Chapter 1 (Revamped Story)
It all started like an average day in Ponyville. The shops were open, ponies were out and about, nothing out of the ordinary. But, on this particular day, the lives of all of Equestria almost changed forever. All because of one struggling pony who didn't feel like she had a friend.
That pony was Skylight Gleam. As the daughter of Starlight Glimmer, Sky had spent most of her life in her mother's shadow. Aside from being a splitting image of her mother, ponies also expected her to be just as, if not more talented than both of her parents. If that wasn't enough pressure, the successes of her elder siblings added to the expectations.
Like everypony else, Sky was in the town square attempting to complete her routine shopping. Just as she passed by Sugarcube Corner, Pinkie Pie darted up, starting a series of events not unlike the typical day in her life, but a routine that never seems to become any less irritating.
"Starlight? Oh Starlight, there you are!" Pinkie yells, quickly approaching Sky, who immediately turned around. "Oh, sorry Sky I didn't realize it was you. I totally thought it was your mom there for a second!" Pinkie added, giggling as she corrected herself.
"No biggie Pinkie. It happens all the time." Sky groaned, walking away.
"Jeez, who drooled on her cupcakes?" Pinkie said, wearily walking away.
Things continued to get worse as her day downtown progressed.
"Did you see Skylight's performance at the magic school exams last weekend?"
"Yeah. She really needs to step it up if she ever wants to come close to matching her mother's skills." The second pony replied. It felt like a bullet to her heart. Why did everypony expect her to be an exact copy of her mom?
"Totally! You figure she'd be a lot more like her mother, I mean, for Celestia's sake, she looks just like her!" That was the final catalyst for her. It was time to put her life's work, her perfect plan into action. She returned to the Friendship Castle in tears.
"Hey Sky, how was your..." Starlight began, curious about her daughter's day, cut off by the tears in her daughter's eyes. "Skylight, what's wrong?"
"I don't wanna talk about it."
"Come on Sky, you can talk to me. After all, you are my mini me!" Starlight didn't realize her mistake until Sky's yelling began. She used to love being her mom's mini-me, what happened?
"No mom! I don't want to be like you! I don't want everyone calling me your clone or mistaking me for you all the time!"
"Skylight...I..." Starlight began to tear up, her heart full of guilt.
"No! I don't wanna be called by my clone name either! Skylight Gleam isn't my name anymore!" Her horn ignited with the bright blue aura of her magic.
"Sky...what are you doing?" After everything her and Sunburst had done to raise their children with the principles of friendship and kindness, was her daughter really going to walk the same path that she did?
"Changing the future." Sky's magic had created a portal, a portal that would change absolutely everything.
Directly after the spell had been cast, Starlight began darting around the castle in search of Nightingale. She knew it was time for the younger generation to take over the job they had previously been destined to fulfill, and what better time than know than to ask the assistance of the future Princess of Friendship?
"Princess...Nighting...gale." Starlight panted. Catching her breath, she continued. "It's Skylight! She's disappeared into a time portal and I'm afraid she's going to try and change the future of Equestria in order to change her own destiny, and I need your help to stop her!"
"She...she what?" At the moment, she knew that she was going to need some help. "Sterre, Nebula, can you come here please?"
"Yes sis?" The duo said in unison.
"We have a situation."
After explaining what had happened a second time, they knew they had to do something that was forbidden under any other circumstance. They would have to time travel. They decided that the best option would be to get as many talented magic wielders in one place as possible. So they called upon their brother, Dark Knights, as well as their magicless second brother, Levitation, who ironically, knew much more about magic than the majority of them.
After gathering the Sparkle family, letters are distributed to their cousins in the Crystal Empire and get into contact with Starlight's three sons, Jupiter, Neptune, and Pluto. Once the royal family and Royal Council of Magic were contacted, the present members began to devise a plan to stop Skylight from destroying the past, present, and future of Equestria.
"Jupiter, Neptune, Pluto, since Skylight is your younger sister, I figured you would be of great assistance in this operation. What point in time do you think she would've traveled to?" Nightingale asked.
"My best guess would be right after Princess Flurry's birth. After all, that's when my parents first became serious about their relationship." Neptune added. "After all, I'm only a year younger than her."
"That does make a lot of sense, since we're pretty sure she's time traveled in order to split your parents up and change their destinies, and for her, I don't see that task being too difficult." Sterre added.
"Especially since she looks so much like Starlight. She'd just have to break up with Sunburst while Starlight was somewhere else." Nebula said, helping to continue the theory.
"We need to act fast, we don't know how much damage she's already done." Levitation added.
"Um sis, I think that the damage has already begun." Harvest Moon said, lifting up her wing to reveal that her once orange feathers were now beginning to sport a green hue.
"We need to get some serious magical power in here, and fast." Sterre said.
Not long after Sterre had expressed her concern, the Crystal Empire royal family was in Ponyville.
"Alright Rae, what do you need us to do?" Beckoning Light says, her younger siblings behind her.
"Well, we need all the magical power we can get to help save Equestria from another time travel fiasco." Sterre paused, realizing that she only saw five of her six cousins standing before her. "Where's Flurry Heart?"
"About that..." Beckoning says, pointing her hoof to a corner by the front door. There the group finds Flurry doing her best not to hyperventilate. "Just between you and me, I don't think she'll last a week as queen." She whispers to Sterre, who giggles as Nebula goes to Flurry in an attempt to calm her down.
"Flurry, you need to calm down. We're not going to solve anything this way. I need you to be level headed right now, we don't have much time!" Nebula says, trying her best to get Flurry to a normal mental state in as little time as possible.
"Nebs, hurry!" Sterre yells, looking back at her younger brothers. "DK and Levi are starting to be affected! We're going to lose all our help if we don't start figuring out how to stop her!"
"Come on Flurry, we need you right now!"
Taking a deep breath, Flurry finally calms herself down. "Ok, tell me what I need to do."
As the trio begins dashing down the hall to the meeting room, where Nebula explains the situation further.
"You see, what Sky did was reuse the spell her mother had created to change the relationships between my mother and her friends. The only problem is, the scroll was destroyed last time and Sky produced it with her own magic. Recreating the same conditions in order to catch her and fix everything will be very difficult without alicorn magic, which is where you come in. It's going to take all of our strength to set things right."
Once they arrive in the meeting room, Nebula uses her magic to summon the cutie map.
"If we use the map to help open the portal, it should help us find Sky because of the friendship disturbance that caused this all to happen in the first place!"
"Ok everypony, we cast the spell on 3." Sterre says, as everyone prepares to use every ounce of their magical strength.
"1..." Nebula calls out.
"2..." Dark Knights continues.
"3!" Sterre yells. At the moment, a rainbow of magicals auras combine, sucking the group into a portal that would lead them through an adventure of a lifetime, or at least, the adventure of an average Tuesday.
Author's Note
In my headcanon, Twilight never becomes a Queen like Celestia and Cadence, because she doesn't technically have a kingdom under her jurisdiction like they do. However, her children are still heirs to her throne, but will never be considered anything more than Princesses or Princes like some of their royal counterparts. It is also canon in the Paradoxverse that artificial alicorns live the lifespan of a normal pony and natural born ones don't live much longer than 1000 years.
Also, this DeviantArt journal explains all the family relations: https://www.deviantart.com/pixiepixelz/journal/Paradoxverse-Ages-Final-NG-Edition-753456102
After a few minutes, the group woke up 26 years in the past. It was the day of Flurry Heart's crystalling.
"We have to be careful. If ponies realize that Flurry and Beck are alicorns, we're in trouble. Also, we can't let Flurry get too close to her younger self, that could cause problems because of a time paradox." Sterre says.
"Rae, this whole situation is a time paradox." Nightingale replied, shaking her head at her sister's obviousness.
"Let's use our royal disguises. If ponies realize how much we look like our parents, that could mean trouble as well." Nebula suggested. With the flicker of a few horns, the disguises were up.
Meanwhile, some other ponies were also noticing the time disturbance.
"Hey Skips, do you feel that?" Perenna asked.
"Feel what?"
"Watch, come here." Perenna said, grabbing her wife's hoof.
"Oh yeah, what in Equestria is that?"
"A time distrubance. I'm going downstairs to talk to Corona."
"Let me come with you. I am your wife after all, I'm supposed to help you with this kind of thing."
"Skipper, I don't want you getting hurt, and what about our son? Who will take care of him if we have to go and take care of this?"
"I'll just leave him with Blossom. I'm sure she'd love some quality time with her nephew."
"Ok, fine." Perenna sighed. "But if anything happens to you, I have no idea what I'll do."
The duo rushed down stairs to consult Corona. Unfortunately, their fears were confirmed.
"I'm sorry Princess." Corona said. "I have no idea who caused this and how, but we're going to have to travel to this alternate universe to fix it or there could be detrimental consequences."
"I understand completely. Let's get this problem fixed before it becomes any worse." Perenna replied, as Corona simultaneously used her magic to open the portal to the time anomaly.
The group screamed as they were sucked into the portal. What was in store for them through this wormhole?
Seconds later, they arrived in a world that looked quite similar to their own, but at the same time, it was completely different. This was around the same time as Princess Arctic's crystalling, according to the time map, but this princess wasn't the one they remembered at all. Soon, they bump into a group of unfamiliar ponies that will change their perspective of the dimensional connections forever.
"Who in Equestria are you?" Nightingale asks.
"If I'm not mistaken, we're your counterparts from another universe." Perenna replies.
"What in the name of Celestia is that supposed to mean?" Nebula replied, as suspicious of these strangers as she was confused.
"Let me explain." Corona says, stepping in front of two groups. "You see, in our home universe, I am the guardian of time. My magic alerts the princess when there's a disturbance, and we go to take care of it. However, this distrubance was bigger than the ones we usually encounter."
"Yes. Usually it's something small, like a pony trying to sneak a peek at the future to see how their life turns out or something like that. I've never seen a pony try to change the past of their universe so drastically." Perenna adds.
"Princess Perenna is right. I believe it was my interuniversal counterpart that caused this particular disturbance, which is probably why we were permitted interuniversal travel. We know more about this type of instance than you do." Just then, Corona's horn flickered. "She's this way." Corona said, pointing to the left.
"Let's go!" Perenna yelled, as both groups followed her lead.
"So...Corona, who counterparts who between your universe and our's?" Nebula asks, being quite curious after their previous conversation.
"Well...I'm your little brother Levitation's counterpart, and Skipper counterparts another one of her mother's children, one known as Harmony Apple." Perenna says.
"And as Corona said, she counterparts your little chaos causer Skylight." Skipper adds.
"Wait a second, how do you know all our names? We never formally introduced ourselves." Nebula asked, remaining suspicious of these newcomers.
"As the keeper of interstellar time in my universe, I can research other universes and find our counterparts. Of course, I've never been able to exercise this ability, as it's only available if I actually enter an alternate universe, so this is a first for me too."
"You'll probably continue to figure out the counterparts as time goes on. It's really a shame that we couldn't all meet our counterparts. It would've made a great interuniversal study to show my successor." Corona.
"Successor?"
"The young hybrid prince of my world."
"Hybrid prince?" Sterre asked.
"Should I show her?" Perenna said. Skipper nodded and Perenna changed into her hybrid form.
Everypony gasped. The princess of an alternate universe was half-changeling?
"Our son." Perenna and Skipper said in unison.
"Your son?" Flurry asks.
"Yes. We figured it would be best if Corona's duties were passed on to somepony in the royal family, somepony we know we can trust with such a responsibility."
"That makes sense. We really don't need another situation like this." Nightingale said.
"This is what I've spent my life trying to prevent." Corona added. "I've done well for my universe, I wish I could've done something to protect yours."
"It's ok Corona. We can't expect you to protect a world that you didn't know existed." Sterre said. "After all, your counterpart is the pony who caused this whole mess and called you here."
"I'm really sorry that you had to come fix this mess for us. It's not even your future in the balance. If she succeeds, she just wipes our universe out entirely, right?" Hera inquired.
"Not exactly. If our universes combine, there's a chance that a lot will change for us as well. Depending on how much she changes things, we could be completely different ponies too." Corona stated.
"I didn't realize something this severe could ever happen." Nightingale said. "I know we need her to be our time lord once we get this straightened out, but how can I trust her with the space-time continuum after this?"
"Our destinies don't always work out the same over all universes. Perhaps another pony with similar capabilities will present themselves, or maybe she will be worthy of the responsibility after all." Corona replied.
The groups continued following the glowing path set for them by Corona's magic. After following tracks for some time, Corona felt there was something important she should share.
"Perenna." Corona whispered.
"Yes Corona?"
"Should I tell them that I know who the new timekeeper is?"
"That depends. Who is it?"
"You see her, Princess Flurry Heart, the counterpart of Queen Arctic?"
"Yeah."
"She's pregnant your highness, and the child is capable of fixing it all."
