Perception

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.