slowly completing the process.

Twilight nodded. “Crystal left Starlight in those timelines and just returned to pick up Sunset. Now, she can take Sunset to the fourth set of timelines here, which is Sunset’s home. Crystal has nothing to fix there. And now Crystal is going to leave Sunset in her own timeline,” she said.

The fourth set of timelines turned viscous as the fifth set right next to it started to crystallize from the bottom up.

Twilight frowned and placed her chalk against the board. “Well, that probably confirms it, then. Displacement is permanent. Once multiversally significant, always multiversally significant. And if you are displaced, then any timeline you travel into will concurrently-crystallize and eventually thread into one single timeline just like it did with me.”

She turned to the fifth set of timelines and examined them closely. “Alright. Now… Crystal is going to an area of high gravity. Let’s see how relativistic time dilation comes into play.” She readied her chalk and watched as both her own and the fifth set crystallized from the bottom up. “It doesn’t matter what timeline Crystal goes to; the passage of time between her and her spell, thus between me and her, is normally constant. But, if relativity holds, my time should go by faster here.”

She giggled and shook her head. “Some future me apparently designed some starship in this one, didn’t she? ES Harmony, I think?” Twilight sighed as many images swam through her head, each bringing a smile to her face. “Wow, to go see black holes and neutron stars up close! I should have gone.”

She watched the two sets of timelines closely. Her own set of timelines continued to furl up and crystallize as before, but the other seemed to do nothing at all. No, there was something happening, but Twilight had to lean in very close to see it: the set of timelines that Crystal was in was doing the same thing as her own but at a snail’s pace.

Twilight flip-flopped between the two timelines and then stood up. “So, that’s it. Crystal’s time has slowed down, and it shows! That’s why hers is crystallizing at the rate it is: it’s crystallizing at her speed. Meanwhile, mine is still crystallizing but it’s because of the spell. So, really, it’s still her speed.”

Twilight wrote the results on the board and then took a step back. “So, to summarize this series, timelines crystallize at the rate in which Crystal experiences time. That seems to suggest…” Twilight placed a hoof on her chin. “It’s like… Crystal Faire is the metric by which these timelines evolve.”

She clopped her hooves together and smiled wide. “Fascinating! And it… it makes sense! She’s the one that’s affecting alterations.”

The fifth set of timelines froze, and a sixth began to crystallize. Twilight turned her attention to the latter. “And then… Crystal is going into this sixth timeline and she’s going to leave her cloak there. Sunset and Starlight have prompted the timelines to turn concurrently-crystallized. Let’s see if an inanimate object does as well.”

The sixth set of timelines turned viscous as Crystal, Twilight presumed, hopped to the seventh and final set of timelines.

Twilight hummed. “Okay, so displacement also occurs with inanimate objects too. Her cloak is multiversally significant. So, basically, anything which travels to another timeline becomes multiversally significant.”

She glanced at the final set. “Now Crystal is going to sustain a spell just like this one,” she motioned to the images before her, “and then she will jump back to get her cloak.” Twilight pointed to a spot within the unfurled sections. “This is about thirty minutes from the time she left, right? Let’s see if these infinitely many timelines snap together into one effective timeline, just like with what happened to me.”

Sure enough, half the set suddenly folded together into a single line. Only the last bits near the top remained unfurled.

“So, that confirms it. There were an infinite number of timelines which the cloak occupied, and then Crystal visited one of them, and everything threaded into that one timeline. Simply incredible…” she whispered as she wrote her conclusion on the board.

Twilight hummed. “And now, Crystal should travel back to this seventh set which she’s sustaining that second spell in. Look at that, it’s turned quasi-crystallized, just like my own. Nonetheless, thirty minutes out should do.”

Twilight watched in silence at the images remained unchanged. The sixth set, which Crystal occupied, continued to crystallize at the rate which it had done so before. Seconds ticked by, and eventually Twilight frowned.

She scratched her head and leaned forward. “Okay… thirty seconds?”

Again, the images remained unchanged.

“Interesting… Twilight cooed. “Okay, Crystal… can you hit it right on the dot? Travel to the same moment that your spell is in.”

The images changed. The bits at the tops of both sets turned hazy as, Twilight presumed, Crystal hopped from the sixth set to the seventh. Twilight immediately jumped in response.

She whirled to face the board. “Okay! So that actually worked that time. I mean, obviously, we should have expected this since everything in the future was quasi-crystallized. I wonder why…?”

She took a moment to write down the result on the board and then turned back toward the images again. “If I had to guess… it has to become quasi-crystallized because, even if you aren’t physically there, you still have some presence there. And you can’t exist in two time periods at once.”

Twilight heard a loud bang and whirled around to find Crystal standing before her.

“That’s what I was thinking,” Crystal said. “It must be a failsafe of some sort.”

Twilight turned back toward the image. “Look at that; it’s quasi-crystallized again. You’re here, but your spell is there. It’s preservation of continuity.”

“That’s what it looks like.”

Twilight scratched her head. “I wonder… do you think something along this line might explain that discontinuity we talked about?”

Crystal snorted and shook her head. “I can’t really say right now. There’s still too much about it that we don’t know.”

“Right…” She turned back toward the images, looking over each of the seven sets of timelines again. “Alright, I think that should be everything.” Her eyes centered on the last set of timelines again. She looked at it closely. “Actually…”

“Hmmm?”

“Discontinue this second spell right now. I want to see what happens.”

Crystal nodded and leaned forward as well. In an instant, the seventh set turned from almost-crystallized to hazy and undefined.

Crystal hummed. “Okay, this makes sense. I don’t have a presence there anymore, so it’s free to unthread and diverge.”

Twilight clopped her hooves together and smiled wide. “Fantastic. I figured that would happen, and it’s good to know that I was right!”

Crystal nodded. “Alright, anything else?”

Twilight examined the set of lines again and then, eventually, shook her head. “Nope. I think we’re done.”

Crystal clopped her hooves together too. “Great! So then… I can go gather up Starlight and Sunset and we can review what all we’ve learned.”

“Right. Uh… before you go… I want to ask you something really quick.”

The magic coursing through Crystal’s horn faded. The sets of timelines which had been next to the chalkboard faded into nothing. Crystal looked over her withers. “Yeah?”

“Can you come by tomorrow? I’m going to need your help with something.”

Crystal raised an eyebrow. “Really? What?”

Twilight blushed and rubbed her foreleg. “I… I need to get some things off my chest. I’ll need your help.”

Crystal’s mouth formed a slanted line. She hummed and kicked the floor. Eventually, she replied, “Sure. Actually, I guess I’ll take Sunset home and then come back and just stay the night. I need to get some sleep, anyhow.”

“You’ll help me?”

“…Yeah.”

Twilight nodded. “Okay. Thanks, Crystal. Go get them so that we can get back to business.”

Crystal nodded. She shifted and disappeared in a loud bang. A simultaneous bang sounded from a meter away from where Crystal reappeared with both Sunset and Starlight by her side.

The latter two blinked, looked around at their surroundings, and then looked at Twilight.

And Twilight smirked.

12 - Sincerity

Morning light filtered in through the window and lit the dining room. Twilight Sparkle stared off into space. That just so happened to run into the wall on the far side of the room. Her hooves rested on the lacquered wooden table that took up the center of the room.

The same hypothetical conversation played in her mind over and over again. Despite her saying the same things over and over again, the responses she got were different every time. Some were favorable; others were less so.

Starlight Glimmer and Spike stood together nearby. The both of them remained silent, waiting for whatever she had to say.

And Twilight knew what she had to say. This conversation, however hypothetical, needed to happen. Twilight sighed and straightened up. “Okay… here is what I want you to do. I want you… to go and gather the girls. Tell them to meet me in the throne room.”

The two exchanged glances and then saluted. At once, they turned and walked toward the doors.

The doors swung open and Crystal Faire, with a tangled mane and half-shut eyes, stumbled into the room. She passed by the two as they made their way out of the room and shut the door behind them. Eventually, Crystal hopped onto the seat next to Twilight.

And the two sat in silence for several moments.

Crystal smacked her lips together and then opened her eyes just enough to glance around the table. “Where’s breakfast?”

Twilight smiled. “Oh, everyone already ate.”

Crystal groaned and then went still. Her horn lit for a moment, and a bowl of hot porridge appeared in front of her. Her magic gripped a spoon within and stirred the contents about.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “And where did you get that?” she asked.

“Um… I got it from Baltimare. Just now.”

“…You stole somepony’s breakfast.”

Crystal dipped the spoon and yielded a decent bite. She flashed Twilight a brief glare and then shoved the bite into her mouth.

Twilight stared back for several seconds and then, as Crystal prepared to take another bite, she lit her horn and yanked on Crystal’s ear with her magic.

Crystal yelped and tilted over. Once Twilight’s pull faded, Crystal sat back up, messaged her ear, and then glared at Twilight while taking her bite.

Twilight snorted and shook her head but returned to gazing into space all the same.

A few moments of silence passed between the two of them.

Crystal eventually made a napkin appear and she wiped her mouth and set both that and her spoon down. “So… are you sure about this?”

Twilight, with a certain frown, nodded. “Yes. Absolutely. I need to get this off my chest.”

“I can tell that you’re pretty nervous about it.”

Twilight nodded. “I am, just because I don’t know how it’s going to go. I bet you know what’s going to happen. I bet you could even influence it with your threading.”

“My being there makes things fluctuate, and it’s hard to favorably collapse the probability when it’s constantly changing in front of me.”

Twilight sighed and nodded.

Crystal reached across the table and lay her hoof on Twilight’s. “But, if it means anything… I think it will be okay.”

Twilight met Crystal’s gaze and smiled.

* * *

“Thank you all for coming,” Twilight said as she sat up in her throne. She looked out at the many faces looking back at her. “I know this is short notice, but this is pretty important.”

Her friends sat on their respective thrones. Spike sat in his own throne to Twilight’s right while Crystal stood on her left. Starlight stood with Owlowiscious the owl on the opposite side of the Cutie Map.

Rarity waved dismissively. “Oh goodness, darling, we’re happy to be here.”

“Ya know it,” Applejack agreed. “But what’s this all about anyway?”

“Yeah, Twilight?” Rainbow Dash asked.

Twilight sucked in a breath and sat tall. “Girls, there is something that I have to tell you. I wanted to tell you about what’s been troubling me over these past few days…”

Everyone else save Crystal brightened up in response.

“And…” Twilight nodded. “I think that what I’m going to tell you is going to change everything.”

Pinkie Pie giggled. “You unlocked the secret to alicorn magic? You made another alicorn!?” She jumped up from her seat. “Oh! You made her! That’s why she’s here, right?” she asked, pointing at Crystal.

Crystal giggled.

“Ah don’t reckon it’s that, Pinkie,” Applejack replied with a raised eyebrow. “But, Ah gotta admit, Ah’m sittin’ here wonderin’ why she’s here too.”

“Me too,” Fluttershy agreed.

“That’s Flurry Heart,” Starlight blurted.

Everyone turned their attention to Starlight, raising their eyebrows like she had said the most nonsensical thing in the world.

Starlight’s eyes darted around as she took in their stares, and she shook her head. “She’s Flurry Heart, but she’s like from an alternate future or something.”

They all turned back to Crystal although their expressions remained unchanged.

Rarity puckered her lips and scratched her chin in thought. “I don’t know, but I do see the resemblance…”

“Yeah, you are lookin’ almost like what Ah imagined she’d grow up to be. Almost,” Applejack said, narrowing her eyes as she leaned across the table. “Uh, you ain’t her, ain’t ya?”

“She is, actually,” Twilight said, turning to Crystal. “Do you want to introduce yourself?”

Crystal nodded and inched closer to the edge of the Map. “My name is Crystal Faire, but your reality knows me as Flurry Heart. You may call me that if you wish. What Starlight said is true; I am from an alternate future.”

Rainbow Dash sprang from her seat. “For real!?”

“For real,” Twilight and Starlight both said.

Several awed gasps and exclamations erupted at once. Smiles and brightened faces dotted the room.

Pinkie Pie bounded out of her seat and streaked across the table and booped Crystal on the nose. “Hi! I’m Pinkie Pie! But you probably already knew that. I’ve met you before. Well… I’ve met little you.”

Crystal chuckled. “Pinkie Pie, we are well met. As are the rest of you. Where I come from… when I come from… I grew up knowing all of you somewhat closely.”

“Crystal here travels the multiverse,” Twilight explained. “She travels from timeline to timeline, making changes here and there. She primarily prevents bad timelines from happening.”

The others cooed (or, in one case, hooted) in response.

“She’s the real deal,” Starlight said. “We all did some things yesterday together, her, Twilight, and I. I got to see some other timelines firsthoof.”

“That sounds absolutely romantic,” Rarity said. “Traveling to the farthest reaches of possibility. Oh! I wonder what you’d find out there! Adventure! Mystery!” She fluttered her eyes and added, “Maybe you’d even find love?”

Crystal shrugged. “Sure, but only until the sheets come out of the wash. Nonetheless, I do find many interesting things in my travels. Of course, I spend most of my waking moments righting the wrongs in various timelines.”

Rarity briefly went red in the face and then giggled. “Of course. Goodness, I do have to wonder what trends are in in some of those places.”

“The effects of butterflies work in mysterious ways,” Crystal replied. “In some places, you’ve already opened a new branch in Las Pegasus, and yet you haven’t even gone to Canterlot or Manehattan in others. The possibilities are endless.”

“Hoo,” Owlowiscious replied.

“You said it,” Applejack seconded. “That all sounds mighty amazin’. But Ah ain’t sure if Ah can wrap my head around all that.”

“Well, we have seen something like this before,” Fluttershy pointed out. “I mean, at least, Twilight and Starlight have.”

Starlight turned red and rubbed the back of her head. “It’s not really the same. These timelines behave a little differently. I’m not all that sure how it works yet myself. They know more about it than I do.”

“But they’re different realities, right?” Rarity asked.

“Yeah. They’re timelines where things have gone just a bit differently. But, you know how it is; things can always turn out drastically different. I’ve seen them.” She stood up and pumped a hoof into the air. “I’ve been to them!”

“That’s awesome!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “Twilight, have you been to any of these other timelines? Huh?”

Words scrambled up Twilight’s throat and, after taking a moment to fold her hooves together and otherwise steel herself, she looked up and let those words find voice. “Well, see… that’s the thing… I’m originally from those other timelines.”

Everyone in the room, including Crystal, froze and then turned to face her. Most smiles had been replaced with befuddled frowns. Owlowiscious hopped a few centimeters in her direction.

“Why,” Rarity said, “whatever do you mean by that?”

“I’m from another timeline,” Twilight said. “That’s why I’ve been so bothered over these past few days.”

The others remained silent. Their glances turned toward Crystal; she regarded them in kind and then grimaced and averted her gaze. Their frowns deepened and they all fixed their attention back on Twilight.

“I haven’t been all that sure how to broach the subject,” Twilight said. Her eyes glued themselves to the table. “I mean… how does one even begin to talk about something like this? I’m from another reality, just like she is,” she said as she pointed to Crystal. “It was one so much like this one, but… things were different there.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Like…?”

“Like… I came from a reality where Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy agreed to play a game of Buckball against Appleloosa when Braeburn said that they could beat Ponyville. We ended up winning thanks to them!” Twilight exclaimed, throwing her hooves into the air for emphasis. “I came from a reality where we caught onto Rainbow Dash’s cookie prank… And since her pranks were getting out of hoof, we pretended to be zombies to return the favor and we taught her a valuable lesson.” Her eyes grew wetter and she ground her teeth together. “I came from a reality where Ponyville won the Equestria Games, and where I never went to that Daring Do convention. And…”

Twilight sucked in a breath. “The Golden Oak Library… it’s still standing even now. It survived the battle with Tirek. But where I come from… Tirek blew it up.”

Her friends shuddered and shared grimaces.

“I almost lost everything that day. It took me a long while to get over it. And I remember… all of you came together and helped me out… because I had a hard time dealing with it…” Twilight shook her head. “But no matter how much I wanted to tell myself otherwise, it didn’t feel like home.”

Owlowiscious rustled his feathers. Spike glanced down at his claws as he twiddled them together.

“I don’t know what else is different,” Twilight continued. “And I don’t think I can ever know what’s different. I’m not sure of anything anymore. But… this is where I am now.”

She grew silent. Everyone else shifted in their seats and exchanged glances. Their brows were furrowed and they flip-flopped between considering Twilight and looking at everyone else’s expressions.

She knew that they were contemplating her story. She waited for them to laugh at her. In some ways, she wanted it. It had to beat the alternative.

Starlight shook her head. “I don’t know, Twilight… That sounds pretty crazy.”

The others nodded in agreement.

Starlight’s eyes flicked to Crystal. “But… I’ve seen these other timelines for myself. I know that they’re real.” She paused and pursed her lips together. “I guess… my first question is… if you’re really from another timeline, then why are you here at all?”

And so it was. Finally, the other half of the hypothetical conversation had arrived.

“When I first met Crystal a few days ago… she came to my timeline to help me… help us defeat an evil which would have taken over Equestria.” Twilight shivered. “We would have lost to it if Crystal had not shown up. We ended up pulling through thanks to her help. She saved our timeline.”

Twilight hung her head. “I thought we were in the clear. But…” Not even she was sure of the words she wanted to say next. “My timeline… it collapsed.”

Crystal averted her gaze even more.

Rarity swallowed. “Collapsed?”

Twilight couldn’t find the words.

“Yes. Her entire reality died,” Crystal said. “Just imagine… if every moment past this one no longer existed.”

All eyes, save Twilight’s, turned to her.

“W-what…?” Rarity said.

“I didn’t know,” Twilight quivered. “I didn’t know that it would be the last time I’d see anypony that I loved. I… I didn’t know that I would be the only one to survive.” Images of the things she had seen flashed through her mind, and each one made her eyes grow wetter. “I watched… Canterlot fall off the mountain.”

Everyone cringed.

“I watched the land break apart… I watched Ponyville fall into a hole…” She sobbed. “I… I can’t imagine what that must have felt like. I can’t imagine what you all must have felt like in those moments.”

She looked at their faces again. Every bit of mane still hung the right way and every freckle and eyelash was in the right place. Applejack’s stetson was still at the same usual angle. But, Twilight knew, these were not the ponies that had ceased to exist.

“You remind me so much of them. You are them.” Twilight shook her head and said, with a solemn tone, “But they were from another time… another life.”

Fluttershy and Rarity looked a little bit wet in the face. Applejack removed her stetson and set it on the Map. Rainbow Dash’s features had scrunched up and she looked ready to fly out of her seat. Pinkie Pie, usually jittery, had stopped.

“What is that even like?” Spike asked. “It just sounds so weird.”

“Knowing you lost them but they’re right there in front of you…” Starlight added.

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s hard to explain. Either way, this is where I am now, and I want you all to know that, no matter what, I still care deeply for all of you. I just have to… adjust.”

The others still remained silent.

“Anyway,” Twilight said as she leaned back in her seat, “that’s all I have. I just wanted to let you all know the truth.” Finding herself unconvinced, she added, “That’s all.”

Spike folded his claws together while his eyes remained fixed on Twilight. Owlowiscious didn’t visibly react aside from ruffling his wings a little bit.

Starlight opened and closed her mouth a few times and then she finally put her forehooves on the Map and leaned across it. “I… Twilight…”

Twilight averted her gaze and mentally steeled herself for whatever came next.

“I… there’s just one other thing that I don’t understand.”

“I know that this is a lot,” Twilight muttered. “What is it?”

Starlight licked her lips together and then said, “If… you are from another timeline… if you aren’t the Twilight from our timeline…” Some bits of color disappeared from her face. “Then where did our Twilight go?”

Twilight blinked despite somehow knowing that the question would have come up eventually. She slowly twisted in her seat so that she faced Crystal.

All eyes in the room followed.

Crystal met each of their looks and even shied away. Eventually, she frowned and grabbed her foreleg in shame. A few moments later, she said, “Well… it is as has been said: I travel the multiverse attempting to right those things that go wrong. And this isn’t the first time that I’ve been to this timeline, not even to bring Twilight here from her own.”

Twilight blinked. This was new.

Crystal blushed and hung her head. “It’s… like I told Twilight here… I don’t have a perfect track record. I make mistakes sometimes… and…”

Twilight stood up in her throne. “Crystal… where am I?”

Crystal sucked in a breath and met Twilight’s gaze dead-on. “Perhaps… it would be best if I took you to her.”

* * *

Twilight’s legs wobbled underneath her and she let them give way.

The sounds of echoing bird chirps and rustling leaves filled the surrounding forest. The occasional tree broke up the moss-covered ground. The trees themselves blocked out most of the sun’s light, but the occasional sunbeam still broke through.

One such sunbeam fell on the mound of dirt which they stood around. At one end of the mound, a large slab of rock stood half-way wedged into the dirt.

A loud bang signaled all the air rushing out of Pinkamena Diane Pie’s mane. She also fell to her knees.

Rarity shook like a leaf. “G-g-good h-heavens…”

Twilight couldn’t look anywhere else. She didn’t want to either.

Applejack, who looked a little green in the face, threw her stetson to the ground. “Ah don’t believe it. Ah just don’t believe it!”

Crystal, who stood outside of the circle, took a step further back. “Alas…”

Fluttershy’s eyes filled up with tears and her lip quivered.

Rainbow Dash ground her teeth together. “What… the buck happened!?”

Starlight stamped the ground and pointed at Crystal. “Explain yourself!”

After a moment, Crystal turned and motioned toward a broken tree. Said tree had been snapped in half with its upper portions lying nearby. A few more trees beyond that sported snapped branches and spots where the bark had been stripped away. The trail of destruction ended at a large lump several times their size lying on the forest floor. Its orange scales shone in the sunlight. The main body separated into five long necks which ended in serpent-like heads sporting pink horns shooting out their backs. It lay with its broad backside toward them.

Countless insects flew about and scurried across its surface. It showed no signs that it planned to move for the foreseeable future.

Rarity reeled. “Ah!”

“That’s a hydra!” Fluttershy exclaimed.

“That it is,” Crystal replied.

Rainbow Dash shuddered and shook her head. “Okay. But what does that hydra have to do with anything?”

Crystal whimpered. “It has everything to do with it. It is… exactly it.”

Twilight sighed through her nose and said, “I knew it.”

All eyes turned to her. Owlowiscious hopped over to Twilight and hooted.

Twilight let her head fall into her hooves.

“It was a very very long time ago. Probably a thousand years for me, maybe two thousand. I don’t know,” Crystal said. Her tone was subdued and she sounded like she was forcing her words out. “But I came to this reality to save Twilight’s life.”

After a moment of silence, Twilight asked, “When I came out here to the Everfree? Right?”

Crystal nodded. “That’s right.”

Starlight went pale. “But… but… that was only a few days ago!”

“For you,” Crystal replied. “Twilight, your Twilight, ventured out here to collect those samples. At the time, there existed a set of timelines which diverged from there… where Twilight would have been killed by that very same hydra. I came here to correct that.”

Twilight felt like her insides were twisting into tighter knots with each word that she heard.

“What?” Starlight seethed.

“I came here to fight it off. It was a long battle that I eventually won, but… I wasn’t fast enough back then.” Crystal grimaced. “I wasn’t good enough.”

Spike, with tears in his eyes, crawled onto the mound of dirt and placed his claws on the headstone. Owlowiscious, similarly, lifted off the ground and found a perch on the headstone where he could look across the mound. His hoots were strained and he continually ruffled his wings.

The others sniffled and sobbed and turned their eyes toward the mound.

“So… she’s…” Fluttershy quivered.

Crystal nodded solemnly.

“A few days!” Rarity cried. She knelt over the mound. “Oh, Twilight! We didn’t even know!”

Applejack picked her stetson off the ground and hid her face behind it. “Gosh darnit, Twi… Gosh darn you. You… ya had to go an’ leave us like this!?”

The others collapsed and broke into wails and cries.

And Twilight remained with her knees in the dirt and with her expression blank. Crystal turned away from them.

“Oh stars, oh stars,” Rarity whimpered.

“Twilight… I can’t believe you’re gone!” Spike cried.

“But she’s right here. She’s right in front of us.” Starlight pulled on her mane. “This is all so confusing…”

Spike balled his claws and slammed them against his knees. “I know!”

Twilight sucked in a breath. “…Spike.”

Spike blinked and flipped over to face her. He swallowed every sob and whimper that he was about to have and stared her down.

“This is the answer to your question. This is what it feels like,” Twilight croaked.

Crystal shuddered.

Everyone went quiet. They wiped the tears out of their eyes and gazed at her.

Fluttershy whimpered and rose to her hooves. “Oh, Twilight…”

Rainbow Dash stood up and shuffled over to Twilight. Her eyes remained locked on Twilight, and Twilight eventually locked eyes in return and stood up as well. The two were nearly muzzle-to-muzzle.

After what seemed like an eternity, Rainbow Dash bared her teeth, raised a hoof, and rammed it into Twilight’s face.

Twilight’s cheek stung, but she held her ground.

The others gasped and stood up in a huff. Crystal, meanwhile, didn’t even look back.

When Rainbow Dash didn’t follow up, Twilight reached up and stroked the offended cheek. The sting brought some tears to her eyes. Or, perhaps, hurried already due tears along. The other part of her had expected the hit. She needed the hit, even. Twilight whimpered and looked down at the ground. “I probably deserved that for the way I deceived you.”

Rainbow Dash snorted and shook her head.

Twilight glanced over the rest of them. “All of you, even. I’m so sorry…”

Applejack frowned and trotted up alongside Rainbow Dash. “Sugarcube… Ah know this ain’t all your fault. Ah don’t think there’s any one pony to blame for all this.”

Fluttershy wiped some tears from her eyes and nodded. “That hydra sure was being a big meanie. But they always are, aren’t they?”

“And you,” Applejack continued, turning to Crystal, “you done let her die, but Ah’m sure you tried your darndest to save her.”

Crystal’s frown deepened and she hung her head all the same.

Rarity scowled. “But why would you bring another Twilight here if ours was…”

“It was… so that you wouldn’t have to live your lives with my mistake,” Crystal replied. “You would have somepony you could call your friend.”

Starlight frowned. “I guess that’s a good reason… But…”

“I know it was spur of the moment,” Crystal murmured, “and I deceived you with it. So I am sorry as well.”

Starlight nodded. “Okay.”

Rainbow Dash stroked the mound. “I’m mad at her, even. She came out here alone! She let that—” she pointed to the hydra, “—thing have its way. This is all so messed up.” She rubbed her temples and groaned.

“I couldn’t have lived with myself keeping it away from you any longer, and you deserve to know,” Twilight croaked. “It’s like I said: this changes everything. Everything between us and—”

“Ah wouldn’t say that,” Applejack interrupted. “This changes some things, sure, but… we are still your friends, Twilight. It don’t matter where you come from. You are Twilight Sparkle and we are here for you.”

Crystal blinked and turned around to watch them again. Her jaw hung limp like she had forgotten it was there.

Pinkamena sniffled and cracked a smile. “Yeah, that’s right.”

Twilight had to remember to breathe. “What?”

Spike trotted up to Twilight and wrapped his arms around her neck. “She’s right, Twilight. You need friends and your number one assistant.”

“Hoo.” Owlowiscious landed on Twilight’s back.

“And you’ll need your grad student,” Starlight said with a grin.

New tears, filled with warmth, appeared in Twilight’s eyes. The corners of her mouth curled up. “Everypony…” she quivered, “are you sure?”

“Yes. I don’t think we could bring Twilight back…” Fluttershy said.

“But,” Rainbow Dash said with a sharp tone as she jabbed Twilight in the chest, “you sure as hay can pick up where she left off. You’d better.”

Twilight swallowed. “Y-yes. I will try. I will do my best.” She wrapped her foreleg around Spike as she met gaze after gaze. “But I might need help.”

Crystal took a few steps toward Twilight but said nothing.

“I know most things. But there are things about this reality that I have to adjust to. There are subtleties that I don’t even know about. I might slip up. I’ve already done everything that I can, but I… I can’t be sure of anything.”

Starlight nodded and laid a hoof on the headstone. “Well… Twilight taught me so many things. She taught us so many things.” She stroked the top of the rock and met Twilight’s gaze again. “I guess it’s our turn to teach you.”

“Ah know that’s what our Twilight would want,” Applejack said. “And Ah know she’d want us to be as much of a friend to you as we were with her.”

Twilight smiled and wiped a few tears from her eyes. Turning her sights toward the headstone, she straightened up. “I don’t know where you are right now. But if you’re looking down on us… on me… I’ll make you proud.” She sighed. “And… I can only hope that someday, Equestria will know what actually happened to you… to us. I want to give you something better than this. I will.”

Spike looked at the headstone as well. “Me too.”

Rarity, whose mascara had run and formed large black streaks down the sides of her face, sniffled and nodded as she turned to the headstone too. “Yes. And we’ll be sure to visit often in the meantime.”

Seven ponies, a dragon, and an owl spent several long and silent moments huddled together with all their eyes fixed on the gravesite. They would occasionally wipe some remaining tears from their eyes and sniffle.

Crystal, who still stood distanced from them, shook her head from side to side and hummed. She eventually turned to leave.

Twilight looked up. “Crystal?”

Crystal paused.

Twilight brought Spike in closer and said, “Thanks.”

The others looked up as well.

Crystal’s cloak flapped in a light breeze that made its way through the trees. “So that’s it, huh?”

“Yes,” Twilight replied. “I think that I’m going to get over this. I think I’m going to be okay.”

Crystal cocked her head to look at Twilight. A frown remained on her face. “You have quite the dependable group here. You have… lost so much, and yet here they are to pick you right back up.”

Twilight’s smile widened. “They are… the best that anypony could ask for.”

Crystal’s features paled and she averted her gaze. “Must be nice having something like that,” she croaked.

Every fleeting feeling Twilight had disappeared in a heartbeat, and she gasped. “Oh! That’s right! You—”

Crystal Faire shifted, and with a loud bang, she suddenly disappeared.

The others yelped and reeled in response but Twilight stood her ground. They all stared at the spot that Crystal had once occupied.

Twilight licked her dried lips. “You’ve lost so much too, and yet…”

Starlight frowned. “Well… whatever. What’s say we all head back?”

The others nodded and gave affirmative hums.

“I reckon that home’s that-a-way,” Applejack said as she pointed through the trees.

Twilight chuckled. “I think so too. Let’s get going, everyone.”

The nine of them filed out of the site. Most touched the headstone as they passed by it.

As the others pressed on, Twilight stopped and turned. She glanced at the headstone one last time and tilted her head directly into the sunbeam.

“Crystal…” she whispered, “I just… I hope that you know… that just as they are for me… I am here for you.”

14 - Uncertainty

Twilight Sparkle’s world folded back into being. She blinked for a moment and then stood up to examine the room around them. The throne room was just as they had left it, complete with the flashcards still on the table.

And she clutched at her head. “This is bad…”

Crystal Faire stumbled off the table and toward the doors.

“Really bad,” Sunset Shimmer echoed.

“I’m not sure how I can even deal with this,” Starlight Glimmer said as a shudder ran down her spine.

“How any of us can deal with this,” Twilight agreed.

Chrysalis snorted and stuck her nose into the air.

Crystal threw the doors open with her magic and stumbled through, wheezing, “I need some air.” She made it a few steps past the doorway before lighting her horn and disappearing in a white flash and an airy pop.

Twilight blinked at the display and then hopped off the table. “Oh…”

“Did she just travel to some other timeline somewhere?” Starlight asked.

Twilight shook her head. “No, no. I… Actually, I know where she went.” She whirled to face the others. “Stay here for a bit, okay?”

Sunset raised an eyebrow and considered Chrysalis. “Uhhh, sure?”

“You’re really going to leave us alone with her?” Starlight asked.

Chrysalis bared her teeth.

“I will be right back. Just…” Twilight said with a sigh, “don’t tear each other apart, okay? Talk about what timelines you’re from, I guess. Something.”

Starlight and Sunset exchanged glances and then turned to face Chrysalis.

Twilight lit her horn and her world folded into a single point. She re-emerged to bitter cold and snow hitting her muzzle. She looked around the flat surface that was her roof and noted the snow layered across it. The sun sat just above the horizon, casting red glows on the nearby tower and the huge crystal star that sat atop it.

She spotted hoofprints in the snow and followed them to the edge of the roof where she found Crystal looking out across Equestria, her cloak flapping in a light breeze.

Twilight shivered but nonetheless trotted forward. “Crystal?”

Crystal swallowed. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” she croaked.

Twilight trotted up right beside her. “See the bleeding?”

“I’ve seen collapsed timelines before. I’ve told you that much. But those should have been my first sign that something was wrong.” Crystal shook her head. “I ignored it. I didn’t see it.”

“The multiverse is dying,” Twilight said. The words themselves required her to replay them in her mind. She almost couldn’t believe what she had just uttered. She had seen and heard a number of fantastic things ever since they had met, and much of them had been, however far-fetched, true.

And this couldn’t be true. She needed it to not be true.

“Something has to be done!” Twilight exclaimed. “Or else, every single one of these infinitely many realities will eventually collapse!”

“I know…” Crystal stammered.

Twilight slapped some snow. “Ugh! This is bad! This is very bad!”

Crystal hung her head.

Twilight whirled. “But you… you might be able to do something about this. Crystal, you are the only one in the entire multiverse that can do what you do, right? You have to do something!” Twilight screamed.

Crystal shuddered and withdrew into herself. “I don’t know if I can… I don’t think I can…”

“You can! You have to! More and more realities are dying by the moment!”

“I know…”

“Then do something! Anything!”

Crystal ground her teeth together and whirled to face Twilight with her eyes the size of dots. “I want to!” she shrieked. “But I don’t know what to do here! I don’t know if there’s anything that I can do here! I have no plan!”

Twilight reeled. “No… No…”

Crystal’s legs gave way and she collapsed into the snow. She curled herself into a fetal position and rocked back and forth. “I can’t… I can’t…”

Twilight stepped back. “A-ah…” She could feel the strength leaving her legs, no, the strength leaving her everything. She felt numb. She couldn’t even be bothered to notice the cold anymore. “Ah…”

Crystal lay there in the snow, staring off into space. “I can’t…”

Twilight swallowed. “Crystal… Yes, you can. I know you can. You’ve been across the entire multiverse. You’ve seen things that most ponies could only dream of. You’ve had a plan for everything! Your possibilities are infinite!”

“But this is so much more than that,” Crystal replied. “I’ve solved timelines within the multiverse. But… I’ve never even dreamed of having to solve the multiverse itself.”

Twilight’s legs gave way. “No.”

“I am out of my depth, Twilight. I don’t know what to do…” Crystal sighed and curled up tight. “I’m… not capable of doing this.”

* * *

Chrysalis glanced around the room. She could spot her reflections in the wall’s many faces. “So, this is her castle. I’ve seen it from outside, but I’ve never actually been inside it before.” Her expression scrunched into one of disgust as she said, “What a gaudy and ugly looking place this is.”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “Say what you want about it. This place is home.”

“Well… I do sometimes wonder what the Ponyville Zoning Board thinks of this place, though,” Sunset said.

Chrysalis snorted. “Gaudy.”

“I think it looks nice. Kinda out of place in Ponyville, but…” Sunset shrugged and said, “Can’t really blame her when a magic chest just plops this whole thing down. But it’s nowhere near ugly.”

“You would think so, Sunset Shimmer,” Chrysalis hissed.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Uh, did we meet in your home timeline?”

Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s precious. Of course we met, you cretin. Do you not remember when you and those others came to my hive and dared to try and usurp my throne?”

Sunset shook her head. “I’ve never met you before. Not in my timeline, at least.”

“She wasn’t at the hive,” Starlight seconded as she took a seat in one of the nearby thrones. “Heck, before all this multiverse business… I’ve never even met her.”

“Well, I will have you know that it was you, you,” Chrysalis said as she pointed at Starlight, “and that accursed Twilight Sparkle who showed up in my throne room that day.”

Starlight frowned. “Twilight? Didn’t you capture her?”

“We tried,” Chrysalis replied, standing tall and regal, “but she somehow eluded us. We watched that castle from every direction. She never left it. And yet… she evaded detection. Whichever place she chose to hide in, she chose it well.”

Sunset’s mouth formed into a slant. “Huh. She must’ve hidden in the mirror.”

Chrysalis deadpanned. “The… what?”

Starlight took a step back. “Ah, maybe we should have Twilight tell you about that one.”

Chrysalis, for several long moments, stared Starlight down. She buzzed her wings once, twice, and then shook her head and turned away. “Not like it matters anymore,” she said, her voice drawing down toward a whisper.

Starlight sighed and took a seat. “Must be tough, huh? Losing everything like that…”

“Hah. As if I had anything going for me.”

Starlight shook her head. “I’ve asked Twilight what it was like losing her timeline like that. I’m not sure if I still know how it feels.”

Sunset blinked. “Wait. Twilight lost her timeline?”

“Uh, yeah! Her home timeline collapsed. She lost everything!” Starlight said as she threw her hooves into the air. “She’s been here ever since.”

“What the hay; when did this happen?” Sunset asked.

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to see Starlight out of the corner of her eye.

“A while ago,” Starlight replied. “It was before you and I met, apparently, Sunset. She’s not from this timeline.”

Sunset stared into space for a moment. Her eyes narrowed with each passing moment, and a couple of times, she scratched her head. “Wait… Okay, wait. If she’s not from this timeline... then where is the Twilight that is from this timeline?”

Starlight hung her head. “Well… she’s dead.”

Chrysalis cracked a devilish smile. “Oh, really now?” she asked as she turned to face them once more.

Sunset straightened up but her expression quivered. “Oh… I see. You kinda lost your Twilight, huh?”

“Yup,” Starlight replied.

Sunset sighed. “Well, I guess I kinda know how that feels. From back home, I mean.”

Chrysalis chuckled.

Sunset shot Chrysalis a glare and then turned back to Starlight. “That’s pretty messed up, though.” She ran a hoof through her mane and sighed and said, “But I guess everything’s messed up now. This thing with the multiverse…?”

“Yeah,” Starlight replied, “that’s messed up.”

Sunset stumbled over to another one of the thrones and took a seat in it. “It’s a lot to think about.”

Starlight shuddered and began to stare into space. “Y-yeah…” she muttered. “You know, I’m… thinking about the other mes out there, and the other yous,” she said as she looked at Sunset. She looked up at Chrysalis and said, “And, I guess, I wonder about all the Chrysalises out there that are dying right now. I wonder about the changelings that are dying right now.”

Any hint of a smile on Chrysalis’ face faded. She buzzed her wings again as she swiveled away from them again. Me, dying? she thought.

Her hoof ran to her thigh. She thought about what had once been there. She thought about how close death had come to her.

Sunset let out a drawn-out sigh. “Yeah, I guess I’m thinking about that too. Hard to believe the multiverse is dying. That’s… I don’t know…”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and glanced at them over her withers. “Indeed, it is. And what?”

Starlight glanced up at Chrysalis and, after studying the changeling’s stern gaze, deflated and sank deeper into the throne. “Yeah… and what?”

* * *

A gust of wind blasted some snow onto them. It howled in their ears. Twilight felt it blowing right through her, further punctuating how empty she felt at the moment. She felt like the world could have ended and she wouldn’t have batted an eye.

I was standing in this exact spot when a world ended, even, she thought.

She lifted her head and drew her eyes across the rolling hills that covered the parts of Equestria just north of her. She looked up at Canterlot, still clinging to the side of the mountain. She ran her eyes over the countless lights that dotted the city.

Twilight scooted over to Crystal and lay a hoof across her form. “I don’t think I’m capable of it either. Not by myself, anyway.”

She thought of the countless ponies that lived there; she thought of the countless ponies living everywhere. She thought of her friends and family.

Crystal’s eyes briefly flashed up to Twilight and then she let her head hit the snow.

Twilight could feel a part of herself grow whole again with every thought. Because they make my life worth living.

And I don’t want to see any of that happen ever again.

Twilight rubbed Crystal’s back. “But I’m willing to try. I hope you’re willing to try too.”

Crystal sighed. “I… do… I want to try. Except…”

“Except?”

“I don’t even know where to start… let alone come up with an entire plan…” Crystal mumbled.

“You don’t have to come up with an entire plan,” she said, “because we can come up with a plan together.”

Crystal blinked and then raised her head to look Twilight in the eyes.

“You don’t have to do this alone, Crystal,” Twilight said. “I’m here to help you. You just have to… let me help you. Let us help you, even.”

“You… help me?” Crystal wheezed.

“Of course.”

Crystal blinked. “I don’t…”

Twilight sat back. “Crystal… you’ve spent your whole life helping other ponies out, haven’t you?”

Crystal, still curled up in her fetal position, loosened up. “It’s… what I do.”

“You’ve helped countless ponies with problems that they couldn’t take care of themselves. Right?”

“…Yes.”

“And now you have a problem that you can’t take care of by yourself. None of us can take care of it by ourselves. But if we work together and help each other out…”

Crystal remained silent for many long moments. Her eyes didn’t move off Twilight for a second. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “Even if I did… I still wouldn’t know where to even begin.”

Twilight nodded. It was a fair point. She wiped a bit of snow off Crystal’s cloak while she thought.

“Well, Sunset and Starlight…” Twilight paused as she tried to mince her next words. “And Chrysalis too, I guess—I can’t believe I’m saying that. They don’t know what you and I know.”

Crystal shook her head.

“So… show them what you showed me. Bring them up to speed.” Twilight smiled. “It’ll be a start, I think.”

Crystal remained still for a few moments more. Eventually, she dug one hoof into the snow, and then another. She climbed, slowly, to her hooves. She breathed slowly and surely and eventually regained her tall and regal composure. “Perhaps it will.”

* * *

A metallic object shaped like a pony’s foreleg skidded across the floor. A few sparks flew off the exposed wires before the whole thing fell silent.

That which it had been attached to, a robotic pony, fell over. The report of the fall echoed throughout the throne room. The metal wings were bent in odd shapes and the metallic horn on his head looked half-pressed inward.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who held a bruised and battered Twilight Sparkle close, sat at the other end of the throne room. They gasped and wrapped their forelegs further around their ward.

Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis observed the whole thing from the side.

The metallic pony writhed about for a moment and tried to stand up. The eyelids opened to reveal green, cybernetic eyes.

Crystal, who stood down the carpet from him, met those eyes dead on.

“I do not understand…” the metal pony said, his voice filled with static, “how did my attack do nothing to you?”

“Explaining that to you is below my pay grade, Test Tube,” Crystal replied.

The metallic alicorn glowered at her. “My name is Metallix.”

Crystal snorted. “Your name is whatever I decide it is. Especially with how close you came to making everything worse.” Crystal smiled and lit her horn. “You are intelligent, Test Tube, moreso than most. That makes you useful. So, I will let you keep the body, but I’ll be taking your magic. You must come up with a much better approach.”

She shot a beam at his body. It splattered against his metal shell and then wrapped itself around his whole. Metallix cried out and his body writhed about. The beam that connected the two shifted, changed color, and reversed direction. Orbs of energy left his being and shot straight into Crystal. She remained unfazed throughout the entire process.

The spell finished after a few seconds and the whole room fell silent.

Metallix tried to stand but his remaining legs couldn’t find traction. The entire metallic frame creaked and groaned and finally went clang as the legs gave way and he lay splayed across the carpet.

Crystal smirked. “That’ll do.” She turned to Celestia and Luna. “I’m going to leave him to you. Who knows? You might even find something useful for him to do.”

Celestia and Luna said nothing. Their eyes flip-flopped between Metallix, Crystal, and the mares on the side. Their gaze lingered over Chrysalis in particular.

Crystal chuckled and then turned to the others and motioned for them to follow. The four of them trotted through the set of double doors at the head of the room which Crystal shut behind them.

Now, let’s see, Crystal thought. Millions of timelines swam through her head. Oh, this set has a catastrophe in Cloudsdale. I could fix this one. Let’s… pick the one where the tornado doesn’t tear up the Shy household. Hmmm, there’re some here where Rarity doesn’t lose a big client. Let’s go with that one in particular; avoids tornado and Rarity keeps the client. Here are some other things…

Crystal stared into space. “Everypony, we’re about to be in the air in a few seconds. Be ready.”

Sunset blinked. “What?”

Crystal’s mind’s eye touched a point within the branching timelines. Reality folded together for a few moments.

Once it folded back out, Crystal flapped her wings. Starlight wrapped magic around herself which kept her aloft while Chrysalis flapped her wings as well. Sunset, on the other hoof, simply fell.

Crystal rolled over and wrapped some magic around Sunset. “Yes.”

Sunset trotted on air for a few seconds and then looked down. Equestria looked like a mishmash of greens and blues and it was hard to make out anything individual from their height. She swallowed. “Oh, you weren’t kidding.”

Chrysalis snickered.

Sunset lit her own horn and wrapped magic around herself. “It’s a good thing I learned this trick from Starlight,” she said as she looked Starlight in the eye. At Starlight’s confused frown, Sunset added, “In my home timeline, I mean.”

A series of loud booms above them broke them from their reverie and the four of them glanced up. The gigantic cloudy structure of Cloudsdale hung above them. Lightning streaked across the night sky and hit several solid structures elsewhere in the city. Tornadoes spun their way across the cloudy streets, tearing up a few houses here and there.

A few more lightning bolts emerged from a structure in one corner of the city. The building consisted of cloud-like material just like the rest of the city. A few rainbow waterfalls fell from its entrances. A loud rumble later, an entire section of the weather factory fell off and plummeted toward the ground. A few dozen pegasi congregated underneath and caught it.

“Now, in this case, the weather factory is out of control,” Crystal explained. “It will destroy the city if it keeps up like that.”

“I have a question,” Sunset said.

Crystal’s mind’s eye saw infinitely many timelines that branched off from this moment. Sunset said the same thing in nearly all of them. Crystal nodded. “I see that you want to know what exactly I look for in a timeline.”

Sunset nodded.

“Well, it’s like this: there’s the main problem that I come here to solve. That’s what the four of us are doing. But I also try to pick timelines where problems the world over can be made to solve themselves.” Crystal paused as something went boom within the city. “It could be some dispute in Griffonstone, or it could be criminals getting caught.”

“So... you can pick and choose from possible outcomes and say, ‘I want all these to happen.’”

“Exactly. For example, I’m feeling a bit generous, so I’m throwing this timeline’s Chrysalis a bone and forcing the probability where she turns left at a fork.” She paused as a sly grin appeared on her face. “Her turning right would lead to a dragon encounter which she… probably will not survive.”

Chrysalis frowned. “…I am not sure if I should thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Crystal replied with a smile.

“I think I see how all of this works now,” Sunset said. “This is really cool stuff.”

Crystal scanned the nearby clouds. She spotted a silhouette swinging from cloud to cloud with what looked like a grappling hook.

Starlight sighed and shook her head. “Crystal, I have a question about these timelines that you say are collapsing… Do you have any idea of what caused this all to happen in the first place?”

Crystal frowned. She opened her mouth to respond when the silhouette’s grappling hook fell loose from the cloud mid-swing. The silhouette plummeted in their direction. Still broke off, hmm? Don’t worry, Windy Weathertop.

It turned out to be a white-coated earth mare who looked like she had clouds for a mane and tail. She tumbled through the air with the tail-end of the hook still wrapped around her barrel. Crystal lit her horn and shot out a gusty wind which caught the mare mid-descent. It shot her straight back up, giving her enough height to give her grapple hook another throw; it stuck into a cloud and she safely swung further into the city beyond.

Crystal watched the spot for several moments and then sighed. “The truth is, Starlight…” she began as she furrowed her brow and frowned, “I don’t know. I have no clue.”

“Not even a guess?” Sunset asked.

Crystal solemnly shook her head.

“Then, how long do you think it would take for all the timelines to collapse?” Starlight asked.

“I don’t know. It could take forever. But if nothing puts a stop to this… it will happen. Nothing will exist anymore.”

Chrysalis, who had been watching the city, turned.

Sunset floated herself close to Crystal. “Well… you’re gunna try to fix it, right?”

Crystal minced on her words. What eventually came out was unintelligible even to herself.

Her mind’s eye found the timeline that Twilight was in. She looked at the top-most part where the crystallized sections ended. She picked a point just above it and reality folded together again.

It folded back out and the four landed on top of the Cutie Map. Twilight stood near one of the walls and she turned to face them.

“Because we’ll help you out,” Starlight said.

Crystal paused. She then turned to Starlight. “…Help?”

“Yeah, help,” Sunset agreed. “If you’re going to fix the multiverse, we’re going to help you do it.”

“I may not know much about all this stuff,” Starlight said. She rubbed her foreleg and added, “I might not be the smartest mare in the room either. But I’ll do whatever I can.”

“I just know that if we all work together,” Twilight said as she hopped onto the Map with them, “we can do anything.”

“You, me, Twilight, and Sunset…” Starlight said. She turned to Chrysalis, narrowed her eyes, and pointed. “Maaaaybe?”

The others turned to face Chrysalis too.

“The last thing that I want to do is have anything to do with you putrid ponies.” Chrysalis groaned and rolled her eyes. “But I doubt you’re going to just let me go anyway. And I suppose I have a vested interest in continuing to exist.” Chrysalis poked Crystal in the chest and bared her teeth. “Do not even think for one second that I do not despise you.”

Crystal blinked and glanced around at each of them again. Three of them wore warm smiles while the other kept an indifferent frown.

“You’re sure about this?” Crystal asked again.

They met her with nods.

Crystal considered them in full. She had seen their faces thousands of times before. She had seen thousands of them walking different paths in life. Those paths had been to themselves; they had been insignificant to her and she had been insignificant to them.

The four in front of her were not that. The paths had crossed. Surely, she was significant to them.

Maybe they were significant to her.

Crystal nodded and closed her eyes. Her magic undid the button that held her cloak together. She lifted the entire piece off her and then folded it several times until it made a nice square. She levitated the folded cloak next to her and took in a deep breath.

And then Crystal Faire, now bare to them, opened her eyes and smiled. “Well, alright then. We have a lot of work to do.”

15 - Planning

“We will save the multiverse,” Twilight Sparkle said. “Timelines are falling at a considerable rate, and if allowed to continue, the entire multiverse will eventually crumble.”

She stood next to a chalkboard that bore, in big letters, the words Save the multiverse. The other four sat on cushions in a semi-circle around it. Each levitated a small folder containing a few pages of notes.

Crystal Faire flipped through a few pages and then set her folder down. “Right. We must come up with a plan if we are to tackle this.”

“I’ve identified three main goals: one,” Twilight said as she turned and started writing on the board, “we’ll need to prevent any more timelines from colliding with each other; two, we have to find a way to control all this multiversal debris floating about; and three, determine the cause or causes behind all this and correct them as soon as possible.”

Starlight Glimmer frowned and shook her head. “That sounds like an awful lot. How are we supposed to do any of that?”

Twilight smiled. “That’s what we’re here to figure out.”

Sunset Shimmer hummed. “Crystal, could you go over what you learned about those holes in the timelines? I think that would be a good place to start.”

Crystal nodded. “Twilight’s put quite a bit of it on page seven,” she replied as she picked her folder back up and opened it. Pages rustled as the others turned through their respective binders. “They’re four-dimensional holes, as far as I can tell. They’re as wide as the amount of space missing and as deep as the amount of time that space is missing for.”

“Yeah, right. The bottom of the hole is the part furthest back in time, right?” Sunset asked.

“Yes. Through most of the collapse, the timeline just disintegrates... The debris only appeared when the holes in the timeline reached some crystallized portion. It couldn’t collapse anything beyond that.”

“So, it’s from that interaction with crystallized portions of the timeline,” Twilight said.

“Maybe we could use that,” Sunset said. She lit her horn, and a Y-shaped image appeared in the air in front of her. “If we had two timelines that diverged from each other and they’re each collapsing—” the top spokes started to disintegrate, “—we could just pick the point of divergence and crystalize that—” the bottom half of the Y turned crystal, “—and… we’d get only one set of debris from two timelines.”

Twilight watched as the upper spokes on Sunset’s Y crumbled and met with the bottom crystallized portions, and then, as pieces of debris floated from the boundary at the center, she nodded. “That could be useful. That would minimize the amount of new debris that we would have to deal with.”

“We could deal with entire sets of timelines that way,” Starlight suggested.

Crystal crossed her forelegs. “But we’d have to be careful. Every moment further back we put the stop is another infinitely many probabilities that’ll collapse with it.”

The others hummed in response.

Sunset returned to her seat. “Well, at least we have something. We could figure out the details later, right?”

“That’s right.”

“So, what about the debris that’s already out there?” Starlight asked.

“Yeah. As long as that stuff is still there,” Sunset said, “it’ll rip apart more and more timelines.”

“So then, dealing with that debris is our top priority,” Twilight said.

Crystal hummed.

* * *

“No matter which way I look at it,” Crystal said, “I can’t hope to do anything about the debris unless I can get a clearer picture of what’s going on inside those holes first. That means finding more holes so that I can do tests on them.”

Twilight’s muzzle twitched. “Right. But… I guess that actually finding them is going to be difficult.”

The five of them trotted through the shadows of the high-rising trees above. The dirt pathways that served as streets flowed and snaked, occasionally branching off into two. Some paths ended at stone buildings that sported intricate sculptures built into their sides.

Crystal led them down the path. The ponies in the streets, all dressed in garb with frays and washed-out colors, paused within their comings and goings to watch them as they walked.

Starlight frowned. “I didn’t know anypony even lived in Hollow Shades,” she said.

Chrysalis kept looking around. “I thought they would have scurried away by now just from the sight of me.”

“These ones are special,” Crystal said, “and not for the reasons that you would think.”

“Hmmm, nonetheless,” Chrysalis replied. A green flame enveloped her. Gone were the holes in the legs and the dark-green mane. In Chrysalis’ place, a blue unicorn mare with a whitish-paletteted mane and tail stood in her place.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “That disguise looks an awful lot like me, aside from the colors and the… freckles,” she motioned to her face.

“Hmmm, yes. I spotted this one in one of the timelines that she showed us. You will refer to me as Silverlay while I am in this form,” Chrysalis, or rather Silverlay, said.

Twilight pursed her lips and nodded. “Silverlay, huh? That name is familiar. I wonder…”

Sunset and Starlight glanced between each other and giggled.

Sunset shook her head and caught up to Crystal. “So hey, uh, didn’t you say that you can filter out what you can and can’t see?”

“I did,” Crystal replied as she looked about the town.

“Can you filter based on timeline state?” Twilight asked.

Crystal hummed. “I already do for timelines with crystallized bits. Of course I can.”

Sunset nodded. “Okay, for sure. Could you maybe do something like that to see which timelines are collapsing?”

“I suppose… I haven’t exactly worked out how I’d do that yet.”

“I guess you could always derive it from the filter you just mentioned,” Sunset said.

Crystal’s jaw twitched from side to side. “And I do have an alternative in mind if I can’t, but I think I can do it.”

The four watched as Crystal peered over some bushes to their side and then they peered over them for themselves. They spotted an unassuming building across the street. A pair of glass windows and a wooden door were the only things not stone about its front. Two ponies, Blueblood and Pinkie Pie, sat hunched underneath the windowsill.

Crystal watched as the two pressed their ears against the bottom of the window. They slinked away from the window and scrambled into a nearby alley which contained little except a box at its end. After that, they went silent again.

“It’s just…” Starlight whispered, “no matter what we do; if we have to go to some timeline to watch it collapse, it’ll… collapse.”

Twilight shuddered and folded her hooves together. “Yes… oh, I wish there were alternatives…” she lamented.

Pinkie Pie and Blueblood whispered between each other for a moment before the former shoved the latter into the box and then climbed inside herself.

“All I need is enough time with one to see how the holes work; more than the scant few hours with no preparation that I had with them before,” Crystal whispered back. She narrowed her eyes and said, “I’ll be better prepared this time.”

A few moments later, a trio of diamond dogs, two wearing rough-looking armor and the third adorned with gold all around, burst through the front door. They started sauntering up the street with what looked like an orb in their possession. Soon after, a pony wearing a cloak that covered them from head to hoof also emerged and started down the street in the opposite direction.

Crystal lit her horn, reaching out with her magic to grab objects that each of them carried: an orb from the trio of diamond dogs and a pyramid-shaped object from the pony in the cloak. Said objects then teleported into Crystal’s waiting hooves where she observed the both of them.

She wrapped both of the objects within her magic and then, with a large amount of energy, crushed them. The orb shattered with no fanfare but the pyramid screamed and a wistful smoke rose out of it and eventually dissipated.

That takes care of Sh"rk’Moil, Crystal thought with a nod. She then turned to the others and said, “More to that, we will need to know what timelines are collapsing anyway if we want to catch all of them.”

Sunset frowned and leaned on the bushes. “Then I guess it’s just as well.”

* * *

Sunset glanced down at the tea set, mentally shook her head, and then floated it over to Chrysalis in the adjacent cushion. “So, like, I have a question.”

Crystal took a sip from her tea and nodded. “I can see a timeline moving with my mind’s eye, but I can’t filter for it.”

Sunset scratched her head. “Okay, I guess. But we need some way of knowing how the collisions work.”

Twilight sat up on her cushion. “Wait. What about what we all saw in Chrysalis’ timeline? Crystal, can you filter for that?”

Crystal’s muzzle twitched as she thought. “Hmmm. I suppose if I used that Rapid Status Change Filter that you came up with. Why do you ask?”

“So we would know which timelines have already collided with each other. We’d probably want to know that, right?”

Sunset gasped. “That’s super helpful, actually. We could find patterns in what’s collided with what to predict what collisions could happen next.”

Starlight cooed with interest and said, “Hey, I see what you’re saying. We could even reconstruct what’s happened so far. Maybe we’d even find whatever started all of this in the first place?”

Crystal nodded. “That sounds interesting. But I could see the actual implementation getting… very specific.”

“Maybe Twilight and I could help you out with that,” Sunset said.

“Maybe.”

* * *

Starlight wiped some water from her eyes but that made them no less heavy. She had to make it back to her bed. She had to see the progress more.

She trudged along, and as she rounded a corner, she finally saw some light within the castle’s darkened halls. Said light streamed through an open doorway and fell on the carpet. She approached the open doorway and peeked inside.

Crystal, Twilight, and Sunset stood gathered around the chalkboard. Several candles around the room lit the space just enough for them to see. They spoke in hushed tones and passed some pieces of paper between each other and then pointed at the chalkboard.

A quick glance revealed several strings of symbols across the chalkboard. Some of them looked like magical runes, and she understood those by themselves, but the others held no meaning to her whatsoever. She even spotted a few numbers and some symbols that she knew were mathematical in nature, but she could not guess what significance they bore.

A nearby table held several stacks of papers. Twilight giggled and then levitated the sheets that they had been looking at onto the stacks before adding some symbols to the chalkboard. She then floated over some new blank sheets of paper from another table across the room, distributed them to Crystal and Sunset, and then resumed saying something that involved the word parameters. Sunset responded but in a tone so hushed that Starlight could not make out anything.

And that was okay. Starlight stepped away from the opening and trotted back down the way she had come.

* * *

Twilight glanced up at the dark clouds that hung over Canterlot. She then turned her eyes toward the hulking yeti-like creatures in front of them. Their foes wore armor that covered their heads and their midsections and they all carried spears and shields.

And Crystal suddenly appeared behind one of them (whether it was teleportation or just unfathomable speed was not something Twilight could distinguish) and kicked them into a nearby building. She disposed of the other one just as quickly.

After examining her work, Crystal turned to them. “I don’t have anything yet on how to deal with the collision issue. It’s not like there exists magic that can control an actual timeline.”

Sunset scratched her head. “Well... working with crystallization and threading is all we have…” she mumbled.

Crystal nodded and turned down the street. The others followed closely behind.

Canterlot itself was rife with broken windows and many buildings had holes in their walls and roofs. A few black banners hung from the occasional wall, each displaying a pointed crest that looked like a pair of lightning bolts. Aside from the creatures that they now walked past, the streets were empty.

Silverlay, in particular, considered the fallen creatures. “Hmph. You would think that after besting my invasion, those oafish ponies would have taken their defense a little more seriously. I guess I was wrong.”

Twilight blushed and scratched the back of her mane. “You know… I really am starting to think that we’ve been pretty lax about defending ourselves. What with all the threats that I’ve seen and had to deal with.”

“And Fizzlepop is quite the formidable opponent. She’s a gem once she’s on your side, but alas…” Crystal said with a chuckle.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Formidable? That’s a compliment coming from you.”

“You’re telling me that she defeated three princesses in sixty seconds and conquered Equestria in a day,” Sunset said as she glanced around the ruined city.

“But I do contend that those are rookie numbers,” Crystal replied. “I’ve seen it done in less. I’ve done it in less—for instructional purposes, of course.”

Sunset frowned. “Still a lot faster than what I was going to manage with my plan,” she grumbled.

“Equestrians really are weak,” Silverlay snorted.

Starlight deviously grinned and leaned in close to Silverlay. “Equestrians beat you twice in a row.”

Sunset snickered in response.

Silverlay’s expression rapidly deformed into a snarl and she pressed herself muzzle to muzzle against Starlight. “Do not make me hurt you,” she growled.

“Chrysalis,” Crystal interrupted.

Silverlay whirled around to face Crystal. Her eyes were still like slits.

Crystal peered around the corner of a nearby building as she tracked some bodies making their way across a nearby street. Said bodies turned out to be a bipedal cat, bird-like creatures, and a hippogryph. Spike and the rest of Twilight’s friends hung closely together with them.

Once they disappeared, Crystal nodded and stepped into the street herself. “There is one thing that I know: even after visiting your timeline, threading it, even... that didn’t stop it from colliding again.”

After a moment of staring Crystal down, Silverlay nodded and followed suit. “Then your threading technique isn’t going to help.”

“No,” Crystal affirmed.

The five of them continued through a few alleyways, heading in the direction of Canterlot Castle where the clouds were the thickest. The occasional storm guard blocked their path. Said storm guards were promptly sent flying down the street, courtesy of Crystal.

While Twilight, Starlight, and Silverlay watched the short exchanges and overall took in the disarray the city was in, Sunset kept her gaze toward the ground. She muttered a few words to herself here and there but overall kept quiet.

The space above the castle brightened up as a bolt of electricity shot into the sky. It disappeared into the clouds and the clouds, in turn, began swirling about at velocities that would have made even Rainbow Dash cringe. The air howled in their wake and the five of them could feel fleeting hints of its power even from their distant position.

“Ah,” Crystal said, “here we go.”

Crystal threw up a barrier around them and the five continued closer to the castle. The increasingly harsh winds outside the barrier picked up pieces of debris and slammed them together, wherein they exploded into even smaller pieces. Several pieces of debris bounced off Crystal’s barrier, but it yielded to nothing.

“The protective barrier does work, huh?” Sunset mused.

Starlight rolled her eyes. “You would think that’s what it’s for.”

Sunset shook her head. “I just think it would be nice to have something like that for a timeline. Something that protects it from damage.”

Twilight nodded and glanced up at Crystal. “Do you have anything like that?”

Crystal groaned. “Not a chance.”

Silverlay shook her head. “Pity.”

Crystal stopped in the middle of the street just as a wooden cart bounced off her barrier. She glanced toward the gales above and then, when a gigantic boom sounded from down the street, watched as Spike and Twilight’s friends arced through the air and into the castle throne room. She nodded. “This will do for a moment.”

Sunset continued stroking her chin. “Well, if you can’t do that…” She paused for a moment more and then gasped and slapped the ground. “Wait, I think I’ve thought of something.”

Twilight leaned over. “Yes?”

“Say you had a crystallized timeline and some other timeline collided with it. What would happen?”

Silverlay tapped her chin. “Hmmm, right. Yes. If that timeline is crystallized, then it is set in stone and can’t be changed.”

Twilight gasped. “Oh! I see where this is going! It’s—”

“There won’t be anything going between these two timelines like what happened with mine,” Silverlay finished.

“Because nothing enters or leaves this crystallized timeline, and same thing with the uncrystallized one as a result.” Starlight said. She then scratched her head. “But that helps us how?”

“Those crystallized parts are rigid and unmoving and are probably impervious to damage,” Crystal said.

“But did my timeline not have another collision?” Silverlay asked.

There was another loud roar as sections of the castle’s ceiling caved in. Crystal regarded it carefully and then turned back to face them. “Everything beyond what was crystallized kept going and eventually caused that second collision. But this is still helpful information.”

“So then, if we did something like that to a colliding pair of timelines,” Sunset said, “where we crystallize the one that’s about to be hit, there won’t be any damage to either of them. Maybe we’ll even stop the timeline that was moving, too.”

Crystal nodded and then turned and walked through her own barrier. She ruffled her wings at the sight of the gales above and coursed some idle magic into her horn.

Twilight slapped the ground. “And, if we did that everywhere we need to, that would solve the entire collision problem.”

“Yeah,” Sunset said.

Twilight giggled and shook her head. “Gosh, Sunset, you’ve been really on the ball with all of this. I’m impressed!”

Sunset blushed and rubbed the back of her head. “Yeah, well, dealing with the Nameless was really good practice.”

Crystal kept watching the gale in silence and then she spotted a long, rod-like object come flying out of it. Her eyes tracked it as it arced toward them, and just as it was about to lance through them, Crystal shot into the air. She grabbed the staff mid-flight as she barreled right toward the storm. At the same time, she shot a bolt of magic out of her horn which tore a gigantic hole through the cyclone. Much of the winds around it immediately evaporated or otherwise tore themselves apart.

And then Crystal disappeared into some of the remaining bits of cloud with the staff still tucked within her forelegs. A few seconds went by, during which the remaining clouds calmed down and quit circulating.

At that point, the barrier which had been around the four of them melted. Crystal appeared in the same instant, now empty-hooved.

“I agree,” she said. “I think that’s a really good plan. But…”

“Yeah yeah,” Starlight groaned and rolled her eyes, “details and all that stuff.”

“Right. We don’t have to block it out right this second. But…” Crystal frowned and let out a sigh. “I’m already trying to think of how high we’d have to make such a wall; how much time I’d have to crystallize.”

“If we have to make the wall,” Sunset replied.

Crystal nodded and said, “I might have some ideas. But, also, I’m concerned about the astronomical amount of timelines that I’d have to work this method on.”

* * *

Crystal magically levitated herself a few meters above the library floor. She faced the ceiling, watching for her reflection in any of its tessellated shapes.

“It’s a lot of ground to cover, and if the affected area is spreading faster than we can contain it,” Twilight said, pausing to sip on her tea, “then we have a major problem.”

“That’s right. And I don’t know how fast these disastrous effects are proliferating. I could see them, of course, but keeping up is another matter.” Crystal shook her head and bit into a banana.

“It would probably be for the best if we could save the entire multiverse in one fell swoop,” Twilight agreed.

“Okay, then maybe once we know what timelines we have to hit,” Sunset said, “maybe Crystal can just quickly travel between them all and do whatever she needs to do to set them up?”

Crystal shook her head. “No, that will not work. There’s a tiny amount of latency with the travel ability. In the time it takes me to travel to some timeline, place an object there, and leave, some other set of timelines could start collapsing.”

Sunset grimaced and lay down on her cushion.

Starlight turned her attention to Crystal. “Say, you can make other things travel between timelines with you. That’s how you’ve been bringing us along.”

Crystal nodded and took another bite from her banana.

“But is it possible for you to send something to some other timeline without you yourself going anywhere?” Starlight asked.

Crystal blinked and then flipped over to face Starlight. “I think… theoretically…”

Chrysalis buzzed her wings as she stood up. “If you did that, you would be able to do this in…” She angled toward Twilight and said, “Hmmm, how was it that you put it? Oh, yes, do it ‘in one fell swoop.’ That would be marvelous, indeed.”

Crystal chuckled. “Agreed. I actually see that to be a viable method. There are just a couple of issues with it… I think.”

Sunset groaned. “What?”

“Obviously, I’m not going to know exactly what we need to do until I can get a reading on those holes,” Crystal said, “but it could very well be that we’ll have to do some additional work in some of those timelines.”

“That isn’t an issue because you already proved that you can sustain a spell across multiple timelines,” Twilight said. “This would just be a matter of sending a premade spell into some other timeline and then casting it from here.”

Crystal nodded. “I suppose that is correct. That just leaves the other problem: actually hitting every target at once.”

Starlight threw her hooves into the air. “Just make a spell that automates all that. You could have it do all the travel ability and sub-spell management for you.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and whirled to face Crystal. “And it could do it dynamically. I mean, we’d have to know the state of the multiverse at the moment you cast the spell anyway.”

Crystal was silent for a few moments. The magic coursing through her horn faded and she fell to the floor, landing on all four hooves. She glanced around and said, “I can do that. But it will be a complex spell. It’ll take some effort to make it.”

“Well, this never was going to be easy,” Chrysalis said with a roll of her eyes.

Twilight cracked a smile and stood up as well. “Well, if that is what we have to do, then we’ll do it. We’re with you, Crystal.”

“For sure,” Sunset agreed.

“Yeah,” Starlight said. “Crystal, we’ll need someplace to put this spell together.”

“I’m sure that I can think of something,” Crystal replied.

The others smiled in response.

Crystal scanned their faces again. She considered her friends, her team, the ponies that were about to embark on this project with her. “So, building a floor for those collapsing timelines to reduce the amount of debris, making a wall around those colliding timelines to keep those contained… And soon enough, we will know what to do with all the debris that’s floating out there.”

Crystal chuckled and nodded with approval. “It’s not a perfect plan… not yet… but it’s a plan nonetheless. Let’s do this.”

16 - Inconsistency

Crystal Faire sunk deeper into the couch as she shifted through some papers floating above her. She eventually settled on one particular sheet which contained some half-complete diagrams with a few footnotes underneath them.

I could… she thought as she twirled the quill in her magical grasp, I could always make some sort of central control for it… Something physical might do. Is that possible?

A cracking sound reported the wood in the fireplace splitting apart. The flames within shifted but nonetheless burned with the same intensity as before. The walls flickered as they reflected its orange and red light.

She yawned and floated over a slice of pizza. She bit into it, noted the juicy pineapple bits sprinkled across the slice, and then chewed in silence.

The doors opened, and Crystal sat up and looked over the back of the couch to find Starlight Glimmer trotting in.

“Trouble sleeping, I presume?” Crystal asked.

Starlight rubbed the bags under her eyes and nodded. “I bet you could see me tossing and turning all the way from here, huh?”

Crystal nodded.

Starlight hobbled over and rested her forehooves on the back of the couch. “But, it’s like… three in the morning. What are you still doing?”

“I’m just doing some blueprinting,” Crystal replied as she lay back down. “Besides, circadian clocks mean nothing when time itself is at your hooves like it is to me.”

“Surreeee,” Starlight slurred. She sniffed the air and seemingly followed the smell with her nose before her eyes locked onto the opened pizza box on the nearby nightstand. “Oh, mind if I have a slice?”

Crystal hummed. “Go right on ahead,” she said as she jotted some words down onto her paper.

Starlight lifted a slice with her magic and went to place it in her mouth, but then she paused and scowled as she glimpsed the pineapple toppings. “Ew. You know what? Nevermind.”

Crystal raised an eyebrow and watched as Starlight replaced the pizza slice. “Suit yourself, Starlight.”

Starlight shuddered and turned her attention back to Crystal. Her scowl faded and she straightened up. “Actually, I’m kinda glad that I found you still up. I have a question.”

Crystal shifted in her seat. Her mind’s eye immediately scanned all the timelines which diverged from this moment for Starlight’s speech and she pieced together Starlight’s question from within those. “No, there is no way for me to travel to the past.”

“Not even by other means?”

“No.”

Starlight trotted around the couch and then to Crystal’s side. “Okay, because I’ve done time travel before, back before, you know, I became Twilight’s student. And there are time travel spells out there.”

“I know of them,” Crystal replied. “But I’ve found that any time I wish to use a time spell myself, it conflicts with my time sliding ability, and so I end up going nowhere.”

Starlight shrank. “Oh. I see.”

Crystal smirked and took another bite from her pizza slice. She tapped the quill against her diagrams and frowned. Even if I sustain one spell across numerous timelines… That could put some considerable strain on my capacities. I wonder if I’d even be able to survi—

“Twilight told me that you discovered some sort of discontinuity, right?” Starlight asked.

The paper almost crumpled in Crystal’s grasp. Crystal sighed and stashed her thought away for later. “That would be correct.”

“Could you tell me about it?”

“When you traveled through time, you appeared at the moment of the Rainboom. That’s constant across all timelines,” Crystal explained as she rested the papers on her abdomen. “But, naturally, since the chain of events diverges after King Sombra; after when I was conceived… there are any number of timelines where you did not time travel at all.”

Starlight scratched her head. “Sure. But doesn’t that mean there would be timelines where I did time travel, but it still doesn’t line up?” She pointed to herself and said, “Like me? Maybe?”

That makes sense… Crystal thought. The Starlight that appeared at the Rainboom might not have been thinking the same thoughts that you were thinking when you time traveled. They might not have experienced the same things either.

She nodded. “That sounds about right, Starlight. Admittedly… I’ve given it some thought since Twilight first brought it to my attention.” Crystal sat up and scooted back into the armrest. “There is a discontinuity, and… it probably exists everywhere.”

“For every timeline, you mean?” Starlight asked. “That… kinda makes sense to me. But that just means that every timeline is wrong.”

Crystal actually felt a drop of sweat form on her brow. “W-well, yes. I suppose that is an accurate observation.”

“I guess that’s what’s been keeping me up,” Starlight said, chuckling nervously.

Crystal nodded and lit her horn again, levitating the papers back into her view. While her eyes stared at the diagrams and notes before her, her mind remained on the idea of discontinuities. “But if it’s any consolation…” she began, “my intuition tells me that there has to be at least one true timeline and subsequent diverging set of timelines out there to which both past and future match up.”

“Really?” Starlight asked. “Do you think you would be able to find it?”

Crystal shook her head. “Not a chance. I can’t even see your entire romp through time. I couldn’t make any comparisons even if I tried.”

Starlight’s ears drooped and then her body did as well. “Oh…”

“Now, trying to find out what caused the discontinuity in the first place… that’s something I would be more interested in.” Crystal sighed and shook her head. “But I don’t think that I would ever find it.”

“Well… uh… let me ask you a question, then. You’ve been to a lot of timelines and fixed a lot of things.” Starlight nodded from side to side and her muzzle scrunched up. “I would imagine you’ve been to some timeline and did some things, and then, later on, I probably had my time travel episode with Twilight, right?”

Crystal nodded. “Of course. I would suppose that there’s nothing I can do that can prevent other ponies such as yourself from time traveling.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Okay. Then let’s say I got my hooves on a time travel spell right now. From what you say, I appeared at the Rainboom once and only once, so that’s crystallized now. So… then, what would stop me from time traveling there a second time?”

Time marched on and yet Crystal remained frozen in that moment. Her mind’s eye backed up a few moments to look at the span of the timeline where Starlight had said those words. She saw Starlight speak those words again. She replayed those words in her mind. She had to do so several times. And then she imagined that scenario in her head and imagined what it meant.

Crystal scrambled off the couch and landed straight on her hooves, unceremoniously dropping the papers and quill in the process. There’s… nothing, she thought.

* * *

Crystal paced about the library with her eyes glued to the floor. Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer sat nearby with the former hiding some yawns behind her hoof while the latter laid her head on one of the tables. A couple of candles served as the only lighting as the night sky seen through the windows offered nothing.

The sounds of hoofsteps heralded Starlight and Chrysalis as they entered the room.

Chrysalis wiped at her bagged eyes. “This had better be good,” she grumbled.

“Gather around!” Crystal barked. “Quickly! We’re traveling.”

And then, once they did so, Crystal touched a timeline some distance away with her mind’s eye, and reality folded in and back out again where they landed on solid ground. And the others let out several cries at what they saw.

And Sunset keeled over as she shielded her eyes from the bright sun above. “My eyes!” she screamed.

“Oh, come now, Sunset Shimmer,” Crystal said. “You signed up for this.”

“No! I did not sign up for surprise daytime!”

“Seriously, what the hay?” Starlight seethed. “You could have warned us about the light!”

Twilight nodded in agreement.

Crystal backpedaled and went flush in the face. “Okay, okay, fine. My bad.”

“What is all this about, anyway?” Twilight asked.

Crystal straightened up and cleared her throat. “Well, Starlight’s brought something to my attention. Twilight, you remember that discontinuity that you and I discussed over dinner a few weeks ago?”

Twilight went wide-eyed. “Oh! Yes! I do! Wait… have you figured out what caused it?”

“No. But… I’ve been given a helpful hint which I intend to test out right now.” She turned away and motioned at the surrounding landscape. “That is why I have brought you all out here.”

The five of them stood atop a tall peak. They saw several mountains and hills on all sides although much of it looked torn up and utterly destroyed like several landslides had stripped the peaks of their layers. A few kilometers-wide craters dotted the landscape at irregular intervals.

“And where is here, precisely?” Chrysalis asked.

“I will tell you later. Chrysalis, everypony here, besides you, has performed time travel at one point or another. But, today… you’re going to join the club.”

Everypony else, especially Chrysalis, wore confused frowns.

“Me? Time travel?” Chrysalis said with a snort. “Preposterous.”

“Oh, I think you could do it,” Crystal replied. She lit her horn and a scroll appeared in front of her. “This is Starswirl’s time travel spell. It primarily exists within the Canterlot Archives. This version is a once-per-lifetime spell, and the three of them have used it already.”

Twilight blinked and turned to Sunset. “You?”

Sunset pointed to herself and said, “When I was dealing with the Nameless.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “And you?”

“It clashes with my travel powers,” Crystal replied.

Chrysalis groaned in response.

Crystal unfurled the scroll with her magic and levitated it over. “You can read this, can’t you?”

Chrysalis snatched the scroll with her magic and took a glance at it. Her features curled into a fang-bearing snarl. “What do you take me for? I am a changeling queen! Of course I know how to read this.”

“Excellent. And I suspect that, as a changeling queen, you have enough power to at least pull this spell off.”

Chrysalis blew a strand of hair out of her face. “Yes. I do.”

“What I want you to do with this spell is to use it to travel to this spot exactly one week ago from this moment. No sooner, no later.”

“And then?”

“We will watch from another timeline,” Crystal continued. “We will leave you here so that you may perform the spell. Once you come back, describe aloud what you saw. Once you do that, we will come back to collect you.”

Chrysalis cracked her neck and looked at the spell again. “So… time travel one week into the past to this spot, describe what I saw when I return. Hmmm?”

“That’s right.”

After a few moments of silence, Chrysalis nodded. “Very well.”

Crystal turned to the others and nodded. As Chrysalis walked away from them with her head stuck in the scroll, Crystal wrapped her essence around the others. “Meanwhile, I’m going to momentarily indulge in something. Don’t be alarmed.”

Crystal shifted. Reality folded into a single point for a few moments. It folded back out and they landed within the shade of a solitary tree atop a grassy hill.

The space around them shifted and warped. They saw several images flash briefly in front of them, including some which contained Applejack, Rarity, and Rainbow Dash. However, their eyes centered on a cracked-horned Starlight Glimmer sitting at a table and wearing an eye-shaped object on a necklace.

Mere seconds later, the warping stopped, and the images faded into nothing.

“That was… me,” Starlight said.

“From an alternate reality. I like to peer into these sorts of events whenever possible, because it allows me to refine my filters” Crystal hummed and stroked her chin. “Twilight, remember when we studied relativistic effects on the evolution of the multiverse?”

Twilight nodded. “I do. We concluded that it evolved at your pace.”

Crystal pointed at the space where they had seen the images. “That object around that alternate Starlight’s neck was an artifact that manipulates time, which is what we saw just now. I was thinking about something similar. I needed to get another look at it to remind myself of how it works, so I can duplicate it later.”

Twilight hummed and nodded.

Crystal cleared her throat and turned her mind’s eye back to where she had left Chrysalis. “Anyway, let’s see what Chrysalis has for us…”

“That timeline that we just left her in,” Sunset began, “its past should have turned semi-crystallized behind us, right? Whatever happened a week ago is set in stone and can’t be changed.”

“That’s right,” Crystal replied. “That timeline that we just visited… is highly characterized by Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity traveling to the far west Archback Mountains.”

Twilight tapped her chin. “Oh, that was where we were just now. But why would they go there?”

“The beneviolet flower that grows there. It’s for horn rot.”

Twilight shuddered. “Oh! I see…” She felt at her own horn.

“A week before the moment we just visited… the three of them arrived in those very mountains and fought a world snake in order to secure that beneviolet.”

Sunset shuddered. “No wonder that place looked so torn up. World snakes are tough.”

“World snake?” Starlight tremulously asked.

“It’s a snake as big as the world,” Sunset replied. “But… it’s more the size of a mountain range.” At the stares that Twilight and Starlight gave her, she added, “No, really.”

“It is true,” Crystal said. “And from what I can see… in the infinitely many probable futures that we left Chrysalis to, she actually, earnestly, attempted the spell in a majority of them—”

“Oh, that’s good,” Twilight interjected as a smile appeared on her face.

“—although there are some where she failed the spell and some where she overshot or undershot or went to the wrong place or whatever; again, in the majority, she’s describing that exact scenario which I just described to you. Not only that, but there are some divergences where at least one of Applejack, Rainbow Dash, or Rarity can suddenly remember seeing her there.”

Starlight nodded. “So, she did see the fight. She pulled off the time travel spell.”

Crystal didn’t respond for several moments. Yes… she did…

She turned her mind’s eye backward. She saw the moment in which the five of them had arrived. She looked further back and saw the three ponies fighting the world snake. This entire span of time is constant across this entire set of timelines.

She looked forward again to where everything finally diverged. She saw the timelines where Chrysalis had failed and the many others where she had succeeded. Her… traveling to that constant past is variable.

I was right. Oh…

Eventually, she wrapped her essence around them and examined the probabilities with her mind’s eye, all of which looked almost crystallized. Concurrently-crystallized. She touched one, and as reality folded together, all the probabilities collapsed into one as Crystal knew they should.

Reality folded back out and they stood atop the mountain peaks again.

Chrysalis, who stood nearby, trotted over. “Did you catch what I said? I saw that behemoth of a snake,” she said. “I saw those oafish ponies fighting it.”

“We know. And those are my friends,” Twilight replied with hints of venom in her voice.

“You really did time travel, huh?” Starlight asked.

Chrysalis chuckled and beamed with pride. “You may bask in my glory now.”

Crystal felt like she didn’t have the breath necessary to speak.

Sunset, similarly grim-faced, looked around and said it: “Chrysalis never appeared when they were fighting the world snake, did she?”

Crystal shook her head. “My hypothesis ended up being right. The past is unchanged; she never appeared there despite time traveling there for any timeline. That’s constant across this entire set of timelines.”

Chrysalis frowned. “But… I did…”

Twilight gasped. “No way…”

Crystal met Chrysalis’ gaze dead on. She stared into Chrysalis’ soul. “You did it,” she croaked. “You’ve created a discontinuity.”

“Stars,” Twilight wheezed.

“Oh geez,” Sunset said.

“Stars,” Starlight said.

17 - Workspace

The five of them sat in silence for the longest time. The candlelit library offered them very little light to see with, but none made any attempt to rectify that.

That was until Crystal Faire lit her horn and made several more candles appear. A flurry of sparks ignited their wicks and thus elevated the room beyond its dim hues. She could see, clearly, the various doodles on the chalkboard.

So… she thought, discontinuities… come about when the past is set in stone, but the future… can change. But… that’s just like what I’ve been doing all along. It’s just like…

Twilight swallowed and then, at length, said, “Crystal… there’s something that I don’t understand.”

Crystal hummed.

“The discontinuity… was at the moment we entered that timeline,” Twilight said. “It happened at the moment we interfered.”

After a moment, Crystal nodded. “Yes.”

“And I would guess that sort of discontinuity could happen with any timeline. Maybe it’s been happening just like that all over, every time you went someplace. Except…”

“King Sombra,” Starlight Glimmer said as she shifted in her cushion.

“That point where everything diverged,” Sunset Shimmer, who leaned against one of the tables, added.

Twilight’s entire body shook and yet she managed to climb to her hooves. She turned her gaze to Crystal and, as the color drained from her face, she said, “That moment… when supposedly… you began.”

Chrysalis, who also sat on a nearby cushion, raised an eyebrow. “It’s highly suspect, don’t you think?” she asked in a sing-song tone.

Crystal crossed her forelegs and narrowed her eyes. “The implication is that the reason that existence is broken on a fundamental level… might have something to do with me. Is that right?”

“Well…” Chrysalis said, pulling back.

Crystal shook her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know. You could be right.” She buried her face into her hooves and mumbled, “I just can’t believe it…”

Starlight threw her hooves into the air. “Well, it’s not like it does us any good thinking about it. Who knows what happened?”

Twilight eventually nodded. “I think I agree. Let’s just move on. Crystal? What’s next?”

Crystal sighed and stood up “I did some blueprinting, and I think I have an idea of what we’re looking at.”

Twilight nodded. “I see. That’s good news, at least.”

“Do you wish to see it?”

“Of course.”

Crystal lit her horn. A set of papers appeared in the air beside her. She levitated the papers to Twilight who took them and read through the first few pages. She flipped a page, flipped back to examine something more carefully, and then continued on.

Starlight trotted over and read over Twilight’s withers.

Twilight frowned. “This seems like a solid spell. I could see this working. But… uhhh—” she flipped through a few prior pages again and then replaced all of them in order, “—I can foresee a logistical issue.”

Crystal raised an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“This spell… This is going to be large.”

Sunset shrugged. “I’m sure we could find space for it somewhere.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m not so much concerned about the space, although I can say right now that I don’t have confidence that we could fit it in the castle—”

“The foyer, maybe?” Starlight butted in.

Twilight paused. “Hmmm. Maybe. That’s a small issue in itself, but… this will take several days of work, even with all of us.”

“That is an issue,” Crystal muttered as she scratched her head. “We could certainly use some discretion, and that would be difficult here.”

Twilight lit her horn and disappeared in a flash. She reappeared a few seconds later with a scroll in her magic. “I’ve got some royal duties that I can’t afford to put on hold. Actually…” She pressed her face into it and then eventually shook her head. “I’d have to throw out my entire schedule for the next two months just for this!”

“Okay, yeah. Uh, what about another timeline?” Sunset suggested. “If we went there, we could work wherever we want. We wouldn’t have to worry about the passage of time there.”

Twilight giggled. “That’s a great idea!”

Crystal turned her eyes to Sunset and nodded. “I believe you’ve read my mind.”

Sunset chuckled. “You know I can’t do that here.”

Everypony else save Crystal went “Huh?” under their breaths.

“But you’re smart enough to readily make up for it,” Crystal replied. “No doubt from dealing with the Nameless.”

Starlight rolled her eyes and stepped forward. “Uh, so, Crystal… Since we’re moving to some other timeline… Do you have any place in mind?”

Crystal chuckled. Her eyes remained on Sunset. “Well… Now that you mention it, I do. In fact, I know of a mare there—who I think you may recognize from your home timeline, Sunset—who might be willing to help out…”

* * *

Crystal flung the cockatrice with her magical grasp and slammed it into the ground. She watched as the creature repeatedly squawked while it scrambled back into the nearby trees. She stared at the spot where it disappeared into the bush and then she snorted.

She then turned to face the others just as they removed their hooves from their faces. “We’re clear.”

Twilight shivered. “I’ve been turned to stone by one of those before. It’s not exactly an experience that I like to remember.”

Starlight frowned. “I don’t think you’ve ever told me about that one, Twilight,” she said.

Chrysalis chuckled. “Now that is something that I would have liked to have seen.”

A moment passed by. “Maybe we could call that cockatrice back and have it turn Chrysalis into stone…” Starlight mused.

Chrysalis’ eye twitched and she shook her head. “No, thank you.”

Sunset stood facing away from them. Her eyes remained locked on a figure lying on the ground. She took one cautious step forward, and then another.

Crystal hummed and trotted over. She swung around the other side of the figure just as Sunset arrived. The others shuffled over in wonder soon after.

The mare on the ground stirred. Her long and silvery mane complimented her darker complexion and she carried the faint scent of roses. Her eyes shot open and she used her wings to flip herself over. Bits of ephemeral magic coursed through her horn as her eyes darted between the five of them.

“Queen Adamantine of the unponies,” Crystal began with a smirk, “you are looking quite well for one who’s just been petrified by a cockatrice.”

Adamantine clutched at her head. “Good heavens… cockatrice… I remember…” She blinked again and then narrowed her eyes. “Ponies. You…”

Sunset looked as white as a sheet. “Adamantine…” she wheezed.

Adamantine’s gaze shot onto Sunset and she narrowed her eyes even more. “You… how do you know who I am?”

“I am a master of reality,” Crystal explained. “I know just about everything about you. Don’t worry, your secrets are safe with us.”

Twilight and Starlight exchanged confused glances and the former eventually shrugged.

Adamantine rolled over and climbed to her hooves. After taking a moment to dust herself off, she stood at her full height, which placed her almost as tall as Crystal. “Well, I suppose that I should thank you for saving my life. Truly… I do not suspect that you have ill intentions…”

“The truth is,” Crystal began, “we came here for several reasons. Helping you was one of them.”

Adamantine’s muzzle twitched. “And… what are your other reasons?”

* * *

Sunset kept her eyes locked on Adamantine even as the six of them meandered through the jungle. She stayed behind the rest of the pack where she watched Twilight, Starlight, and Chrysalis whispering between each other trying to figure out exactly what an “unpony” was. I wonder if they’d be able to figure it out, she thought. Unponies don’t look all that different from us; it’s all on the inside. Maybe I’ll just let them sweat this out.

Crystal and Adamantine took point, with the former speaking for long stretches of time while the latter only chimed in with the occasional question.

The six stepped through the bush, and it was as the terrain crested and started to descend that Sunset caught a glimpse of the ocean some ways away. She tried to imagine the civilization she was familiar with somewhere across the sea.

And… Sunset thought, they have a village out here?

She looked again and caught some glimpses of wooden structures through a gap in the trees. She couldn’t make them out precisely, but they looked like the tops of wooden poles.

No way.

“I see,” Adamantine said. “This spell will consolidate all of the problems in the multiverse.”

“That’s right,” Crystal replied. “And we will be putting that together. We hope that you might have some workspace to lend us.”

“And how exactly does the spell operate?”

“The spell will read the state of the multiverse and will feed me that information so that I can use it. I’m planning on using entangled particles to proliferate the effect between timelines, hence the physicality.” Crystal cleared her throat and said, in a subdued tone, “I’m not sure yet how large this will end up being, but I predict it will have some size.”

Adamantine chuckled. “Fascinating. I see your reason for discretion. I will do whatever I can to lend you my assistance,” she said as she hopped down a short drop-off.

Sunset hopped down after the others and turned her attention past the trees ahead where she spotted more structures. She could see huts and gazebos made of straw and wood. As she squinted to see better, she caught glimpses of countless ponies with the same shade of dark coat as Adamantine.

Oh my goodness...

“That said…” Adamantine began as her smile faded, “you will have to forgive me if I wish to keep my hooves firmly planted in my own reality.”

“And that’s fine,” Twilight reassured with a nod of her head. “Anything at all will do.”

“I am sure that there will be some who will also be willing to help,” Adamantine said.

Soon enough, the party emerged into an open space where Sunset could now see more of the village. She saw ponies playing all sorts of aerial games while those grounded gathered around books and lively conversations. Hints of music carried over the hubbub as many enjoyed the sunny day.

And several of them turned at their arrival. Several exclamations could be heard as many of them trotted and flew in their direction. At least a hundred of those charcoal-colored ponies—all of earth, pegasus, or unicorn variety—gathered with more on the way.

And Twilight, Starlight, and Chrysalis immediately returned to their prior conversation on what unponies were with renewed vigor.

Sunset watched them all in utter silence. She watched them as they gathered around their queen, laughing and smiling as they went. And then she too cracked a smile.

* * *

Crystal glanced around the clearing, noted the large, unoccupied pavilion (which was of simple wooden design) off to the side, and nodded. “I think this will do nicely.”

Adamantine bowed. “I am glad. If you will excuse me, there are some matters that I need to take care of. I will return in a few minutes.”

“Okay,” Twilight replied. “We’ll be here.”

Adamantine smiled and lit her horn. She then instantaneously disappeared amid a white light and an airy pop.

Crystal regarded the spot and then cracked her neck. “Okay. So, the first order of business, which I really must address immediately…” She trotted over to Chrysalis and slapped her on the back of the head.

Chrysalis recoiled from the hit. “You cur! What was that—”

Crystal placed herself in Chrysalis’ muzzle. “I can tell exactly what you are thinking,” she hissed. “You will not suck them dry of their love. You may only nibble, and nothing more.”

Chrysalis bared her teeth, but quickly backpedaled when that garnered no reaction. She grumbled something unintelligible before backing away.

Crystal smirked as she turned to the others. “Now, Sunset, you’re alright?”

Starlight, who was eying a small pony-like figurine within her grasp, looked up and turned to Sunset with a frown. “Oh, yeah. You’ve been pretty quiet since we got here.”

Sunset sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just… those were familiar faces from my own timeline. That’s all.”

Starlight returned to the wooden figurine still in her magic. It looked like a nondescript alicorn. She tilted her head, raised her eyebrow, and then hummed in thought. “Hey, Crystal?”

Crystal turned. “Yes?”

“I got this from one of the villagers a bit ago. Do you think that you could send this home, say… on my shelf in my room?” Starlight asked as she held the figurine up.

Crystal fixed her eyes on the object and then lit her horn and floated it over. “Your usage of the word send is not lost on me, Starlight. I might as well try to practice this now.”

Chrysalis shuddered and backpedaled. “I think that I will keep my distance on this one.”

Twilight turned and nodded. “I agree. Let’s give her some space.”

The four of them shuffled in the direction of the pavilion, and once they had retreated half-a-hoofball field’s length away, they turned and watched.

Crystal remained in the same spot where she carefully studied the object. She set it down and stared at it intensely. Many seconds of silence passed.

Focus on that spot. It’s just like traveling… but not including myself, Crystal thought. Focus…

Her mind’s eye centered on the timeline in question. She saw the moment in which the five of them had left it and where everything thereafter turned hazy. She focused on a moment not long after that.

Focus…

She touched that spot with her mind’s eye, but at the point where the power normally acted on herself, she redirected it at the figurine instead. The figurine disappeared with a bang while she herself remained standing in the same spot.

Crystal went wide-eyed and jumped in response. Her mind’s eye immediately scanned the shelf in the other timeline and found the figurine wobbling for a few seconds before it eventually settled into an upright position. The few hazy minutes of timeline before then turned semi-crystallized; the brief moment the figurine appeared on the shelf was a hardened crystal. The rest was still hazy and remained that way.

Most of the others gave cheers and shouts in response. Chrysalis, who did none of that, simply raised her eyebrow and smirked.

Crystal, whose mouth curled into a wide smile without her even willing it to, turned to them. “Well… we may very well be in business.”

* * *

Chrysalis rolled over on the pile of leaves that she had scrounged up for herself. The ground was hard but, as she had found out in the months since the coup in the hive, it was hardly the most unorthodox of places to rest.

The sounds of crickets and frogs pervaded her ears, and in her mind, they complimented the countless nighttime stars above. She would have to thank Froggy Bottom Bog for that one.

She glanced toward the pavilion where the other four lay in silence. She could see three of them fast asleep on some cots while the fourth, Crystal, examined some pieces of paper by way of the fire pit in the center.

Her eyes watched as Adamantine emerged from the shadows and entered the pavilion. Crystal glanced up and said something to her, though Chrysalis couldn’t hear what it was from her faraway position. Adamantine, in turn, replied, and then the two carried out a short conversation which Chrysalis could only guess at, but in the end, she didn’t care enough to do even that. Eventually, Adamantine turned and left, leaving Crystal to her readings once more.

There was one empty cot which had been appropriated for herself. But I would much rather not be near them, Chrysalis thought. To think that I’m now even associating myself with them! Ugh!

Her face scrunched up and she stole a glance in their direction. What I wouldn’t give to bite their heads off! The things that I want to do…

Her eyes settled on Crystal and Chrysalis shrunk back down. Even if I managed to destroy those three… I couldn’t hope to match Crystal Faire. She would probably smite me down where I stand.

Chrysalis shuddered. No… she would just be able to prevent it before it even happens… She might even know already that I’m thinking about it!

She slapped some leaves out from under her. Curses!

In the nearby pavilion, Crystal glanced up with her eyebrow raised. She said nothing for several moments but eventually rolled her eyes and turned back to her work.

There was a pause as her mind ran through other lines of thought. She crossed her forelegs and sighed as she felt her blood cool down. But… I do have to admit, these problems with the… multiverse… are concerning.

She felt at her right thigh and imagined the large stone that had once been there. She imagined how wrong everything had felt in those first few moments where everything had gone wrong.

And it’s true that I would have died in that forsaken timeline… I suppose that they get some credit for saving my life.

A scowl briefly crossed her features. It changes nothing between us.

She imagined what she had experienced and then thought about countless hers walking within other times and other lives and suddenly having that same wrongness. She thought about how violating it all was. She thought about those other lives where those that mattered were still loyal, and then how they would thus be violated regardless.

But whether I like it or not… they are the only ones that can do anything about this mess. And I want to continue existing…

Chrysalis nodded to herself. Just for now… I need them alive.

18 - Opening

Crystal Faire knew this dream. Her body floated over the Crystal Empire. The city and surrounding geography looked just as she expected it to for several miles in every direction, but then, after a distance, it all abruptly ended. An endless expanse lay just outside its borders with towers stretching to infinity in every direction.

Her vision moved about to examine the landscape against any sort of will that she had, just like it had many times before. Her other senses were numb, and she could feel her very essence disappearing.

She knew this next part too. Even her sight started to disappear. Eventually, Crystal’s world was a void. Even her sense of the multiverse went silent for a few moments. She was conscious, at least, and she knew she would last long enough to regain enough of her senses to see her home timeline and many timelines around it, but only just.

There was a flicker as the lines reappeared. They were right on cue.

“Crystal Faire?” a vague and toneless voice said.

Crystal suddenly jolted awake as she felt something jab her side. Her senses came rushing back in an instant and her whole body shuddered. She blinked and glanced up to find the pavilion ceiling above her head.

The cot underneath her shifted as she rolled about to glance at her surroundings. Everything beyond the pavilion was bathed in sunlight. Countless pieces of paper hung from clotheslines that spanned the plaza and were clipped to some irregularly placed easels. A few unponies dotted the clearing, each engaged in their own tasks.

Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer held discussions near one of those easels as they traded documents back and forth and pointed to various sheets. And then Sunset lit her horn and snatched another half-filled sheet off one of the clotheslines and the two of them stuck their heads into the text contained therein.

Starlight Glimmer and Chrysalis sat at a wooden work table and the former watched as the latter molded and fused some solid materials together. Chrysalis licked her lips and stared deeper into the mass as it convulsed and morphed into several shapes before it finally settled into something that looked metal. Chrysalis nodded and glanced at Starlight who also nodded.

Crystal rolled back over to find Adamantine standing over her. “Hmm?”

“You must forgive me for waking you—I know that you must catch up on your sleep—but we finagled with the parameters…” Adamantine said as she presented some sheets of paper. “We may have finished it.”

One of the hoofful of unponies who stood behind her added, “If you could, please let us know how well it works.”

Crystal groaned and sat up. Her magic took the papers from Adamantine and she started to scan them. Let’s… toggle all of my filters off…

Her mind’s eye winced as infinities of timelines appeared within her vision. She could already see so many of them, but this number was several magnitudes greater than what she was used to.

Crystal shook her head and returned her real-world eyes to the paper once more. As she read over it and affected its instructions in her mind, her mind’s eye watched as countless timelines disappeared into nothingness. More and more disappeared, but after a few seconds, the rate slowed down and eventually stopped. She glanced over several of the timelines, and with what she saw, her frown deepened and her blood went cold.

Yes, she thought as she mentally scrutinized the expanding holes in several of them, these timelines are collapsing alright. They’ll finish collapsing in the next few seconds, even. But… She looked further along other lines—she looked into their future parts. These ones are on the way.

Crystal bolted to her hooves. “That will do it. Girls!” she yelled.

Twilight, Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis glanced up and trotted over one by one.

“Do you have it?” Twilight asked.

“Thanks to them,” Crystal said as she motioned to Adamantine and the other unponies.

And Adamantine and the unponies shared smiles with each other.

Twilight smiled and clopped her hooves together. “Excellent! This means that you can find all of the collapsing timelines.”

“Indeed. And I plan to go to one right now and run some tests.”

At that, Twilight’s smile faded and she, eventually, nodded solemnly. “I see. I’ll… I’ll go with you.”

Crystal raised an eyebrow. “Go with me? Are you… sure?”

Twilight, despite some color disappearing from her face, replied, “Yes.”

Crystal remained silent. A few others, especially Starlight, started sharing Crystal’s look of incredulity.

“Are you sure?” Crystal asked again. “It’s okay if you don’t want to go.”

Twilight swallowed and shook her head. “No, I should see this. I guess I was going to have to confront this all at some point, huh?”

Starlight stepped forward and said, “I want to see it too. After the story that Twilight told me and the others back home… I’ve wanted to know too.”

“We’re the ones tackling the problem,” Sunset said as she shuffled over to Chrysalis. “Maybe the five of us should see it so we know exactly what we’re up against.”

“And what’s at stake,” Twilight agreed.

Crystal glanced over at Chrysalis. “You’ve been through the thick of this too, so you’re more than welcome to stay.”

Chrysalis snorted and stuck her nose into the air. “I am a strong changeling. I will manage.”

“Well, in any case,” Crystal said, “expect to be there at least a day, maybe a day-and-a-half.”

Twilight turned to Sunset and said, “We should maybe bring our work with us.”

Sunset nodded and levitated over the documents and easel which they had been working with. Starlight followed suit as she levitated over the materials on the work table along with some tools. Chrysalis levitated over some schematics and rolled those up.

Twilight levitated over some saddlebags. “For when we need to put everything away.”

Adamantine nodded. “I suppose that the rest of us will wait here while you all… travel the multiverse. But… if you are leaving this reality… this timeline…” She frowned. “Would you indeed be gone forever?”

Crystal chuckled. “Ah, yes. But, when we come back, our absences will never have happened.” She trotted over to her four companions and then turned to face Adamantine. “I will allow three days to pass from your standpoint. You shall know whether we have returned or not by then.”

“Of course. We shall try to make progress in the meantime. Good luck,” Adamantine replied.

Crystal nodded. She then touched a nearby timeline with her mind’s eye. Reality folded in, and for a few moments, the five did not exist.

When it folded back out, Crystal wrapped her magic around the five of them and halted their falls before they could even begin. Her magic reached for some earth down below and pulled it up. Waves rolled across the water as seagulls circled above. As Crystal’s magic lowered them down, they heard a rumble which grew and grew in intensity before a pillar of rock, around which Crystal’s magic was wrapped, broke through the water’s surface. It was on that which Crystal set the rest of them down.

They looked around and spotted several tall and glossy structures taking up the entirety of the nearby landmass. A few bridges reached out from it and connected to a landmass way behind them; a train made its way across one of those bridges. Another, smaller island lay nearby which was dominated by a large, green statue of a cloaked mare wielding a torch.

Twilight set the saddlebags on the ground and trotted toward the edge of the island that Crystal had just pulled up. “Manehattan,” she said.

Sunset lit her horn and conjured up a wooden table. She proceeded to place all the documents onto it. “Well, this sure is a place to study the multiverse, isn’t it?”

Crystal glanced down the river and eventually focused on one spot in the middle of the water. “About five minutes from now, there will be a hole over there.”

“You mean, we’re going to reach the point in time when the bottom of the hole is,” Twilight said.

Crystal nodded. “Yes. That’s if it doesn’t decide to grow deeper.”

Starlight rolled her eyes. “It probably will, won’t it?”

Crystal lit her horn and created a spherical barrier around the spot. “I suppose it’s better to be safe than sorry.”

As the others set their stuff down and organized their belongings, Crystal scanned the surrounding waters. Several sailboats and yachts glided across the river’s surface. Some tourists on Statue Island pointed in their direction (and one even snapped a picture) before turning their attention back toward the usual shots.

Crystal twitched and examined the spot. Her mind’s eye saw the hole in the future grow deeper. “And lo and behold…”

What looked like a blob of pure black appeared in the middle of Crystal’s barrier. It hung in the air where it grew at a snail’s pace. It never shrank in return.

The other four immediately cocked their heads in its direction. Slowly, surely, they approached the edge of their little island and stared at it in silence.

Twilight shivered and went green in the face.

Starlight swallowed. “So… that’s it. That’s a hole.”

Crystal nodded solemnly. “That it is.”

Chrysalis opened her mouth to speak, but when nothing came out, she closed it again. Her insect-like wings folded out and back in a few times while her eyes remained glued on the anomaly.

A second hole appeared just under the first. It hung idly for a second, expanded, and then the two holes eventually merged together into one large opening.

Twilight shuddered and turned. She stumbled back toward the budding camp. Starlight flip-flopped between the anomaly across the water and Twilight and eventually settled on the latter as she galloped over and laid her foreleg across Twilight’s withers.

Sunset, meanwhile, drew close to Crystal. “Now what?” she asked.

Crystal nodded as she levitated some papers over. “Now, I get to work finding out what I can about this. We depend on it.”

* * *

Twilight sat in front of the campfire. It hadn’t been long since the sun had set, but the night was dark enough that she couldn’t get an idea of how the hole was behaving. The last time she had checked, and that had been some time ago, it had been quadruple the size of when they had first seen it.

Crystal sat at the end of the small plateau, attentively staring across the water. She lifted a rock off the stack of papers which it had been weighing down, took a fresh sheet, and then replaced the rock. She started to write some things down, occasionally pausing to tap the quill against her lip.

Chrysalis lay atop a towel on the opposite side of the plateau with her back facing them. She hadn’t made a sound since the sun had set. Twilight wasn’t sure if Chrysalis was even asleep or not.

Starlight and Sunset sat with Twilight at the campfire in the center albeit on its opposite side. They held several chisels and measuring tapes over what looked like a ball of solid metal with several glowing lines flowing through it. Twilight knew it was part of the spell and it was one of many more metallic objects to come.

At this point, she could only wonder what the finished spell would look like. As her eyes wandered over Sunset, she wondered if the human world had any supercomputers that could rival it when complete.

She simply sighed and lay down on her own towel. Her eyes remained glued to the flames.

Starlight glanced up and then sat up. “I know that look, Twilight. Are you okay?”

“I don’t know,” Twilight replied.

Starlight sighed and placed her tools down next to the object. “Alright… why don’t you tell us what’s up, huh?”

Twilight pursed her lips. “Well… Err… I never thought that I would see those holes ever again. And now here I am.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I just… The last time I saw those a hole like that… my reality collapsed.”

Sunset set her tools down as well. “Right, yeah. I see what’s wrong. You’re thinking about everypony back home, right?”

“That’s only part of it, but…” Twilight folded her forelegs together and sighed. “Yes, I am thinking about them.”

“I don’t blame ya,” Sunset said with the shake of her head.

Twilight’s eyes drew toward the island where the buildings created a canvas of dotted lights that stretched across her vision. A few dots flew about the buildings and the shoreline was littered with several ponies of all shapes and sizes dancing to some distant and inaudible tunes.

“Look at that,” Twilight said, pointing. “That’s a city full of ponies. They’re living, breathing ponies. And this timeline is going to collapse…”

Sunset stood up and walked toward the edge of the plateau. “Yeah… I could see that being a problem. They’re all going about their lives and they don’t know any better. And they never will, probably.”

Starlight scratched her head and frowned. “Yeah, right? And it’s like… we know better. Kind of a weird position to be in, isn’t it?”

“I’ve done stuff with alternate realities back home,” Sunset said. “Doesn’t make it any less weirder the second time.”

Twilight glanced up. She could see a few pegasi flying across the river between the island and the mainland. Some flew at a distance away while others flew more overhead. Most were as unknown as the next. Twilight, however, spotted one who looked vaguely familiar.

She stood and called out, “Hello, up there! Can I have a moment of your time?”

The pegasus above banked in their direction and then swooped down at a high velocity. At the last moment, the pegasus flipped over and beat her wings which slowed her down by a considerable margin. She touched down at high velocity, landing on all fours before straightening up. “Yeah? What do you want?”

Twilight examined the pegasus mare in the light of the fire. She had a light turquoise coat and wore her amber mane slicked back. Her tail was equally so. “You’re… Lightning Dust, correct?”

Lightning Dust narrowed her eyes. “Yeah, I am. What of it?”

Off to the side, Chrysalis stirred. Although her back was to them, she rolled just enough to glance in their direction.

Twilight nodded. “I thought that you looked familiar. I heard that somepony was thrown out of the Wonderbolts for being reckless and endangering the lives of others. You wouldn’t happen to be that pony, would you?”

Lightning Dust snorted. “Please, don’t remind me… I’m finding it hard enough to get a job as it is just because of that,” she said as she rubbed her foreleg and hung her head.

Twilight frowned. “But you are looking for a job?”

“I am.”

“This… this is going to sound like a silly question.” Twilight traced some circles into the dirt and then met Lightning Dust in the eyes. “Do you… know what the future will bring? Tonight? Tomorrow? Any ideas at all?”

Lightning Dust pursed her lips and shook her head. “No. I don’t know. Uh, I don’t think anypony knows. But I’m just hoping tomorrow is a better day. I just hope the rest of my life is better.”

Crystal turned and glanced back in their direction. Starlight slowly climbed to her hooves. Sunset, meanwhile, trotted up to Twilight’s side.

Twilight swallowed and nodded. “I see. Thank you for your time, that’s all I wanted to ask.”

Lightning Dust raised an eyebrow. She glanced around at everypony, momentarily paused on Chrysalis, and then shook her head. “Whatever. Later.” She shot into the sky, arced toward the city, and pretty soon disappeared among the myriad pegasi already above and through the city.

Twilight gazed into the distance for several long moments. “She has no idea,” she croaked, “that her reality is about to collapse. She has no idea that she’s going to die…”

Four heads, including Chrysalis’, turned toward the city as well.

Twilight shook her head and sighed. “Nopony back home had any idea. I had no idea.”

She sat back down and turned her eyes back to the fire. “I just… It’s the strangest feeling. I know what’s about to happen, and I’m… helpless.”

Crystal frowned. Her eyes wandered to the ground as the rest of her expression fell. Eventually, she turned back toward the hole over the river.

Starlight hung her head. “Yeah… This sucks.”

Sunset took a seat next to Twilight, wrapped a foreleg around her withers, and held her close. “Pretty much. This one’s gunna be a loss.”

Twilight nodded.

Sunset pursed her lips. “I haven’t really said anything about this yet, but… I learned a great deal about Adamantine and her unponies back in my home timeline.”

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “I think you might have mentioned it.”

“I’ve dealt with the Nameless monster quite a lot. But those unponies… they depended on it for food, and when the Nameless was destroyed…” Sunset shook her head. “Literally everything that I did to help those unponies did nothing. They died, and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

Twilight hung her head.

“Must be nice seeing them living and thriving, huh?” Starlight asked.

Sunset giggled. “You bet. It’s a huge relief. It reminds me that things can be better.” She pointed toward the city and said, “Maybe we’re going to lose them. We’re going to take losses here and there. But if there was anything else that I learned, that doesn’t mean we have to stop trying. We can save the other timelines. Hopefully sooner than later.”

Twilight smiled. “Yes. Maybe… you’re right, Sunset. I just can’t help but wish I could do something for them.”

Sunset sighed. “Me too, Twilight. Me too.”

Starlight sat back down. “I guess we just have to keep at it for their sake, huh?”

After a moment, Twilight nodded. “Yes. For their sake.”

* * *

Crystal jotted down the latest readings onto the sheet of paper and set it down with a sigh. The sun was directly overhead.

Twilight trotted over and sat down. “Okay. What do we have?”

Crystal hummed and lifted the stack of filled papers with her magic. She took a moment to read through them; they, for the most part, contained plain text. “Here.”

Twilight took the papers from Crystal and read over them.

Crystal lit her horn and made another magical cloud appear within the barrier around the hole. The hole, by now, had grown to the size of a low-rise apartment building. A smaller hole the size of a pony appeared right next to it which immediately expanded and then connected with its much larger brother.

Crystal turned her mind’s eye toward the timeline as a whole. She could see several more holes that, while still in the future, were slowly growing deeper and would eventually reach the present. She looked further into the future where several sections were now gone. She continued on and on until, finally, around a hundred thousand years into the future, the last remaining bits of timeline ended.

And it was rapidly disintegrating. If I’m looking at this right… she thought, all this could be collapsed within the next twenty minutes, maybe half-an-hour at most.

She willed her magical cloud to dive into the hole. Once she was sure that it was all the way in, she willed her cloud to stop all its movement. She held it there for a while. The spell itself fed her the same gibberish that it had been for the past few hours, although some parts of the gibberish were patterned.

Twilight hummed. “So…” she said as she held up a few pages in particular, “I see you’ve determined the background.”

Crystal nodded. “As best as I could. I don’t exactly know what makes up what’s beyond those holes… but I can certainly tell you that it’s not spacetime.”

Twilight nodded. “That… should make sense. I mean, it should exist outside of that. Interversal space, maybe?”

Crystal nodded.

“I don’t think that’s something that we could ever comprehend. We could spend so much time just guessing at it.” Twilight giggled and added, “Gosh, I wish I could do a full-length study on this. Just think, Crystal, we could find out so much about the makings of existence.”

Crystal smiled. “That would be something, wouldn’t it? Too bad these circumstances are far from ideal.”

Twilight shrugged. “If they were, would you be my partner?”

Crystal shrugged back. “I don’t know. I’m not against it.”

Twilight rolled her eyes and glanced back down at the papers. “And then, everything else… You’re saying you’re detecting interversal dust?”

“That’s my best guess.”

“I think that’s a good guess,” Twilight agreed.

Crystal turned her attention back to her spell as Twilight started on the next set of papers. She tried to gauge how her cloud was moving. She had been keeping it as still as she could, and yet, despite her efforts, it still seemed to dissipate.

The matter of where still eluded her. The cloud was moving in odd ways that she couldn’t control. But why does it keep dissipating? she thought.

Twilight set all the papers down. “So, that’s everything?” she asked.

Crystal shelved the thought for later. “Almost. This is mostly sufficient, I am sure. I just have but two more tests which I would like to conduct. If the results are what I expect, then I will have everything—”

A sudden breeze picked up and the set of papers scattered. Twilight swiftly jumped up and wrapped a magical cloud around all of them, arresting their movement. She brought them in and tried to restack them.

Crystal looked over and spotted a new hole far removed from the first. It sat at a point above the shoreline opposite the city. The waves turned erratic and seemingly flowed in the direction of the hole. The hole, in turn, lifted large amounts of water which it funneled into itself. The trees on the shoreline swayed, and those especially close were even uprooted and then promptly sucked into the hole.

Crystal frowned. “Well, it would appear that the time has come to drop the pretenses.”

A knot appeared in Twilight’s throat. “O-oh stars…”

Crystal glanced back toward the others who were now rising to their hooves in order to survey the hole. “Twilight, why don’t you go and help them wrap things up?”

After a moment, Twilight nodded and offered a soft “O-okay,” before she turned and trotted toward the others, taking the papers with her.

Crystal turned her gaze back to the initial hole and she lit her horn. She formed a barrier around the makeshift island and simultaneously dropped the barrier around the hole. The air roared as air pressures forced large amounts of air and water into a tight space.

A boat, which had been sailing just around the barrier, found itself capsized. It skidded across the water’s surface and eventually was close enough to go airborne and soon pass through the horizon. A few nearby pegasi flapped their wings with all their might but couldn’t outrun the winds and they too disappeared through the horizon.

Crystal wanted to look away. She forced herself to watch instead. In her mind, she needed to see it. She needed to know it.

The others, save Chrysalis who watched the bedlam in silence, went to work on gathering the various effects. They moved slowly and methodically, pointing between items and delegating tasks between each other.

Sunset looked up. “Crystal! How much time do we have!?”

Crystal looked over the timeline again with her mind’s eye. “There’s about ninety-thousand years left in this timeline. If I’m reading this right, all that will be completely collapsed in less than twenty minutes.”

Chrysalis bared her teeth and charged through the other three with a pointed, “Out of my way!” She stormed up to Crystal and, once there, turned her eyes toward the building-sized hole ahead. “You had better finish up soon.”

Crystal glanced across the timeline with her mind’s eye. She found her attention drawn toward the Crystal Empire; specifically toward a pile of toys. The sight of one actually brought a smile to her face. She lit her horn and teleported that very toy from the Crystal Empire to herself where it floated in her magic.

Said toy was a stuffed animal which took the form of a yellow snail carrying a greenish house on its back. Crystal chuckled and held it close. “Oh, Whammy…”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow.

“We won’t be here too much longer. But there are still two more tests to perform.” Crystal shook Whammy for a moment and added, “I think that I will use this for the second.”

“And? The first?”

“Watch.” Crystal lit her horn. A series of copper wires, wrapped around the occasional copper rod, appeared. Crystal examined the network of cables and then set them to the side.

Her horn remained lit and she glanced overhead. “Now, I’ll use a gravity manipulation spell to equalize gravity here… And then… we’ll bring the specimen in.”

A crystal the size of a castle appeared in the air above their heads. It had a jagged and asymmetrical design with purple and green sparks jumping between its branches and stubs. It hung in Crystal’s gravity-less space. A few bolts lashed out at Crystal’s barrier but all splashed pathetically against it.

“That crystal contains a few megathaums of energy. I’m going to break it open and see what interversal space does with it.”

“And just where did that come from?” Chrysalis hissed.

Crystal smirked. “The ruins in Crooktail Canyon. Surely, you know of them?”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and then turned her attention back toward the hole.

Crystal altered her gravity spell, shooting the giant crystal arcing through the air. It reached the apex of its arc but the winds rushing past it caused it to twist and tumble through the air.

She levitated the series of copper wires and rods and placed a few of those rods in a tight circle around a particular point on her barrier. She altered the barrier spell so that a few small holes opened up, into which she slotted the remaining rods. Crystal then reeled back, coursed a great deal of magic into her horn, and then shot a beam of pure magic through the ring of rods; her barrier opened up just long enough for her attack to pass through and barrel right into the giant crystal. A giant crack appeared on the crystal’s side and proliferated across its surfaces.

The crystal met the hole and dove past the horizon bottom-first. The hole arrested a good deal of its momentum, and in Crystal’s mind’s eye, she could already see very small dots exiting the hole. The crystal hadn’t broken yet, but she was sure that it would, and violently.

The hole itself, however, was smaller than the height of the crystal. Just as it seemed like the entire thing was going to disappear past the event horizon, the bottom of the crystal poked out from the other side of the hole.

Crystal jumped. “What in the…!?”

“Ridiculous!” Chrysalis exclaimed as she jammed her hoof in its direction. “That should be lost!”

A loud roar caused them to look up as the crystal shattered, expelling large amounts of energy. The cloud expanded only a few meters but was promptly sucked into the hole. The bits of hard crystal still outside teetered and then ultimately passed into the horizon.

Crystal turned her mind’s eye toward the hole in the timeline and could see pieces of debris dissipating. She watched it scatter in all directions. The bits of energy, to her surprise, sped up and slowed down at random and seemed to flicker in and out of fullness.

It’s moving in more dimensions than I can see, Crystal concluded. At the very least, this tells me how these things, in general, behave once they cross the horizon.

Another hole appeared over the city of Manehattan. The hole itself immediately grew to the size of a small house. It pulled on loose bits of nearby buildings and then sucked those in. There were a few ponies that had been flying or had been on rooftops within the vicinity who were also sucked in before they could even react.

“Oh stars!” Twilight exclaimed as her legs gave way.

The earth rumbled and roared as increasingly large chunks of earth shot into the air. Buildings in the city teetered and then collapsed amidst showers of dust. Some collapses slowed down in their descent and then reversed direction as the violent forces sucked their remains into the holes.

“Oh stars,” Twilight croaked. She collapsed all the way onto the ground. “Oh stars…”

“Twilight!” Sunset cried as she rushed to Twilight’ side, scooped her up, and cradled her.

Twilight shook like a leaf. Water welled up in her eyes and then fell in streams down her face.

Starlight, through clenched teeth, whirled. “Crystal! We have to get out of here!”

Crystal grimaced. “There’s still something that I need to do.”

“Then get her out of here! She’s in no shape to watch all of this!”

There was a loud explosion from within the city. A massive fireball shot into the air which the winds quickly tore apart.

“No!” Twilight exclaimed. “I…. said that I would be here… I…”

A few smaller holes appeared in the airspace above Manehattan and even more appeared over their position over the river. The waters churned and raced toward the openings, and at this point, brief glimpses of the seaweed-covered riverbeds showed themselves.

“Hurry up!” Chrysalis snapped. “Do whatever it is you plan on doing so that we can leave this wretched place!”

Crystal turned her attention back to the hole. She levitated Whammy past the barrier. Her grip on it teetered as she accounted for the strong forces acting on the toy, but she eventually steadied it out.

“Twilight,” Sunset said, “please. This is really getting under your skin.”

“A-and I came here knowing full well that it would,” Twilight replied.

Crystal brought Whammy to face in front of the event horizon. She held it there for a few moments and then she dipped it in halfway. Her mind’s eye kept watch on the hole as it grew wider in time. Once a few seconds had passed without the hole engulfing the remainder of the stuffed toy, she pulled back out. The rest of the toy appeared from past the horizon.

Crystal cooed with interest and made a mental note for later.

Chrysalis watched in silence. Her eyes drifted to the teary-eyed Twilight and a hint of a smile graced her face. Her eyes then wandered toward the city as the holes ravaged it, and all hints of her smile faded again.

Starlight bent down to Twilight’s level. “But Twilight—”

“I need to see this,” Twilight said, her stare distant but her tone firm. “I need to see this, and you need to see this.”

Crystal levitated Whammy back into the hole; all the way in this time. The stuffed toy disappeared past the horizon. Crystal waited a few seconds and then pulled back (at least, what she could fathom as back), but nothing reappeared. She could feel her magic moving Whammy about, but it was decisively not in the direction she wanted.

But Whammy is still whole, she thought. Whole in every sense of the word. So, it can still exist on the other side.

The apartment-sized hole underwent a growth spurt where, in the span of a few seconds, it nearly doubled in size.

“Now are you done?” Chrysalis asked.

Crystal nodded. “I am. That concludes everything that I wanted to do with these holes for the time being.” She turned to face the others and said, “I do believe we can now—”

She felt something wrap itself around her magic. It was an essence. Crystal paused and then, with a raised eyebrow, turned back to the hole. “Huh?”

“What?” Chrysalis asked.

The ground underneath their hooves shuddered.

Crystal frowned. The essence around her magic was also magic itself. It was much like her own. But that couldn’t possibly exist within the interversal space. It was impossible.

She pulled on her magic. The other magic acquiesced for a moment and then caught up with her pull, grabbing with the same tender touch as it had before.

“What is this?” she asked with disdain.

“Now what?” Chrysalis hissed.

“There is some magic out there… It has a hold on my spell,” Crystal replied. “How…?”

Crystal pulled some more, and the strange spell loosened its grip a second time. A few moments later, she felt the strange spell tighten itself around her own again.

She coursed some more energy into her horn and tried to alter her levitation spell enough to take a reading of the strange magic. She had to know what it was. Was is benevolent? Malevolent? How was it even possible? Where was it coming from?

She felt the strange magic shift, but she continued to alter her spell. Finally, she received some data from her half-levitation, half-meter spell.

The strange magic felt familiar. Very familiar.

Twilight groaned and climbed to her hooves. She too stared at the hole. Sunset and Starlight, after looking Twilight up and down, turned their attention to it as well.

The riverbed, now mostly dry, suddenly caved. Sections of earth crumbled and sank several meters downward. The surrounding sections, the riverbank, and the city itself also fell the same distance. Some areas disappeared into a scattering of holes which had, evidently, been hiding underneath the surface up until that point.

Every part of the makeshift island underneath Crystal’s barrier also fell away. Everypony there felt their bodies grow lighter and lighter by the second.

“Oh gosh,” Starlight said as she whirled around, “it’s… it’s all gone. It’s all gone!”

Sunset shuddered. “I…”

Chrysalis stumbled away from the edge of the barrier and eventually fell on her haunches.

Even Crystal had it in her mind to choose that moment to travel away. Her essence was already wrapped around Whammy who still floated somewhere within interversal space. She was now wrapping her essence around the others and their effects, too.

And then she saw it: a light blue tendril emerged from the hole in front of them. It was a tendril of pure magical energy. It extended in their direction, ignoring all the bedlam around it.

All five of them watched with bated breath as it reached in their direction and eventually pressed against Crystal’s barrier.

There were now rapidly expanding holes in all directions. The few hints of what had ever been in Equestria were now at least a kilometer below their hooves. And they all stared at the tendril.

Crystal’s spell still fed her information. She could still feel the other magic. She could sense it. She could feel the way that it caressed her magic and the way it longingly pressed against her barrier. She could feel its tenderness. She could feel its love.

She could feel in it things that she had once known about in a life so long ago. She could feel in it what she had as a foal.

Crystal gasped and felt all strength leave her. That was why it was familiar: she knew it. She knew it and could never ever forget it.

Her eyes flicked upward as the entire sky turned black. Rather, she saw holes take up every corner of the sky and they proliferated in their direction. At last, it was the end.

Her mind’s eye wandered to the timeline that they had left a day prior and then touched it. All of reality folded together and then they did not exist.

When reality folded back out, they landed on solid dirt again. The other four landed in silence save for the odd grunt as they made contact. The saddlebags and tool boxes also landed in the dirt but with even less fanfare. The sun was shining and there wasn’t a single hole to be found.

Crystal glanced up. Whammy the snail was there too. Her own magic and the last fleeting thoughts of the light blue-colored magic still ebbed and flowed around it. The latter lingered for a few moments more and then vanished along the cool breeze.

Her heart beat both at a million kilometers a minute and not at all.

The other four climbed to their hooves. Many others—Adamantine and a few of her unponies—joined them. Everypony in the clearing stared up at Whammy the snail which now only had Crystal’s magic around it.

Crystal levitated the stuffed toy close to her face and then looked back at the spot where it had just been.

Twilight said it first. “That magic… I think I know that magic. Was… that?”

Yes. It was.

Crystal’s legs finally gave way. “M… Mother?” she croaked.

19 - Anxiety

Chrysalis beat her wings together as she surveyed the clearing. A few clouds overhead cast the whole area in shadow, which she felt appropriate. The countless papers all hung from the clotheslines like before. There were easels and tables spread about but, at the moment, none of them were in use.

The collection of saddlebags sitting near the edge of the pavilion had yet to be unpacked.

She couldn’t bother herself to unpack them. She couldn’t bother any of the others to unpack them.

Pictures of a city being torn apart brick-by-brick flashed through her mind. Images of reality itself dissolving joined them. Every image was a lancing pain through her head.

She had just seen that. She had just felt it.

Chrysalis shuddered. She imagined objects, living and non, whole and unwhole, appearing and disappearing on a whim. Her hoof trailed down to her thigh; she felt a white-hot pain that she knew wasn’t there. She felt like her insides were twisting; she felt like she had been violated.

A drop of sweat formed on her brow and she had to spend a few moments getting her breath back under control.

Sunset Shimmer sat with Starlight Glimmer by the unlit fire pit in the center of the pavilion and spoke at length with Queen Adamantine. While one spoke, the other quietly munched on a sandwich. The two took turns while Adamantine, who only asked the occasional question, listened in silence.

Twilight Sparkle sat on her cot by her lonesome. She held her head in her hooves and sat there in silence. Chrysalis was sure that she had been quietly sobbing to herself at one point, but whether or not that was still true was something outside her capacity to care.

At least, that was what she told herself.

She looked around again. She still wasn’t sure where Crystal Faire had run off to.

Adamantine glanced over in Twilight’s direction, sighed, and then stood up. She gave Starlight and Sunset a nod and then exited the pavilion, now trotting in Chrysalis’ direction.

Chrysalis straightened herself. “What do you want?”

“I want to talk. I’m trying to gather everypony’s stories, you see.”

Chrysalis looked at Adamantine down her nose. “And?”

“And I was hoping that you could furnish me with yours.”

“I am not sure that I am in a talking mood.”

“I would be most appreciative if you would indulge me.” Adamantine glanced toward the ponies in the pavilion and then added, “And perhaps it will give you some time away from them. I am aware that you are looking for excuses.”

Chrysalis thought about it once, twice, and then hummed to herself. “Well, you are not wrong about that. So, lead the way.”

Adamantine nodded and motioned for Chrysalis to follow. The two exited the clearing and made their way into the village proper.

“Sunset Shimmer and Starlight Glimmer explained most of what happened,” Adamantine began. “Seeing what you saw must have been a shock.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “I would suppose that it was. I don’t fathom all of it, but I can gather enough.”

“To see an entire reality collapse; to cease to exist… I would imagine that that is one thing. But… you have similarly lost yours.”

“My home timeline is still there,” Chrysalis cut in.

Adamantine raised an eyebrow. “As is my understanding. But it has been thoroughly ravaged, yes?”

A pair of unponies, one the size of a foal, sat in the entryway of one of the huts. They perked up and waved as Adamantine and Chrysalis passed by. Adamantine waved back and exchanged wide smiles with them.

“You might say that,” Chrysalis replied as her eyes briefly lingered on those unponies.

“This… complete and utter destruction… on this scale…” Adamantine’s smile faded. “You have certainly dealt with it before.”

Chrysalis turned her head away.

“And I ponder on any difficulties that you might have had with what just happened,” Adamantine finished.

“I do not need reminding of what happened to me,” Chrysalis curtly replied.

“Ah, and yet, a reminder is exactly what you have received,” Adamantine countered. “Twilight Sparkle, for certain, but also you.”

A rubber ball bounced across the path with a gaggle of foals in pursuit, giggling and shouting all the while.

Chrysalis followed them with her eyes, licked her lips once, and then turned back to Adamantine. She then forced herself to look away again. “Don’t think that I’m having a hard time with it. And besides, what’s it to you?”

Adamantine’s muzzle twitched from side to side. “I am… trying to get some perspective on the situation. I suppose that the question I have for you is… how are you feeling?”

Chrysalis turned even further away. She couldn’t let Adamantine see her face. But she could feel her cold sweat returning. She wanted to hide it at all costs, but the images that swam through her head arrested her concentration.

She decided to use the old and familiar diplomatic trick of passing the buck. “How about you ask Twilight Sparkle about it?” Chrysalis said.

“I wish to ask Twilight Sparkle about it, but she does not seem to be in any sort of state to speak. To have to relive the death of her reality like that, I would imagine, must be extraordinarily difficult for her.”

Chrysalis snorted. “And what if it is?”

“I feel… that the both of you are equally qualified to speak of it.”

There was a loud bang in the distance which made the both of them stop. Adamantine flinched while Chrysalis cocked her head in its direction.

“Was that…?” Adamantine gasped.

“Crystal Faire, most likely,” Chrysalis replied.

Adamantine nodded. “But, nonetheless, I am curious to know. I implore you to give me a recounting.”

Chrysalis groaned. “Fine. I’ll talk. This is what happened…”

* * *

Crystal Faire’s world was a blur. She lay in the sand, staring at the waves as they encroached on the land and eventually retreated. The rest of the island stretched upward behind her. She could see the central mountain from her position, even under the shady trees.

There hadn’t been any mistaking it. That had been Cadance’s magic. That had been her mother’s.

How…? she mentally asked. How can this be?

I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.

Crystal couldn’t even find the strength to stand up.

Her mind’s eye wandered through the timelines. It eventually centered on a familiar one which had crystallized from top to bottom over a number of years. She scanned it, watching her past self live a life she once knew.

And she watched a Cadance from her past living and breathing alongside her past self.

It can’t be her, can it?

A particularly strong wave made its way up the beach and reached her position. The water swam around her. She didn’t pay it any mind.

She touched another timeline with her mind’s eye. Her world folded together and back out again and she landed on a cloud. An infinite night sky stretched in every direction above her head. She stumbled toward the edge of the cloud.

She could see the depressions in the cloud from where Twilight and her had once sat. She now stood in that same spot overlooking the Crystal Empire.

She stared down at the festivities. Ponies looked like dots weaving around each other and occasionally stopping to mingle. The sounds, while dispersed and unclear, gave hints of a smooth and melodic tone. Her eyes then drew toward the castle itself. Her mind’s eye could see within, where she watched as mother and father held each other close, speaking in hushed tones whilst wearing warm smiles.

She turned her mental sights toward the later parts of her home timeline. She watched as she entered the world, as she grew up, and as she was officially crowned. Crystal then watched as the Crystal Empire shot an energetic beam into the air just like it always had.

And then, immediately after that shot, the timeline ended.

You… you couldn’t have possibly survived that, right?

She looked at the end of the timeline more closely. She set her mind’s eye to zoom in on it. The timeline itself filled her view. She could see the spans of minutes and the spans of kilometers. She could see herself, much younger and much fairer, hovering above the castle whilst looking down at it. She could see a good score of ponies below, all gathered around the Crystal Heart. She could see the crystal ponies all throughout the surrounding streets with their heads bowed.

She could see the internal energies within the Crystal Heart. She could see the purple and green flashes arcing through it. She could see the reddish tint to it that everypony else was blind to.

She kept going. Crystal watched as the Crystal Heart spun and spun at greater frequencies and then finally coursed all the built-up energy into the castle itself. The castle glowed white hot and then a powerful beam of energy shot upward.

Crystal touched a hoof to her chest. Her younger self was right in its path. She watched her younger self steel herself in those split seconds before it reached her. The beam connected. It reached her chest and then, as she could see in the timeline, phased into her body.

She saw it reach her own beating heart, and then the timeline abruptly ended.

Crystal wheezed. She had to take a moment to turn her senses away, and even then, that did nothing to stop the stinging sensation within her chest. She knew it wasn’t actually there. It hadn’t been there for a very long time. She knew her mind was playing a trick on her.

She turned her eyes toward the real world and settled on the area under the castle. The Crystal Heart lay idle underneath; it glowed with a radiant energy but did nothing beyond that. It looked so pure.

And she knew that it was, as she had seen an unpure Heart.

The hubbub below continued on unabated.

Crystal took a deep breath and turned her mind’s eye back to that final moment. She turned her attention to the land below where her mother stood with the Crystal Heart. Cadance looked frozen in time in that last moment much like everypony else.

You didn’t survive that.

Crystal kept zooming in. She could only see the span of a second now.

You didn’t, right? Nothing survived that.

Crystal scratched her head. Even… if I did… you… didn’t... right?

She kept zooming in. She could only see a hundred kilometers in every direction.

The end of the timeline, Crystal knew, was flat. Everything had ended at that moment in time.

Crystal kept zooming into smaller and smaller timescales, and then, finally, she saw something which made her pause.

The end of the timeline was supposed to be flat. But here there was a bump.

…What? Even the voice of her thoughts couldn’t find its strength.

Her mind’s eye zoomed in on it. It was more than a bump; it was a structure. It was a pointed structure lying across a flat-ish land. She could see several more structures that more resembled bumps.

Crystal lost every bit of strength in her body as she realized what she was, in fact, looking at. There, within the vastness of interversal space, very much outside any reality she could fathom, the Crystal Empire and its surrounding lands sat atop a dead timeline.

* * *

“Cadance is Winter Amore’s mother,” Chrysalis explained. She then paused. A small grin spread across her muzzle. “Well, Winter Amore, Crystal Faire, Flurry Heart, you can call her whatever you like. It makes no difference to me.”

“They’re all one and the same, I suppose,” Adamantine said. “And… what exactly is your relationship to this… Cadance?”

Chrysalis growled. “I despise her. I despise all of them.”

Adamantine raised an eyebrow. “Why so?”

“Once upon a time, I disguised myself as Cadance. I took her place and then fed off her groom Shining Armor. I planned to launch an invasion with that power. The day that we were to ‘wed’ was meant to be perfect. And they ruined it,” she hissed.

“I see. I was, in fact, somewhat aware of the circumstances surrounding that. Twilight has, at least, talked about your background.”

Chrysalis rolled her yes. “Just as I would expect from her. She’s just as filthy.”

“She told me that you did so in order to provide nourishment for your subjects.”

“Of course. Everything that I did was for the good of the hive.” Chrysalis’ features contorted into a pained snarl. “And those ungrateful good-for-nothings spit in my face and abandoned me.”

Adamantine hummed to herself but said nothing in response. She turned her eyes toward the street ahead as the two of them trotted through another collection of huts.

An earth unpony mare emerged from one of the side streets, glanced in their direction, and then trotted over to them. She had drops of sweat on her brow and wore a concerned frown across her features. “Queen Mom, do you have a moment?”

Adamantine grinned. “Always, Gabbro. What is on your mind?”

“Something weird’s happened. I heard a loud bang inside my house, and now—” she pointed in a direction behind her, “—there’s something strange sitting in the middle of my room.”

Adamantine blinked. She briefly cast her glance on Chrysalis and then nodded. “Well, I suppose that I should go take a look at it.”

Chrysalis motioned Adamantine on and then followed as Gabbro led the way.

As they walked, she studied Adamantine’s calm and composed expression. Her eyes discerned how Adamantine’s gait was collected and tall and characteristic of a regal mare. Chrysalis turned her gaze toward the villagers as they passed by and noted how they lit up in Adamantine’s presence. Adamantine, in turn, gave them warm smiles and occasionally a vocal greeting.

Chrysalis couldn’t recall ever seeing that sort of thing when she strode through the hive.

“Adamantine,” Chrysalis began, “there is something I want to know.”

“Yes?”

Chrysalis watched as another pair of unponies traded smiles with Adamantine and then said, “I will admit that you seem to do very well for yourself as a queen. You command the adoration of your subjects.”

Adamantine chuckled. “I try my best.”

“And they do not fear you at all. I have seen how they look at you. How is it that you keep your power in this way? Why is it that they have not attempted to overthrow you?”

Adamantine raised an eyebrow and turned her head just enough to see Chrysalis out of the corner of her eye. She hummed after a few moments. “That is a good question, although I would suppose that I have an answer for it.”

“Tell me,” Chrysalis growled.

“Well, I would suppose that they know that I want what’s best for them. They know that I know what’s best for them. I like to think that I’ve consistently shown it.”

Chrysalis could feel her eye twitch. “Yes. I have done exactly the same.”

“Everything that I do, I do for the good of the unponies. That is my primary focus in life.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes even more. “Yes, yes.”

“And, if it really came down to it… I would give up everything in a heartbeat for them.” Adamantine straightened herself and said, “If I had to lay down my life for them… I would.”

Now Chrysalis actually paused. Give up everything? “You must be joking,” she said.

Adamantine shook her head. “No, not at all.”

After a few moments of staring Adamantine down, Chrysalis asked, “Now why in the world would you do that?”

Adamantine frowned, “Well, they are my world. So it just seems like the natural choice...”

“Ridiculous. If I were to throw my life away, there would be no one to lead the changelings. You would not be here to lead the unponies.”

Gabbro trotted up to one of the huts and parted the straw curtain hanging within the doorway. The hut, made out of wood and straw, was nothing impressive. Nothing seemed out of place at first glance.

Adamantine followed but stopped just before the doorway and she turned to face Chrysalis. “I would not be, you are right. But I am not the society. I am not more important than the whole. So, if my life is the cost of their survival… I will gladly pay it.”

Chrysalis remained silent. That gave Adamantine just enough opportunity to duck inside the hut.

You’d really do that? Chrysalis thought. That’s… absurd.

She shook her head and ducked inside the hut herself. There were a few effects here and there; mostly books and some cooking utensils on the side. A single wooden pillar in the center of the room held up the entire structure.

Sitting on top of a bed on the far side of the room sat a large, heart-shaped, crystalline object. The heart pulsated with energy, so much so that nopony dared to approach it. Strangely enough, it looked a little transparent, almost as if it was unwhole.

“What in the world…?” Adamantine wheezed.

Chrysalis nudged her way through them to get a good look at it, and then she narrowed her eyes. “I know what this is. It’s an artifact that is supposed to be in the Crystal Empire.”

“And what is it doing here?” Gabbro asked.

There was another loud bang some distance away, and the three of them perked up. After a few moments of looking around in confusion, they glanced at each other.

Chrysalis’ muzzle twitched. “What is that Crystal Faire up to now?”

* * *

“Oh goodness…” Twilight wheezed. She shook from mane to tail and didn’t even have the strength to lift herself from the cot.

“To think that there could be stuff out there,” Starlight said as she scratched her head. She sat on the cot right next to Twilight. “It’s pretty bizarre.”

Sunset, on the other hoof, stood right at Twilight’s side. “…Yeah.”

The three of them jumped as they heard another bang from somewhere within the village. They briefly looked in its direction.

“You don’t think that was just some random Cadance, right?” Starlight asked.

Sunset shook her head. “Not from the way Crystal reacted.”

They heard another bang from much closer by this time and they looked up just in time to watch a book fall out of the sky. Said book, which looked slightly translucent, thumped against the ground and splayed itself out with the pages lying in the dirt.

A blood vein looked like it popped in Starlight’s head and she shook her head. “Okay, seriously, what is Crystal doing? Like, I know she’s probably in shock right now, maybe…?”

Sunset frowned. “I dunno. Finding out that your people might still be alive out there’s gotta be pretty tough.”

Twilight shuddered. “I’m…”

The two glanced down with concerned frowns.

“I just… I wonder… If there are things out there… if there are ponies out there…” Twilight croaked, “I wonder… what about my—”

There was another bang somewhere in the distance. A third bang followed closely behind that.

Starlight grumbled and stood up. “Okay, I think I’m going to say it: something’s wrong.”

Sunset narrowed her eyes and turned toward the edge of the pavilion. “Yeah, I think you might be right.”

There was another bang in the middle of the clearing and they all turned to find Crystal standing over the book that had fallen from the sky. Crystal scooped up the book with her magic and flipped through the pages with an increasingly blank expression.

Starlight growled and stormed out of the pavilion in a huff. “Crystal!”

Crystal blinked and glanced up. “Starlight…?”

“What are you doing? What’s with all this stuff?”

Crystal frowned. “You mean… this?” she asked as she held up the book.

“Yeah!” Starlight exclaimed. “Where did that come from?”

At that moment, two more ponies walked into the clearing. Adamantine floated a crystal heart in her magic grasp whilst eyeing Crystal closely.

“Look at what we found in one of the huts,” Chrysalis said as she motioned toward the heart. “You’ve been busy, Crystal Faire!”

Some bits of color drained from Starlight’s face. “Is that the Crystal Heart?”

“That it is,” Chrysalis replied.

“Seriously? Crystal, what is with all of this stuff?”

“What are you doing teleporting all of this in?”

Crystal backpedaled. The book in her magical grasp dropped to the ground. “I-I’m not…”

There was another bang. Everyone whirled as another object, a pink-colored flip phone, dropped out of the sky and clattered against the dirt. It, like the previous objects before it, looked slightly translucent.

Sunset floated the phone over with her magic and pushed a button on it. The screen lit up, showing pictures of some Crystal Preppers whom she only vaguely recognized. “What the hay…?”

“I don’t know what’s going on. None of this is my doing,” Crystal said.

After a moment of silence, Adamantine set the Crystal Heart on the ground and stepped forward. “Well, if you are not behind these strange happenings, then what is? What is the meaning behind all of this?”

Crystal scratched her head. “I don’t know. I’ve been in another timeline up until now. These things are all appearing out of nowhere—really.”

“We… This timeline didn’t just get shredded by debris, did it?” Starlight tremulously asked.

“Not that I’m aware of. But I can say this… These… things, whatever they are…” Crystal swallowed, “everything before the moment they enter the timeline crystallizes. It’s… it’s like what happened with Starlight’s figurine. It’s like what happens with me.”

There was another bang a short distance away from them. Everypony turned around to find something large now laying in the middle of the clearing.

Everypony stared in complete silence. Nopony dared to move.

Said something looked organic with a white coat and a long, ethereal, and prismatic mane and tail. Said something (a pony, by the looks of it) stirred, groaned, and then rolled over.

The lack of golden regalia stopped nopony from gasping in surprise.

Twilight sprang to her hooves and galloped over, nearly kicking her cot over in the process. “Princess Celestia!” she exclaimed.

Celestia’s eyes popped open and she rolled over. She looked even more translucent than everything else which had recently appeared, but she was mostly there. Her eyes wandered over the clearing, passing over Twilight in the process. Her stare was blank, and she blinked several times as she looked from place to place. “Where am I?” she slurred.

“I-impossible…” Chrysalis growled.

Crystal’s jaw all but dropped to the ground.

“Princess! Are you okay?” Twilight asked. She slid through the dirt and came to a stop right in front of Celestia and gave her several top-to-bottom examinations.

Celestia blinked again and finally centered her gaze on Twilight. “Twilight? Is that you?”

Twilight met Celestia’s gaze and nodded. “Yes. It’s me.”

Chrysalis, who still stood next to Adamantine, clenched her teeth together and then backed away.

Sunset scratched her head and drifted in Starlight’s direction. “What in the…?” she muttered.

Crystal swallowed and straightened herself before walking forward. “Princess Celestia. You no doubt have some questions…”

Celestia rubbed her face and then tentatively turned her eyes to Crystal. She then paused and sat up straight. She considered Crystal in full as her eyes ran over Crystal’s wings, her mane, and then the scar on her right eye.

“You…” Celestia slurred as she planted her hooves onto the ground, “Yes, I remember you…”

Crystal raised an eyebrow.

Celestia nodded. “Your name is Crystal… Faire? Did I get that correct?”

Crystal went as white as a sheet.

The rest of the clearing held their breaths.

Twilight forced herself to breathe and then leaned in close. “Princess… how… How do you know her?”

Celestia’s hooves slipped and she lost her precious footing, but she soon tried again. After a moment, she shakily climbed to her hooves. She then frowned and looked Crystal in the eye and said, “Well… goodness… When I last saw you, you had just saved us from that dastardly Miasmus and—”

Twilight’s heart just about stopped. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. It all sounded so familiar. It was way too familiar.

“—and then…” Celestia shook her head with disbelief, “our reality broke down, and…”

Crystal stumbled backward and onto her haunches. “Oh my stars…”

Twilight’s world spun and her body seemed to move by itself. She too stood up with her eyes fixed onto her mentor’s face. There were infinitely many Celestias out there, this much Twilight knew.

But there were none that could speak as this Celestia had just spoken. None save one. Twilight knew that one all too well. There was not a doubt in her mind exactly which Celestia this was.

“Princess… My P-princess…” Twilight stammered, “you… you’re alive.”

20 - History

Twilight Sparkle poured some more tea into Princess Celestia’s cup and then folded her hooves together. “I think that should be everything up until this point,” she said.

Princess Celestia sat on a cushion opposite her. The cushions themselves ringed around the unlit fire pit that took up the center of the pavilion. The shadows had shifted to afternoon angles, but the skies above were still as blue as ever.

Celestia took a sip of her tea and nodded. “I see. I think I understand it. Or… perhaps I don’t,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s hard to say.”

“It’s a lot to take in, I’m sure,” Sunset Shimmer, who sat on a cushion right next to Celestia, said.

Celestia glanced over. “Well, if there is one thing that I can take away from this… it’s very heartening to know that, in some reality out there, you and I made up. It’s… what I always wanted.”

Sunset shrugged. “Well, from what Twilight told me about her reality… your reality too, I guess, I did pretty okay for myself. I know you were probably worrying about me for a while.”

“Every day,” Celestia replied.

“I don’t know what it’ll be worth considering we’re from different realities and all, but I have so many stories that I could share with you. Maybe we should sit down and chat later?”

“That sounds lovely,” Celestia replied. Her eyes drifted upward toward Chrysalis who watched from the outer edges of the pavilion. “I am, however, very interested to hear how she came about. I would have never considered her an ally in any way.”

Starlight Glimmer, who sat on a cushion between Twilight and Sunset, giggled. “You and me both, Princess.”

Crystal Faire stood up. “It is, no doubt, a product of these precarious circumstances. It has brought us all together.” She paced around the outside of the group while keeping her eyes on Celestia as she said, “And it is those same circumstances which have now brought you here.”

Adamantine, who sat next to Twilight, frowned. “Perhaps that also has something to do with why you are faded.”

Celestia looked at her own body and how it looked slightly translucent. It gave an impression of her being only mostly there. She sighed. “Yes, I don’t understand this at all.”

“After spending so long in interversal space,” Crystal began, “it’s a wonder that you can even be here, in a timeline, at all. I just wonder if you will persist, or…”

“Absolutely. Hopefully, I will. Not just for my sake.”

Crystal nodded. “Indeed. And now, Celestia, I must ask you exactly what you have experienced. What… did you see out there?”

“And how did you survive?” Twilight seconded.

Celestia nodded and shifted her forelegs around. “Well, when the… timeline collapsed, I was sucked into those black masses. The next thing I knew, I was floating in a void. I could see in all directions.”

“And were there others?” Crystal asked.

“Yes. The rest of Twilight’s friends were there with me along with the citizens of Ponyville. Miasmus was there too.” Celestia scratched her head and added, “There were strange creatures there as well. I would suspect that many of them were from other worlds.”

“Humans?” Sunset abruptly asked.

Celestia nodded. “Humans. At least, I think. I don’t really remember much else of it. I think that everypony was trying to figure out just what had happened.”

“So, there were many others who survived the collapse,” Crystal said.

“What was it like?” Twilight asked. “What did you feel like?”

Celestia stared off into space. “I felt… nothing. I-It didn’t hurt… But I remember… I remember being so terrified that I just could not think of anything.” Her voice drew toward a whisper. She shook her head and sighed. “I’m sorry… I should have been more careful and—”

“It’s not your fault,” Twilight cut in. “There wasn’t anything you could do. I promise…”

“And here you were thinking that we had all perished. I am so sorry, Twilight…”

Twilight frowned and shook her head again. She shifted over to Celestia and wrapped her hooves around her. “I’m just glad you’re okay. You have no idea how much of a relief this is.”

Celestia smiled and returned the embrace.

“What else did you find out there? You must have encountered others,” Crystal said.

Celestia nodded. “Yes. As a matter of fact, I did. She came and collected us. She called herself the Queen of the Multiverse. Tongue and cheekly, of course.”

“And… who was she?” Crystal tremulously asked.

“She was aged, somewhat, but I have no doubts in my mind…” Celestia looked Crystal in the eye and said, “It was Cadance, Crystal Faire… Your mother.”

Crystal’s expression didn’t change, and she kept herself standing, but all color disappeared from her face regardless. She opened her mouth to say something and then shut it again.

Celestia ran a hoof through her mane. “And, actually, after what happened in these past few hours, we got to talking, and we wanted to try some things. We started pushing those things in,” she said as she pointed to a few equally translucent objects lying to the side. “And now I’ve fallen in too. So here I am.”

“By the stars…” Twilight gasped. “So that’s how you got here.”

“But how did you get out there?” Sunset asked.

“She… Cadance told me…” Celestia said, “that she’s been watching the collapses for a while, and yet we were the first ones ever to survive.”

Adamantine hummed. “That is curious. Surely, there has been an uncountable number of timeline collapses before. Why would you be the first?”

Celestia paused for a moment and took a sip from her teacup. After stopping to admire its taste, she said, “She described it as a clean collapse.”

One of Crystal’s hooves drew backward toward the edge of the pavilion.

“I really hope that I can correctly remember what she told me...” Celestia continued. “She said that most timeline collapses are very messy affairs where everything is torn apart. But what happened to us… was different. That got her attention. It was the first clean timeline collapse that she had seen.”

Crystal backpedaled even more.

“And then, supposedly, there was another about an hour ago—or maybe it was more than that, I can’t actually tell—and…”

Adamantine raised an eyebrow. “That is very interesting. Then, there are now more survivors?”

“That would seem to be the case,” Celestia replied.

“That’s interesting. I kinda wonder what causes a collapse to be clean,” Starlight mused.

“Were there others?” Crystal suddenly cut in.

Celestia looked up. “Hmmm?”

Crystal’s expression was long and she practically stared Celestia down. “When you first arrived there in that interversal space… were there others?”

Celestia rocked from side to side as she thought. “She didn’t have many followers,” she replied. “I would imagine a thousand or so. All crystal ponies, at that.”

Crystal swallowed and replied, tremulously, “So then, she and her people… my people… they’re still…”

“They’re all still out there,” Twilight said. “Crystal! Do you know what this—”

Crystal had turned around and was now stumbling away. She passed Chrysalis without even so much as acknowledging her presence. Chrysalis watched as Crystal departed and then looked at the group with an inaudible “Huh?”

Twilight watched as Crystal ambled off. This… definitely has to be a hard pill for her to swallow. Goodness…

She turned her eyes toward Celestia. I… I thought that Celestia… my Celestia was gone forever too. And now here Crystal is… And after so long…

Twilight stood up as well and turned toward her mentor. “Forgive me, Princess, but I think I should go to her.”

Celestia motioned Twilight on. “By all means.”

Twilight nodded and dashed away, chasing after Crystal.

* * *

Twilight trotted down the dirt path and arrived at another intersection. She finally found Crystal trudging along one of the adjacent streets and immediately galloped in her direction. Crystal didn’t even bat an eye, even as Twilight came up right beside her.

“Crystal?” Twilight asked as she leaned in close. “Are you okay?”

“I thought that you would be with your Celestia,” Crystal mumbled.

After a moment of thought, Twilight shook her head. “Princess Celestia is fine. …I think. I hope she’ll survive because then we could bring everypony home.” She looked up at Crystal and said, “But right now, I’m worried about you.”

Crystal stared into the distance. She didn’t pause in her stride even though her stride was strained to begin with. Her eyes flicked about as she searched for words. “Clean collapses are survivable…” she wheezed.

Twilight frowned. “Crystal…”

Crystal glanced over her withers at Twilight. “I saw it, Twilight. I looked into the multiverse. I looked at it more closely than I’ve ever looked at it before. And I saw it. I saw the Crystal Empire. I saw home.”

Twilight nodded and said nothing.

“I’ve been doubting it. I’ve been trying to doubt it. But I can’t anymore,” Crystal continued. “My… people… my mother… they’ve been out there this whole time… And I didn’t even know it.”

“They survived… just like my people did.”

Crystal nodded solemnly.

Twilight shook her head and teleported into the middle of Crystal’s path. “Crystal,” she began.

Crystal stopped and looked down at Twilight.

“How… how did your timeline collapse? I want to know.”

Crystal didn’t respond. She just kept staring down at Twilight with a sad frown on her face.

Twilight trembled and added a tremulous “Please?”

Crystal’s expression remained unchanged. She, for a few moments more, still did not respond.

She eventually sighed and closed the distance between herself and Twilight. Right as they were nearly muzzle to muzzle, the world shifted and folded together into a single point.

When it folded back out, Crystal turned and trotted toward a nearby wall. Twilight glanced around; the room was decisively wooden with several large masks scattered about and shelves upon shelves of potion vials and flasks hanging on the walls. A large cauldron took up the center of the room. Twilight recognized the place right away, and she looked around but found no trace of its zebra inhabitant.

Crystal plucked a flask off the top shelf. Said flask had a golden seal on it with a red-eyed pattern around it. The potion actually within was a purplish color.

Twilight recognized that potion too. She had used it before.

Crystal wordlessly trotted back up to Twilight and then the world folded together again. When it folded back out, Twilight found herself standing on trimmed grass.

Crystal sighed through her nose and trotted toward a nearby bench. Twilight took a quick glance around and discerned the pristine whites and smooth surfaces that made up Canterlot’s architecture. The few ponies milling about the street, all of whom wore expensive suits and dresses, stared for a few moments and then continued on with their idle conversations.

Twilight trotted over to the bench and took a seat right next to Crystal where she eyed the potion in silence.

Crystal lit her horn, but instead of the light yellow aura that was her usual, the magic that came out was bathed in toxic purples and greens that bubbled and burst. Her expression remained unchanged even as her horn shot a blackened beam at the potion. The liquid within the vial changed into a purely white color.

Crystal then levitated the flask over to Twilight who, in turn, took it within her magic. And Twilight knew what came next.

Twilight lifted the flask to her mouth and took a few gulps of the potion. It was just as tasteless as she remembered it. Once she was sure she had enough, she set the flask onto the bench between Crystal and herself.

A few seconds later, her world went white, and she was nothing more than a consciousness in the void.

When Twilight came to, she was standing in Canterlot again. Or, at the very least, it was a spacious garden in Canterlot. Her eyes turned toward the sky where she found the sun and the moon hanging on opposite horizons. The lights produced by both melted together in an orangish-bluish glow. Several stars, brighter than usual, dotted the sky.

There were many ponies gathered around her. She guessed at least a thousand. All of them were dressed in black; some even wore veils over their faces. She could see many familiar faces throughout the crowd, but each of those faces had gained a few wrinkles since she had last seen them. She spotted her parents in the front of the crowd; their manes had greyed considerably, and they looked like they were numb to everything. She spotted Princess Celestia and Princess Luna who looked similarly distant, even while they embraced each other.

Twilight turned as it occurred to her that somepony behind her was speaking. She found Sunset Shimmer standing on a raised platform. Sunset, who looked taller and more definitely built than she remembered, stood tall despite the layers of black clothing covering everything below her neck. A small tiara sat atop Sunset’s head. Spike, who was taller, leaner, and more rugged than she remembered him, stood next to her. He looked like he was Celestia’s height now.

The two of them stood next to a closed casket. A large portrait of Twilight Sparkle flanked the casket’s other side.

Twilight gasped. “Oh, goodness…”

“Thank you all for attending the service today,” Spike said, addressing the crowd. “I hope that all of you will follow us to the site for the… burial service. I-If the pallbearers could please stand and come forward…”

Twilight whirled and watched as a few ponies on the front bench stood up and made their way over to the coffin. They passed right through her as they went, just as Twilight expected them to. She looked over each of them. Applejack still had the same old stetson and Rarity’s curled mane was still as elegant as ever. Fluttershy had convoluted braids in her hair while Rainbow Dash looked shaved. Pinkie Pie’s mane had gone limp, but Twilight could tell that it had been done-up regardless. Starlight Glimmer, on the other hoof, aside from the stray hairs all around, looked a lot like Twilight remembered.

She watched as the six of them, her six friends, turned the coffin, lifted it onto their backs, and then carried it down the aisle toward an exit at the head of the garden.

“This is…” Twilight croaked.

She turned her eyes back toward her parents in the front and let her eyes glide down the row. She found her brother, Shining Armor, falling into tears, just like their parents. She found Cadance sitting right beside him; she too started to choke on her own air.

Twilight’s eyes finally fell on the mare sitting with a blank expression right next to Cadance. Said mare had a clear, pristine face, punctuated by the vibrant gradient of cerise and violet that was her mane. An arctic blue stripe completed the pattern.

“Crystal Faire…” Twilight quivered. “It’s…. you…”

“When I was younger, yes,” Crystal Faire’s voice said. The voice itself seemed to come from all directions.

Twilight glanced around, looking for the source. “Wait… you can hear me?”

“Remember that I am sitting right next to you in the real world, Twilight.”

Twilight nodded. “So… this was the day of my funeral?”

“Yes.”

Twilight swallowed and centered her eyes back on the younger version of Crystal. “This… was when you lost me.”

A pause. And then, “Yes.”

Twilight watched as the casket reached the edge of the garden. She watched as, on the altar, Sunset broke down into sobs. Spike knelt down beside her and she, in turn, cried into him. That, in turn, provoked some tears in his eyes and he whimpered too.

“This was… one of the most important days of my life,” Crystal’s voice said.

Twilight swallowed. “This was when everything changed. You told me… that Equestria fell off a cliff after this.”

“This was the last that I ever saw of Auntie Sunset before she ran away,” Crystal’s voice said.

Twilight considered Sunset in full. She thought about the Sunset that she had been spending the last few days with. “…I see.” She turned and studied her mentor and how pale she looked. “What about Princess Celestia?”

“Locked herself in the castle for a month. Do you remember?”

Twilight hung her head. “I think I believe it.” She trotted over to where her closest family members sat. Her eyes fell on Shining Armor, and she regarded him with a frown. I remember… Crystal, you told me… you lost him not long after this… She reached out and stroked his cheek, even as her hoof passed right through him. I’m so sorry…

In the next moment, Cadance stood up. She cast one hardened glance at Crystal and then led Shining Armor toward the aisle. Crystal didn’t even bat an eye or so much as even respond.

“I think that my parents had their ideas about how it happened,” Crystal’s voice said. “My mother more than my father. They thought that I might have been what caused Auntie Twilight’s death. They thought… that my predicting it had made it come true.”

Twilight watched as Cadance and Shining Armor filed into the line of ponies now making their way toward the door. Sunset and Spike stepped off the stage and joined them.

The younger Crystal remained sitting down.

“And did you?” Twilight asked.

After a moment, Crystal sighed and stood up. Most ponies had already filed or flew out of the garden. She, however, took the rear of the ponies on the ground. She stared forward without a hint of any change in her expression.

“I think about that a lot. I didn’t fully comprehend my ability to shape the future back then. It was not by my hoof, I promise you… But I saw a future where it happened, and it came true.”

Twilight walked right behind Crystal. Her eyes shifted between her and Cadance further up. “I can see it. Cadance…”

Twilight’s world turned white and she was a consciousness again. A split second later, she suddenly could feel herself again and she had to shake the residual effects of the potion out of her sight. She blinked through blurred vision and found herself standing in one of the rooms in the Crystal Empire.

Twilight turned to find Crystal Faire sitting in silence on a singular cushion in front of an unlit fireplace. Daytime sun streamed through the tall windows and lit her face. An open notebook lay in front of her. Crystal paused to jot something down into it and then resumed her quiet pondering.

The decorations had been changed around, but Twilight recognized the room nonetheless. She trotted over to Crystal.

The door opened and Cadance stepped through. Twilight got a good look at her; Cadance stood tall and regally and every step that she took was smooth and graceful. It wasn’t like the casual stride that Twilight knew Cadance for. Her eyes turned toward Cadance’s golden regalia which was large and ornate and practically sparkled in the light.

Crystal briefly glanced up from her notebook. “Mother.”

“Crystal,” Cadance replied. She closed the door behind her and trotted toward the window. “I went and visited your father. The flowers from last month were still in the headstone.”

Crystal vacantly nodded.

Cadance adjusted one of the window curtains, redid a knot, and then sighed. “You should have gone.”

Crystal returned her quill into the inkwell right beside her notebook and said nothing.

Cadance paused and stared in thought. It seemed like at least a minute passed by. And then Cadance shook her head and trotted forward. “Crystal, I’ve been thinking that it’s time we got you out of the castle.”

“I don’t want to go out of the castle,” Crystal curtly replied. “You know this.”

“But you can’t just stay here all day and night,” Cadance replied. “We have to get you out of this castle.”

Crystal groaned and fixed her gaze on her writings.

“You’re not happy here,” Cadance continued. “Everypony can see that.”

“But every bit of good that I can do, I can do from right here. And besides… there’s still nothing for me out there.”

“There’s nothing for you out there because you haven’t gone out there to find things for yourself!”

“I already know what’s out there!” Crystal exclaimed. “I can see it all just fine from here. And you know what I see? Terrible things! Unspeakable things! I see disasters and atrocities on the horizon, and no matter what I do to try and take care of them, it’s not enough; there’re always more.”

Crystal snapped the notebook shut with her magic and stood up. “And that’s a thing all in itself. Now say I go out there and I find something or somepony. Ignoring the fact that I could already see myself losing them well before it even happens, what’s not to say that yet another atrocity comes along… or that I see another atrocity and thus make it so? Would I then lose them just like I did with Father? Just like I did with Auntie Twilight?”

Cadance narrowed her eyes. “That wasn’t your fault.”

“It could have been,” Crystal countered. “They could be dead because of this cursed power…”

Cadance stomped her hoof. “Crystal, you know that I don’t blame you for it. You can’t help your power. I know that better than anypony.”

Crystal stared for several moments. She quivered. Her eyes drew toward a nearby shelf where several bottles, all arranged in a neat row, idly sat. Dark blue-colored clouds swirled about within them. She considered those clouds for a few moments and then finally sighed and trotted toward the door, levitating her notebook, quill, and inkwell behind her.

Cadance, after a slight pause, considered the bottles as well and then whirled around. “Crystal! Please! Just listen to me! Power or no power, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re not happy here.”

Crystal paused.

“I know you’re trying to use the power to help out however you can, and I have no doubt that you’re doing good. But you have to have a life, Crystal. You need friends.” Cadance threw her hooves into the air with an exasperated groan. “What would Twilight say if she were here?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s exactly what I would say, huh?” She turned her attention to Crystal and studied the movement of Crystal’s face.

Crystal turned just enough to consider Cadance out of the corner of her eye. “Mother…”

“My highest priority has been your happiness. You know that I’ve tried and tried and tried what I could to help you deal with your problems. I think I’ve done a good job,” Cadance said as she pointed to herself. “And you need help again. Please, Crystal, let me help you.”

Twilight watched the two for a few more moments before her world went white again. When it faded out again, she found herself back on the bench in Canterlot. She blinked the disorientation out of her eyes.

She looked back up to Crystal next to her. This Crystal had all the features that she remembered. Crystal was glancing toward the middle of the street, and so Twilight turned as well. There, she saw two ponies making their way across.

She recognized Princess Luna. The other was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed earth filly with a pink coat and a purple mane. The both of them glanced over at Crystal and Twilight and paused.

Twilight gave a meek wave and Crystal nodded. They nodded back and then continued walking.

Twilight frowned. “Princess Luna…”

“And her apprentice,” Crystal replied.

“Wow, imagine that. She’s come a long way from being Nightmare Moon,” Twilight said. She paused for a moment. “I want to imagine she didn’t have many friends before she turned. Maybe that’s part of why she turned bad in the first place.” She paused again. “That’s why Starlight turned. It could be why Sunset turned... I’m sure there are others, too…”

Crystal didn’t say anything. She averted her gaze instead.

Twilight’s expression hardened and she glanced up. “Friends are so important, Crystal. I know I would have taught you that.”

Crystal sighed through her nose. “Well… after losing you, I could not be of that mind anymore.”

Twilight opened her mouth to speak but found nothing to say. She deflated instead and nodded solemnly.

Crystal shook her head. “But perhaps… turning my back on your advice, and my mother’s advice… was what set the stage.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

After a moment, Crystal gave the flask sitting between them a nudge.

Twilight sighed and lifted the flask with her magic again. She took a few sips like she had last time.

A few seconds later, Twilight’s world went white again. When her senses came to, she found herself standing in the Crystal Empire again. Twilight felt the hard street underhoof and turned to find a hoofful of ponies standing underneath the legs of the palace.

The Crystal Heart idly hung in place. It, however, contained some colors that Twilight knew weren’t normally there; shades of green and purple swirled around its insides and the crystal itself had a reddish tint to it. The colors fused together to create a ghastly effect, and Twilight inwardly thanked the potion for not subjecting her to its aura.

Twilight swallowed and trotted into the fray. Cadance spoke with a few of her guards plus, judging from his starry cloak and his long and vermillion goatee, Sunburst. Their tones were hushed, and they kept close together.

And Twilight could see flickers of that same green and purple light in their eyes.

“What is this?” Twilight asked aloud.

“Watch,” Crystal Faire’s voice replied.

“Mother!” called a voice from above. That young and fair Crystal Faire who Twilight had seen before touched down amongst the crowd. “Mother, stop!”

All eyes turned to Crystal, and all conversations large and small died off.

“You must already be aware of what we’re dealing with, Crystal,” Cadance said as she stepped forward. “There is something wrong with the Crystal Heart. We have to fix it.”

“I know! I’ve seen it,” Crystal replied. “But you can’t do it like this.”

“Firing it off will get all of the contamination out of it,” Cadance countered. “We have to do this, or the Crystal Heart will go inert, and this land will succumb to the frozen north!”

Crystal stamped her hoof. “Yes, but firing it off will spread all that negativity to the rest of Equestria instead! The country is ruined enough as it is!”

“As you would know, Crystal Faire, as it is your fault that it is this way!”

Both Twilight and Crystal gasped.

“She did not just say that…” Twilight croaked whilst pulling on her own mane. “She didn’t… Cadance wouldn’t say that…”

Crystal’s eyes darted toward the Crystal Heart and she swallowed. “You… you would never say that.”

“She’s right!” Twilight exclaimed. “That’s not the Cadance that I know! The Cadance that I know is sweet and kind, and she’d never say anything like that to her own daughter.”

“It’s the Heart, Twilight,” Crystal’s voice said. “It infected Mother’s mind and the minds of everypony else. They aren’t thinking correctly at this moment.”

“Listen to me!” Crystal cried. “You still can’t! I can see what’s going to happen! It doesn’t end well for everypony!”

Cadance frowned again and stood at her full height. “That simply is not true.”

“It is! You know better than anypony.”

Cadance frowned. “Crystal… I do know better than that. You would have seen this coming. And if this was a disaster and you actually didn’t want it to happen…” Cadance leaned into Crystal’s muzzle and said, “you would never have let it happen to begin with.”

A few others nodded as well.

“N-no, you don’t understand…” Crystal stammered.

“I understand perfectly well!” Cadance replied, now starting to look red in the face.

“The… the Crystal Heart is clouding your mind! You have to snap out of it and realize that this is putting everypony in grave danger!”

“Crystal…”

“Please… please…” Crystal cupped both of her forehooves together and said, “I am begging you to not fire off the Heart. There has to be another way.”

“Enough!” Cadance exclaimed as she threw a foreleg into the air. “Crystal Faire, you will return to the castle at once!”

Crystal’s jaw dropped and she shot back to her hooves. “Mother!”

“That is an order!”

The other ponies in the vicinity of the Heart glowered in Crystal’s direction with the intensity of a thousand sets of eyes.

Crystal opened her mouth to speak but bent under their stares. She took a step backward and then two. The color drained from her face and she still looked like she wanted to say something.

Twilight wanted her to say something.

Crystal, with tears in her eyes, took flight. She arced upward and flew onto a balcony further up the crystal spire where she disappeared inside.

“Goodness…” Twilight whispered. “That’s… that’s wrong. That’s so wrong.” She turned her attention back toward the group of ponies gathered around the Heart who were now returning to their earlier conversations. She turned her attention back to the Crystal Heart which still contained the evil energies.

“I was powerless to convince them otherwise. I didn’t know how to extract the energy myself at the time,” Crystal’s voice said. “I’ve since learned.”

Twilight’s lip quivered, and she turned her eyes back in the direction that Crystal had flown off to. “I… do see some part of Cadance’s logic, Crystal. I would think that you would have prevented the magic from getting inside it in the first place, right?”

“Well…”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Crystal?”

There was no response for a few moments. And then, “It’s like I’ve said before, Twilight: I’m not a perfect pony. I make mistakes from time to time. The bottom line is that it did happen. What you just saw was what happened.”

Twilight frowned and turned her attention back to the Heart. She stared at it even as her world turned white again and she became a consciousness once more.

Her senses came rushing back, and Twilight found herself standing within the interior of the Crystal Empire again. It seemed like she had been standing in it just a few minutes ago, but Twilight guessed that a significant amount of time had passed since the last she saw it; the shelf of cloud-filled bottles now sat empty.

Twilight spotted Crystal frantically pacing in front of the windows. She trotted over in her direction.

“What do I do?” Crystal sputtered. “What do I do? What do I do? Ohhhhhh!”

“I knew I had to stop it,” Crystal’s voice said. “I knew that I had to think of something and fast.”

“What do I do? What do I do?”

Twilight watched as Crystal paced and then she trotted toward the window, passing right through Crystal in the process.

“This is all my fault,” Crystal muttered. “This is all my fault. This should not have happened…”

Twilight glanced out the window. The streets looked normal with crystal ponies trotted about and talking with each other. She couldn’t see any smiles, though. She imagined that, somewhere underneath her, the Crystal Heart was floating in its place.

She then heard some voice from outside. With the way it echoed across the city, Twilight guessed that there was some loudspeaker somewhere, likely on the castle itself. The windows muffled the sound, but Twilight could tell just from the flowing, adenoidal tones that it was Cadance speaking.

Crystal shot over to the window. Her eyes darted over every corner of the city outside.

Twilight spotted all the crystal ponies below turning and facing the castle. She frowned. “They’re all turning this way,” she said.

“Yes,” Crystal’s voice said. “Time was running out.”

“No… no no no!” Crystal exclaimed as she banged a hoof against the glass.

Twilight furrowed her brow as she watched the scene but she said nothing.

Crystal stood watching the crowds below for several long moments. Her ears flicked with every inflection of Cadance’s muffled speech. With each passing second, her dismayed frown disappeared until she finally nodded to herself and whirled away from the window. She bolted for the door, all but threw it off its hinges, and then dashed into the hall.

Twilight flapped her wings and took off behind her. “I still don’t understand, Crystal, how does this lead to your reality collapsing?”

The halls in front of her wound left and right and in several directions. Crystal was a little bit faster than Twilight was, but Twilight knew her way around just enough to predict what path Crystal would take.

“Truth be told, in all of these years… I’ve never had a concrete answer,” Crystal’s voice replied.

Twilight cut a corner closer than Crystal did which helped to close the distance.

“I’ve always known that I was special. I’ve always known that I was an anomaly. I’ve had the ability to see the realities since birth. And as far as I know, I’m the only one who has ever been able to do that.”

Crystal bolted up a set of stairs on the right. Twilight, still flying behind her, followed suit.

“And lo, the multiverse changes and reacts to my presence. That is how I can change timelines for the better. But perhaps existence is shaped like it is because I exist… Maybe the multiverse is discontinuous because I exist.”

Twilight frowned. “That has serious implications if it’s true, Crystal.”

“I know.”

“But I still don’t see it,” Twilight continued. “How…?”

The two arrived in a short hall full of doors. At one end of the hall was a pair of double doors at least twice the height and width of those doors on either side of the hall; a pair of guards stood in front of them. Crystal instead turned in the other direction which immediately opened onto an open-air balcony that looked over the city. Crystal rushed over, steadied herself against the banister, and looked up at the tip of the castle.

Twilight flew past Crystal so she could examine the city below. More and more ponies were gathering in the streets. Cadance’s voice was much clearer now, but Twilight paid the speech no mind. She examined the surrounding lands which, while slightly grayed, looked just like she remembered.

Crystal shot straight into the air. Twilight watched and then took off behind her. Crystal outpaced Twilight by a good amount but never left her sight. That was enough.

How long was it before the citizens of the Crystal Empire powered up the Heart? How long was it until, supposedly, Equestria was ruined?

Even Twilight felt her heart quicken despite knowing that what she was experiencing wasn’t real. At least, it hadn’t been real to her.

Twilight saw Crystal pick a spot just above the top-most spire. Crystal whirled around and stared down at the castle. As Twilight herself closed in, she started to study the terrified expression on Crystal’s face.

Twilight came up right beside Crystal and looked down herself. She drew a path with her eyes between the spire and the pony above it, and then she gasped. “Oh my gosh… You’re floating right where the beam will be.”

“At the time,” Crystal’s voice said, “I figured that, between me and my alicorn magic, I could absorb what came out. I thought it would be the last thing I ever did… I foresaw it.”

Twilight whirled around as the streets below began to glow. She could see crystal ponies everywhere bowing as energy circulated about. The glow spread across the city, accenting its snowflake-like layout. And then the glow retreated.

And Twilight could hear a crackling down below. She could see a greenish glow in the space below the castle where the Heart rested. Her heart sank.

Crystal sniffled and wiped some tears off her face and then straightened up. Her expression firmed up and she, despite the redness in her face, looked like a regal princess.

“But what if I was wrong? What if there was more to me than I could have ever conceived?”

Twilight sucked in a breath but continued watching nonetheless.

“What if I really am an anomaly? What if I am an error in the multiverse?”

The next moment, the entire castle glowed white as energy swam up its body. There was a brief flash of light at the tip of the castle, and then a multicolored beam shot straight out of it.

“How does that one imperfection… that one point of weakness… change everything?”

The beam shot straight into Crystal’s chest. Crystal buckled and writhed in the split second that the beam made contact. She convulsed for longer than Twilight expected or could bear to watch. But Twilight had barely looked away when an agonized scream escaped from Crystal’s mouth.

And then Twilight heard a loud boom and whirled around. The Crystal Empire itself remained as it had before, but it seemed that, at that moment, everything beyond a few kilometers out suddenly shattered into a million pieces. Black overtook the sky in the places where stuff had once been. Even the very air itself seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye.

Alien sensations bombarded every inch of Twilight’s skin, and she shriveled up in response. She felt unwhole, even more so than she had previously. There had been a sense of weight to her body; that didn’t exist anymore. Everything started going numb, and Twilight realized that there was a ringing in her ears. Her insides churned and she felt the need to hurl.

“Oh my goodness,” Twilight wheezed.

Twilight wanted to flip over and look around but found herself unable to do so. There was no air to flap her wings against. She cocked her head instead so that she could see everything else. Her eyes followed along toward the point where the still-intact Crystal Empire and its surrounding lands abruptly ended. An endless expanse lay just outside its borders.

She was at a loss for words. She was at a loss for breath. She spotted towers within the endless expanse, each stretching to infinity in both directions.

She could feel the cold sweat drops forming on her brow, and she looked back at Crystal who now hung limply within the expanse. Her body glided away from the Crystal Empire in a direction, Twilight was sure, would eventually meet with one of those infinitely tall towers.

And slowly but surely, Crystal opened her eyes. Her dazed expression stifled any reaction that she might have had. Crystal blinked and briefly glanced around. Her eyes passed over the castle, the grounds, the surrounding countryside, and then into the expanse.

Crystal grunted and fell unconscious again.

Twilight’s world turned white again and then she found herself sitting back on the bench. Twilight felt herself to make sure that she was whole, ran her eyes over Canterlot to make sure that it existed, and then she turned her attention to the Crystal that she was familiar with.

Crystal still sat next to her, but at the moment, she stared into space. “The next time I regained consciousness, I was already in another timeline who knows where. I may have drifted for a while and fallen into some timeline like Celestia did. But I can’t say for sure.”

Twilight shivered and nodded solemnly.

“All I can say now is that, after that, I was able to use the travel power.” Crystal shook her head. “But my timeline was gone.”

Twilight sighed and folded her hooves together. “I-I… I just don’t know what to say.”

Crystal sucked in a breath and shook her head. “I never expected that I’d ever have to face my past again. And certainly not like this. I don’t know what I’m going to do. I know that I’ll have to figure out something.”

Twilight tried to crack a smile. “Well, at least you might get to see them again, Cadance especially. You told me that you’ve been wanting to do that.”

Crystal chuckled. “That is true. It’s… an interesting possibility… But I still need to process everything first.”

“Absolutely.”

Crystal went quiet for a few moments. It was just long enough for Twilight’s smile to fade into a more neutral expression.

I’ll have to ask Princess Celestia more questions when we get back, she thought. There’s a lot about all of this that I’d like to make sense of too.

“But Twilight…” Crystal began, “I do think…”

“Hmmm?”

“It’s as I’ve said… collapsed timelines beget more collapsing timelines. It’s a chain reaction. And in the past… I’ve convinced myself that what you just saw was just a coincidence.”

Twilight frowned and waited for Crystal to continue.

Crystal swallowed and said, “But now I have to wonder… if it wasn’t.”

Twilight’s frown deepened.

Crystal turned her head and met Twilight in the eyes. “My presence shapes the multiverse around me. It is the way it is right now because of me. So what if everything else is too? What if my timeline collapsing… what if this business with the multiverse dying… started with me?”

21 - Melancholia

Sunset Shimmer dragged her hoof across the touchpad on her cyan-colored laptop and then prodded a button right above it. A new window appeared on the screen with a black background and lines upon lines of white text that seem to write themselves within it.

Sunset already knew what all of it said. The ponies watching over her shoulder, however, did not, and couldn’t hope to read anything before it scrolled past. Sunset knew that it wasn’t so much watching as it was more staring with awe and wonder.

She took the moment to glance at the magic cloud hugging the underside of the laptop and noted where it lingered over the power socket. She smirked and nodded to herself.

The text suddenly halted, and Sunset blinked. She glanced at the last few lines of text closely and then groaned. “Bad pointer. Right...”

Princess Celestia, who looked no less translucent than the previous day, sat right next to Sunset. She leaned forward to examine the screen closely. “What precisely is all of this?”

“I’m trying to write a program that will simulate timeline interactions. It’s not going so well.”

“You can’t fix it?”

Sunset lifted her forehooves into the air. “Turns out these are too big for the keyboard.”

Adamantine, who sat next to Sunset’s opposite side, nodded. “That would be an issue, I suppose. And yet how is it that you came by this technology?”

Sunset levitated over what looked like a flip phone (it, like Celestia, looked translucent). “A few days ago, I saw this fall in the clearing just before Celestia showed up. I can’t use it though because it’s passcode protected.” She looked over at Celestia and said, “But I thought that if a cell phone still works in Equestria, I could probably use my laptop here. So I had Crystal run me home to get it.”

“It’s so small,” Starlight Glimmer, who stood behind Sunset, said. “There aren’t that many computers in Equestria. The few that I’ve seen have been like twice my size. …And not nearly as nice looking.”

Sunset laughed. “I know, right?”

“The real question we should ask, I suppose, is what this computer is capable of,” Adamantine said. “How powerful is it?”

Sunset pointed toward the center of the clearing where a chunk of metal the size of a small house now sat. “It’s not nearly as powerful a computer as that thing’s gunna be when we’re done with it. But I can still do quite a bit with it.”

“Such as?”

Sunset couldn’t help but notice Chrysalis, who stood by herself at the edge of the pavilion, also turning to glance in her direction.

“Well,” Sunset replied, “I can surf the web, play videos, chat with friends, make programs, do music stuff…”

“How interesting,” Celestia said. “I would suppose that ‘music stuff’ is very helpful for your band.”

“Yeah. It sure is. I know I’ve spent a few nights editing our songs and putting them together.”

“Oh, you’ve recorded them?”

“Yeah. Only like a dozen songs or so, but yeah.”

Celestia smiled. “That sounds lovely. I’d like to hear what you’ve come up with, Sunset.”

Sunset grinned. “I’ll let you listen to them later. They’re all on here.”

Starlight’s eyes widened, and she pointed at the laptop. “Wait, you can play music on this?”

“Yeah. I’ve got plenty of songs for us to listen to.”

“Really? How many?”

Sunset scratched her head. “Uh, I dunno. It’s something like ten thousand songs or something like that.”

After a long and palpable pause, Sunset looked around to find that they were all staring at her with dumbfounded expressions. “What?”

Starlight chortled. “Oh, sorry. For a second there, it sounded like you said that there were ten thousand songs on here.”

Sunset nodded. “Yeah, that’s right.”

“Preposterous!” Chrysalis exclaimed as she thundered over. She towered over them and pointed at the laptop and said, with bared fangs, “You dare to suggest that all of that fits into this tiny thing?”

A sly smile graced Sunset’s muzzle and she moved the cursor on the screen onto a new icon and clicked on it. A new window shortly popped up containing what looked like a very populated list. The first of these items was highlighted already. The top of the window flashed with a title and a timestamp that started to count upward.

The drums came out first. After a few beats, a twangy guitar joined them. The tune sounded rustic in a way. A male voice soon joined the ensemble with his voice too sounding rustic, singing about people waving red, white, and blue flags.

A single line at the bottom of the window said the words 10612 songs, 24 days, 16 hours, 22 minutes, 77GB.

Adamantine’s jaw dropped to the ground.

“What. The. Buck,” Starlight said.

Chrysalis had to lean over the back of the laptop in order to see it for herself.

Sunset scrolled down the list as she tried to find a more familiar item. Her head, meanwhile, bobbed in time with the currently playing tune. Eventually, however, she reached a familiar song and she clicked on it. The rustic tune immediately died and was replaced with a lively opening that sounded like a series of very short chimes.

“I feel it stirrin’ deep down inside my soul. The rhythm’s taking hold, and it’s about to roll,” a female voice sang.

Celestia gasped. “Goodness! Sunset Shimmer! Is that you singing?”

“Yeah,” Sunset replied, her grin growing wider.

Chrysalis stood back up and slowly nodded. “Well… I guess I will have to say that I am impressed.”

The five of them heard a loud bang, and they immediately looked up to find Crystal Faire now standing a few meters away from them. She looked long in the face and even appeared disoriented as she came out. She turned and trotted toward them.

“Oh, hey, Crystal,” Sunset said.

Crystal’s expression remained unchanged. “Perhaps we should wait until all of this is over before we fawn over the piece of technology, hmmm?”

Celestia and Adamantine stood up, both looking red in the face. Chrysalis, meanwhile, rolled her eyes and backed away from the computer.

Crystal’s eyes turned to Celestia whom she examined from mane to tail. “You are looking more faded today,” she said.

Celestia blinked and looked at herself as well. She could see the dirty ground through her forelegs. She nodded and replied, “I feel more faded today, even.”

Starlight swallowed. “So, uh, is she getting worse?”

After a moment’s consideration, Crystal nodded solemnly. “I’ve noticed it with everything else; the phone, the Crystal Heart. Those are fading too.”

Some hoofsteps behind them signaled Twilight Sparkle’s arrival. All of them turned to face her. Sunset even stood up.

And Twilight looked like the color had drained from her face as she tremulously asked, “But… if she’s fading, won’t she eventually…?”

Celestia shuddered and glanced over herself once more. She examined her own translucence. Her frown deepened with every passing second. She finally shook her head and said, “It appears that my time is limited…”

There were several gasps although most of them were silent and subdued. Chrysalis’s expression twitched but didn’t otherwise change off a contemplative frown.

“Nooooo…” Twilight wheezed as she stumbled forward. “No no no no! I just… I just got you back, and…”

Celestia frowned. “I’m sorry, Twilight, I…”

“I can’t take that. We have to do something! There has to be a way to keep you from fading out! Crystal!” She whirled around. “We have to do something!”

Crystal shook her head.

“Come on! Don’t you have any ideas!? Any at all!?” Twilight screeched.

Crystal sighed and turned away. “I have no idea,” she croaked as she started to slink toward the middle of the clearing.

Twilight’s next words died at the edge of her throat. She glanced back and forth between Celestia and the retreating Crystal. “I…”

Celestia shook her head and wrapped a wing around Twilight. “Don’t fret over me, Twilight. I’ll be fine.”

“No! You won’t be fine! You’re going to—”

“Yes, I know,” Celestia replied. “But there are things far more important than my well-being right now.”

“Celestia…” Sunset whispered.

“Are you sure…?” Twilight wheezed.

“Yes, I am sure,” Celestia nodded. “I’ll just have to be cognizant of how I use my remaining time. I am sure that I can use it to help out however I can.”

Adamantine chuckled. “That sounds like a fantastic idea.”

“Definitely,” Starlight added.

Celestia chuckled and then turned her gaze back to Crystal. “But I do have to wonder…”

Out in the middle of the clearing, Crystal took a spot at one of the work tables and started to hammer out some metallic parts. She shot at it with her magic which sent energy coursing throughout the piece. Several leylines then appeared within.

And Crystal continued working in silence from there.

Sunset, along with everypony else, watched in an equal silence. Eventually, she too said, “Yeah…”

* * *

Starlight tapped her hoof against the ground as she fused two balls of metal together with her magic. The spell then connected some leylines on the insides of the new, singular object. She then reached for a long needle from the edge of the wooden table in front of her and stuck it into the object, intent on using it to guide something on the inside.

She hummed under her breath one of the songs that had just finished playing. It was catchy, she had to admit. And, at that moment, she felt like an all-star.

“That song is kind of a meme,” Sunset said without looking up from her own work, “but… I like it too. It’s nice.” She too poked and prodded at a piece of metal on a wooden table that was pressed right up against Starlight’s.

The laptop sat on its own table right next to Sunset. It made a few more melodic sounds and then a flute chimed in. The low tenor voice that followed was toneless but nonetheless spoke lyrics all the same.

Starlight raised an eyebrow. “Who is Molly Percocets?”

Sunset clicked a key on the keyboard and the laptop went quiet. “That song is so overplayed right now.” She set her tools down and started to scroll through the song list. “Let me see if I can find something that’s good…”

Starlight rolled her eyes and looked around the clearing. She spotted Celestia and Chrysalis each on different sides of the large structure in the center of the clearing. Celestia levitated a small object around the side of the structure and held it near Chrysalis. Chrysalis, who stood at the top of some scaffolding, didn’t even afford it a glance but nonetheless took the object within her magic.

Starlight had to remind herself that the large metallic structure was a half-finished supercomputer. It definitely wasn’t a laptop, that was for sure.

She then turned her attention to Crystal who worked at a lonely table by herself. Crystal worked just like they did, but she had a thousand-yard stare and her features, once vibrant, now lacked color and life. Crystal’s mane and tail had numerous split ends (those, Starlight knew, had accumulated over the last few days).

Starlight stopped for a moment and watched Crystal work. She could see that Crystal’s movements were sluggish and half-coordinated and her eyes had little bits of swelling around them and bags underneath them.

Starlight couldn’t remember seeing Crystal having left that spot for several hours. She couldn’t remember Crystal so much as uttering a peep.

She leaned across the table and whispered, “Hey, Sunset, is it just me, or is Crystal looking out of it?”

After a pause, Sunset looked over her withers and surveyed Crystal for herself. She then turned back to Starlight with a solemn frown and nodded. “Honestly… Yeah. Not just today either.”

“She looks miserable.”

“She probably is miserable.” Sunset set her tools down and glanced toward Crystal again. “This whole stuff with the multiverse is pretty stressful. Heck, I’m not feeling so great about it myself. But with everything else that happened recently, with Celestia suddenly appearing and her mom being somewhere out there…?”

Twilight trotted up at that moment and put her forehooves on one of the tables. “She’s still pretty shaken up about all of that,” she finished.

Both Starlight and Sunset blinked.

“You know she can probably hear you, right?” Twilight asked as she glanced between the both of them.

Starlight blushed but shook her head nonetheless. “Not like it matters; she can just look at the timeline and see every word that we’ve said.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s true…”

“Twilight, I’m worried,” Starlight said with a frown. “She’s obviously out of it.”

They heard sparks and immediately turned to see a dark blue cloud flowing out of Crystal’s horn. The cloud had sparks of electricity flowing through it. They watched in a deathly silence as said cloud formed over Crystal’s head.

Crystal put her tools down, looked at the cloud over her head, and groaned. She lit her horn, and a glass jar appeared. She uncapped the jar and funneled the cloud into it before sealing it up. She set the jar on the corner of her table and then took several long and deep breaths.

She shook her head and, after flashing the three of them a brief glance and blushing, she returned to her work.

Sunset swallowed. “What was that all about?” she whispered.

“I know what that is,” Starlight said. She turned to Sunset and Twilight and leaned as far across the table as she could. “There was a time where I needed to vent all of my anger and frustration. I bottled it up.”

Twilight’s muzzle twitched in thought but she said nothing.

“So… Crystal’s doing it too?” Sunset asked.

“Uhm…” Starlight replied. “That’s what it looks like.”

“I don’t think that’s anger,” Twilight whispered.

“Well… no… but that’s not good emotions either, I can tell you that,” Starlight whispered with a frown. “And the thing I learned about bottled emotions… is that the bottle can break. Because my bottle broke.”

“I’m not surprised. She’s looking unhappy, Twilight,” Sunset whispered. “Honestly, she’s been looking unhappy ever since this whole business started.”

Twilight sighed and turned her eyes to watch Crystal work. “Well… if I could speak my mind here… Something tells me that she’s been unhappy for a lot longer than that.”

The other two turned and watched in silence as Crystal continued working all by her lonesome.

* * *

Twilight took a bite from her apple and then set it down on her plate. She munched in silence, briefly considered the tomato sandwich on her plate, even reached for it, but then decided to put her capacities toward listening to the slow, melodic tunes that came out of Sunset’s laptop instead.

The fire pit in the center of the pavilion was now lit, and she sat around it with Sunset, Starlight, and Celestia who each had similar meals on their plates. They ate in silence, each wearing a content smile all the while. Adamantine sat behind Celestia as she idly flipped through a book.

A smooth male voice played melody to a bass, a piano, some drums, and the occasional backup singers. The song itself was slow, flowing, and melancholic in tone.

Chrysalis, who sat on a nearby cot, listened to the tunes in silence. There was a slight bob to her head and tapping of her hooves in time with the long beats.

Several lanterns, sporadically placed around the clearing, lit the entire area. The golden evening skies above accentuated their color.

Crystal stood in front of a wooden table. She worked in the same silence as before. Her magic gripped a needle which she used to poke into the piece of metal in front of her. She did so with the same vacant concentration from earlier in the day.

Twilight frowned and turned back to her meal. She took another bite of her apple in silence.

The other three stole some glances toward Crystal as well, but they said nothing.

Twilight’s thoughts ran toward what Crystal had shown her. She thought about what Crystal had gone through. She tried to imagine what had happened since.

You’ve been alive for a few thousand years since then, Twilight thought. And you haven’t had a friend in all that time?

She turned her eyes back toward Crystal. I can’t even imagine a life like that… You need friends, Crystal. Everypony does. You need someponies like us.

Twilight stole glances at Sunset and Starlight. She turned her gaze to Celestia and to Adamantine. She even, hesitantly, looked at Chrysalis out of the corner of her eye.

Gosh, I wish I could just show you that. How can I convince you?

Crystal put her tools down and just stood there staring at her work. She let out a dejected sigh and did nothing more.

The music coming out of Sunset’s laptop kept playing all the while. The backup singers, which sounded like a children’s choir, sang in a gospel-like manner; their song was even a lamentation. The male main singer said a few more choice lyrics as the song flowed into another verse.

Twilight set the apple back onto her plate and then climbed to her hooves. She trotted in Crystal’s direction. As she went, she thought about what she had seen at Cadance and Shining Armor’s wedding. She thought about the way they had moved together.

I’m not sure what I’m doing, she thought.

As Twilight approached, Crystal blinked and turned to face her. Crystal’s expression remained long and colorless.

Twilight stopped and gauged Crystal’s expression for a few moments.

The music behind her swelled as it hit the chorus. The backup singers joined the main male voice and they flowed into the next lyrics together.

Twilight extended her hoof to Crystal, silently hoping that Crystal would take it. But… I’ll give it a shot.

Crystal’s eyes flicked between Twilight’s eyes and her outstretched hoof. She sighed and straightened up and then took hold of Twilight’s hoof.

Twilight smiled and pulled Crystal away from the table. Twilight could tell from the way that Crystal walked that she was letting herself be pulled. She was, nonetheless, away from the table.

Twilight pulled Crystal nearer to the pavilion where there were no wooden tables, strung-about toolboxes, scaffolding, or assembled supercomputer parts. It was just a small, open area, and it was exactly what she was looking for. She kept her grip on Crystal’s hoof and she met Crystal’s eyes. Crystal met her back.

Twilight started to bob back and forth. She pushed and pulled against Crystal, and that prompted Crystal to start bobbing in return. Crystal’s expression, for the moment, remained unchanged.

Those in the pavilion watched in silence, and then, one by one, they stood up.

Twilight remembered circles, and so started to circle around Crystal. Her arc was slow, but given that the both of them were still joined by hoof, it served to swing Crystal around as well.

Crystal sighed through her nose and started to swing in the same direction. Twilight, in turn, loosened her pull as she could now feel Crystal moving with her.

Twilight studied Crystal’s expression as they moved, and she could see a fading frown. That prompted her to move with a little more vigor of her own.

Twilight combined the two motions where she pushed and pulled on Crystal as they circled about. Crystal, in turn, did the same. Twilight was smiling now.

Crystal’s lips started to curl upward.

After a few more moments of the two twirling about, Crystal suddenly pulled Twilight in. The pull forced Twilight to spin around, and she nearly lost her balance. It was only when Crystal caught her a second later that Twilight let out a giggle and pressed herself into Crystal. She then bounced off and spun back out but never broke contact.

The others trotted over until they reached the edge of the pavilion. There, they watched in silence. They regarded the display with increasingly wide smirks and grins.

Adamantine closed her book and watched with the hints of a smile on her face.

Now it was Twilight’s turn to try pulling Crystal in and Crystal spun in at her pull. But Twilight, unlike Crystal, didn’t so much catch her dance partner as she let her collide right into her. Crystal bounced off and spun back out and looked at Twilight with surprise.

Twilight giggled and returned to the swinging and bobbing that they had been doing before without missing a beat.

That, in turn, prompted Crystal to chuckle to herself. Finally, a smile graced her features and she moved as Twilight did.

The singer and his backup singers joined together and sang in strong and flowing tones. The guitar and drums that accompanied them swelled.

Chrysalis, who stood at the edge of the pavilion, unfurled her bug-like wings. She took a long whiff of air and let out a contented sigh. The wings on her back sparkled and glittered all the while.

Starlight came up alongside Chrysalis and gave her a playful punch to the abdomen. Chrysalis jumped a little bit and stared down at Starlight for a few moments. Starlight giggled in return. Sunset came upon Chrysalis’ other side and, when Chrysalis turned to look at her too, flashed a smile in return.

The three of them watched in continued silence as Twilight and Crystal danced.

The two of them continued spinning around each other. Crystal spun Twilight in and back out a couple of times; Twilight moved to her fullest each time.

Sunset and Starlight started to sway in time with the music. Chrysalis, still standing between them, cracked a grin and swayed in time with them. They kept their eyes on the duo dancing in the center of the clearing but, for a few moments, the three were in their own little world.

Celestia watched from the center of the pavilion. Her smile spread from cheek to cheek. She exchanged glances with Adamantine, and the two of them then nodded in approval.

At that point, the song began to fade out. With it, Twilight and Crystal’s dance slowed down. Crystal twirled Twilight one last time and then, as the song became inaudible, her movements ground to a stop. Crystal let go of Twilight and the smile that had been on her face disappeared.

On seeing that, Twilight’s smile also disappeared. She kept her eyes on Crystal’s face, and even tried to go in to retake Crystal’s hoof, but she stopped herself.

She didn’t want the moment to end. There was more that could happen, she knew.

The two stood in silence. Those watching from the side also stood in silence.

Crystal turned toward the worktable that she had been at and started toward it again. Twilight turned her eyes toward the pavilion again. However, when Crystal paused after a few steps, Twilight stopped herself from slinking back over.

Crystal’s eyes ran from some nondescript spot in the distance to the large metallic structure in the center of the clearing to the workstation that she had been at just a few minutes prior. She then turned and ran her eyes across the ponies at the pavilion and then, finally, to Twilight who looked expectedly at her.

Crystal smiled, turned, trotted up to Twilight, and wrapped her in a hug. Twilight gasped and then, with her smile returning, wrapped her forelegs around Crystal as well. After a few moments of embrace, they pulled back from each other.

Crystal’s eyes sparkled with vigor and life and some color had noticeably returned to her face. She stood taller and prouder now.

Twilight took the opportunity to pull Crystal into her where she wrapped a foreleg around Crystal’s withers. Crystal, in turn, wrapped a foreleg around Twilight’s withers.

And then the two trotted back to the pavilion together.

22 - Stymied

Crystal Faire stood facing the large, metal sphere in the center of the clearing. She looked at the lights that occasionally graced its smooth surface and she inwardly admired the way it sparkled in the sunlight. The entire thing was at least the size of several houses now. There were still sets of scaffolding situated around it, but the structure was otherwise whole.

Twilight Sparkle, Sunset Shimmer, and Starlight Glimmer all stood on various parts of the scaffolding. They poured streams of magic into the metal sphere. Crystal could see with her mind’s eye that they were affecting some internal adjustments to the structure, creating linkages that ran the diameter of the structure and making further configurations on internal parts. In all reality, however, she knew that to be the case even without seeing it.

A steaming ear of corn floated in her magic and she brought it close to take another bite of it. She swallowed the kernels that she managed to snatch up and hummed with delight.

Chrysalis trotted up right next to her and looked up at the structure as well. “Well, we’ve finally finished it, hmmm?”

“Indeed,” Crystal replied. “I suspect a few hours more and we’ll be ready to deploy it.”

Chrysalis sighed. “Finally. How long have we been here? Almost two weeks?”

“More or less,” Crystal replied. “I am ready to save the multiverse and be done with this whole business.”

“And I as well. Not that this has been an interesting experience, but…”

Crystal glanced over. “I would suppose you’ve given some thought as to what you will do when this is all over, correct?”

“A little,” Chrysalis replied with a frown. “But I guess you already have something in mind for me.”

Crystal shook her head. “Not at all. That is why I am asking you.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow and turned to face Crystal in full. “You… don’t?”

“No.”

“So… then… you’re giving me a choice?”

Crystal nodded.

Chrysalis’ muzzle twitched and she turned back to the supercomputer. “Well… I don’t have a definite idea yet. I would suppose that those three will return to their home timelines.”

“Yes. And I suppose that you would not want to do the same with yours.”

“Not at all. There’s nothing there anymore, after all.”

“Well, whatever you decide, just let me know. I’ll take you there,” she replied before taking another bite of her corn.

After a moment’s consideration, Chrysalis nodded. “I appreciate it.”

At that moment, Celestia came upon Crystal’s other side. She held her head high as she joined them in gazing at the supercomputer.

Sunset’s cyan-colored laptop floated within Celestia’s magic. A window with a black background and lines upon lines of white text was on it.

Chrysalis’ expression remained unchanged as she turned toward the laptop and pointed at it. “Did Sunset Shimmer ever get that thing to work?”

“Why yes, she did. She showed me some things with it,” Crystal replied. “Chrysalis, do you remember when we did that experiment where we had you travel through time?”

Chrysalis nodded.

“The others and I, meanwhile, saw an alternate Starlight in possession of a time-altering device. It gave me some thoughts about how to apply time manipulation to the spell. But after doing simulations with Sunset, I’ve been convinced that I absolutely needed to use those thoughts.”

After a moment, Celestia nodded. “Why don’t you tell us about it?”

“We will use time dilation to speed up whatever we want to contain the effects, both wall-wise for those colliding timelines and floor-wise for those collapsing ones. And it turns out we actually need to go as fast as possible; we couldn’t even get the simulations to check out without the time dilation.”

Chrysalis frowned. “Oh.”

Crystal took the laptop from Celestia’s magic and brought it close. “In fact…”

Crystal touched one of the keys on the keyboard and a letter appeared in the command window. Crystal pushed another key and another letter appeared on screen, and then she followed it by tapping the spacebar. She narrowed her eyes and mouthed, “Where is that hyphen key at…? Oh.”

She continued pecking at the keyboard with her hoof before, after about a minute, there was a complete line. She pressed the enter key and then lines upon lines of white text flashed across the screen. The text went by faster than anypony could read, and in short order, Celestia and Chrysalis shook their heads and simply watched. Crystal, meanwhile, quietly munched on her corn.

The scrolling stopped and the three leaned forward. The last few lines ended on some analysis of the simulation; the final line read, 467/500 generated timelines intact, 23 collapsed within 14 sets -> 14 collapsed within 14 sets, 10 -> 0 timelines moving, 0 timelines missed. Press any key to continue.

Crystal nodded. “See? It checks out.”

After a moment of silence, Celestia frowned. “I didn’t see anything.”

Chrysalis snorted. “Me neither. I thought I would have been able to watch it.”

Crystal blushed. “Well… the program isn’t that advanced…”

“Then what use is it?” Chrysalis hissed.

Crystal pursed her lips, and after a moment of staring Chrysalis down, she tried, “It works…”

Celestia rolled her eyes and chuckled. “If you say so, Crystal Faire.”

* * *

“So, let’s review,” Twilight said. She stood looking down at six other ponies who all sat around the unlit fire pit in the center of the pavilion. “Since we’re almost done with everything, we should probably go over this one more time.”

Crystal nodded and stood up. “Right. Once I start the spell, I won’t be able to do anything else for its duration, which includes protecting you. So, just to be safe, I’m going to make sure you all make it home. You—” she pointed at Chrysalis, “—are getting back to me on that. Celestia… what are your thoughts?”

Celestia shook her head and looked at her own see-through body again. “I think that, with how chaotic things have been for such a long while… I could spend these next days in peace and quiet. Adamantine,” she said as she motioned to the pony next to her, “has offered a spot here in the unpony village.” She turned to Adamantine with a smile and said, “And again, I appreciate the offer tremendously.”

Queen Adamantine, who sat on one side of Celestia, smiled. “Not at all. I would want you to be comfortable in your circumstances.”

Sunset, who sat on Celestia’s opposite side, lay a hoof across Celestia’s withers.

Twilight couldn’t help but avert her gaze but tried to keep a smile on her muzzle all the same.

Celestia chuckled. “Of course. But that should be easy knowing that existence is safe… and that you’ve succeeded.” She looked at all of them, including Chrysalis, and said, “I am so proud of all of you for all of the hard work that you’ve put into this.”

Chrysalis merely nodded in response.

Twilight cleared her throat and turned to Crystal. “Once that’s done, you’ll head off to deploy the spell. Everypony understands what happens then?”

“Perhaps go over it one more time, just for clarity,” Adamantine suggested.

Starlight nodded and straightened up in her cushion. “So… that thing over there will, for the most part, tap into Crystal’s ability to see reality. It’ll use that to see which timelines are collapsing and moving about and whatever, and what timelines you’d have to mess with in order to stop all that.”

“Right,” Crystal replied.

“After that,” Sunset began, turning to Crystal, “the spell will make use of your travel ability to disperse itself to all of those timelines. With the way we’ve quantum entangled the entire machine, it’ll be like having a single spell across timelines, which is like existing across them all at once, and you’ll be able to crystallize them all at the same time. You’ll use that time dilation mechanic you were talking about to do it all relatively quickly, too.”

“Again, correct.”

“And the debris…” Chrysalis began. She spoke no further than that, opting to glance around the group instead.

Crystal levitated a stuffed toy snail over. “Well, if what happened with Whammy was any indication to me, I have to be in a timeline that’s in the process of collapsing in order to do anything about that. I can’t get a hold on any debris unless there’s a direct path between me and it.”

Chrysalis nodded. “Of course…”

“As I perform the spell, I’ll establish a hold on all the interversal debris and, using the travel ability, I’ll be able to distribute all of that debris safely into other timelines.”

Celestia frowned. “You’re going to dump this material into other timelines? I would assume this will cause some damage to them.”

“To their continuities, yes. That’s why I’ve selected just ones that I can’t fix anymore,” Crystal replied. “That way, it’ll have the smallest amount of negative effects.”

Celestia nodded. “I see. So, with that being the case… what about all of the ponies that are out there right now? What will happen to them?”

Twilight sucked in a breath and nodded. “Yes… What about your people? What about your mother?”

All eyes turned to Crystal.

Crystal kicked the dirt and turned to consider Celestia. After a moment’s thought, she replied, at length, “Well… if what happens to them is anything like what’s happened to her…” she said, “then there really is nothing that I can do for them. If I clear the interversal space of all debris, they will probably fade just like Celestia is now.”

Sunset shook her head and stood up. “There’s gotta be a way to do something for them. Somehow…”

“They can’t survive here,” Chrysalis said. “I doubt they could survive in any timeline.”

“Then maybe we shouldn’t. Crystal, couldn’t you just leave them alone? Take care of all the debris but leave those ponies alone?”

Crystal went to speak but sighed and shook her head instead. “I… I couldn’t tell what’s what unless I was physically there with them. And if I’m out there…” She looked at Celestia again and said, “Chances are that I wouldn’t be able to come back.”

After a moment of silence, Chrysalis chuckled. “Then maybe its in your best interest to just stay out there with them.”

Crystal sucked in a breath and replied, “You… suggest that I… lose myself to the interverse like they have?”

“You can’t,” Twilight interjected. “Crystal, you can’t. If you stay out there, then… what about the rest of the multiverse? What about those timelines that still need help?”

“Twilight…”

Twilight grimaced and continued, “What about… me? Would I never see you again?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Chrysalis said, “wouldn’t you say that she would get what she’s always wanted if she stays out there?”

“That’s certainly important too,” Adamantine muttered.

“But…” Twilight tried.

“Really, she’s in a position where she could actually make it happen if she really wants to. She could be with her people if she wants to.” Chrysalis smirked and crossed her forelegs and said, “Who are we to deny her happiness?”

Twilight shuddered and hung her head. Starlight and Sunset reacted similarly.

“Yes… I could do it, I guess… But…” Crystal went silent and opted to scratch her head instead.

Celestia sighed. “It is your choice, Crystal Faire. I just hope… I suppose we all hope… that you choose wisely.”

Crystal met Celestia’s gaze and nodded solemnly. “Of course.”

* * *

Crystal stared at a small, circular hole in the side of the large, metallic structure. She lowered her head and inserted her long horn into it right to the point where her head touched cold metal. It fit perfectly within the aperture.

The metallic sphere hummed as energy swam through it. She could feel magic swirl around her horn before flowing into it and then through to the rest of her body. Crystal, in turn, could feel herself extending past the boundaries of her own body. She could feel leylines within the metallic structure. She could feel power surges and she could feel currents moving for the first time.

She felt connected to the machine. She felt like it was a part of her.

After a moment, the flow between herself and the supercomputer ceased, but her awareness of all its internal intricacies did not. She took that cue and pulled back, her horn slipping smoothly out of the hole.

She turned to face the several ponies watching her. Her main four all stood together. Celestia stood with Adamantine and a few of her charcoal-colored unponies toward the rear.

She glanced between all of them and nodded. “I can feel it. I’m connected with it now.”

Twilight clapped her hooves together. “Good.”

Sunset nodded. “Buck yeah. Now we just have to do those last bits of work and we’ll be good to go.”

“If you all don’t mind,” Crystal began, “I think I will run the computation just to see what it outputs. We should at least check to make sure that that is working.”

“Very well,” Chrysalis replied. She pointed toward a small collection of lights to the immediate right of the hole and said, “Those controls there should be working.”

Crystal turned to those lights and nodded. She walked up to it and started to push on some of the lights. Let’s see… disable the other functions. Let’s run the computation only.

The lights flashed once, and then just before she pushed the final button, Crystal paused. For this to work… I have to turn all of my filters off. I have to see the entire multiverse.

Her mind’s eye winced as infinities of timelines appeared within her vision. Crystal tried to suppress the shiver that ran down her spine but to no avail. She then pushed the button.

The metallic sphere in front of her continued to hum, and she could feel her mind’s eye pulling and distorting and twisting this way and that. She could see timelines disappearing one by one although that meant nothing when there were uncountably many. She could feel currents running through her entire body, and she couldn’t help but convulse against their pull.

Starlight gasped. “Crystal! Are you okay!?”

Crystal quickly looked over her withers and replied with a pointed, “Yes! I am okay!”

“Is it working?” Sunset asked.

“I think so!” Crystal replied.

Now a few dozen timelines disappeared from her mind’s eye at a time, and then a hundred, and then a thousand. The pace in which they disappeared rapidly picked up, and soon enough, Crystal could no longer guess how many were disappearing in the span of a second.

Her internal vision shifted around and continued to pull, effects which manifested in more bodily convulsions. Entire sets of timelines, infinite in size, disappeared in a flash. More and more and more left her vision and Crystal wasn’t sure if or when the process would stop.

Eventually, however, it did. And it did so suddenly that Crystal had to take a moment to confirm to herself that her view was no longer changing. The machine’s hum died down, and that was her actual cue that it was finished running its calculations.

She knocked the last bits of dizziness out of her head with a rap to her temples and then focused on the timelines that remained. She could see many timelines. She could see more than she could count. The timelines were everywhere and stretched in every direction.

But, on a little more searching, Crystal found an edge where the collection of timelines ended. She found more edge and followed it with her mind’s eye. A small smile graced her muzzle as she did so.

She then moved her mind’s eye away from it all. She tried to see it all wholesale. And sure enough, after a few moments, the astronomical amount of timelines sat bunched together like a small but infinitely tall cornfield. She couldn’t help but grin. So, the affected area is finite. Thank goodness.

She turned to the others and, with a smirk, declared, “We’re in business.”

“Nice!” Sunset exclaimed.

Chrysalis smirked and exchanged glances with Starlight who smirked back.

Crystal walked back in their direction. Her physical eyes lay on them. Her mental eye, however, scanned all the timelines again. She sifted through them, mentally sorting them out. She read the states of a few of them. She watched how they evolved.

She watched lives from start to finish. She watched paths diverge as choices made affected continuities that came after. She watched as some timelines contained short crystallized bits where she had been before. On closer inspection, Crystal found herself in those timelines and watched as she, a younger she, went about solving problems.

Crystal chuckled. The memories themselves were gone, but the record was still there.

She ran her mind’s eye over more timelines. She observed the small bits that came off some as they collapsed. She observed the way some of the timelines seemed to move and she even caught one as it collided with another timeline. She watched the collision closely, noting how the collision tore the respective realities to pieces. She ran her eyes over a set of timelines that was in the process of crystallizing on their own. She then turned her eyes toward some more timelines and watched those as well.

Crystal paused. In the real world, she tripped and fell flat on her face.

The others cried out and, one by one, raced to her side.

“Are you alright?” Twilight cried, skidding in the dirt right next to Crystal.

Crystal remained silent and still for a few moments. Her mind’s eye turned back toward a few of the timelines that she had just observed.

She saw them. It was a random collection of timelines, each relatively separated from each other, all in the process of crystallizing.

What?

“Crystal!” Twilight screamed.

Crystal frowned and pushed Twilight away. She then stood up and dusted herself off and stared into the distance.

She tried to convince herself that she had just seen it wrong. She tried to convince herself that she, in her daze, had read it wrong. But no, the collection of timelines within her mind’s eye was still crystallizing. It was slow and steady and almost imperceptible but there it was.

“I don’t understand…” she wheezed.

Chrysalis shuddered and pushed her way up to Crystal. “What is going on? What’s with that sour look on your face?”

Crystal shook her head and said, “I don’t know what I’m looking at.”

The rest of them visibly shrank at that. Even Chrysalis, who was nearly muzzle-to-muzzle with Crystal, shuddered.

“I do not understand…” Adamantine wheezed. “You… don’t know what you’re looking at?”

“No.”

“Then… The calculation—”

“The calculation was fine,” Crystal interjected. She saw all six of them relax at those words and she added, “It went off without a hitch.”

Twilight pulled at her mane and glanced around at the others. “Then what happened!? Tell us!”

“What did you see, Crystal Faire?” Celestia asked.

Crystal glanced between them and solemnly nodded. “Well…”

* * *

“So there are timelines out there, right now, that are crystallizing,” Twilight said. “Why?”

Crystal scratched her foreleg and said, “I don’t know.”

“Then what is doing it?” Chrysalis asked. “There has to be something that’s doing it.”

“I am aware,” Crystal replied as she shifted on her cot. “But it isn’t by my doing. And I can’t say what’s causing it.”

“That’s assuming it’s one, singular thing to begin with,” Adamantine said as she paced around the six sitting around the unlit fire pit.

Crystal nodded and buried her face in her hooves and let out a long and drawn-out sigh.

“Well,” Sunset began as she sat up straight, “I guess if we’ve learned anything else from what just happened, we actually have a pretty good idea of what the actual damage is. Honestly, I thought it was going to be much more.”

Starlight also sat up in her seat and, as some color returned to her face, she nodded. “Yeah, you’re right. That’s a pretty big relief.”

Twilight smiled. “Yes, it is.”

“I thought it was going to be to the point where the spell wouldn’t have been able to pull it off,” Sunset continued. “I mean, well, not completely.”

Chrysalis turned her eyes toward the large, metallic sphere in the center of the clearing and hummed in thought. “Well, naturally. You would think that with the attention we’ve given this thing, it would work.”

“Exactly,” Sunset said, slapping the dirt with her hoof for emphasis. “Once we get that spell going, it will work. We’re going to save the multiverse for sure.”

“Yes, we will…” Crystal swallowed. “But it would seem whether or not it will work is not the problem anymore.”

All heads turned to her again.

“I am afraid to ask…” Celestia began with a sigh, “but… what exactly do you mean by that?”

“These timelines which are crystallizing on their own for some reason pose a significant problem.”

“Which is?”

“When Twilight and I ran some experiments on the multiverse before this business even came to our attention, we determined a few things. When I sustained a spell across timelines, both of them crystallized at the same time. But we found out that if I wanted to travel between these crystallizing timelines, I had to hit the moment exactly. Otherwise, I would exist in two different time periods on the same timeline, and that’s just not possible.”

Crystal quickly swiveled toward Chrysalis and added, “And yes, I can hit that moment. I’ve done it.”

Chrysalis shrank back. “I see. That was what I was just about to ask.”

“The thing is that is only a small part of the actual issue,” Crystal continued. “Altering the supercomputer algorithm so that it selects that exact moment is one thing, and it can be done, but I won’t be able to time dilate and crystallize these timelines as fast as I need to.”

“Oh… the algorithm that we have depends on us being able to go from start to finish in a matter of seconds,” Twilight said. She glanced up and said, “How long would it take in this case?”

Crystal shook her head and said, “Months. Years.”

Sunset swore.

Oh, by the stars! Twilight thought.

Starlight threw her hooves into the air and sputtered for words. “So… so… No, it’s not like we can’t recalculate in the middle of all that.”

“That’s correct,” Crystal replied. She pointed toward the supercomputer and said, “Once that thing performs its initial calculation and disperses, it’s done. We cannot do anything else with it. So, unless the entire process happens quickly, it will go beyond the scope of the algorithm and we would be done.” Crystal crossed her forelegs as her features scrunched together. “And that is if the supercomputer doesn’t try to time dilate anyway and destroys itself in the process or causes something much worse to happen.”

Starlight shook her head. “We can’t ignore those timelines, can we?”

“No. They came up in the computation.” Crystal replied. “If we did, there would be loose ends, and this whole collapse could start up all over again.”

Twilight groaned. “Ooooooh, this is bad. This is really bad!” she said as she clutched at her forehead.

Sunset shot to her hooves and looked down on Crystal. “So… What? Where do we go from here?”

Twilight hopped to her hooves and pressed herself against Crystal. “We have to look into it. We have to! We have to!”

“I know,” Crystal replied without batting an eye.

Twilight spent a few moments trying to bring her hyperventilation back under control. She tried to swing her foreleg in and out in a well-practiced motion (she had learned the move from Cadance, after all) and while that helped to ease herself, she still needed breath. “Crystal, if we can’t…”

Crystal shuddered. And then another cloud appeared out of Crystal’s horn. This cloud, although a dark blue like the one that they had seen yesterday, had tints of yellow to it.

The others shied away, flipping between staring at Crystal and the cloud.

Bits of color disappeared from Crystal’s face. She lit her horn and another glass jar appeared. She uncorked it, funneled the cloud inside, and then sealed it. The bottle and the contents inside disappeared with a loud bang.

With a sigh, Crystal straightened herself and nodded solemnly. “Yes, I know. If I can’t resolve what’s happening with the timelines, then we can’t deploy the spell, and all of existence is doomed.”

23 - Jumbled

Ponyville enjoyed a nice and sunny day, but Twilight didn’t pay it any mind. She trailed right behind Crystal Faire as they made their way through the streets.

She scanned every corner of every street, spotting a few things that looked out of place like garden beds that had not been there before and stalls that were located in different positions from their usual (as had been the case in the market).

She looked into the distance. The northern tip of Ponyville should have contained a large, crystalline castle, but here there was none. There wasn’t even a hint that such a structure even existed.

Twilight nodded to herself. That was just the way things were.

She continued to scan the surroundings as they went. A few passersby waved at her and she, in turn, put on a smile and waved back. It was the friendly thing to do, after all.

After a bit more, she shook her head and trotted up alongside Crystal. “Do you see anything?”

“Nothing of interest,” Crystal replied.

Twilight ground her teeth together but said nothing.

They came on another street which offered them a good view of a tree-shaped house where the Golden Oak Library used to be. The house was decisively wooden and more in line with Ponyville’s more generic architecture, but the shape was visible. The two of them could see a few figures standing in front of the entrance. There was this timeline’s Twilight and this timeline’s versions of her friends. This timeline’s Spike, on the other hoof, stood opposite them alongside a figure who was taller than the entire house. The dragonesses’ purple scales and pink spines glistened in the sunlight. She had her claws folded together and wore a meek smile.

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Wow.”

“Don’t worry, Celia there is an ally. We need not bother them,” Crystal said.

The two continued into another street, and they eventually found a bench. Stopping to take a seat, they turned their eyes down a nearby street.

“Whatever is causing this timeline to crystallize, it’s going at the same speed as I usually do,” Crystal said.

Twilight giggled. “Well, obviously, because you’re in it.”

Crystal giggled. “Well, that too. But it was doing so before, as well.”

“Let me see if I have this right,” Twilight said as she shifted in her seat to face Crystal. “The way that this timeline was crystallizing before we got here isn’t any different than it is now.”

“That’s right. It looks like whatever is causing this is operating under my rules.”

Twilight scratched her muzzle. “Or the both of you are operating under a consistent set of rules. I think that’s the more likely option.”

Crystal chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right.”

Twilight giggled. “It’s a good thing we spent so much time probing on what those rules are, huh?”

Crystal hummed and continued stroking her muzzle in thought. Finally, she too turned to face Twilight. “So, actually, I’ve been watching something just now.”

“Hmmm?”

“A few minutes ago, as we were passing your new house, another timeline collided with this one,” Crystal said.

Twilight’s stomach twisted together within seconds and all manner of breath left her. She couldn’t help but glance around. Images of a Ponyville on fire and in pieces flashed through her mind.

“And the collision ended just a few seconds ago,” Crystal added, glancing around as well.

That didn’t seem right. “But… what happened?” Twilight wheezed. “This looks… normal. It… it didn’t happen at this point in time, did it?”

Crystal shook her head. “Evidently, the parts of this timeline that came into contact were in the future. Remember how, when I’m in a timeline, everything beyond this point is in some quasi-crystallized state?”

Twilight nodded and glanced over as a few mares trotted up to them. Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer each carried some muffins in their magic. Another mare, with a pale blue mane and a brilliant azure coat, wearing a purple magician’s hat and an equally purple cape, floated a brown bag right beside her.

Starlight offered one of the spare muffins to Crystal. Crystal promptly chomped down on it and hummed in delight.

Twilight similarly took a muffin from Sunset and then turned back to Crystal. “I do. Are you saying that quasi-crystallization is enough to prevent a collision?”

Crystal shook her head. “I am afraid not. It prevented damage to this timeline, but… it still gained some momentum in the process.”

“Did I hear that right?” Trixie Lulamoon asked as she set the bag down beside them. “This timeline is moving?”

“Yes, Chrysalis,” Crystal replied with a grave look on her face. “So this one might turn around and collide with something else later on.”

Trixie shuddered and shrank a little. Her eyes turned toward a spot on her thighs. “I would very much not like to see that again, thanks.”

Starlight lay a hoof on Trixie’s withers but said nothing.

Crystal shifted. Reality folded into a single point for a few moments and then folded back out. When it did, the five of them landed on a large rock. Trees surrounded the rock formation on every side. A few birds, immediately overhead, let out several frightened chirps and, looking like a black cloud, moved en masse away from them.

Crystal took another bite from her muffin in silence.

“There has to be a common thread between all of this,” Twilight said. “That’s the only way it makes sense.”

“Whatever it is, I can’t tell what it is yet,” Crystal replied.

Trixie glanced around and then let a burst of green flame overtake her; Chrysalis then emerged from the embers. She opened the brown bag and fished a muffin out, eying it closely.

Sunset frowned. “You can see this entire reality, can’t you?”

“My optics are good, but in this case… it’s like finding a needle in a haystack… where I don’t know what I’m looking for in a needle,” Crystal replied.

“That would be a problem.”

“It could be anywhere in this reality. It could be outside Equestria’s light cone. It could be in a parallel reality like the human world. I just don’t know.”

Twilight shook her head. “We have to keep looking.”

“The way I see it,” Sunset began, “if it’s anything like what we’re doing with entangled particles… like having a spell across several timelines, I think that whatever this is should be existing across several timelines as well.”

“See,” Twilight replied, “that was my initial thought. I mean, we don’t have anything that can prove it, especially since we don’t know what it is.”

Starlight, who had a biteful of muffin in her mouth, swallowed. “Well, it’s gotta be something that can be in more than one place at once, right?”

“Or it’s connected to more than one place,” Sunset added.

“But what could possibly do that?” Twilight asked.

“And how could it exist in multiple timelines?” Sunset asked. “How did it even find the other timelines?”

Chrysalis took a bite from the muffin in her magical grasp. She chewed slowly. She grimaced once, twice, and then her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she let out a long, hearty moan.

Starlight snickered and, with a smirk, looked up at Chrysalis. “Pinkie Pie’s baking is good, isn’t it?”

Chrysalis blushed and immediately put the muffin down. “N-no, of course not! It tastes awful.”

“You like Pinkie Pie’s muffins, don’t you, Chrysalis?” Starlight said, her smirk growing wider.

Chrysalis grimaced. “Well… they aren’t bad… per say…”

* * *

Crystal watched the timelines closely as she munched on her third muffin. A few crumbs fell off her lip as she chewed in silence.

What could all these crystallizing timelines have in common?

She turned her attention toward some in particular. She ran her eyes downward where the crystallized section of timeline met with the semi-crystallized section below it. Whatever it is… here is the earliest moment that it existed in this timeline…

If I made an analogy to myself, it would be as if I was appearing in that timeline at that moment. It would be as if I traveled there.

But what’s traveling there? Is there something that suddenly popped up?

She scanned one timeline in particular. She ran her mental eyes over the rolling plains and the tall mountains. To Crystal’s eyes, everything and everypony was frozen in that moment. She could see birds in the air and fish in the water. She could see ponies in the middle of tossing balls between each other.

Nothing looked out of place so far.

She looked at the griffon kingdom and then toward the dragon lands. She found nothing out of place there either.

Crystal scratched her head. This isn’t good…

She pulled her mental vision back and sighed. She took another bite from her muffin and idly watched a timeline moving about while she chewed. She frowned and guessed at its eventual fate. At every point, she could see infinitely many timelines branching off it, and they too moved just as it did. One of them would probably hit something. She saw Equestria and the probabilities therein.

And then the entire bottom half of the timeline turned shiny and stopped moving. The parts above it continued swaying like before. Crystal choked on the last bits of muffin in her mouth and then quickly dislodged and subsequently swallowed it. She looked at the timeline closely and saw the tiniest sliver of a crystallized bit and how said bit was crystallizing forward in time.

It’s just appeared there… she thought. She looked more closely. Most everything looked the same. But, on closer inspection, the probabilities around Canterlot had changed and were still changing.

Crystal gasped. It just appeared there! She then shot to her hooves. “Girls, I think I may have just spotted a lead.”

Twilight also shot to her hooves, completely disregarding the muffin in front of her. “Then wherever it is, we should go there right away! Take us there right now!”

Crystal dusted herself off and nodded. She mentally reached out toward the timeline in question and slid her touch down it. The moment that touch reached the top of those portions which were crystallized, the world folded together and then back out again.

They arrived in a sunlit hall. There were towering white pillars on either side bearing swirling patterns, equally tall windows that took up the spaces between pillars, and intricately woven rugs that spanned the length of the hallway.

Crystal started walking in one direction but, meanwhile, she put her mind’s eye to work on examining the city. Come on, she thought, where are you…?

Chrysalis, who followed behind, considered Canterlot Castle’s architecture and shuddered before letting a green flame overtake her. The flames quickly faded, and Trixie stood in her place once more.

They rounded a corner and encountered a pair of maids walking in their direction from the opposite end of the hall. The maids were engaged in a very hush-toned conversation, but as the five of them neared, they turned to look up and let out sharp gasps and reeled toward either side of the hallway.

The five of them passed by, each noticing that both maids were staring Twilight down with horrorstruck expressions.

Twilight hummed to herself but nonetheless continued on.

Starlight shook her head and looked up at Crystal. “Do you see anything?”

Crystal shook her head. “Not yet. And…” She pulled her vision back for a moment and examined the timeline and its surroundings. She looked at its trajectory. Her mental plot of its motion took it into an adjacent timeline. And then her frown deepened. “And if I don’t see anything in the next few minutes, I’m going to pull us out. It appears that this timeline’s about to suffer a collision at this point in time.”

Trixie gasped. “What!? Are you serious?”

The others, similarly grim-faced, exchanged glances.

Twilight frowned. “Then we have to be quick.”

Crystal nodded and turned her mind’s eye through the streets immediately around the castle where at least a few thousand ponies had gathered about. She scanned each of them, trying to find something out of place. She worked her gaze around the city, and when she found nothing out of the ordinary, she turned it to the plaza directly in front of the castle where a few hundred more ponies sat in uniform rows, all facing a little altar at the head of the plaza.

The five rounded another corner and saw a large and ornate door at the end of the hallway. Two royal guardsponies stood directly in front of it, barring the way. The guardsponies shuddered on their approach and froze in place. Their eyes bore holes into Twilight, and despite how still they tried to remain, the color that drained from them was noticeable.

Twilight’s frown deepened but, as Crystal lit her horn and gently slid the guards out of the way of the door before opening it herself, she kept silent.

The five of them trotted into the room with Trixie closing the door behind her. An unlit fireplace and a sprawling velvet bed met them. A tapestry depicting a shooting star hung on the night sky-patterned walls. A clock on the wall counted each passing second with a pronounced ticking noise.

Twilight let out a breath and asked, “Why were they looking at me like that?”

“Yeah, they look like they’ve seen a ghost,” Sunset added.

Crystal frowned. Perhaps I should not tell her, she thought. She trotted toward the balcony instead and pushed the glass doorway open.

“So this is Celestia’s room…” Trixie cooed.

Crystal nodded. She approached a lone telescope that stood on the edge of the balcony and put an eyeball against it. There, she pointed it down toward the crown in the plaza below. As she used her physical eyes to scan the crowd, she used her mental eyes to scan the same spot.

She centered on one stallion, in particular, who sat in the back of the crowd. He, unlike everypony around him, looked slightly translucent.

“There you are,” she said aloud.

The other four approached and looked over the railing to see the ceremonies down below.

“Yeah?” Sunset asked.

Crystal did some tracking back in time and found the stallion at the moment the timeline started to turn crystal. It was at that moment that the stallion had appeared with a loud bang.

“Somepony entered this timeline. Evidently, he made his way into the crowd below. Look at the back corner there,” she said, pointing.

“I see him down there,” Starlight said, now pointing as well. She ran her eyes over his yellow coat and his orange, mohawk-like mane. “Actually… he’s familiar. Is that Sunburst’s dad?”

“How much time do we have?” Twilight asked.

“Not long,” Crystal replied.

Twilight nodded and clapped her hooves together. “Then let’s get him and get out of here,” she said as she spread her wings and hopped over the railing.

Crystal extended a hoof in a futile attempt to keep Twilight from going but she had already disappeared over the edge. “...And I didn’t want her to go down there.” She immediately scanned the room behind them and then tore some of the curtains down and floated them over to herself.

She turned to the others. “Stay here. Okay?”

Starlight gravitated toward Trixie while nodding.

Crystal lit her horn and teleported down below with the torn curtains in tow. She immediately turned and tossed the curtains over the object sitting across the altar behind her. Said object was a glass casket, in which a second Twilight Sparkle, fully dressed in a princess-like gown, lay in a peaceful pose. The curtain completely obscured the occupant inside.

With that done, Crystal turned to face the crowd. She spotted many familiar faces. In a way, it almost looked like a very similar occasion she had once attended herself eons ago; those most familiar to her were dressed from mane to tail in black with some even wearing veils covering their faces.

Their expressions, at her appearance, were mixtures of open-mouthed shock, contorted expression of fury, or eyebrow-raised confusion. All of that, however, melted into various gasps and cries as Twilight Sparkle landed right beside Crystal and many, subsequently, shot to their hooves.

Twilight looked at the curtain-covered coffin with a concerned frown, even shooting Crystal a glance in the process, and then shook her head and turned to face the crowd. She blushed and waved to them. “Hello, everypony. Don’t mind us.”

Crystal made eye contact with the faded stallion in the back. She then jabbed Twilight in the side and pointed him out to her.

Said stallion’s expression actually darkened at that but, nonetheless, he started to step toward the aisle. All eyes turned in his direction. A few others also started making their way toward the aisle.

Crystal could see, in her mind’s eye, Sunset peering down from Celestia’s balcony. She could also see the timeline closing in on its neighbor.

Crystal started making her way down the aisle. Twilight, who followed closely behind, sheepishly waved at her parents and her friends as she went (they, on the other hoof, failed to wave back, opting to stare at her in shock instead; Twilight’s mother and Rarity both promptly fainted).

Several ponies reached the aisle and started to stalk in their direction. Their fiery eyes were fixed on the two. In fact, they all wore the exact same expression.

“Why are they all coming this way…?” Crystal muttered under her breath.

She turned her attention to the timeline itself and the infinitely many futures that branched off it. She watched their movements throughout several possibilities but noticed a few things that they all had in common: laser blasts, attempted tackles, and lots of flying hooves.

She narrowed her eyes and lit her horn. “Twilight... I think we may be looking at a fight,” she warned.

A few ponies sitting in the audience immediately around them shot a few horrified gasps between each other.

A little bit of color disappeared from Twilight’s face and she raised an eyebrow. “What!? Why?”

“I don’t—” Crystal cut off her own voice to focus instead of looking back in time. She traced each of the ponies’ actions before they had arrived. She saw all of them arriving together, and then she saw them meeting for the first time. Every so often, she would see one pony start to glow and then, a few seconds later, some tendrils made of energy would reach out and envelope the other pony. Said pony would then do the same later on to another.

She traced all of that back until, finally, she saw the faded pony in question. The faded pony did the same glowing and enveloping with energy tendrils as all the others. Crystal traced his actions back until, finally, he popped into existence.

And her heart just about stopped. “Oh my goodness,” she wheezed.

“What?” Twilight asked.

“Twilight…” Crystal said, her tone low and foreboding, “you aren’t going to believe this… It’s—”

Crystal was unable to finish her sentence as one of the unicorns toward the front of the oncoming pack threw a laser blast at her. It bounced off a quick shield and sailed into the sky. Crystal didn’t even stop to discern how the entire crowd seemed to collectively cry out and shy away from the display as she teleported to his other side and placed a laser blast into his backside, launching him up the aisle.

Twilight broke into a gallop but not before noticing the dark, blob-like particles that flew off the downed stallion. Said particles quickly disintegrated by the time she even reached him. “What…?”

Crystal flipped over a pegasus mare trying to tackle her and then, before she touched the ground, she shot a blast of her own which nailed the pegasus as she arced upward. A few more blob-like particles flew off the pegasus before she hurdled toward the front of the plaza and landed with a thud.

Twilight watched those particles with wide-eyed shock and her entire body turned pale. “N… no… those aren’t… this isn’t…”

Crystal threw up a barrier to parry all other incoming attacks (which included an earth pony mare charging headlong right into it) and she whirled to face Twilight.

“It’s Miasmus, Twilight!” Crystal exclaimed. “He’s here!”

Twilight let out a pointed exclamation and lifted into the air. She scanned the grounds, trying to differentiate between which ponies were running and which ones were fighting. Most of the crowd was scattering in all directions at this point. A few, chiefly the princesses, Twilight’s friends, and her family, remained silently standing at the front.

And it can’t be the same one, can it!? Crystal thought.

“You’re kidding me!” Twilight screamed. “You have got to be kidding me!”

Crystal ground her teeth together and whirled around just in time to see the faded stallion, still at the back, now lashing out at several nearby ponies with tendrils made of energy. Said tendrils wrapped around their targets prompting them to convulse and collapse. After a few seconds, the targets stood up again and, with malicious snarls, turned toward the fray.

Not good! Crystal thought. She noticed a mare on the opposite side of the plaza performing the exact same process. He’s taking more and more hosts!

Crystal exploded her barrier which knocked many combatants off their hooves. She herself took to the air and let out several consecutive blasts with each hitting their marks. With each hit, blob-like particles sprayed off, and the targets collapsed unconscious.

Twilight, who found an opening, also volleyed a few shots into the plaza below but all save one missed their marks.

A few unicorns came up and shot at Twilight from below. Most attacks came within a meter of her, and one would have hit dead on if not for the barrier that she formed around herself. A few pegasi slammed into the barrier, cracking it.

Darn it! What do I do here!? Crystal thought.

Her mind’s eye could see the timelines getting dangerously close.

I have to figure something out, and fast! I can’t leave without grilling him on what he knows, but Starlight and Chrysalis are still—

Crystal couldn’t complete her thought as a pegasus stallion tackled her from behind. The two of them tumbled through the air and it took Crystal a few moments to recapture her bearings and subsequently throw him off her.

Twilight’s barrier shattered in the same instant and she had no recourse but to dodge the ensuing shots.

A pegasus tried to pounce on Twilight from her front but suddenly had an amber mare land right on top of him. The force of the collision sent the pegasus sailing toward the ground. The amber mare floated herself down the rest of the way with magic and landed on all fours.

“Sunset!” Twilight called down. “They’re being possessed! You have to hit them with magic to get that out of them!”

“I got it!” Sunset yelled from down below. She whirled around to face the princesses and the rest of Twilight’s friends. “Hey! We need your help over here!”

The ponies at the head of the plaza hesitated. And then Princess Luna let out a loud growl and shot a beam of her own down range. It missed one of the targets but Luna followed it up with another shot that did hit somepony, prompting a spray of blob-like particles.

Twilight whirled in the air. “Crystal! You need to grab Starlight and Chrysalis!” she yelled. “We need to get out of here!”

Crystal groaned as she shot her previous assailant out of the air. She looked down with disdain as the outlying ponies hit others with their tendrils, thus possessing them too. “But Miasmus—” she began.

“The timeline, Crystal!” Twilight exclaimed.

Crystal paused to examine the timeline again, but said pause was just enough for a pegasus carrying an earth pony to barrel into her. Her two foes wrapped their hooves around her and the three of them hurdled toward the ground. By the time Crystal found the capacity to light her horn and teleport away, they had already hit.

Twilight cried out and fired a laser at them but it, unfortunately, hit air.

Crystal reappeared a few meters away, whirled around, and fired a single laser blast that rammed into both targets.

Twilight continued to fire lasers from above and Sunset continued to fire lasers from the ground. Off to the side, Twilight’s friends threw off their blackened dresses and let out assorted battle cries before charging into the fray. Princess Luna took to the air. Celestia, meanwhile, remained with Twilight’s family.

Crystal put up a barrier around herself and examined the timeline again. She watched it close in and close in.

And then, finally, the timelines connected.

Buck!

No sooner did she look up did Celestia’s balcony, where Starlight and Trixie were still at, vanish from existence. In addition to that, several other bits of castle spontaneously disappeared. Hemispherical depressions suddenly were present in the plaza ground. A few of their foes suddenly vanished as well.

Crystal cried out and shot into the sky amidst a cacophony of screams and cries. She ran her eyes along the tower and spotted, partly to relief, Starlight and Trixie falling down its side. She lit her horn, teleported right underneath them, and threw up a bubble around herself and them that arrested all their downward momentum.

And a laser blast from below immediately careened into her barrier.

“What the hay!?” Starlight cried.

Trixie let out a pointed cry as she surveyed the sudden damage around them.

There was a loud rumbling from overhead as a crack ran around the middle of the castle’s tallest tower where Celestia’s room was. Brick pancaked onto brick as the whole thing wobbled and then toppled over.

Sunset whirled around, saw the devastation, swore, and whipped back around to blast another pony at point-blank range.

The faded pony who had once been at the back started to make a break for the edge of the plaza where a ramp descended into the city beyond.

Twilight lit her horn and teleported to the other side, thus blocking his way. Before he could react, she let off a wind spell which blew him back the way he came. He went sailing across the plaza, bowling into several other combatants as he went.

An earth pony mare attempted to jump on Sunset but found a lasso secure itself around her waist before she could pounce. She landed on the ground with an audible thud which drew Sunset’s attention. Sunset immediately blasted her.

She looked up and saluted. “Thanks, Applejack!”

The tower, still falling, suddenly exploded into a million pieces. At the same time, several explosions rocked the city. The ground roared and shook with such intensity that it threw everypony off their hooves. The mountain above the city also exploded like a volcano, shooting chunks of rock and dust in every direction.

Within the same few instants, pieces of debris spontaneously appeared within the plaza.

Princess Luna cried out and suddenly keeled over. She kicked her legs about and otherwise flailed wildly. Her screams filled the area and the ponies immediately around her cried out and rushed to her side.

Crystal couldn’t react as one such spontaneous appearance appeared within her own barrier and showered her with debris. The blast sent Crystal flying through her own barrier which promptly disintegrated.

Starlight wrapped magic around herself and Trixie. A flame overtook Trixie and Chrysalis emerged a few seconds later. She, nonetheless, hung limply in Starlight’s magic, shivering too much to act on her own.

Crystal flipped over and, once again, had to get her bearings. Her mind flicked between trying to process Luna’s screams, the battle sounds all around, the bedlam here and within the city, and trying to watch the timeline.

A piece of debris from the mountain arced toward Twilight and she, in turn, had to fly out of the way, and she did the same for the pieces that immediately followed. Sunset, still ground-bound, opted to just shoot them.

And then suddenly, more pieces of debris disappeared into thin air. Once again, bits and pieces of scenery disappeared. Further into the grounds, an entire wing of the castle suddenly disappeared without a hint that it had ever been there.

And, so too, had Sunset.

Crystal let out a pointed cry and, without a second thought, touched the adjacent timeline with her mind’s eye. Her world folded together and back out again and Crystal flipped over.

This plaza, however, had much more debris in it along with many splotches of red scattered about. The castle was practically in shambles and Canterlot itself was in flames.

Sunset tumbled through the plaza below as three foes tried to jump on her at once. Sunset blasted the first with magic and then teleported out of the way of the other two. Crystal dove down and blasted the remaining two with her magic. Blobby particles left them and they fell unconscious.

Crystal swooped in. “Are you okay?” she asked as she skidded to a halt next to Sunset.

Sunset turned. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Where the hell is this? Is this the other timeline?”

Crystal nodded. She quickly surveyed the actual area one more time, determined that, at present, they were the only living beings still there, and then turned her mind’s eye to the timeline that she had just left.

She could now see the timelines starting to part ways. With that, Crystal let out a sigh of relief.

“Okay, well, thanks for coming to get me. Can you send me back, please?” Sunset asked.

“Certainly. I…” Crystal shuddered and took a moment to catch her breath. “I need to get my bearings, so I’ll be along shortly,” Crystal replied. With that, Crystal wrapped her essence around Sunset and then touched the timeline in question while redirecting her power. Sunset disappeared, leaving Crystal all by herself.

Crystal took a moment to stand up straight and compose herself. She kept her mental eye on the other timeline, watching it continuing to crystallize as the battle continued without her. I need to end this quickly, she thought.

She took another deep breath. She took another.

Relax.

Refocus.

This battle is on your terms now. Let’s go to work.

Crystal examined the timeline one more time, let the energy flow through her horn and the rest of her body, and then touched the timeline with her mind’s eye. Her world folded into itself.

As soon as it folded back out and Crystal arrived back in the plaza, she let her shot off which careened into the foe right in front of her. Time seemed to stand still for her as Crystal teleported to another target and blasted him as well. She spotted a pegasus seemingly frozen in the air and she teleported close to him and let off another blast. She zipped over to where Starlight and Chrysalis were flying toward the ground, almost outrunning some debris chasing after them, and she gave each piece of debris a solid kick. Finally, she zipped to where the faded stallion was reared and ready to let off another blast and drove a hoof into his chest.

Not even a fraction of a second had passed.

Crystal stood up and watched the results. The shots hit their marks, with every foe save the one in front of her crying out as blobby particles shot out of them. The debris trailing Starlight and Chrysalis exploded into dust and threatened them no more. Twilight went tumbling into the air just long enough for her to recapture her bearings and glide down. And the faded stallion went tumbling backward, skidding to a halt a ways away.

Crystal whirled around and watched as Twilight touched down right next to her. “Are you okay?”

Twilight let out a long sigh but eventually nodded. “Yes, I’m alright.”

Sunset came trotting up at that moment, panting for breath. The castle, while it still had some parts standing, was in shambles. There were clouds of smoke billowing from the city and the skies overhead were clouded where they hadn’t been before. There were still distant shouts here and there from within the city.

Much closer by, many had gathered around Luna who was still clutching her sides in agony. The glass-covered casket that had once been behind them was in pieces with not all of them even present anymore.

“This looks awful…” Twilight croaked.

Sunset, after a brief coughing fit, nodded. “You can say that again. It’s not as bad as that one we saw a while ago, but…”

“Us being here must have retarded the impact,” Crystal said. “Still…”

Another laser blast, this time green in color, careened into Crystal’s side. Crystal stumbled as the attack hit her but she remained standing.

Twilight and Sunset gasped and whirled around to find Chrysalis standing a short distance away with smoke coming off her horn. The ponies tending to Princess Luna shot to their hooves in alarm.

Crystal grunted and felt at her side and then turned to face her assailant. The very first thing she noticed was the way in which Chrysalis gasped for breath and the way she shook all over.

“You mongrel!” Chrysalis seethed. “Y-you cur! I did not need to see any of this again!”

Crystal winced and then shook her head. “I didn’t mean for you to!”

Chrysalis shuddered and raised a shaky hoof and pointed it at Crystal. “D-don’t y-y-you give me that!”

Starlight also thundered up to Crystal and stuck her face right up against Crystal’s muzzle. “What the buck was that!? You said that you were going to be quick!”

Crystal went red and sputtered out, “T-that was before we were ambushed!”

“And just how did you get ambushed!?” Chrysalis yelled as she too approached.

“I-I didn’t see it coming either,” Twilight shakily replied.

“I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Crystal added. “I’m sorry!”

“For Celestia’s sake, Crystal Faire! We could have died just now!” Starlight exclaimed.

“I know!”

“I know too!” Twilight piped up. She then grabbed at her mane and fell to her haunches as it seemingly hit her. “Oh my goodness, we could have actually died there…”

“Gosh, I was so focused on the fighting that I didn’t even really think about it…” Sunset frowned and glanced over at Starlight and Chrysalis and asked, “You’re okay, right?”

Starlight frowned. “I’m fine. Chrysalis?”

Chrysalis grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t know…?”

“I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m sorry. I-I’ll just have to be a little more careful next time…” Crystal stammered.

“There had better not be a next time,” Chrysalis growled in response.

At the other end of the plaza, the faded stallion groaned and rolled over. The five, in response, glanced in his direction.

Sunset narrowed her eyes and raised her hoof into the air. “Whatever. Forget about it. I want answers.”

Starlight bared her teeth and lit her horn. Her magic wrapped around the faded stallion and levitated him over before unceremoniously dropping him in the middle of them. “You! Start talking!”

The stallion looked between them. The snarl on his face grew with each face he passed.

“Yes, Sunspot, start talking,” Crystal murmured. She leaned into the stallion’s face and added, “Or perhaps you would prefer your real name, Miasmus?”

Sunspot narrowed his eyes at Crystal. “How dare you… How dare you embarrass me a second time.”

Crystal’s features twitched. “So, it is you. You are the Miasmus that I defeated in Ponyville.”

The color drained from Twilight’s face. “You’re from back home… You’re… the Miasmus from my timeline.”

Sunspot snorted. “How very perceptive of you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“It looks like you’ve been busy, Miasmus, since we last saw you,” Crystal said. “You’ve worked on your aim, at least. I hope your hoofwriting’s also improved?”

Sunspot raised an eyebrow.

“You’ve been out there,” Crystal continued. “And now you’re here. Where else are you?”

Sunspot snorted.

Chrysalis bared teeth. “Answer the question, you putrid creature,” she said with venom in her voice.

Sunspot turned his gaze to her, and after a moment, he chuckled and climbed to his hooves. “Oh, and this is the cutest thing of them all. It’s Queen Chrysalis herself. Oh, I’m sorry, former Queen Chrysalis.”

“Why you—”

He looked at her down his nose and snorted. “Some queen you turned out to be. Got kicked out of Canterlot, and then got kicked out of your own hive. Everything you did was useless and your hive knew it. Why, I don’t think there’s a single one of them left that even liked you.” He came up close to her and added, “What a failure that you are. So weak, and so pathetic. It’s a wonder you even bother to continue living.”

Chrysalis ground her teeth together so hard that she was in danger of shattering them. With the way she stared daggers at him, and the way she trembled with rage, she looked like she was ready to wring his neck.

Twilight stamped her hooves. “Stop it!” she bellowed. “I won’t have you talking about my friend like that!”

“That’s right, Miasmus!” Starlight seconded. “You mess with her, you mess with us!”

Chrysalis made a voiceless gasp as she looked between the two of them.

Sunset nodded in agreement before turning and flashing Chrysalis a smile.

Crystal grabbed Sunspot with her magic and lifted him into the air in front of her. “Let’s get back to the topic at hoof. I believe I asked you a question.”

Sunspot glared at Chrysalis for a moment longer before he snarled and turned his attention to Crystal. “I know you did, swine.”

“I want an answer.” After a moment of silence, Crystal narrowed her eyes. “Well then, if you don’t want to give me an answer, then I will go ahead and guess. This isn’t the first timeline you’ve broken into.”

There was no reaction from him. But, as Crystal checked other crystallizing timelines where she found ponies who had already appeared out of nowhere, she found that, at that moment, they had stopped as well.

She smirked and said, “It looks like I got it right, didn’t I? I can see them, you know.”

Sunspot shuddered and, for the first time, looked flustered. “You… what?”

“And I can tell just by looking at you that your main body is not in this one,” she said as she motioned all over Sunspot. “I don’t know where that is, per say, but I have my ways of finding out.”

Sunspot continued to stare.

“Now, I will make this quite plain to you, Miasmus. Your compliance on this matter is required.” Crystal leaned forward and asked, with a sinister tone, “Do you yet comprehend that your breaking into those many timelines has endangered the existence of the multiverse?”

At this, Sunspot raised an eyebrow. “Oh…? Is that so?”

Crystal nodded. “Yes. It is. And, you see, there is a problem with the multiverse that can’t be fixed until you get out of those timelines.” She narrowed her eyes and added, “Thankfully, now that I know that you’re in them, that makes this all very simple.”

She lowered him to the ground and waited until Sunspot had his footing before she continued. “Now, I know enough about you to know that you can’t uncouple from a host in isolation. But I am sure that you know of the ponies you originally used to break into each timeline. You find them, you decouple to them and to them alone. Those ponies will fade out on their own, just like this one is right now,” she said, motioning to Sunspot again.

“Do that, and we will be able to save all of existence, and prevent this—” Crystal pointed to the remains of Canterlot Castle, “—from happening ever again. So, the question that I have for you is… will you comply?”

Sunspot’s expression remained unchanged for long moments. He stared at Starlight, at Sunset, at Chrysalis, and then at Twilight.

There was an explosion from within the city followed by several more cries.

The ponies still at end of the plaza, all huddled close together, watched in silence. Even Princess Luna, with many drops of sweat swimming down their brow, held her breath.

Sunspot held his head toward the heavens. And then he smirked. And then he broke into a full, from-the-belly laugh. His laugh echoed through the entire plaza. It echoed into eternity. His laugh was full of malice and, through it all, it seemed like he was laughing at them.

“You evidently don’t know me at all!” Sunspot screamed before falling into more laughter. He wiped some tears from his eyes and he stared up at Crystal again, a confident smirk on his muzzle. “You think that I would ever care about these inferior beings. Existence… no existence… it won’t make a difference, because, as I’ve learned, I can still survive out there. And that’s good enough for me.

“And it’s just funny that you’re the one that’s asking me this. You honestly think that I would ever want to help you after what you did to me?”

Crystal’s expression darkened but she said nothing.

“So, to answer your question,” he said, a smirk spreading across his muzzle, “no, I will not comply. These pitiful realities can fall apart and rot for all I care.”

There was a long and pregnant pause as all stared at him. The air was stiff and, for all anypony knew, there wasn’t anything else beyond the circle. All attention was focused solely on the entity now wearing a smug grin on his muzzle.

He chuckled and drew a circle on his chest. “I know that you want to blast me and dislodge me from this body. So why don’t you just go ahead and get it over with?” His smirk grew wider as he added, “I know that you want to.”

Crystal pursed her lips and finally nodded. “I suppose that I should…”

Sunspot was silent.

Crystal sighed and looked him dead in the eyes. “But, before I do… I will go ahead and tell you this: since you have decided to oppose me, my course of action is clear. I…”

She paused to look at the four mares that stood with her. The four of them nodded at her in return.

Crystal Faire turned back to him and smirked in return. She stood up to her full height, towering over him, and then coursed energy through her horn and said, with a full voice, “…We will hunt you down, Miasmus. And we will snuff you out. As you have so chosen.”

24 - Vexation

“In order to defeat Miasmus and clear the way for saving the multiverse,” Crystal Faire began as she addressed her four companions, all of whom sat around the unlit fire pit in the center of the pavilion, “we will want to clear him out of every reality that he currently exists in. So let’s talk about how we’re going to do that.”

“If I remember right,” Twilight Sparkle said, “he has a main body somewhere. Those ponies that attacked us were just his peripheral possessions.”

“That’s right,” Crystal said. “That’s what we really want. He’ll have taken a host somewhere out there. If we find his main host, then that will make the problem much easier.”

Sunset Shimmer crossed her forelegs and hummed. “That sounds good and all, but… is his main host in some timeline somewhere or… is he still floating out there between timelines?”

“That would be an issue, wouldn’t it?” Chrysalis replied.

“And it’s not just that. Apparently, he has a way to get into more and more timelines. So…” Twilight said with a frown, “in the time we spend clearing him out of one timeline, he could break into several others. Who knows if we’ll be able to keep up?”

“I assume that he will, regardless of where he’s at, know when he’s been dislodged from a pony, hmmm?” Chrysalis asked.

“Of course,” Crystal replied with a nod. “It’s quite painful for him, at that.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “Oh, really?”

Crystal nodded.

A sinister grin spread across Chrysalis’ muzzle and she gave an evil, from-the-belly laugh. As heads turned toward her, she stood up and composed herself. “Oh, this is rich. I have an idea, then.”

Starlight Glimmer’s eyes grew wide. “You do?”

“Well of course. I know how to get him to do what we want.”

Twilight frowned. “Well… huh. This is something.”

“Uhhh…” Sunset started.

Chrysalis looked at Twilight down her nose. “You seem surprised.”

Twilight scratched her head. “Well… uh… honestly, Chrysalis, I didn’t expect you to have something. We’re usually the ones coming up with all the plans. I mean, I don’t want to stop you! By all means! It’s just that, well…”

Chrysalis snorted. “Oh please, Twilight Sparkle. One does not be a changeling queen from sitting around doing naught all. No, I’ve mastered the art of trickery and deception. And one can’t be a competent changeling without knowing how to do the impersonation. Thankfully, reading ponies comes pretty easy.”

Sunset nodded and leaned forward in her seat. “I guess so. What do you got?”

Chrysalis straightened up and started trotting around the outside of the circle. “You see, it’s like this: I don’t really care where he wants to hide. If he wants to spread, let him. That’s more targets to hit. And that’s more chances to hurt him.”

Starlight looked a little green in the face.

“So then, we’ll spend our time picking off his precious little possessions one by one. We can go anywhere for that, even. I’m sure that you—” Chrysalis looked at Crystal, “—can see where he is and isn’t. As such, we’ll make pinpoint strikes on him. Then he’ll start to understand precisely who he’s messing with.”

“So… basically keep attacking him until…?” Sunset began.

“I could read him pretty well,” Chrysalis said. “I know his type. He won’t be willing to take it forever. And he won’t be satisfied in allowing us victory over him. Once we’ve spent enough time poking him, he will be angry. That’s when he will start coming directly for us.”

“He’ll try and settle it,” Twilight said. She pressed a hoof against her muzzle and thought for a moment. “That… sounds like it would make for one heck of a battle.”

“Well… I’d say that the five of us are pretty decent in a fight. But…” A sly grin grew on Sunset’s muzzle as she turned her eyes to Crystal and she said, “I bet Miasmus doesn’t know that we have the ultimate trump card.”

Crystal chuckled and nodded in response. “A fight is something I can most certainly handle. I’m comfortable with this.”

Starlight tapped the ground and turned her gaze back to Chrysalis. “Okay, but what happens when we get there? Assuming he’s even in a timeline when that happens and not, you know, out there?”

Chrysalis pursed her lips and momentarily paused in her stride. “Well, if his main body is indeed in some timeline, he will build up his defenses. He’ll put most of his possessions into one timeline, as it were, to defend himself.”

“That’s if I haven’t already determined whether or not he is in a timeline,” Crystal added.

“And if he isn’t?” Starlight asked.

Chrysalis frowned. “That is another matter entirely.”

Twilight’s expression darkened and she shuddered. “It looks like all that we can do for now is hope that he is in a timeline.”

Crystal nodded and stood up. “There is one thing that I wish to make plain,” she began as she pointed to Chrysalis, “if we do encounter and destroy his main body, it won’t immediately solve the problem. The remaining fragments will still have limited capability. Which means we will have to clean up if and when we destroy him.”

Chrysalis nodded. “Will they pose much threat?”

“No. Not at all. That said… Give me a bit. I might be able to come up with a solution that’s especially delicious.”

Chrysalis cooed in response.

Crystal nodded. “I like this plan. I think that we can start off on this,” she said as the others hopped to their hooves. “There is a thing or two that I’d like to put together before we get going. I would suggest, in the meantime, you be well-rested.”

And the four of them hummed affirmatively in response.

* * *

Crystal wiped some sweat from her brow and then stared at the large, spherical mass of metal in front of her. Her mind’s eye examined the inner workings as she watched energy flow between the smallest constituent parts and, in some cases, from end to end.

The supercomputer was, as far as she could tell, complete, and with that, Crystal let out a relieved sigh.

There was now, however, one more thing to be done with it. She lit her horn and shot a beam at the structure. Her spell wrapped around it and the whole object glowed for a few moments. Intense bolts arced across its surface as the spell took hold until, finally, the aura disappeared into the structure.

Crystal nodded to herself and then levitated up an object that lay right next to her; said object was the Crystal Heart that had once appeared in one of the village huts. It now looked mostly faded but was still as tangible as it was supposed to be. She could feel its internal energies even still.

I’ve tethered to the machine, Crystal thought. Now I’ll just need to do the same with this.

She shot a bolt at the Heart and it, like the supercomputer before it, glowed. The spell eventually settled and the glow subsided, but Crystal could see the new energies still swirling inside of it.

Twilight, who stood next to her, regarded the Heart. “Did you…? What did you do?”

“I put some additional magic into it,” Crystal replied.

Twilight frowned. “Are you sure?”

After a moment, Crystal shrugged. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done it. Come on.”

She turned and led Twilight toward the pavilion, the Crystal Heart following behind within her magic. The other three were there and they, at her approach, stood up and turned to face her.

She saw a question in the immediate future and she pointed to Sunset. “I’ll explain in a second,” she said. “Stand still, this will tingle just a little bit.”

Sunset nodded in response.

Crystal set the Crystal Heart in the middle and then shot another beam at it. The Heart sparkled in response and rose into the air. It rotated faster and faster until, finally, it spun at velocities faster than any of them could visually discern.

The Crystal Heart shot out five beams which connected with each and every one of them. All save Crystal flinched at it but then they looked down at themselves as little clouds of magic enveloped their bodies. That lasted a second before that all coalesced into a little ball of yellow magic that loitered around their necks before disappearing into them.

They all stared at themselves for a few moments, feeling where the little balls of magic disappeared.

Chrysalis frowned. “And what exactly do you think you’re doing?”

Crystal looked at a distant timeline with her mind’s eye and touched a particular point on it. She redirected her power into the Crystal Heart, and the Heart disappeared with a loud bang wherein her mind’s eye saw it reappear in that distant timeline. As a matter of fact, she could see said timeline start to crystallize; she expected it to.

She looked up at Chrysalis and said, “I’m setting up waypoints. If what happened during that collision taught me anything… I probably won’t be reliable if something like that happens again. And the truth is that I don’t know what is going to happen, and I’m not so good when I don’t know.”

Crystal sighed and sheepishly kicked the ground. “Listen… if something happens to me… or you get into a tight spot and I can’t get to you… I want to make sure that you have a way out. We shouldn’t need this. But… then again, we shouldn’t have needed to be involved in that collision like we were.”

“You’re forgiven,” Starlight said. She went flush in the face and rubbed the back of her neck and said, “And sorry that I yelled at you. I know things got really dicey and you probably got swept up in it. So…”

Crystal vacantly nodded.

Chrysalis sighed through her nose and straightened up. “Perhaps it was ill-advised of me to attack you as I did, as well,” she half-mumbled.

Crystal smiled in response. The others eventually followed suit.

“Nonetheless, how exactly does this work?” Chrysalis asked.

Crystal took a moment to clear her throat and stand up straight as well. “You can operate the spell by touching your hoof to your own neck. One touch will take you straight to that,” she explained as she pointed to the supercomputer outside, “no matter where or when you are. Go ahead, try it.”

One by one, the four of them reached up and touched their necks. Balls of white light engulfed each of them and they each subsequently disappeared only to reappear right next to the supercomputer instants later with slightly dazed expressions.

Crystal walked over to them and nodded. “This is just in case you get separated and need to be dealt back in.”

“Oh, so it’s a self-teleportation spell,” Sunset said. “That’s useful in a pinch, I guess.”

“And it works from anywhere,” Crystal said. A smirk grew on her muzzle as she continued, “Likewise… two taps…”

When she said nothing more, Twilight reached up and tapped her neck twice in rapid succession. Twilight disappeared in a flash of light and didn’t reappear again. The others, one by one, followed suit.

Once the four of them were gone, Crystal did the same with herself. Her world shrunk down to a single point; it was not at all like when she used her travel power. A few moments later, her world expanded out again and she found her footing.

The room around her sported crystalline walls and high ceilings. Several small thrones orbited her position with all but one bearing familiar symbols. The Cutie Map lay underneath her hooves; it projected a three-dimensional image of Equestria much like a hologram.

In the middle of the Map was the Crystal Heart, now lying idle.

She turned to the four others and smiled. “Two taps will send you to this thing right here.”

Twilight glanced around the throne room and then let out a sharp gasp. “Oh my gosh! Is this… is this home?”

Starlight similarly gasped. “Wait. That spell took us across timelines?”

“That it did. Isn’t entanglement wonderful?” Crystal replied.

Twilight beamed. “That’s incredible! I can’t believe that I didn’t think about something like this earlier!” she exclaimed, flapping her wings a few times as she spoke.

Chrysalis examined the room for herself and then nodded. “Well… that is indeed impressive.”

“With this… we can be sure… that there isn’t a next time,” Crystal said as she met Chrysalis in the eyes.

Chrysalis nodded but said nothing. A small grin spread across her muzzle.

Crystal hopped off the Map and started toward the doors. “This is in case something goes catastrophically wrong and you need a way out. We have this for sure. But, in order for it to work, that thing has to be safe.”

She lit her horn and opened the double doors that led into the room and grinned. On the immediate other side of the doorway stood a small purple dragon in the process of reaching for the handle.

“Twilight!” he called.

“Spike!?” Twilight bounded off the Map and rushed over to him and swept him up in a tight embrace. “Oh, Spike, I’ve missed you so much!”

“What? Missed me? I saw you yesterday morning and…”

Twilight pulled him in even tighter and giggled. “It’s a long story, Spike. I’ll have to tell you about it later. I’m just so so so so happy to see you again!”

Crystal, with a grin on her face, bent down next to them. “It has been a while, Spike. Perhaps you may remember me?”

Spike broke away from Twilight entirely and stared up at Crystal. She snapped his claws together and nodded. “Oh, yeah, I remember. You’re Flurry Heart.”

“Close enough,” Crystal said.

Spike looked further into the room. His eyes ran over Starlight with whom he exchanged waves, over Sunset with whom he exchanged nods, and then he finally settled on Chrysalis and froze in place.

Chrysalis stared back with a small snarl growing on her face.

“Wah!” he cried, jumping back.

Twilight frowned and immediately knelt down beside him. “Don’t worry, Spike. She’s with us!”

He lifted a shaky claw and pointed. “That’s Chrysalis!”

Crystal nodded. “She’s a friend.”

Chrysalis cracked her neck in response.

Spike frowned and turned to Twilight again. When Twilight nodded, he let out the breath that he had been holding.

Crystal turned. “Chrysalis, Sunset, why don’t you go back and start wrapping things up?”

Chrysalis took one last look around the room and then turned to Sunset. “Perhaps we should.”

“I’ll go with, I guess,” Starlight said. “Crystal, can you help us out?”

Crystal poked at her own neck and grinned. “You don’t need my help.”

The three of them blinked and then chuckled nervously. They touched their hooves to their own necks and each disappeared in a ball of white light.

Crystal turned back to Spike and said, “Actually, your timing is impeccable. Because… we have a super special mission for you.”

Both Spike and Twilight blinked. “You do?” they said in unison.

“Yes. I do. Do you see that there?”

Spike nodded. “Yeah, I see that. That’s…” And then he gasped and jumped into the air again. “Oh yikes! That’s… that’s the Crystal Heart!”

“Indeed it is. But it is from another reality. I am sure,” Crystal mused.

“Yeah, right!” he exclaimed as he trotted into the room. He climbed onto the Map in order to examine it more closely.

“It’s the truth, Spike,” Twilight said as she followed behind. “Remember that conversation that we all had together about where I come from?”

Spike crossed his arms and rolled his eyes. “Yeah…? Yeah… I remember.”

“Good,” Crystal said. She laid her hooves on the Map and then leaned across it. “I want you to remember this. Spike, there is a good chance that a very evil being will attempt to come for this Crystal Heart.”

Spike held a claw over his dropped jaw. “What…?”

Twilight similarly gasped but she recovered quickly. “Yes, that’s right. His name is Miasmus. He’s a villain that I dealt with back in my home timeline.”

Spike shivered and looked up at Twilight. “Well? What’s he like?”

“He possesses ponies. He pretends to be them and you can’t tell the difference and then… He’ll possess you too.” Twilight swallowed. Her eyes flicked between the other two.

“W-well…” Spike stammered as he folded his claws together, “okay… what do I gotta do?”

“I want you to watch this space for me,” Crystal said. “If you see ponies appear out of nowhere, and none of us five are among them, then it’s him.”

“I don’t know if I can do that,” he replied.

“You could always ask for help. You could ask the rest of the girls,” Twilight suggested. “You should, even.”

“Or perhaps the princesses,” Crystal added. “It matters not to me who you recruit for this task.”

After a moment, Spike took a deep breath and nodded. “So, uh, just so I gotcha straight, you want me to make sure that nopony gets into this room and messes with the Crystal Heart.”

“He is especially susceptible to magic blasts,” Crystal added, “Although… I believe that dragon fire also works.”

“Okay.”

Twilight smiled. “Can I count on you to do that, Spike?”

Spike stood up as straight as he possibly could and snapped a salute. “You can count on me!”

Twilight ambled forward and swept him into another hug. “I know you can do it, Spike. I have faith in you.”

Spike returned the hug. As he broke away, he looked Twilight in the eyes and asked, “Uh, before you go, what’s this all for anyway?”

“Well… that’s also a long story,” Twilight said with a blush and a rub of the back of her neck. “But don’t worry, I’ll tell you all about it when I get back. Does that sound like a deal?”

Spike nodded and hopped off the Map. “Alrighty. But I also want a big pile of gemstones while you’re at it.”

Twilight glanced at Crystal and smiled. “I’m sure that between the two of us, we could find the biggest pile of gemstones there is just for you!”

A big grin spread across his face.

Crystal chuckled and then motioned toward the door. “Well, you should probably get started, then. You’ll find Sweet Apple Acres, the racetrack, and the spa good places to start.”

Spike gave one last salute before dashing out the door and into the hall.

Crystal nodded. “I don’t think that Miasmus is smart enough to find where we are actually operating from, but given these recent experiences… I’d rather not take my chances.”

Twilight frowned. “I just hope everything will be okay…”

Crystal nodded. “All the more reason to end this business as quickly as we can.”

“Yes, Because now that you’ve brought up the possibility of him coming after the Crystal Heart... I can’t help but wonder…” Twilight began before she stopped to scratch her chin.

At that, Crystal tapped her own neck and her world shrunk down to a single point again. When it expanded back out, Crystal found herself standing in the clearing again. She turned around and glanced at the supercomputer that towered over her.

Twilight appeared in a flash of light right beside her shortly afterward and she too turned to gaze at the supercomputer.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Crystal said at length. “Perhaps I need to have another talk…”

* * *

Twilight folded her hooves together as the last words left Crystal’s lips. She sat on a cushion of straw in the center of the hut—this one was unlike most others as it had multiple rooms; a wooden pillar supported each one.

Princess Celestia lay on a bed in the adjacent room. She looked like a faint image now; supposedly that had happened during the instant the five had been away. She lay on her side so that she could face them but she otherwise kept herself under the covers.

Queen Adamantine herself sat tall on a little wooden throne that took up the back wall of her hut. The throne itself had countless contours etched into it, all punctuated by the shiny lacquer. A porcelain mug filled with steaming hot coffee floated in her magic; she took a moment to sip at it.

“Well… this has probably been mentioned before,” Adamantine began, “but… the reason that I and my unponies exist is in order to fulfill a specific purpose. That purpose… serves the interests of the world. We have done so passively up to this point…” She cracked a smile and then said, “But, certainly, the mere existence of the world is in the interest of the world.

“So, if you need for me and my unponies to defend your spell, then we shall.”

Crystal, who remained sitting, still did a bowing motion. “Thank you, Adamantine. The help is appreciated.”

Adamantine chuckled. “Well, besides… you—all of you have been friends to us.” She paused to take another sip from her coffee. “So I believe that I can speak for many unponies when I say that we will be happy to help.”

“And I as well,” Celestia piped up. She lifted the covers off herself and trotted up to them.

“You don’t have to do that,” Twilight said as she rose to meet Celestia.

“Nonsense,” Celestia replied with a sly smile and a warm chuckle. “It should certainly beat spending my final moments in a bed. Miasmus may have gotten the better of me once before. I don’t intend to let that happen again for as long as I shall exist,” she said with a stomp.

Adamantine stood up with narrowed eyes that made her already charcoal face seem that much darker. “If that foul excuse for a creature tries to show up here… We will be ready for him.”

* * *

Chrysalis looked around the clearing and scratched her head. The countless easels, toolboxes, and stacks of paper had all been cleared away and, aside from the large, metal sphere laying in the center, the area now looked as bare as it had the day they had arrived.

Had it only been a couple of weeks?

Chrysalis frowned and turned around. Twilight, Starlight, and Celestia all stood together near the entrance to the clearing. They spoke in hushed tones and Chrysalis made no effort to listen in on their conversation. She drew her eyes to Adamantine who stood silently near the three; at least a hundred charcoal-colored unponies stood watching in silence from behind her.

She still didn’t understand what, if anything, differentiated them from a normal Equestrian pony. Maybe she would ask later.

Chrysalis shook her head. What a silly thought, because there won’t be a later. I’ll be done with these ones soon. I will be free of them.

A loud bang from close by signaled Crystal reappearing with Sunset close behind. The two of them trotted toward the main congregation which opened up to let them in.

Chrysalis glanced at them all again and frowned. Had she really been with these mares for a couple of weeks? Had she really allowed herself to stay with them that long?

She could hear Twilight’s voice ringing through her head. “I won’t have you talking about my friend like that!”

Chrysalis briefly considered Twilight and then, as another voice rang through her mind, she turned her attention to Starlight. “You mess with her, you mess with us!”

Chrysalis shuddered. She had allowed it.

Bah, she thought. How strange this all is… I’ve gone soft.

She shook her head and trotted toward the group. They, at her approach, opened up for her, and Chrysalis slotted right in.

It was at that point that all conversation went silent. Finally, Adamantine said at length, “So this is it… I wish you well in your endeavors. I hope that you stick it to him.”

“We will,” Sunset said.

Adamantine nodded and turned. “And Crystal… I want to wish you the best of luck. Especially if you do find your people out there.” She paused and then added, “But, if you choose to stay… maybe you could come in for the occasional social visit?”

Crystal’s muzzle twitched. “Per… haps…”

Sunset blushed and trotted up to Adamantine. “It’s been real. Adamantine… thanks so much for having us.”

“Not at all.”

“There’s… something that I’ve been meaning to tell you. It’s about my home timeline.”

That’s right, Chrysalis thought. Adamantine and her unponies perished in Sunset’s home timeline, even after everything Sunset tried in order to prevent that.

Adamantine grinned. “Don’t worry, Sunset, I already know.”

Sunset paused. “You… do?”

“I noticed the way that you looked at me, so I asked.” She trotted forward and wrapped her forelegs around Sunset. “I don’t blame you at all for what happened, and I know you tried your best for our sake. Please know that I consider you an absolute gem.”

Sunset returned the embrace with a few tears forming in her eyes. They held each other for quite a while.

At that, Twilight turned to Celestia and trotted up to her. The two held each other in an embrace for a while. “Don’t worry, Princess Celestia, we’ll solve this. I promise you.”

“I have faith in you, Twilight. You and all of your friends,” Celestia said.

Twilight pulled back and looked her mentor in the eyes. “Thank you, Princess. And it was really really good to see you again.” She shuddered. “Even… if this is the last time I’m going to see you and—”

Starlight came to Twilight’s side and wrapped a foreleg around her. She smiled at Twilight and, after a moment, Twilight smiled back.

“Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of her,” Starlight said.

Celestia nodded. “I am sure that you will. It was a pleasure meeting you again, Starlight. And Sunset…”

Sunset broke from Adamantine and looked over. “Yes, Celestia?”

“It was very nice to see you again in any reality.”

Sunset nodded.

Celestia finally turned to Chrysalis and her smile faded somewhat. The two stared at each other for several moments before, finally, the former said, “Goodness, Queen Chrysalis, you do look a bit more radiant than when I first met you.”

Chrysalis raised an eyebrow. “To which do you refer? The wedding? Or here?”

“Both.”

Chrysalis ruffled her bug-like wings. It was just enough for everypony to see the way in which they sparkled in the sunlight.

Celestia chuckled. “Indeed. I hope that you continue to take care of yourself.”

After a moment, Chrysalis nodded.

“All of you, even,” Adamantine seconded. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Crystal said. She then turned to her companions. “Well then, perhaps it is time that we got going?”

The others nodded and drew in close.

“Farewell, everypony,” Adamantine said. “We will keep our hooves crossed for you.”

“You too, Adamantine,” Sunset said.

Crystal nodded in agreement.

Chrysalis was able to get one last look at Celestia, Adamantine, and her unponies, all of whom were, strangely enough, allies. And then, a second later, Chrysalis’ world folded together into a single point and she was but a consciousness.

25 - Hunting

Starlight Glimmer shot another beam, impacting her target. Said target, a pegasus mare, flopped over as her body simultaneously sprayed out blob-like particles.

Starlight could see the way in which the nearby pegasi flinched when the spell hit. She knew who the next targets were.

The pegasi dove toward her. She teleported into the air above and rained several shots down on them. Those shots that hit their marks prompted more particles. Those that didn’t pierced straight through the cloud below, leaving holes in their wake.

A few pegasi emerged from their cloudy homes and started lobbing all sorts of objects in Starlight’s direction. She twisted her way around all manner of picture frames, trophies, pots and pans, and other assorted objects. A few airborne pegasi caught those missed objects and redirected them back at her. Starlight teleported out of the way of each of those as she rained more shots.

And then Starlight felt something ram into her from above and her wind subsequently left her. Her assailant wrapped his hooves around her and the two plummeted through the cloud. She felt the vapor rushing past her face and then she felt cool, empty air again.

Her assailant let go, and Starlight flipped over only to realize that she was below the cloud.

The pegasus let out a salute and then disappeared back into the cloud.

Cloudsdale drew away from her. Starlight flipped over and saw the ground far below. The air whistled in her ears as she streaked toward the earth.

A few thoughts ran through her mind as she fell out of the sky but her expression remained unchanged. She thought about where her assailant was about to end up and then she lit her horn. She disappeared in a flash of light and reappeared at a much higher altitude; she was still falling like before but now from above the city.

And the moment she saw the pegasus stallion poke his head through the cloud was the moment she let off her shot. It plowed right into him and he faceplanted against the cloudy street as particles shot off him.

A bang from far below signaled Crystal Faire’s entrance. Starlight watched from above as Crystal let off several rapid volleys that all hit their targets. Crystal danced about the battlefield below, weaving between targets faster than Starlight could fathom.

Starlight’s eyes fell on a foe trying to sneak up on Crystal and Starlight, still in mid-fall, took him out with her second shot.

Crystal whirled, examined the fallen foe, and then looked up at Starlight. She lit her horn and wrapped just enough magic around Starlight to slow the fall.

And then Starlight’s world folded together, and when it folded back out, she touched down on solid grass.

Crystal, who hovered beside her, shot a blast at a nearby unicorn. Her attack hit its mark and he fell over as blob-like particles shot out of him.

Several other nearby unicorns immediately turned, each audibly gasping. And then they too lit their horns and started to throw spells back in return.

While Crystal parried the initial barrage, Starlight peered at the surrounding architecture which gleamed in the moonlight. There were lights everywhere, especially from the casinos and hotels that ran across that strip. The center itself consisted of bridges that spanned some clouds below. Starlight dashed her way across one such bridge, shielding herself from an oncoming barrage and, as some pegasi took to the air, she shot through her own shield, hitting several marks in the process. Every strike produced more of the particles.

Darn you, Miasmus! she mentally cried.

She heard another loud bang and cocked her head just enough to realize that Crystal was no longer there. Narrowing her eyes and nodding to herself, she turned back to the foes still immediately in front of her and bowled them over.

She could still feel the cloudwalking spell on her and so she vaulted over the side of the bridge. She then used her magic to dislodge a piece of cloud and set it moving upward. Her moving platform sailed down the strip, off which she took several pot shots at foes down below.

In the back of her mind, she briefly wondered how the others were doing. She wondered how Twilight and Sunset were faring. She even wondered about Chrysalis.

As if on cue, there was a loud bang further up the street and Chrysalis fell out of the sky. Chrysalis flipped over, and as several ponies turned and charged toward her, she shot at them.

Thanks, Crystal, Starlight thought as she took a few more shots, especially at the foes right in front of her companion.

Chrysalis charged through her foes, outright headbutting the ones that she didn’t blast with her horn. Between herself on the ground and Starlight from above, they filled the air with the blob-like particles that came off their foes.

Now ponies emerged from nearly every street and every building. They came in droves from near and far and they all charged with assorted battle cries and token attacks.

Starlight levitated herself down and then backed into Chrysalis. “There’re so many!” she cried.

Chrysalis growled. “I’ve battled larger armies than this. Have at us, you ingrate!”

The two shot at foe after foe for a few moments; each hit caused the entire crowd to collectively flinch. There were moments where the entire crowd flinched on its own.

There was a loud bang and the two looked up to find Crystal swooping down the length of the strip. Crystal rained down countless shots across the strip, most of which hit their marks. The volley caused all their foes to cry out and double over.

Crystal doubled back and continued landing shot after shot. A lone pegasus tried to tackle her out of the air but Crystal spot-teleported long enough for the pegasus to pass her position; Crystal promptly shot her attacker down.

Starlight and Chrysalis took advantage of their enemy’s general disarray to land several shots on those that were still on their hooves. They landed shot after shot, seeing numerous particles for their efforts. They caught a few foes trying to climb back to their hooves and struck first.

The numbers dwindled, and when the number of foes reached the single digits, Crystal disappeared with another loud bang. Their foes chose that moment to scatter in all directions.

“Oh no you don’t!” Chrysalis yelled. She let several shots off, most of which hit their marks.

Starlight teleported across the battlefield, reappearing in her foes’ faces before blasting them point-blank. Her foes fell backward, unconscious.

The last enemy, a unicorn stallion, hobbled toward the large and glossy building at the end of the strip. Said building had a mare’s head built into its design. He made his way up the steps and reached the large, golden doors that served as the entrance but couldn’t get them to open.

Chrysalis landed right in front of him and, before he could turn around, swept him into a locking hold.

The unicorn struggled to break free but could not find the leverage. “Unhoof me!” he yelled. “Now!”

Starlight teleported herself next to the two of them and stared the stallion down.

“Oh, my dearest Miasmus… tell me, does it hurt when I do this?” Chrysalis hissed as she twisted his foreleg around.

The stallion (who, thanks to his mustache and striped vest, Starlight was able to label as Flam), let out an agonized scream.

“Chrysalis!” Starlight yelled with a gasp.

Chrysalis looked over. “What?”

“There’s an innocent pony somewhere in there!”

Chrysalis snorted but nonetheless released him from her grip.

Flam shuddered and glared at her. “You dare to chase me across the timelines…? You truly dare?”

“You were warned,” Chrysalis replied.

“You foul insect! You will stop pestering me this instant!” he growled.

Chrysalis picked him up with her magic and slammed him against the door. “You should have thought about that before insulting me to my face!”

Flam’s throat bulged as something drew up it. He then spit in Chrysalis’ face.

Chrysalis screamed and stumbled backward. She reached up, felt at the offended spot, and then scooped some of the saliva onto her hoof and examined it.

Flam threw a laser blast into Chrysalis’ face, but that only served to make her stumble backward more. Starlight, in response, threw her own spell at him. The spell knocked several particles off him and he slumped unconscious against the wall.

Chrysalis wiped some dizziness out her eyes and then stared at his unconscious form.

Starlight collapsed, letting out a long sigh. “You okay?” she sputtered.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes. “I am fine,” she said as she dusted herself off. “What an annoyance.”

Starlight frowned. “It’s a good thing his attack wasn’t packing any power, right?”

“None of them have been. It’s as I’ve said before… Equestrians are weak.”

Starlight rolled her eyes.

The both of them turned their eyes toward the strip where hundreds, maybe even a thousand ponies lay strewn about. They could see, in some corners, ponies starting to regain consciousness. Their former foes glanced around, teetered about, and otherwise started to string together disoriented conversations on what had just happened.

“How dare he,” Starlight said as she watched it all. “Look at what he did to all these poor ponies. Look at what we had to do to break them out of his control.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and said, with a growl, “Oh, how I look forward to seeing him beg for mercy. I look forward to destroying him.”

Starlight chuckled. “Yeah? I’m right behind you.”

* * *

Chrysalis shot a beam at the griffon across the way. Said griffon flipped over from the blast and, as several blob-like particles flew out of her, she fell on her face.

A similar attack from Crystal, who stood beside her, similarly found its mark on another griffon.

The rest of the street was now vacant. A few griffons poked their heads out of the straw houses that lined the street, but they all looked at the fallen foes with wide-eyed shock and suppressed gasps and made no effort to exit their homes.

Chrysalis snorted. “So, Miasmus is now breaking his way into other timelines?” she asked.

Crystal nodded. “It would appear so. He’s appeared in a small number of them in the last few minutes.”

“We must move quickly then. The faster we bite those heads off, the faster he’ll learn not to do that.”

Crystal shifted. The world folded together. When it folded back out, Crystal unleashed a laser blast that hit its mark: a faded earth pony mare with a grey coat, a slick, black mane and tail, and a purple treble clef for a cutie mark. Octavia Melody slumped unconscious on the forest floor.

“Nice shot,” Chrysalis said as she watched the subsequent particles fly off and dissolve.

“Thank you,” Crystal replied. “You’ll want to shoot the green mare on your left.”

The world folded together and back out again, at which point Crystal let off another shot. Chrysalis found the mare in question and let off her shot. Both hers and Crystal’s attacks hit their marks and she watched the particles fly off. Crystal’s target, however, looked strange.

Chrysalis blinked and held up a hoof. “Wait a second…” she said. She trotted up to what Crystal had just struck.

Said unconscious target resembled more of an ape than anything else, but this ape had clothes: a leather jacket that went over a white shirt bearing the image of a lightning bolt, completed by jeans and some sneakers. His pale skin tone complemented the moderate sapphire that was his short and sleek hairstyle.

Chrysalis looked him up and down and finally grumbled something unintelligible.

“Flash Sentry… from the human world,” Crystal wheezed.

Chrysalis searched for words; her mouth moved in an attempt to make something but she finally turned and stared into Crystal’s eyes.

Crystal shook her head. “The human world. He’s from where Sunset’s currently living.”

“…How come we have not gone there? Where in the multiverse is that?”

“It exists parallel to Equestria. There are an entire set of worlds that comprise a timeline, you know.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “And why have we not gone to those places?”

The world folded together and back out again. Now they stood in the middle of a concrete street where, immediately, Crystal let loose a blast on the faded pony standing in the middle of it. “Because I can only see Equestria, and I can only travel to places that I can see.”

Chrysalis examined the downed foe, a regular earth pony stallion, and blew a raspberry. “Please.”

Crystal shrugged. “Believe it or not, there are some limitations.”

“I don’t care. But, nonetheless, he was still strange.”

A loud bang behind them signaled another creature, this one towering several times their height, dropping from the sky. The creature, just as faded as the downed stallion behind them, looked like a giant lizard with sharp teeth that stretched well across its muzzle. The creature stood on its hind legs and slapped the ground with its long tail. The only thing small about it was its stubby arms.

It sucked in a breath and then let out a mighty roar that shook the entire street. Many ponies tumbled backward in its wake.

And Crystal hit it in the face with a laser blast of such intensity that Chrysalis had to shield her eyes. When she looked again, the creature had also fallen unconscious as countless blob-like particles flew off it.

Chrysalis frowned. That’s not a dragon… What is it? How… interesting...

Crystal looked over and spotted a vendor on the sidewalk. She lit her horn and levitated a couple of pretzels off the rack and floated them over while giving the vendor himself a sly smile. She then turned to Chrysalis. “Hungry?”

Chrysalis glanced at the baked bread, and after a moment’s consideration, she stared at Crystal with a dumbfounded frown.

Crystal shrugged and took a bite of the first pretzel. After taking a moment to savor its flavor, she shifted again. Reality folded in and back out and the two found themselves standing in the middle of a dirt street. The closely packed-together brick buildings were equally dirty, and the sky above was just as much so. The few residents that they could see (moles and fish-like creatures and other beings decisively non-pony) had sloven colors and smells and demeanors about them; most wore upper garments where not a single article was not at least torn or stained.

Those residents shied away from a faded pony laughing like a maniac in the center of the street. Crystal immediately fired on him and he fell over.

Crystal then, with Chrysalis close behind, took to the air. They sailed over a few streets before they arrived above a plaza of sorts where a dust cloud had formed. The whines of laser blasts and battle cries sounded from within. Crystal unleashed a wind spell which dispersed the dust cloud, laying bare the combatants within.

Twilight Sparkle and Sunset Shimmer, who stood in the center below, glanced up and immediately grew smiles. Their foes took the opportunity to attack, but they responded in kind with a laser blast each.

Crystal and Chrysalis fired into the crowd below. A few faded pegasi and some other winged creatures took to the air to intercept them, and while Chrysalis opted to meet them with more beams, Crystal let off another wind spell that threw them off balance.

A few of the natives wrapped their claws around various pieces of wood and metals rods and jumped into the fray themselves, now swinging at the countless foes for themselves and even scoring hits.

“Oh dear,” Crystal said. “That’s not how you fight Miasmus.”

Chrysalis groaned. “This seems pretty par for Klugetown. Besides, he’s going to feel it.”

“Well, it’s helping, I suppose.” She cupped her hooves over her mouth and called down, “You two okay down there!?”

Sunset let off another blast and then glanced up. “We’re fine! Thanks for the hand!”

“We’ll be back!” Crystal called down.

“Okay, Crystal!” Twilight replied.

The world around Crystal and Chrysalis folded together and back out again. They landed in the middle of an empty field of grass which lay in the shadow of the Canterlot mountain close by.

Crystal took another bite of her pretzel and munched quietly as she took a seat. She stared into the distance for a few moments—Chrysalis assumed that she was probably watching the other battles unfolding in the crystallizing timelines out there.

After a moment, Crystal swallowed and turned. “Actually,” she began, “there is something that I have been thinking about pertaining to Miasmus. Perhaps you will want to hear it?”

“Oh?” Chrysalis replied, her eyes widening. “Is this about that thing you mentioned earlier?”

“It is. Miasmus’ possessions all operate on his time. So whatever time his main body experiences, so too do his possessions.”

“Oh really? And you knew this?”

“I did.” Crystal scratched her head. “But I was previously unsure just how useful that information was.”

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “Because it sounds similar to what our spell is going to do; those parts of it that disperse will operate on that controller’s time. And we aim to make that time pass quickly.”

“Thus crystallizing the timeline. So I was thinking… that we could use Miasmus for the same purpose,” she said before taking another bite.

The corners of Chrysalis’ muzzle curled up. “You think so? And how do you propose to do that?”

Crystal swallowed her bite. “We’ll hook his main body up to the part of the machine that does the actual time dilation. We do that, we can essentially time dilate him, which will lead to his possessions crystallizing the timelines for us.”

Chrysalis’ smile grew even wider, so much so that she bared teeth. “So… in effect… we’ll make him help us with the very thing that he chose to oppose!”

Crystal beamed and did a toasting gesture with her meal.

Chrysalis doubled over with cackling laughter. “That’s lovely! The irony is delicious.”

Crystal smiled and then shifted. She disappeared with a loud bang. The second pretzel fell into the grass in her absence. She reappeared a few moments later, now standing, and retrieved her fallen confection. “Now… this supposes that we don’t destroy him when we find his main body. …If we find his main body.”

Chrysalis rolled over to face Crystal again. “Oh, but if we’re going to do that… then I’ll be more than happy to stay my hoof.”

“Excellent.”

* * *

“So we’d have to modify the machine a little bit if we want to get him in there,” Sunset said as she let off another blast. Her attack hit its mark, and the assailing pegasus landed on the ground.

“Just a little bit,” Crystal replied.

Starlight, who stood nearby, hummed. “I’m down with that. Shouldn’t be too hard to tweak it.”

“Yes,” Crystal said, “although I think that it would be a good idea to wait until we actually have him before we give it a shot. We are still on his clock for now.”

Twilight and Chrysalis came trotting up at that point, joining them on the rock that overlooked Canterlot. Water flowed on either side of it which then turned downward into a waterfall that fell the whole way. What looked like a dark cloud on the horizon slowly formed and moved in their direction; a close inspection would have revealed it to be pegasi, dragons, and other winged creatures coming by the thousands.

More faded creatures appeared before them amidst loud bangs. The five let off a series of shots that quickly downed the new foes plus a few more that appeared in the interim.

Crystal turned and nodded. “I’m going to teleport us again. That should buy some more time.”

The other four gathered close and Crystal lit her horn. The world shrunk down to a point and then back out again. The five of them found themselves in the middle of a large structure made of cracked, eroded, and moss-covered stone. Torn tapestries bearing the images of a sun and a moon respectively hung from the ceiling.

Twilight sighed and fell to her haunches. “Good grief.”

Sunset also took a seat. “You said it. Miasmus is really going at it now, huh?” Sunset mused.

Starlight turned to Chrysalis and smirked. “Just like you said would happen.”

Chrysalis stood tall and wore a proud smile. “What can I say? I know how to read him. He’ll build up his defenses pretty soon now.”

After a few moments of silence, during which those standing also sat down, they let out a series of sighs. Starlight stretched herself out, practically laying on the worn carpet. Crystal, meanwhile, stared into the distance.

“How interesting this whole situation is,” Chrysalis continued. “I never would have imagined that I would be involved in something so… extraordinary.”

“For sure,” Starlight replied. “But… uh… do you regret it?”

After a moment’s consideration, Chrysalis shook her head. “Surprisingly not. Having you as allies for a change has given some… fresh perspective. Having that filth for an enemy even more so. I have some things that I must think about.”

A few of the sunbeams that streamed through the ceiling went dark, and all but Crystal looked up to see scores of figures flying overhead. By their direction of travel, they were moving away from Canterlot. When none of those figures swooped down, everypony breathed out a sigh of relief.

“Honestly…” Sunset began, “this whole experience has given me a lot of perspective too. I mean… I feel a lot better about what happened at home, for one…”

Twilight grinned. “That’s always good. And I feel a lot more comfortable with my situation, I think.”

Starlight giggled and said, “I think I’ve learned a few friendship lessons here and there.”

“I think we all have,” Sunset replied with a laugh.

Twilight turned her gaze toward Crystal who still stared into the distance. The others turned and looked as well, and with that, their smiles faded.

At least, I hope we all have, Sunset thought.

* * *

Crystal sat back against the wall and sighed. Her physical eyes stared into the distance while her mental eyes continued scanning existence.

She wondered, briefly, if she would see familiar figures out there. She was sure, however, that they would invariably escape her notice.

Twilight trotted up and wordlessly took a seat next to Crystal. She too sighed.

“I’m still looking,” Crystal said.

“I know,” Twilight replied.

“I sure hope that I can find him soon,” Crystal said as she trailed off. “He’s made a couple of passes at our effects here in the past hour.”

Twilight’s frown deepened and her whole body shuddered. “So… the Crystal Heart?”

“And the supercomputer,” Crystal replied. “He was defeated, of course.”

Twilight sighed. “I guess being cautious paid off.”

Crystal nodded and turned her mental eyes toward some more of the crystallizing timelines. She watched them evolve for a few moments and then, once she saw that their inhabitants weren’t displaying any of the behaviors that she wanted, she moved onto the next timeline.

Crystal frowned. There were a lot of timelines to check. There were a lot of needles to find in a lot of haystacks.

“Crystal?”

Crystal glanced over. “Hmmm?”

“I… if Miasmus can find out where we’re at, then… I wanna guess that all those ponies out there could too. I wanna guess that your mom could too.”

“That seems like a reasonable guess. Look, I know what you’re going to say,” Crystal replied.

Twilight swallowed. “Then tell me.”

“I don’t know what her plan is, per say, but I don’t think she’s looking to stop us from saving the multiverse. I know my mother, Twilight… and so do you.” Crystal took a long deep breath as she switched her mental eyes to another set of timelines.

Twilight threw her hooves into the air. “But… the spell, Crystal. I can’t imagine that she doesn’t know about it. The spell is going to clear out the interverse, Crystal. The spell is going to lead to their demise!”

“Then she must be banking on me being out there with her to make an exception for them. But… truth be told… I doubt she’s in it for the self-preservation.”

Twilight pursed her lips and then shifted in her seat, turning herself to fully face Crystal. “Then what do you think she’s in it for?”

Crystal crossed her forelegs and sighed. “You saw the way she reached out at Manehattan. You saw her spell. Twilight…” She looked over to meet Twilight’s gaze. “I think she wants me back.”

Twilight swallowed. “And… are you going to choose her?”

Crystal ran a hoof through her mane. “I don’t know,” she said simply.

After a few seconds of silence, Twilight nodded and sat back against the wall again. “You’re going to have to decide soon. You know that, right?”

“I know.”

The two sat in silence. Crystal kept her mind’s eye over more and more timelines, trying to find some sign of what she was looking for. A few minutes passed by, during which the other three sat idly, content to crack their joints and otherwise catch their breath.

Crystal finally settled on one and she perked up. She could see obvious possessions but, unlike in many of the other timelines, their numbers were vast. She readily estimated a few tens of thousands, and a quick scan of the timeline yielded even more. Her mental eyes fell on one particular spot, however, as she found an entity with a slightly different aura than the others.

And she could tell that the aura itself was faded. There was no doubt in her mind.

“Girls,” Crystal said as she stood up, “I found him.”

The four of them blinked and then, one by one, made some choice exclamations and shot to her hooves.

“He built up his defenses just like you said he would,” Crystal said to Chrysalis. “I can see it all.”

Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed. “Hah! It’s so amusing how utterly predictable he is!” She leaned him forward. “Now’s the time to strike!”

Crystal nodded. “Yes. He’s still going somewhat strong, however, so we’ll have to wear him down a bit more before we’re able to safely put him into the machine.”

“So then, it sounds like we’ll have to fight for just a bit longer,” Twilight said.

“Just a little bit. Adamantine, Celestia, and the unponies can protect the machine, and we have allies that can protect the Crystal Heart. I say…” Crystal pursed and unpursed her lips as she thought. “I say we fight there for a while, and then… once Miasmus is sufficiently weakened, I’ll bring the machine over, we’ll hook him up to it, and then we’ll go through with our original plan.”

“Then let’s go,” Chrysalis said, her tone firm.

The others nodded in response.

Crystal nodded and shifted in place. The world then folded together and the five were no more.

26 - Zeroed

The world folded back out and Twilight Sparkle landed on her hooves. She took a moment to examine her surroundings. Canterlot’s usual gleaming whites had scores of scorch marks on their surfaces. Windows were shattered and so too were some buildings. Smoke rose from several points within the city, polluting the air. A biting chill and a low, dulcet howl complemented the thin layer of snow that blanketed the ground but, at the moment, no more snow fell.

They stood on a raised area that overlooked most of the city; Canterlot Castle stood behind them. It was, as a matter of fact, the very same plaza they had been in not too long ago. The main building which hosted the great hall and the throne room just above it stood at the other end of the plaza.

A few ponies, clad in armor, already stood idle in the plaza. What caught their attention, however, were the numerous ponies laying unmoving in the snow, with much of the snow around them stained a red color.

Sunset Shimmer clenched her teeth together. “Damn him…”

“Look alive!” Crystal Faire bellowed as she lit her horn. She fired off a few shots which hit their marks, all of whom fell unconscious.

By the time the other guards could react to their presence, the five unleashed a variety of laser blasts that, while some missed, hit all the targets. Their foes toppled into the snow.

And, at once, a roaring chorus of screams and cries echoed through the plaza. It seemed to come from every direction at once. There were pony screams, dragon roars, griffon squawks, as well as a few assorted yells that seemed to belong to more exotic creatures.

Starlight Glimmer shuddered. “Holy hay…”

They all glanced upward where they spotted hundreds of shadowy figures detach from the top of the mountain. Said figures, dragons by their silhouettes, let out deep, guttural roars as they went. The five turned their attention toward the other end of the sky where the clouds parted to reveal scores of airships. They all bore different color combinations, but their massive balloons nonetheless filled the sky. Turning their eyes toward the city, they spotted several figures dash through the streets, kicking up snow as they went. A few figures, pegasi, shot up from between the buildings and arced in their direction.

Crystal frowned. “Looks like Miasmus has gained complete control over everything here.” She turned toward the others and straightened up. “Alright, listen up. Miasmus himself is in the castle. He’s this world’s Princess Celestia, and he’s in the area of her chambers. Blast him out of her and bring him here.”

Sunset tilted her head. “Okay. But what are you going to do?”

“I will stay out here and take care of all our incoming foes. Work somewhat quickly but not too much so. I would suggest the stairs,” Crystal replied as she trotted toward the edge of the plaza.

Twilight ran after her. “Wait! That’s… that’s a lot of enemies! There must be more of them than anypony could ever count!”

Crystal looked over her withers and smirked. Little bits of energy appeared and started to swirl around her. “I’ll be fine, Twilight. One does not defend reality for as long as I have without learning how to really fight.”

Crystal shot into the air. She streaked upward like a speeding bullet, and within seconds, she pierced through the canopy of the first airship which promptly exploded.

Twilight watched as a light whizzed through the sky at velocities that would have made Rainbow Dash smile; she watched that light zip from airship to airship with each exploding in its wake. She could feel her heart freeze at the sight.

“Come on! Let’s go!” Sunset yelled.

Twilight shook herself from her reverie and ran back to the others. Together, the four of them charged across the plaza.

They tuned out the booms and bangs from overhead and focused on an opening in the side of the main structure. Sunset lit her horn and threw the door off its hinges, allowing the four of them to dash inside.

Canterlot Castle’s tall architecture greeted them, with the pillars bearing swirling patterns overlooking intricately woven rugs. Some of the curtains were torn and hanging limply from their rails and some rails were dangling as well.

Twilight knew the castle best between the four of them. She immediately bolted left and the others followed close behind.

A pillar of green flame enveloped Chrysalis. What emerged looked like a large reptile with short arms and claws but large everything else. She stomped her way behind them, snapping her razor-sharp teeth together all the while.

Sunset couldn’t help but cock an eye at Chrysalis’ form.

They hung a right and then a left and then spotted a guard patrol. Both guards were armed with very pointy spears and, as the group approached, one turned and threw his at them. Said spear flipped through the air and skid pathetically across the floor.

Starlight threw a laser beam into his face as punishment and then did the same for his still-armed comrade, gaining blob-like particles for her efforts.

They heard some loud booms from somewhere far above them and then the whole castle shook. Dust streamed off the ceiling and even a few chunks fell here and there.

Two castle maids, still in their dresses, suddenly appeared from behind a corner and tried to leap on them. Sunset caught them with a levitation spell and slammed them both into the ground before both Twilight and herself blasted them with magic.

Twilight examined the downed mares with a frown and ground her teeth together. She recognized their faces; she had bumped into them a few times as a filly.

They scurried into another hall. This one had tall windows that stretched from floor to ceiling. One of the windows suddenly shattered as a dragon flew into the side of the building; his head collided with the opposite wall and he slumped over unconscious. The impact showered them with glass and only a quick shield from Twilight spared them. They glanced in shock at the creature’s gargantuan size; the head alone took up the entire hallway and the rest of the body rested outside. The four quickly climbed over him and then pressed on.

Another hall later and they encountered a corridor containing at least a score of foes. Their foes turned in their direction, let out battle cries, and then charged.

While Sunset, Starlight, and Twilight all skidded to a halt, Chrysalis the rex charged past while roaring at her foes. A few of the unicorn foes took shots at her but, while those shots exploded against her scales, they did little to perturb her. Chrysalis crashed into them, sending them flying and falling like bowling pins. The three took the rear, taking a shot here and there from the more unscathed foes.

Chrysalis turned and said, with a deep, guttural voice, “These guards can hit hard. Watch yourselves.”

A staircase opened on their right and they bolted up it; Chrysalis turned back into her normal form amidst a column of green fire and followed behind. They climbed the flight of stairs and then sprinted down the next available hallway. They rounded a corner, blasting a couple of guards as they went.

A large and tall room greeted them. On one side, stained glass windows looked down on a grand staircase. A red carpet, which ran down both sides of it, then formed a cross on the bottom floor. Twilight started toward those stairs with the others close behind.

And then Crystal came crashing through the stained glass windows. A cloud of yellow magic hung about her as she sailed toward the tiled floor and (evidently) used said magic to reorient herself and stick the landing. She glanced up as a strange, noodle-like creature with an assortment of appendages appeared in the broken window’s frame.

Crystal didn’t even afford the four a glance as she sprung back into the air, tackling Discord the draconequus at speeds faster than they could discern. They were gone the next moment.

Twilight opted to fly over the broken glass, a move which Chrysalis mimicked. Starlight levitated herself along the way whereas Sunset simply teleported (and, in doing so, beat them there). No sooner did they reach the top did the double doors at the entrance of the room burst open. Several unicorn guards took shots at them; they ducked under several of them and gave some token shots in response but couldn’t hit their targets either.

While the other three rushed past her, Twilight took a moment to examine the guard’s faces. They, as she suspected, were ones who, despite her being unable to name names, bore familiar traces and characteristics. Memories of running through the castle surfaced. Memories of bumping into them on patrol flashed through her mind.

And those familiar faces continued shooting at her and otherwise advanced.

Twilight let out a distressed cry and pressed onward, shortly joining the others.

As they dashed up another set of stairs, this one much smaller than the last, Starlight looked back. “You okay, Twilight?”

Twilight grimaced and shook her head.

Another tremor shook the tower which made them momentarily lose their balance. They scrambled back to their hooves and continued upward.

A few more tremors rattled them along the way but they powered through them each time. The four caught a few loose guards in the stairwell whom they bulldozed through or outright blasted.

They came upon a landing and sprinted into the hall. After a few more corners, they emerged into a hallway with several tall windows, all of which were broken. A small, cyan-colored dragoness who couldn’t have been taller than Chrysalis lay slumped against the wall amidst a pool of glass shards.

Twilight skidded to a halt and took a moment to examine the downed dragoness. Ember groaned but otherwise did not stir.

Twilight pursed her lips but then whirled around when several loud explosions shook the castle. She, along with the others, glanced out the window.

Smoke now filled the sky. Flames streamed from several airships as they fell from the sky. At least a few thousand tiny specks littered the sky, all flying about in pockets and small swarms. A few dragons, both those the size of ponies and those several hundred times that, circled above. All of them orbited around what looked like a glowing white light in the air above Canterlot.

Said light zipped across the sky and hit a large creature in the chest. The creature, a large red dragon it turned out, went sailing across the sky with a roar and eventually slammed into the mountain.

The light rammed into more dragons, sending them flying across the city as well. There was a flash and then the light let out a laser beam of such intensity that the four all had to shield their eyes. The attack cut a swath through the sky, with those unfortunate enough to get caught in its wake falling and not rising again.

Chrysalis swallowed. “What p-power…” she wheezed.

A drop of sweat appeared on Twilight’s brow. “Y-you would think that after a few thousand years…”

Sunset broke into a run again. “Come on! We’re almost there!”

They continued down the hall, now tuning out the occasional thundering boom. A few more corners and a brief run-in with a few more guards later, they ascended another flight of stairs.

And then they arrived in the hall they wanted to be in. However, as soon as they rounded the corner, they all skidded to a halt. The entire hallway between them and the large, ornate door at the other end was entirely collapsed. The cold air nipped at them and a low wind blew through their manes. They carefully stepped over the debris and finally gathered in front of the door.

Twilight held up a hoof, motioning for the others to stop. She had to catch her breath. From the way the others panted, she knew they had to as well. They could only afford a moment, she knew.

* * *

Crystal wrapped a foreleg around the tower’s top-most point; her hindhooves dug into the siding. She clung to the side and took a moment to ruffle her wings and crack her neck. She then sighed and then took stock of the skies.

There were still many pegasi and dragons and other winged creatures about but in nowhere near the same capacity as before. Many grounded foes still littered the streets and made mad dashes for the castle now, but chances were that they wouldn’t make it in time. Most came from Canterlot proper, but her mind’s eye could see a few making their way down from the cliff and even some traveling from areas further away from the city.

She could also see that their movements were wonky and hesitant. Some tripped over themselves and struggled to find their footing again, and a few of the airborne opponents collided with each other of their own volition.

She narrowed her eyes. Miasmus is starting to lose it.

Her mind’s eye examined the room a few meters below her. She could see the ponies all huddled together inside. She could see the energies that corrupted their bodies save one. She examined the one and found the negative energy bathing it.

And she could see her companions outside the door. Crystal smiled.

Her mind’s eye also saw the space immediately surrounding the timeline. She could see bits of debris hanging about. The debris, however, seemed to remain idle for the moment.

In the sky, a dragoness swooped in her direction; her angle, however, indicated a path into Celestia’s room.

Oh no you don’t, Crystal thought as she propelled herself off the tower. I’m not having you interfere!

She barreled headlong into the dragoness’ chest. Her target let out a loud roar and flailed in response. Crystal turned her attention to another dragon attempting to make a dive at the tower and shot through the air and rammed him too, sending him similarly tumbling through the air. She zipped between a few more targets of various sizes and species within a fraction of a second.

She whirled around to face the tower again and frowned. I’ll need to keep a close eye on the tower. I should be able to weaken him a little more before they get him under control. At that point…

She paused as several unicorns in the plaza below started hurling bolts in her direction. Most didn’t even come close to hitting their marks and those that did invariantly came from everyday unicorns lacking power; they tickled at best.

At that point, I’ll be able to bring in the spell, and we can hook him up.

Another dragon made a beeline for the tower and Crystal shot upward. She took her hoof and rammed it into the underside of his snout. The dragon did a backflip and subsequently tumbled into the plaza below.

Her mind’s eye checked the timeline again, gauging where all the foes were at. She examined their movements, trying to discern which would move next.

The pieces of debris, however, caught her eye as one of them suddenly shot forward. Said piece of debris flew straight into the timeline and out the other side, leaving a hole in its wake.

Crystal narrowed her eyes. What in the…? That was… not a natural movement.

She looked at an area not very far above Canterlot. Her mind’s eye could see the hole in the future. It wasn’t very far into the future but it was there nonetheless.

This timeline’s going to collapse, she concluded. And everything in it will fall into the interverse. But…

She turned her mind’s eye toward the tower again where Miasmus’ possessions inside stared out the window. In fact, they stared at the spot where the hole would eventually appear. They wore malevolent sneers, even.

Crystal gasped. They had started sneering the moment the debris had hit the timeline.

Did he… did he just shoot the timeline? That… that bastard! He’s trying to get out!

She turned to face her foes and straightened up. No, we should be done by then. Perhaps, by the time that hole reaches the present, we’ll even be in a position to deploy the spell.

She channeled more energy than ever before and nodded toward the tower. Girls! It’s on you!

* * *

Twilight tried the doorknob, but it only jiggled in place. She lit her horn and tried to probe the lock, but something magical within prevented her from reaching inside. She sighed. It was Celestia’s room after all. “Well, that’s not surprising…”

Chrysalis sneered and pushed her to the side and said, “Allow me.” Green fire enveloped her and the rex reappeared. With a mighty roar, she slammed her head into the door, smashing it into several pieces.

The other three followed close behind.

Several ponies, huddled together on the far wall, turned as the four entered. A few of them stood in the front: Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie. Sunburst, who stood on their left, adjusted his glasses and glowered at them. On their right stood a pegasus mare who, other than the very short mane and the circular shield for a cutie mark, looked like Sunset’s twin.

Sunset paled. “S-Sunrunner…”

Twilight shivered and shot Sunset a brief glance.

Behind those seven, Princess Luna stood with her mouth curled into a sharp scowl. And, right beside her, stood Princess Celestia herself.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. She had seen this all before. She looked deep into their eyes but found no traces of the ponies that she knew so well. She saw no signs of her friends. They were puppets and Twilight had to remind herself of that.

It didn’t make looking at them any less difficult.

Celestia cleared her throat. “It would appear that I don’t have to bother with the act. You know who I am.”

They were puppets. “Give it up, Miasmus. You’re finished!” Twilight yelled.

“Foalish pony,” Luna growled. “I am not finished yet. I don’t know how you managed to track me down; the fact that you are here now is a crime.”

Chrysalis snapped her form’s large and pointed teeth together. “The only crime here is that you dared to mess with us!”

Celestia flinched.

“We warned you of what would happen, Miasmus,” Twilight seconded. “You’ve caused more than enough trouble for us and the rest of the multiverse as a result. I can’t believe what you’ve done.”

“And you intend to stop me!?” Rainbow Dash cried.

“Yes!”

The congregation’s expressions, all still in agreement with each other, darkened and contorted into venomous stares and bared teeth.

“I knew I should have killed you in Ponyville when I had the chance,” Fluttershy mumbled.

Twilight felt something hot shoot through her body and she shivered. She tried to light her horn but found, to her annoyance but not to any surprise, that it stayed unlit.

Starlight, meanwhile, glanced up at her own horn. She even prodded at it. “What…?”

“The room’s magicproofed,” Sunset said. “That safety measure was there even when I was a student.”

Applejack chuckled. “Yup. And as you can tell, it’s still in place now. You have no magic here.”

The rest of the congregation smirked in kind.

Starlight went red in the face and she pointed at all of them. “W-well, that means you don’t either!”

Rarity made a humph sound and said, “We don’t.”

“But these two do,” Luna said with a smirk, patting Celestia on the back.

Starlight groaned in response.

Sunrunner—the not Sunset Shimmer—stepped forward. “The rest of the castle is on their way up right now,” she said, her voice a tone similar to Starlight’s, “and I suspect that I’ll have them here in less than a minute.”

“Oh, what are you going to do?” Pinkie Pie sneered.

“No magic to defeat me with, and that’s what you need,” Sunburst said before laughing.

Rarity donned a most sinister grin and said, “Why don’t you call your friend down here? She’s the one doing all the work!”

“But I think…” Princess Luna thoughtfully began, “that once she sees me putting you in your rightful place… she’ll come on her own.”

Sunset stamped her hoof against the hard floor. “That’s not going to happen! We won’t let it!”

“Oh really?” Sunrunner asked. “And how do you plan to do that?”

Chrysalis, at that point, stepped forward. Her gargantuan form shook the room with every step that she took. Everypony turned their eyes toward her and held their breath.

Chrysalis smiled; her form showed its many teeth as a low and hungry growl rose from her depths. “I’ll give you this… you were smart to cover your weakness, but you made one critical mistake…”

Celestia’s muzzle twitched and she stared Chrysalis down.

Chrysalis’ smile grew even wider and she bellowed, “I am much craftier than you think I am!”

Before the congregation could react, Chrysalis the rex spun around. Her long tail sliced right into them, throwing all the ponies save Celestia and Luna across the room. They all cried out as they slammed into the wall and fell into a pile.

Luna and Celestia similarly cried out as tremors overtook them with only Luna able to keep standing. Luna recovered just in time to dodge Chrysalis’ next swipe and then lit her horn. Some bits of magic sputtered out and, eventually, a laser blast made it out which barreled right into Chrysalis’ abdomen.

Chrysalis let out a mighty roar as it struck her and she flailed about as Luna kept her attack going.

“No!” Twilight cried.

A deafening boom shook the tower to its foundations and, all at once, both Celestia and Luna (and, to an extent, the discarded pile of ponies on the far side of the room) screamed and collapsed. Luna’s attack fizzled out.

Chrysalis growled and climbed to her hindclaws. She then reached forward while Luna sat in a daze and chomped down on most of Luna’s mane. Chrysalis pulled, flinging Luna across the room where she too slammed into the wall and landed in the pile.

And Celestia stood up just in time for Chrysalis to storm up and headbutt her through the window which exploded in a cacophony of broken glass. Bit and pieces scattered across the balcony beyond and Celestia herself tumbled toward the edge, eventually rolling to a stop on her own.

Twilight gasped and rushed over with Sunset and Starlight close behind.

Celestia coughed and wheezed and struggled to her hooves. On the far side of the room, some of the ponies groaned and rolled over.

Twilight’s eyes caught movement in the pile and she looked up at Chrysalis. “Don’t let them get up!” she barked.

Chrysalis snorted and stomped over to the discarded congregation.

“Enough!” Celestia yelled as she struggled to her hooves. “I won’t take this. I absolutely will not.”

“You aren’t in any position to demand anything from us,” Sunset seethed as she stepped forward.

Celestia backed into the railing that separated her from a long fall. Her hindhoof brushed some glass shards off the side where they fell past reckoning. She watched those pieces disappear as drops of sweat appeared on her brow, and she whirled to face them again.

“Maybe that’s not entirely true…” she spat. “After all… a little birdy came up to me and told me that you need me alive…”

At that, the three of them exchanged concerned frowns.

Celestia smirked. “T-that’s right. You need me alive. You want to do something with your spell that involves me.”

Sunset shuddered and looked Celestia square in the eye. “So… who told you that?”

Celestia snickered and raised her head into the air while tapping her chin in thought. “Let’s see… how did she refer to herself as again? She had a cute little nickname for herself… Oh, yes. ‘Queen of the Multiverse.’”

Even Chrysalis, who now towered over the many ponies on the wall, glanced over.

Twilight went pale. “C-Cadance?”

“Mi Amore Whatsherface,” Celestia replied. “It seems that you know her…”

Sunset, after taking a moment to swallow, stepped forward. “Well… yeah… But…”

“Why the hay would she tell you that?” Starlight interjected.

Celestia shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you can’t do anything to me! You try, and I’ll throw myself over. You will lose.”

Chrysalis growled in response.

“Face it,” Celestia said, pointing between them, “you’re finished.”

Darn it! Twilight thought. What do I do here!?

Twilight looked past Celestia and saw the battle raging onward behind her. She could see that little ball of light (Crystal, no doubt) zipping about the battlefield, still blasting away at opponents left and right. She saw no indication that Crystal was coming.

She knows that we can do this. She knows… But what do I do? How do I get Miasmus out of this tower?

The light in the sky paused. It hung there for a few moments, allowing enough time for the foes around it to regroup. Before her, Celestia licked her lips and quickly glanced toward someplace behind her.

It suddenly clicked what was about to happen, and the thoughts ran through Twilight’s head so quickly that she didn’t even see the intermediate steps. She, instead, lowered herself toward the ground and started scraping the floor with a hoof while snorting through her nose.

Celestia went wide-eyed. “What are you—”

In the background, the ball of light unleashed an attack that hit the countless enemies all at once, sending them flying in all directions. Celestia cried out and started to keel over.

Here goes nothing! Twilight put her legs to work and ran forward as fast as she could. By the time Celestia recovered, Twilight dove and wrapped her hooves around her mentor. Her momentum carried the both of them over the railing amidst several voices shouting “Twilight!” before both Celestia and herself fell over the other side.

And, just as quickly as she started falling, feeling returned to Twilight’s horn. She immediately put that into a teleportation spell. The world around Celestia and herself shrunk down for a few moments, and when it expanded back out, the both of them landed on the soft layer of snow that covered the plaza.

And Twilight stood herself up and positioned herself over Celestia. “I’m sorry, Princess,” Twilight wheezed. She lit her horn and unleashed a beam of energy that hit Celestia square in the chest. Celestia screamed as a dark blue blob slowly oozed its way out of her skin. Said blob eventually flew off and tumbled through the snow.

Twilight watched as Miasmus rolled to a stop. She stared at him for the longest time. She, too, had seen this before. Twilight breathed in and out and found herself unable to do anything else. She saw his limp form in the snow.

And her mind flew back to Ponyville. Her mind flew back to everypony that had once been there, who had once suffered its destruction at Miasmus’ bidding. She thought of everypony who had almost bought into him. She thought of her friends who had once been his slaves.

Twilight glanced upward and, for a second, thought that she could see them looking down at her.

Everypony… I did it. I finally did it.

* * *

Crystal’s world folded back out and she landed in the plaza. A low thump signaled her effect, the supercomputer, landing right by her.

Twilight came trotting over, levitating Miasmus’ limp form behind her. She threw him down into the snow and sighed.

“You handled that like a true professional, Twilight.” Crystal smirked and slapped Twilight on her withers. “I’m proud of you!”

Twilight blushed. “Thanks. I just kinda went for it. And… it feels great finally getting the better of him.”

“I will bet. And… truthfully… I knew you could do it. I had faith in you.”

Twilight smiled and ran forward and wrapped her hooves around Crystal. “Ohhhh, but you were the one who gave me that opportunity. I couldn’t have done it without you!”

Crystal blushed and audibly cooed before wrapping her hooves around Twilight as well.

Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis (who now looked like her normal changeling queen self) each appeared with a series of airy pops a few moments later. They each removed their hooves from their necks and the spells within faded back out.

Twilight broke from Crystal and turned to them; she immediately noticed their awestruck stares.

“Holy shit, Twilight!” Sunset exclaimed as she rushed over.

“I can’t believe what you just did!” Starlight cried as she too rushed over.

Twilight blushed and bashfully rubbed the back of her head.

“Yes, yes, that was quite impressive,” Chrysalis said. She stopped by Miasmus’ blobby form in the snow, considered him, and then kicked some snow onto his form. “So then, we should prepare this one straight away.”

Crystal glanced at the timeline with her mind’s eye, noted the oncoming hole, and nodded. She lit her horn and put up a barrier that enclosed the immediate area including the large, metallic structure next to them. “Yes, we should.”

Chrysalis looked at the rest of the plaza and could see many ponies running in their direction. She gave Miasmus’ form a swift kick and watched as the ponies tumbled over themselves. She let out a chuckle and then turned. “Not that we should need it, but this barrier should keep us safe from them. I hope.”

Crystal frowned. “Actually, the barrier isn’t for them.”

Before anypony could respond, the air above Canterlot suddenly tore open. What looked like a massive black sphere appeared and the surrounding air immediately rushed into it. The little bits of snow that covered the plaza streamed into it and then the winds carried other things; pieces of debris and unconscious ponies were carried up and into the horizon.

The four let out a sharp cry.

“I saw that happen a few minutes ago,” Crystal explained. “Apparently, some of his possessions out in the interverse poked some holes in the timeline so that he could escape. So you timed him perfectly.”

The five of them watched as bits of glass and rubble drifted off Canterlot Castle; Celestia’s tower practically disintegrated. The roar was deafening, compounded by occasional booms as large structures crumbled and collided together,

Crystal bent down next to Twilight and said, “We’re in a position to deploy the spell. I could do it from right here, just as soon as we get him into the machine.”

Twilight sucked in a breath and nodded. “Okay, let’s get working,” she said.

Starlight and Sunset trotted over and started examining the machine. Twilight and Crystal shifted their way as well.

“He knew about our plan to use him,” Twilight began. “He knew about it. And he said that Cadance told him.”

Crystal scratched her head. “I know. I saw your conversation. I… I don’t believe that for a second, though.”

“What, that she told him?” Starlight asked.

Crystal shook her head. “I’ve no reason to trust anything that he says. For all I know, he might have just come across those sections of crystallized timeline where we were discussing it and then made up the part about getting it from her.”

Starlight frowned. “Well, I guess… He was able to find us.”

Sunset shot a beam of energy into a small hole on the bottom of the machine. The machine lit up as the magic coursed through every vein in its body. “And he attacked this thing and the Crystal Heart.”

“But Cadance could have just as easily seen all of that too,” Chrysalis countered. “She’s been watching us too. Think back to Manehatten.”

Twilight shook her head. “I can’t believe for a second that Cadance would ever help someone like him.”

“I don’t either,” Crystal seconded.

Chrysalis turned her head toward the hole in reality above them. “But what if she did? What if Miasmus was actually telling the truth?”

Twilight and Starlight stared holes into Chrysalis then. “No,” Twilight said. “She wouldn’t help him.”

“I don’t know,” Sunset replied. “He made it sound like he was approached. I don’t know about all of you, but…” She paused to shoot another beam of magic into the machine, watched it disperse, and then turned to face them. “If that’s the case and she really did approach him…”

Some color disappeared from Crystal’s face. “I don’t…”

“Maybe you can ask her yourself…” Chrysalis trailed off. She stood pointing upward.

Everypony looked up and subsequently gasped.

A light blue tendril of pure magic extended out from the hole. It slowly snaked its way toward them, ignoring the bedlam around it.

Crystal’s heart just about stopped. “Mother…?”

The tendril pressed up against Crystal’s barrier, just like it had once before. Crystal could see the way in which it practically tried to gently push its way through. Her mind’s eye looked up and down it, trying to see what it would do, and saw nothing.

“You didn’t help Miasmus out, right? He’s… lying, right?” she croaked.

The tendril pressed against her barrier with the same tenderness as before. Her horn acted on its own and she did nothing to stop it; her barrier parted just enough for the tendril to come through. The tendril drifted forward again, briefly considered the machine, and then snaked its way down toward Crystal.

Bits of magic remained on Sunset’s horn as she stared the tendril down. Everypony else watched in silence.

The tendril hung about for a moment and caressed Crystal’s cheek. Crystal blushed and she reached up to hold the tendril in kind. She stroked it, even. It felt delightfully warm to the touch and she couldn’t help but crack a smile.

The tendril pulled back and hung in front of Crystal’s face.

Crystal’s eyes flickered across Miasmus’ still form and then back to the tendril. “Mother… I know you want me to come out there with you… I just... don’t know if I can.”

Twilight trotted up to Crystal’s side at that moment and lay a hoof on her withers. Crystal, in turn, reached up and took Twilight’s hoof with her own, even turning her head to consider Twilight as well.

The tendril paused for a moment and then, right as Crystal turned to center her gaze back on it, it lashed out. The tendril connected with Crystal’s horn, and the sharp, stinging sensation within prompted Crystal to yelp and roll backward.

“Crystal!” Twilight screamed.

Sunset cried out and instinctively shot a beam that unfortunately missed the tendril.

The barrier around them partially fizzled. By the time anypony could react, the tendril shot over to Miasmus and wrapped itself around his form. It then pulled hard, yanking Miasmus past the barrier and straight toward the horizon.

Starlight screamed and tried to wrap her magic around Miasmus, but her spell didn’t hit.

Chrysalis attempted the same, but the tendril was pulling too fast.

Sunset shot and missed another laser blast.

And then the tendril pulled Miasmus past the horizon and both were gone.

“Oh, by the stars!” Twilight cried. “By the stars!”

Crystal scrambled to her hooves and stared at the hole for several moments as the bits of pain faded from her horn. Her eyes wandered over the surroundings in search of Miasmus.

Sunset swore and stamped her hooves.

“That fiend!” Chrysalis seethed.

Starlight’s legs gave way as she stared at the hole with dropped-jaw shock. “She… took him. She took him!”

Crystal’s heart sank and her world ran cold.

Miasmus was gone.

Miasmus had been stolen.

“Of all the things!” Twilight exclaimed.

Crystal lost all feeling in her body and subsequently fell to her haunches.

Chrysalis growled and shook her head. “Well, isn’t that just great? That is just fantastic! That Cadance helped him out!”

Mother helped him out, Crystal thought. Mother helped him out.

“Bucking knew it,” Sunset said with a pointed tone. “We should not have trusted that thing.”

“W-what are we gunna do!?” Starlight stammered. “Without Miasmus, we can’t solve the multiverse...”

Chrysalis narrowed. “Preposterous. Even if he’s gone, we can still go through with our original plan. We just expel him from all of the timelines just as we originally planned.”

“It’s not that simple. This… she just showed what side she’s playing for.” Crystal’s throat was dry. Her words nearly failed to come out and those that came out were forced. “She stopped us now. I’m sure she’ll do it again.”

Twilight paled. “No. N-no…”

Chrysalis frowned and briefly glanced at the hole again. “So… what? That’s it?”

Her world spun around and Crystal held herself just long enough to mumble out, “Yes… we’ve… failed. There’s nothing we can do…”

Sunset gasped and simultaneously backpedaled. She looked like she needed a moment to find her air and she eventually, tremulously, said, “So… the multiverse is going to die.”

Crystal let her head hit the ground. A dark blue cloud streamed out of her horn, carrying various sparks and flashes across its body. The cloud floated upward, making a hissing sound as it formed and grew and grew.

She knew it was there. And she didn’t care.

“No bucking way…” Sunset seethed.

Even Chrysalis looked green in the face. She looked at the machine, looked at the hole, and then shook her head and laughed in disbelief. “I can’t believe it… After everything that we’ve done… Now we’re going to just sit down and… give up. It’s the most pathetic thing,” she spat.

Twilight’s jaw twitched as she watched the hole. Several pieces of debris still cascaded off the castle and into the sky. The plaza was, at this point, stripped of all its snow, just like the city beyond.

And then Twilight looked at her own neck. Her hoof hovered over it for a second. And then she gasped.

She stood up in a huff. “No,” she said, her voice firm, “there is still something that we can do.”

Chrysalis frowned. “That is…?”

“We can go after them. We can follow them through.”

Starlight gasped and shot to her hooves. “You can’t be serious. Twilight!”

“Go into the interverse!?” Sunset asked.

“We’ll be lost if we go out there! We go out there, there’s no coming back!”

“That’s not true,” Twilight countered.

Crystal lifted her head.

“Remember Whammy the snail?” Twilight continued. “Whammy was exposed to the interverse for a while and has yet to even remotely fade.”

“Yes!” Starlight replied. “But that was because Whammy was in Crystal’s magic. It still had a connection to the real world!”

Sunset opened her mouth to say something but then paused. Her eyes went wide and she looked at her own neck.

Twilight nodded. “Sunset sees it. Right now, we’re connected to the Crystal Heart via that spell. Don’t you all remember?”

“So…” Crystal croaked, “you’re saying that as long as that spell holds…”

“Yes. We should be okay,” Twilight replied.

Chrysalis deadpanned. “If I remember correctly, that Crystal Heart was fading out. That spell isn’t going to hold forever.”

Twilight nodded and pushed out a long sigh with her hoof. “Look. We get out there, just like Cadance wants, and we do what we need to do. We find Miasmus, get him in, and then we can deploy the spell. And then we can use this spell”—she motioned to her neck—“to all meet back up at my castle afterward.”

Crystal grimaced and struggled to her hooves. “Twilight… even if we did… there’s no guarantee that that will happen. I can’t even begin to tell you what’s going to happen out there. I… I really can’t.”

Twilight shook her head. “Nopony does. But that’s what we have each other for. We will get through this.”

Sunset sucked in a breath and stepped forward. “If you’re going out there… then I’m going too.”

Starlight’s jaw fell.

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and stared at the hole. “I’d be remiss if that bastard didn’t get his desserts. And I’ve nothing else to lose…”

Starlight looked at Chrysalis, Sunset, and then Twilight. She closed her mouth shut and, slowly but surely, nodded as well.

Crystal swallowed and looked at each of them. “You would… really go?”

Sunset nodded.

Twilight looked Crystal in the eye. “You know as well as I do that with Miasmus out there… and with what Cadance just did… it’s now or never.” She extended a hoof to Crystal. “So come with us. Let’s do this together.”

Crystal turned her head toward the heavens. She took a long look at the hole in the sky. She imagined what lay on the other side. She imagined what was going to happen. But she could not see it. She couldn’t see any of the possibilities.

But I’ll have them, she thought.

Crystal could feel the blood pumping through her veins. She took some deep breaths and then nodded at Twilight. “You’re right,” she said as she took Twilight’s hoof. “You’re right.”

Chrysalis smirked and then said, “Then let’s go already! I grow impatient!”

Crystal nodded and turned her attention back to the hole. “I hope this is what you wanted… I know this is what you wanted… Mother. So get ready, because I’m on my way.”

At once, the other four looked up as well.

Crystal took a deep breath and dropped the barrier that separated them from the gale-force winds.

And the winds sucked them upward. The ascent was slow at first but, as they neared the hole, they picked up speed and even tumbled in their ascent. The winds played no favors on them as a few stray pieces of debris closed in and subsequently bounced off.

It only took a few seconds and the event horizon drew closer and closer and eventually filled her vision.

And then they crossed it, and her world became a deep dark black.

And Crystal felt nothing.

And then she was aware that she was tumbling. Her body felt strange and alien and not at all there. She felt herself collide with something or somethings but she couldn’t tell what. She gasped for air but found that air did not exist. There were so many things that should have existed that did not.

She tumbled but, shortly enough, her eyesight came to. Her world flipped about and about but there was no mistaking it; she saw the infinitely tall, reddish towers that plagued her dreams and the endless expanse in which they lived in. There were more in the immediate vicinity than could be counted and there were certainly infinitely many more beyond that. She could see vast fields of debris floating in her mind’s eye that her physical (if it could be called that) body plowed through. She could see the large tower that she had supposedly flown out of and could see holes in it where several bits jettisoned out of.

She glanced all around, still gasping for breath in a void that felt so empty and alien; yet, however, the absence of air seemed like an afterthought amidst the strange, tingly sensations that coalesced throughout her body. She wasn’t suffocating, at any rate.

And now here she was—here they were, tumbling—in the impossibilist of impossible places. And they were alive.

Chrysalis was the first to right herself. Crystal followed herself and used her own willpower to arrest all her own motion. The other three did the same. Crystal thought of moving toward them and her body complied; the others evidently thought the same as they all drew close.

“This is it?” Twilight croaked. Her voice was as plain as day.

They all looked around, taking in the endless towers. They saw a few in the far distance spewing out debris and otherwise crumbling. They could see a few moving about the expanse and they even saw two come together and touch at a point. They could see the many pieces of debris scattered about; some pieces even faded in and out as they traveled through seemingly perpendicular dimensions.

Crystal nodded. “This… is existence. Or what we can comprehend of it.”

They looked around some more and found no sign of anything living in their immediate area.

“He’s not here,” Twilight said with a low tone.

After a moment, Crystal nodded. “No… he’s not. But… I think I might know where they’ll be.”

Twilight considered Crystal for a few moments and then floated herself close and lay a hoof on Crystal’s wither. When Crystal looked back at her, she nodded.

Crystal nodded in return and looked at the other three. “Stay here.”

Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis slowly nodded. Their expressions remained unchanged.

And then, as the three of them turned toward the timeline that they had just fallen out of, Crystal and Twilight took off into the unknown.

27 - Existence

Sunset Shimmer lit her horn and a magical cloud appeared next to her. She poked and prodded at the monolithic tower in front of her. The tower itself, which had to be at least as wide as a small city, was a hazy coalescence of reds, strong pinks, and even splashes of violet. She could see further down where parts of the tower appeared made of pure crystal and, further down from that, parts that were almost crystallized but not quite so.

She watched it in silence. She could see how the tower slowly crystallized layer by layer. It was a slow and continuous process but she could spot it nonetheless. She could see all the little chunks that seemingly oozed out and suddenly flew off the top of those crystallized portions.

“I wonder if this is what Crystal sees?” she thought aloud.

Starlight Glimmer and Chrysalis floated close by. They too examined the surrounding void.

Sunset scanned the structure and she spotted a slowly growing cavity that ran from where she floated to infinity. The timeline was collapsing and would eventually be no more.

And Sunset thought of the supercomputer that still remained in that timeline.

Starlight turned around. “Okay, so what’s our plan?”

Sunset scratched her head. “Well, it might take them a while to bring Miasmus around. All we can do is make sure the spell’s safe.”

“Indeed,” Chrysalis said. “We can either wait here long enough for that hole to expand and spit out the spell on its own… or we can go back and get it out here ourselves.”

Starlight scratched her muzzle in thought, and after looking at the monolithic tower behind them, shook her head. “Maybe it’ll be a good idea if we just wait it out. I mean, I don’t think anything in that timeline can touch it right now.”

“One of us could venture back in and keep an eye on it,” Chrysalis said.

“Maybe.”

“I think I’ll have a look around while you sort that out,” Sunset said. “Maybe I’ll find some ponies out here.”

Chrysalis’s frown deepened but she nodded all the same. “Do not wander off too far.”

“You bet,” Sunset replied. She willed herself forward and her body complied; she sailed through the space, drawing further and further away from the others and the collapsing tower. She wasn’t sure how that even worked, but she decided that she couldn’t worry about it.

Sunset flew through fields of debris. She pushed her way past pieces of stone, pieces of brick, and more dirt than she could ever fathom. Much of what she passed phased in and out. Her eyes sifted through the debris, looking for signs of anything moving.

She drifted toward another infinitely tall tower that wasn’t too far away—how far away was it even? Sunset looked back to where she had just come from, and while the distance was hard to quantify, it appeared like she had traveled several hoofball fields in length. Maybe it was even a few hundred hoofball fields. Or a few thousand. Or many many times that.

And she just about blew a raspberry. That wasn’t even a minute! she mentally exclaimed.

She moved to the other side of the tower; it took her at least a minute to circumnavigate it. But she gasped when she made it around the other side and spotted the thousands upon thousands of individuals floating in the void; many looked human. As Sunset floated closer, she saw them more clearly but determined that none of them were anyone that she knew.

Sunset shook her head and soared upward. She saw more and more creatures of all shapes and sizes as she went along. Some of them looked exceptionally alien, with some of metallic composition, some with features (especially facial) in completely different places, and others with multiple appendages that bent this way and that.

She could see the ruins of late structures in their midst. The remains of houses, some more complete than others, floated about with some creatures loitering in their doorframes. She saw wood, marble, metal, glass, and other things.

She kept ascending and eventually reached the ruins of a brick building with some crystalline aspects to it. Crystal Prep had several room-sized chunks missing but she recognized it nonetheless. She willed herself toward it.

A few humans floated within the structure. Many of them wore Crystal Prep uniforms but a few humans here and there had their own flavors to them. They all looked disheveled with tears in their clothing and knots in their hair.

And the humans turned to her as she approached. One of them, an older lady in a blue suit, flipped over. Her expression was as distant and dazed as the teenagers that surrounded her. Her purple hair flowed every which way. Even then, Sunset knew her—she was Crystal Prep’s former principal.

“Can… I help you?” former Principal Cinch said.

Sunset swallowed and glanced at the other humans that floated about. She could see more familiar faces among them. They all had distant stares about them. She spotted Crystal Preppers, her own classmates, some of her teachers, and then she saw her friends.

“You look familiar…” one of her classmates, Pixel Pizzaz, said.

Sunset swallowed. Wow… what happened to all of you?

* * *

Twilight Sparkle watched as tower after tower whizzed by at unfathomable speeds. She wasn’t even sure how long they had been flying along for. She spotted another debris field between a few of the towers and then she located a nearby tower with a jagged top.

Crystal Faire, who flew right beside her, also regarded the collapsed timeline and frowned.

The two increased their speed. At the rate they were going, they now passed scores of timelines every second. The towers appeared like blurs as they zipped by them and, in some ways, just from the uncountably many there were with naught but their colors to differentiate one from the next, they meant nothing.

I’m sure you know how to read all of this, Twilight thought.

She took a moment to study Crystal’s face. With the way that Crystal kept her gaze ahead, it gave the impression that her mind was ultimately blank.

But Twilight knew better.

Twilight turned her own thoughts to that which she was sure now occupied Crystal’s mind. She tried to picture a Cadance unlike anypony she had ever known. She wondered how the time had changed her. Had it really been a few thousand years?

Would she even resemble the mare that Twilight knew?

Twilight considered Crystal. Would she resemble the mare that Crystal knew?

Twilight shook her head and continued on. The timelines, for the moment, offered no end in sight.

* * *

Chrysalis watched a few hundred figures appear from behind one of the towers and then willed herself to Starlight. “It appears we have company.”

Sunset arrived before them and motioned to the hundreds with her. “Well, I found some familiar faces, at least.”

Chrysalis looked them up and down and then rolled her eyes.

Starlight, however, remained staring. “What the buck…?”

“I’ve learned what you are called,” Chrysalis said as the rest of the humans floated to a stop before them. “You are humans. You are from a human world.”

Cinch looked Chrysalis up and down and frowned. “What a ghastly little creature you are.”

“I am a queen, you cretin. You will address me with the proper…” Chrysalis’ voice left her as she spotted five girls in particular. And then Chrysalis went pale. “You’re kidding. You’re kidding right?” Chrysalis asked.

While they were decisively human, the five girls in question looked just Twilight’s friends if said friends had human forms. Pinkamena and Fluttershy glanced at each other and frowned. Rarity, on the other hand, crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow.

“From what I know,” Sunset began, “most ponies in Equestria have a human world counterpart. And these… are my friends from back home. Or, at least, them from some other reality…”

“Uh,” Applejack said, “who… are you?”

Sunset placed a hoof on her chest. “Sunset. Sunset Shimmer.”

Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. “What? You!?”

Sunset nodded.

“I don’t believe this,” Chrysalis seethed.

Rainbow Dash shook her fist. “Me neither! Sunset Shimmer sure as heck isn’t my friend.”

Cinch adjusted her jacket and shook her head. “I am aware of a Sunset Shimmer. But she looks nothing like you.”

Sunset deflated at that and turned away.

Starlight shook her head and floated up to them. “Whatever. I have a question. How long have all of you been out here?”

At once, all the newcomers exchanged glances. Tentatively, Cinch replied, “Several days… I would suppose.”

Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis exchanged glances.

Chrysalis cleared her throat. “Fine. And during that time… have you encountered some thing called Miasmus?”

Applejack adjusted her hat and scowled. “Ah’ve been hearin’ his name crop up here and there. Why?”

Sunset turned toward the tower right behind them and she watched as it continued spewing debris of all types. She watched as a few organic figures appeared out of it and tumbled through the void.

“Well, he’s a bad guy,” Starlight explained.

“He possesses people,” Sunset explained as she watched the figures flip over and eventually right themselves. “And we’ve been fighting him for the past while. We’re really close to fixing all of this,” she said, motioning to the rest of the void, “but he’s trying real hard to stop us.”

Starlight nodded. “Yeah. We can’t stop the destruction of the multiverse until he goes down for good.”

“Well, ain’t that somethin’…” Applejack muttered.

Said figures in the distance all turned in their direction at once. They each snarled and then dashed in their direction.

Sunset swore. The others immediately whirled around and either gasped or said some pointed words. That went doubly so when some of the unicorns coming in their direction let off a few token shots (all of which missed).

“What the hay!?” Starlight exclaimed. “I thought we knocked him out!”

Sunset lit her horn and let off a few shots from her own position and smirked when at least a couple of them hit.

The humans shied away and then, as a few more shots came through, they retreated wholesale amongst some frightened screams and cries.

“Perhaps he still is!” Chrysalis yelled. “His possessions are acting on their own! Crystal Faire warned us about this!”

Starlight let out a yell and floated across the void in the direction of their attackers where she rammed right into a pegasus mare.

Chrysalis and Sunset took a few moments to volley off several shots at the foes who continued to close in. It helped that a few turned to take care of Starlight who let off several close-range blasts in response.

More and more foes tumbled out of the bleeding timeline, oriented themselves, and then started in their direction while letting out feral cries.

Chrysalis groaned and then whirled to face the few humans that remained. “You! All of you! Make yourselves useful!” she barked.

And the humans, all looking like deer in headlights, continued staring and didn’t respond.

Without checking for any affirmatives, Chrysalis turned to Sunset while pointing at the tower. “I’m going to make sure the spell is secure, if you don’t mind.”

Sunset lit her horn and blasted another foe. “Go ahead.”

Chrysalis touched her neck and her senses shrunk down to a single point. When it expanded back out, Chrysalis found herself standing in Canterlot.

She ducked underneath the large metal sphere that still sat in the middle of the plaza and then, once she was sure that the winds wouldn’t sweep her away, she looked up. The hole in the sky had grown larger and she could see a few smaller holes dotted around it.

She transformed into the rex-like form from before and stomped her way across the plaza; this form was far too heavy for the winds yet. She charged into the city below where she found a few ponies hanging onto the scenery to avoid getting sucked up.

And they looked up and snapped at her.

And she whipped them with her tail, knocking them unconscious and otherwise causing them to lose their grips. The winds sucked them upward and they eventually disappeared past the horizon.

Chrysalis frowned and immediately continued on, searching for more foes. I’ll try to take care of whatever I can. I just have to hope that he can’t take any more possessions for a while.

Her frown deepened. Because if we still have a fight on our hooves… We will not last forever. While she continued stomping along, catching and tail-slapping a few stray earth ponies who tried to charge her, she turned her eyes toward the holes in the sky. Crystal Faire, Twilight Sparkle, you must work quickly, or so help me…

* * *

“Do you think we’re getting close?” Twilight asked out of the blue.

As the two of them passed over a mountain-sized piece of rock directly below them, Crystal nodded. “It shouldn’t be much further.”

Twilight nodded and looked around some more. She could see towers as far as she could see (and that seemed to go to infinity). She could see so many that she had to tell herself not to try and count them all.

She instead considered the geometry of the space. She told herself that it didn’t make sense. Space itself was three-dimensional, and here they existed in three dimensions. How did the dimension of time come into it?

She looked up the infinite length of one tower nearby. Time had, for that matter, already come into it. These… towers, they represent a timeline from start to finish. There are entire realities in there.

That doesn’t make any sense! This geometry is absurd!

“This is what we can comprehend of it,” Crystal’s voice said in her head.

Twilight frowned and looked up at the mare in question. Crystal, for the most part, still kept her eyes forward. You did say that, didn’t you? Twilight thought. We even talked about this: it could exist in any number of dimensions. Even infinitely many dimensions.

She thought about Celestia and all the other faded ponies that she had seen over the past few days. She thought of them in the worlds. She thought of herself and her friends now outside the worlds.

Twilight used her hoof to push out a long sigh. Right. Right. This is a representation of the multiverse, Twilight. This… probably isn’t how it actually looks; this is just how we can see it.

Her eyes caught some movement and she turned her head to see a moving timeline in the distance. It was moving in a direction away from where the two were heading. Twilight watched it between the forest of timelines that came between them and she eventually saw that timeline collide with another. The second one bent this way and that and started moving as well. There was a low boom from their collision.

Twilight shuddered and imagined all the ponies inside those realities.

She shook her head and flew faster than before, even passing Crystal.

We… we’ve gone from three dimensions into… potentially more. Princess Celestia and everypony else… They did the opposite.

Twilight gasped. Is that why they fade? Going between a timeline and this… interversal space… is it not bijective? Is there information loss?

Twilight lifted a hoof toward her own neck, contemplating the spell within. Oh… goodness… I hope I was right about this spell that’s on the Crystal Heart being a bijection… Because if not…

“Twilight,” Crystal piped up.

Twilight shook the thought from her mind and looked over. “Hmmm?”

Crystal pointed forward. “Look there.”

The towers thinned out up ahead but it was rather that a large fraction were stumps. It looked akin to where half of the trees in a forest, all chosen at random, had been cut down. Every stump that Twilight saw served to make her stomach churn even more.

And they saw one stump in the distance that rose much higher than the rest. Its stretched far above the plain of stumps that they zoomed through. Unlike its hazy brethren, it was crystallized along its entire length.

Crystal started to arc upward with Twilight close behind and she pointed to the towering stump in question. “That… is where we need to go.”

Twilight swallowed and nodded solemnly. Together, the two of them flew toward it.

* * *

The throne room was quiet. Crystalline walls and high ceilings watched over an equally crystalline table in the center of the room. Six-and-a-half thrones ringed around it, all seemingly guarding the object in the center.

There were some hushed voices in the hallway, but the room paid them little mind.

The object in question was an almost completely transparent Crystal Heart which sat by its lonesome on the center of the Cutie Map. Energies swirled inside it and it pulsated energy at frequent intervals. The process would have been imperceptible to would-be observers but, with every moment that passed, the Crystal Heart faded more and more and would vanish entirely given enough time.

But, for the moment, it lay idle, the magic within still at the ready.

* * *

Starlight threw another foe off her and then took the shot. She could feel it in her horn at this point. She found herself putting less into her shots and constantly second-guessing how much she needed. She knew she could go for more, at least for a while longer, but her horn ached.

Too much and she would run out of shots that much sooner. Too little and she couldn’t knock Miasmus’ essence out of his possessions.

They all still came in droves. She knew that, with Sunset’s help, she could fend them off for a while. How long that while would last, however, was a question.

She spotted many watching the battle. Many of the humans from before kept their distance. Other humans, likely from elsewhere within the void, flew toward them, all clenching their fist and yelling out unintelligible things. Starlight knew it wasn’t them but rather the feral entity inside them.

Some of the foes that they had once hit (and subsequently knocked unconscious) were now waking up and asking questions. Starlight couldn’t bother herself to discern their conversations.

Starlight flipped over another foe, placed another shot into him, and then gasped when she saw another hundred foes behind him; she instead willed her body to move away from them as fast as it would allow her. She rocketed upward, streaking along the height of the infinitely tall tower. Her foes were already moving faster.

Her body breathed in and out on its own; the need for air was still not present but her body kept its natural rhythm. It was a reminder that this was impossible.

And it felt real, a fact reinforced as a few of her pursuers caught up and subsequently tackled her. They continued to sail upward as they wrapped themselves around her. One of them started driving hooves into her and she cried out with each blow.

She lit her horn and a wave of magic exploded out of her. Her opponents went flying in every direction with (to her relief) blobby particles flying off them as they went.

She could really feel it in her horn. And there were still several tens more coming her way.

She lifted a hoof to her neck amidst the madness and her world shrunk down to a point. It expanded back out yet Starlight couldn’t find solid ground as severe winds sucked her upward. She could see the ruins of Canterlot around her, and while the city had yet to fall off the mountain, there wasn’t a single structure in sight still intact; the entire castle was gone now. The gigantic supercomputer still lay idle in the center of the plaza.

That was good, at least. She could feel some of her own spirits set fire again.

As the wind sucked her up, she spotted a small dragon also tumbling about. He soon enough angled his wings and spun himself. He snapped his fangs at her, trying to get a good bite in. Starlight shot a laser into his open mouth and the creature cried out before millions of blob-like particles oozed from underneath his scales.

And then Starlight and her defeated foe fell into the event horizon. The world became a deep dark black and then, after a split second of nothingness, the void welcomed them.

Starlight willed her body to move away from the tower and toward Sunset who she immediately spotted. Sunset herself juked around her foes while landing the occasional shot. Starlight let off a few shots of her own which hit a few targets but missed others.

And then she could see some of the former foes, along with several humans and other strange creatures, charging. They tackled some of the current foes and together they all went spilling across the void. Their foes responded in kind with all sorts of punches and kicks and other things in between. Hooves and claws and other appendages collided with other appendages and both sides grunted and groaned in kind.

Sunset, on the other hoof, found fewer foes to deal with herself and started similarly bashing them while placing the occasional shot.

Starlight smiled. It was help, at any rate. And there weren’t many, but it would do. And it would need to do, for Starlight could really feel it in her horn.

* * *

Twilight and Crystal reached the top of the tall stump and then glided over its surface. Most of the outer edge looked just like shiny crystal but they could also see bits of grass and dirt in a thin layer right on top of the crystal.

Twilight scanned the grounds and noted the way that it ebbed and flowed just like normal terrain. And it was impossible. Her expression grew more wide-eyed with every blade of grass that she saw. It was all intact and likely as intact as the moment it had arrived there.

And that could have been a very long time ago.

And then she spotted train tracks. Said tracks snaked their way through the various hills that made up the terrain. Her eyes followed them upward where they eventually passed a lone building. She then followed a dirt path that split off from there.

And then she saw the giant structure that was the Crystal Castle. The structure, which stood on four legs, towered over the surrounding city. It was as tall and as magnificent as she knew it to be. She was sure that, had there been a sun to shine down on it, it would have had a radiant sparkle to it.

Twilight’s jaw dropped. Oh my goodness! It’s here! It’s actually out here!

The two descended. They flew over the train station—Twilight had no doubt that, with no trains, it was abandoned—and they flew over the dirt path. They finally touched down at the city’s edge.

There, many ponies within the city itself had shiny, gradient manes and tails and even the light in their eyes looked polygonal and crystal-like. The crystal ponies didn’t look much worse for wear. Those closest to them turned and regarded them through raised eyebrows. Several seconds of silence passed as the crowd stared at them and they stared at the crowd in turn.

And one of the crystal ponies sharply gasped and then exclaimed, “It’s Princess Crystal Faire!”

Several more gasps rose up. Those who hadn’t already noticed them whirled around to get a good look.

“She’s returned…” another voice said.

At once, the crystal ponies before them bowed. Nopony else made a sound.

Crystal frowned and looked over at Twilight. “It would seem that I was awaited…”

Twilight nodded in agreement as she scanned their faces. They weren’t any faces that she herself recognized. They were, she supposed, faces that Crystal did, however. “They remember you…”

Crystal nodded in agreement and then started forward again. “Let us go, Twilight.”

They trotted down the street. The street itself consisted of crystal so smooth that Twilight could see her reflection in it. The houses and buildings that lined the streets were equally crystal in design with all their surfaces smooth and perfectly contoured. They saw reds and blues and a few purples too. Small pillars hosted some internal energies that gave a little extra light to the street; not that much was needed as the void’s ambient light was more than sufficient.

It looked just like a normal Crystal Empire. But instead of clear blue skies, endless towers of reds and violets made up the background.

As Twilight and Crystal went along, the crystal ponies they came across received them with gasps and dropped jaws before invariably clearing a path.

Crystal scanned their many faces. She scanned their features. She scanned the ground that they stood on. She scanned every corner of every bush, lamppost, windowsill, and pathway. She turned paler with every second.

Twilight looked up at Crystal and frowned. “Are you okay?” she whispered.

Crystal shook her head and motioned to some of the crystal ponies that they passed by. “They all look just like they did… everything looks exactly like it did on the day that I left them,” she said.

Twilight’s muzzle twitched and she glanced around as well. “Just like it did on the day your reality collapsed?”

The crystal castle loomed over them and steadily grew as they neared.

“Four thousand years…” Crystal croaked. “I never would have dreamed that I would ever see this place again.”

I can’t believe I’m even seeing this place, Twilight thought. She chuckled under her breath. What a strange feeling this is… I’ve been in the Crystal Empire so many times before. It’s not like I’m seeing anything that much new. And yet… Her eyes wandered over the street again and her smile faded. I know that this place is different.

They finally arrived at the central square and it was at that point that Crystal stopped. A very long spike hung from the bottom of the castle; a similar spike, much shorter than its brother, rose from the floor. A singular relic, the Crystal Heart, idly floated between the two spikes. It rotated slowly about its axis. There was not a scratch or smudge on its brilliant blue surface and it appeared as untouched as Twilight knew it to be.

After staring at it for a few seconds, Twilight turned to Crystal. “That Crystal Heart… It was corrupted once, wasn’t it?”

“Y-yes. It was.”

Twilight looked at the Crystal Heart again. She couldn’t see any alien energies swirling inside. “You… don’t think it’s still corrupted, do you?”

Crystal shook her head and said, with a matter-of-factly tone, “No.”

At that, Crystal silently floated upward. Twilight willed her body to follow. They eventually arrived on the balcony that hung on the side of the castle.

An opening revealed a short hall with a few doors on either side. At the end of the hall sat a pair of double doors at least twice the height and width of all the others. They could see a pair of crystal guards, clad in equally crystalline armor, standing right in front of it.

After a moment’s hesitation, Crystal sucked in a breath and pointed toward them. “I can’t see what’s about to happen. I have no idea. Please don’t be mad at me...”

Twilight chuckled. “Well, Crystal, power or no power… I trust you.”

Crystal blinked and tilted her head. “You… trust me?”

Twilight trotted up to Crystal and placed a hoof on her withers. “You can do this. I know you can. But whatever happens… I’m here with you. That’s what friends do.”

After a few moments more, Crystal cracked a smile. She then closed her eyes and took a long and deep breath and then took a second one. She then turned and started down the hall. “I appreciate it, Twilight. Thank you.”

Twilight smiled in response and followed closely behind.

“Chances are that she’s on the other side of that door,” Crystal said. “I could be wrong, but… Twilight, before we go in there, there is something that I want you to know. It’s about me; it’s about my power.”

Twilight hummed in response.

“My ability… it is truly unparalleled.,” Crystal said. “Its applications are endless. The ability to manipulate probabilities and the flow of timelines… to make the future… it allows one to change everything.”

They reached the end of the hall and, as they approached, the pair of guards in front of the door sidestepped out of the way, leaving the path before them clear.

Crystal approached the door, put a hoof on it, and then turned to Twilight. And she said, tentatively, “For better... or for worse.”

Twilight said nothing.

Crystal took one last deep breath and pushed the doors open. They creaked as they swung on their hinges. The throne room itself was a tall space with tall windows on either side. A singular carpet ran the length of the room and sloped up to the dais at the opposite end. The throne that sat atop it consisted of several gigantic crystalline gems, including one which towered over the rest of the throne.

And a lone pony sat on that throne. Her cerise coat had nary a wrinkle or stain on it. Her long and vibrant mane, which was full of sparkles and even had a visible energy to it as it seemingly flowed in an invisible wind, was a violet with some rose-colored and gold-colored streaks. She wore large, golden regalia over her body and a large ornate crown much like Princess Celestia’s atop her head.

And she stood up and, with a magic that was very decisively blue, she lifted that crown off her head and set it on a nearby cushion. She looked like she was trying to find her breath with the way that she looked at them. Her lips made feeble attempts at making words and nothing came out.

Twilight could feel her own heart weighing several tons within her chest. It was a mutual feeling, surely.

Crystal swallowed and inched forward. “M… Mother…”

Cadance finally stood tall and sucked in a breath. “Crystal Faire…” she wheezed. “My daughter… you’ve finally come home.”

28 - Reflections I

Chrysalis whirled around when she heard a loud crack that she knew she shouldn’t have heard. It was coming from the direction of the plaza where, as far as she knew, the spell still sat. She could feel her already cold blood growing colder in her veins.

She lit her horn and gave the foe in front of her a quick laser blast, knocking several blob-like particles out of him, before she touched a hoof to her neck. Chrysalis’ world shrunk down to a point and then back out again and she found herself on top of the familiar metal sphere. Said sphere, however, was now rolling down an incline as the plaza, evidently, slid off the mountain.

Harsh winds swept her off its surface and toward the hole above the city, and she tumbled through the air, but she could nonetheless tell where the spell was going. And there was a cliff at the end of the now-ramp.

There were any number of protective enchantments on the spell, but she still didn’t like it.

She watched the giant sphere disappear over the side and she couldn’t help but touch her neck again. The world contracted and expanded again and she found herself standing atop the falling spell. She wrapped her magic around the monolithic structure and pulled upward, trying to slow its fall. One of the enchantments on it responded by grabbing onto her magic and pulling in kind. Its fall slowed. It did not, however, stop.

The report of it slamming into the ground thundered across Equestria, punctuating the way that it shook the ground. The impact threw massive amounts of dirt and debris into the air as the spell embedded itself into the soil.

And Chrysalis slammed into it. All her wind left her in a heartbeat and she gasped for air. The sphere wasn’t moving anymore which allowed her opportunity to wheeze and roll over and clutch at her stomach.

She could see bits and pieces of marble and concrete falling from Canterlot above. Most pieces either missed or ricocheted off the supercomputer’s metal surface. One piece, however, fell right toward her and she rolled out of the way at the last second.

She attempted to stand up when she felt the structure shift underneath her. She could feel the sphere sinking along with the rest of the ground.

A tremor threw her off balance again and the sphere sunk several meters. It stopped, sunk some more, and then disappeared past a surface of pure black underneath her. Chrysalis then fell into that black too.

She reemerged into the void of infinitely tall towers. She tumbled through the space and used her willpower to right herself.

She looked down and could see the supercomputer floating away from her. It plowed through some debris fields, scattering dust and rock in all directions. She gave chase to it and quickly situated herself on its surface.

It was then that she looked up and saw the chaos above her. She could see several individuals, pony, human, and neither, all engaged in tight skirmishes as they traded blows with each other. A few magic spells and other projectiles occasionally made their way across the bedlam; Chrysalis tracked a spell as it ran into a pony which prompted them to expel many blob-like particles.

And that was where she found Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer. The latter two looked down and started to break away from the main fight itself, but a few foes flew after them.

Chrysalis lit her horn and prepared herself, sure that it was really about to begin.

* * *

Crystal Faire stumbled her way down the carpet. Cadance, similarly, stumbled her way down from the dais. The two met in the center of the chamber and paused to stare into each other’s eyes.

“Mother,” Crystal tentatively said. “I’m home.”

Cadance smiled softly, reached out to stroke Crystal’s neck as if she had to make sure she was real, and then she swept Crystal into a hug. “I’ve missed you so much. Welcome home…”

A few tears welled up in Crystal’s eyes and she hugged back. “I’ve missed you too. Sometimes more than I could bear.”

The two remained in each other’s embrace for several moments and didn’t let go of each other even after they broke the hug.

“You’ve grown since I last saw you,” Cadance said, now noting how Crystal stood a full hoof higher than she did. She then reached up and pushed some of Crystal’s mane out of the way so that she could get a good look at the scar over Crystal’s right eye. She chuckled and let some more tears fall out of her eyes as she said, “I can only hope you’ve learned to be more careful with knives, dear.”

Even as more tears fell down Crystal’s face, she couldn’t help but laugh in return.

Cadance kept looking over every inch of Crystal, sighing with delight all the while.

Twilight stepped forward at that point and cleared her throat. “Cadance?”

Cadance blinked and looked over.

“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake…” Twilight began. She stopped, however, when Cadance simply stared.

And Cadance’s smile turned into a frown and her muzzle rolled from side to side as she concentrated. “Oh… that… I know that. I…” She shook her head and gave an exasperated sigh. “Help me out here…”

Twilight sighed dejectedly and finished. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake,” she finished.

Cadance slowly nodded. “Clap your hooves and do a little shake. That’s right…” She blushed, rubbed the back of her head, and said, “I’m sorry. I know who you are, Twilight, it’s just been so long…”

“It’s okay,” Twilight said with a smile. “I know you lost your world’s version of me a long time ago.”

“Yes. And I know that you aren’t her,” Cadance said as she trotted over to examine her. “It’s terrible about what happened to your home reality. Are you okay?”

“Yes. I’m okay. Thanks for asking.”

Cadance smiled and gave Twilight a quick hug. “Of course.” She then continued on toward the open doorway at the front of the throne room and then turned. “I hope neither of you mind walking with me.”

“Whatever you would like, Mother,” Crystal replied.

The three of them exited the throne room. The two guards that flanked the double doors pushed them closed as they exited and then barred the way once more. Cadance led the two into a nearby hallway.

The architecture was just as smooth and spotless as Crystal remembered. The crystal, colored in the way she expected, bent in every way that she knew it to. There was the slight dent that she had made when she was playing with model airships at age seven. And over there was the spot where a random magical surge had set the curtains on fire at age four.

It was all there. It still bore some traces of those happenings.

“Cadance?” Twilight asked. “What is this ‘Queen of the multiverse’ title that I’ve been hearing about?”

Cadance chuckled. “Oh, that. That’s just a joke. I mean, I am a queen, I guess. It’s just that it’s been just us for way too long and, you know…” She shook her head and added, “I think it’s been a few millennia, but nopony’s keeping track.”

“Y-you all have been out here this whole time?” Crystal tremulously asked.

Cadance nodded. “Yes… we’ve survived. I think, mostly.”

“But how?”

A shrug. “I don’t know. I think everypony stopped trying to figure out how we’ve managed a long time ago.”

Crystal let out a sigh and shook her head.

“But, in a way, that’s given me ample time to watch all of your exploits over the years, Crystal. I’ve seen all the amazing feats that you’ve pulled off.” As they reached a set of stairs, Cadance turned and put another hoof on Crystal. “You’ve become so strong, and you’ve helped so many ponies out. I am so proud of you.”

Crystal blushed and pressed a hoof against her mother’s.

Twilight remained silent all the while. She too wore a small grin.

They made their way down the stairs and shortly emerged into a hall a floor beneath.

“Mother…” Crystal tentatively began. “I don’t wish to do this, but… I have to address what happened.”

Cadance shook her head. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I panicked a little bit because I was worried that you wouldn’t come out to see me. Stealing that Miasmus was all I could think of.”

Crystal frowned. “But why? When the multiverse is at stake…”

“Because I want to be with you, Crystal. You are my child; you are my entire world,” she said as they rounded a corner. “I’ve hoped and prayed that there would be a way for us to be together again. I’ve always wanted you to come back, and you have.”

Twilight shook her head. “Cadance… that doesn’t excuse what you did. I’m sorry, but…”

Cadance frowned. “Listen, I don’t want to stop you from saving reality. That’s not what I’m trying to do at all. I just…” She sighed. “Just… let me show you something.”

They reached a closed doorway and Cadance lit her horn. The door swung open and the three trotted into the decently sized room. Said room, Crystal knew, was right underneath the throne room. A large window took up its entire opposite side, allowing them a view of the lands beyond the city and the backdrop of towers even beyond that. A few cushions formed an arc around an unlit fireplace on one side of the room. An empty shelf and the bookcase next to it took the opposite wall.

Twilight swallowed. “This room?” she asked.

Cadance chuckled. “It’s Crystal’s study. Ah… she spent so much time in here… especially after losing her aunt.”

Crystal nodded. “That I did.”

Cadance trotted into the center of the room and then frowned and glanced back at them out the corner of her eye. “I’ve kept this place much like you left it, especially since I’ve been hoping for a long time that you would come home, Crystal. And… if what I’ve seen over these many many years suggests… you’ve wanted to come home for a long time too.”

“Yes…” Crystal said with a solemn nod and a heavy sigh. “I have…”

“You’ve wanted to come home because you thought it would make you happy.” Cadance turned to face them. “And now I’m in a position where I can offer that choice to you. Your home is right here in front you; I am right here in front you. So choose… choose to be here. Choose me!”

* * *

Starlight flipped over as another pegasus tried to tackle her and she answered by shooting a beam. The beam itself was unwhole, unlike most other attacks she had let off. She couldn’t even get a whole shot anymore. The shot, nonetheless, hit its mark, and blob-like particles sprayed off her foe posthaste, but Starlight found herself glancing at her horn.

She willed her body to move closer to the metal sphere. The supercomputer itself continued to float along at the same speed that it had been moving before. The supercomputer plowed through another debris field, and as she righted herself, she noticed that it was about to puncture a hole in the side of one of the towers.

She scurried down the side and tried to push the sphere back the way it came; easier said than done when the object was so massive. She pushed back against it, even going so far as to allocate some of her magic to do so. Yet her horn ached, no, everything ached.

She succeeded in eventually stopping it and sending it back the way it came. But as she wiped some sweat off her brow while watching it go, her vision went blurry for a moment. She took that moment to feel at her forehead.

She glanced up and saw Sunset and Chrysalis still throwing their own attacks. The foes fell to them one by one, but she could see the way they panted and she could see the way their attacks were as unwhole as her own.

The foes kept coming. While the many humans and ponies that had been helping them were still caught up in their own fights, they weren’t exactly turning the tide. The possessions persisted.

A few more possessed earth ponies flew up to her and Starlight took shots at each of them. Some landed on the metal sphere and started to fruitlessly pound at it but she didn’t wait to see if they would damage it.

A pegasus swooped in and blindsided her. They went tumbling across the expanse with Starlight wrapped in his forehooves. She twisted around in his grasp and tried to light her horn for another blast.

Nothing came off her horn.

She tried again and still had no luck. The two continued to plummet and then found themselves running right into one of the towers.

They hit. The world twisted and folded and then the both of them landed on wood. The impact punched some of the air out of her body but also threw her attacker off her.

She stood up in a huff. The immediate surroundings were steel beams, steel railings, and wooden floors. From the way the ground seemed much lower than her position on all sides, she was airborne. Maybe it was an airship.

But that meant she was in a reality.

Her hooves flew over every inch of herself and her eyes did the same. She still looked and felt wholesome.

Her foe, the pegasus stallion, who currently tried to regain his footing on the wooden platform, looked faded and unwhole.

By the time Starlight could breathe a sigh of relief, the stallion was pouncing on her again. They tumbled across the deck and rolled to a stop with him sitting on top of her. She tried to light her horn again and nothing still came out. She had no recourse but to try and shield her face from his hooves.

And after a few blows, she caught one of his hooves and tried to push him off. His disorientation was far too temporary and he launched some more attacks.

A few startled cries from the side drew Starlight’s attention where she saw two individuals now standing at the other end of the deck. The shorter one was a pug-faced hedgehog with what looked like a piece of cake in his claw. The taller, a purple unicorn with a broken horn, produced some sparks and sent electricity in their direction.

Energy surged through their bodies and the pegasus reeled backward, writhing in agony. Starlight similarly screamed as her entire body spasmed.

The purple unicorn quit her spell. That gave the pegasus enough time to scramble to his hooves and try to pounce again. Starlight, on the other hoof, immediately flung her own hoof onto her neck. And thus her world shrunk down.

When her world expanded back out, Starlight landed on top of the metal sphere. She collapsed against it, panting for breath that she didn’t even need. Her eyes glanced up and she saw the infinitely tall towers. She could see the fight still going on.

She took a moment to glance at her own horn. And she poked it. And then she saw the sheer number of foes still left to face with even more foes about to join in.

And she cursed under her breath.

* * *

Twilight surveyed the room. She had been in a room like this once, but that had been in another reality. She had, however, seen this room in a vision once before. She trotted past Crystal and Cadance and approached the bookshelf. She scanned the bindings, noted a few titles that she didn’t recognize, and then pulled those off the shelf.

She spent a few moments skimming through them. She cooed at a few passages here and there, internally wishing that she had more time to sit down and fully absorb the material; some of it covered topics that she had never seen before.

She gave a sad sigh and replaced the books. The reading would have to wait for another time.

Instead, she trotted over to the window and ran her eyes across the city. She settled her gaze on the many towers in the distance. They were timelines, Twilight knew. She couldn’t make heads or tails of what was in them.

“Cadance? Can I ask you a question?”

Cadance turned. “Of course, Twilight.”

“You said you’ve been watching her for a while.” Twilight turned to Cadance. “I guess that means you can read timelines. Does that mean… that you can see them like Crystal does now?”

Cadance giggled and shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not. Crystal’s power is still beyond me,” she said and scratched the back of her head, “and I don’t think I’ll ever be nearly as good at reading timelines as she is. But, you know, after spending so much time being able to see these towers, I got a feel for what they were saying.”

Twilight frowned. “Did you ever try to figure out where that power came from?”

Crystal also turned to face her mother in full.

Cadance sighed. “Truth is, I have. I’ve looked at our entire past. I don’t know what happened to her.” She paced around the room, her eyes glued to the floor as she went. “Pretty much everypony here’s tried to figure out what happened. Most of the ponies I’ve talked to like to say that, before Crystal came along, existence was a different place. Maybe something happened. Maybe there was some event… some fluctuation, that reshaped all of existence… and changed everything.” She smiled and looked at Crystal. “Whatever happened, it also gave you to me.”

“I guess I would have to agree,” Crystal said as she kicked the floor. “It’s what makes sense. I really am an error.”

Twilight frowned and hung her head. Oh, Crystal…

“You are also, to me, the best thing that’s ever happened,” Cadance replied. “I just hope that you can believe me.”

Crystal looked into Cadance’s eyes and sighed.

* * *

Sunset flipped over and landed with a thud on top of the metallic sphere. She struggled to her hooves and looked at the bedlam above. She had no idea how many were friend and how many were foe, but it just seemed like the latter were greater in number. The sphere presently floated away from the bedlam but the bedlam trailed not far behind.

Her legs wobbled and she forced them to steady themselves before they could give way underneath her. She let out a long sigh and wiped some sweat off her brow.

She looked over at Starlight who sported some singe marks and looked just as dazed as she felt. “Are you alright?” she asked.

Starlight pointed to her horn and shook her head. “I’m out.”

Sunset groaned and turned her attention back toward the incoming attackers.

A few of their allies, currently flying by, swept some of those foes away, but those remaining still came. Many unicorn shots careened off the metal. That, however, didn’t stop nearer foes from diving in and headbutting it at full speed. Sunset repelled a few of them with laser blasts before they hit but others still made it through. The collisions knocked them unconscious but they still, nonetheless, left small dents.

Sunset wondered about the circuitry inside. It had to survive. It absolutely had to.

They spotted Chrysalis engaged with some enemies above them. Chrysalis let off a few shots here and there, but between having to physically drive them off her and trying to find good angles, not all of her shots hit.

Sunset tracked some foes that were swooping in for the tackle and she lit her horn.

And nothing came out.

She went pale. “Huh?”

Starlight gasped. “Oh no…”

The foes slammed into Chrysalis and they, collectively, tumbled through the expanse. They flew into a tower and disappeared into it; the tower below that point turned shiny and semi-crystallized while everything above it turned into something that was almost crystallized but not quite there.

The two didn’t have time to properly process what had happened as the supercomputer met with a crystallized timeline right behind them. It bounded off without a scratch on either of the entities but the sudden jolt nonetheless threw Sunset and Starlight off the structure and into the crystallized timeline which they too bounced off of.

Sunset’s insides hurt. She tried to reach down and pull some magic up and into her horn but couldn’t find any; only a few token sparks came off.

And there were still more foes coming.

* * *

“I don’t know how you can say that,” Crystal said. “You just said that you’ve seen the past. So you know…”

Cadance stamped her hoof. “I know that you needed help. I know that you were unhappy—you still are. But I never needed to read timelines to see that.” She placed a hoof on Crystal’s withers. “Crystal, you know my highest priority has always been your happiness. I did my best, and… back then, my best wasn’t enough, but I am ready to try again. This is why I want you here… because I know that’s what you want and I know… that’s what would make you happy.”

Crystal shook her head and reached up and lifted Cadance’s hoof off her. “It’s not that simple.”

Cadance scowled. “How is it not simple? I’ve seen you express interest in coming back here. I’ve watched you, remember?”

Crystal sighed and started toward the fireplace. “Yes… I’ve wanted to come back here. This was where my life was. This was where everypony that ever mattered to me once was. I’ve longed for it, knowing it was impossible.”

“And here you are…”

“But I also don’t know if, after what happened, if I even deserve to be here anymore.”

After a pause, Cadance narrowed her eyes and shook her head, trotting over to the fireplace as well. “You’ve spent your entire life helping more realities than I could ever count. You have been a bastion for all of existence. I couldn’t be a prouder mother even if I tried.” She came up to Crystal’s side and said, “And I just want you to know that I don’t blame you at all for what happened to us. I don’t blame you for what’s happening to the rest of the multiverse as a result.”

Crystal turned to face Cadance. Her eyes now looked moist and she was red in her face. “But you should,” she croaked.

“No,” Cadance replied with a matter-of-factly tone. She took a moment to sigh. “Yes, the Crystal Heart was corrupted. Yes, I got infected—I’m sorry that I yelled at you. I wasn’t myself at the time… I probably still am not. I know how the Crystal Heart came to be corrupted, Crystal. I’m not angry.”

Twilight blinked and trotted over to them.

Crystal could feel her heart weighing a million tons in her chest. It hurt. “But do you know why it became corrupted?”

Cadance opened her mouth to speak but then closed it again. She eventually shook her head.

“I long ago made a vow to use my power for good. And I’ve done my very best to uphold that vow. You have seen so for yourself. But I made a mistake, and thus the Crystal Heart was corrupted.” Crystal’s frown grew deeper. “I failed my vow, and I failed you and everypony else.”

Cadance sighed. “Everypony makes mistakes. And yes, all of the negative energy inside of the Crystal Heart would have led to Equestria’s destruction. You tried to stop that, in the end.”

Crystal Faire took a moment to sniffle and wipe some tears from her eyes. She then stood tall and took several deep breaths and then stared deep into Cadance’s eyes. “Yes, in the end. But in the beginning… Equestria’s destruction was exactly what I was trying to cause.”

There was a long and pregnant pause. And then Cadance blinked and turned a few shades paler. “You… you did it… intentionally?”

Twilight stumbled over and glanced between the two of them. “W-what are you talking about?” she croaked.

“The reason why the negative energy came to corrupt the Crystal Heart…” Crystal Faire wheezed, “was because I was the one who put it there.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped to the ground. “W… what!? You!?”

Crystal nodded solemnly. “Yes… me.”

Twilight fell to her haunches. “W… why?”

Cadance swallowed. Her expression turned firm.

Crystal averted her gaze. “I was in a really bad way for the longest time. This power’s never been without difficulty, but I learned to tolerate it, and especially now where I’ve dealt with everything that comes with it and have now mastered it. Auntie Twilight was instrumental in helping me sort it all out the first time. But when she died… in my grief, I lost it all.

“I dealt with the harsh reality of all the terrible things that I perceived on a daily basis, I lived in constant fear that I would cause another accident like what happened to her… I didn’t have it in me to go out and make friends and see the world, even though I know that was what you wanted for me,” Crystal said, facing Cadance in particular.

Cadance’s frown grew deeper but she said nothing.

“It was enough to drive anypony crazy,” Crystal said. “And so I slowly started to lose myself. And I found that I started having problems with keeping those emotional energies in.”

Twilight gasped. “That… those clouds that have been coming out of your horn…”

Crystal nodded. “Before this business with the multiverse collapsing started, that was the first and only time I’ve ever dealt with this problem. I took a page out of Starlight Glimmer’s book and I bottled them up. I kept them over there,” she said, pointing to the empty shelf on the other side of the room.

Her mind’s eye turned toward the timeline. But as she watched her younger self bottling clouds in the timeline, the memory played in sync in her mind.

“And I kept it up for years…”

Crystal funneled the dark blue cloud from her horn into the bottle before placing a cork in it. The cloud swirled inside the glass container and she watched it while wiping some tears from her eyes. She then sighed and placed the bottle on the shelf where it joined a few dozen others.

Cadance hung her head. “Y-yes… indeed you did. I remember…”

Twilight frowned. “Starlight… told me that her bottle broke.” She leaned forward to look Crystal in the eye. “Don’t tell me…”

“The bottles broke late in the night,” Crystal said. “I could only stop so many of the unspeakable things in the world and… it gets to you. I had failed to stop yet another… and for just a moment, I lost control.”

Crystal cried out and stomped the ground. The room shook. The shelf of bottles jumped and then split down the middle, depositing all the bottles toward the floor where they shattered into countless pieces.

Crystal gasped and watched in horror as the clouds spilled out and filled a corner of the room. Her horn immediately lit up.

“I absorbed the released energy from those broken bottles but I knew that I could not contain it; it would have to eventually go somewhere. But what I absorbed clouded even my own mind. It clouded my mind with every terrible thought I had ever had.” Her voice then dropped down to a whisper. “And so… through clouded judgment, I had an idea of where to let it go. I had the truly awful idea to let it go everywhere.”

Cadance shuddered and actually had to avert her gaze.

“I knew that, if I did that, Equestria would rip itself apart, and then there would be no more injustices and no more disasters.” Crystal shuddered. “I thought that it would be… the ultimate solution.”

She then stood at her full height. “I took everything and I went to the Crystal Heart,” she said.

The nighttime darkness ensured that nopony would see her but she remained in the shadow of a cloak all the same. Crystal spent many moments staring the Crystal Heart down, watching as it idly spun about its axis.

Bolts of blue magic swam about her horn and she even winced as an especially strong spark arced from the tip to the base.

“And when I got there… I gave in. I yielded myself and became the villain. And that point of weakness… it changed everything.”

Crystal aimed at the Crystal Heart and then unleashed a blast. The space beneath the castle lit up from the intense energies flowing between her horn and the Heart. And then, a few seconds later, her spell was done.

She could see her energies, now represented by greens and purples, swirling within the now tinted red Heart.

Crystal teetered for a moment and had to shake herself back into shape. She then examined the Heart, staring at it for long moments. Her expression eventually hardened and she nodded to herself before taking flight.

Crystal sniffled again. “I became my own antithesis; I became the very thing that had plagued me so. I betrayed myself and everything I stood for in every comprehensible way. And by the time I came to my senses and realized that I had made an absolutely awful mistake… it was too late. I couldn’t undo it.”

“Please… please…” Crystal cupped both of her forehooves together and said, “I am begging you to not fire off the Heart. There has to be another way.”

“Enough!” Cadance exclaimed as she threw a foreleg into the air. “Crystal Faire, you will return to the castle at once!”

“Mother!”

“That is an order!”

Cadance stumbled backward and eventually fell onto her haunches. Twilight, meanwhile, started hyperventilating.

Crystal hung her head and mumbled, “And I was prepared to pay for my mistake with my life. And so I went… I went to put a stop to what I had wrought.”

Crystal picked a spot just above the Crystal Empire’s top-most spire. She whirled around and stared down at the castle. Her expression was a study of horror.

The streets below began to glow. Crystal ponies everywhere bowed, allowing energy to circulate about. The glow spread across the city, accenting its snowflake-like layout. And then the glow retreated. There was a crackling, accompanied by a greenish glow in the space below the castle where the Heart rested.

Crystal sniffled, wiped some tears off her face, and then straightened up. Her expression firmed up and she, despite the redness in her face, looked like a regal princess.

The next moment, the entire castle glowed white as energy swam up its body. There was a brief flash of light at the tip of the castle and then a multicolored beam shot straight out of it.

The beam shot straight into Crystal’s chest. There was a twisting, a cracking, and then something very definitely exploded into an uncountable number of pieces.

Crystal raised a hoof and felt at her chest. The signs that anything had once struck there were now gone, but the alien sensations and the blinding pain that had once been came to her mind. It had been more than just the Crystal Heart’s magic; so too had it been her own.

She closed her eyes and took a long deep breath. “But I never could have fathomed what my true existence was. I meant to prevent Equestria from being destroyed. But it was destroyed anyhow… and so now is the multiverse… because of me… because of my moment of weakness.”

The world came to just enough for Crystal to discern the Crystal Empire underneath, the surrounding lands, and then the proverbial sea of infinitely tall towers that lay just beyond that.

Cadance screamed and crumpled to the ground. “Ohhhh! By the stars!”

Twilight flip-flopped between hyperventilating and wiping the tears from her eyes.

Crystal averted her gaze.

“Oh, by the stars!” Cadance cried. She then looked up, stood up, and ran straight up to Crystal and wrapped her into a hug. “Oh stars! I’m… so sorry!”

Crystal swallowed. “What are you sorry for?” she croaked.

Cadance pulled away but didn’t let go. “I… knew you were in a bad way, but I didn’t know that it was to that depth… I failed you as a mother, Crystal.”

Crystal swallowed but couldn’t get any words to form.

There was a pause before Cadance wiped the tears from her eyes and her expression tightened into a determined frown. “Please… let me make it up to you. Let me be a mother to you again like I always meant to be. I promise you, that if you stay here with me… I will make you happy, no matter what it takes.”

29 - Reflections II

Sunset Shimmer sailed through the space as fast as her willpower would go. But her foes, who had all been moving faster beforehand, slowly caught up. One tried to grab her hindleg and she kicked him away, sending him sailing into the crowd behind him. The crowd, however, parted around him and continued the chase.

And two more came to grab her this time, and while she succeeded to stave the first one off, the second managed to wrap her hand around Sunset’s hoof. Sunset yelped as the girl pulled her in, and she had no recourse but to flail and try placing hooves into her opponent’s face. Her opponent retaliated in kind with a few fists of her own.

More foes caught up and started pounding on her and Sunset lifted a hoof to her neck. Her world shrunk down to a point and back out and she landed on the metallic sphere again. The foes from before were gone, now far removed from where she had led them.

And new foes turned to meet her. Sunset dashed into them before they could wholly react, throwing many off balance. Those untouched came right for her and those disoriented regained their bearings and then came right for her.

Just keep them busy, just keep them busy… she thought.

She willed her body into a nearby debris field full of rocks and metallic rods and other larger bits. Sunset lit her horn to grab one of the metal rods with her magic but, again, no magic came out. She snorted and instead scooped it up as she flew by it.

No sooner than that did she whirl around to smack a human male, who had caught up to her, in the chest, sending him tumbling backward. More possessions closed in, and so she soared around a rock that had to be at least a few kilometers wide.

Just keep them busy…

* * *

A unicorn mare shot a magic beam at Starlight Glimmer which, given the other foes immediately around her, she had no choice but to take. It thankfully lacked any power, so it was discomforting at most. There were so many other sensations to sort through, including a pulling in what was probably one of her ribs, that she couldn’t bother herself with it.

Starlight groaned and glanced around, spotting many more foes pounding against the metal sphere. She tried to reach for her neck, but then a human male came and grabbed her from behind. She cried out and flailed about in his grasp.

And then another human slammed into the both of them, specifically the foe, while yelling out, “Get off her!”

The foe couldn’t keep his hold on Starlight and she reeled back. There, both she and her rescuer unleashed a series of punches and kicks that left the possession unconscious.

Starlight let out a long sigh and looked over at her rescuer. She noted his clean-cut hairdo and camouflage-patterned suit that covered him from head to toe.

Starlight nodded. “Thanks.”

He nodded. “You got whatever that was out of me, so I owe you one.”

Another foe, a pegasus mare, jumped on them at that moment and the two turned and drove fists and hooves into her face, knocking her over backward.

He frowned. “Weren’t all of you shooting with magic like you did with me?”

Starlight frowned. “We have no more magic. We’re all out. Sorry.”

The two heard a rapid series of loud bangs in the distance and whirled around. The bangs continued and a few more even joined in. Starlight simply raised an eyebrow; these sounds were new. Her friend, on the other hoof, frowned.

“It sounds like my friends are starting to fight without me,” he said as he grabbed an object that looked like a long and thin metal barrel attached to a handle out of a holster on his belt. “I should go back.”

Starlight nodded. “Go get them. I’ll be fine.”

The human smiled and nodded, willed his body away, and soon enough, he disappeared behind one of the towers.

She saw a white flash out of the corner of her eye and spotted Sunset reappearing on the supercomputer below her. Sunset dashed across its surface, sending several foes flying with the metal bar in her hooves.

Starlight tried to light her horn again, and little bits came out but not enough for a blast.

The pegasus mare from before came flying up at that moment and tackled her from behind. She couldn’t move her forelegs and her flailing did nothing. She had little recourse but to scream as the two barreled toward the metal surface.

And then they collided, and Starlight’s world turned back.

* * *

Chrysalis let herself fall into the sand. Several unconscious bodies around her, all of whom looked faded, lay strewn about nearby. Chrysalis herself looked wholesome and felt just the same.

And she was out of breath. There were no more foes to deal with; she had expelled Miasmus from them. She could feel her joints creaking and her muscles aching. She reached up to her neck and then paused, thought over it, and put her hoof back down. She needed a rest.

She rolled onto her back and watched the seagulls draw idle circles in the sky. Her ears picked up the mixture of caws and watery crashes. She lay too far up the shore for the waves to reach her and that was fine by her.

She looked at the unconscious bodies around her. None of them presently moved. And there were no foes appearing out of thin air for her to fight.

I could just remain here for a while if I wanted, Chrysalis thought. Ah, what a nice long rest this would make. No foes to worry about. I could regain my strength here.

She frowned. She could imagine Starlight and Sunset against multiple foes. She could imagine those foes overwhelming them.

If they aren’t already out of magic, they will be soon, she thought. And they won’t last long then. There are just too many.

Chrysalis cracked a joint in her neck and closed her eyes. Nope. They won’t last long at all.

She lay there in silence for several moments, content to listen to the to and fro of crashing waves. She listened to their rhythm as her body regained its bearings.

After a while, she could hear little voices in her head. Those voices sounded like the others. They echoed so much that she couldn’t readily tell what they were saying, but it sounded like they were calling her name.

Memories stirred of a moment in her former life of the changeling that had bested her. She thought of the ponies that had supported him.

A sudden thought struck her and her eyes popped open. I could… maybe give them some of my magic. I have some to spare. That would get them going again. I am sure they would appreciate that.

Chrysalis let that thought simmer and then she snickered. She chortled and laughed with all her breath. She wiped some tears from her eyes and thought aloud, “I can’t believe I’m even considering it! That’s rich!”

But the little voices in her head didn’t go away. They persisted.

Her laughter died away and so too did her smile. “Go back? Help them? That’s… ridiculous.”

The thought, nonetheless, persisted still.

And Chrysalis frowned and squirmed uncomfortably in the sand.

* * *

Starlight’s vision slowly came to and she realized a lack of ponies or humans or anything else pummeling her. Her whole body still hurt but at least it wasn’t, for the moment, getting more hurt.

And then she looked up to see Sunset standing over her with a metal bar in her hooves. Sunset swung it through thin air a couple of times and then growled.

Their foes leered at them from a distance. They made no moves to attack just yet.

Starlight could see various bruises on Sunset’s body, bruises she was sure were present on her own body. From the way Sunset panted and from the slight wobble in her stance, Sunset wouldn’t last long either.

And then it would be game over.

She thought about double tapping her neck to go to the Crystal Heart—to safety. But then she glanced at the various dents in the supercomputer’s surface. She wasn’t even sure if it had taken too much damage already.

If I don’t defend it… they will give it too much damage. But if I do… I will take too much damage. Starlight cringed. And I’m running out of options!

Oh stars… what do I do!?

And then, in an airy pop, Chrysalis appeared directly above them. Chrysalis surveyed her foes and then let off a volley of shots that blasted them away, garnering particles in the process.

Sunset teetered and collapsed.

“Chrysalis!” Starlight cried. “You’re okay!”

Chrysalis, after taking a moment to confirm that there were no immediate foes, turned toward them. She stared at them, even.

Sunset gasped. “We’re all out. You’re all that’s left….”

After a moment, Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and turned to fully face them. “Then hold still. I’ll make this quick.”

Starlight frowned. “What are you—?”

Chrysalis curled up. A heart-shaped glow appeared in her chest and grew brighter and brighter with every passing instant. And then Chrysalis exploded, sending waves of energy barreling into Starlight and Sunset.

Sunset, for her part, flinched. Starlight, however, had seen this before. But was it really happening?

The energy hit them but it didn’t hurt at all. In fact, Starlight could feel the energy streaming into and coursing through every part of her body like a river. The pain in her sides petered out (although she could still feel some traces). She found the strength to climb to her hooves.

Sunset similarly stood up. She examined herself and nodded in approval.

They both looked up as a white light enveloped Chrysalis. It grew to such intensity that they had to shield their eyes. When the light died down, Starlight and Sunset looked again and gasped.

Chrysalis was still there, but she looked different in several ways. She had the same black body from before but it had a noticeable sheen to it. Her mane and tail, once with uneven strands and several holes, was now smooth, sleek, and whole. Her wings now resembled those of a butterfly in shape but retained the clear greenish color from before. Her horn was now nice and pointed and finely curved.

And Starlight couldn’t help but punch the air. “Yes!”

Sunset also grinned from ear to ear.

Chrysalis looked her now-wholesome body up and down and then held one of her hooves in front of her face—said hoof was also whole with no traces that there had even been any holes in it. And she snorted. “It would seem that buffoon Thorax was onto something.”

Starlight spotted an earth stallion flying in for a tackle and then gasped and pointed, “Look out!”

Sunset, however, simply lit her horn and shot a blast at the stallion. He went tumbling away as many particles sprayed everywhere.

Sunset made a cooing sound and reached up to touch her horn.

Chrysalis smirked and then traced the stallion’s path back to where she found some more foes. At that, she whirled around. “Get up!” she commanded. “We still have work to do!”

Sunset nodded and willed her body to move upward to meet Chrysalis with Starlight close behind. “We’re right here with you!”

The three of them exchanged nods and turned to face the oncoming possessions.

Come on Crystal, Twilight, Starlight thought. We got a second wind, but it’s not going to last forever! Please hurry!

* * *

Twilight Sparkle started fidgeting and could not keep her thoughts inside any longer. She raced up to Crystal Faire and put a hoof on her withers. “Crystal, we have to get Miasmus.”

Crystal swallowed and turned to face her.

“I’m sure the others are still fighting his possessions right now,” Twilight continued. “They’re counting on us. We need to get him and take him back.”

After a moment, Crystal’s expression tightened up and she turned to face Cadance. “Where is Miasmus, Mother?”

Cadance shook her head. “Crystal, you need to stay here. You can’t go back to the miserable life you’ve been living.”

Twilight stamped her hooves. “Cadance! The multiverse! We need Miasmus to save it!”

Cadance stared Twilight down and said, through her teeth, “I know that.”

A long moment of silence passed. Crystal hung her head and sighed and paced in place for a few moments.

And then she nodded to herself and her expression turned into a determined frown. She approached Cadance and took a seat in front of her. Crystal took one of Cadance’s hooves in her own and looked her in the eyes. “Mother…” she began.

Cadance tilted her head and frowned.

Crystal sighed. “If… If I promise to do what I must to live a happy, fulfilling life… will you return Miasmus to us?”

Twilight’s heart sank and she sprang forward. “What?”

Cadance’s muzzle twitched and then she too took a seat and took Crystal’s hooves in kind. “Promise me. I want you to promise me. Right now!”

Crystal sucked in a breath and nodded. “Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” she said, performing all the motions as she went.

No… No! Twilight wobbled in place. She wanted to get in between them and push them apart. She wanted to do something. For the moment, she held her breath and looked at them, trying to gauge their faces.

Cadance stared at Crystal for a few moments more, flashed a quick glance at Twilight, and then nodded. “Miasmus is in your room, Crystal.”

Crystal nodded and looked over at Twilight. “The nursery, Twilight. Go get him.”

“Crystal!” Twilight exclaimed, stamping her hoof. “You can’t do this!”

Crystal whirled to face Twilight. “Go get Miasmus right now, Twilight!” she barked.

Twilight backpedaled. Her eyes darted between Crystal and Cadance, but when she garnered nothing more from them, she turned and ran. She ran out the door and into the hall.

She could see her own grimace in the crystalline pillars that lined the halls. She could feel sweat running down her face and she could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest. She rounded a few corners and then arrived at a pair of double doors, each of which had a heart symbol on their fronts.

She hesitated. Darnit, Crystal!

She threw the doors open. The room hosted a gold-knobbed bed and a lacquered dresser and desk set. The walls were a plain cerise color, broken only by the occasional crystal pillar. It was the room she expected it to be.

And her blood ran cold when she saw the entity sitting on top of the bed. Miasmus’ blob-like form practically sunk into the mattress. He didn’t so much as stir at her entrance. Yet Twilight couldn’t compel herself to approach.

* * *

The faded Crystal Heart still sat in the center of the Cutie Map. The room still lay relatively quiet. The Heart was nearly gone now. Whether it was a matter of hours, minutes, or even seconds was a guess at most.

The energies inside still swirled about like before and still pulsated at frequent intervals. It held on.

* * *

Starlight fired off a few more shots, staving off would-be attackers. Their attackers went sailing across the expanse, spraying particles as they went. Sunset and Chrysalis floated right beside her, launching attacks of their own.

The foes kept coming without end. The supercomputer floated in place behind them with its rear floating right next to one of the towers.

She spotted a couple more foes trying to flank from her left, and she willed her body to move in their direction, making sure to keep as close to the sphere as she could. She lined up her shots and then let off a volley which hit all her targets but one.

The last, an earth pony stallion, closed in on her too quickly and slammed into the side of the supercomputer. He bounced off it, with the force of the impact knocking him unconscious. As he floated away, Starlight took the opportunity to shoot him as well, garnering particles for her effort.

She checked the spot where he had hit and shuddered. She could see a depression in its surface. The stallion had left another dent in it.

She could hear Sunset and Chrysalis taking more shots from past the sphere’s horizon and she looked up to see blasts hitting targets above. And there were yet more on the way.

Starlight swore under her breath and arced back to them in order to help stave off the incoming onslaught.

* * *

Crystal continued cradling her mother’s hooves. She continued staring into her mother’s eyes. And Cadance did the same in kind.

The two of them turned when Twilight stumbled into the room, levitating Miasmus’ limp form behind her. She slung the blob onto the floor and he jiggled as he landed. Twilight then fell to her haunches. “I have him. I have him right here…”

Cadance narrowed her eyes. “Then, Twilight, you should take him and go. Go save reality.”

Crystal said nothing. She only watched in silence.

Twilight turned her attention to Crystal and frowned. “I’m not leaving you here.”

Crystal sighed and turned away from the both of them.

Cadance shook her head. “It looks like you’ll just have to. You have to return Miasmus to your spell somehow, don’t you?”

“Y-yes, but…” Twilight sighed exasperatedly. “I-I don’t… I can’t! I don’t even know the way back. I’d get lost!”

“Or worse, ambushed,” Crystal added.

“I can have an escort arranged for you, Twilight. They’ll know the way,” Cadance said with a firm tone. “I promise that they’ll keep you safe.”

Crystal turned and held up a hoof to them. “That won’t be necessary. I can just tap into the teleportation network that I set up between us, the Heart, and the spell. I can send Miasmus straight to our supercomputer where the others can pick him up, put him inside, and activate it. It’ll be quick, and it’ll be safe.”

Cadance’s eyes went wide and she nodded. “Oh! That’s convenient. You’re as smart as a whip.”

Crystal turned to Twilight. “So don’t worry about getting back. You have the spell for that.”

Twilight stomped her feet. Her eyes were full of tears. “Crystal, listen! If you stay here… What about the timelines out there that still need help? What about… our friends?” She pointed to herself and added, “What about me?”

“Twilight…”

Twilight zoomed up to Crystal, coming nearly muzzle-to-muzzle at that. She pointed at Crystal and croaked, “You can’t stay here.”

“I know.”

“I couldn’t bear the thought of losing you after everything we’ve been through, and—” Twilight blinked as her next words died in her throat. “Wait… what?”

“I know, Twilight.”

Cadance looked red in the face as her frown grew deeper. “Crystal… you just said…”

Crystal stood to her full height, even unfurling her large wings. “My words were very exact… I will have a happy and fulfilling life, but that life is not one that I will ever find staying here.”

Now it was Cadance’s turn to fall to her haunches. Every fiber of her body trembled, and with the way she gasped, it looked like she was trying to find some semblance of breath again. “I… don’t understand…”

Crystal sighed and leaned forward. “Mother… I’ve wrestled with this so much, and no matter how I look at it… leaving anything out here is… it’s a liability. I don’t know how many timelines have collapsed because they’ve been shredded by debris… by what is out here… and I can’t.”

Cadance frowned.

“And I have to clean my messes,” Crystal continued. “I know I could oversee it myself if I was out here, but if I am here… then I could no longer do service to the countless realities out there that still need help.” She bent down in front of Cadance and continued, at a lower tone, “It’s my duty, Mother. I was born a princess; I was born to serve.”

Twilight frowned and then bent over Miasmus, checking for any signs of movement. She kept the two in the corner of her eye.

“Crystal…” Cadance wheezed. “You’ve never been happy with this life. Never truly.”

Crystal shook her head. “No. I learned to stop feeling, and I kept my distance from everypony. I know I’ve mastered the power since then, but in doing so, I forgot how to live.”

She hung her head and thought for several long moments. There were so many words she wanted to say. There were so many versions of the same things.

Cadance shifted in place and leaned toward Crystal. “Then let me help you. Please… This is what you’ve wanted.”

Crystal folded her hooves together. “Don’t get me wrong; it has been good to be here again. I’ve found… reconciliation. But, after everything that’s happened to me in these past few weeks… to me, to Twilight, to the others… After what we’ve experienced together…” She took a moment to glance out the window where she could see the endless expanse of towers beyond the city. She imagined the others out there.

She met Twilight’s eyes, and Twilight nodded affirmatively.

And Crystal sucked in a breath and looked Cadance in the eyes. “I’m changed. I’m changed, Mother. And I’ve realized that I can’t keep living in the past as I have. I can’t keep living hoping to go back to where I once was. I have to look forward. I have to make a new future, and that future… isn’t here.”

Cadance’s eyes went wide.

“I think I just have to accept a simple truth…” Crystal said in a near whisper. “That being here… with you… it’s not what I want anymore.”

Cadance shot to her hooves, and after a moment of staring at Crystal with dropped-jaw shock, she wrapped her magic around Miasmus and tried to yank him away.

And Twilight managed to catch him in her own magic and she pulled back. Miasmus hung in the middle as they each tried to wrest him from the other’s magical grasp.

“Ack! Let go, Twilight!” Cadance cried.

“No!” Twilight shouted back.

Crystal gasped and then sprang forward, simultaneously lighting her horn. She dove at Miasmus and sent the energy in her horn into his body and, in a flash of light, Miasmus disappeared. She then tumbled to the floor and eventually stuck the landing.

Twilight and Cadance both gasped and reeled in surprise.

“Crystal!” Twilight exclaimed.

Cadance regained her balance and examined the air where Miasmus had once been. Her features darkened and she gave Crystal a hardened glare. “What… what did you just do?”

“I just sent Miasmus to the supercomputer just like I said I would,” Crystal said.

Cadance opened her mouth to speak, closed it, and then opened it again. Her face grew increasingly red and her whole body shuddered more and more. “How… how dare…”

Crystal climbed back to her hooves and intently watched Cadance’s every move.

“How dare you! Crystal! How… how could you!?”

Crystal shook her head. “I’ve made my decision.”

Cadance stamped her hoof and lit her horn. “I will not stand for this. I will not! Guards!”

A collection of hoofsteps scrambled closer and then a half-dozen crystal guards dashed in. They took up rank right behind Cadance and joined her in staring them down.

Twilight lit her horn in response and pointed it at Cadance. “It’s done! It’s over! She’s made her choice!”

“No! I can still stop you!” Cadance screamed. “I have my ways of getting around. I could have him back here in seconds.”

“I would be very unhappy if you tried to stop us now,” Crystal countered.

Cadance flinched. She then ground her teeth together and tried to form words with her mouth but only managed to incoherently groan.

Crystal stood at her full height, spreading her large wings again. Energy coursed through her horn and, for a moment, she glowed. “It is done. It is over. I have chosen to save the multiverse and I have chosen to remain in it with them. You will respect it.”

30 - Reflections III

Chrysalis let loose another blast which barreled right into another foe. There were still a countless number of them coming by the droves from every conceivable direction. She could feel her horn starting to ache and her muscles groaned with every shot she took.

Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer, who blasted opponents right beside her, wiped beads of sweat off their brows.

The supercomputer lay behind them. It was thankfully still whole.

But something was going to give; the foes would eventually run out or they would run out themselves.

“I’m starting to lose my faith that they will find him,” Chrysalis thought aloud.

Her two companions only groaned in response and continued making more shots.

She heard a light, airy pop from behind her and she glanced back. There was a dark blue blob sitting on the metal sphere’s surface.

“Oh my,” she cooed.

The others turned and saw the blobby form as well and made similar sounds.

“Is that him!?” Starlight asked.

In a single instant, the possessions started screaming and crying out and then they all practically dove at them wholesale. They could tell right away that they were actually diving for the blob.

Sunset shot at a few of them while backing into the surface. “That’s got to be him! They found him!”

Finally! Chrysalis thought as she let off some shots of her own.

Sunset channeled a good deal of energy into her horn and made a barrier that surrounded the four of them, the boundary of which met the metal sphere’s surface. “Okay! I’ll protect us! You focus on getting him into that thing!”

Starlight landed right beside Miasmus, quickly examined him, and threw up a “Got it!”

Chrysalis landed on Miasmus’ other side. “We still have to make the adjustments to the spell, do we not?” she asked.

Starlight nodded. “The hole is that way. We should rotate the supercomputer that way.”

A few foes slammed into Sunset’s barrier, but with the amount of magic that she was putting into it, it held. The foes behind them ran into their backsides and prevented those in the front from pulling away for more hits.

Starlight and Chrysalis glanced up and then wrapped their magic around the sphere. They rolled it over, noting its shiny surfaces and internal leylines as it rotated underneath them. Eventually, it rolled over enough where they could see the part of its surface which contained large circular lights and a small, circular opening in the side.

“There it is,” Chrysalis said.

The both of them used their magic to stop the rotation. While Starlight lit her horn and shot some beams into the hole, Chrysalis kept a close eye on Miasmus and watched for any changes.

Sunset ran her eyes over every bit of her shield. She spotted a crack on the side and funneled more energy into her barrier spell, using it to make the crack go away. She ran her eyes over the many faces pressed against its surface. She watched the foes still coming in.

A few more humans floated in the distance, but they did nothing for a few moments but stare. And then their eyes fell on Miasmus, and they gasped and exchanged glances.

“Is that him!?” one of them called out.

“It’s him!” Sunset exclaimed.

Starlight glanced up and spotted them. “Keep these things off us! We’re almost there!”

The humans exchanged glances again, nodded, and then charged. They latched onto some of the foes and pried them off. The detached foes ignored their assailants and continued trying and failing to get through the barrier.

Chrysalis frowned. “Seems like they are very one-track…” she thought aloud.

Starlight shook her head and shot more magic into the metal sphere. The sphere responded with a wave of light that propagated through previously invisible leylines within its surface. She shot a few more spells into it, garnering similar results every time.

Miasmus’ blobby form stirred.

Eventually, Starlight nodded and turned to Chrysalis. “It’s done.”

Chrysalis nodded vacantly, opting to keep her focus on Miasmus. She watched as his body swished, and as it happened with increasing vigor, she narrowed her eyes. “Oh no.”

Sunset whirled around. “What!?”

And then Miasmus’ form lashed out, slapping them with several tendrils which sent them twirling. And all at once, the possessions collectively screamed.

Starlight couldn’t keep her focus and her barrier faded out. Some of the possessions that had been pressed against it started to float in their direction. She didn’t notice as she had to cover her ears to block out the sound.

Starlight similarly had to cover her ears and narrowed her gaze on Miasmus. Chrysalis merely winced under the noise while keeping her attention on him.

“You sub-level filth!” the possessions screamed. “You abysmally impudent insects! I will squash you like the bugs that you are!” The possessions surged forward, rapidly closing the gap.

Sunset let off a barrage of shots into the crowd, gaining several more pained screams in the process.

“I don’t think so!” Chrysalis growled as she threw a few shots of her own.

Starlight lit her horn and joined in as well. Between their combined attacks, they locked the possessions into a cycle of pain as they picked them off one by one.

Miasmus’ blobby form recoiled and then tried to lash out again. Chrysalis parried one of his tendrils and then shot a beam that hit square in the middle of his blobby form.

And there were several long moments where the possessions did nothing.

With the moment’s reprieve, Chrysalis whirled to face Starlight again. “Quickly!” she barked. “Put him in!”

Starlight nodded and wrapped her magic around his form. She then pressed him against the hole in the face of the machine, and with a squeeze, she managed to feed his blobby body into it. The process was slow, and there was even a moment where he lashed out again; Chrysalis parried that too.

Sunset threw up a few shots and then flinched when the remaining possessions flipped over to face them with burning scowls and red faces.

“No!” they thundered as a few charged again. “I will not be made into your toy! Unhoof me now!”

Chrysalis willed her body to move upward where she joined Sunset. The two of them took shots at every foe that they could lay their eyes on. The humans that had once been trying to pry off attackers were now doing various things to distract and otherwise throw the possessions off balance.

“You’ve made your bed, Miasmus. Now, lie in it!” Chrysalis thundered.

The last bits of Miasmus’ body disappeared into the supercomputer and it, in turn, gave a hum. The leylines that circled its surface flashed once.

Starlight glanced up at them. “It’s ready to go!” she called out.

A few of the remaining capable possessions gasped. “Curse you!” they screamed. “Curse you to Tartarus!”

Chrysalis threw her head back and guffawed at him (or, rather, his possessions). And with a sneer, she said, “And for the record, dear, I’m going to enjoy watching your last moments.”

Sunset whirled to face Starlight. “Do it! Do it now!”

Starlight nodded and looked down at the lit circles immediately around the hole. One tap was all it took. The supercomputer hummed to life as lights all over its surface began to flicker.

* * *

Crystal Faire stood her ground. Twilight Sparkle stood right beside her with her wings similarly stretched to their full length and with her horn similarly lit.

Cadance mirrored them in just about every way. Her crystal guards stood right by her.

Nopony moved. Nopony spoke. Eyes flicked between one pony and the next, all watching for signs of intent or other tells.

Her mind’s eye could see everything. Crystal had to tell herself not to look at the infinities of timelines. There were just too many. And that right in front of her needed her attention more.

And yet she was waiting on what was not in front of her. She was waiting for something that she couldn’t see.

Her lip twitched. She knew they could do it. She knew they would do it.

A shiver ran down her spine, and she swiftly realized that the shiver had happened on its own. It was only when her mind’s eye began pulling and distorting and twisting every which way that she realized what had happened. She could see timelines disappearing one by one although that meant nothing when there were uncountably many. She could feel currents, now familiar to her, running through her entire body, and she couldn’t help but shudder against their pull.

And Cadance couldn’t help but gasp. “Crystal!?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “The spell… The spell!”

Crystal nodded and kept her mental eyes on the process. Now a few dozen timelines disappeared from her mind’s eye at a time, and then a hundred, and then a thousand. The pace in which they disappeared rapidly picked up, and soon enough, Crystal could no longer guess how many were disappearing in the span of a second.

Her internal vision shifted around and continued to pull, effects which manifested in more bodily convulsions. Entire sets of timelines, infinitely big, disappeared in a flash. More and more and more left her vision.

The disappearances quit and then Crystal could feel the currents in her body change. They flowed in different directions now. She could feel her essence reaching across the expanse. She could feel her power wrapping itself around just about everything that it could find; she felt the power grabbing light posts and windowsills and floating chunks of rock and everything in between. She felt it reach near and then reach further and further out and she eventually felt it reaching to distances incomprehensible.

And then she felt a sharp sensation throughout her body that she couldn’t ignore. She could feel something at a distance tapping into her travel power; she could guess what that something was. Spasms wreaked havoc on her body and she could do nothing to prevent them. Her only recourse was to complicitly yelp and keel over.

And the others standing in the room gave an assortment of pointed cries and exclamations in response.

* * *

Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis whirled as the lights in the supercomputer slowed down and glowed a solid color before fading out altogether. And then they spotted bits and pieces of the metallic sphere seemingly dissolving. The process was sporadic and somewhat slow, but a good portion of the sphere was gone within the first few seconds alone.

Starlight turned her gaze back to the possessions who all now wriggled and writhed above them. Some even cried out in agony.

Her two companions watched from above her position.

The possessions all turned at once and, after kicking the humans away, they all charged at the same time, letting out feral screams all the while. Starlight steeled herself and let off a few shots. Sunset and Chrysalis did the same.

But there were too many coming at once this time. Surely this would be it.

And then those at the front of the pack suddenly and instantaneously vanished amidst loud (but not deafening) bangs. The wave of disappearances swept toward the back of the crowd and, as it propagated, the possessions’ faces grew increasingly pale and their wide-eyed expressions grew and grew. Finally, the last of the immediate set of possessions disappeared with a long and eternal “Nooooooooooo!”

The wave of disappearances didn’t stop there as the human allies suddenly disappeared amidst loud bangs; they all wore smiles the whole while. Several chunks of floating rock beyond them also vanished. Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis looked across the expanse and saw more and more debris steadily disappearing.

A few nearby towers instantaneously transformed. Their lower halves turned shiny and semi-crystallized while everything above those points turned into something that was almost crystallized but not quite there. There were probably tiny, crystallized slivers where the two parts met.

Starlight sucked in a breath and turned her attention to a tower not too far away; said tower was spewing out chunks just as it had the moment they had left it. The chunks that had just come off it disappeared as well. The remains of that tower instantaneously crystallized, simultaneously jettisoning large amounts of debris which just as quickly disappeared.

And she watched in silence as everything unfolded around them.

* * *

The throne room still enjoyed relative silence. The Crystal Heart, now just shy of entirely gone, still lay on its lonesome on the center of the table.

And then, amidst a loud bang, a small, metallic object fell from the immediate space above it. It clinked against the Crystal Heart and rolled a small distance across the Cutie Map’s surface before it came to a stop. The object in question was a small sphere that couldn’t have been larger than an apple, but the yellow light that it gave off bathed the entire room.

* * *

Twilight felt the entire castle shudder underneath her hooves and she had to fight to keep her balance. Her eyes still flicked between Crystal and Cadance, but with every pained gasp that the former made, Twilight felt her attention drawn to Crystal even more.

And Crystal, who still convulsed, now floated in the air. Cadance stood there completely mesmerized by the way Crystal moved. Nearly all the color had disappeared from her face at this point. Her guards made token attempts to approach, but sudden convulsions convinced them to step back again.

And then Crystal let out a mighty roar and her body started to glow. The next moment, her eyes flew open, and instead of her usual opals, they were a glowing-hot white. Little particles of energy came off her and bolts of magical energy arced across her body. Even her long and curly mane and tail glistened and radiated energy as unfathomable amounts of magic flowed through even those.

Now Crystal’s screams were deafening. Before anypony could truly react, however, the whole castle rumbled. Bits and pieces of the wall started dissolving. The remaining parts of the structure recoiled.

The guards all cried out and moved in random directions with some even trying for Crystal. They too suddenly disappeared amidst loud bangs. Supports snapped and rebounded, the bookshelf shattered into several pieces before disappearing too, while cracks spread across the windows and even the floor itself.

Cadance whirled around and watched as the castle disappeared around her. She gave a terrified scream and fell to her knees.

Twilight’s own heart pounded as she watched everything around them tear itself apart.

* * *

Equestria’s blue skies hosted the occasional clouds but it was otherwise undisturbed. A slight wind blew the grass which showed itself as shiny waves that traveled across the plain.

A mountain range lay on one side of the plain. A large pile of rubble lay at its base. Much of it was dirt but there were chunks of white stone and glass shards. A few pieces of golden roofing sat here and there. There was a hole further up the mountain face where the city had evidently once perched.

A series of loud bangs polluted the air and new pieces of debris appeared in droves. They were little chunks of rock and steel and dust but some more complex structures like toys and tools appeared, all of them faded to a degree. The earth rumbled and roared as several large chunks of land exploded, sending dirt in every direction. Some of the airborne pieces of debris likewise exploded as more material appeared and tried and failed to occupy the same space.

In short order, debris filled the entire sky with little room left over. The mountain range exploded into more pieces than could be counted. The ground continued to tear itself apart and then, in short order, red-hot lava spewed out of the ground with some jets reaching many kilometers into the air; said jets melted everything in its path.

And the bedlam continued with no foreseeable end.

* * *

Sunset kept an eye on one of the timelines that had just turned somewhat crystalline. She could see little debris fields between herself and it slowly evaporating. The area immediately around the three of them was fully vacated now, leaving them alone with the towers.

And then, within instants, the tower that she had been tracking rapidly changed; layers of the tower above those semi-crystallized sections started to fully crystallize and did so at a rapid pace. The crystallization shot up the height of the tower, and she couldn’t help but follow it with her eyes and even willed her body after it knowing she could never catch up with it.

She saw a timeline that wasn’t far away from it moving about. The moving timeline inched closer and closer, and right as the two timelines connected, the crystallization beat it there and the moving timeline bounced harmlessly off it. The tower swayed back at a much slower velocity than before. In fact, its sway was slowing down even more as well.

Sunset nodded. “It’s working! The spell is working!” she shouted.

Starlight nodded and took one last look around. “Then we’re done here! Let’s get out of here right now!”

Chrysalis didn’t even give a reply. Instead, she reached up and touched her neck twice in quick succession. A white light engulfed her and then she was gone.

Starlight stared at the spot where Chrysalis had once been and then looked up at Sunset and nodded. She too tapped her neck twice and, the next moment, she was gone as well.

Sunset cracked her neck and spent a few moments more watching as the expanse continued to vacate and crystallize. She looked in the direction in which she thought Crystal and Twilight had flown off to and narrowed her eyes. Stay safe…

She touched her own neck twice and her reality shrunk down to a single point.

* * *

Every nerve in Crystal’s body screamed in agony as the spell had its way with her. She couldn’t find the willpower to stop her own screams. She couldn’t even focus on what was going on around her.

That wasn’t true; she knew that Twilight and Cadance were there.

The Crystal Castle was a mere skeleton now. Those parts that remained were twisted in odd shapes and they still continued to disappear piece by piece. The floor was in shambles and then it disappeared altogether, leaving the three floating there.

The rest of the city was equally dissolved. Houses were half-gone and the streets existed only in parts. The crystallized tower underneath now lay exposed underneath the remaining bits of dirt. There were some lamp posts and bushes that went flying into the air only to disappear seconds later.

And Cadance, who saw all of it, screamed again.

The city continued dissolving until all the streets were gone. Bits of the palace still remained but that soon dissolved as well. The last little bit that remained was the Crystal Heart that floated below their position, which persisted for a few seconds longer before it invariably disappeared.

The stinging sensations started to die down and Crystal found some of her functions returning. She tilted her head to looked down at her mother.

Tears streamed down Cadance’s face as she surveyed the exposed timeline, their timeline, underneath. She looked like every bit of life had been knocked out of her. A few of her hairs split down the middle and she eventually sighed and hung her head.

Crystal twisted her head to look over at Twilight. Twilight, at the moment, gauged Cadance’s reaction (or lack thereof) and frowned. She then looked up at Crystal and solemnly nodded. Twilight floated over next to Crystal while wrapping her magic around Cadance and pulling her close as well.

Crystal used the few bits of willpower that she had to wrap her essence around the both of them in return.

She took one last look at the towers that stretched to infinity. She drank in the sight and etched them into her mind. This was a place she would never come back to. That much was a certainty.

Her mental vision, much like all her other senses, was a haze, and she fought to find the timeline that she wanted. Said timeline had many crystallized bits here and there and it was currently crystallizing even more.

It was a familiar timeline. And, for some, it was a home. It was a place to go back to. That much was a certainty.

Crystal touched the timeline with her mind’s eye and the world folded together. She was but a consciousness, but she could still feel strains and pulls of the power even in this state.

And then the world folded back out and Crystal, Twilight, and a very faded Cadance landed on top of the Map with a thud. Its cold, smooth surface greeted them before they could even prepare for it.

Crystal lay there. Her senses continued returning bit by bit and the stinging sensations faded as well. She found enough capacity to lift her head and look around the room.

Starlight sat slumped against the doorway. She breathed in and out and even massaged her horn for a bit. Chrysalis stood in another corner of the room, similarly panting for breath. Sunset, who lay on the floor, looked up to register their presence and sighed in relief.

With the way that Cadance lay on the Map, her mane obscured her expression. She made no attempts to move.

Crystal met Twilight’s eyes as Twilight looked up as well. Twilight wobbled about but she eventually smiled.

The ghostly image of the Crystal Heart in the center of the table chose that moment to disappear altogether. The only other effect on the table was the glowing yellow ball that sat beside it.

And the glow subsided and, with it, the sensations that had plagued Crystal also went away. She groaned and looked at existence with her mind’s eye. She idly scanned it for anything that was out of place. She looked for signs of movement, she looked for signs of holes. Her scan was cursory, but she found neither.

The remaining timelines were silent, still, and wholesome.

A smile graced her face and she let her head hit the Map again. It’s… done. We’ve saved existence.

31 - Absolution

The throne room was quiet. A long time passed before any of the occupants moved.

Crystal Faire’s entire body ached. Parts of her felt stiff and, for the first time in a long while, she was partly afraid to move them. In all the times before, she could feel energies swirling about her body. Those energies were those she had appropriated and subsequently strengthened over the many years. Now she couldn’t feel any of them. It felt like a part of herself had gone missing.

For a few fleeting moments, she wondered if she even had any strength left over to just stand up. She wondered if her body would comply if she tried.

She groaned and lifted her head as some figures appeared in the doorway. Spike stood at the front of the pack. Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Fluttershy stood behind him. Hairs and scales stood on end as they quickly glanced around the room.

Starlight Glimmer, still panting for breath, waved up at them. The six arrivals regarded her and visibly loosened up before exchanging relieved smiles. And then they regarded Chrysalis across the way and their smiles faded.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and turned her attention to the three ponies still on the Map.

Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, smiled. She then glanced down and levitated the small, metal sphere up to her face. She hopped off the Map and examined it the object closely, watching for any lingering energies. She then turned to face Crystal again.

And Crystal nodded in response which prompted Twilight to don a wide grin. Starlight and Chrysalis also grinned but to lesser degrees. And Sunset Shimmer, still on the floor, pumped a hoof into the air.

A few sniffles rose up and everypony turned. Cadance, who still lay on the Map, shook like a leaf in the wind. She was very faded already but she visibly faded even more with every second that passed.

A few drops of water splashed on the table directly underneath Cadance’s muzzle. “Crystal…” she croaked.

Crystal sucked in a breath. “M… mother?”

Cadance climbed to her hooves whilst choking on her sobs. “I don’t… understand.” She finally looked up, revealing the water that clouded her eyes and ran down her face. “Why…?”

Everyone else in the room frowned.

Crystal focused every bit of her willpower on making her legs move. She bent them in and found some footing and then lifted herself off the table’s surface.

“Why would you choose to be here? Why would you choose this?” Cadance sobbed.

Crystal frowned. The words that she wanted didn’t come immediately to her. She gazed at Cadance for long moments as she inwardly searched for what she wanted to say. She turned toward Twilight, Starlight, Sunset, and Chrysalis, and continued to think all the while. “Because this is where they are,” Crystal eventually wheezed in kind.

Cadance’s eyes went wide and she considered the other four as well.

Crystal glued her eyes to the table because, at the moment, she couldn’t bear to see Cadance’s wet face. “I spent so long… when you travel from timeline to timeline like I did… You see the same ponies over and over and over again and they never see you twice. They lost all meaning to me and… I gave up on trying to mean anything to them.

“But they…” Crystal said as she looked at her companions again, “they’ve been with me through all of this. We’ve all been together every step of the way. They’ve taught me so much over these past few weeks; they’ve taught me things about myself that I could never have imagined.” Crystal chuckled. “They’ve given me reasons to smile, and they’ve given me reasons to hope… And they’ve come to be ponies whom I can depend on and trust…”

She turned to Twilight, in particular, and smiled. “I know that there are no other ponies like them. They mean something to me. And, I think, I mean something to them too.”

Twilight blushed and smiled in return.

Sunset rolled over and stood up before trotting toward the table. Starlight similarly hopped to her hooves and gravitated to Twilight.

Cadance sniffled and then reached up to wipe some tears from her eyes. Her sobs turned to mere whimpers.

Crystal sheepishly kicked the table as she tried to find her next words. “Through them, I’ve realized that I don’t have to be alone anymore. I don’t have to do everything all by myself anymore. I don’t have to be afraid. And through them...” She trailed off as her eyes ran over the others. “Through them, I’ve realized something else. They’ve… given me back the one thing that I’ve been missing in my life. They’ve given me back that which I really needed… that thing you wanted me to go out and find, and the one thing I was so utterly incomplete without. They’ve given me friendship.”

Twilight glanced over to Starlight as she came to a stop next to her and the two exchanged warm grins.

Spike, who still stood in the doorway with the others, crossed his arms and nodded.

Crystal munched on her next words for several moments and then met Cadance’s eyes. “I suppose what I’m trying to say… is that I chose to be here because they are my friends. And they… they make me happy.”

Sunset hung a foreleg around Chrysalis’ withers. Chrysalis’ expression remained unchanged and the only reaction she had was a quick buzzing of her butterfly-like wings; she did not shy away but she didn’t lean into Sunset either.

The five standing in the doorway with Spike exchanged some light-hearted chuckles and all wrapped their forelegs around each other.

Cadance, who now looked almost entirely see-through, blinked. The only sounds that she made now were the occasional sniffle. She stared at Crystal for an eternity. Her flickering eyes told of thoughts that could only be guessed at.

“Crystal…” she tentatively croaked. She continued staring into Crystal’s eyes all the while. And then she sighed through her nose and let her features soften. “All I’ve ever wanted for you was for you to be happy.”

Crystal swallowed but said nothing.

Cadance stepped forward until she met Crystal in the center of the table. She then reached up and stroked Crystal’s cheek and finally cracked a smile. “And… if you’re happy... then I’m happy.”

Crystal couldn’t stop her own tears from falling as she reached up and caressed her mother’s hoof. And she leaned forward and eventually walked the rest of the distance and the two pulled each other into a tight embrace.

Chrysalis blinked and stared into the distance. Her muzzle contemplatively twitched.

Rarity procured a handkerchief and wiped some residue from her eyes. Pinkie Pie had a smile as wide as her face. Applejack, meanwhile, watched Cadance closely and silently adjusted her stetson.

Crystal wanted to remain there forever. But even as she remained in the embrace, she could see clearly that Cadance was fading fast. It could have only been a few seconds more at the most. Crystal closed her eyes again and forgot all about it, content to lose herself in that moment alone. She could feel Cadance’s warmth and she felt warm in return.

Crystal was smiling. And while she couldn’t see it and didn’t try to see it, she could tell that Cadance was smiling too.

The warmth disappeared and so did any sensation that she was wrapping her hooves around anything. Her forelegs drew closer in like she was grabbing thin air. The few gasps that she heard convinced her of what had just happened.

She opened her eyes and looked at the spot where Cadance had just been standing and saw nothing. The tears continued to fall but now they had a slight bitterness to them and she sniffled. Crystal sighed and instead held her head high.

The entire throne room remained deathly silent for many long moments. And then some, starting with Sunset and Starlight, bowed their heads.

Twilight gave the small, metal sphere in her magic to Starlight and trotted up to the Map. “Crystal?”

Crystal continued staring toward the heavens for a while longer and then wiped the remaining tears from her eyes and stepped off the Map. She cracked a smile. “Don’t worry about me, Twilight. I will be okay.”

Twilight smiled back and then turned her attention to the spot where Cadance had once been and sighed.

Crystal trotted toward the doors. “Spike, company… thank you. I appreciate you defending the Heart for us.”

Rainbow Dash smirked and puffed her chest out. “You bet. It was easy as pie!”

“There were a few of them baddies that came on in here. We got that magic outta them and all, but…” Applejack paused as a frown spread across her muzzle. “Uh, are they gunna fade out just like that there Cadance did?”

“Unfortunately,” Crystal replied with a solemn nod. “There isn’t anything that can be done about that, I am afraid. Don’t worry, I will take care of them.”

Fluttershy hung her head. “That’s too bad… Those poor ponies.”

“Well, it sounds like you all saved the day either way,” Spike said with a grin. “I still don’t know what you did, but... heh.”

Twilight giggled and gave him a hug. “Sorry, I know I promised you a big pile of gems when we got back.”

“Eh, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you’re okay, Twilight.”

“We all are,” Rarity seconded.

Pinkie Pie zipped up to Twilight. “Soooooooooo, do we get to throw a ‘storytime’ party?”

After a moment’s consideration, Twilight nodded. “That doesn’t sound like a bad idea, Pinkie. It’s… probably time that I told everypony else about my secret.”

Pinkie Pie’s mouth opened and shut again and then she made an “Oooooo,” sound. “Going all out. I see… I’ve got just what you need, Twilight!”

Twilight took a deep breath and used her hoof to pushed it back out. “Just… let me handle the guest list, okay?”

Pinkie Pie saluted.

“In the meantime,” Crystal said, “I hope that you all wouldn’t mind terribly on giving us a few moments, hmmmm?”

Spike nodded and broke away from Twilight. “Sure thing. We’ll be downstairs if you need us.”

Pinkie Pie bounced after the others as they left, practically singing over her shoulder, “I hope you’re ready for the most super-duper ‘storytime’ slash ‘I’m telling you my life-changing secret’ party ever!”

Twilight giggled. “Looking forward to it, Pinkie.”

And then the six of them were gone. The five of them were now alone.

“Soooo…” Chrysalis said as she pushed Sunset off her, “did we do it?”

Crystal turned to face them and nodded. “It would… appear so. We did it,” she said with a subdued tone. “We’ve saved the multiverse.”

After a few moments, Starlight groaned and rubbed the various bruises that covered her body. Sunset examined her own battered body, met gazes with Starlight, and then the two giggled.

Twilight let out an exhausted sigh and wiped her forehead clear of some dirt and sweat.

Chrysalis cracked a small grin and slowly nodded. She turned her head, whipping some hair out of her face, and then examined everypony else.

After a long, nosey sigh, Crystal silently trotted over to the Map again. She stared at the spot where Cadance had just been for a few moments and then she finally took a seat on Twilight’s throne. She continued staring at the spot for long moments.

The others approached the Map as well and looked at the spot too. Starlight placed the little ball of metal back onto the table where everypony could see it.

Crystal buried her face in her hooves and let out a long and drawn out sigh.

Sunset frowned. “So, uh, now what?”

* * *

The five floated within a yellowish magic bubble as it floated in space, each staring into the black void. A debris field seemingly stretched to infinity in all directions around them, illuminated by a glowing sphere in the far distance; it could have been the sun or some other star. They could, however, see the field steadily dissolving. Several bits and pieces, ranging from translucent to transparent, faded out at differing speeds.

“This all should disappear eventually, although the damage to this timeline has already been done,” Crystal said, motioning to the debris.

“Plus the few other hundred timelines we used,” Sunset mused.

Crystal sighed. “It all had to go somewhere. But, again, these were all unfixable timelines anyhow.”

Chrysalis also stared into space, craned her neck to observe some of the passing debris—she watched as the bits of a stone pillar sailed by and bounced off the head of some pony statue—and then sighed and shook her head. “I suppose there will be much to clean up.”

“Perhaps,” Crystal said. “I do find some solace in the prospect that the number of timeline sets that we actually ended up losing, especially with our optimizations, was likely in the tens of millions—not very large in the grand scheme of things.”

“You counted?” Sunset asked.

“I estimated. Just because the number of timeline sets that I’ve helped over the years looked to be the same size.” Crystal smiled. “I suppose things even out in this case.”

“Still, yeesh. That’s a lot. I mean, a lot,” Sunset said.

“It will likely take me some time to sort through everything and so on and so forth,” Crystal replied. She sighed and cracked some joints all over her body. “But that will come later.”

After a few moments of silence, Starlight lit her horn and levitated herself forward so that she could turn and face Crystal. “So… what happened out there? Between you and your mom, I mean?”

Chrysalis snorted. “I too wonder about this. Explain.”

Sunset groaned and messaged a spot on her side. “Yeah, you two took your time out there, that’s for sure.”

“Well…” Crystal began, “we did go after Miasmus. And Mother… she did have him, just like I thought she would. But there was a conversation that we had to have first.”

“Yeah?” Starlight asked. “What about?”

Crystal remained silent for a moment and then opened her mouth to speak.

“Oh, you know how it is,” Twilight piped up. “They just had some catching up to do, and they had some things to sort out. That’s all.”

Chrysalis considered Twilight and frowned. “Very well. Is there anything in particular that we should know about?”

Twilight met Crystal’s eyes and smiled. “No,” she said simply.

And Crystal smiled back.

Twilight turned to the rest of them and sucked in a breath. “Nevertheless, we could all talk more about everything that happened at the party tomorrow. I think it would be a good chance for us to wind down and maybe, you know, debrief a little.”

The others, one by one, nodded in agreement.

Twilight nodded and then turned. “And Crystal?”

“Hmmm?” Crystal replied.

Twilight paused and took one glance at that luminescent light source that sat some immeasurable and unreachable distance away. “There’s… something else that I think we should all do.”

Crystal lit her horn and levitated herself forward so that she could take Twilight’s hooves in her own. “I know what you’re about to say, Twilight. And I was thinking the same thing…”

* * *

Twilight’s hooves sunk a little into the damp dirt underneath her hooves. Darkened clouds overhead sprinkled them just enough for it to be wet without it being overbearing.

The clearing itself bore no traces that anything had ever been there. The space underneath the pavilion was completely vacant; the fire pit in its center remained unlit and would likely remain that way for a long while.

Twilight and the others looked at the large, slab-like stone that stuck out of the dirt in silence. A few charcoal-colored unponies stood among them.

Adamantine stood over the slab, eying the parts where it sunk into the ground closely, and then nodded.

“If anypony else wishes to speak a few words,” Adamantine said, “perhaps now would be the most opportune chance.”

Twilight shook her head. “I already spoke my piece. Crystal?”

Crystal cleared her throat and stepped forward. “Princess Celestia… you couldn’t have been here for more than a few days. Perhaps it was a happy accident that brought you to us. Perhaps then it was tragic circumstances that eventually took you away.”

The stone slab didn’t reply.

“Your presence was a burst of light. Truly, it was. You… you were part of some of our lives for such a short time, but you touched all of us in some way or another. I myself…” Crystal paused and pursed her lips together and thought. “I can’t imagine how I could ever forget you.”

Some eyes flip-flopped between Crystal and the stone slab in front of them, but as Crystal’s voice faded out, they settled on the latter.

Crystal drew some circles in the dirt and then sighed. “Either way, thank you.”

Chrysalis scowled and also cleared her throat. “I never would have thought that I would have ever tolerated your presence.” She paused and, based on how her throat bobbed up and down, tried to stomach her next words. “…Let alone mourn for you. How dare you…”

Most others kept their eyes on the stone. Starlight, meanwhile, afforded Chrysalis a glance. Her expression remained unchanged.

“But, then again, everything that I’ve gone through—and who would have ever thought that would include sitting down and breaking bread with you?—it has changed my perspective on a great many levels. I have a lot to think and rethink about.” Chrysalis snorted. “I still don’t know if I like it.”

She then took a moment to examine her body which still looked sleek and whole and she hummed. She sighed and turned her gaze back toward the stone. “But we’ll see.”

After a few more moments of silence, during which Chrysalis took a few steps back, Adamantine nodded. She met gazes with Crystal and Crystal nodded in return and stepped back as well.

“Very well,” Adamantine said. “If there are no more things to say, then I will take this moment to do the engraving. Please stand back.”

They all backed away from the stone, giving Adamantine enough room to trot forward and then turn to face it. Adamantine’s horn lit up and she shot a highly concentrated beam of reddish energies at it, knocking off streams of dust and small pebbles.

They watched in silence as Adamantine worked. Her carving left smooth and curvy lines, where even the grooves and depths were meticulously shaped. Each letter took several seconds at a time and there would be quite a few letters.

Twilight shuffled over to Crystal. “Crystal, thanks for doing this. It means a lot to me.”

Crystal nodded. “You’re welcome, Twilight. I was happy to do it.” She paused and momentarily watched the inscribing. “I meant everything that I said. About you, and about her…”

Twilight sighed and watched the process for herself. “I have to ask. Will you do something for your mom?”

“Yes. But… I’ll do something for her that’s appropriate.” Crystal grinned. “And that’s… something that I’ll have to figure out on my own if that’s alright.”

Twilight giggled and then scooted into Crystal before wrapping her forelegs around her. “Of course. Maybe that’s what’s best. I know you’ll come up with something fitting for her, because… you’re a good friend.”

Crystal bent down and wrapped her hooves around Twilight as well. “And you too, Twilight. Thank you for showing me a better way.”

Sunset giggled and trotted over to them. “I know I’m glad that I met you too,” she said. “That was one heck of an adventure. Thanks for bringing me along.”

Starlight, who stood on the opposite side, nodded. “You said it. I’m glad I got to be a part of all of this.”

Twilight and Crystal glanced up and then parted just enough for them to approach and, when they did, the four huddled together in a tight hug, sharing some giggles and laughs between each other.

Adamantine, who still blasted letters into the stone, smiled.

Chrysalis, meanwhile, watched with a raised eyebrow and contemplatively hummed to herself.

Twilight looked up. The other three did as well. Their eyes fell on Chrysalis and then they exchanged some mischievous grins.

Chrysalis’ frown only grew a little deeper. “I would much rather you didn’t touch me.”

Twilight lit her horn and the others followed suit. Four sets of magic coalesced into a multicolored cloud that wrapped itself around Chrysalis.

Chrysalis rolled her eyes and donned a frown of mild annoyance. She, however, did not struggle in the slightest, even as they pulled her in. Her expression remained unchanged even as they made space for her and wrapped hooves around her.

And then there were five ponies, all joined together through soft giggles and nuzzles. And they were for a long time.

The magic faded from Adamantine’s horn and she stood up to examine the work. The text was neat and tidy and just the way it needed to be. She then turned to face them, a smile still on her muzzle, and nodded. She watched the embrace in silence, and it wasn’t until Crystal opened her eyes to look up at her that she finally said, “It is done.”

The hug loosened up just enough that they could each turn to see the results for themselves.

Chrysalis stumbled out, shuddered, wiped some bits of dust off her front, and then also turned to look at the stone.

A hole in the clouds above allowed a single sunbeam to pass through and strike the ground. Said sunbeam fell on the slab of stone; the text now inscribed on its face glistened in the light.

In memory of
Celestia. Princess,
mentor, friend.

They stared at the tombstone in silence for the longest time. Adamantine herself drifted over to their side and joined them in their gaze. The collection of unponies that collectively stood behind them read the inscription and then bowed their heads. Adamantine bowed her head too.

And while Crystal Faire, Starlight Glimmer, Sunset Shimmer, and Chrysalis continued considering the stone in silence, Twilight Sparkle followed the sunbeam with her eyes to the point where it pierced the heavens. Surely, she thought, they were being watched.

And Twilight smiled.

Appendix

I. Master List of Timelines Whose Likenesses Appear in Any Capacity
(by order of appearance)

Twilight’s home / Versus Miasmus - Reflections

Fallout: Equestria verse / Fallout: Equestria - Kkat

Starlight's home / Twilight’s refuge - Reflections

Above the Crystal Empire - Reflections

Sweetie Honey verse / Warrior of Love, Sweetie Honey! - CrowMagnon

Pandoraverse / Baby Sister - Lopoddity

Quiververse / A Shimmering New Year - EchoWing

Littleverse / Sunset’s Little Twilight - PoisonClaw

Restaurant/hospital of the future - Reflections

Crystal Faire’s home / Epicenter - Reflections

Sunset’s home / Crystal Ball-verse CCCXXIV / Substitute - RQK

Experimental timeline II: Sunset concurrently-crystallized - Reflections

Experimental timeline III: Starlight concurrently-crystallized - Reflections

ES Harmony-verse / Experimental timeline V: Relativity / Harmony Among The Stars - tom117z

Experimental timeline VI: Inanimate object concurrently-crystallized - Reflections

Experimental timeline VII: Second spell - Reflections

Collided timeline α - Reflections

Chrysalis’ home / Collided timeline β - Reflections

Past Sins-verse / Collided timeline γ / Past Sins - Pen Stroke

Metallixverse / The Metallix Project - RedRandom

Weatherponyverse / Weatherpony - HapHazred

Floydverse / My Name Is Floyd Damn You! - shagohad12

Reign of the Storm King - Reflections

Seedsverse / Seeds of Darkness - EStories

Dangerous Business-verse / It's a Dangerous Business, Going Out Your Door - Jetfire2012

Equestria Now!-sighting on the grassy hill / It's All A Little Strange To Me - Essay Jay

Base camp / Crystal Ball-verse MMLXXVII / Feedback - RQK

Codeverse / Collapsing timeline / The Celestia Code - iisaw

Morning Glory-verse / The Moon, The Flower, and The Door - Bucking Nonsense

Celiaverse alternative / Small Scale - Twinkletail

Assassinverse / Collided timeline 𝛿 / The Assassination of Twilight Sparkle - Rated Ponystar

Collided timeline ε - Reflections

Skirmish in Cloudsdale - Reflections

Skirmish in Las Pegasus - Reflections

Skirmish in Griffonstone - Reflections

Skirmish in Klugetown - Reflections

Skirmish in Canterlot - Reflections

Final destination timeline MMXVIII - Reflections

II. Short List of Timeline Mechanics and States
Terms:
Threaded - A state in which a set of timelines are wound together to act as one single timeline; wherein a stretch of spacetime is constant across all the timelines for the duration in which they have been threaded together.
Unthreaded - A state in which any two timelines are distinct; not threaded.

Crystallized - A timeline’s hardened state. Signifies areas which Crystal Faire has visited. Crystallized portions cannot be changed under any circumstances.
Uncrystallized / hazy - A timeline’s default state; perfectly mutable. Hazy areas which exist after crystallized areas fluctuate as crystallized portions expand.
Semi-crystallized / shiny - Another hardened state which cannot be changed under any circumstances. Always precedes a crystallized line segment.
Concurrently-crystallized / solid and viscous - A state in which a timeline and its divergent set is occupied by something or somepony multiversally significant. All probabilities thread into one single timeline should Crystal Faire visit any moment within the set.
Quasi-crystallized / almost crystallized - A state which represents time-dependent events, such as time travel. Typically, isolated segments of the line which are in this state are cannot be accessed by Crystal’s travel ability.

Filter - Something which Crystal Faire uses to manipulate the way in which she sees timelines; in particular, filters automatically group timelines which meet specific criteria so that they appear as one single timeline and, should Crystal decide to visit them, automatically threads them together.

Further rules:
Timelines are infinitely diverging between one instant and the next instant. For some timeline, there are infinitely many branching off it in the next moment, and another infinitely-many branching off of each of those infinitely-many in the following moment. This makes the multiverse like a tree. One interpretation may present this as sets of timelines unthreading with each passing moment (thus leaving the total amount of timelines for all time as constant).

All timelines branch off from a singular moment: the night after King Sombra’s defeat. All events up through that moment are constant across the entire multiverse.

Alternate realities like Canterlot High, the mirror universe, and anything which may physically connect to Equestria in any sort of way is included within the set of realities which constitute one single timeline. Of these, Crystal Faire currently may only see the reality which Equestria sits in.

Crystal Faire may only use the travel ability to travel to locations that she can see. Per above, this means the travel ability may only be used to travel to locations within the reality which Equestria sits in, but it may be used to travel from any location.

1 - Familiar

A hole in reality itself appeared just off the island’s shore and grew in size from there.

What looked like a blob of pure black hung just above the cove. It grew at a snail’s pace but never shrank in turn.

Several dark-coated ponies, who stood on that shore, backed away from the display while crying out in surprise. A flock of seagulls, which had been circling above the cove, moved en masse away from it. Fish, swimming in the water below, frantically scattered in every direction. The air immediately around the blob rushed toward it, scooping up loose water droplets along the way before disappearing into the black. The hole ate the rushing air like a vacuum, and the air roared in response.

The waves, still crashing and dying against the shore, turned erratic as a few vortices formed and churned below it. Trees, pulled and tugged by winds, swayed toward it.

A smaller hole appeared a few meters away from the first. A third hole, smaller than the first two, appeared just above them. The three holes expanded and eventually merged. Several smaller holes appeared around that, joined together, and grew on their own. And the process continued with no signs of slowing down.

* * *

The fireplace crackled as several logs split down their middles. Hints of orange and red light flickered off cool, crystalline walls. The darkness outside soaked up everything else, responding only with a steady stream of snowflakes against the row of grand windows and the occasional gust which rattled the glass.

Twilight Sparkle, of lavender coat and a mane and tail of blue with a pair purple and raspberry stripes, with several stars serving as the cutie mark on her flank, ruffled her wings and settled deeper into the cushion. A steaming mug of hot cocoa sat on a coaster by her side. Her moderately violet eyes followed several embers within the fireplace as they glided toward and ultimately perished on the pile of ash at the base.

She lit her horn, and her magic moved some logs within the fireplace into a new arrangement that she knew would maximize the fire. The flames, happy with the feed, grew in size.

She sighed, smiled, and took a sip of her cocoa. She licked the remains of the velvety beverage from her lips and hummed at the warmth that it gave her.

The door creaked open, and a mare with a pink coat and a triplet of violet, rose, and pale gold streaks for a mane and tail shimmed through. Princess Cadance pushed the door shut, making sure that it clicked into place, and then trotted over. “I just put Flurry to bed—finally,” she said with a sigh before flopping onto her own cushion.

Twilight giggled and replied, “I’m glad to hear that. Is Shining Armor heading out?”

“Yes.” Cadance turned her attention toward the window. “I hope those training exercises with the guard go well. It’s freezing out there.”

Twilight looked as well and noted the heavy number of snowflakes falling past the glass. “At least that’s pegasi-made weather and not, you know, ‘Crystal Heart got smashed’ weather.”

Cadance chuckled. “I know. I’m still getting used to it.”

“It’ll make for great training for sure. I bet Shining works them pretty well.”

“Yeah, when he’s not busy showing his daughter off,” Cadance said. When that prompted Twilight to raise an eyebrow, Cadance leaned forward and said, with a goofy grin on her face, “I’m not even kidding, either. He summoned all the guards together one time just to show them a picture.”

Twilight snorted and burst into laughter. “Hah, I would have liked to see that.”

“They were so mad.”

“That sounds so like him!” Twilight took a deep breath in order to compose himself. “Oh, but I love him anyway.”

Cadance nestled herself further into her own cushion and sighed deeply. She looked back over, her eyes fell on Twilight’s drink, and she pointed. “How is it?”

Twilight gave a toothy smile and lifted the mug toward her muzzle. “It’s delicious. Perfect for a cold winter’s night, if I do say so myself.”

“I know. I had a lot of reasons for marrying your brother. His hot cocoa was one of them,” Cadance said with a sly smile.

Twilight leaned over with a jesting smirk. “Well then, I’m glad his cocoa”—she raised her mug—“won you over.”

“For sure, that was my top reason for marrying him.”

The two laughed and then fell silent once more. The windows shuddered from the winds while the fireplace, still feeding on freshly organized wood, sizzled quietly.

“But really, it’s still so nice to be able to call you family,” Twilight said. “I mean, I’ve probably said this before, but I always thought of you as close as family.”

Cadance nodded. “I agree. The wedding was just the cherry on top.”

“Well, family or not, I’m always glad to see you. I know you and Shining are usually pretty busy running the Crystal Empire and all.”

“Definitely.” A warm smile spread across Cadance’s face. “So, thanks for coming up here. I really appreciate it, Twilight.”

“Not at all. You have to make time for the ponies in your life, after all,” Twilight replied. “That’s one thing I’ve definitely learned over the years.”

“Of course. They make life worth living, right?” Cadance asked.

Twilight nodded and took a sip of her cocoa. She found the taste convincing enough to take another. Her thoughts ran to years prior when her nose had been perpetually pressed into a book and when her social circle had been limited to her mentor, her family members, and the pony sitting next to her.

Now, faces of her five best friends sprang to mind, along with faces of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, her former classmates from Celestia’s school, the town of Ponyville, her friends from Canterlot High, and her own student. All were individuals, Twilight knew, that she wouldn’t trade for anything in any world.

“Yes. They do,” she finally replied. “I just hope that Flurry Heart will have those in her life; ponies that she can count on.”

Cadance nodded, offering a smile. “Me too. But I guess that’s the sort of thing you would worry about. Princess of Friendship, and all.”

Twilight nodded. “True. But I do think about her. She’s still a foal, but… even with that thing with Chrysalis...”

The wind rattled the windows, but it made Twilight flinch this time. Chrysalis had once gotten to Flurry—and the two of them and everypony else; Twilight’s friends and the other royals, for that matter—from within the safety of her own home. She felt like she could suddenly make out every little creak and groan and whistle too.

Cadance’s smile disappeared, and she nodded solemnly. “And who knows what else the future will bring?”

“That’s right, and so I worry.” Twilight stared at the flames. She eventually sighed and folded her hooves together. “I want a good life for her. I want her to have a life full of friends, and family… Some life where she never has to worry about facing the absolute worst. Some life where she has a good home, and is… I don’t know. Someplace where she’s happy.”

“She will be a princess, after all.” Cadance paused to stroke her chin. “Well… she is a princess now, but she’ll be a princess when she gets older. So she’ll have to deal with some pretty weighty stuff, and she’ll have to make some tough decisions.”

The wood shifted and broke apart within the fireplace.

“Yes, I guess there really isn’t any getting around that.” Twilight shrugged. “She’s been born into that much.”

“But I agree,” Cadance said, her somber tone matching the dulling of her face. She too turned to gaze into the fire. “I want what’s best for her. It’s… all a mother could want for their foal, I think. I know that Shining and I can do a good job of providing for her and hopefully teaching her the things that she needs to know.”

“I’m sure that the both of you will be excellent parents,” Twilight said as she draped a hoof across Cadance’s withers and pulled her close. “Anypony can see that.”

Cadance smiled but did not look up.

“If you raise Flurry Heart the way you foalsat me,” Twilight continued, “I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“Thanks, Twilight,” Cadance said with some warmth returning to her voice. “That means a lot.”

“No problem!”

“And,” Cadance continued, reaching up to clasp Twilight’s hoof, “I’m sure that she’ll need a few lessons on friendship at some point. I can’t think of anypony else that I’d rather have show her the way.”

Twilight blushed. “Thanks, Cadance. I’d be happy to help.”

The two mares sat in silence and watched the flames together. Cadance remained mesmerized by the reds and oranges. Twilight took another sip from her mug, set it down on the saucer and moved it over, and tilted herself so that she rested against Cadance. Cadance, in turn, rested her head on top of Twilight’s. Smiles spread across each of their muzzles as they lay together.

Suddenly, the two heard what sounded like a muffled bang. Both mares jumped to their hooves and whirled around in search of the source. The castle grew silent once more. The fireplace crackled on, undisturbed.

Their eyes remained on the wall where the late sound had come from.

And then they met each other’s eyes, and Cadance said it: “That came from Flurry Heart’s room.”

Twilight gasped.

The two bolted toward the door. Cadance all but threw it off its hinges with her magic.

A hallway of crystalline floors, walls, and pillars greeted them as the two made haste down one end of the hallway. The rapid clip-clop from their hooves echoed within the tall and expansive corridors, and their hearts pounded within their chests.

Twilight hoped that Flurry was still there. She needed her to be there. The world would not be okay otherwise.

They rounded another corner into the corridor that contained Flurry Heart’s room, and there they had to stop in their tracks. Strange ponies, bearing black, swirling markings over their white bodies, lay crumpled against the walls. Twilight and Cadance counted three of them, all moaning and groaning and trying to find air.

Twilight could feel her heart sink. Who were these ponies? How did they get in? What did they want? A million more thoughts raced through her head.

The pair of purple double doors (each sporting a decal of a pink heart on their centers) lay wide open. There was a yelp from within the room beyond, and a body came flying out. Said body, another of the strange, black-marked ponies, slammed into the wall and fell unconscious. A dagger, clenched in his teeth, fell to the ground with him.

Twilight and Cadance stumbled their way past them and then dashed into the nursery.

Flurry Heart’s nursery looked humbly sized. Prints of fluffy clouds and trees, periodically broken by the occasional crystal pillar, lined the walls. Flurry Heart’s bed, which looked like an empty cloud, sat at the rear of the room.

Their eyes drew up from the bed to the figure standing beside it. The figure, facing away from them, wore a beige-colored cloak with several swirling patterns across it. Their horn poked through a hole woven into the hood. A light yellow aura surrounded said figure’s horn and carried a foal on the other end.

“My baby!” Cadance cried.

Flurry Heart cooed and reached toward the figure’s muzzle. The figure remained out of reach, but that only served to make Flurry giggle with her mouth wide open.

Warmth flooded through Twilight at the sight. A million ‘What-if?’s vanished, but as Twilight reaffixed her glare on the figure, a few then came back. She shuddered and ground her teeth together. “Hey! Let her go!”

The figure stirred and turned their head in their direction just enough to acknowledge their presence. Their gaze remained on the giggling foal in their magic.

“Get away from her!” Cadance yelled, coursing energy into her horn. “I’m warning you!”

The figure sucked in a breath through their nose, making a sound that sounded like an airy sigh.

“This one,” the figure said, their voice a velvety alto like a mare’s yet sharp like a pointed spear, “what is her name?”

Cadance shuddered and took a step forward. “If you dare hurt her—”

“I just saved her life,” the figure sharply replied. “What is her name?”

The two took a tentative glance back to the unconscious figures outside.

Twilight swallowed and placed a hoof on Cadance in order to steady herself. “What are you asking? Name?”

The figure turned to face the two of them. The shadows of the hood, combined with the room’s darkness, hid her face entirely, yet the two could make out two large, opal eyes squinting at them and the outline of a frown etched across the mare’s muzzle. “Her name,” the figure said again.

Cadance flinched and exchanged glances with Twilight. “F-Flurry Heart,” Cadance stuttered. “Her name is Flurry Heart.”

The figure hummed in response and glanced down at the foal. “Fascinating. It has been a while since I saw a Flurry Heart,” she said. “More often than not, she is named Prism, Winter Amore, or even Skyla. A Flurry Heart is rare.”

Twilight felt a shiver crawl up her spine. Rare? Twilight had questions.

“So that means…” The figure nodded her head from side to side in thought. And then a smile appeared on her face. “Ah… yes… This one shattered the Crystal Heart, and you put it back together. And… you did so with the help of Celestia, Luna, the other Elements, Starlight Glimmer, and Sunburst. I see it now,” the figure said, looking back up at them.

And now Twilight had too many questions. “Y… Y-yes,” Twilight stammered. “B-but…”

“T-there are only a select few who are aware of that.” Cadance shuddered. “Y-you just named them all.”

Twilight could feel her mental wheels jam. She shook her head and said, “There’s no way that you can know that.”

The figure turned her attention back to Flurry Heart and stroked her with a hoof. “And yet it is so,” she replied.

Cadance shook her head in disbelief and stamped the floor. “Who are you!? Reveal yourself!”

The figure stroked Flurry Heart’s curly hair, a gradient of cerise and violet with an arctic blue stripe. Flurry Heart giggled in response and looked up with large, opal eyes. And the figure poked Flurry Heart in her belly, drawing lines in her fuchsia-colored coat, prompting Flurry Heart to giggle even harder.

The figure then undid the seams on the front of her hood and hummed. “Very well.”

She lifted her hood and turned to them in full, staring with her own large, opal eyes which had a jagged scar across her right one. The mare’s muzzle, soft in its fuchsia complexion, remained scrunched together. Her curls, a gradient of cerise and violet, punctuated by a stripe of arctic blue, hung down past her withers.

And she was impossible. Both Twilight and Cadance backpedaled, and their jaws all but hit the floor. Their eyes flickered between Flurry Heart and…

Cadance swallowed. “F… Flurry Heart?”

The unknown mare’s piercing frown curled into a sly smile. “Hello, Mother. My name is Crystal Faire.”

4 - Blaze

Twilight Sparkle huffed and wheezed and her wings ached, but she finally saw a familiar shape in the distance and perked up. Canterlot Castle clung to the side of the mountain and looked over the rest of Equestria. It stood as its center and its beacon.

And with Canterlot now in view, Ponyville could not be much further away.

She flapped her wings with greater fervor and gained altitude. With enough height, she’d be able to spot Ponyville as a dot on the horizon. The aches, while still there, fell out of focus.

Finally, she indeed saw the star that sat atop her tree-like castle at the northern end of Ponyville. Twilight cracked a smile.

She arced through the sky at velocities that would have made Rainbow Dash grin. The clouds over Canterlot and Ponyville dropped snowflakes, and as she reached the northern edge, Twilight found herself blasting through the falling snow. She quickly threw up a windshield spell to keep it off her.

Someplace far below, Twilight spotted an area where the ground had caved, forming a wide and deep well into the earth. She felt a downdraft as she flew over it, and yet she somehow felt as light as a feather.

Twilight slowed and circled once. She saw bits and pieces of snow fly in from all directions before diving into the well. She saw trees, once covered with snow, swaying in the direction of the opening.

Vague thoughts about what she had seen in the Crystal Empire crossed her mind, and Twilight made no attempt to put those together in lieu of processing the one thought that made her shudder: that cave-in had not been there before.

She shook her head. Focus, Twilight! You can worry about that once everypony is safe!

She continued on her way, leaving the strange well in the earth behind. Her sensations quickly returned to normal. She picked her speed back up and zoomed through the sky.

More and more of Ponyville came into view, and there, through the snowy fog, she saw some clouds rising from the town. She squinted in order to make them out.

Black clouds.

Twilight’s heart sank.

She flew onward, growing more fidgety with every few meters she traveled. She lit her horn and disappeared in a flash, simultaneously reappearing a hundred meters forward. The cold air bit at her but she ignored it, too happy that she had gained considerable ground.

She swooped up and then teleported again. She reappeared directly over her castle.

There, she caught sight of the flames below.

Her eyes darted to Town Hall, then to the schoolhouse, then to Carousel Boutique. She saw fire in every direction that she turned. She saw ponies running around, screaming in terror, or otherwise holding onto loved ones and staring up at the remains of their homes.

Twilight screamed.

She immediately swooped down, landing in the large plaza in front of Town Hall. She touched down just in time for the roof to crack and split and then cave in on itself, prompting her to cry out again. Several other ponies, watching in horror, also screamed and then dashed away from the late structure.

Miasmus! she inwardly screamed.

She spotted weather ponies in the skies frantically throwing rainclouds together. A few of them wore Wonderbolts uniforms, and Twilight could even make out Spitfire’s bright, spiky mane among them. With the way they zipped around from cloud to cloud, barking words at each other that she could not hear over the bedlam, Twilight figured that they had not gotten far.

Nonetheless, she swooped upward in their direction.

Spitfire whirled around on her approach and saluted. “Princess Twilight!”

“Captain Spitfire!” Twilight exclaimed. “What’s going on!?”

Spitfire shook her head. “I’m not sure, Your Highness, but—” she pointed in the general direction of Sugarcube Corner, “—Princess Celestia is down that way. You best go find her right now!”

Twilight nodded. “I will. Thank you!”

She lit her horn and teleported, reappearing in a seemingly vacant plaza. Her eyes drew up the gingerbread house-looking building that served as Pinkie Pie’s residence. Patches of roofing were missing entirely, and other parts bore scorch marks. Shattered glass windows hosted long, flaming tendrils lashing out from within.

And she had to fight back her tears.

“Twilight Sparkle!” a commanding voice called from behind her.

Twilight whirled around and found a tall and regal mare standing by herself in the middle of the plaza. Her coat sparkled a brilliant white (especially against the flames) and her prismatic mane and tail flowed in some ethereal wind. Twilight gasped. “Princess Celestia!” she cried.

Princess Celestia galloped over. “Twilight, thank goodness you’re here. Something terrible has happened.”

Twilight wanted to run up and hug her mentor, but then Crystal Faire’s voice in her head stopped her. Instead, she asked, “What happened!? Ponyville’s on fire!”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed, it is. I flew here from Canterlot as soon as the reports came in. I’m afraid the news only gets worse from here.”

Twilight frowned. “What is it? What happened?”

Celestia stood at her full height and looked at Twilight down her nose. “Your friends. They are fully responsible for this destruction.”

Twilight jumped a full mare’s height into the air. “My friends!? I don’t—”

“Twilight…”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight whimpered. “My… friends? Surely, this is all a mistake. They did all this on accident.”

Celestia’s muzzle remained curled into a mournful frown. “Unfortunately, it would seem that this destruction is entirely purposeful on their part.”

Twilight shook her head. “No… that’s… not possible.”

“I am still trying to locate them. It’s the six of them. The other Elements and your student.”

“I don’t believe it,” Twilight said, furrowing her brow.

Celestia trotted forward and laid a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “There there, it will be alright. But we must perform our duties to Equestria, Twilight. Your friends have betrayed us.”

Twilight whirled around to face her mentor and stared at her for many moments.

Celestia blinked and then glanced over her withers at the other end of the plaza. Twilight glanced past her and gasped.

Six ponies stood like silhouettes against the bright flames. Six mares, six friends, six ponies baring malicious grins. The sight of them made Twilight’s heart swell and then shrink again.

“Above all, trust no one,” Crystal’s voice rang through her head.

One of them, Rarity, stepped forward and swished her vibrant mane about. “Ha ha ha ha! Do you like what you see? Isn’t this all absolutely wonderful?”

“It is,” Fluttershy replied with her usual soft tone.

“I’ve never seen Ponyville so poppin’!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, bouncing in place. “This was definitely a good idea!”

Celestia stomped the ground. “You fiends!”

Pinkie Pie doubled over in laughter. “That’s funny! You’re hilarious!” she exclaimed. Her poofy mane and tail somehow turned even puffier with each breath she took.

Twilight narrowed her eyes. So… they’re being evil. And… Miasmus wants me to believe that? What is the game here?

“Why are you doing all of this?” Twilight asked.

Applejack chuckled. “What’s it to you?”

“Yeah!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed, hovering right beside Applejack. “What do you wanna know?”

“This isn’t like you!” Twilight yelled. “Don’t you see how terrible this is?”

“Terrible? Ha!” Rainbow Dash laughed. “This is exactly what needed to happen.”

Twilight trembled and scanned her friends again. She looked over the uncharacteristic sneers spread across their muzzles. Fluttershy, she could not picture. Nor Applejack. Certainly not Pinkie Pie. Rarity and Rainbow Dash perhaps, but those didn’t seem right either.

“You watch,” Starlight Glimmer, her student, said. “Ponyville is just the beginning. After this… we’re going after the rest of Equestria.” She sighed, a genuine smile spreading across her muzzle. “And it will be glorious.”

Celestia shook her head and leaned in close. “Twilight, I am afraid that a most unfortunate thing has happened: your friends have indeed gone rogue and wish to bring harm to Equestria.”

“I don’t understand,” Twilight whimpered, falling to her haunches. “They would never act like that.”

“I cannot fathom it either,” Celestia continued as she placed a hoof on Twilight’s withers. “But we have a duty to perform. We must… destroy them.”

Twilight’s other senses, for the most part, faded out. Celestia’s words, a most impossible set of words, replayed in her own mind over and over again. She twitched. “Destroy them?”

Celestia nodded gravely. “Yes. Destroy them. That… is our only option.”

Twilight looked back at her friends whose expressions remained sinisterly unchanged.

“Focus on Celestia,” Crystal’s voice rang through her head again.

Twilight sucked in a breath and stood up, breaking from Celestia’s grip. Her eyes remained on her friends all the while, and her expression warped from the insecure frown from before into an indignant scowl.

“Now I get it,” she said at length.

The rest of Ponyville remained ablaze around them.

Celestia tilted her head and raised her eyebrow in curiosity. “Twilight?”

Twilight whirled. “My friends would never act like this. And moreover, you would never act like this. The Celestia I know would never even dream of making a suggestion like that.”

Celestia took a couple of steps backward, flabbergasted. “T-Twilight… I don’t understand. I am Celestia, princess of Equestria. I am your mentor. Surely, you know that?”

Twilight narrowed her eyes. “No. I know, as a matter of fact, that you are not, Miasmus.”

Celestia’s eyes grew wide and her jaw hung limp. Her mane, usually ever-flowing in some cosmic wind, ground to a halt.

Twilight stood at her full height and spread her wings to their fullest span. “I know who you are. I’ve been warned,” she said.

Celestia stared idly at Twilight all the while. Her eyes briefly darted over Starlight and the others and then returned to Twilight. For a few moments, the two remained locked in each other’s stares.

Finally, Celestia licked her lips and sighed. A sly smile spread across her face. “So you have,” she said, her tone now smooth and sinister.

Twilight stomped the ground. “You will let them go right now!” she bellowed. “All of them!”

Celestia chuckled. “Now, whyever would I do that, Twilight Sparkle? If you’ve really been warned of who I am and what I’m about, then even you aren’t stupid enough to not figure out why.”

Twilight snorted. “No. You want to take control of everypony. That way you can never die.”

“That’s right. And secondly, I don’t need you running off to that Tree of Harmony of yours. I don’t need you inferior beings getting in my way.”

Twilight ground her teeth together and glanced over her withers to look back at her friends. Or, at least, those which looked like her friends who she knew were under someone else’s control. She reached out to them, felt tempted to call their names, but she hesitated under the scornful glares they gave her.

She thought about the prospect where he now resided in all of their bodies, just like they were parts of his own. Crystal Faire’s explanation of him ran through her mind again.

“I know who you are, Miasmus,” Twilight said, shuddering. “I know what your end goals are. I… I want to know how you did it. I want to know how you got here.”

Celestia chuckled and then looked over at Twilight’s friends.

Applejack took off her stetson and tossed it aside. “I don’t see why not. You see, Twilight, if you really know who I am, then you must know that I was in the Badlands for quite some time.”

“I nearly died out there,” Fluttershy said. She chuckled. “I had managed to find a host, but the host was in bad shape.”

“Nothing lives in the Badlands,” Pinkie Pie said, swiping the air for added emphasis, “except, of course, the changeling hive.”

“I could not take a host there,” Fluttershy said, “for Chrysalis’ throne soaked up all magic, including my own.”

“But then,” Pinkie Pie said as her smile grew even wider, “something happened.”

“Starlight destroyed Queen Chrysalis’ throne.”

“Starlight removed the magical block over the Badlands.”

“Starlight made it possible for me to take a host.”

“And I was there at the moment she did it.”

Twilight’s heart sank as she watched the two of them speak. Their voices were familiar and yet decisively not their own.

Rainbow Dash snorted. “Good thing too. At that moment, my host was on his last legs. I wouldn’t have survived for much longer.”

Rarity frowned and dug a hoof through the dirt. “If I had been somewhere else, I would have surely died then and there.”

“After that,” Rainbow Dash said, “I took over a changeling host. I had a new lease, then. And I discarded that old, decrepit host.”

“You left him to die,” Twilight seethed.

“He outlived his usefulness.” Rainbow Dash’s smile grew until all her teeth were bared. “Trash must be thrown away once it is spent.”

Twilight ground her teeth together and stomped the ground. “You’re a monster, Miasmus.”

“I lay low after that. I spent some time learning the current state of the world,” Starlight said as she stepped forward. “I then took the hive when I was ready, although they were not my prize. I pretended to be an envoy to Canterlot from the new King Thorax.”

“Celestia… she never knew what hit her,” Celestia said and chuckled heartily.

“And now here we are. You versus me. Actually…” Starlight snickered, “it’s you versus your friends.”

Twilight whirled around in terror and stared at Celestia with wide eyes.

Crystal’s words ran through her head again. “Concentrated magical bursts will overload and dislodge him.”

Celestia threw her head back and chortled. “Oh, this is delicious! You versus the most important ponies in your life! This is turning out quite famously.” She laughed even more.

“Concentrated magical bursts will overload and dislodge him.”

Twilight froze. I don’t want to do that...

She shook her head. “No. No… I don’t think so.”

“Oh ho ho, but I think you will,” Starlight said, stepping forward. “Don’t you want to save them?”

“I do!” Twilight exclaimed. “But I will find another way. I’ll find my own way.”

Starlight continued forward. The rest of Twilight’s friends followed suit, all stalking in Twilight’s direction. “You really think so?” Starlight said.

“You might have won here in Ponyville today,” Twilight seethed, “but I will come back. And I will save them!”

“And while you’re doing that, I will dispose of these filthy bodies,” Starlight said with a smirk.

Twilight shuddered. Her eyes darted from friend to friend.

“That’s right,” Applejack said. “Just like that swine out in the Badlands.”

Rainbow Dash raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you wonder why Ponyville was on fire?”

“If I don’t dispose of these bodies, surely the citizens of Ponyville will,” Pinkie Pie said. She looked around, making sure that nopony had wandered into the clearing since then. She nodded on confirming that it was still just the eight of them.

“But you’re more than welcome to fight for them, Twilight,” Starlight said. She lit her horn and reeled back before letting loose a magical blast.

Said blast went clear by Twilight and whizzed by Celestia. Celestia, in turn, jumped as it went by, muttering some pointed words under her breath.

Starlight frowned and unlit her horn. She and the other five, nonetheless, still advanced toward Twilight.

But that’s not how I do things! There has to be another way!

Twilight stomped the ground. “Starlight! Friends! You… you have to fight him! You have to push him out!”

“They can’t hear you, Twilight,” Celestia said, her tone sharp. “You want them? You had better fight for them!”

“You have to fight it!” Twilight called again. “Remember! I know that our friendship is stronger than some parasite! I know that, deep down, you can hear me in there! I know that you have the strength to fight him!”

Applejack, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity broke into gallops while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash lifted into the air. The five of them simultaneously bore down on Twilight. She let out a shriek before teleporting away.

Twilight reappeared above the plaza. Her five closest friends searched for her in every direction. Starlight, however, looked up and then fired a beam in Twilight’s direction. Twilight dodged that and the rest of Starlight’s ensuing barrage.

Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy swooped up and sped in Twilight’s direction.

“Please! Stop it!” Twilight cried. “Fight it!”

The two pegasi kept on going and Twilight teleported out of the way just as they reached her. She reappeared in the same spot and whirled to watch them speed away. She ground her teeth together and felt tears well up in her eyes.

While the two circled around, Twilight turned to see Starlight, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Rarity sprinting up the street.

And Celestia watched from afar.

Twilight dove into the streets, weaving around burning building after burning building. While Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy followed her from overhead, Twilight outpaced her ground-based pursuers. While her body raced along a relatively straight line, her mind raced in several directions at once.

Ohhhh, what do I do? she mentally cried.

Her wings ached and Twilight groaned.

She darted around a corner only to scream when a chunk of burning roofing suddenly fell across her path. She dove over it and watched it splatter against the ground.

Twilight looked back up and noticed that Fluttershy had disappeared. Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, remained hot on her trail.

Twilight rounded yet another corner only to backpedal when she saw Pinkie Pie standing at the other end of the alleyway. Pinkie Pie, in turn, went wide-eyed for a moment before giving a shrill battle cry and charging in kind. Twilight flew in the opposite direction and out of sight.

What do I do!?

Twilight heard a terrified scream from the next street over and she subsequently arced over the nearest building, keeping an eye out for Rainbow Dash all the while. She found a grey earth pony trapped between burning debris. Twilight gasped. “Octavia!?”

Octavia Melody looked up and gasped as well. “Twilight! Help!”

Twilight swooped down and snatched Octavia off the ground. “Are you okay?”

Octavia wriggled as she hung from Twilight’s grasp. “Yes. I am alright! Thank you!”

“I’ll get you someplace safe. Hold on!”

No sooner had she said that did a blast of magic pass by the both of them which prompted them to yelp. Twilight snapped her head around to find the Fluttershy had reappeared, now carrying Starlight in her forehooves. Starlight unleashed another blast which also sailed right by them.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me!” Twilight yelled.

“What in the blazes is going on!?” Octavia cried.

The aching in her wings returned for a few moments and Twilight even faltered in her flight.

“It’s…” Twilight stammered, surging onward, “it’s very complicated!” She swooped down toward a clear area. “Listen, I need help.”

Octavia shifted uncomfortably. “O-okay.”

“It’s not their fault. There’s a creature named Miasmus, and he has my friends and Princess Celestia under his control! He’s using them to try and take over. You have to warn everypony about what’s actually going on!”

“O-okay!” Octavia replied. “I’ll do what I can!”

Twilight touched down just long enough to gently deposit Octavia in the clearing. “Thanks!” she yelled. She shot into the air again just in time to dodge a few more blasts from Starlight. She didn’t even check to see where Octavia ran off to.

One of Starlight’s shots came right at her and Twilight threw up a barrier. It formed just enough to block the shot but not enough to hold together, and it shattered in her face which propelled Twilight backward.

Twilight flipped through the air, frantically flapping her wings in order to right herself. Her wings pulled and protested but she forced them to comply. Eventually, she righted herself just enough to dodge another blast.

Twilight looked up and locked eyes with Starlight just long enough to gauge the malicious sneer on her face.

I… I have to use magic. I’m going to have to!

Twilight fired a few shots off. Most came close but only one actually forced Fluttershy to dodge.

Twilight dove backward, throwing another barrier up in the process which Starlight’s incoming attacks splashed against. Fluttershy responded by hauling Starlight over the barrier’s edge so that Starlight could attack past it. Twilight threw a few more volleys, but each of those, like the ones before, hit air.

Twilight turned forward only to find Rainbow Dash now charging from the opposite direction. Charging too fast, even. Twilight gasped.

Rainbow Dash tackled Twilight with the force of a freight train. Twilight gasped for air but found that the impact had left her without any. Her mind went blank and her body took over, trying to worm its way out of Rainbow Dash’s grip.

The two of them fell out of the sky, but Twilight regained enough of her senses to channel some energy into her horn and teleport herself a few meters away. She flapped her wings to steady herself and found that they felt stiff.

And then something pulled inside her wings and they no longer responded to anything she did.

Oh no! Twilight mentally cried. Not a cramp!

Twilight tried to get them to respond but found herself falling too quickly. The image of Starlight flashed across her mind and Twilight decided to use one of Starlight’s tricks: she wrapped magic around herself and levitated herself to a halt.

No sooner had she leveled herself did she feel something wrap around her leg and yank her down. Twilight yelped and flipped over to find Applejack standing in the street on the other end of the lasso.

Applejack yanked Twilight to the ground. Twilight landed with an audible thud and felt some of her air go back out again.

She flipped over to make out Applejack galloping toward her. She tried to stand up, but her legs wobbled in place. And then she felt no less than two weights press into her back and she looked up to see that Pinkie Pie and Rarity, both of whom she hadn’t seen appear, had thrown themselves on top of her.

Applejack stopped just short and stood over Twilight. Rainbow Dash landed next to her.

Fluttershy showed up seconds later, deposited Starlight on the ground, and then flew over to them. She landed on top of Pinkie Pie and Rarity. Twilight’s bones cracked and groaned in response.

Starlight laughed and then stalked over. A malevolent grin spread further across her face with every step she took. The other five mirrored her expression, each chuckling and giggling under their breaths.

Twilight ground her teeth together as she looked over their faces. They looked back at her with malevolent sneers. She tried to stand up, but the combined weight of Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Rarity kept her from moving. Her entire body throbbed and the world seemed to spin.

Could she even do magic? Twilight pointed her horn at Starlight and tried to focus some magic into it, but nothing came out.

“Girls…” Twilight croaked. “My friends… You have to fight it… I know you’re in there somewhere. You have to fight it…”

Starlight giggled and lit her horn in response.

“You have to fight it…” Twilight slurred.

Starlight stopped just short of Twilight and chuckled. “Farewell… Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight looked up at Starlight. She searched for any sign that the mare she knew, a student and close friend, lay inside anywhere. But all she saw was Miasmus.

Twilight closed her eyes and let her head hit the dirt. I… failed…

13 - Collision

“Okay,” Twilight Sparkle said as she sat straight on her throne, “give me a quick quiz, just so I’m sure.”

Starlight Glimmer, who sat in the throne opposite her, shuffled some flash cards and then held one up. “Okay… Does Plaid Stripes have a job at Rarity For You?”

Twilight shook her head. “No. She did in my home timeline, but here, she not only doesn’t have the job, she didn’t even want the job in the first place.”

Starlight flipped to another flashcard. “Correct. Who attended the Pie slash Apple family Hearth’s Warming?”

“Everypony who was there in my timeline.”

“And how did it turn out?”

“Like it did in my timeline.”

Another flashcard. “And who was it that you fought off at the Temple of Chicomoztoc?”

“I fought off Cabelleron. And…” Twilight tapped her chin. “Oh, yes, I disabled a cipactli.”

Starlight nodded and set the stack of flashcards down. “Right again. I think you’re getting the hang of this, Twilight.”

Twilight giggled. “I would hope so. Thanks for spending these past few days coaching me, Starlight. It’s been really helpful.”

Starlight smiled. “Sure thing. I’m happy to do it, you know.”

Twilight leaned against the Cutie Map with her forelegs. “It’s still a bit weird having to relearn my history. Thankfully, it’s not too much…”

Starlight nodded and used her magic to shift the out-of-place flashcards so that the stack was nice and uniform. “By the way…”

“Hmm?”

“I know that you’ve told us,” Starlight said, “I just wanna get a sense of when you plan on telling everypony else what you’ve told us.”

Twilight sighed and slumped in her seat. “I’m working myself up for it. I don’t know just yet.”

“Just do it when you’re ready, huh?” Starlight said.

Twilight nodded. “Of course. I just hope they understand.”

“I’m sure they will.”

A loud bang erupted from the space above the Map which prompted the both of them to cry out. Two mares stood on the Map’s surface. The one with red and yellow curls blinked and grasped at her head. The other whirled to face Twilight.

Twilight shot up. “Crystal Faire! Sunset Shimmer!”

Starlight stood up in her seat as well.

Crystal Faire wore a deep frown. “Twilight Sparkle, Starlight Glimmer, there’s been a development.”

“Development?” Starlight asked.

“Yes,” Crystal replied as she adjusted her cloak’s collar. “Something strange just happened to some other timeline. You’re going to want to see this, Twilight.”

“What exactly happened?” Twilight asked

Crystal rolled her hoof, motioning Twilight to step up. “I’m not all that sure, but that’s what I’m traveling there for.”

Twilight raised her eyebrow and turned her eyes to Sunset. “Do you know anything about this?”

Sunset blinked, met Twilight’s gaze, and then shook her head. “I don’t know. She just came to me and said that this was urgent.”

“I watched it happen while I was in another timeline. I’m really not sure what to make of it yet… but…” Crystal said, “the best that I can fathom is that two timelines collided with each other.”

The room fell silent for a few moments. Even Sunset, who stood right beside Crystal, looked at her with a raised eyebrow.

Twilight sucked in a breath. “H-how does that even work?”

“I’m about to go there to see for myself,” Crystal replied.

Twilight needed nothing more. She walked onto the Map with them. “Then show me.”

“Absolutely,” Crystal replied. She turned around and beckoned Starlight up. “You too, since you’re involved now.”

Starlight shuddered but nonetheless joined them on top of the Map. “Sure. Whatever. I’m kinda interested to see what this is about, I guess.”

Twilight nodded. “Let’s go.”

Crystal Faire shifted, and reality folded inward. The senses folded into a single point and then burst back out. The four of them landed in soft dirt right after that.

The first thing that Twilight noticed was her needing to gasp for air. The air wasn’t as thick as it should have been. As a matter of fact, the air felt burned. One glance up revealed that the clear blues and pleasurable chills that she had expected had been replaced by burning reds and biting hots. It almost felt like standing in an oven.

The ground was torn up with not a shred of green remaining. Several houses lay in shambles around them. Exposed beams had been warped into curls and shapes that looked like two separate beams had fused together.

The four of them cried out when the ground nearby exploded and a tower of red-hot earth spewed out. Crystal threw up a barrier around them which the lava splashed off of and then she swore out loud.

“Where are we!?” Starlight cried.

“Ponyville,” Crystal growled.

The other three gave several pointed and dismayed cries.

Images of her world being torn apart came rushing back and Twilight’s legs gave way as she gave a sharp and cracked, “Noooooo!”

“It looks like it got hit pretty hard,” Crystal said. She looked at the soil beneath them and then lit her horn. A teddy bear emerged from the dirt. She grabbed it with her hoof and held it up for them to see. “This is from the other timeline.”

Another piece of ground exploded and another column of lava rose up. It was a further distance away, but Crystal nonetheless kept her barrier up.

“The hay even happened!?” Sunset exclaimed.

“This is just horrible…” Starlight whimpered.

“This is what happens when matter oscillates between timelines,” Crystal said, lobbing the teddy bear up and down. “Just look at that house over there; you’ve got two houses trying to occupy the same space.”

The structure in question looked just like many others; the walls, decisively made of wood, sported ruffles in some places and splinters in others.

“Oh stars… Oh stars...” Twilight wheezed.

Starlight bent down. “Hey, Twilight, are you okay?”

Twilight shook her head. “No…” she gasped, “I’m not okay! Crystal, how long ago did this happen?”

Crystal frowned. “A few minutes.”

“For you?” Twilight minced on her next words. “Or for them!?”

Crystal shuddered. “Both.”

“Oh geez…” Sunset seethed.

After a long moment, Crystal rubbed her face with her hooves and sighed. “And, well… there’s more.”

“More?” they all asked in unison.

Crystal whirled to face them. “I found a survivor. There’s one in the other timeline.”

Twilight shot back up, tears now streaming down her face. “Then take us to them, please! I don’t want to spend another moment here!”

“We will go. But… I can’t promise that any of you will like what we will find.”

A loud boom from nearby prompted them to jump. They all looked up as chunks of burning rock streaked from the sky and impacted nearby. One streaked into a burning house which caused it to explode into a million pieces. The ground rumbled with every strike.

“Whatever,” Starlight said, placing her hoof on Crystal, “just get us out of here!”

Crystal shifted. All senses folded together, and for a few moments, the four mares did not exist. Reality then folded back out and they landed.

Twilight’s heart still beat at a rapid pace and she had to find air fast, but she forced herself to take longer breaths. As far as her frenzied mind could tell, there was no bedlam here to bombard her senses. Eventually, everything slowed down enough for her to afford a glance around.

The skies here were much clearer even though they carried a sickly yellow glow. The material below their hooves felt organic and alive with the way it pulsated. The walls were full of holes, but where some were neat and orderly holes, others had frills and loose bits hanging and were irregular in shape. The uneven ground was covered in a strange green goo at irregular intervals.

Starlight scooped some up, slathered it in her hooves, and then growled. “Changeling goop! This is the hive in the Badlands!”

The four heard a groan behind them and they whirled around to find a large, black, pony-like creature lying on the ground. She had insect-like wings and several holes in her legs. Her mane looked like long strands of seaweed with their dark cerulean color.

And she tilted her head toward them, stared with green, reptile-like eyes, and bared her fangs. “You!” she shrieked.

“Chrysalis!” Twilight exclaimed as she prepared to charge.

Queen Chrysalis scrambled to her hooves and broke into a gallop. Her gallop quickly turned into more of a stumble, but her features remained curled into a hateful snarl. A brilliant green magical aura coursed into her horn.

Twilight dragged her hoof through the dirt and then charged in kind. She lit her horn in preparation for throwing a spell of her own. She only made it a few meters before she felt something grab her by the tail, at which she lost her footing and fell.

Crystal teleported between the two. “Sit down!” she barked at Twilight. She wrapped some magic around Chrysalis and downed her too. “You sit down! All of you!”

Chrysalis bared her teeth. She tried to stand but couldn’t against Crystal’s magic. Instead, she reeled back and took a shot right at Crystal’s head.

Crystal tilted her head just enough for the shot to go right past her. She then threw Chrysalis a hardened glare.

“Get down!” Starlight exclaimed as she lit her own horn.

Crystal shifted in Starlight’s direction. The floor beneath Starlight’s hooves caved just enough to throw off her aim; the resulting blast traveled well past Chrysalis and hit a half-standing wall far away.

“You!” Chrysalis yelled. “I’ll destroy you!”

“That’s enough!” Crystal thundered.

“No! I swear, if it’s the last thing I do, Twilight Sparkle… Starlight Glimmer…” Chrysalis clenched her teeth and then doubled over. She gagged, reeled, and then hurled. She expelled several mushy bits but some parts were round and hard. Most bits were covered in a sickly green fluid.

Everypony save Crystal reeled in response.

Chrysalis keeled onto her side, moaning in pain.

Sunset swallowed and craned her neck to see better. “What’s… that sticking out of her thigh?”

What looked like a large stone sat embedded in Chrysalis’ right thigh. The skin just around it joined seamlessly with it, almost as if the stone had always been there.

“That stone there is from the other timeline,” Crystal said.

Twilight shuddered. “That’s… not supposed to be there.”

“I see what I can, but I’m going to need some more information from her,” Crystal said.

Sunset pointed. “She’s hurt. I don’t think there’s any way she could even talk to us right now.”

“I know. I must get her to a hospital.”

* * *

Crystal watched as the various objects that owned the air streaked about. The daytime sky revealed the greens far below. She could see various mile-high towers that stretched up from the ground; among them was the one where she had dined with Twilight a few weeks prior.

Twilight and Starlight sat on cushions to her left, whispering between each other, while Sunset sat to her right, filling out a Super Sudoku booklet. The hallway stretched into the distance on either side; Crystal knew that it bridged two skyscrapers.

Crystal stood up. A couple of seconds later, the door across from them opened and a stallion wearing a white coat and a stethoscope around his neck stepped out.

“What is the full damage?” Crystal asked.

The other three stood up.

“Well,” the doctor said, “she’s stable, at least. There were multiple pieces of debris within her system. Autotables got the smaller loose bits out, and we’ve thankfully stopped the internal bleeding.”

“That’s good,” Sunset said.

“That said,” the doctor said as he pulled out a clipboard, “there are still some other matters. There are some air pockets within her, as well as several pieces of debris which are actually… fused with her body. We are especially interested in that large rock that’s fused into her right thigh, as it should have destroyed the tendons.”

“Can you dig that stuff out?” Crystal asked.

The corners of his mouth turned down. “We can. But we’re not too familiar with her physiology. We’ll have to keep her a week or two and do some reconstructive surgeries…” He flipped a few pages into his clipboard. “She might have to learn to walk again.”

Crystal rolled her eyes. “Well, that can’t be helped, I guess. But will she fully recover?”

“I’m optimistic. My only question is how that happened at all. I’ve never seen wounds like that.”

Crystal shared nervous chuckles with the others and said, “I’m not at liberty to say. Besides… I don’t think you would believe me anyway.”

He opened his mouth to respond when a black object on the side of his coat started to beep. He reached over, unhooked it from its spot, and looked at it. “It would appear that I’m being paged. Why don’t you tell me how it happened later?”

Not a chance. Crystal nodded. “Go take care of your other patients.”

He replaced the object and nodded. He turned to leave but stopped. “Before I do, how’s the eye doing?”

Crystal reached up and stroked her scar. “It works great; I can see perfectly.”

“Are you sure you don’t want us to fix up that scar too?” he asked.

“It’s fine. Thank you.”

With that, the doctor turned and trotted down the hall. He eventually disappeared into a hallway on the side.

From here, Crystal thought, there are some possible futures where she doesn’t make it, though. Hmmm, she ran away in a few others. It’s best to avoid traveling to those. Let’s see... Ah, there’s one where she’s doing some physical therapy after everything is done. Oh, the doctors there are discussing discharge.

“It looks like it’ll be a while before she’s on her hooves again,” Starlight said.

“Thankfully,” Crystal replied, “we don’t have to wait. Gather around.”

They did so. Energy coursed through Crystal and then every bit of her senses came online. In fact, she could feel herself extending around the others in that brief moment before everything folded into a single point.

Everything folded out again and the four of them found themselves standing in fresh air. The skies above hosted several gray clouds. A steady rain splashed against and slid down a hexagonal-patterned barrier that stretched over them.

They stood in a concrete yard which hosted some ramps, wooden staircases, some racks with various weights on them, and a few exercise machines. A few ponies clad in green gowns and their respective nurses busied themselves on some yoga pads off near one end.

Crystal whirled to find a unicorn stallion, standing with a clipboard, overlooking some numbers on the treadmill. Chrysalis herself actually occupied the treadmill, vacantly placing one hoof in front of the other.

The rock in her thigh was now gone and the tissue, aside from some stretch marks, looked as if it had never been violated.

Chrysalis looked in their direction and went white as a sheet. “You!” she exclaimed. She recoiled into the railing and then stumbled and fell. The treadmill, still running, promptly deposited her onto the floor.

The stallion caretaker dropped his clipboard. “Hey! Easy now. Are you okay?”

Chrysalis pushed him away with a growl and then climbed to her hooves. “What are you doing here?”

“We are here to see you, of course,” Crystal replied. “You are recovering quite nicely.”

Chrysalis thundered up to Crystal and stuck her snout in the latter’s face. “What are you getting at? Why would you ever save my life? What is this place that you brought me to? You act like you know what happened to me.”

“I know quite a bit about what happened to you and your reality, yes,” Crystal replied.

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. A green flame enveloped her body and she grew to twice her size. The gown threads ripped into several pieces as the changeling transformed into a manticore. She promptly roared in Crystal’s face.

Crystal blinked some offending saliva out of her eyes.

“You will tell me this instant!” Chrysalis the manticore thundered.

Crystal’s expression remained hardened but she backed away nonetheless. “I plan to tell you everything,” she said as she wiped her face. “But, when I do, I’ll need your recounting of events in return.”

Chrysalis the manticore made several guttural purrs for a few seconds and she raised her claws and then lowered them again. “Very well. I am listening.”

“First…” Crystal turned to the stallion who was now cowering on the other side of the treadmill. “How long until you discharge her?”

The stallion reached up and grabbed the treadmill railing, and with both forelegs wrapped around it, he stood up. “W-well… there’re just some minor housekeeping things to take care of. It’s strictly procedure. I-I don’t think it would take more than a few minutes.”

“Great.” She turned to Chrysalis and motioned toward a spot behind her. “Finish up with him and then meet us over there.”

* * *

Crystal carefully studied the changeling’s reactions. Chrysalis’ scowl had deepened with every word out of her mouth. And now she was done.

“I don’t know if I buy any of that,” Chrysalis grumbled as she shifted on her cushion. “Oh, you must all think me a fool to believe such nonsense.”

Starlight, who sat right beside Twilight, rolled her eyes. “Well, you have done some foolish—”

Crystal held Starlight’s mouth shut with magic. “You are not going to finish that sentence.”

“But she has—” Twilight tried to say, only for magic to clamp down on her mouth as well.

“Timelines? Multiverse?” Chrysalis chuckled. “I wouldn’t believe that in a thousand years.”

Sunset, who sat at the top of the training stairs, frowned. “Well, then, where are we right now? I mean, it’s not any Equestria I’ve ever seen.”

Chrysalis glanced up. Rain slid down the barrier and met the edge of the roof just behind the training stairs. A few flying carriages, traveling down lanes signified by floating beacons in the skies above, flew at record speeds. One of the nurses, attending to patients on the other side of the yard, looked robotic.

Chrysalis finally frowned and said, “I don’t know. This place is revolting and… strange. You’re the one that brought me here, so you would know,” she said to Crystal.

“That I did,” Crystal replied.

“And who are you supposed to be, exactly? You’re the only pony here who I don’t want to rip apart.”

“My name is Crystal Faire,” she said with a smirk, “but your reality knew me as Winter Amore. You may call me that if you wish.”

Chrysalis clenched her teeth. “You… you’re the daughter of that filthy Cadance and that no good husband of hers. Of bucking course.”

Crystal stood up and paced about the edge of the group. “Nonetheless, that’s what we’re going to tell you. Whether or not you believe it is up to you. For now, though… why don’t you start at the beginning; tell us what you were doing and what you saw.”

Chrysalis followed Crystal with her eyes for a moment and then snorted. “Fine, I’ll tell. It’s not as if I have anything better to do.

“I was in Dodge Junction looking to find a meal for myself. I was in disguise, of course.” Chrysalis placed a hoof against her chest and smirked. “Naturally, I had everypony fooled.”

“Of course,” Crystal replied, deadpan.

“It all started happening so suddenly,” Chrysalis continued as her smile faded. “The wind started to blow in random directions. Parts of the ground sank down or swelled up. Pieces of wood, parts of beams, or entire beams appeared out of nowhere. The entire town is wooden buildings, you know. I saw entire ponies appear out of thin air. I think I even saw three-fourths of a pony appear out of thin air.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Three-fourths? I…”

“From what I can see… not all material makes it.” Crystal’s expression darkened. “Some parts can get left behind.”

Starlight and Sunset went pale.

“I couldn’t stop to admire it,” Chrysalis continued, “because some of the buildings exploded.”

“From matter trying to occupy the same spot,” Crystal interjected.

“…I suppose,” Chrysalis said. “The ground shook, I saw several more objects appear. I felt some things appear inside myself.” She rubbed her abdominal area and shuddered. “It felt… violating.

“Just as fast as everything started to appear, I saw wooden carts, parts of wooden carts, bits of earth, ponies… they all disappeared. I think the entire area dropped a good couple of meters. Everypony was panicking and running about. I wanted to stop to enjoy it, but I was… in shock, I suppose.

“And then many of those things reappeared again. All fragmented. I felt a sharp pain in my side and I blew my cover. That rock, whatever it was, was right in my thigh.” She bared her teeth and hissed, “That probably could have killed me!”

Crystal returned her focus to the timeline, which showed her the same carnage in places like Canterlot and Ponyville and many other places. She compared it with the one that had run into it and tracked movements as objects, both living and non, were torn apart.

Crystal hung her head. “It probably could have. You were lucky; most beings the world over sustained fatal injuries in those first few seconds alone.”

Chrysalis gasped. “That… that wasn’t just there?”

Crystal’s face darkened. “No. What you experienced happened everywhere.”

Twilight screamed.

Sunset shot up in her seat. “Everywhere!? Even… Even Canterlot Hi—”

“Everywhere,” Crystal repeated.

Many moments of silence passed by. Bits of green appeared on everyone’s faces.

“Oh, by the stars…” Twilight wheezed as she started to hyperventilate.

Yes, Crystal thought. It affected everything within the set of realities. But…? Her mind’s eye compared the two timelines again. The first one, the initial one which had been moving before, now stood still. The second, Chrysalis’ home timeline, was now moving instead. That had been so ever since they had collided.

Chrysalis swallowed. “W-well… I got out of dodge at that point. I flew away. I thought that I would be safer up there.” She paused. “And I was.”

Crystal watched as that moving timeline neared another. She wasn’t sure why she knew that as her mind’s eye saw a still picture. But she knew they were close. And, as she had just seen it happen, she knew what was about to happen.

“But I still felt it right in here. I could feel bits of myself twisting,” Chrysalis continued. She withdrew into herself and croaked, “I suppose that it was some parts inside me disappearing altogether. I was bleeding on the inside. And while all that was going on, I could see the ground tearing itself apart and I could see clouds going wherever. I think I even saw a tornado.”

The timelines, just as Crystal expected, hit. Every bit of momentum that Chrysalis’ timeline had carried into the third one. She could see the spots where matter sloshed between the two. She could see that which was torn and shredded.

Crystal gasped. Her mental eyes drew down toward some crystallized sections near the bottom. I know this timeline. I was there to help Nyx out with Nightmare Moon, she thought.

“I thought I was just seeing things, and that I was delirious from all the pain. But then I arrived at the hive and I saw it in that decimated state that you saw it in. It looked like it was in the middle of exploding. I landed amongst many late changelings. I knew all of them. Filthy traitors, all of them,” Chrysalis spat.

“And then you collapsed where we found you not long after?” Twilight asked.

“Right you are,” Chrysalis replied. She turned to Crystal and said, at length, “That’s everything. Any questions?”

Crystal didn’t even respond. She continued pacing while mentally watching the timelines as the latest hit recoiled from the collision. It was all over now. Everything below and including the point of contact in both of them had turned semi-crystallized. It was all set in stone.

“Hey,” Sunset said. “Come in, Crystal Faire.”

Crystal blinked and looked over at them. She sucked in a breath. “S-sorry. I’m… I have no questions presently.”

Chrysalis snorted and stood up.

Crystal sighed and looked at Chrysalis’ timeline more closely. Sooo… some timeline hit you, and then you went on to hit another timeline. That’s… not great. Wait… She saw something out of the corner of her mind’s eye and she focused on it. It looked like a dot amidst everything else, but she could see some chunks flying off the timeline. It looked like a bit of timeline itself.

What…? she thought. She watched the chunk fly away and she judged the path it took and traced it back. The path led her to that third timeline which had just recently been hit, and there she spotted a spot where she could see nothing. Her blood ran cold.

Twilight also stood up. “Crystal…?”

A hole? But… it’s just like… Crystal stole a glance at Twilight for a moment. She then ambled over to the training stairs and steadied herself against the top platform. But… holes…?

Her mind’s eye whirled back toward the first timeline which had first collided with Chrysalis’. She saw a dozen slowly growing holes, off which she could spot almost imperceptible specks flying off in all directions.

Starlight stood up as well. “Crystal Faire?”

Crystal watched the specks. The specks punched straight through a few surrounding timelines. She examined the holes that the debris left and found that they too were now expanding.

“Oh stars…” she wheezed.

Chrysalis narrowed her eyes. “Well?”

Crystal turned her attention back toward the world around her. She turned to the others, met Chrysalis’ eyes, and then took a deep breath. “Sorry, I started half-listening toward the end there. I got everything that was said, don’t worry.”

“But?” Twilight tremulously asked.

“The truth is… I was looking at the timeline,” Crystal said. “I was following along… And it would appear that… a great deal more happened over the course of this conversation. There was another collision.”

The other four gave an assortment of dismayed cries in response.

“And I can tell you that at least two of the three timelines involved are now collapsing,” Crystal said.

“Collapsing!? Oh stars!” Twilight screamed.

“There’s more.”

“No!”

“The debris that’s falling off… it’s shredding nearby timelines. I’m seeing a lot of collapse…”

Sunset looked as white as a sheet. Chrysalis stood with her mouth curled into a snarl, but she remained silent all the same.

“So…” Sunset began, “you have… timelines colliding with other timelines… timelines collapsing which causes other timelines to collapse… with no end to this?” She shook her head. “What the buck…?”

Twilight collapsed. “What… happened to me, it’s… happening all over?”

“I don’t believe it,” Chrysalis hissed. “You dare say that there are other places going through what happened to me?”

“That’s what I am saying,” Crystal replied.

Twilight began to hyperventilate again.

“Crystal…” Starlight began, “if all of this is true… and all of this stuff is really happening… What does this all mean?”

The other three locked eyes on Crystal.

Crystal, who shook like a leaf, steadied herself against the training stairs and stood up. She stood tall but her fallen expression said it all.

“I finally understand what’s going on. I understand the problem… The multiverse is bleeding from the inside,” Crystal Faire said. “It’s… dying.”

32 - Time

The room sparkled from the lights that made it through the green-tinted, tree-patterned windows that took up both sides of the room. Tall, crystal pillars flanked each window, holding the little hall’s high ceiling aloft. A small altar made up the end of the room; a single window bearing the tinted hints of a grassy landscape overlooked it like a sentinel.

Strands of flowers hung between pillars, bringing a little life and fragrance with them. A trio of circular tables took up the middle of the room, each bearing several small plates that ringed a cake in their centers. It wasn’t a lot but, for the occasion, it would do.

Twilight Sparkle climbed onto the raised area and, once there, turned and scanned the small crowd that sat at those tables.

Starlight Glimmer sat at the table on the left, wiping some crumbs from her muzzle with a napkin. Rarity and Fluttershy whispered to each other with the former’s smile growing wider by the moment and the latter eventually giggling. Pinkie Pie wolfed down some cake by herself while Applejack and Rainbow Dash wolfed down their pieces with each other, almost as if they were trying to see who would be done first. Spike, meanwhile, had a plate full of gemstones in front of him which he chomped down on one by one.

Princess Celestia—Twilight had to tell herself that it was not the same Celestia that she had just mourned for—sat at the right table with Princess Luna at her side. Princess Cadance—Twilight had to again tell herself that it wasn’t the same Cadance she had met in the interverse—sat at the table with Shining Armor. Twilight’s parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light, sat next to them. Flurry Heart climbed across Shining Armor and Cadance and reached up to touch Twilight Velvet’s horn. It was at that point that Night Light reached across the table and poked Flurry Heart in the stomach, causing her to rock onto her back amidst giggles. King Thorax of the changelings, who sat at the table with them, chuckled at the display.

And Discord the draconequus, who floated above both tables, yawned and flipped over, content to watch them from above.

An unoccupied third table took up the rear of the room. On it sat three small plates with a slice of cake on each of them.

Twilight scanned their faces one last time and then nodded and cleared her throat. The room fell silent as they all turned to her.

“Thank you all for coming. I hope you all enjoyed the food and drink. Pinkie Pie,” she said, turning toward her in particular, “you’ve done it again.”

Pinkie Pie smiled as wide as a mile.

Twilight straightened up. “And again, I know this was relatively short notice. You’ve probably been wondering why I summoned you all here. The truth is… I have some things to tell all of you. A great many things.”

Discord frowned. “Oh no,” he said. “I sure hope you didn’t bring us all together for a lecture. How boring.”

Twilight shook her head and added, “It won’t be just me talking, I promise.”

That only made his frown grow deeper. “Not just you? But then who else?”

“They’ll be here shortly,” Twilight said.

Discord’s eyes popped out of his sockets, landed on the unoccupied table, and then slithered across its surface. “How strange for you to start when everyone is not here.”

Thorax chuckled. “I’m sure she’s got this all planned out.”

Several others nodded in agreement. At that, Discord reached down and scooped his eyes back up before sticking them back into their sockets.

Twilight took a long and deep breath and swung her foreleg as she pushed it back out. “I’ve been harboring a secret for some while now,” she said. “Not for longer than a few weeks, but I’ve still had it. It’s quite serious and… in some ways… very terrible.”

She could see a little bit of color disappear from her parent’s faces as they threw confused frowns at each other. The other ponies sitting at the table also frowned.

Starlight, Spike, and the rest of her friends, however, sat up straight. Rainbow Dash even smirked.

“I wasn’t sure how to approach this subject because the problem was… it still is very complicated. But so much has happened since then and I think I know what I’m doing now.” Twilight motioned to the latter table. “I’ve told them about my secret already, and now I want to share it with you… and tell you all about the incredible journey that me and… Starlight… and a few others have been on.”

Starlight glanced around as many heads turned toward her. She blushed and then waved in response.

“I… do want to preface this a little,” Twilight continued as her tone grew somber, “that… I truly think that by the time all of you walk out of here today, all of our lives will be changed forever—”

The frowns grew deeper.

“—in ways that, when I first started to deal with all this, I myself could never have even imagined.”

Twilight took a moment to put her next thoughts together and she briefly glanced toward the closed pair of double doors at the other end of the room.

“It turns out that there is so much more to existence than any of us could ever have guessed at. Several weeks ago, I met a mare who showed me this higher existence. She opened my eyes to possibilities that I could never have fathomed. There are so many realities out there, just like this one, but they are each to their own.”

She paced back and forward across the stage. “She showed me realities where… Celestia and Luna were missing, and it was I that moved the sun and moon in their place. I’ve been to realities where Equestria was a wasteland. I’ve been thousands of years into the future and I’ve been a year or two into the past. These places are real.”

Discord leaned forward and laid his head on his arms with a smirk. “Oooh. Now this is interesting.”

“Alternate realities, you say?” Luna began. “So… there are other versions of Equestria?”

“That’s right,” Twilight replied. “They’re alternate timelines if you want to be really specific about it. And these timelines contain every possible future; all infinitely many of them.”

Night Light chuckled. “That’s my daughter. Way to push the new frontier, honey,” he said, swinging his hoof around for emphasis.

Twilight smiled. “Thanks, Dad. But, truth be told, it wasn’t entirely by choice. The multiverse maybe might have needed a little fixing.”

Starlight suppressed a chuckle with her hoof.

“That was the journey that Starlight and I have been on. And so much happened along the way. I saw so many fantastical places, did many fantastical things… and I’ve met friends both expected and unexpected. A few of them are even here now.”

Twilight stood tall as a small grin spread across her face. “Maybe some of you don’t know her or remember her, but I made friends with a Sunset Shimmer from another reality.” She looked at Celestia, in particular, and asked, “Would you believe that?”

Celestia slowly nodded. “Perhaps I would.”

Twilight turned her eyes toward Cadance and Shining Armor. “Would you believe me if I told you that I made friends, I think, with Queen Chrysalis?”

A little bit of color disappeared from their faces and they exchanged raised eyebrows. Night Light and Twilight Velvet also frowned. Thorax, on the other hoof, shrunk down a little.

And then Discord laughed and suddenly appeared right beside Twilight and slapped her on the back. “Good one! I didn’t think you had it in you to make a joke like that.”

Those at the tables exchanged a few nervous chuckles.

Twilight cracked a smile and placed a hoof on her chest. “I’m completely serious, Discord. I know it sounds a bit fantastic, but I assure you that it’s true.”

Discord frowned and started pulling on his goatee while staring her down.

Twilight turned to the crowd again. “And what if I told you that the mare who opened me and everypony else to the multiverse was an older version of Flurry Heart?”

Now many of them simply deadpanned. The room was silent for several moments.

“Uh… Twilight…” Cadance began with a light chuckle. “I’m sorry. It’s just that…”

Shining Armor nodded. “It does seem a little bit far-fetched, sis.”

The double doors at the other end of the room creaked open, and all at once, the whole room turned in their seats to see the new arrivals.

Sunset Shimmer, with her red and yellow mane and tail curled without a single strand out of place, took the left. Chrysalis, with her sleek black body and wholesome aura, took the right. Crystal Faire, standing tall and proud with a gleam in her eyes, glided down the center. The three approached the unoccupied table that took up the back of the room.

While the table to Twilight’s right stared in shock (with some even rising to her hooves), Flurry Heart made a cooing sound and flew over to Crystal. The two of them looked at each other for several moments with the latter flying all over to examine every inch and the former simply following with her eyes. It was only when Flurry briefly stopped in front of Crystal’s face that Crystal reached up and booped Flurry on the nose, prompting Flurry to backflip through the air amidst a mad giggling fit.

Those sitting exchanged a few chuckles and let out breaths that they had been holding. Eyes still lingered on Chrysalis for many long moments. The entirety of Twilight’s family fixed their gaze on Crystal. Celestia’s eyes, however, fell solely on Sunset.

Sunset blushed and waved. “Uh, hi, everypony. I’m Sunset Shimmer.”

Crystal bowed. “My name is Crystal Faire,” she said.

Chrysalis blew some strands of hair out of her face. “You know who I am.”

Twilight’s heart soared and she couldn’t help but stand tall. “We all came together for one of the most fascinating and important missions in all of existence. It was circumstance that united us in our journey across the timelines and beyond, but I can safely say that it was friendship that saw us through to the end.”

The rest of the room now sat straight in their seats with their heads fully turned to Twilight. Discord silently floated over and took a standing position behind Fluttershy. Flurry Heart landed right on Crystal’s head and made herself comfortable.

As the three newcomers took their seats, Twilight took a glance at Starlight. Starlight, in turn, winked.

“And it is a tale that I want to share with all of you. But… I think that it would be best if I started at the very beginning. And really, that beginning is why I called all of you here. That beginning is my secret.”

She took a deep breath and sighed. “My name is Twilight Sparkle, and I, like them, am not from this reality, but a reality much like this one.”

* * *

The occasional tree broke up the moss and brown leaf-covered ground. The bare trees themselves only blocked out bits and pieces of sunlight. A light wind stirred the fallen leaves, adjusting them bit by bit.

A large slab of rock stood halfway wedged into the mound of dirt that they all gathered around. Twilight glanced around, inwardly noting who had wet faces and who did not. That time had come and gone, after all.

Starlight stood with Spike and the rest of the girls, and they all listened as Princess Luna spoke at length with them. And then Starlight spoke and pointed toward the stone. Discord, who floated over them, stroked his goatee and nodded before speaking some words of his own. Whether or not they would move the burial site to someplace more proper was up in the air and Twilight decided to leave them to it.

Celestia and Sunset spoke in soft voices off to the side. They each wore smiles on their faces and even shared the occasional chuckle. They were likely sharing stories, with Sunset occasionally giving reassurances that things were okay and that there was another Sunset—this reality’s Sunset and thus this Celestia’s—who was okay.

Chrysalis and Thorax held a quiet and, based on their narrowed eyes and sharp voices, pointed conversation. It, however, showed no signs of escalation. Twilight wasn’t sure if an agreement had been made yet, or if there would be one at all.

Crystal stood off to another side, cradling a napping Flurry Heart in one foreleg. Shining Armor and Cadance stood with her, and they, like all the other groupings, spoke in low tones. The latter two peppered Crystal with questions which she, with a smile, answered in clear tones.

Twilight smiled and then focused her attention on the mound itself and sighed. “Hi again, me,” she whispered. “Are you watching us now? I wonder if you’ve seen the places that I’ve been to and watched what I’ve done. Because if you have… I hope I made you proud.”

A couple of ponies came up right behind her, the leaves underhoof crackling with their every step. Twilight turned to face them. Both Twilight Velvet and Night Light’s eyes looked bagged and blood-shot, and Twilight Velvet, in particular, wiped a few more tears away, but they otherwise smiled at her.

“Mom, Dad…” she said.

“Twilight… kiddo, what are we going to do with you?” Night Light asked with a chuckle.

“It’s a lot to take in. I’m sorry,” Twilight replied.

“Oh, dear,” Twilight Velvet replied, “you don’t need to be sorry. You did nothing wrong. And it’s not every day that I get to say that my daughter saved all of existence. Don’tcha know how proud that makes me?”

“And me,” Night Light seconded.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Twilight said. “I just thought you all deserved to know the truth about what happened to her. I know it’s weird, but I just hope I can bring what she brought to the table.”

“And I hope we can be like the parents from your reality, kiddo,” Night Light replied. He scratched his head. “Oh, this just sounds weird.”

Twilight Velvet rubbed his back and then met Twilight’s eyes. “Twilight, hun, no matter what happens, we will always love you.”

A few tears formed in Twilight’s eyes and she sprang forward and wrapped her hooves around them. They, in turn, returned her embrace. “I love you too, so much,” Twilight whimpered into them.

They held each other for an eternity, and then when they broke away, Twilight caught Crystal out of the corner of her eye.

And Crystal smiled back and nodded affirmatively.

* * *

The castle’s crystal walls contained enough ambient light that, even during nighttime, she could see her way around. Nonetheless, as Twilight trotted into the library, she levitated a lit candlestick beside her. She breathed in the air, spent a moment stretching some of her muscles in the doorway, and then trotted toward the tables.

Her eyes fell on the crystal mirror that sat on the other side of the room. This one was dormant and probably would be for a while yet. She thought of Sunset who she knew was back in her home timeline. She’d have to go visit, maybe.

She wondered how the other changelings had received Chrysalis. Twilight wondered if she’d actually be able to integrate. Twilight made a mental note to check back with them in a few days.

She spotted a square object on one of the tables and she meandered toward it. Setting the candle down, she lifted up the object and unfolded it to see it in full. It was a beige cloak with some swirling patterns stitched into the side.

I guess she didn’t need this anymore, Twilight thought as her lips curled into a small smile. So… I guess I’ll hold onto it. Crystal… you’ll come back and visit soon, right?

She started scanning the bookshelves that ringed the room. She hovered over a few titles including Gusty the Great, and she immediately passed over some of the more difficult titles. Finally, however, she found one that would probably suit what she was looking for.

She pulled it off the shelf and trotted back to the table and took a seat. The candle gave her enough light to open the book and start reading.

Her eyes ran across the lines, practically soaking up what they had to say. The text led to images that danced through her head. Some descriptors had her hearing sounds and smelling stenches that weren’t there. She felt like she could reach right into the page and touch those within it—she laughed aloud and mentally convinced herself to save Haycarte’s method for another day.

She lost track of time as she sped through pages and pages. The book itself wasn’t very long, but she had a whole library. There would always be more.

Twilight sighed contently. She could do this all night. In fact, after everything that had happened, this was the plan.

And then she heard a muffled bang from what sounded like a few rooms away and Twilight perked up. The sound had been so sudden and had lasted so briefly but she recognized it right away.

She groaned, calmly closed the book, and stood up. She levitated it behind her as she trotted out the library and into the castle halls, using her candlestick to light the way.

She made her way down the hall to where she thought she had heard the sound and eventually found the double doors that led into the throne room.

And then Twilight spotted Crystal reclined across Rarity’s throne. Twilight wordlessly approached the Cutie Map but, as she brought her candle closer, she saw something that made her frown: Crystal’s body was covered with bruises of varying discoloration as well as a few light cuts.

Crystal groaned and lifted her head to see. And then she chuckled. “Hello.”

Twilight’s frown deepened. “Hi… What… happened to you?”

Crystal groaned and sat up straight. “Well, Twilight, it turns out that that saving existence really takes a lot out of you. I’m nowhere near full strength anymore. I’m winning fights but, obviously… I’m not getting out unscathed right now.”

“Wait,” Twilight sputtered, “you already went back to work?”

Crystal nodded. “I’ve saved a good many timelines or so. But I’m starting to think that I should have waited a while to recuperate.”

“Well, of course you should! You should take a break!”

Crystal sighed and laid back into the seat. “Actually, Twilight, I think I need a full-on vacation. I was thinking of finding someplace to settle down for a year, maybe two, especially so I can do bookkeeping on the multiverse.”

Twilight placed the candle on the Map and circled the throne to where Crystal’s head hung over the edge. “That sounds like a great idea. Actually, if you don’t have any other places in mind, you’re welcome to stay here. I’d be happy to have you around for a while longer.”

Crystal nodded. “Huh, maybe,” she yawned.

Twilight grinned. “Wow, you really do look exhausted. You can sleep in my bed tonight.”

Crystal’s eyes flickered about for just a moment and then she smiled. “Ah, yes. I see you were planning an all-nighter.”

“I’ve wanted to relax over a few good books,” Twilight said with a giggle. She then grabbed hold of one of Crystal’s forelegs and gave a tug. “Come on, you.”

Crystal groaned and hopped off the throne. Twilight led her out of the room and into the hall. They walked in silence, guided only by the candlelight.

“I doubt I’ll be able to sleep in your bed every night, however,” Crystal began.

“No, of course not. But I could always set up a room for you.”

Crystal hummed. “Well, I do not know if I particularly want to live in a castle. I’ve been there and done that.”

Twilight frowned. “Well, if not here… maybe you could find some place in Ponyville?”

“That was my thought.”

“I’m sure there are some places around town that are for sale.”

“There are; I can see them from here,” Crystal replied with a nod.

“Great. Actually, now that I think about it, having your own place seems like a great idea. It’ll give you a home to come back to, even after you eventually go back to work.”

Crystal blinked and sagely nodded. “You’re right. Having a place that I can call home does sound nice. I suppose I didn’t think about that.” She looked over at Twilight and even bent down to look Twilight in the eyes. “Would you at all be willing to help me pick one out? I’ve never gone house shopping before...”

Twilight beamed. “I’d be happy to! Maybe we can convince Starlight to tag along.”

“I’d like that.”

Twilight raised an eyebrow and stared back at Crystal. “But, you know, houses are expensive.”

Crystal sighed. “I know… the reality is that I don’t have a bit to my name. I could… extract payment from the realities that I have helped, but… I think you would call that stealing. So, I am… broke.”

“Hmmm, yeah, that sure is a tough one.” She cracked a sly grin. “I suppose that I could pull a few princess strings and get you the real estate. Maybe I’ll even throw in some furniture. I can’t promise you any more than that, though.”

“I do appreciate it immensely, Twilight,” Crystal said with a smile. “Thank you.”

“No problem, I’m happy to help.”

“And would you be willing to be a reference? I’m looking to scope out a quiet job in town while I’m at it; that would make for a nice change of pace, I think.”

Twilight nodded. “Absolutely. Do you have any places in mind?”

“I don’t particularly know. I was thinking the bookstore. Or The Hay Burger, I suppose.”

Twilight’s frown spread down the front of her muzzle. “The Hay Burger? No…”

Crystal shook her head. “I don’t mind slumming it for a while.”

“That’s an image.” She threw her hooves into the air. “Great and powerful defender of the multiverse, carries royal blood in her veins, and is an alicorn… spends her day asking ponies if they want fries with that.”

There was a pause. “…Perhaps I should shoot for something of a higher station? City Hall needs a clerk position filled…”

Twilight nodded. “That seems a little more up your alley.”

Crystal’s muzzle twitched and she hummed in acknowledgment.

The rounded a corner and then started up some stairs.

“I have also been thinking…” Crystal began, “that Sunset Shimmer is in a timeline all by herself. And I won’t be in this one forever, certainly. I wish… there was a way that the five of us could stay in touch.”

Twilight hummed contemplatively as she thought about Sunset as well. It was a long distance in a way. But then she thought about how she had talked to Sunsets before. “Well, you know, there are message journals. Maybe we could do something like that?”

“Message journals. That… actually sounds like a really good idea. I could feasibly set up some message journals for us so that we could write to each other.”

Twilight chuckled. “Huh. Maybe you could set up something like what you did with the Crystal Heart on it, so we could even visit each other whenever we want.”

“Perhaps.” Crystal paused. “It does occur to me that Chrysalis might not necessarily care for it.”

“It’s worth a shot. She came a long way,” Twilight replied. “Who knows?”

They reached the landing and swung into the hall. At that, Crystal said, “You’re right. She is still a friend, after all.”

Twilight nodded. “And Crystal, I’d like to go see more of the multiverse some time. Not now, but sometime. I think I can think of a few places I’d like to see again.”

“Wouldn’t be anything wrong with us going on a few day trips here and there and see what’s around.”

“Of course.”

They reached the bedroom and trotted inside. A little dresser stood to the left with a mirror overhanging it. Crystal instead turned to the large bed to the right, examining the canopy that wrapped around it. She trotted up to it.

And then she turned. “But you know, Twilight, it matters not to me what I do, where I go, or what I have. I think, what is important, is that I’m with friends.”

Twilight smiled even more. “Of course. Get some good sleep. I’ll see you in the morning?”

Crystal nodded and climbed onto the bed without so much as pulling the sheets out. “Yes. I will see you tomorrow morning, and… in mornings to come.”

Twilight smiled and turned toward the door.

“Twilight… before you go…”

“Hmmmm?”

“That book there… Why choose that one?” she asked as she lay her head on the pillow. “I’m curious.”

“Oh, this?” Twilight levitated the book down and looked at the cover; it had a picture of a snail carrying a sword while standing in front of a large clock. “I was… kinda thinking about Flurry Heart when I picked this out. I was thinking about stuff I could get for her. I think she would like this one.”

Crystal smirked. “I can confirm. That one was one of my favorites growing up. It’s a good story.”

“Then I’ll definitely have to send this to her when she’s older.”

Crystal nodded. “I can remember when Auntie would be there… and she’d read stories like that one to me before bed. I think I always feel asleep halfway through.” She sighed. “Ah, those are precious memories.”

Twilight perked up. “Oh? Well then… maybe…”

“I’m a bit too old for it, Twilight.”

Twilight frowned and hung her head.

Crystal stared for a few moments more and then sighed and chuckled softly. “But if that’s what you want to do, then do it. Actually, please?”

A smile returned to Twilight’s face and she met Crystal’s eyes. “Sure. I’d love to,” she said.

She levitated the candlestick and set it on the dresser and trotted to the other side of the bed where a nightstand hosted a lamp, turning it on with her magic as she went. She then took a seat next to the bed and opened the book back to the first page.

Crystal rolled onto her back, closed her eyes, and nestled herself further into the pillow.

Twilight couldn’t help but gaze at Crystal’s peaceful expression for many moments. She couldn’t help but grin. She even felt like her heart would burst at any moment, especially as she saw a contented smile appear on Crystal’s muzzle.

And, she decided, this was happiness.

Twilight smiled, turned her eyes to the page, and began reading. “Once upon a time…”

Author's Note

And with this, Reflections 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.

Until next time~

If you interested in reading the post-script development blog to story, click this link.