Perception

Chapters

Chapter I: Persuasion
Chapter II: Perfection
Chapter III: Persistence
Chapter IV: Perfidy
Chapter V: Peril
Chapter VI: Perseverance
Chapter VII: Percipience I
Chapter VIII: Percipience II
Chapter IX: Permutations I
Chapter X: Permutations II
Chapter XI: Permanence
Chapter XII: Persecuted
Chapter XIII: Perspicacity
Chapter XIV: Perturbance
Chapter XV: Perchance
Chapter XVI: Periodic
Chapter XVII: Perspectives I
Chapter XVIII: Perspectives II

Chapter I: Persuasion

The door closed shut.

Starlight Glimmer, while taking the shortest way out of her village, glanced around the rural, wooden-built houses and cottages of her hometown. The intricate details of the scenery and landscape that she observed forced her to a halt, at least for a moment. She gazed down, staring at mere piles of dirt and soil. Waves of memories came and went.

"I give up. I can’t accept this reality anymore," she thought to herself. She witnessed how her only friend vanished through a chain of events that only caused her to be pushed aside, ignored by the rest of society. She saw the excitement on his face, his numerous jumps of joy and him simply leaving her behind in solitude. What was initially mere piles of dirt and soil became forlorn heaps of mud and grime.

Befriending ponies without cutie marks became a no-no for her. What if the exact same situation occur? And there is no way she will befriend ponies with cutie marks too - they are probably going to be condescending to her, with no cutie mark to show for herself, no experience to share with and no common interests to talk about.

After a pause, she continued walking. The buildings of the suburbs faded away into the horizon. She tried to prove herself; she studied immeasurably, surely influenced by the affirmation of her old friend. On the day when she finally got what she always wanted, she firmly believed that she would be able to share her success with others. Wait, but who can she share this experience with?

She squeezed her eyes shut. She wanted that memory erased entirely.

She trotted on countless roads before reaching a huge desert. Other than a dry piece of wood metres away from her, the desert is decidedly plain and desolate. Despite all this time, the past was still deep in her mind. She never regretted her decision to leave the comfort and safety of her home. It was only a cell that trapped her with her aspirations. But then, she just had to orchestrate the plan that she has had in her mind for all this time. All of that effort and time going into the planning and preparation would not be wasted. Her horn shone with a magical aura, commanding control over that seemingly useless stump of wood.

Her perception gave life to her undying persistence to change the norms that she dearly abhorred.

............................

At last, she arrived at her destination. A desolate valley with many caves and ravines surrounding the region. This would be her abode, potentially for the rest of her life.

Activity attracted her attention. A grey pony was looking sad and remorse, hammering on what Starlight Glimmer can only comprehend to be just rocks. A thought immediately convinced Starlight to walk over to that similarly lone pony.

"Psst, do you happen to know a lot about rocks?" Starlight nervously asked. She was awkward; she rarely interacted with ponies even within her hometown. Only her former friend...

"Yes," the grey pony replied without much hesitation, or feeling, for that matter.

"Have you encountered a super-powerful stone that can contain the cutie mark magic of, say a entire village?" Starlight continued her inquiry. She tried to avoid the gaze of that grey pony; it was exceptionally devoid of energy.

"Yes, in the big cave," the grey pony said, emotionless. She pointed at the big cave not too far away from their current geographical location.

That reply did not seem to justify a response from Starlight. She only momentarily bowed and rushed to the cave gingerly.

The cave Starlight entered defied her expectations. It was not to the description of the chapter in an encyclopaedia she devoured on this subject. The cave was not dark at all, it was chock full with a luminescent turquoise mineral that must be what she was looking for all this time. A grin emerged from her face.

The piece of wood that was levitating around with her all this time was dropped purposely on a raised stone dais.

............................

"Everypony, we need to rid ourselves of any distinction that we might have! Doing so, we may progress with equality, happiness and friendship!" Starlight exclaimed with enthusiasm as she stood on a raised platform.

Much time has passed since the discovery of that luminous turquoise rock in the cave. Starlight oversaw the construction of a new settlement. The buildings were simply designed; they were not designed to be lavish. Most importantly, the houses were of the same dimensions and structure. This is to pursue the cause that Starlight envisioned. Despite the simple design, she was satisfied. She accomplished something huge in her mind with her determination and drive.

During the construction of the settlement, ponies arrived from far and wide, evidently shocked by the appearance of a settlement uncharted on curated maps by the cartologists from Canterlot. Many decided to rest at this settlement and eventually leave for their destination past the mountains, but Starlight is now pushing the notion for them to stay.

"Together, we can live a harmonious life without the distinctive cutie marks to discover the meaning of true friendship between all of us!" she proposed, elated that her plans were coming to fruition. Many flocked to her cause, believing that she can help develop them into better ponies with great friends.

............................

The ponies join Starlight into the cave. To their awe and surprise, a huge containment locker was built. In front of them, a wooden staff was resting calmly on the stone-chiseled dais.

"Today will mark a significant juncture in our lives!" Starlight proudly proclaimed. Her horn shimmered and the staff floated to her side.

"With this Staff of Sameness, I will eliminate the distinction between ponies for true friendship to sprout!" Starlight smiled triumphantly and began the ritual described. The cutie marks were removed through the Tolleren spell, executed with the aid of the Staff of Sameness and were attracted by the mineral in each individual locker and were sealed through her Clausan spell. A black equal sign replaced the ponies' original cutie mark through an Imprimiry spell. The magical display depicted in front of every ponies' eyes the mastery of magic Starlight attained.

"Wait, what about you?" a black pony innocently questioned Starlight.

Starlight stopped for a moment, thinking quickly.

"Once everypony is done with the procedure, I will cast it on myself to remove my own cutie mark!" Starlight shouted. It was at this moment, she realised she made a critical mistake.

When everypony was done, she grudgingly did as she proclaimed to all. She felt something was missing from her. That feeling dreaded her.

After they returned to the village, the ponies carried on helping each other construct a new building for their residence. Starlight entered her own house and watched from the comfort of her window. But then, she focused her thought and concentration, causing an instantaneous flash that brought her back to the cave. She reversed the spell and with a concocted dye mixture, carefully stamped the standard cutie mark over the original.

Chapter II: Perfection

"Starlight, we have new visitors!" a voice cheerily exclaimed.

Starlight, with her attention attracted, grew obviously happy. The more visitors that flocked to the town, the more people she could get to know. Eventually, she could influence the characteristics of the whole realm to her perceived ideal of true friendship. She beamed, revealing her molars to the mirror that stood in front of her.

Her chain of thought stopped for a moment. She rushed to the window, looking down onto the road that connected the town's housing. However, before she could do so, a creaking sound came from her main door. Who could she expect?

She trotted as calmly as she could to the door of her room and pushed it open.

"What!" she thought, without a split second of hesitation.

Before further excitement overcame her, she customarily and happily said to the group, "Welcome! We are so pleased to have you here!"

She glanced around at the group before her, trying to take notes of each individual pony. But her eyes could not stop staring at this purple unicorn. This unicorn was different, unlike anypony that came to her settlement. She had wings.

She failed to believe her eyes.

Double Diamond stepped forth and introduced them to Starlight. He was one of the first to put his faith to Starlight's philosophy. He was an excellent administrator in her town. He was, essentially, a loyal pony to her beliefs that held her absolute trust. Starlight smiled; the pro-activeness displayed by Double Diamond would surely be a great first impression when the group first arrived to her settlement.

Starlight's eye took in every detail they could from this magnificent purple pony. She placed her hoof onto her chin, thinking deeply about this riveting situation. Noting that Double Diamond called this purple pony by name, she intervened at that subject first and foremost.

"Sorry, but I believe it is Princess Twilight Sparkle?" Starlight casually corrected Double Diamond. "We do not get many alicorns around here!"

"Erm, Twilight is fine," Twilight replied with hesitation, smiling nervously. She tried to avoid the huge amount of attention that Starlight gave her, to no avail.

"So, how did you know about our village?" Starlight wondered with genuine curiosity. Many of the town's inhabitant ponies have already shared with Starlight how this village seemingly popped out of nowhere and were in no doubt surprised by its existence.

"Well, it's a long story," Twilight said, crossing her hooves. "Let's just say we found it on a map!"

Starlight could only feel joy upon hearing this from a princess. Surely, if a princess knew the existence of her town prior to her visit here, does that mean that her town was already charted?

Before Starlight could continue her chain of thought, a brightly pink pony by the name of Pinkie Pie interjected with an acutely sharp and high pitched voice, "Technically, it was a tree castle map!"

Pinkie Pie's voice seemed to stop incredibly abruptly. Her initial enthusiasm evaporated with a look of obvious distrust and fear. Her sudden outburst forced Starlight's attention away from Twilight to the rest of the group.

Pinkie Pie appeared to be an eccentric pony, with her mane clumsily maintained.

Next to her, an orange pony that goes by the name of Applejack with an observably used hat looked at Starlight with no obvious feelings. Her facial expression reminded Starlight of that pony that deciphered the location of that iridescent mineral, used for her cutie mark magic, many moons ago.

A beautiful and well-groomed white unicorn, introduced to be Rarity by Double Diamond, was next to Applejack. Her brows were twitching slightly at the current situation.

Above, two Pegasus ponies looked down onto the circumstance. One, known as Rainbow Dash, was the first to capture the attention of Starlight. She looked decidedly bored with all this customary chat.

The other was Fluttershy. She was the only pony that appeared calm and composed, smiling warmly and naturally at Starlight.

Composing herself, Starlight exclaimed, "Regardless of how you found us, we are happy for anypony who comes along to experience true friendship with us for the first time!" Her pupils widened as she jovially informed the group of six.

"What?" Applejack questioned, with a tone approaching disbelief.

"Oh yes, that is what our town is about," Starlight replied, trying to push her ideals to the group of six. "Here, we don't show off our special talents because we don't have any." As Starlight spoke, she headed for a tilted picture of an equal sign hung on the wall and readjusted it.

"Wait. Is that the reason why you have those cutie marks?" Twilight asked instinctively.

"Ah, yes. There is no way for us to show off any special characteristics anypony would have," Starlight answered contentedly.

The group of six stared at Starlight, aghast.

"But, isn't cutie marks a symbol of a pony's uniqueness and personality?" Twilight said, frowning.

"You know, allow me to show you around the town to prove to you that a life without cutie marks is a better one indeed," Starlight replied.

Twilight and her companions followed the founder of the town out of her residence, trying to hide their facial expressions that could potentially give away what they truly felt, for the purpose of being polite.

"When we came to this place, we thought that we could help you," Twilight said, her vision focusing on Starlight. "However, it appears that you ponies don't need any help."

"Actually, perhaps you all came to our town because we could help you?" Starlight countered.

A moment of silence enveloped the town. Twilight was keen to avoid the gaze of Starlight at the proposal. Pinkie Pie was certainly displeased by her suggestion. In fact, other than Fluttershy, the rest of the six were visibly not too comfortable with the reasoning placed forth by Starlight explained with a tour of the village.

"Well, we shan't force you," Starlight remarked, shattering the silence that previously filled the atmosphere.

Starlight turned her back and walked back to her residence. She could not help but smile with glee, thinking that the six would eventually be convinced someday. This would go very well in her plans indeed; with the influence of a princess, she could easily convey her message to the rest of this region of space.

"Perfection," she thought to herself, with a sinister plot hatched.

Starlight rejoiced at the news that the six would want to visit the cave storing the cutie marks. Knowledge of the cave must have been made known to them in their free time interacting with the locals. Despite the favourable situation at hand, Starlight wondered whether the six were actively ready to buy into her philosophy and surrender their cutie marks. Starlight remembered the looks on their faces, their apprehension and insecurity. A plan must be drawn up so that Starlight can enforce it.

"There is no going back now, I must get to work quick before Twilight and her companions find that something is amiss," Starlight thought, throwing herself onto her couch before scheming.

Twilight and her friends closely matched the pace of Starlight as they headed up the elevation.

"I would be delighted to show you all our cutie mark vault ahead," Starlight declared, trotting along a circuitous, dirt-paved path.

Behind Starlight, the six were naturally looking around and looking out for each other. They were glancing in all directions for an imminent threat. The town was all but a small smudge in their vision. This would be the perfect place to pounce on them, with no hope of communication beyond the valley, or sign of assistance anywhere.

The six could only hide their faces of regret and fear.

A sparkling and enchanting atmosphere greeted the six visiting ponies.

Twilight simply gaped at the construction.

Cutie marks were displayed neatly in organised, bright crystal lockers that sealed them individually. The colossal assortment of cutie marks was mind-bogging for the six to comprehend; they have not seen such a collection of cutie marks in one place. The entire structure was towering. Next to the structure, there was a stone platform that the six could only describe as a wooden stick that resembled some kind of staff.

Starlight tilted her head slightly to the right and winked.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the town's ponies appeared. They trotted uniformly, following a guided plan, no doubt confidently.

"Oh no!" Rarity gasped in horror. The six looked around for any potential means of evasion but they only saw the numerous ponies that stealthily and systematically blocked their ways of escape.

Twilight sprang into action.

"I knew we couldn't trust Starlight and this town!" Twilight remarked. Her fear and insecurity was concentrated and funneled into her horn. Magical aura gleaned and she vanished in an instantaneous flash of bright white light.

She reappeared in the air, behind the line of ponies blocking their escape.

But Starlight did not hesitate. She struck, pointing the tip of the Staff of Sameness at the alicorn.

Twilight narrowly dodged the beam of magical energy emanating from the staff thanks to her wings.

"NO! She is getting away!" Starlight exclaimed in frustration.

Starlight aimed carefully at Twilight, who was flying in a unidirectional fashion.

The remaining five visiting ponies could only look on with fear as Twilight's bond to her cutie mark was pulverised.

Chapter III: Persistence

Twilight collapsed, motionless.

Starlight sealed the extracted cutie mark of Twilight Sparkle into her vault with icy calm and replaced her cutie mark to be a dark equal sign. She knew that the remaining five would not be capable to put up a fight. Without their guardian, their Princess Twilight Sparkle, how are these five able to fend off against her years of magic study?

She took her time now, relishing this moment. There was no requirement for her to hurry in executing her bidding on these helpless ponies.

The surrounded ponies were stuck and trapped in a tight circle.

Without any warning whatsoever, Starlight pointed the Staff of Sameness at the five and casted the same spell on the five ponies collectively. With them being so conveniently near to each other, a greater outburst of magical aura should be able to clear off all their cutie marks simultaneously and lock them into Starlight's shimmering vault.

"Ahh!" Starlight screamed in agony. The kinetic energy of a rock betrayed accurate aiming of her spell.

The five stared at each other, and back at Twilight, wondering who was responsible for saving their cutie marks at the last possible second, except for Rarity.

"I won't let you get away with this!" Starlight bitterly vowed, underestimating the resilience of these five.

The town's residents tried to intervene by rushing forward, but Starlight stopped them in their hoofsteps.

"This is under control! They can't escape under my charge!" Starlight exclaimed angrily. "Step aside!"

Her horn glowed, significantly brighter than prior, indeed, due to her intense emotions being funneled in. She knew who to strike at first.

A whoosh of wind glided into Starlight's face, distracting her at the last possible instance. Her eyes turned red as she tried to rub her eyes, diverting her attention from the scene.

Despite Rainbow Dash's effort to foil Starlight's plans yet again, Rarity was struck well and true. Fluttershy tried to cover her companion, but the sheer strength of the spell caused her own cutie mark to be extracted too. However, due to Rainbow's distraction, the cutie marks were still levitating in the cold, damp air of the cavern, away from their reach and in the grasp of Starlight's magic.

Shaking her head, Starlight saw Fluttershy and Rarity heel over. She finalised the sealing of their cutie marks and imprinted their cutie mark with a black, ominous equal sign. Now, she focused her attention on the remaining three ponies, notably that multicoloured Rainbow Dash.

"ENOUGH!" Starlight screamed, not only surprised, but frustrated by the persistence of the group. Beads of perspiration dripped down the brow of Starlight Glimmer.

Her outburst shocked the remaining three ponies into fear. Their adrenaline rush kicking in, they attempted to force their way out of the cavern through the solid line blocking their way, except for Rainbow Dash, who darted out from the predicament aerially.

"Argh!" Rainbow Dash cried out, the taste of freedom and the cold mountain breeze in her mouth was betrayed by the sudden appearance of a cyan force field. The rebound off the surface of the force field was more than sufficient to knock her out in the cold, especially since she was speeding out of the cave as fast as she could.

Applejack and Pinkie Pie looked at each other, then at Starlight Glimmer.

Their physical exit out of the cave, and their fate, was sealed despite their best efforts.

"Free yourself from your cutie mark," a voice declared.

Twilight got up first.

Fortunately, the rest were regaining their composure from their failed escape attempt.

Twilight looked around.

First to grab her attention was that annoying loudspeaker hung at the top of the room, broadcasting ceaselessly on the so-called benefits of getting rid of their cutie marks.

She then looked through the slightly translucent window out to the surrounding region. They were being housed in the last stretch of town, at the end of the road with poor lighting and drab living conditions. Obviously, the window panes were bolted down rigidly to prevent their escape. In any case, the windows were way too small for any of them to get out.

Applejack, with every ounce of energy she had, dragged herself up. In a daze, she kicked at the door locking them in. As expected, the door was firmly secured. Although she tried to knock down the wooden construct, there were no signs of splintering or creaking.

It was Rarity's turn to try something. She tried to burrow under the wooden floor to escape this quandary. Alas, to her horror, the foundation under the wooden floor is solid, dense sandstone.

Pinkie Pie stayed where she was, devoid of any hope or energy, so incredibly different from her usual self.

Fluttershy, after watching her friends try to attempt a breakout, decided to make the best of the situation. She picked up poorly hinged books with yellow moldy pages and began reading page after page of black equal signs.

Unknown to all six, however, Starlight was watching their every move, conveniently from her room.

"Ah Starlight, you have done it again," Starlight said to herself, ceasing the spell.

Other than the angle in which the sun's rays hit the damp wooden floor, there was no way for the six to tell the time. The clock that hung above failed to tick.

Suddenly, a click sound was heard.

The six, unable to rest well the previous night, watched the door swing open by none other than Starlight Glimmer.

"I trust that you had a pleasant night?" Starlight asked casually, though with a hint of malice.

Starlight did not wait for a response from the six. They seemed exhausted and fatigued.

"Come this way!" Starlight continued with glee. "There are friends who want to see you all."

"Gather around, friends!" Starlight exclaimed loudly to all. The town's residents stepped forth to observe the proceedings.

"There are so many friends to make when you reason that you no longer need your cutie mark!" Starlight said, facing the crowd rather than the six despondent ponies. "Or the talents that come with them!"

That was Starlight's cue to turn uncomfortably close to Twilight Sparkle. Twilight frowned at her, staring. The remaining five joined her in doing so.

"We have a welcome ceremony for all new friends!" Double Diamond described, trying to sway the six sad ponies. "The whole village will b-"

"NOT INTERESTED!" Rainbow Dash firmly rejected the proposal. "You may have them now, but we will get our cutie marks back!"

With that snarky comment, the six turned their backs and independently stepped back into their cell.

Starlight was not exactly pleased with this; she thought at least one of them would be convinced. At least until one of the six turned around.

"I'd like to...join," Fluttershy said softly.

"Fluttershy? How...how could you?" Twilight reacted instinctively, pupils widening.

Starlight tried to cover the grin on her face with limited success.

Chapter IV: Perfidy

The door was slammed shut with distaste.

"We made a new friend every pony!" Starlight proudly exclaimed, looking at Fluttershy.

The crowd cheered at the news, but Starlight did not exactly care. What she was concerned about was the lack of enthusiasm Fluttershy displayed when she decided to join her cause. She was smiling awkwardly in the corner over there, pretending not to glance into any of the cheering ponies' eyes.

Starlight felt something was off with Fluttershy and the group. Could this be a plot to enable them to escape in the cover of darkness? She needed a way to prove to herself that Fluttershy was a trustworthy individual, not a renegade member of the town. Fluttershy could spell trouble for her town if things did not go as planned.

"While I think about that, perhaps I could...escort her into my vacant room?" Starlight thought to herself. Although she prided herself to be somewhat of an intellect, she saw no way to challenge the her loyalty at the moment.

Before she knew it, the residents were warmly welcoming their new friend with wide, open smiles.

"Follow me, Fluttershy!" Starlight called out for her. "All new ponies will stay with me until their cottage has been built."

"You all are the nicest ponies I have ever met!" Fluttershy said, as loudly as she could to the crowd as they frantically said their good-byes before Fluttershy hurriedly trotted over to Starlight.

That remark from Fluttershy seemed authentic. Starlight relaxed for a moment; maybe she was too paranoid to expect any impending situation to occur. She gazed down and closed her eyes for a few seconds.

Not before too long, they arrived at Starlight's cottage.

"Let's get you settled here, so that you can enjoy the many things that our village has to offer!" Starlight exclaimed, swinging the door open with her magic while pointing at the jubilant crowd in the town.

Fluttershy turned to face the bustling street to see the many ponies that waved at her. She could not help but smile at the beaming crowd. However, her smile instinctively vanished into nothingness. When she turned to the door, Fluttershy stared straight down into the eyes of Starlight Glimmer. She tried to conceal her emotions, but that only led to an awkward facial expression that was a mixture of elation and regret. Breaking eye contact with Starlight, she trotted straight into the cottage.

This did not go unnoticed by Starlight.

She smiled back at the crowd outside and turned her back to the entrance of her cottage. Not only did her eyes exposed a hint of mischievousness and wickedness, but also the thin wry smile that emerged from her face.

The moon began to rise.

Starlight comfortably relaxed on her soft sofa, especially since it has been a long day of work. She graciously assisted Fluttershy fix up her living quarters so that she could enjoy her stay here. Most importantly, she gave Fluttershy possession of the room on the upper storey. Should she dare to escape now, Starlight would be more than aware of the situation.

In addition, Starlight took the six ponies' cutie marks from the vault and placed them serenely and uniformly under the wooden table.

Starlight's sofa faced her fireplace. Normally, the temperatures in the region would be freezing, so stocks of wood and coal were needed to keep the cottage warm. However, that night was unusually and uncomfortably hot. She walked over to the nearby window to open it so that the external, cool wind can circulate the dry, stale air within. When she walked back to the sofa, she noticed something was amiss.

She dashed up the stairs at a worrying speed.

The wooden board providing minimal privacy was busted down.

A frightened Fluttershy hid in the corner with fear.

"I'm...really sorry Fluttershy, I was...sleepwalking," Starlight said, trying to formulate some sort of response, before slowly seeing herself out of the room.

She could not believe that she exposed her distrust so readily.

Opening the door of her room, she glanced at the six, precious cutie marks in clear, glass jars displayed inconspicuously under her desk, away from prying eyes.

"Why did I have to doubt Fluttershy?" Starlight questioned herself. "Oh well, time to head for bed."

Although her anxiety was gone, her clumsiness was not. Being so deep in her thoughts, she forgot about the existence of the pail of drinking water placed at the side of her bed, in case she was thirsty. Accidentally knocking over the pail, the water erased the soluble black dye, revealing her true cutie mark.

Reacting quickly, she covered it over with another pink dye and stamped the black equal sign over it.

Tired, she threw herself onto the bed and slept.

"I have got a good feeling about today!" Starlight jovially called out to the crowd.

Twilight and the remaining four ponies walked out feebly, visibly exhausted and depleted of any energy, hope or emotion. They seemed to be at their breaking point.

"So...do any of you have anything you want to proclaim?" Starlight asked, grinning from ear to ear.

Despite the offer, the five resisted.

"Well, maybe we have better luck tomorrow," Starlight said.

Starlight was sorely disappointed. She shadowed the five to the house.

"Wait! I would like...to lock them in," Fluttershy proclaimed to all.

Stopping in her tracks, Starlight was astounded. How wrong was she in doubting the loyalty of Fluttershy? Her proactive and perfidious act would earn her praise from Starlight any day of the week.

Fluttershy clopped on to the entrance of the house, seeing sorrow faces as they each passed by.

Twilight was last in line to enter. Instead of entering the house, she turned to face Fluttershy, staring into her eyes, as if she could do that to her conscience. The two stood there, motionless for a good few seconds.

"I think...it's time I join you all," Twilight spoke hesitantly, walking slowly towards the crowd.

Starlight and the crowd were astounded by this. Never in Starlight's wildest dreams would Twilight agree with her philosophy so quickly. Starlight approached the situation with caution, slowly stepping forward to confront Twilight.

"Really?" Starlight questioned.

"I think so...if I agree to leave my cutie mark in the vault, would I be happier?" Twilight said, choosing her words carefully.

"Of course! Just look round!" Starlight instantly replied.

"You wouldn't let me live here with my original cutie mark?" Twilight readily asked.

"Of course not!" Starlight rejected Twilight's proposal.

"Then how do you explain THIS?" Fluttershy shouted from the air, throwing a basin of drinking water from the house onto Starlight. The five ponies were shocked at her sudden outburst; her tone was so unlike her original, serene self.

"I knew you couldn't be trusted!" Starlight declared, apoplectic with rage at her betrayal. Her formerly baseless accusations of Fluttershy's suspicious activity upstairs were now well justified.

Unfortunately, it was too late. A symbol of two interlocking crystals of contrasting colour and two waves emerged from the location where the two black, parallel lines disappeared.

The crowd gasped.

Chapter V: Peril

"Don't look at me!" Starlight exclaimed quickly, her sense of bravado disappearing fast. "They're the problem; not me!"

Rushing to look back, Starlight saw the six staring back at her with their dry eyes. She could detect that glint from Twilight's eye radiating into her soul. She felt that she was checkmated.

"How...how could you?" Double Diamond said, stammering. "You said special talents brought pain...and suffering!"

Time seemed to slow as a long bout of silence ensued. Starlight's face was strained, yet she displayed no decipherable feelings whatsoever, as she tried to fight her own emotions.

After a standoff with herself, she had no choice but to give in to her emotions. Apparent to all, uncontrollable hot tears flowed down her face in dribbles against Starlight's wishes. She knew that the town was her true home, a place of serenity and validity to her ideals. She had ponies that she could call "friends" and had even gave them her trust. She took years of learning and interaction to get this high point, standing up to challenge after challenge.

And all it took was six meddling ponies from afar to cause her entire network of friends to come crashing down, with irreparable damage. Her feelings of camaraderie with the locals in the town shattered at that instant. What initially could be described as a gentle stream was now a cascading waterfall.

Starlight tilted her head to the side to force her vision away from the crowd.

Starlight knew that the residents' respect of her was smashed brutally. They conformed to her ideals and her reality because they thought that they were her friend. A friend that is worthy of them to give their all. But now, the crowd saw a new Starlight Glimmer, one who is no longer a true friend. She was a manipulator, con artist and scammer of their beliefs and lifestyle. She lied to them all.

Twilight and her friends found it exceptionally difficult to continue watching. They were shifting their body positions uncomfortably and unrelentingly. They felt remorseful; even sympathetic to Starlight. It was painful to observe Starlight's disposition destroyed, even if it were for the better. They hoped that Starlight could recover and reform herself to a true leader.

Starlight stared down onto the ground, observing a few pitiless ants walking on the sandy gravel.

"NO!" Starlight screamed, suddenly appearing to stand tall and strong again. "I brought you harmony, peace and equality! How could you listen to these six?"

The crowd heard every word uttered from Starlight's outburst, causing many of them to shake their head with a sporadic frequency. The words that entered the discerning minds of the crowd were dispelled back out as soon as they came.

"Everypony has unique talents and gifts," Twilight stated softly, after inhaling deeply to muster the courage to stand up against Starlight's uncontrollable outbursts. "And when we share t-"

"SILENCE!" Starlight shouted at the top of her voice, stamping her hoof onto the dry, barren ground. She shook her head feebly, her mane waving irregularly with the constant breeze. Raging fires sparked off in the eyes of Starlight Glimmer.

Despite this, the crowd trotted confidently and uniformly towards her.

Starlight's mouth grew wide open at the crowd's silent demand for payback. Reflexively, her horn glowed intensely, causing the crowd and the six to seek cover around the town. A radiance of cyan energy crackled in the air with great magnitude, forcing all to shut their eyes momentarily.

When their vision was restored, Starlight was nowhere to be found.

Starlight had no time to think.

The glass jars containing the six's cutie marks below the table were seized. If Starlight's way of life was to be gone, the six must lose their cutie marks permanently. She smiled slyly; she could minimally cause the six to experience some sort of suffering for all that they have done.

Her moment of empowerment evaporated when she heard the ticking sound of the clock that hung on the top of her fireplace. Using her magic, she commanded control over the six glass jars. She knew that if she could head for the labyrinth of caverns deep in the mountains, she would be guaranteed safety from the six hunting her down.

Stepping forth to the front of her bed, she hesitated for a moment. She stared at the picture of the black equal sign hung at the side of her bed, the symbol of what she had created. She was destroying what she took much effort and time to create.

But Starlight felt the blaze from the fire within her.

Without any sense of affection, she blasted her bed away with her magical prowess, revealing a secret passage she dug.

She hurriedly rushed down the stairs to enter the secret entrance, not even bothering to turn her head back.

Galloping away out of the exit of the underground passage, Starlight knew that the cave network was only a few more minutes away. Her chin was held high as the distance to the cave closed up. A thin smile emerged from her face.

Bright flashes of light emerged behind Starlight's back, forcing her to turn her head back in curiosity. Beams of light, of colours one could not possibly imagine, flashed out in an elegant display, like fireworks flashing in the sky. Starlight's heart collapsed into the deep, dark abyss, thinking that the residents were celebrating her exile from the town she painstakingly founded.

Halting, Starlight squinted at the glaring flashes of light, placing her hoof right at her forehead. The origin of the lights was observed to be originating from an opening on the side of a grey, rocky outcrop that she knew from the back of her hoof. The fire in Starlight exploded at the otherwise gorgeous sight; her accomplishments were being ruthlessly undone behind her back. With her eyebrows facing inwards at steep angle, she kicked herself forward with monumental strength with her two hind legs to spur her advance.

Turning the corner of the rocky alpine outcrop, she ground to a halt, gasping in horror. She stared down into the great landscape below, her mouth as wide as saucers. The connecting bridge across the ravine, towards the cave entrance was destroyed. The wooden planks supporting what was left of the construction was green with moss. The ropes were cut, with the ends swaying with the cold mountain wind. The structural integrity of the bridge can only be described as anything but safe.

"STOP!" an authoritative voice shouted from behind Starlight's back.

Starlight looked around her immediate surroundings to discover if what was any possible escape route, moving her head wildly without much self-control. But the mountain path was linked to the rope bridge to that cave entrance, with no intersections to speak of.

"COME BACK!" the voice commanded.

Shaking her head profusely, Starlight kept her eyes shut tightly and threw herself off the edge. Tears were forced out from her eyes, lubricating the contact surface of her eyelids, forcing Starlight's eyes open.

Starlight's pupils dilated at the sight of the rocky landscape flying past her at an unthinkable speed, shrieking at the peril she placed herself into.

In her subconsciousness, her vertigo jumped into her horn, causing it to shine brightly as Starlight continued to accelerate down the depths.

Instantaneously, contact with the ground was felt, causing Starlight to lose her balance on the safety of the other side of the ravine. She trotted around in random circular patterns, trying to regain her sense of reality, before collapsing onto the hard, gravel path. Contrasting spots appeared in her vision as she was supported by the ground, her head spinning uncontrollably. The dizziness that Starlight felt made her relax her mind for a brief moment.

The shattering of fragile glass at the bottom of the ravine alerted the dazed Starlight. Crawling right to the edge of the ravine head first, she saw sparks of light flew out from the bottom of the ravine that matched the cutie marks of the six she so deeply hated. She extended one of her hoofs out over the ravine, as if it could draw the cutie marks back to her.

The beams of light travelled from the bottom of the ravine over to the back of the corner of the outcrop, flashing brilliantly, even as Starlight was observing it indirectly. Her extended hoof fell back to touch the cliff side, believing that further action was futile.

Starlight's hind legs kicked sideways to rotate herself, such that her head faced away from the cliff, with the friction of the sand assisting in every way it possibly could. A dark shadow greeted her vision directly in front of her face.

Straining her head up, she saw a blue pony with an indigo mane staring right back at her. It was one of the town's residents, Party Favour, who was blocking her view of the cave entrance ahead.

Ahead, through Starlight's peripheral vision, she could see the indigo toned Night Glider, another resident, heading towards a perilous pile of rocks that was loosely supported by a wooden strut, similar in engineering to those used in mines.

"Why are you willing to sacrifice yourselves for six strangers you don't even know about?" Starlight said, still breathing deeply.

"It's because they helped us see the truth in your LIES!" Party Favour bitterly responded, his hoof outstretched, pointing at something behind Starlight.

Glancing back, Starlight saw the six ponies arrived at the other end of the destroyed rope bridge, their heads bowed down in exhaustion as they reached the cliff side. Starlight's hope of escape sank down to the bottom of her soul, but her fighting spirit, her resilience kept the machine in her going and intact.

Starlight straightened her legs to bring her up from the ground. Wordlessly, she closed her eyes in concentration, letting loose sparks flying out from her horn. Projecting from it was a beam of intense cyan energy radiating from her horn to strike at the clear target.

A crunching, sawing sound reverberated across the mountain range.

Opening her eyes slowly while not breaking her effort in maintaining the beam, Starlight's heart sank like never before.

A protective purple shield emerged to defend Party Favour from the unicorn's beam, with its user stood right next to him. And that user was none other than the purple alicorn that foiled her plans and her town, Twilight Sparkle.

Starlight persisted, channeling what shred of energy in her to the power of her beam, closing her eyes once again. She desperately tried tilting her head further down to reduce the gap between the shield and the origin of the beam to increase its intensity, in the hope that it would break into the field. But this was all to no effect on Twilight's impervious shield, except in generating an incredibly high-pitched shrieking sound that grew louder and louder with the excessive levels of friction caused.

Perspiration trickled down Starlight's face constantly, forming a small, moist puddle below her head. Eventually, her beam grew weaker and weaker, eventually disappearing into nothingness. White smoke emerged from the surface of the horn, rising serenely up into the sky.

Twilight lowered her protective shield, her wings outstretched, wide and open. She stood still, with her mouth straight and closed shut. Her brows were leaning inwards, towards her nose, displaying her seriousness.

"I studied that spell for YEARS!" Starlight remarked, frowning. "How could yo-"

"I studied magic for years too," Twilight interrupted calmly, stepping forth to Starlight. "What you failed to comprehend is that study can only take you so far! It is because of my friends' unique talents and personalities allowed me to discover I represent the element of magic..."

Starlight rolled her eyes at Twilight's long speech. She did not care about Twilight's ideas of friendship. Her focus was on how she was to escape to the cave system. The longer she waited, the more likely Night Glider could cause the cave entrance to be sealed off with an avalanche of boulders and rocks.

Hoping to represent the element of surprise, she dashed past Twilight as fast as she could.

Sighing at Starlight's attempt at a breakout, Twilight took a singular step forward towards the cave entrance. She knew that she herself had to dislodge the rocks before Starlight could reach the cave entrance. A thin, concentrated beam of magic stuck the wooden struts supporting the rocks above the cave entrance originating from Twilight's horn.

"NO!" Starlight shouted in exasperation, watching the splintering of the wooden struts mere feet away.

Cheers were heard from the other side of the ravine, echoing incessantly through the mountains, as the rocks above began their descent to block off the fugitive's escape.

But Starlight was not done yet. She gambled on taking a giant leap of faith into the dark safety of the cave.

Chapter VI: Perseverance

Starlight woke up, her head ringing.

"Where am I?" came the only pertinent thought from Starlight's mind.

As her eyes began to adjust to the light's intensity, she could see black spots appearing in her vision, under the backdrop of a blurry, grey landscape.

She made it.

It felt like it were a distant memory. Her head was effectively exhausted and empty after casting that useless spell in an attempt to break Twilight's shield. Her horn was still lukewarm, against the cool, damp surroundings of the cave she was in. A discoloured patch on the curved horn revealed the sheer intensity of the beam she emitted.

Her mouth was shivering, as she felt the dry cracked lips being in contact with each other. As she tried to pry her mouth open, she accidentally bit her own tongue. That sharp jolt of pain rocketed into her dazed head, which jogged her memories.

With her head hung low, she recalled how she had managed to build herself back up from ruin just so that she would be obliterated yet again. She remembered how much courage and drive she had to muster to look forward, rather than delve into her tragic past; how much she had to convince herself that it was normal to have setbacks early in life. This was the attitude that kept her going, alone.

Alone. Her only genuine friend left her for himself, without considering her feelings or any parting words before he left.

Tears trickled down onto the rough cave floor. And they came down faster than Starlight expected. She tried to use her front hooves to wipe the solemn state of her face, but it only helped to wash off the fine particles of gravel off her hooves. She covered her face, trying to conceal her facial expressions and sobbed, as if the spirits lurking in the maze of caverns would witness her lowest point so far.

Again, that sentiment would challenge her for the second time. It was another opportunity to showcase to herself the lessons she learnt from her early days. Unlike the past, this was on a whole different level altogether; her accomplishments were effectively demolished.

Turning her body such that her head faced the cave ceiling, she began to pick up the broken pieces of her soul and rearrange them back into order, staring at the stalactites that dominated the view of the top of the cave. Her mane was wet with the puddle of salty water by her side; a mixture of saline tears and the mineral water dripping from the tips of the stalactites above.

Of all ponies, Twilight and her friends must be the ones to knock her down once again. They forced her to abandon what she created. They forced her to destroy what she created. They forced upon her their ideals of friendship, and dismissing her thinking without considering her feelings.

Starlight fought with her fatigue. She stretched her legs and to stand tall once again with the lust for revenge raging in her eyes. Her steely resolve was reforged in the furnace of hatred.

Starlight saw the light at the end of the tunnel and she went for it, stumbling upon a picturesque view of the world ahead of her. She knew she needed to rest for her next confrontation with Twilight and her friends, and she needed a concrete plan to deal with them.

Striding out the cave's exit, Starlight knew that she had to answer one particularly crucial question.

Who exactly was Twilight Sparkle?

Starlight reached the capital city of Equestria, Canterlot for the first time.

Starlight never witnessed such a grandeur city before. The exterior view made her old town look pitiful in comparison. The infrastructure of the capital was a mixture of solid, blue crystals and pure white marble with virtually no imperfections. The cut and clarity of the gemstones on which the city is built upon was the finest Starlight had ever seen.

Stepping into the majestic entrance gates of the city, Starlight gazed at the polished marble tiles. She saw a rugged, sad-looking pony that was in no way able to match up to the royals at the upper echelons of society just a stone’s throw away. She tried to sculpt her mane to make it neater, aided by the spotless floor below.

As she continued walking, she found herself in a plaza with a intricately crafted marble fountain at its centre. Gushing, fresh, alpine water seeped out, landing into the blue surface below. Mist opportunistically escaped from the end of the stream, floating around just above the surface of pure water. Being thirsty, she gulped down the water with feverish joy, believing it to be the best she could ever taste. She then washed her grimy face with the water pouring out, revealing her true self once again.

Ahead of the plaza, she saw a huge, architectural marvel. The enormity of the construct stunned her into stillness.

Keeps covered the entire field of Starlight's vision of the palace, embellished with curved, colour-contrasting spires at their zenith. A mountain stream carried fresh, mineral water of the highest purity flowed down on the side of the mountain the palace was next to. Multitudes of waving flags and banners fluttered with the calm and cooling breeze, dyed a vibrant magenta. It was the ultimate symbol of royalty and it must be the residence of Princess Twilight Sparkle, most certainly.

A smile emerged from Starlight's face, with her ears upright, attentive to the slightest details of this intriguing landscape.

The hunt to discover the true identity of this elusive princess would now begin.

Over a hundred hours had passed since her arrival to the city with no sign of the princess she so dearly wanted to glimpse.

She had searched everywhere. She had hid behind carts of fresh vegetables from the eastern lands to observe the hustle and bustle of the street machine vendor touting their wares. She had spied on the palace gates from the tinted windows of the tallest observation tower outside of the palace walls. She had checked the famous landmarks of the awe-inspiring city: the museums, the monuments, the parks, the great library...

“Alright,” Starlight confessed to herself, while eyeing on a book of spells in the grand library of Canterlot. “I may have lied about checking the library thoroughly.”

Well, who could blame her? She was able to visit to the huge library that archived most, if not all of Equestrian knowledge. Tall bookshelves dwarfed the avid readers of the library, being stocked to the brim with a seemingly uncountable number of books and scrolls. The library's book catalogue was thicker than Starlight could picture in her imagination, boasting several volumes in itself. Solid, thick wooden tables were equipped with its own individual study lamp, and matched with an ergonomic chair for conducive study.

The sight of the library's amazing facilities made Starlight incapable to resist her urge to refresh on what she had learnt prior, distracting her from her quest to hunt Twilight. The thousands upon thousands of manuscripts allowed her to refresh and improve on some of her spells while she was there, studying with vigour.

And the time spent away from the hunt seemed to be bearing fruit. She managed to discover three spells, which, when combined could make her levitate in the air as long as her magic could sustain it. First, a spell to cut off the effects of external drag forces on her would enable stability in flight. Second, a spell to generate a pressure difference in the air directly below her to create lift. Third, a trans-configuration spell to change the level, magnitude and position of that pressure difference for mobility. The combination could be used to crush Twilight's advantage of flight when she had mastered it.

She threw herself into this new quest of self-discovery. Grabbing further volumes of the appropriate books from the aisles, she began working in an isolated and quiet table of the library.

"Moon Dancer?" a familiar voice came loudly from behind two layers of bookshelves.

"Could it be?" Starlight thought, dropping her quilt. Her heart was racing at the possibility of what she feared. Crawling as gingerly and silently as she could, she hid behind the bookshelves to observe what was happening. Her hooves touching the cool surface of the edge of the bookshelf, she tilted her head sideways to gain a vantage point of the situation.

It was Twilight Sparkle.

"SHHH!" the library's visitors were not keen in the shattering of fragile silence by Twilight Sparkle. Starlight pushed herself back to the back of the bookshelf, ensuring her distinctive head was under the cover of the many thick books on the shelf.

Shortly, swift motion was detected by Starlight's sensitive ears. Her head slowly popped out from the side of the bookshelf, but Twilight had already left.

Immediately, she marched back swiftly to her table and grabbed the key book volumes while returning the rest to the appropriate shelves. She dashed to the borrowing counter to expedite the process. While the gracious librarian was casually marking the return dates on her tattered library card, Starlight turned to check on who was the pony Twilight was talking to.

"Oh, it's her," Starlight thought to herself, as she saw a beige pony neatly attired in a comfortable, dark purple woolen jacket. "Well, if I follow that pony, she might help me learn a thing or two about Twilight."

"Sorry, can I have the next one please?" the librarian said, disapprovingly, trying to catch the attention of Starlight.

Turning slightly to a see a long line of willing borrowers, she smiled nervously at the librarian, her teeth yellow and misshapen. She left the library compound readily, not before mumbling a word of apology.

Stepping out of the library, Starlight selected a comfortable outdoor spot in a public park facing the library exit to formulate the hybrid spell, under the shade of a huge oak tree. She leaned back onto the rough surface of the tree bark, ensuring that she faced the grand, double door entrance of the great library and cracking open the volumes to begin concentrating on her work.

Starlight smiled at the brilliance of her genius.

Linking the magical aura with each of the three different, yet important spells, Starlight was able to channel her energies into the three spells simultaneously through the common magical factors involved in each.

Bending her head down in solemn thought, she clamped her eyes down to a point where her vision was pitch black. With her forehead revealing wrinkles and her uneven teeth clenched, her horn began to glow. A soft, swirling sound was audible under the hooves of Starlight. She could no longer feel the ground in contact with her four hooves.

Carefully opening her eyes, she finally witnessed what she had achieved, causing her jaw to drop out, open.

However, the sudden break in her concentration caused her to lose control over her magic. She dropped from a few feet in the air onto the hospitable, green grass.

Straightening her legs quickly, she jumped up in the air with a bright, beaming face, to the confusion of the random passers-by. With greater practice, she was certain that she could gain the control she needed to yield to allow her to manoeuvre around in the sky seamlessly.

A shaking purple blob alerted Starlight to stop behaving so strangely in the open expanse of a public park in the grand capital.

A totally oblivious Twilight Sparkle trotted out of the entrance of the grand library with her bespectacled friend by her side. They were discussing with each other and were completely engrossed in their conversation, with each looking at each other directly in the eye.

Starlight seized the books from her makeshift study corner and stuffed them into the travel bag she carried along with her. Hurling the pack onto her back, she rushed ahead to make up for lost ground.

"I think...it is time for us to go back to Ponyville, Moon Dancer," Twilight said, pausing for a moment too long.

"Thank you," the bespectacled pony whom Starlight now knew was Moon Dancer responded warmly. "Words fail to describe how grateful I am to reunite with my old friends."

Within the earshot of the two, a hidden Starlight was casually crouching in a thick, woody shrub. She covered her face with her front hooves, trying to hide the smirk from her face as the conversation continued. She now knew the residence of Twilight Sparkle and her friends, finally realising that her hypothesis that Twilight stayed at Canterlot was entirely wrong.

All she has to do now was to find out how to go about with her revenge.

Chapter VII: Percipience I

"Thank you to all who came," Twilight spoke. "Today I would like to ask about how these friendship moments came about so that I can advance my knowledge in friendship!"

Starlight could not help but expel a sudden burst of air from her nose upon listening to Twilight's lecture, rolling her darkly toned pupils. Leaning forward over the side of an aged oak tree trunk, half her vision could barely make out the scene ahead of her.

Twilight stood on a wooden, thin park bench addressing her friends resting on the pale green grass, with her teeth glinting in the warm sunlight. Beside her on the bench, Starlight noticed a purple, baby dragon that clasping onto a clipboard with difficulty, thanks to his webbed hands and feet. A feathery quilt and paper were accompanying the clipboard, though the quilt was rolling around randomly and clumsily.

It has been a few days since Twilight vacated from the grand capital of Equestria, taking a perambulating stroll through the woody forests and natural reserves back to Ponyville. The scenic route, with all its dense jungles, provided Starlight excellent cover to be at the forefront of shadowing Twilight throughout the journey. But the more Starlight tuned into Twilight's many conversations with her friends, the more she felt that there was a spark racing across her body.

"Oh, I wished you were there to see it for yourself," Applejack said, stepping forth to Twilight's side, tilting her head upwards.

"Ah, I do need to be there," Twilight concurred, bringing her front hoof towards her body. She leaned slightly to the left, trying to bring her eyes to Applejack.

"But you weren't," Pinkie Pie replied, in her characteristic, high-pitched voice that annoyed Starlight ever since she stepped into her old town. "Unless you are suggesting..."

"Time travel?" Rarity interjected, holding her hoof up to drag her mane across the side, winking at Twilight. She rushed ahead and pushed Applejack to the side, to her surprise.

"No!" Twilight Sparkle rejected, her front hoof slamming onto the solid wooden bench, nearly causing the dragon to lose his balance. "We just need to re-enact the events that led to the matter."

Hiding her head under the safety of her tree, the rotating gear in Starlight began turning at an accelerating rate. Her head bowed down onto the shadow of the trunk, Starlight wondered whether it is plausible for her to go back in time to change the way she dealt with the six. Her mind grew a blank upon thinking about any spells that could reverse time, having effectively no idea to attack this problem. Inhaling deeply, she sighed out loud, believing that her potential lead was bringing her to a dead end.

"Who is that?" Pinkie Pie asked, her sensitive ears having picked up something like a faint whisper in the wind.

Starlight froze, her eyeball panning around to her immediate left and right only to find a vast grass plain ahead.

"I'm pretty sure I heard somepony behind that bush over there," Pinkie Pie continued, her sharp vision fixated on a tree behind them.

Starlight could not risk turning her head around the sides of the tree. For all she knew, they were right on her tail. She leaned right onto the rough surface of the tree bark and crossed her hooves. She held her breath, the imaginary, sensory clock in her mind seemingly ticking over at a microscopic rate.

"Oh Pinkie, you were just paranoid," Rainbow Dash reassured her, quickly flying over and placing her hoof onto Pinkie's back, grinning. "Who would sneak up on us? Starlight?"

Starlight's eyebrows shot up, her head jerking back, only to knock into the robust surface of the trunk causing brittle, worn pieces of overgrown chips of wood to drop off, dirtying Starlight's mane. Starlight tried to seek out as much information from the situation as possible, but she could only hear fits of laughter coming from the group.

"STARLIGHT! What are you doing here?" Pinkie Pie declared loudly.

Starlight slowly rotated her eyeballs to her left and right, half-expecting to be caught red-handed in the act of spying on them by Pinkie Pie. But her cautiousness was to be unfounded.

"AHA, just kidding!" Pinkie Pie chuckled, collapsing onto the ground with a thud. "You all should have seen the look on your faces!"

Starlight slid onto the ground like a slithering snake, using the tall grass as a cover.

"PINKIE!" Twilight exclaimed, furious that she got fooled into thinking Starlight was sneaking around. She was genuinely readying her nerves for another confrontation with her, having silently followed Pinkie Pie to the apparent hiding place of Starlight with her horn glowing and warming up.

Careful to limit the ruffling sound of the tall grass being displaced, she tilted her head to the side, finding that the group was directed to the wrong tree just tens of metres away from her current position. Beads of cold sweat dripped down Starlight's face. She had to remain prone until the group left, otherwise there was still a chance that she may be uncovered.

"You know, come everypony, we should head for Sweet Apple Acres to recreate the scene," Twilight said as calmly as she possibly could after Pinkie's baseless sensing of the region. Light was still emerging from the surface of her horn as the group left the scene. The thought of having Starlight creeping up on herself unexpectedly as Pinkie proposed was scary to Twilight's brain.

The group galloped off into the horizon, finally allowing Starlight to have some breathing room. Her craned neck collapsed onto the grass, exhausted, causing her to stare up in the sky and wonder.

"Let's think about this deeply," Starlight said to herself, trying to shift her body position to make her more comfortable on the ground. If she could not time travel in this universe, can she travel to another one?

Starlight closed her eyes, thinking hard while trying to shield her vision from the glaring sun above. Travelling to the past in this timeline would lead to another timeline based on what she did in her time travel escapade. That means the decisions that every pony made throughout her timeline made her timeline unique. Hence, there must be another timeline with every single unique combination of decisions made by each and every pony. Changing the past in her timeline would just lead to another timeline.

The biggest problem remained ingrained on Starlight's perplexed mind. How can she time travel?

Starlight pondered who could possibly be so skilled in their magic study to be able to possess the capability to travel back in time, putting both of her front hooves on her forehead. Only the greatest, the most successful magician she knew could potentially fit the bill. A name popped up in her mind, having appeared as the author of so many of the spell books she had read.

The sight of the building's architecture had never ceased to amaze Starlight.

Starlight walked up onto ornate, smooth marble steps with a spring in her step. She pulled open the gold-glided door handle of the main entrance to reveal a treasure trove of knowledge. It was as crowded as she was last present at this place, with many ponies wandering around the towering bookshelves, or climbing up the attached bookshelf ladders to pick up the volumes they wanted, or have had their eyes glued to the books that they were reading. Trotting along slowly into the main hallway, she could not resist admiring the beauty of the place in complete and utter silence. Her eyes feasted at the grandeur sight.

At least, until her eyes inadvertently caught a glimpse of the self-help section that catalogued all the books in the library in effectively every way in which they can be classified. She made a beeline for the section, before flipping through a heavily worn book catalogue. After turning the pages of the book back and forth, Starlight found a singular book matching what she had in her mind, which prompted her to head off for the book.

Navigating along countless, straight aisles of bookshelves, being careful not to cause any wooden boards to creak by stepping lightly, Starlight found the shelf that it was located on. She climbed up the bookshelf ladder to the very top level of the shelf to find a dusty book marked red on its spine, with no library return slip.

She carried the thickly bound book entitled "The Glossary and History of Starswirl's Spells" down to the ground, glancing around to find a suitable location to devour its contents.

Lying back on a soft sofa designed for casual readers, she read the book line by line, ensuring that she did not miss out anything essential. The language used in the book was exceptionally scientific in nature, enabling Starlight's mind to buckle under the complexity of the content as she continued to painstakingly read every little bit of writing.

Suddenly, a spark flashed into her thought process, opening her mind into the knowledge preached within, like a flash of inspiration. She smiled at her revelation as her eyes stopped moving from left to right, revealing her teeth to the inanimate object she held.

The glossary revealed the reports that Starswirl wrote as he worked on the possibility of time travel in a nutshell. He faithfully describes the existence of a spell that would bring the user into the past for only a short period of time, most likely sufficient to change one juncture in history, and return to the new present.

Starswirl described that if he were to return back to the original present from which he came, he must ensure that the decisions ponies made between the past and the present must be the same. Stopping for a moment, Starlight breathed a sigh of relief; this was something that Starlight failed to take into consideration, until now. Time travel was indeed dangerous if one did not think it through thoroughly.

Continuing, he noted that, if he were to travel back in time without influencing history, a spell must be needed to fix the branch of decisions attuned to the present he came from. This should provide a safety net should things go awry.

Starlight was unaware that her mouth was wide open in amazement as she read through the entire salient section until now. She brought her hooves up to massage her face slightly, trying to alleviate the tension in her jaw muscles.

"Hold on, where are the details for the casting of the spells?" Starlight questioned herself, going back to the start of the section and reading it yet again, wondering whether she missed that part accidentally. After triple checking, she realised that she had already read everything on the subject the book had to offer. With her two hooves supporting her head, Starlight entered a staring competition with the lifeless book, trying to think about where the details of these spells could be archived at.

"Wait...how about the archives of the library?" Starlight wondered silently to herself, pushing herself out of the sofa. She tossed the volume into the book return cart at the side of the reading corner, only to discover how dirty her hooves were after reading that ancient journal. She rubbed her hooves with each other to get rid of the dirt from her hooves before heading to the information counter.

"Sorry, do you know where is the library archives?" Starlight asked the bespectacled librarian at the counter, buried in work and in books, apparently trying to reorganise the library through a new classification code system.

"Oh, it's past that corridor, but you are not allowed to enter the archives section," the librarian said, pointing to the side of the library with her front hoof while yawning.

"I am not?" Starlight thought instinctively, believing that the librarian would never have informed her of the location of the archives section of the library.

After thanking the librarian for exposing the location of the so-called prohibited section of the library, Starlight crept around the back of bookshelves, ensuring that even her shadow was not exposed to the hardworking librarians roaming around the compound. Taking a roundabout route to the corridor, she dashed straight for a pillar that lined the corridor to the archives as gingerly and silently as she could.

Peeking from the side of the elaborately carved pillar, she saw a chained, metallic gate bolted down with a solid lock with a rosette and whirling symbol attached onto the side of the entrance. Two heavily armoured guards stood motionless and attentive to any detail directly in front of them, their eyes still and unwavering.

Leaning her body weight onto the pillar, she began concentrating her energies into her horn to vanish, reappearing behind the separating wall to break an entry into the archives.

Starlight, upon looking at the interior, shook her head profusely at the sight. The archives were not what Starlight had expected. Industrial metal racks filled the room in neat columns, but those was the only objects in the section that could be described as neat. Scrolls were clumsily placed on and around the metal racks, almost as if they were asking to be knocked down onto the carpet. Books were thrown haphazardly on the ground, hoping for a poor pony to trip over it.

The centre of the section stood a lavish lectern that appeared to dominate the entire room. A book stood fixed in place, and seemingly in time on the lectern. The sun's rays poured in from the window, illuminating the book on the lectern. Starlight stepped forward, occasionally turning her back to ensure that the guards' attention were not aroused to the lectern. Opening the dusty manuscript, the book described the colour identification tag on the scroll that Starlight wanted.

Starlight rushed around frantically. Inspecting the metal racks and ancient inscriptions labelling them, she could make no sense of the hieroglyphics that must have been used during the time when Starswirl was active. But the colour coded tags were simple and easy to comprehend, even for the most intellectually dim pony.

Starlight's eyes raced around the layers upon layers of scrolls around the section of the library, until a cyan-red tag alerted Starlight to drop everything she was doing. Her hooves reached out to pull out the scroll, while using her magic to levitate the layers of scrolls above in place until she was done. Grabbing a random open scroll from the carpet floor, she quietly rolled it up and slid it into the former place of the scroll she needed for her plans. After releasing the magical lock on the scrolls above, no sound was emitted from the dangerous pile to garner the attention of the guards outside.

Clasping the scroll tightly in her hooves, she pictured the scene of being at the public park facing the library in her imagination. Her horn shimmered with light, despite being outshone by the radiant orb above, bringing her to safety outside of the library compound, at her old makeshift study corner.

Starlight cracked open the historical scroll to discover the enchanting knowledge she gleaned from it, her eyes wet at the brilliance of Starswirl's intellect. She swiftly opened her travel pack to obtain a quilt to scribble onto the crumpled and yellowing scroll, writing a few additions here and there.

Starlight beamed at the moldy scroll she held high up in the air, knowing that it was the ticket to enact the greatest possible revenge on her nemesis. She stared at the imperfections of the scroll, the tears at the sides of the parchment and the rough scribbles she made on the scroll itself, taking in every possible detail. Without a moment of hesitation, she kissed the scroll, before choking at the bitter taste of olden paper she tasted at the edge of her dry lips.

But the spell was not complete for its function.

Chapter VIII: Percipience II

The stone path brought Starlight to a rural, yet pleasant town.

The sight of Ponyville was unmistakably different from the capital city. Buildings were low-rises, having only a few levels at most. They were built simply, but retained some kind of rustic feeling, reminding Starlight of her old hometown. The buildings might be traditional, but they were painted vibrantly with contrasting and matching colours. They were scattered throughout from the town's central plaza, with a gazebo-like structure in the middle. Alleyways were winding and non-linear, opposite to the uniform road structure in the capital. Despite the town's charm, Starlight found it rather hard to believe that a regal princess would set up her residence here, rather than the vastly elegant capital city.

That was at least until she saw something that seemed out of place in this town, causing Starlight to stop in her tracks, her hooves rubbing onto the gravel path beneath. Her inhaled air was trapped well within the confines of Starlight's expanded lungs.

It was a castle that could match up architecturally with the buildings back in the capital. A huge golden door commanded entry into the stunning castle, carved painstakingly with absolute precision. Windows were tinted a bright, cool purple infused with sparkling amethyst of the best quality. Three main keeps dominated the region surrounding it, with balconies peeking out from the sides of their enormous construction. A white, translucent star was centrally placed at the top of the main keep, reflecting the light from the sun down onto the ground, causing Starlight to squint at the build.

Numerous banners and flags fluttered with the light breeze, their poles gripping onto the external surfaces of the crystal infused castle. All of them had a purple background with a lighter shade of magenta within a six pointed star, with six other white stars around and behind it. That insignia was all too familiar to Starlight Glimmer, for she knew, deep in her heart, the owner of the castle.

It was Twilight's castle.

Starlight closed her eyes and shook her head several times, trying to kick out those annoying, flashing black spots in her vision. Regaining her composure, she walked up the open side path that led to the massive castle, her hooves attempting to minimise the contact with the gravel ground as much as possible.

Reaching the entrance, Starlight dragged the heavy, thick door open from their original positions, enabling her to slide gingerly between the gap to sneak into the castle. She carefully pushed the displaced door back into the closed position, emitting a sound less audible than the furious beating of Starlight's heart.

Starlight's ears stood upright and attentive, but a grave silence deafened her ears. The tall ceiling hallways and corridors made Starlight feel so utterly insignificant in the castle, with bigger than life statues dwarfing her body. Despite the cold weather outside the castle, Starlight felt comfortably cosy in the interior, from the heat from the candles of the chandeliers hanging high above the ceiling.

Starlight pushed open another crystal blue door to reveal a giant, spacious room, causing her eyes and even her head to pan around the entire area. A circular crystal table was right smack in the middle of the room, equidistant to all four walls of the room. Rushing forward hastily, she discovered a map of the region imprinted directly onto the table, depicted in great detail and contrast. Seven crystal chairs accompanied the table, each spaced equally apart from each other, except for two chairs placed side by side. Of the seven chairs, each of the six had colourful symbols that were reminiscent of the cutie marks she almost got away with.

Starlight could barely hold her breath for much longer. She could not be any closer to the six without alerting them to her presence. She could feel their aura in the smoky air lingering around, as though they could clutch onto her soul at that very instant. A shiver ran down Starlight's spine, her hypersensitive sixth sense alerting her to imminent danger.

"SPIKE!" a familiar voice rang down the corridors, reverberating down the corridor into Starlight's startled ears.

Starlight jerked back in utter surprise, nearly losing her balance despite the rough carpet in contact with her hooves. Springing forward, she ran to the door and pressed her ears hard onto the dry, grainy surface.

"Yes?" a slightly rougher voice responded.

"I will be presenting a speech to Celestia's School of Magic in Canterlot tomorrow!" Twilight's voice permeated into Starlight's eardrums, the excitement in her voice being undeniable.

"Oh, fantastic!" that voice replied. "On what subject?"

"It is on cutie mark magic!" Twilight joyfully declared. "And how it brought out the magic of friendship in me. Come, let's go to the meeting room to rehearse."

"Cutie mark magic?" Starlight thought to herself, pulling her head away from the side of the door with her two front hooves. She readied herself as the sound of clopping drew in intensity. Her horn sparked with magic, bringing her back out to safety back in Canterlot.

Twilight's presentation was about to begin.

Panting heavily, Starlight followed a entire string of ponies galloping at full speed, trying to rush to Celestia's School of Magic for Gifted Unicorns. The flashy surroundings around Starlight seemed to whizz past her as she navigated through the hustle and bustle of the roads in Canterlot, until the sight of a shaking, purple building remained in her field of vision.

Walking up the steps into the entrance of the purple building at a decelerating rate, Starlight's head bowed down, facing the yellow calcite stairs with little physical strength in her hooves left. Starlight pushed her chin up to gaze at a dissipating bottleneck at the entrance doorway as every single pony wanted to rush in and catch Twilight's much awaited presentation. With every bit of energy in her left, she tugged herself up to head past the darkly-toned double doors that gave entry into the magic school.

Puffing out air from the very depths of her lungs, Starlight used her raw body weight to force the lecture theatre's door open, to observe an obedient audience that nearly filled the whole room. The audience sat on individual red, velvet cushioned seats with a pop-up table for note taking. Some ponies were leaning their weight forward, pressing down onto the table, straining to absorb any word coming out from Twilight's mouth. Some ponies were in a flurry of activity, scribbling frantically on scraps of paper. The presentation was accompanied by projected slides which allowed Starlight to follow the proceedings seamlessly, despite her late arrival. A confident Twilight was at the head of the theatre, speaking to the crowd calmly.

Starlight slipped silently into the few empty seats left at the back of the theatre, near the entrance she entered from. She tried to match the behaviour of the rest of the audience by holding her head with her two front hooves, supported by the table.

"The power of cutie mark magic is very real," Twilight lectured the audience, pointing at the projected slide with her hoof. "And in the context of my friends and I, it can be traced to a single event."

Starlight could see the joy in Twilight's eyes as she continued with her presentation, causing her to roll her eyes in obvious displeasure. Twilight stopped for a moment, pausing to take a sip from glass of water from the side of the lectern from which she spoke, clearing her throat.

"Without Rainbow Dash's race to defend Fluttershy's honour, the Rainboom wouldn't have happened," Twilight spoke, unaware of the consequences sharing this would follow. "Fluttershy's love for animals would never have been uncovered; Applejack wouldn't discover she belonged in her farm..."

Twilight's eyes toured around the audience via the three point contact rule she read from her public speaking book, causing her to be painfully ignorant of the presence of Starlight Glimmer in the audience at the back row.

"Without this Rainboom, I may not have entered magic school," Twilight admitted to all in attendance. "Princess Celestia would not have sent me to magic school, or to Ponyville to meet my friends!"

"And the most powerful thing about cutie mark magic was the connection I shared with my friends!" Twilight continued her explanation, panning the audience in one clean sweep from right to left.

Twilight's neck jumped back. Her eyebrows rocketed up, nearly touching the edge of her purple mane. She turned her neck uncontrollably, scanning for her worst fear at each and every aisle of the audience. She squinted at the audience with bated breath, her mouth open and unmoving.

Despite checking thoroughly and methodically, Starlight was nowhere to be found in the crowd.

Shaking her head, believing that she must have been hallucinating, Twilight tried to bring her mind back to her speech. Her mouth was open to cease the sudden, awkward silence, but nothing came out. She had no choice but to look down onto the flashcards she prepared discreetly on the lectern to jog her memory. Breathing in as calmly as she could, she continued her lecture.

In reality, Starlight was indeed present. After the two had their eyes locked for a split second when Twilight was panning the audience, Starlight gingerly evacuated her seat to head for the exit just feet away. She could hear the sudden bout of emptiness in the room from the side of the exit doorway. As she stepped out of the entrance, she knew that, in Twilight's mind, she was feared to return to haunt her again, judging by the natural, uncensored reaction.

With a valuable piece of information about her origins, Starlight opined that Twilight should better to be afraid of what she could be capable of in their final endgame. A casual smirk failed to leave Starlight's face even as she walked out of the vicinity of the school with her cheeks puffed out proudly.

"It begins...now," Starlight muttered bitterly.

Chapter IX: Permutations I

"Maybe I was more stressed over the speech than I thought!" Twilight said, her voice echoing down the hallway of her castle.

Starlight Glimmer ripped open her travel pack to grab the scrolls containing the crucial time travel spells. She placed them on the crystal table in the central meeting room of Twilight's majestic castle, her hooves shaking in the process. She then made herself comfortable on Fluttershy's crystal chair, as she eyed the crumpled scrolls that stood in front of her in contemplation. She breathed in, and held the dry air within her for a few momentous seconds.

"Yeah, that sounds better than Starlight Glimmer coming back for an evil plot for revenge," that distinctive, rough voice that Starlight recognised from her previous infiltration mission into the castle responded.

The door to the meeting room swung open, wide and brave.

"What?" Twilight gasped, her pupils dilating. Her teeth snapped together as she was trying to bring herself together.

"Welcome home...Twilight," Starlight greeted, with a sneer.

Without waiting for a response, Starlight summoned her energies into her horn and cast the two salient spells. The scrolls shot up in the air, midway up the tall ceiling. Waves of magical energy emanated radially throughout the room, binding to the crystal furniture. Magical constructs appeared directly above the crystal table which emitted a loud gear clicking sound.

Twilight felt a sudden surge throughout her body. All of a sudden, a bright light shone from the top of the room, forcing Twilight to shield her eyes with her wings for a short period of time. Opening her eyes slowly, she galloped forward to the table in a daze, looking at the scroll levitating above impossibly and back down into Starlight's sly face. She then gazed left and right hurriedly at the table, before she turned to frown at Starlight.

"What are you doing, Starlight?" Twilight interrogated, although the strength in her voice seemed to waver.

Starlight let loose an evil, maniacal laughter that shook the room. Her machinations had finally let her to this moment. Enjoying the look of unmistakable fear displayed in Twilight's facial expressions, she wanted to savour this moment to the fullest. The sweet taste of revenge that lingered at the tip of Starlight's tongue was delicious.

"I would tell you," Starlight responded slowly, tilting her body forward towards Twilight. "But I don't want to ruin the surprise!"

Starlight threw her body forward, her front hooves contacting the surface of the delicate crystal table. An incredible wave of magical energy emanated from the ceiling of the castle, forming some kind of vortex.

Twilight cowered at the sight of the unknown, her face turning white with horror. She dragged her hooves back to the entrance of the room with her baby dragon following closely in her hoofsteps.

Starlight glared at Twilight, before leaping into the portal above with an almighty jump.

"NO!" Twilight exclaimed with horror. Channelling the magical energy within her, she summoned a lavender beam from the tip of her horn, pointing towards the mysterious portal ahead of her. The lavender beam struck the portal dead centre, just above Starlight's mane. Upon contact with the portal, the beam weakly scattered randomly in all directions, as if it was being distorted by the portal.

"Catch you later...Twilight Sparkle," Starlight remarked casually, grinning, as she entered the portal head first. Her eyes witnessed the strange interior of the portal, a mix of white and black sliding past each other around the sides. A weird, whirling sound accompanied the bizarre experience. A pulsating light shone directly in front of her that became brighter and brighter, as a strange force dragged her in.

She clamped her eyes shut nervously, keeping her hooves close to her body at all times during her travel between the realities as a precautionary measure. Despite this, the blinding light was increasingly able to seep into the corners of her eye, forcing her to quickly cover her eyes with her front hooves.

Suddenly, the intense light disappeared, but Starlight could still feel that there was a force pulling her down, with a whooshing sound that deafened her eardrums. Opening her left eye slowly, she found herself accelerating through the atmosphere towards a greyish blob that was floating in the sky.

Panicking, her body jumped into action at the perilous sight, with her hooves waving frantically in the sky. Drawing from her magical power, her horn glowed, surrounding her with a veil of magical aura. Starlight decelerated slowly to a comfortable speed using her perfected levitation spell and dived down to her destination.

Not before too long, she arrived at her destination, the Cloudsdale Race Circuit. As Starlight levitated overhead, she saw a birds-eye view of the landscape below, seeing ash-white clouds supporting a light grey road that looked like a runway. Sculpted clouds acting as obstacles were everywhere along the circuit, with many in the shape of distorted rings. Moving closer, Starlight's eyes can distinguish small dots that were directly on top of the clouds. On closer inspection, she found that these dots were in fact Pegasi fillies relaxing by the side of the circuit.

Starlight landed gently onto the side of the runway, with almost the lightness of a feather. She trotted down the runway casually, until her legs suddenly became numb with pain.

Frowning in disbelief, she glanced down at her legs, noticing a lilac, crystalline substance encasing her four legs together in a tight bind, making her to writhe with agony.

“Didn’t expect me here?” a voice rang confidently from above, accompanied with the loud sound of wings fluttering. “Thought I was too scared to follow you?”

“I wanted...you here, Twilight...Sparkle,” Starlight spat with distaste, the pain from her immobile legs piercing sharply into her nerves. Squeezing her mind for all its worth, she gathered her magical aura into her glowing horn. Craning her head down painfully, her neck straining at the effort, she emitted a powerful beam that shattered the magical crystal, destroying it with a satisfying crunch. The pain from her legs disappeared at that very instant, enabling Starlight to retake control of her own hooves.

“Not bad,” Twilight remarked, flying overhead. “But know that I will stop whatever you are up to, here and now!”

Twilight clenched her teeth as her horn collected magical energy from within. Nodding her head forward, a blast of multicoloured energy came straight for Starlight's prone body.

Starlight could feel the strength of the beam, with the blazing heat emitted seeping into her skin. She closed her eyes, concentrating her efforts and mustered the magical energy required, before realising that she had no time to charge up her aura to counter that. Her horn then emitted a brilliant light to execute a teleportation spell, allowing her to vanish from the scene a few seconds before disaster struck.

Starlight reappeared conveniently in a random cloud at the side of the race circuit. She peeked her head out of the fluffy edge and saw the young Rainbow Dash at the far end of the runway with two other fillies, with their wings outstretched in anticipation. A nervous looking Fluttershy stood directly in front of the three, her mouth gripping onto a checkered black and white flag.

Moments later, Fluttershy weakly waved the flag, signalling the start of the race. With that, the competitors bolted ahead with gusto, unintentionally knocking Fluttershy off the cloud she was standing on to certain doom.

As the race continued, Starlight could see an aerial cone enveloping Rainbow Dash's body as she sped down the circuit. The ridiculous amount of air pressure Rainbow Dash was experiencing at that moment compressed her into an aerodynamic arrow, with her teeth gripping onto each other desperately for support. Rushing down the course at an unfathomable velocity, light seemed to spark off from the air surrounding her.

Starlight struck without hesitation. A beam of turquoise energy from Starlight's horn immobilised Rainbow Dash's blue wings without warning.

"Hey! What’s this?" Rainbow Dash complained bitterly, turning to stare at her handicapped wings.

In the safety of her hiding place, Starlight laughed at her handiwork, while trying to use her hooves to muffle the sound of her continuous giggles.

Suddenly, Starlight felt a pulse of magical energy flowing into her veins and a tinkling sensation at the back of her head. Reacting quickly, Starlight flew up straight to her left. With her horn still shimmering, she turned back to fire another blast of magical energy up into the sky.

Starlight's beam collided with a dark purple ray, causing a blast of radiant energy emitting in all directions. The explosion let loose a brilliance of red and orange, blinding her for a short moment.

"WHAT DID YOU DO?" Twilight demanded, as she slowly peeled her eyes open.

"You...are about to find out," Starlight responded, a crooked smile emerging from her face to greet Twilight, as a portal materialised above Twilight’s head that sucked her into it, leaving Starlight behind in history.

A confused Twilight fell onto a blue, cold surface.

"How...how did Starlight fly around like that?” Twilight thought to herself, shaking her head in apprehension. She was aware that Starlight must be preparing her revenge behind her back ever since she was exiled from her village, but she was still shocked at the exceptional proficiency of Starlight's magic.

Her curious mind questioned how the wingless Starlight was able to levitate in the sky effortlessly. Putting on her thinking cap, she reflected upon her encounter with Starlight that occurred just minutes ago, until she just noticed that Starlight's horn was constantly glowing throughout their confrontation. Starlight must be using her raw magical power to levitate in the sky.

"No," Twilight thought to herself, as she straightened her legs to pull herself up onto the crystal table, determined. "No matter how powerful she is, I must find a way to stop her."

Turning her head, her eyes glanced around her immediate surroundings, noticing that something was amiss. Tall, overgrown grass surrounded the vicinity of the crystal table, with a cascading waterfall coming off the side of the nearby mountains. Dense forests covered the land as far as the eye could see.

Inhaling a large lungful of air, Twilight gasped, with her ears drooping down in terror.

Her castle was gone.

Twilight could not hold it in for any longer. Tears trickled down the side of Twilight’s face, forming a reflective puddle on the smooth surface of the crystal table. Her eyes were closed shut, trying to cut off the tears that inevitably flowed downward. Her mouth could taste the salinity of the tears that slid into her dry tongue. Why did she not bring her trusted companion dragon along with her?

By the time Twilight’s eyes were dry, hours and hours had passed. She had no choice but to accept the alternate reality she was placed into, thanks to Starlight's evil plan. She inhaled, sucking in a huge lungful of air, trying to relieve her senses. She jumped off the safety of the table, setting off for the unknown ahead.

"Hello?" Twilight called out to no one in particular as she stepped into the settlement she should have called home.

The town was unrecognisable. Windows were boarded up with broken furniture with nails hammered randomly and hurriedly into the structure. The formerly vibrant architecture was tainted with some mysterious black aura. Vegetation had begun to take over the settlement, with thick vines creeping along the ends of the balconies. This could not be more different from the Ponyville that Twilight once knew and loved.

"Rarity? Pinkie Pie?" Twilight called out for her former friends, as she tried to open the doors of their homes. To her horror, the doors were bolted down with iron nails hammered into the woodwork, rusting with time. She pounded the wooden door with her front hooves desperately, to no response. Eventually, her hammering slowed to a stop, with her hooves sliding down the surface of the wooden door weakly. Her face followed suit, bending down to face the soil below.

Twilight turned round, with her head still bowed down to this unimaginable reality, and followed a gravel path that led to the nearby woodlands aimlessly. She found it incredibly difficult to accept that the friendship that she took years to cultivate and nurture could be ruthlessly undone by Starlight through a singular change in the past. She treasured her friends; they had taught her, changed her attitude to friendship and gave her so much happiness in her life. But now, she felt that they were so distant from her, in space and even in time. Twilight gave out a long sigh, as she wondered how she could go back to the joyful reality that she so deeply missed.

Suddenly, at the edge of Twilight’s vision, a shadow appeared.

Twilight almost choked on her own saliva sliding down into her throat when she looked up to see a heavily armoured pony marching ahead of her. Despite the unrecognisable, soldierly look of her familiar friend, she could feel the tears of happiness slipping down her eyes.

"Pinkie?" Twilight exclaimed in amazement. "Pinkie, I'm so glad to see you here!"

"What do you want?" a heavily equipped Pinkie responded irritably. Twilight’s wide smile met Pinkie’s decidedly dead face.

"I'm Twilight Sparkle!" Twilight hurriedly replied, rushing forward to embrace her. "Your friend!"

Pinkie awkwardly dragged Twilight away, struggling with the effort, as the kilograms of equipment in her many travel packs slung over her back took their toll. The pouches collided with her body and each other as Pinkie moved, shaking around like puppets attached to a string.

"I don't even know you," Pinkie Pie said flatly, who was seemingly devoid of emotion inside, as the only thing reacting to Twilight’s outburst was the movement of her dry lips. “I have no time for you; we need to fight for the cause.”

With that, Pinkie marched off abruptly without waiting for a response.

Twilight’s heart was shattered. The uncensored words that flew out of Pinkie’s mouth cut deep into Twilight’s very soul. She felt something was slipping away from her spirit, away from her heart. She felt empty inside. She desperately wanted to cry, but not a single tear left her dry eyes.

"NO! PINKIE!" Twilight shouted at the top of her voice, trying to seek Pinkie's attention yet again. "You must help me!"

Emerging from the dense forest, Twilight galloped down the gravel path to attempt to catch up with her until a shocking sight stopped her dead in her tracks.

Black smoke filled the air, obstructing the sun’s vibrant rays. Battlements were erected around the field ahead, with banners bearing the standard of Princess Celestia and Luna flying solemnly in the sky. Barricades of stone and wood were placed strategically at the potential axes of advance, with soldiers at the ready.

Far ahead, the black opaque crystals invaded the surroundings far beyond the familiar banners and flags. A thick black fog enveloped the battle scene that gave the impression of a tragic wasteland. A huge flag fluttered with the ominous wind with the insignia of King Sombra.

"How?" Twilight mumbled to herself, in disbelief. She stood still, gazing at the despondent Pinkie marching down to risk her life to fight for Equestria. It became all too obvious now; Starlight eliminated the bond between her friends, and without their combined effort and magic, no pony could stop the likes of King Sombra from retaking the Crystal Empire. Worse, now it seemed as though that King Sombra was on the verge of conquering what was left of Equestria, as even her former friends had to be called for service.

She collapsed onto the hardened ground, as though all hope was lost. Her travel pack fell off her back, causing a crumpled scroll to slide out of the opening of her travel pack.

Her lifeless eyes suddenly lit up, shimmering in the sunlight as she seized the scroll with her hooves hurriedly. As she found that she could just travel back into the past to undo Starlight's actions, a smile grew on her previously exhausted face. Clasping the scroll with her shaking hooves, she projected a magical beam from her horn that activated the sorcery kept within the contents of the scroll.

A white portal formed right above her head, with illusionary gears above clicking into place. The portal shot a beam of lilac light towards the direction of Ponyville from the scroll, before dragging a determined Twilight into its depths.

Chapter X: Permutations II

Twilight fell out of the portal to land calmly onto the circuit runway.

"Finally, I am back here!" Twilight exclaimed to herself, before giving out a sigh of relief. Shaking her head furiously, her eyes were still trying to readjust to change in the landscape surrounding her. She was so relieved to return back to her own timeline; at least she could stop Starlight from stopping the Rainboom so that she could return to the present with all of her friends. She did not want to go back to those ridiculous alternate realities again.

Placing the scroll back into the safety of her travel pack, Twilight took off from the runway, darting to a nearby cloud adjacent to the midway point of the circuit. She concealed herself by hiding in the fluffy cloud, to employ Starlight's strategy against her. She peeked out of the side of the cloud, her eyes carefully watching the sky for a glimpse of Starlight Glimmer. Instead, a glaring light greeted Twilight's vision.

Tensing her muscles, Twilight spontaneously summoned the magical aura within her to raise a protective force field to defend herself, with her horn glowing at the effort.

Seconds after the shield was raised, the beam struck mercilessly onto its surface. Twilight could hear the audible sound of her shield cracking at the point of impact. She could even feel the heat radiating from the blast from under her shield. Reacting swiftly, she squeezed her eyes shut in deep concentration to continue transmitting the magical aura to her horn to strengthen the shield, desperately hoping that it would be able to withstand the blast.

Fortunately for Twilight, the beam weakened and subsided into nothingness. As she carefully pried her eyes open again, with her shield still up, a familiar face appeared, levitating just outside the confines of her shield.

"Welcome back!" Starlight called out, her voice muffled due to the effects of the force field. Twilight could see that her horn was still visibly red hot, with white smoke rising up into the air from its surface.

"Starlight?" Twilight responded, frowning. "How did you-"

"How did I manage to follow you here?" Starlight interjected rudely, as a mischievous grin emerged from her face. "Well, the spell is bound to me. So even when you cast it, it sends me back here from that other time as well!"

"Starlight, do you know what you have done to the future?" Twilight asked quickly, genuinely concerned whether Starlight was aware of the huge ramifications she would have in the present. She was certain that both of them did not want to return to a world that at the present, would be under the reign of an evil king. It would be a lose-lose situation for both of them.

Starlight laughed. She did not care how the future would turn out to be. She wanted Twilight to witness how she could erase the very connections that held the six of them together. Now, Twilight was alone, helpless and cowering before her under a shield. Finally, Twilight would experience how it was like when her closest friends were stripped away from her life.

"Do I look like I care about the future?" Starlight shot back without any hint of worry.

Starlight landed onto the surface of Twilight's shield with a thud. She then brought her neck down to face Twilight, staring deeply into her lifeless eyes.

"I knew you will come back here to try and stop me. And in doing so, you will witness your bond between your friends destroyed again!" Starlight continued, the fire inside her raging once again. "My village was a special place...and YOU and your FRIENDS must be the ones to TAKE IT AWAY FROM ME! Now it is my turn to take something valuable away from you!"

"Fine then!" Twilight shouted, before dismantling her protective shield and firing up her horn with magical aura. "But I will stop you first!"

With her horn charged up, she fired a sharp beam at Starlight in close range.

Starlight, with her levitation spell, deftly shifted her body to the left, with the beam just a hair's breath away from the surface of Starlight's skin. However, the beam managed to strike her mane that was flowing with the breeze, incinerating it at the point of contact.

"You will pay for that!" Starlight yelled angrily, frowning at the sight of her disfigured mane. Starlight inhaled deeply, charging up all the magical aura she had in her into her horn. The horn flared up, forming a thick layer of magical energy surrounding its surface. With all the strength that Starlight still possessed, she pushed her head forward, discharging a powerful ray targeted at Twilight Sparkle.

Twilight Sparkle shuddered at the sight in fear. She hastily took off to evade the beam, fleeing from Starlight's high intensity ray, barely avoiding it as the beam obliterated the cloud that Twilight was hiding in.

But Starlight was not done. She shifted her head around and angled her horn, hoping that the beam would intersect Twilight's flight path.

Twilight's heart raced at the prospect of her demise as the beam barely glazed the tip of her own horn. She could feel the adrenaline rushing into her blood, as she switched directions randomly. She prayed that she could escape the effects of the formidable beam until Starlight ran out of magical aura to maintain it. Beads of perspiration from her forehead rained down onto the landscape below as she was slowly drained of her physical energy to continue flying.

Starlight was also at her limits of her mental and magical capabilities. Black spots began appearing in her vision as she continued to push every ounce of energy she had left into the beam. She clamped her eyes shut and clenched her teeth forcefully, in a seemingly last-ditch attempt to defeat her nemesis.

Starlight's beam began to weaken, as her horn crackled with the last bits of energy she could extract from her soul. As sparks flew off the surface of her horn, Starlight knew that she was done. The beam faded away as black, opaque smoke was emitted from her horn. She was exhausted, with the raging fire that burning in the depths of her spirit extinguished.

Starlight had nothing left. Fatigued, both mentally and physically, she lost control of the spell that enabled her to maintain her flight in the air, causing her to fall down onto the landscape below without warning.

Starlight's heart raced as she stared down into her undeniable doom. The air rushed past her at an unimaginable speed as she accelerated down onto the ground. Despite this, her legs made no attempt to slow her descent onto the hard ground below as she observed the ground racing towards her. She closed her eyes, not wanting to look at her downfall.

Suddenly, a pair of hooves grabbed her body, pulling her up to safety.

The drastic change in direction caused Starlight's blood to be suddenly pulled down into her legs, cutting off the circulation of much-needed blood into her brain, causing Starlight to black out before she could open her eyes to discover the identity of her saviour.

Seconds later, a disorientated Starlight managed to retake control of her senses as she collapsed comfortably onto the circuit runway. Opening her eyes cautiously, she could see the young Rainbow Dash and the bullies preparing themselves mentally for the race at the checkered starting line. Fluttershy stood at the same cloud that she recalled in the previous reality, carrying the race flag between her teeth.

"Starlight...are you okay?" Twilight's concerned voice rang into Starlight's ears.

"Twilight...why did you...?" Starlight said in disbelief, while she slowly regained her senses through rest. "Why give me a second chance? I destroyed your friends..."

"Starlight," Twilight replied calmly, turning to face the tired Starlight. "I know you can change for the better. With your talent, you surely can do good for the realm, and for all of us."

Starlight pushed herself up to face Twilight eye to eye, her legs struggling with the effort. Breathing in deeply, Starlight stepped forth towards Twilight. At the edge of her peripheral vision, Starlight noticed Fluttershy waving the race flag weakly, signalling the start of the race between Rainbow Dash and the bullies.

"How are you so kind to me?" Starlight uttered weakly, wishing that Twilight would give her an honest answer.

"Everypony makes mistakes, Starlight. Even me," Twilight responded, as she raised her front hoof and pointed to herself. "With a second chance, I know that you can learn from what you have done wrong."

"Thank you," Starlight said, as a thin, devious smile emerging from her face. "Thank you...for giving me a second chance...TO DESTROY YOUR FRIENDSHIPS AGAIN!"

Starlight's horn shimmered feebly to project a weak beam to strike at Rainbow Dash speeding past the obstacles of the course. Despite the low intensity beam, it was more than sufficient to knock Rainbow Dash off course, causing her to crash into the nearby pillar.

"Starlight! Why would you do this to me?" Twilight spoke frantically, in shock. Her heart sank down like a stone as her blood was beginning to boil at Starlight's betrayal of her good-heartedness. She thought that there was a genuine opportunity for her to help Starlight mend her ways. Instead, Starlight took advantage of her kindness to continue executing her revenge. It was all but a ruse to enable Starlight to regain her strength and her aura to defeat her once again.

Starlight did not utter a single word. Instead, she pounced onto Twilight's body, knocking her to the floor to unlatch her purple travel pack from her back.

Twilight, however, did not stay idle on the floor. She grappled with Starlight, pushing her to the side of the runway with her raw physical strength. Then, she started to charge up her magical aura into her horn to fire a retaliatory purple beam at Starlight's body metres away from her.

In an act of self-preservation, Starlight instinctively threw the travel pack into the path of the beam in an attempt to shield herself, causing the travel pack and its contents to be reduced to cinders.

Twilight gasped.

Chapter XI: Permanence

"STARLIGHT!" Twilight yelled, gazing upon the blackened ashes that collapsed into a forlorn heap in front of her. "YOU destroyed the time travel scroll!"

Starlight saw the unmistakable look of fear written all over Twilight's face as she nonchalantly trotted forward towards her, grinning deviously. She thought that she would need to forcefully wrest control over the scroll and destroy it to trap Twilight into one of her corrupted, alternate realities, but now, Twilight had already done the job for her.

"Hahahahaha!" Starlight bellowed with hideous laughter. "Now you will be forever stuck in whatever universe that the portal will bring you...without the companionship of your annoying friends!"

Twilight broke down. Tears started to slowly slip off the edge of her eyes, forming a puddle below her head that was a mixture of hot tears and cold sweat. She bowed her head down to the unicorn ahead of her, as if she accepted the fate bestowed upon her by Starlight.

Starlight smirked, finally tasting the sweet fruits of revenge. She brought herself to the pile of ash and knocked it off the edge with her front hooves, causing the scattered ash to eventually sink down onto the ground beneath them. Starlight then walked towards the broken Twilight.

"Now, you will feel how it is like to be in my hooves when you kicked me out of my own village!" Starlight exclaimed proudly, as she approached Twilight with glee.

A crackle of magical energy diverted Starlight's attention to the formation of a white portal just above Twilight's head. Imaginary gears clicked into place to prepare for the expedition to the unknown. A mysterious force grabbed hold of Twilight's body to lift her up into the portal's interior.

Twilight bitterly resisted. Clenching her teeth in the effort, she tried to counteract the unknown force through her sheer body weight. Every muscle in her body was strained to avoid the reality the portal would bring her into.

"Goodbye...Twilight Sparkle," Starlight spoke, as though she was about to deliver the final blow to Twilight. "There's no point in struggling; you will be trapped in there...permanently!"

"NO!" Twilight shouted resolutely, as she continued to try and prevent the inevitable. Magical energy sparked off the corners of the white portal above that appeared to amplify the strength of the force exerted on Twilight. Despite this, Twilight continued fighting on, against her destiny.

Soon, Twilight's muscles were feeling the agony. Although Twilight's mind remained steadfast in her objective, it was increasingly unable to command the raw strength that she demanded from her body. She must know that she could not hold on for very much longer.

"You are right, Starlight," Twilight relented, jerking her head towards Starlight's smug face. "But if I am to be trapped, I WILL HAVE TO DRAG YOU ALONG WITH ME!"

With all the strength that Twilight could muster, she jumped onto Starlight's back and knocked her down onto the ground. Grabbing hold of Starlight for all she was worth, Twilight voluntarily flew into the whirl of black and white above her as swiftly as she could.

"WHAT! NO!" Starlight shouted with horror, as she tried to push herself out of Twilight's unwavering grip.

However, Starlight was too slow to react. Her vision was greeted by the swirl of black and white as she entered the portal, together with her nemesis.

Starlight crash-landed onto a cool, blue surface simultaneously with a loud thump.

Regaining her consciousness, Starlight opened her eyes first to find black patches in her vision. As she shook her head to clear her vision, her eyes were blinded by the bright light emanating from Twilight's crystal table from the bottom of her hooves, that was somehow brought here from the original timeline they came from. Glancing around at her surroundings, she found that the table was in the middle of a jungle clearing. Thick, ancient trees encircled the clearing, except for a dirt path that went deep into the jungle's interior. Mysterious sounds came from all directions around the clearing, sending shivers down Starlight's spine.

"I can't believe Twilight sent me back with her!" Starlight muttered to herself angrily, silently cursing at herself for being so conveniently nearby for Twilight to bring her along to this alternate universe. She stomped onto the robust crystal table with vengeful fury, silencing the ambient sound of the jungle around her. Thinking back to her past, foolish actions, she so eagerly wanted to kick herself in frustration.

In the sudden silence that deafened her hearing, the sound of irregular, shallow breathing could now be sieved out by Starlight's sensitive ears.

A startled Starlight shifted her body back uncomfortably, her eyes sliding from left to right. She began creeping forward as she scanned the dense woodlands around her, oblivious that she had reached the limits of the table. Losing her balance, she fell off the edge of the crystal table, collapsing onto the ground with a faint thud. Fearing of what could be coming for her, her horn shimmered with her weakened magical aura, readying herself for any potential conflict.

From the bottom of the table, she could hear movement from above. She slowly pulled herself up to peek at this unknown figure with trepidation.

It was Twilight. It appeared that she had just regained her senses, especially since she was rubbing her forehead with her two front hooves, as if she had a throbbing headache. Twilight gripped tightly onto the surface of the table for support and dragged herself up to stand on all four of her legs.

Starlight rushed back down beneath the table, beyond Twilight's field of vision, trying to conceal her presence from the weakened purple alicorn. However, in spite of her best efforts, she unknowingly left her conspicuous horn sticking out from the edge of the table.

Twilight noticed a magical glint of light coming from the edge of the table metres away from her. Frowning at the sight, she advanced slowly and uniformly towards the magical illumination.

Starlight could hear the clopping of Twilight's hooves on the table above her ringing into her ears. Spinning round and throwing herself onto the table, she emitted a cyan beam of magical energy at Twilight's approximate location.

"Starlight!" Twilight shouted instinctively, as the beam narrowly missed her head. She tried to gather whatever aura that she had left into her horn, but her horn merely discharged a small spark that flew off its surface. Twilight's jaw collapsed. She had not enough physical, mental or magical energy to cast any spell to retaliate against Starlight. Finding that she was utterly defenseless against Starlight, her eyes widened with horror. She turned back quickly and bolted straight down the dirt path leading out of the clearing.

"How dare you send me here?" Starlight screamed at the top of her lungs, apoplectic with rage. "You will not get away with this!"

With that, Starlight dashed ahead, pursuing Twilight down the meandering dirt path around the thick jungle. Throughout the chase, Starlight continued to summon her magical aura to constantly fire rays of magical energy at Twilight, wishing that a stray beam would be able to catch Twilight off-balance and end this conflict once and for all.

Twilight could feel the waves of magical current surging into her body from the beams emitted from Starlight, allowing her to dodge every single beam as the chase continued down the seemingly endless, winding path. She panted heavily as she continued galloping away from the clutches of Starlight as fast as she could. Not before too long, Twilight's legs began to falter as her leg muscles eventually became worn out. Despite this, the sight of turquoise beams flying around her caused her to press on, even though the pain from her non-athletic legs became excruciating.

Finally, Twilight could see the exit out of this heavily-wooded jungle, giving her much-needed motivation to carry on running. Bursting out of the forest canopy at top speed, she suddenly halted at the unbelievable sight ahead of her.

Twilight gazed upon the Castle of the Two Sisters in awe, with her mouth agape. A primary, central keep commanded control of the battlements below, alongside two secondary keeps that stood next to it. Tall walls surrounded the impregnable castle, with a moat filled with stagnant, murky water surrounding its confines. Translucent emblems of a crescent moon were attached onto the highest points of the three keeps, lit by the brightness of a full moon behind them.

A beam struck centimetres away from Twilight's right hind leg, reducing the visibly anaemic grass next to her into a pile of black powder. Turning her head hurriedly, she saw Starlight rushing out of the forest, charging up her horn for yet another blast.

Without much hesitation, Twilight trotted across the wooden drawbridge over the castle's moat. Before Starlight could step onto the drawbridge, Twilight garnered her recharged magical aura that caused her horn to flare up, smashing the drawbridge into smithereens.

Twilight ran to the back of the castle's walls to avoid being struck by Starlight's destructive beams. Leaning back onto the solid granite construction, she smiled at the thought of her handiwork, believing that Starlight would not be able to cross the moat to pursue her anymore. She breathed a sigh of relief, as she was finally able to catch her breath after being chased down by that determined Starlight.

"Twilight Sparkle...you actually thought destroying that bridge would stop me?" Starlight goaded from above.

"Starlight? How?" Twilight exclaimed fearfully, before she looked up to find that Starlight was surrounded in a veil of magical aura. She must have used her levitation spell to cross the moat unimpeded.

"It's over for you now!" Starlight shouted, firing down a beam of radiant magical energy down towards Twilight's body.

Twilight hurriedly surged her magical aura into her horn to teleport her out to safety behind the second layer of granite walls that surrounded the castle. Even from her current location, she could hear the crumbling of the walls just tens of metres away from her as they bore the brunt of the beam's impact.

Twilight knew that it was only a matter of time until Starlight would discover her hiding spot. She galloped straight for the main entrance of the castle, opening the huge, thick wooden doors to enter the castle's interior.

Closing the door as silently as she could, she crept into the long entrance hallway, as the velvet, carpeted floor muted the sound of her hooves clopping into the castle. Banners were hung symmetrically on both sides of the hallway depicting the emblem of a crescent moon, similar to those outside the castle, but some had emblems of planets and even stars.

Suddenly, the doors behind Twilight slammed open.

"No more running away...Twilight," Starlight trotted in, opening her mouth to expose her stained teeth. Twilight could see that her horn was still glowing with magical aura, but Twilight knew that Starlight was running out of steam after casting so many spells.

"No, both of you are not going anywhere," a sinister, deep voice echoed down the hallway from the shadows ahead.

"Who are you?" Starlight interrogated, her face turning white. "Show yourself!"

"Who am I?" the voice responded, before a tall, darkly toned alicorn stepped forth into the light, revealing her identity to the two. "I...am your greatest nightmare."

Chapter XII: Persecuted

"Nightmare Moon!" Twilight shrieked, her sudden high-pitched remark reverberating throughout the castle's hallway. The villainous appearance of Nightmare Moon ahead of her stunned Twilight's legs into stillness.

Starlight frowned in suspicion. She never heard of this 'Nightmare Moon' before, but whoever she was, she must be a considerable threat, as Twilight's body language revealed. She relaxed her control over her magical aura, dimming the luminosity emitted from her horn, to watch over the situation as it slowly unfolded before her very eyes. She might need to conserve her strength for later.

"Yes...it is I," Nightmare Moon proclaimed confidently, projecting an air of authority. "But I must thank you for destroying half of the castle's masonry; after all, the castle is due for some redecorating."

"Sorry?" Twilight muttered softly, as her hind hooves were beginning to slide backwards. She was unable to decipher whether Nightmare Moon was genuinely showing her appreciation for their actions as they busted their way into her abode, and so decided to play it safe.

"I see," Nightmare Moon responded, dangerously softer than prior. "So you two think that I will just let you go after such an apology?"

An uneasy silence filled the void of the castle's hallway. Nightmare Moon simply gazed onto the two with her lifeless eyes with her mature, brilliant wings outstretched. Twilight's eyebrows twitched slightly at her remark, as she dragged her vision away from Nightmare Moon's body, trying to avoid her unnerving stare. Twilight's body became increasingly rigid, as she kept her wings to her side tightly. However, Starlight was woefully unaware of the threat put forth by Nightmare Moon, as she continued locking eyes with her, her mouth straight and even.

"Yes?" Twilight replied, hoping to release some tension from the air within from the stupidity of her answer.

"NO!" Nightmare Moon bellowed as she stomped the carpet with her front hoof energetically for emphasis. "You shall be punished for what you have done! GUARDS!"

From the darkness along the unlit corners of the hallway, heavily equipped guards appeared to apprehend the two fugitives, outnumbering the two by a factor of five. They were a menacing threat; they were protected extensively from head to toe, except for a small hole that exposed their combat-ready eyes. Their equipment bore the insignia of the ominous crescent moon along their necks that were strapped to their body plates.

As they advanced uniformly towards the two to surround them, Twilight's hooves began to pedal backwards towards the side of Starlight Glimmer, who stood rooted to the ground at the sight of the attacking mob.

"Starlight!" Twilight screamed, trying to snap her out of her initial trance. "We need to work together to have any chance of survival!"

Starlight clasped her eyes shut for a short moment, before re-opening them again. She glanced at the impending threat that loomed ahead of them, finding battle-ready guards marching in a formulated combat formation to apprehend them. She sighed, as deep down she knew that she could not handle this threat by herself, but she hated to admit that she could not handle this by herself. Worse, she had to work with her nemesis that haunted her since the time they knew each other to fight it out together. She felt as though her heart was split into two, as her emotions battled it out from inside.

"Fine," Starlight responded reluctantly.

With that, they seized their magical aura and summoned their energies. Their horns glowed vibrantly, lighting the corner of the hallway they were in.

All of a sudden, some of the guards launched themselves onto the two of them, trying to knock them down onto the carpet before they could try to protect themselves. Twilight's pupils widened as she conjured beams of magical energy that disabled their attackers prior to impact, burning them into submission as the heat from the beams was easily conducted by the metal armour they were wearing. Their aerial advance were blunted as they howled in pain and shock. They collapsed onto the floor, unconscious.

Although Twilight was able to dispatch some of the guards, some were able to evade her beams with their manoeuverable wings. They flew around in a seemingly random fashion, to prevent from being caught by Twilight's thin, concentrated beam to go in for the kill. However, despite their best attempts, they could not come into proximity for close quarter combat with Twilight, as the reach of her beam was too great for them to overcome. Ultimately, they were just avoiding the magical ray that Twilight was maintaining from her horn. As their wings grew fatigued as time dragged on, Twilight began disabling them, one by one.

At the same time, unicorn guards charged all their horns to begin firing a constant barrage of multicoloured magical beams of their own towards both Twilight and Starlight from the rear. Starlight proactively reacted as her instincts kicked in, summoning beams to intersect them before they could come threateningly close to harm the two. Despite the copious amount of missile fire raining down towards them, Starlight's magical aptitude and reaction speed were more than a match for the guards. Red and orange light flashed when conflicting magical energies scattered in all directions into nothingness.

Both Twilight and Starlight were beginning to feel the strain on their physical and magical capabilities while they continued to fight on. Sweat dripped off the side of their faces, slipping into their manes. Their vision became a blur as they executed a flurry of activity to fight their way through, the light from their horn blinding their view of the situation ahead of them. Their muscles began to cramp throughout their body, being unaccustomed to the heat of the action.

Not before too long, a solitary winged guard remained to confront Twilight. In spite of the seemingly endless beams of magic that Twilight could throw at her, she was able to dart around deftly, avoiding all of Twilight's attacks.

Out of the blue, Twilight's horn stopped glowing, causing her to be momentarily unable to cast any spells to protect herself. The winged guard grinned, and believing that Twilight was on her last legs, she gripped her ceremonial spear and went in for the kill. She dived down to Twilight, hoping to catch her off-guard.

"AH!" she screamed in discomfort, as a cyan beam came to Twilight's rescue. She collapsed onto the ground with a heavy thud, a mere metre in front of Twilight. The force of the impact dislodged her helm off her head to expose a familiar face that caught Starlight's eye.

"Night Glider?" Starlight exclaimed in shock, striding hurriedly towards her prone body.

No response came from the body that stood motionless before Starlight.

"Starlight! We are not done yet!" Twilight shouted, glancing at the never-ending barrage of magical missiles that were now going unchecked. Taking things into her own accord, Twilight fabricated a magical force screen to shield the two to absorb the attacks, her horn flaring up once again after a short hiatus.

Starlight did not listen to Twilight's outburst. She knelt down, her eyes filled with emptiness, as her mouth vibrated sporadically.

Twilight shook her head slowly at her actions, finally understanding that she was in no position to act upon the situation. Rapidly dispelling the shield that she upheld radially and vigorously, it reflected the incoming magical beams back towards the unicorn guards, who quickly felt the taste of their own medicine, especially as they were unprepared to counter the beams that flew back at them instantaneously. They were charred even before their faces lay flat on the carpeted floor.

It was quite a battle scene. Twilight looked on at the carnage that they have wreaked upon the ten guards that challenged them with a pain in her heart, her mouth unmoving. She never intended to kill anypony in her life, but when such a situation called for it, she simply had to do it. She felt a noose of guilt tightening around her neck, straggling her conscience into a slither of void, yet she also felt grateful that she had survived the ordeal.

Starlight's feelings could not be more different. Tears struggle to leave the confines of her eyes as she stared down hard onto the body. She brought her hooves to touch Night Glider's fur, experiencing the last shred of warmth radiating out into the dimly lit hallway. The body's white, eccentric mane was exactly how Starlight remembered it to be. Starlight could feel a cascade of emotions that she could be feeling, but her mind was not able to filter out what she really should be feeling.

She remembered the time when Night Glider was a fantastic and kind member to her community, her village and...even her home. Night Glider even assisted in the construction of Starlight's own house in her village, by laying the sandstone foundation together. There existed a bond between the two, though Starlight's intelligence failed her when she tried to put it into words. Certainly, Starlight could undoubtedly remember how Night Glider betrayed her thinking for Twilight's ideology. But, strangely, she did not really take it to heart anymore. Regardless, she eliminated someone she knew well, even if it were in this universe. No matter what had happened previously between the two, Night Glider still played a role in her life and perhaps even influenced her.

Tears finally gushed out from Starlight's eyes uncontrollably, even though she knew that Twilight and Nightmare Moon were watching her intensely. She saw no reason to hide how she truly felt, since she would have to live with this permanently, like an ugly scar left behind in her memories.

Twilight went ahead to Starlight's side. Twilight wanted to console her, but she had no idea how to go about doing it. She just stood there, motionless. Her mind grew a blank when she was trying to come up with something to help Starlight tide over her emotions. She felt a pang in her heart for Starlight now, despite of Starlight's betrayal of her kindness in the past, because she knew full well how genuine her emotions were.

"ENOUGH!" Nightmare Moon commanded loudly from her throne, unsure of why her response to the situation was so delayed. "You may have bested my guards, but you will not defeat ME!"

With that, she conjured a massive beam that surged through the air like lightning towards the both of them.

"Starlight!" Twilight exclaimed, leaping away from the point of impact as far as her two hind legs could go.

Chapter XIII: Perspicacity

Twilight woke up in the void.

There was a throbbing pain in her head that seemed to crush her sense of reality from within. Although she was lying down, she could feel her head swaying left and right on a rough stone surface. Time, if it had any meaning anymore, seemed to stop for a disorientated Twilight, as she tried to bring herself together.

A period of time passed. As her body muscles were recovering from the strain of the action, Twilight could finally afford to try sitting up on whatever she was previously lying on. Pushing herself to the side, her worn-out hooves could feel the floor she was lying on. Dragging herself up, she glanced around frantically, finding that she was trapped in a prison cell. The iron fence that encased her inside the cell extended up to the top of the ceiling, to prevent any aerial escape. What garnered her attention more was the dim magical illumination that was blindingly bright to her eyes.

"Starlight?" Twilight called out, as she started shaking her head to dispel the terrible sense of nausea left ringing in her mind.

"Twilight?" Starlight's voice rang into Twilight's right ear, with an undeniable hint of relief in her voice.

"Starlight! We have to escape from here!" Twilight exclaimed loudly, ensuring that Starlight could hear her comment audibly. Twilight knew that they were most likely be trapped in the prison cell for all of eternity under the whim of that malicious Nightmare Moon, which was something she was sure neither of them would subscribe to. They needed to break out, to have any chance of their fight for freedom. She dashed around the perimeter of the fence locking her in, gripping onto the rusty iron bars that reinforced them, in desperation. Twilight could physically feel the solid build of the fence with her front hooves, which made her heart sink into despair.

"I've already tried everything, Twilight," Starlight replied with tell-tale dejection in her voice. "The iron bars are way too robust to break apart; and that magically imbued crystal renders our magic useless!"

"Does...does that mean we are trapped in here...forever?" Twilight questioned, the strength in her voice wavering. Her heart was unprepared to accept the tragic truth, as her mind was desperately trying to find some way to convince herself otherwise. The darkness that enveloped her seem to creep ever closer into the confines of her spirit.

No response came from the other side of the room. Twilight, who was still holding onto the iron bars of the fence, expended the last of her strength to attempt to pull it open, to no avail. Eventually, her hooves slipped down the rusty surface of the iron bars in resignation.

Twilight had no magic, no friends to help her...nothing. She now painfully knew how futile any breakout attempt she could concoct would be. What little hope that she had prior was extinguished to join the darkness that encircled her sense of the stark reality in which she was thrown into.

"Twilight...I'm...sorry," the familiar voice uttered softly as a faint thud could be heard towards Twilight's right.

Twilight felt the impetus to acknowledge Starlight's remark, yet when she opened her mouth, words failed to come out, resulting in a long, ensuing silence throughout the prison.

The long silence made the already anxious Starlight to feel even more uncomfortable. Thinking back at her sudden apology, she was unable to predict how Twilight would react to it, after all that she had done, especially when she betrayed her kindheartedness in the past. She so desperately wished now to make amends there and then, since all this would not have happened in the first place. She woefully underestimated how a small change in the past could cause things in the present to spiral out of control. She knew that this entire fiasco was all her fault. Her thirst of revenge against Twilight Sparkle pushed her into this recklessness.

Her actions influenced every single pony in this universe, to serve under the bidding of Nightmare Moon. Her 'friends' were enlisted into Nightmare Moon's service, to confront her as part of their duty. And to defend Twilight, her nemesis...she killed one of them.

She bowed her head down in regret, staring down into the emptiness of the ground. While her feelings rushed into her conflicting heart, her overloaded mind could not control them. She could feel her face twitching at the huge impulse of experiencing emotion from every part of her heart. It was an incredibly excruciating experience.

"You are?" Twilight replied, shattering the long bout of eeriness. The doubt in her voice could be so clearly be deciphered by Starlight.

"I truly am...look Twilight," Starlight summoned her courage to confront herself by pausing to take a deep breathe. "I know I have done so many...despicable things against you but...I did not expect this to happen."

Starlight forced her mouth open to continue her apology, but her emotions got the better of her. Despite her dehydrated state, tears were expelled from her moist eyes. As they slid down in dribbles, her mouth could taste their salinity. She wailed out loud, after coughing incessantly on her saliva having nearly entered her windpipe.

Twilight could hear the helplessness emanating from that corner of the room. That pang in her heart...she felt it again. She inadvertently shifted her eyes away from Starlight's voice, as if she wanted to avoid observing Starlight breaking into pieces right before her.

"All because of me...seeking revenge against you...I had to resort to such a reckless scheme,"Starlight struggled to string her words into coherent sentences as her despondent self wrestled with her tears trickling down. "All because of me...I killed my...friend. All because of me...we are forever trapped here...and left to rot for eternity."

Twilight's ears picked up every word that came from the side of the prison, her eyes unblinking despite the darkness.

"I know, Twilight...I know that no...apology could possibly make up for this," Starlight continued, composing herself slightly. "But I am genuinely...remorseful. So if we trapped here forever...please forgive me."

"No, Starlight, you are wrong," Twilight spoke up, summoning the necessary courage from her conscience. "I am at fault too."

Starlight jerked her head up towards the direction of Twilight's cell, shocked, even as tears landed down onto the cold surface below from the side of her face.

"Starlight...I've been reflecting about this since the time we left your village," Twilight continued with regret. "I turned you into an exile of your own village, without explaining why your thinking was flawed. I never considered your feelings, your prior experiences or anything for that matter. All I did was stop what you were doing, kicked you out and forced my ideals onto you. It is because of this...it drove you to this mess and led you to regret your decisions. As the princess of friendship, I realise now that what I have done to you was so...reprehensible. Can you...forgive me?"

As Twilight spoke, Starlight's jaws gave way, bringing her mouth wide open.

"I must...forgive you," Starlight replied after a long pause. "Knowing that we will be trapped here permanently...at least we can now live in solace...together."

"Thank you," Twilight said, as she turned back towards Starlight's general direction. "Together...at least we can support each other through time immemorial."

Starlight nodded in agreement. For once, she felt that there was a genuine soul out there in the darkness that would care for her well-being, as a true friend. This treasured feeling was long lost in her mind; it reminded her of the time before her only friend left her back in her hometown, but yet she did not experience it during her time in her village. At last, her mind could finally comprehend the differences in the authenticity of the friendship that she had built throughout her life.

Twilight breathed a sigh of relief. Prior to their conversation, she would have no idea how to go about helping Starlight cruise through her sorrow or to change her perception. She was particularly fearful at the potential possibility that Starlight would reject her explanation and they would be forced to live out their separate ways in their segregated prison cells for the rest of eternity. Having got this tricky situation out of the way, Twilight went back to lie onto the ground in comfort, a cautiously optimistic smile emerging from the side of her face. As she pondered over the fast-paced events that occurred, a sudden thought popped into her mind.

"Starlight, do you think that there is any way we can travel back in time back to our world without that spell?" Twilight suddenly asked. "If we can find a way to breakout, we can at least get back to our time-"

"Time travel, I see?" a recognisable, venomous voice pierced through the stale air. "Now that's something I would like to hear..."

Chapter XIV: Perturbance

Fires lit up the prison, forcing Starlight and Twilight to shield their eyes with their front hooves momentarily. The two cracked their eyes open, despite the blinding light, to gaze at the shady figure before them.

"Nightmare Moon? You were here all this while?" Twilight uttered, shock written all over her face. The darkness that surrounded the two of them made them believe that they were speaking privately, though in actuality, it merely gave them a false sense of security against any potential eavesdropping.

"Yes, and I must say your little conversation was so cute, with all your emotional talk," Nightmare Moon retorted, helping herself to a slight giggle before cutting it short abruptly. "But I don't care about that. What I do care about is how are you two able to travel through time? No pony in this realm should have the ability to control time but ME! With the ability to alter time, I will ensure that the Elements of Harmony will never be recovered, so my reign will last indefinitely and exist every possible universe!"

After that incredulous remark, Twilight and Starlight instantaneously turned to face each other from adjacent prison cells simultaneously, communicating wordlessly through threatening flickers in their eyes. After a brief moment of gazing into each other, the two nodded their heads in unison subtly, having understood the identical message that they would like to broadcast to the other.

Nightmare Moon observed every single detail of their silent actions with growing interest. From what she could deduce from their conversation earlier, they were enemies, but they were somehow united through common understanding to become friends to get out of her world. She could not help but chuckle, wondering how pitifully fragile this alliance would be. She placed her front hoof onto her chin, thinking deeply.

"What do you know about time travel?" Nightmare Moon commanded the two, her voice echoing throughout the four robust walls of the prison. "Speak!"

"Why would we?" Starlight shot back swiftly, her steely character jumping back into life. "What are you giving us in exchange for this valuable information? Nothing!"

"FINE!" Nightmare Moon relented, fires raging in both her eyes. "If you help me, I will let you two be freed from this cell. But do not ever THINK about going back to your own world! The amount of magical aptitude you two displayed was exceptional; after all, I could do with a few highly proficient commanders in my army. And there is no way I will let talent slip away just like that!"

"Well, now that you mentioned it...being a leader in your army sounds good...reminds me of my good old days commanding my village until a certain pony stepped in to interfere with my plans," Starlight mused, turning towards Twilight.

"WHAT! Starlight, what are you doing?" Twilight shot back in a beat, rolling her eyes at the sudden betrayal of her eternal 'friend' that she made minutes ago. "What about our agreement?"

Starlight's mouth widened to accept the terms stated by Nightmare Moon, but she felt that there was an eye peering into the depths of her soul, freezing her dry lips in place. Turning around uncomfortably, cold sweat seemed to drip off the sides of her brow, as her eyes met the sturdy glare from Twilight at the other corner of the prison. The two locked eyes for several long moments, both desperately trying to read each other's true intentions.

Twilight was trying hard to decipher Starlight's body language, but she could not help but ponder, did Starlight really mean what she said just then? It sounded terribly heartbreaking to Twilight, especially after all they have went through together. Or was it...

"Twilight, we have no choice," Starlight explained, trying to defend her decision. "I have to take responsibility for what I did. At least we can start out anew with a clean slate here to work on and live out the rest of our lives."

"No!" Twilight vehemently disagreed, shaking her head profusely at Starlight's offer of assistance. "If you help Nightmare Moon, imagine what will happen to everypony else...and us? And I thought we agreed to let bygones be bygones!"

"No, Twilight, you don't understand. We can't do nothing!" Starlight responded hurriedly. "We can't just stay here! If Nightmare Moon allows us to be free, at least in this world, even under her charge, I would do it!"

"HAHA!" Nightmare Moon crackled in laughter at the exchange, with her eyes tightly closed shut. Deducing that the duo's relationship was fractured from the start, she believed that she managed to skillfully turn the two against each other by offering them a chance to give them their freedom. Now, she would be able to rule over them by the classic strategy of divide and conquer, which would be so much simpler than otherwise.

However, unbeknownst to Nightmare Moon, having been distracted by her constant laughter, failed to notice the otherwise clearly visible wink that Starlight gave. Realising what was up, Twilight's formerly strained face that had the anger of Starlight's betrayal written all over it suddenly evaporated.

"Well, you know what? Fine," Twilight relented weakly, interrupting Nightmare Moon's laughter.

Twilight's disheartened face met the floor, her head bowing down to signal apparent resignation, as she did not want to watch the proceedings anymore.

Raising an eyebrow, Nightmare Moon wondered how Starlight could have convinced Twilight so easily despite their previously strained relationship. Based on everything they had discussed prior, this was not supposed to happen.

"Could this be a ploy for them to escape together, out of my clutches?" Nightmare Moon silently thought to herself, her sixth sense raising a big red flag in her mind. "I must be alert, in case they are up to playing tricks on me to escape. But for now, if I can still extract the knowledge I require, they are...expendable."

"Excellent...now tell me, how do you travel through time?" Nightmare Moon interrogated after a short pause, trotting forward towards Starlight Glimmer's solitary confinement cell, prompting her to begin her lecture on the topic. "And if you dare lie to me...I will have you two executed on the spot. Do you understand me?"

To that, Starlight could only solemnly nod her head in resigned acceptance.

Before a perturbed Starlight could open her shaking mouth to speak, Nightmare Moon turned back to call for her royal scribe who rushed out from the entrance, her mouth gripping tightly onto a fine quilt. She then gestured Starlight to continue with a wave of her hoof. As a nervous Starlight spoke, the scribe began noting down every word uttered by her in excruciating detail, her quilt dancing around frantically onto the high quality paper.

"So...the scroll was destroyed," Nightmare Moon spoke with waning interest. Understanding that the lack of the scroll would render her knowledge of time travel virtually useless, her mind clicked into high gear to ponder about how to obtain another copy of this scroll.

"Yes," Starlight concurred with Nightmare Moon's observation, before placing her hoof on her chin. "But actually..."

"But what?" Nightmare Moon interjected swiftly, cutting off Starlight's statement. She gazed at the annoyed Starlight whose chain of thought was unceremoniously shattered by Nightmare Moon's impatience. Frowning deeply in concentration, Starlight was thinking silently in the corner of her jail cell. In the long bout of silence, Nightmare Moon waited in anticipation for any response from her prisoner. She trotted around constantly around the perimeter of her cell, the clopping of her hooves obstructing the chain of thought in Starlight's head, prolonging the conclusion that she surely wanted to hear.

"But...since that scroll was written far into the past, even before the time we two have travelled to prior, I have reason to believe that another copy of this unmodified scroll exists in this world!" Starlight spoke excitedly, as she had a sudden light bulb moment when her initially scattered thoughts were linked up in a moment.

"Really?" Nightmare Moon exclaimed with joy, her eyes lighting up with reinvigorated hope and interest. "And you will modify the spell for me to travel through other timelines to conceal the Elements of Harmony so that they will never be found! The night will last...FOREVER!"

The sudden outburst from Nightmare Moon jerked Twilight from her trance into nothingness to shuddering into understandable fear of the implications of Starlight's actions, if not executed properly. Deep in Twilight's heart, she was praying, hoping that whatever Starlight was doing would lead them out of this mess and preferably back to their world intact.

"If you want...I can bring you to the library to show you the location of the scroll," Starlight innocently replied, trying her hardest to make total eye contact with Nightmare Moon.

"Nice try," Nightmare Moon responded without any hesitation whatsoever, with the slightest slither of a smile emerging from her face. "I knew this was a ploy to trick me into letting you out of your cell to attempt an escape, is it not?"

"Of course not!" Starlight proclaimed loudly as her eyes blinked, betraying the words she spoke at that very instant. She could feel her heart racing at an accelerating rate as sweat dripped down to moisten her mane.

Observing from her cell, Twilight had to fight her instinctive urge to bring her hoof up to the surface of her forehead. She sighed as softly as she could, ensuring to keep her reaction to the turn of events a secret to Nightmare Moon, whilst they were still having their conversation. She could not believe that Starlight thought that the supreme ruler of this world would fall for such an amateur trick in the book. Surely, Starlight had a better plan than that?

"Good," Nightmare Moon said, nodding slightly, with a smirk on her face. "Now tell me the location of the scroll in the library now!"

After swallowing her saliva that was stuck in her throat, Starlight began to describe to Nightmare Moon the location of the scroll in the library archives, including the appropriate colour code that she memorised by heart.

"I see...now, with this knowledge I must leave with haste to extract the scroll I desire," Nightmare Moon spoke immediately after Starlight stopped. "Now stay put! I will bring the scroll to you for your necessary modifications."

Pushing open the reinforced door with her hooves, Nightmare Moon trotted out of the prison with her scribe, who gripped onto the notes she wrote between her teeth. As the heavy door slammed back down into place, the fires that illuminated the prison were suddenly smothered, plunging the prison back into complete darkness.

"Starlight, what were you doing?" Twilight exclaimed, as she questioned whether Starlight was capable enough to allow them to slip out to escape from their cells by dangling the chance of time travel to Nightmare Moon. "You just gave away virtually all of our bargaining chips for our survival! And you actually thought that Nightmare Moon would fall for that?"

"Don't worry, Twilight," Starlight responded confidently, though she could feel a lump developing in her throat. "I have not reveal-"

"Shh!" Twilight silenced Starlight, her voice slicing through the moist air in the prison, to bring Starlight's speech to a halt. Turning her head around carefully, her ears were on high alert to pick up any slight noise from their surroundings. Twilight prayed that no pony was out there in the darkness listening into their private conversation. After all, Starlight's big mouth could potentially cost them their freedom, forever.

A feeble groan of acknowledgement was all a stunned Starlight could muster from her vocal cords, bringing the serenity of absolute silence back into the prison, much to Twilight's relief.

Time passed. Being blind, disorientated and famished, the two laid low onto the ground to wait for the impending action that they knew would come. However, in the emptiness of black, the two prisoners had no true grasp of the length of time that has passed. Having been trapped for an infinite amount of time, does time have any meaning beyond a mere construct of their perception?

Yet, only time will tell.

Chapter XV: Perchance

After a duration of time had passed, the creaking of the reinforced prison door attracted the attention of the two captive prisoners. Rising to their hooves weakly, the duo turned to glance at the menacing silhouette of Nightmare Moon and her aides right before the doorway. As Nightmare Moon entered the prison itself, fires were instantaneously lit around the room, eliminating the darkness. At the sudden change in the light's intensity, tears were forced out from the duo's eyes as they clasped their eyes shut reflexively.

Opening their eyes slowly, they could see the sacred scroll that led them into this predicament in the first place held between the teeth of the royal scribe tightly. Twilight's stomach turned in on itself at the sight of the scroll that was now controlled by the tyrant metres away from her, when she thought of how perilous it would be when Nightmare Moon could change events in the past on her corrupted command.

Starlight stood still, her face quivering at the sight. She certainly shared Twilight's concerns, but this was their only hope of any escape from this place. Whatever that was to happen next would be pivotal to their survival and escape from this world. And she only had one single chance to pull this off. It was now, or never.

"Ah, Starlight. It appears that you weren't lying after all," Nightmare Moon spoke, with an air of great confidence. "Another copy of this scroll actually does exist here!"

"Naturally," Starlight quipped after a short pause, as she was pondering about how to go about with her plan practically. "Since the scroll was taken from another timeline after he wrote the scroll, that means that-"

"Enough elucidation!" Nightmare Moon shouted impatiently, slamming her front hoof onto the ground. "Now, work out the modifications to fix the spell for me!"

With that, the scribe tossed the scroll into Starlight's cell, with a quilt and a bottle of ink for her use, before vacating the premises hurriedly with a wave of Nightmare Moon's hoof.

Staring hard onto the scroll that unrolled before her very eyes, Starlight paused. She stopped herself from grabbing the quilt with her mouth, as her conscience spoke to her. Her mind was still deliberating the consequences of what she was intending to do should she fail in her mission.

After a few moments of personal soul searching, her mouth opened to grip onto the quilt and begin scribbling onto the ancient manuscript. This was where the trap that Starlight had envisioned from the start would be laid. Unlike the previous scroll that she had modified, she needed to bind herself and Twilight to the spell, so that they could flee into the past, without Nightmare Moon following them. She now had to hope that Nightmare Moon would not read the scroll before she cast it.

In a short span of time, the job was done. Starlight kicked the scroll out of the cell, between the gaps of the iron bars trapping her in, to the obvious satisfaction of Nightmare Moon.

"Now I have fulfilled my side of the deal, now let us out!" Starlight dictated, turning to face Nightmare Moon's devilish face, trying to distract Nightmare Moon with her demand.

"No, you have not!" Nightmare Moon shot back quickly. "How do I know that this spell really works, based on what you just said? I will only let you two out when I have managed to travel to the past and back here!"

Before Starlight could continue arguing in protest at the injustice, Nightmare Moon trotted forth to the pick up the modified scroll with her hooves, to the surprising indifference displayed by Starlight.

"YES!" Nightmare Moon proclaimed, exposing a wide smile that revealed her ice white teeth. "With this scroll, I will now be the supreme ruler of every single alternate reality! The night will last FOREVER AND EVER!"

On the other side of the cell, an incredibly anxious Twilight watched on, her mouth wide open to gape at the situation. Although she had no idea of what Starlight changed in the time travel scroll, she knew that allowing Nightmare Moon to activate the spell was a terrible idea. Gazing at the sight of Nightmare Moon being on the verge to cast the spell to travel back in time, Twilight rushed forward to the iron bars that surrounded her and held onto them tightly. She could not stop thinking about the catastrophic destruction that Nightmare Moon could inflict in the other timelines. It pained her heart to the core that she was incapable of stopping her as she was trapped in this cell.

Nightmare Moon gleefully brought her magical aura into her horn to begin the casting of this spell. However, her horn failed to spark up to channel the magical energy into the scroll. Frowning at her failure to cast magic despite being the most powerful pony in the realm, she tried to cast the spell yet again, to no avail.

"Wait...WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME?" Nightmare Moon bellowed in rage, her face displaying utter disbelief at the loss of her own magical prowess. Suspecting the modified scroll to be the cause of this anomaly, she pulled the scroll open using her hooves on the ground and read through the contents of the scroll frantically, scanning line by line.

"No! Those crystals around the prison are blocking all of our magic! It has nothing to do with the scroll!" Starlight reminded Nightmare Moon hurriedly, trying to stop her from reading the scroll and its modifications. Starlight's heart was racing as quickly as it was physically capable at the untold amount of anxiety coming from her brain. Every single second that Nightmare Moon dedicated to comprehending the scroll's content would undoubtedly increase the chances of her being caught out. She had to pray that Nightmare Moon did not find that single line of runic words that was essential to their escape out of this quandary.

"Oh...I see," Nightmare Moon responded with a monotonous voice, as she stopped reading the scroll immediately to glance at the glowing crystals above. Nightmare Moon could not believe that her eagerness in time travel caused her to act without clear thinking, such that she lost her memory of the crystals she placed in the prison designed to trap the two without their magical abilities.

"Guards! Bring the crystals out from this prison so I can cast this spell!" Nightmare Moon commanded, turning to the entrance doorway to command the guards to do her bidding, as she composed herself after that embarrassing setback.

Immediately, her personal bodyguards came into the prison to begin dismantling the magic nullifying crystals from their pedestals around the prison to bring them out of the room individually.

Starlight gave out a loud sigh of relief, as she wiped the cold perspiration off the top of her forehead. Pure luck managed to save her and Twilight from certain doom. Once Nightmare Moon has activated the spell, they would be sent back to the time before the Rainboom was stopped, leaving her behind in her own world.

As each of those luminescent crystals left the room, Starlight could feel her magical senses returning back into her spirit. Although she knew that she would eventually be able to use her magic to cast the spell herself, Starlight did not want to take any risks with the villainous alicorn. Should she fail, a struggle for the valuable scroll would be guaranteed. Why would she want to take any unnecessary risks when the stakes were so high? Starlight could just sit back and begin tasting the glorious victory that she had over the tyrant that locked her and Twilight into a state of helplessness.

Finally, Nightmare Moon's horn flickered in its true brilliance with its characteristic dark shade, readying itself to fire its concentrated magical aura, as the last few crystals were removed from the prison by Nightmare Moon's loyal guards.

"Ah yes! Finally, I can use my magic!" Nightmare Moon proclaimed, as she brought the scroll up to levitate in front of her to read through the remaining contents of the scroll, to ascertain the spell that she was casting. "Wait, WHAT'S THIS?"

At that remark, Starlight's heart sank into dismay at Nightmare Moon's unexpected discovery. She gazed into Nightmare Moon's eyes blankly, her mouth open and unmoving. She knew that she was caught, and she was caught red-handed. Her mind desperately tried to wrest control of her senses, to try to escape with her magic or something, but alas, her body was simply stunned into stillness. She merely stood there, staring at Nightmare Moon, as if she was daring her to fight it out, although the reality could not be more different.

Twilight could evidently tell from Starlight's body language that her escape plan had been foiled. She must have modified the scroll to aid them to escape; otherwise, Starlight would not have reacted this way when Nightmare Moon read through the scroll to find that her modifications were not as she demanded. Twilight could see Starlight in utter shock, her eyes meeting Nightmare Moon's in a silent confrontation for seconds that seemed to pass distressingly slowly.

Twilight had to take the initiative. Before Nightmare Moon could act, she charged up her horn to fire a blast of magical energy through the gaps of the iron bars at Nightmare Moon, having discovered that her magic was no longer obstructed by those hideous crystals.

Nightmare Moon felt a tingling sensation running throughout her back, as a vibrant purple beam descended onto her at a threatening speed. Reacting speedily, she instinctively turned and discharged a retaliatory dark beam to counteract the beam launched by Twilight from the corner of the prison.

The two magical beams collided midway between the two, releasing vibrant flashes of light and waves of energy throughout the prison compound.

Through gritted teeth, the two held their breathe to continue the struggle. Concentrating on their efforts to vanquish the other, the two combatants were both cramming their eyes shut as they willed to defeat the other. They could feel the strain on their bodies as they continued to duel each other in this final, epic confrontation. Neither of them dared to give up any inch of ground to the other, as Nightmare Moon and Twilight battled it out to bring forth as much magical energy as they could into the beams that they were emitting. The increasing amount of energy channelled into the clashing beams produced a deafening screech that reverberated through the stale air.

"STARLIGHT! Quick! Do something! I can't hold on for much longer!" Twilight cried out, knowing that she was about to reach the limits of her magical ability and endurance against the all-powerful authoritarian ruler.

Twilight's outburst to call for Starlight's help snapped Starlight out of her trance. Realising what was happening, she funnelled her magical energy to blast open a hole to allow her to get out of the cell she was locked in and come to Twilight's rescue.

"I've got you now! Just give up!" Nightmare Moon shouted from the depths of her lungs. "You've NO chance against me!"

As Starlight rushed forward, she realised that Nightmare Moon had retracted her magical grip onto the time travel scroll to focus on the ensuing battle against Twilight ahead of her, causing the crumpled parchment to land onto the floor, right by her side. Pouring her magical aura into her horn swiftly, she seized control over the scroll silently, as she watched the balance of power began to shift towards the evil, tyrannical Nightmare Moon.

As Starlight observed Twilight's beam waning in strength, she knew that this must be their only chance. With no time to spare, she launched a magical beam at the scroll to activate its sorcery.

Chapter XVI: Periodic

A thin beam of cyan magical energy reflected off the scroll from Starlight's horn, towards the crystal table deep within the jungle and beyond the confines of the Castle of the Two Sisters. It sizzled through the air with incredible speed, cutting through the solid walls of the prison, emitting a deafening, high-pitched sound that forced the two combatants to lose their concentration of their own magic.

As their colliding beams faded away into thin air, they both collapsed to the floor in exhaustion with their eyes relaxed. Both were hyperventilating on the floor, their lungs expanding and contracting at an unbelievable rate to restore their spirits of desperately needed oxygen. Perspiration flooded the floor around their heads, forming a discernable puddle. Both had been severely weakened and sapped of their powers and strength to continue on the struggle.

In their fatigued and confused state, both were oblivious to the jaw-dropping sight before them, unlike Starlight. Magic portals began forming above Twilight's and Starlight's bodies, with their accompanying imaginary gears that began rotating to click into their desired place. Sparks of energy flashed from the entrance of the portals, emitting the bright light from within.

"GUARDS!" Nightmare Moon shouted from her dry throat, after regaining some sense of her reality. At the physical state she was in right then, she knew that she was powerless to apprehend the two fugitives before they could flee. She could watch the fabrication of those pertinent portals that would definitely allow the two to escape, along with the secret of time travel as she remained lying down. She needed her battle-hardened warriors to stop this before it was too late.

But it was too late. There was no pony out there available to save the night for Nightmare Moon. Her so-called 'fearless' elite bodyguards failed to materialise before her, since they have dutifully fled their post outside the prison at the sight of this powerful arcane magic emanating from an unfamiliar scroll.

Nightmare Moon, being in such a dazed state, was too feeble to protest or resist. She resolutely tried to push herself up and charge up her magical energies to retaliate, but she fell back onto the floor with a loud thud.

Despite the huge influx of magical energy entering the prison compound, Twilight remained relaxed on the cold ground, seeking for serenity after a gruelling fight to the end. The sounds emitted from the formation of the time-warping wormholes was nothing but music to her ears. A thin smile of victory formed on her face, defying her disorientated state of mind.

Starlight gazed on, with enthusiasm explicitly displayed on her face, partly due to the fact that she managed to get out of this absurd reality. Yet strangely, there was something else. Something...deeper. She could feel it, but her mind could not decipher it. It came from her heart, from the vibrance of her heartbeat, flowing through her veins into her soul. Yet, her mind, a master of logic, failed to produce the deduction she desperately wanted to know. Logic gave her questions, but her heart might be key in giving the answers.

But she had no time to solve the mysteries kept in the confines of her heart. The portal opened up in its complete glory, pulling the two up into its interior, an unknown force clasping onto their tired bodies. Rather than oppose this force, however, the two embraced it for all it was worth, as it gave them a ticket out of this shattered world.

As they entered a swirl of white and black, the two could hear a distorted shout of resignation entering their ears from Nightmare Moon, muffled by the whirling sounds of the time-warping portal.

Expelled unceremoniously from the portal whence she came, Twilight accelerated down towards the Cloudsdale racing circuit, her vision a blur at the spinning sight of the sky's clouds. Despite this, Twilight stared down defiantly, insensitive to the impending danger that was to come.

She willed her wings to flap and bring her up against the force of gravity, but she realised, to her horror, that she was too weary to lift her wings. Her muscles were numb to her mind's command, as her heavy bones seemed to weigh her down and drag her down onto the ground.

She tried to command her magical aura into her horn, hoping that it could come up with something to save the day, but it failed to spark into life. Her horn was discoloured and burnt by her own magical output in the fight that, from her perspective, occurred mere minutes ago.

Twilight felt it now. Spontaneously, she screamed at the top of her voice, her high-pitched shriek slicing through the thin clouds in the sky. As soon as her mouth opened up, air gushed into her senses, shocking her body into realising the danger she was placed in.

Twilight tried again, trying to take advantage of her utter desperation to save herself to defeat her sense of exhaustion. But, no matter what she tried, nothing came to fruition.

After numerous attempts, her logic gave in. She knew that she was done, and done for.

Twilight could not believe that this was the way that her adventure would end. After enduring challenge after challenge in this entire adventure, fighting against Starlight, Nightmare Moon and even herself, how could this be the final act? After all the struggles that she had persisted through, she must suffer such a cruel fate, kindly granted by the inescapable force of gravity.

Deep down, she could not accept this fate, though her mind knew that she could not evade her destiny. But yet, if it must be the journey she was to take, what would she gift herself if she tried to fight against her fate? The result would still be the same no matter what she did, or what she thought.

Her heart grew cold. The blood running through her veins seemed to freeze her soul as she abandoned her view of the outside world, choosing to see nothing, think nothing and feel nothing of the calamity ahead of her.

As high velocity wind gushed past her body, free of tension and anxiety, memories seemed to rush past her senses, despite her commitment to keeping her mind a blank. Her life was detailed intricately in her thoughts, each snippet of time sparkling in her eyes like twinkling stars, reminding her of the past. Looking back at each glimpse of time, she did not regret anything she had done, having made amends for the distressing mistakes she made. She enjoyed her time, made many friends, and learnt many lessons. She had changed others for the better, and even herself, in doing so. As every frame of time was depicted in a short, momentous flash, her convictions became more and more firm.

But suddenly, the glimmering display stopped, allowing darkness to invade her perception, slowly but surely. Yet, despite the light in her mind dimming, she was indifferent to this observation.

"TWILIGHTTT!" a voice echoed loudly into the depths of her mind, accompanied with a shimmering jingle that trickled into Twilight's ears, just before the sea of void enveloped her senses entirely.

"Twilight, wake up!" a familiar voice called out, as Twilight could feel her body being shaken by a pair of warm hooves, against the contrast of a cold, fluffy surface that supported her where she stood lying down.

Opening her left eye cautiously, a lilac face greeted her with moist, forgiving eyes.

"...Starlight?" Twilight spoke slowly, her lips moving hesitantly to follow the wishes of her brain.

"Twilight...we made it!" Starlight exclaimed, jubilation unmistakable in her voice. Nothing could describe how relieved Starlight was to see her friend survive the ordeal that they suffered together, as a team. Tears started to form around the edge of Starlight's eyes as she could not help but hug the lavender alicorn.

"We...made it?" Twilight responded with a hint of suspicion. Trusting the few words she just heard thanks to the embrace she was held in, Twilight pulled open the other eye to witness a sight that blew her mind. A complete view of the cheerful surroundings of the Cloudsdale's racing track and of Starlight's mane were etched into Twilight's dazed mind.

"We escaped!" Twilight exclaimed, her heart overflowing with joy as she returned the embrace in affection. Yet, as every moment passed, there was a growing doubt that she was living in a fantasy, an impossibility. How could she escape her reality?

"Wait...how? Is...is this...real? Where am I?" Twilight asked, her mind refusing to believe that she actually survived what she had been through. She gradually eased her embrace with Starlight to begin shaking her head in disbelief. She then rubbed her eyes to take a careful look at the surroundings around her, to discover the time travel scroll was calmly floating in Starlight's magical grasp in the foreground of Cloudsdale.

"I saved you, Twilight, like how you saved me then," Starlight spoke, her eyes shifting away from Twilight's pupils for a brief, uncomfortable moment, before turning back. "But unlike last time, I know...from the bottom of my heart, we are true to each other."

"Starlight, you...saved me...like a friend...like a true friend," Twilight held Starlight in her arms, her eyes wet with tears. "How? And also...why? I thought..."

Twilight bit her lip to stop herself from speaking the truth coming from her mind. She realised that she did not fully trust Starlight; she thought that their friendship was transient, to last only the time when they were imprisoned in that world. It was challenging to wrap her mind around the point that Starlight had bought the notion of genuine friendship with her, especially when considering her previously deceitful deeds.

But then, she realised something. Last time, she saved Starlight from the brink, only to have the olive branch held up in her hooves destroyed mercilessly, paving the way for conflict. Reflecting back, she knew that she could not make the same mistake again.

She opened her mouth to speak, but Starlight interrupted her before her words came out.

"How?" Starlight repeated, and responded after a short pause. "You...changed me."

"No," Twilight quickly replied, as her vision was shrouded in tears. "I didn't change you. You changed yourself."

"I did?" Starlight spoke in disbelief at Twilight's words. "How did I..."

Suddenly, a massive circular blast of colour was emitted from a great distance away, freezing Starlight's lips in place. Releasing each other from their embrace slowly, the two turned to watch the amazing spectacle of multicoloured light shining out radially in all directions, methodically segregated like the colours of a rainbow. A solid rainbow line dashed out from the white epicentre of the spectacle, rocketing out at an unfathomable speed. It was an awe-inspiring sight to behold, the sheer beauty of the feat stunning the two into attentive stillness.

Before the two can recover from their state of amazement, a single white portal flashed right above their heads, magical energy sparking out in increasing intensity. As the two ascended up into the portal together as one, both knew that the answers that they greatly desired from each other and the emotions that they wanted to share would be gifted to each other back at the present.

Chapter XVII: Perspectives I

Spike paced the meeting room in Twilight's castle incessantly, waiting, desperately hoping for a miracle.

To his utter shock, a white portal flashed out suddenly, metres above the shimmering crystal table at the edge of his vision, similar to the one that brought Twilight and Starlight away. He dashed forth to the edge of the table, his head tilted skyward to observe the proceedings. Squinting his eyes, he could just about make out two figures that were still flailing about through the portal. And they were heading right for him.

Before Spike could veer away from potential danger, Twilight and Starlight fell onto the crystal table from the white portal flashing above with a heavy groan, mere inches away from crushing the dragon. A tattered scroll was also ejected from the portal, causing it to float about the air before landing calmly onto the carpeted floor.

Seconds later, a huge flash of iridescent light was released, forcing Spike to shut his eyes. When he reopened his teary eyes, he realised that the portal vanished into thin air.

"Twilight!" Spike exclaimed, as he rushed to her side after overcoming his initial shock. "Are you okay?"

"...Spike?" Twilight wearily responded, as stars toyed with her vision. "Don't...don't worry...I'm fine."

"What happened? Where did you go?" Spike questioned constantly, his curiosity getting the better of him. "Where's Starlight? Did you defeat her?"

Twilight, her mind in a state of disarray, could barely keep a tally of the endless stream of questions flooding her ears. Her gaze seemed mangled and her eyes seemed to be sapped of energy as she could only moan to reply to Spike's endless babbling.

While waiting for several, long moments for some sort of reply from Twilight, Spike could detect the ruffling of the carpet behind him. Puzzled, he shifted his head back to find a fatigued Starlight Glimmer prowling on the carpet, trying to push herself up, stunning him into shock.

"Twilight!" Spike shouted, rushing back and vigorously shaking Twilight with his claws. "What's Starlight doing here?"

"Spike...just leave me alone," Twilight spoke, her voice containing a hint of irritation. "Can't you see that I'm trying to rest?"

"But Starlight-"

"Starlight's a friend," Twilight interjected, a thin smile emerging from her otherwise expressionless face, as she looked at Spike right into his very eyes.

Starlight glanced up from her prone position to face Twilight at the other side, her eyes leaking tears that moistened the carpet below.

"Starlight? A friend? How?" Spike replied, frowning at the thought of how Twilight could befriend the revenge-seeking Starlight. This boggled Spike's mind; the last time he saw Starlight, she was on to some sort of evil plot involving that mystical portal, but now, upon their return, it was jarring to note that Twilight could confidently proclaim that Starlight was her friend?

Twilight pushed herself up, using Applejack's crystal chair to support her semi-conscious self. Finally, the friction between her hooves and the carpet of the castle was proving to be of some use as she could barely support her legs to bring her body up.

Walking past Spike, Twilight trotted along to Starlight's side, her vision still a blur of the room's surroundings. She stuck out one of her front hooves in front of Starlight, her fatigued muscles straining at the effort.

A crying Starlight lying on the ground extended her hoof to reach out and clasp onto Twilight, her eyebrows vibrating sporadically at the gesture. Together, as one, they supported each other up to stand on all fours.

"Thank you...Twilight," Starlight uttered, as she tried to fight the flood of emotions flowing through her soul and the tears that trickled down from the sides of her face.

"Spike, I understand that you may be confused at this sudden change," Twilight stated as she brought a hoof and placed it over Starlight's furry back. "But-"

Out of the blue, the door to the meeting room slammed open, rudely interrupting Twilight's chain of thought. Before her stood the five friends that she so deeply missed after being gone for such a long period of time.

"Wait, how did you all-"

"Oh Twilight, darling," Rarity interrupted, her characteristic, feminine voice was something that Twilight almost forgot about after her arduous travels. "You finally returned! We were so worried for you, especially with that huge flash of light emanating from your castle!"

"Erm...wait a second...what's she doin' here?" Applejack commented before Twilight could open her mouth to speak, prompting the rest of the five to stare down onto Starlight, intimidating her. At the provocation, Starlight deflected her gaze away from the group in anguish.

"Well...it is quite a long story," Twilight remarked, turning her gaze back to Starlight, with grin.

Starlight could only smile sheepishly at Twilight's comment as she beckoned the group to their seats. Twilight carefully levitated the magical scroll from the floor to be placed onto the table's surface as an object of interest. She then began to recount the exciting events that led to this unexpected conclusion, as Starlight witnessed Twilight's recollection of it all, together with the five.

"I mean...I knew my Rainboom was awesome, but I didn't know that all of Equestria depended on it!" Rainbow Dash bragged conspicuously to the group, her eyes twinkling at the joy rushing out of her heart.

"Or us!" Pinkie Pie continued, her high-pitched voice cutting through to the group.

"Actually, I believe it's not just that, I think undoing one set of friendship made the magic within its network less powerful!" Twilight opined, her voice roaring with ardent conviction. "But...one thing I don't understand is...Starlight?"

"...Yes?" Starlight responded, guilt and remorse written throughout her face as Twilight spoke on the chain of events prior to this inquiry.

"I did confess that I didn't understand your motives and...I did push you into this road of revenge," Twilight stated, reminiscing the time that they both opened themselves to each other in the darkness of the prison. "Why did you form your village of equality? Why make everyone equal? Who made you this way?"

"...It's complicated," Starlight spoke hesitantly after sighing out loud. "I can explain...but allow me to do something first."

With that, Starlight's horn flared up to fire a beam of magic at the centre of the crystal table.

Chapter XVIII: Perspectives II

As usual, yet another white portal flashed out above the crystal table, lighting the room a brilliant white, shocking the eight into silence with awe and fear.

"STARLIGHT!" Twilight shouted instantly, her voice raging with fury. "Are you crazy?"

"Twilight, relax!" Starlight shot back, jerking her head to face away from the fabricating portal. "Please, I have to show it to you! It's the easiest way to explain myself!"

"It...it is not dragging us all in, right?" Rarity stammered at the sight of the warping portal above her head. Clicking sounds reverberated through the walls of the conference room, as gears turned in their appropriate places. As the ritual continued, the rest witnessed the scene with fear gripping onto their nerves, their jaws collapsing right to the floor. Even Starlight seemed to regret her rash actions, since she could not bring her eyes to meet the gaze of Twilight's.

Before too long, a whirling, attracting force was emitted from the interior of the portal, pulling the eight of them into the depths of time. As they were ascending up into the unknown, deafening screams could be heard from the far reaches of Ponyville, before they were instantaneously cut off as yet another adventure began.

The eight reappeared surprisingly uneventfully on a gravel path in a quaint town. Houses were scattered far apart from each other in a disorderly manner, with lush greenery dotting the view. The buildings had been painted in a similar colour scheme, and were built in solid stone masonry. The place spoke of modernity, but it also conveyed a calming feeling that can only be felt at the rural countryside.

"Where...where are we?" a timid Fluttershy softly asked, her wings tucked in close to her body at the unrecognisable landscape around her.

"This place...was my home," Starlight responded with a sigh, her sensitive ears catching the barely inaudible words that left Fluttershy's mouth, her magic controlling the motion of the ever-important time travel scroll. Despite being at the front of the eight, as the de-facto leader of this expedition, Starlight did not move an inch further after replying to Fluttershy. Her mind was shrouded in memories of the place she would have otherwise called home if that incident she was about to witness again never happened. As emotions flowed into her senses, her neck suddenly lost its strength to support her heavy head, bringing her head down to face the rough gravel path she stood on.

Twilight trotted ahead towards Starlight, placing her forehoof over her back in consolation. The warmth from Twilight's forehoof brought Starlight to glance up towards her, her eyes vibrating.

"I'm okay...Twilight," Starlight assured, even though she was trying to reassure herself, rather than Twilight. Breathing in the fresh atmospheric air, she tried to bring herself together and walked forward towards an inviting house, prompting the rest to follow her cautiously.

Starlight peeked through the open window of the house, the rest squeezing in to try and fit their heads to look into the building's interior. A young Starlight, accompanied by an orange colt, were horsing around with a huge tower of thick books, stacked precariously on top of each other in a unorderly fashion. Everyone but Twilight and Starlight were evidently shocked at this unbelievable sight; they could not comprehend how they could have travel through time this easily. And this affirmed the view that this was all real.

"Sunburst...and I did everything together," Starlight stated to the group, her head turning away from the window to face the grass below. "In fact, I could not remember us being apart...until today."

Tilting their heads back into the interior of the house, the eight could see the young Starlight pouring in effort into her magic to remove a book from the tower without toppling it. As she managed to yank the book out of the tower despite the huge amount of friction between their surfaces, the tower started to lose its foundational support, causing it to topple towards the young Starlight.

As the menacing shadow of the literature tower enveloped the young Starlight's vision, she closed her eyes in anticipation of the inevitable, her forehoof shielding her own head to bring about a feeble attempt to defend herself.

However, the massive number of books would have crushed the hapless, young Starlight were it not for the quick intervention of her only friend, Sunburst. A sound of magical shimmering seeped into their ears, as a veil of magical aura caught the books and stopped them in their tracks, averting the impending disaster.

The young Starlight dragged her eyes open slowly, as she wondered why she did not feel the books coming down onto her body. What she observed not only caused her mouth to open wide and gape at the situation, but it also shocked the eight watching calmly outside.

Clasping his eyes shut in concentration, his horn flaring with magical energy, Sunburst seized control over the huge, collective mess of books, arranging them in a circular orbit. Yellow energy emanated radially out in all directions, blinding all who were watching the proceedings. After a beat, the hurried sound of rearranging books on the surrounding wooden bookshelves rang into their ears, as they all soon realised that the books were neatly organised on the oak bookcases around.

Turning to view Sunburst, the eight gave out a collective gasp in unison with the young Starlight in the room. Sunburst was awarded an radiating orange orb with three emitting rays on his flank as his cutie mark for his fascinating display of his incredible magical abilities. He squealed out, joy bursting out of every corner of his heart, as he rushed out to the door.

The eight dashed to the side to observe the spectacle, to see Sunburst showing off his newly-earned cutie mark to the crowd to behold. The crowd tossed him into the air in celebratory jubilation, and paraded him for the amazing achievement down the main street of their hometown. At the same time, loud hoofsteps could be heard from the open door before the sound dissipated into the air, as the young Starlight rushed down to realise the impact this would have on her livelihood.

"His family...they recognised his talent and sent him off to Canterlot!" the narrating Starlight exclaimed, her forehoof rising up into the air. "As for mine...they didn't care about me. I was insignificant in their eyes."

"Why not?" Rainbow Dash questioned in a sudden outburst, her sensitivity to the situation giving way to her instinctive self-assertiveness.

"Because my accomplishments were always outclassed by others," Starlight sighed, hoping to force out the sorrow that lingered within the deep reaches of her heart. "Sunburst got his cutie mark and I didn't; he moved on and I didn't!"

"That's unthinkable; a cutie mark can't take your friends away!" Twilight replied without a moment of hestitation. "A cutie mark is just a sym-"

"You all have no idea how traumatic this experience could have on my younger days," Starlight interrupted, as she could feel the air trapped in her lungs being sucked out of her life. "Sunburst...he stood up for me, as my only friend. I was constantly being teased and bullied by everypony else in school at my lack of accomplishments and he was the only one willing to befriend and defend me."

"Well, surely there are others out there willing to be friends with you?" Spike asked, his curiosity getting the better of him. "And Sunburst?"

"No," Starlight responded weakly, as she refused to meet the glance of the group. "I didn't want to lose another friend because of their cutie marks anyways, I just simply couldn't accept this reality. As for Sunburst, he just left me...thinking about him makes me feel so helpless. I never wanted to meet him again, should that bring back this horror of the past."

"Instead," Starlight continued, after inhaling a large breathe of cool air to calm herself. "I worked to hone my magic, alone, to convince my family that I was something to them. But even after I got my own cutie mark, they didn't see it in me..."

A moment of silence came as Starlight tried to piece herself back together, while hot tears were gushing out from the sides of her eyes. The remaining seven stared at her, aghast at the situation that Starlight was thrown into at such a critical juncture in life.

"So, I left this place," Starlight carried on, her expulsion of tears seemingly helping to console her unsteady state of mind. "I abandoned my home...for greener pastures...to seek out my own destiny and to create my abode of equality so that no pony would have any grievances on each other, like what happened to me..."

Without any time to lose, she fired another beam of magic at the scroll she levitated by her side, synthesising a white portal to bring them back into the present.

Collapsing from the flashing portal that stood above the crystal table, the eight wearily glanced up to rise to their hooves, except for Starlight. She quickly realised that the time travel scroll that she had used time and time again has vanished from her hooves. She glanced around the meeting room desperately, wishing to recover this crucial scroll. When she finally uncovered the location of the scroll, Starlight instinctively gasped out loud, startling the group to turn towards what she was gazing at.

The time travel scroll was floating mid-way between the crystal table and the white portal above, with white flashes of magic crackling around the sides of the scroll. Before Starlight and the rest could realise the gravity of the situation, the scroll was struck with an almighty magical force that evaporated it into nothingness, destroying it and preventing its usage forever.

Yet, despite this, Starlight was not perturbed as she gave off a sigh of much-needed relief. She wanted the scroll to be destroyed before another reckless pony took advantage of its capabilities to doom the world they live in into a disastrous wreck, like she almost did. Seeing the scroll erased from existence permanently actually eased the feelings within her heart, because she felt that nopony else could commit the same mistake as she did again.

As the rest made their way to their crystal chairs to rest, Twilight trotted forward towards Starlight, wanting to make amends by empathising with Starlight's horrific past and to explain herself and her actions. However, before she could open her mouth to speak, Starlight interjected.

"I know that there is no excuse for what I did," Starlight declared courageously, as she reflected from her past mistakes. "But I must inform you all that I am ready for whatever punishment you think is fair."

"I've been thinking a lot about this," Twilight responded slowly, adding to the drawn-out suspense that Starlight certainly felt within every corner of her nerves. "But I don't have any excuses for what I did to you, either."

"Twilight, what in tarnations are you talking about?" Applejack exclaimed in disbelief, unsure of what Twilight did to Starlight to warrant such an apology. Surely, all this was all Starlight's fault!

"Applejack, did we explain to her why we ruthlessly kicked her out of her own village? Did we care about her own mental state of mind?"

The rest of the group froze, their conscience speaking thoughtfully to them as they considered Twilight's perspective.

"Starlight...we have been through so much, learnt so much and helped each other through this difficult time that we both faced together," Twilight stated, gesturing with her forehooves to accompany her exposition. "Remember the time when I said that I didn't change you, but you changed yourself?"

Starlight nodded her head subtly in reply to Twilight's inquiry.

"You independently took the first step to change your perception of our friendship, because you now know how important friendship means to you," Twilight elaborated, as she was trying to explain her insights to Starlight. "I may have given you the impetus, but you are the one who is in control of the pony you are."

At this, Starlight galloped towards Twilight's side to give her an unexpected, warm hug.

"Thank you, Twilight," Starlight spoke out. "It is you that made me see the errors of my ways, and it is you who gave me insights into my perception of friendship."

"No, thank you," Twilight responded swiftly. "You have taught me the importance of empathy in the forging of friendships in a new perspective; and not to mention you have been more than willing to change yourself to develop into a better pony." With that, Twilight returned the embrace with Starlight.

"Starlight, I'm willing to teach you all I know about friendship, and I hope that you are willing to teach me what I don't know about friendship yet," Twilight proposed, as she panned the smiling ponies of the crystal table. "We all can then have the power to make Equestria an even better place for everyone."

"And you are really willing to do all this for me?" Starlight asked, uncertainty in her voice, as she released Twilight from her embrace to look right into her very eyes.

"Of course!" Twilight replied enthusiastically as she nodded her head, beaming brightly at Starlight. "As a true friend."

"Well...I mean, how do I start?" Starlight whispered with her forehoof covering the motion of her lips.

"You really have!" Twilight laughed, to the utter surprise of Starlight, as the rest of the group came forth to cuddle together as one to welcome their new friend.

As Starlight turned to her left and right, tears blanketed her vision as she realised how far she had come, how much she had grown and how she was able to find a place in society to start anew.

Six hours later...

Trotting into Twilight's library, Starlight grabbed a blank piece of paper and an ink feather to begin writing hurriedly on the lectern in the centre of the library.

Dear Twilight,

Words cannot describe how grateful I am to you for all that you have done for me. You have helped me grow into the mare I am today, for which I am extremely appreciative of. Thank you for giving me so many chances to redeem myself and you!

What happened to me in the short span of a few moons was astounding, and the experience was certainly unforgettable. I have been reflecting hard about the turn of events that led to the change in me and I definitely want to share it with you. So, I have written a little something to show you my perspective of the circumstances we went through, together.

I was persuaded to give in to my perception;
So I perfected the scope of my reception;
Persisting, despite your rejection;
Yet your perifidious act struck me an exception;
Throwing me into peril with acceleration.

I persevered despite complications,
To obtain percipience in recollections,
gleaning ideas from many observations;
To bring you through the permutations;
Fighting around in vast mutations.

But alas, the permutations gave in to permanence;
We were persecuted without benevolence,
Yet perspicacity came with your intelligence,
Though it was gifted with perturbance;
Perchance to our disappearance?

My perception has changed periodically,
but my perspective has remained stoically;
honest and true to the soul I am, resolutely.

Thank you...Twilight.

Your friend,
Starlight Glimmer

Jotting down her salutations swiftly, she retracted her magical grip over the quilt and paper, allowing them to rest serenely on the mahogany lectern before leaving the room.

Author's Note

Thank you to all who have made it this far into my first story, Perception. I must thank all my proofreaders who have joined me on this epic journey.