Years Thereafter

by Spell Writer

Rating: teen
Tags: Death, Alternate Universe, Twilight Sparkle, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Equestria Girls, Sunset Shimmer, Adventure, Violence, Slice of Life
Length: 41903

Twilight Sparkle has returned from the past! Finally back at home, she's ready to pick up her life that she had left behind. She's a powerful alicorn with ancient magic at her command. Everything should be fine... Right? -Sequel to Those Forty Years-

CW: Survivor's Guilt, Anxiety and PTSD

Forty Alicorn years. Long spans of time that were dictated simply by generational gaps. That's how long Twilight had been in the past. Finally, through all the wars, chaos, and a crazy spirit (Surprisingly enough, not Discord), Twilight Sparkle has returned to the present. Now, the tired Queen simply wishes to rest and enjoy her retirement. Unfortunately for her, the story doesn't simply stop because the hero is tired as a new villain now shows her hoof. Twilight now has to balance teaching not one but two students and still keep her secret safe from her friends! All while dealing with a healthy dose of PTSD on top of it.

The final chapter of the My Faithful Student trilogy.

Temp Cover Image by Camyllea! Thank You so much!

Published 2024-02-24 02:10:00 UTC
Last updated 2025-02-18 06:21:07 UTC

Prologue: Welcome Home Twilight Sparkle! (And Sunset Shimmer too!)

Author's Note

Welcomeeeeee! Hope you all enjoy! This is probably gonna be the shortest chapter in the entire book. Soooooo yeah.

Here we go~!

Prologue: Welcome Home Twilight Sparkle! (And Sunset Shimmer too!)

The afternoon's warm glow gently shifted to night. However, the town of Ponyville was not silent, for this night was a celebration! It was a night to be remembered and to be enjoyed by all! The village was in a frenzy as a small festival sprouted from nothing, ponies enjoying a hastily put-together festival celebrating Twilight's return from wherever she was at all this time. The Ponyville party committee found out about it when their leader, Pinkie Pie, was planning a party out of the blue! The committee (comprised of Pinkie Pie's greatest fans and her special somepony) was quick to act as well; after all, if Pinkie was planning a party on the fly like this, it was something worth celebrating!

Once the trio of ponies found out the cause for the celebration, they did nix their plans to convince Pinkie to let them help. However, the reason for the celebration instantly made them expand their plans! Soon, the entirety of Ponyville found itself in an instant festival! With food stalls and even games, the celebration in the town was on and active. Amethyst Star, Cheese Sandwich, and Suprise were all immensely proud of their accomplishment!

"The Ponyville Party Planning Committee is happy to announce that this festival is in honor of the return of Princess Twilight Sparkle! She's having a private party at her castle, but let's all make sure to have fun in her honor tonight!" Amethyst shouts to the crowd, all looking towards the wooden stage that Cheese Sandwich hastily built, the glistening night sky twinkling behind the stage as a natural backdrop. The festival flew into full swing, with the Party Cannon XLCP firing confetti everywhere, marking the start of the festival.

In her room, Twilight sighs as she looks out the window at the festival. She had gotten several parties, festivals, and heck, even a national holiday in her name in the past. However, this party was just a welcome-back party from all her friends. They weren't her subjects (anymore, at least.), and they were giving her space to enjoy time with her friends. "It's so peaceful..." Twilight says to herself with a smile and a sigh.

"It is, isn't it? Shame I couldn't see it." A voice says from behind Twilight, a voice she recognized. Turning slowly, Twilight sees nothing but her empty bedroom behind her. Yet her side twitches as she feels the sensation of someone touching her, her body stiff and a cold sweat running down her face.

"Lying to your friends, failing me... You've ignored all those feelings and thoughts in your mind for so long. I wanted to live, you know. You had a chance to end everything, but you didn't. You chose her over me." The familiar voice says. "Just like you chose her over your friends over and over. Are you going to do it again? We both know your spell has a fatal flaw. Just like always, SHE will get free."

Twilight grimaces and quickly exhales. "You're going to have to try harder than that. I've had to deal with my thoughts personified before. Dealing with you again won't be a problem- " Twilight turns to face whatever figure her mind decided to torment her with, greeting her is a grotesque version of her closest friend.

And the one friend she couldn't save, Moondancer. Eyes hollow and body shorn and broken. Moondancer's leg twisted, neck bent unnaturally, and coat still singed from Unity's attacks. Twilight instantly froze up and strumbled backward against the wall. "W-why?" Twilight could feel her body sweat further. The voice wasn't familiar because it was her own. No, it was because it was of her closest assistant, the one pony that she wished she could have saved. All rational thought flew out the window, Twilight's face full of sheer terror. This wasn't guilt like last time. This wasn't even something simple that she could fix with force of will. Simply seeing the figure in front of her caused Twilight to mentally re-live through the fight with Unity again, the thoughts, the stress, the plan to sacrifice herself, only ending up losing her best friend in the process. All those feelings began to swell up in her once again. It was too much for Twilight, so she did the one thing she knew how to do in this situation: all logic was thrown out the window in this one moment.

Twilight lashed out. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" She yells as she throws the nearest object at the figure before her. It was a simple throw pillow thrown with the strength of the rightful ruler of Equestria. The pillow slammed through the figment of her mind, which faded away as Twilight's mind got a firm grip on itself. The pillow then continued to travel as it slammed into the crystalline wall, the wall cracking as the force dispersed through it and the pillow. The pillow then exploded into feathers and fabric, which coated the room.

Twilight didn't care, however. She didn't even notice Spike running into the room, too busy hyperventilating and trying to get ahold of herself. Spike ran to her side and attempted to speak to her, but all she could hear was a high-pitched, ear-piercing noise. Twilight's thoughts were swimming in her head as she realized what was happening. 'I'm having a Panic attack? Come on. I've been through worse than this! Way worse. Calm down. Calm down. Why can't I calm down?! Breathe! Breathe like how Cadence taught you. Can't. I can't!'

Finally, however, she manages to hear something. A voice from the edge of her blurry vision. "T... Light. Breathe. I'. Here." After a moment, Twilight feels something comforting. It was a simple hug, but the effects were instant. Her vision begins to clear up as her heart begins to slow down. Her thoughts began to flow as her mind began to clear. Twilight quickly hugged Spike the moment she regained control of herself. Labored breaths became less deep and more ragged from exhaustion rather than panic.

Spike quickly hugged Twilight back, holding onto her closely, her change in demeanor telling him she was back in some form of control. "Twilight! You're okay. It's okay. What happened?! You haven't had a panic attack like that since school!"

Twilight pants and gasps a little as she has a full-body shudder. "I have no idea. That was out of nowhere! At least my panic attacks were a bit more obvious and triggered by something back in school, but that one had no warning at all!"

Spike nervously clings to Twilight. He knows how bad her panic attacks can get. Heck, the girls even made a term 'Twilighting' for when someone was freaking out about something minor. This was not that. He's helped her through more than he can count, but that one was on another level. Twilight seemed genuinely afraid for her life. Spike was genuinely worried about Twilight's health for a moment, but now, she seems to have calmed down. With a careful step back, he watches Twilight do her breathing exercises, the sweat slowly clearing up and the stress melting. While the exercise wasn't a simple magical spell that removed all her worries, it was enough to give Twilight room to think in her head. "Do you wanna postpone the party? The girls will understand if you have to rest, you know."

Twilight takes one last deep breath, slumping against the wall in relief. Twilight had control back, and her mind was working correctly, even if she felt slightly tense after the entire situation. "I'm alright. Thanks, though, Spike. That was worse than Sombra's trap." She exhales and puts on a ragged smile, which slowly softens into a proper one. "I'm good now. The party will do me some good. No need to cancel it or scare the others." Twilight says as she stands back up, clearing her throat, looking at herself in the mirror nearby, and grimacing. She's covered with the feathers from the pillow and looks pretty ragged, likely from the sweat and stumbling backward.

"Although, tell them I'll be a little late. I need to fix my mane and stuff again before I go out." Twilight then hums to herself before perking up. "Actually, could you ask Rarity to come here and help me out so it doesn't take me an hour again?" Twilight says to Spike as she cleans up the room of all the feathers with her magic, packing them all into the trash. The colorless sparkles swept everything up and compacted it neatly into the trash can near her desk. Twilight then sat down and levitated her brush over to her, beginning to run it through her mane. "This is what I get for using the wavy spell for so long." She says with a light chastising voice towards herself.

Spike nods after a moment, having been entranced by Twilight's new magic style. "You sure you can be alone?" He says as he approaches the door. The worried expression on his face never left for a moment. However, Twilight smiles at Spike in response, nodding and motioning with a hoof.

"I can manage Spike. It's just a few minutes." She says with some confidence. She was the ex-Queen of Equestria, after all! A one-off panic attack was nothing compared to what she's had to deal with in the past! With that, Spike leaves Twilight to her devices for the time being.

Twilight isn't left alone for very long, of course. Rarity quickly rushed to the room. After all, a fashion emergency is always a priority to fix on such an important day. With a dramatic push, Rarity opens the door to Twilight's room with great flair, causing the resident Alicorn to look over at her. "Twilight, Spike told me you had a small fashion emerg- Ah. Panic attack." She says, instantly knowing what was wrong with her friend. "Don't worry! We can fix this quite quickly, stay seated, and let's get you all freshened up. While we do so, relax and talk about what happened. Right now, I am your manedresser, and you're my client." She nods as she takes the brush from Twilight, beginning her work on her friend's mane, Twilight sighing a little.

"Rarity, I really don't want to talk about it, alright? I want to enjoy tonight. I don't want to think about that stuff." Twilight mumbles to her friend, closing her eyes a little. Rarity has always been good at doing manes and anything related to beauty. However, over the last year, Rarity has very clearly become much more skilled and experienced in her craft, including her experience as a beautician. The mane styling was entirely different from what Twilight had experienced in a long time. Rarity angled each brush stroke just the right way to not pull at any of Twilight's hair, not to mention the sensation of a massage each stroke was providing.

"So it's not the stress of the day then. I figured. Twilight, remember, you can always tell us anything you wish to discuss. We're your friends, and we want to help. I don't know what you went through. Obviously, it left some deep scars. But when you're ready to talk, we'll all be ready and open-minded, alright, darling?" Rarity says with a smile, not pushing any further. "There we go. A skilled touch can fix issues like these in mere moments. You aren't in the past anymore, Twilight. You have to update your self-grooming standards again."

Twilight giggles a little and looks at herself. "Mmm, I think my standards may have been too high for myself. I haven't done my mane in a long time. Usually, I just fix it up with some magic." She says as she sees her old mane style on herself, a smile creeping on her face.

"Heh." Twilight couldn't help but let out a chuckle. Just a change in mane made her feel so young again. Now she really wanted to enjoy the party as much as she could! Not just for her sake, but for the sake of her friends too! "Alright then! Let's go." She says with a grand smile, hopping up on all four hooves and heading out to the dining room in the castle, only to turn around as she went in the entirely wrong direction. "This way, sorry!" Twilight's sudden change in mood slightly took Rarity aback, but nonetheless, she smiled and put the brush away before trotting out of the room.

Twilight heads into the dining room, sliding through the door with both poise and some flair. "Sorry, I'm late! Rarity saved me from a small fashion emergency, and now everything is betterrrr?! Woah!" Twilight's eyes widen at the sheer population in her dining room! Two of each of her friends, a copy of herself (albeit a unicorn and certainly not nearly as old as her), Discord, and Sunset! Twilight brightly smiles as she sees all her close friends together, each of whom is unsurprisingly getting along quite well! The resulting group hug from her old bandmates and a firm hoof shake with her other self kicked the party off in full swing! Twilight takes time to explain where she's been to the group and generally enjoys some food that wasn't from ancient times.

"Ugh, you have no idea how much I missed cream. It was a high-end delicacy in the era I was in. Way too expensive to eat too often. Heck, even the Princesses couldn't eat it all the time, low supply and all that fun stuff." Twilight mumbles as she eats a slice of banana cream pie.

Rarity perks up at the mention of that. "Oh, that's right! You got to see the princesses before Luna became Nightmare Moon, correct? Is it true that Celestia had a pure pink mane before she had that wavy look?"

Twilight smiles and nods. "Yep, Celestia got the change in mane from Discord, surprisingly enough," Twilight says with a nod towards the Lord of Chaos, who smiles and sits up, continuing the story.

"Ah yes, one of my best pieces of work. There I was, stone and frozen by my dear sister's evil magic, the world ending around me as I could only watch in horror until I saw two fillies come along and free me at the cost of one's horn destroyed while the other's is slightly damaged. They were so prepared to battle the evil Queen that I felt moved!" Discord continues, ignoring Twilight, suddenly choking on her drink after hearing what he said. "Thereby, I granted them a boon, no, a blessing, and protected them from her abhorrent magic while also speeding up the restoration of her horn and body. That may have changed her mane color a bit and made her finally loosen up a little, too. However, she was more than grateful for my help, and the evil Queen was defeated and trounced into the floor." Discord says with great flair, his magic making his shadow replay the battle in shadow puppet form, garnering claps from the crowd, except Twilight, who gives him a very peeved stare.

"Discord didn't mention that the Queen utterly decimated him in a two versus one and had to be bailed out by Celestia before the Queen floored again." She cheekily says as she giggles towards her rival. She wouldn't let Discord get away with telling only half the story, softly smiling as she added her own flair to her side. "Course, that's the less flashy part of the story, and you know, I'm pretty sure Discord had a pretty bad concussion from being punched so hard." Twilight smugly stares at Discord after adding in details that he neglected to mention, the group staring between the two. You could feel the sparks of annoyance traveling between them, Pinkie's mane even puffing up slightly from the ambient magic.

As the group thought the two would begin arguing, Twilight and Discord started to laugh. Twilight snickered a little. "But no, seriously, thanks for helping Celestia. You showed how well you can restore order when you want to." She says with a bit of snark in her voice. Twilight smirked at Discord, knowing he couldn't reprise without breaking his promise. That is until he speaks.

"Adventu Chao frahin." He says back to Twilight, who glares at him. Discord is speaking the ancient spirits' language to return the snark at Twilight. It was a gamble. Discord was curious to know if Twilight still knew the language. After all, Celestia and Luna had long lost the link they shared with the Spirit of Magic and Friendship they had within themselves. Twilight was still closely in tune with the Spirit of Time within her. 'Says the one who caused immeasurable amounts of chaos' Is what Discord said to Twilight, which caused her eyebrow to twitch.

Luckily for the two, both Pinkies quickly detected the tone change between them. "Apapapapap! This is a party! We're having fun here! No arguing and no angry laser battles! Have a cupcake, both of you!" The first Pinkie says as she plops a cupcake into Twilight's mouth. Who blinked before her eyes lit up.

"Oats and Cream?! More!" She says as she rushes back to the table to grab more cupcakes, eyes twinkling happily. Discord sighed a little as he saw how quickly Twilight was defused.

"Darn. I was hoping to get Twilight to explode a little more. Oh well, guess I owe Celestia five bits." He mumbles to himself and sighs as he takes the cupcake from the second Pinkie, chomping it down in one bite, leaving nothing but the cupcake itself. The party's ambiance recovered as the pair put some distance between each other. Twilight decided to take some time to speak with her former bandmates, schoolmates, and friends that she made on the other side of the mirror. The Rainbow Dash of that world happily took a moment to tell Twilight about everything she missed.

"And after everything, Sunset managed to get us all together, and we knocked Twilight out with magical beams! Kind of like how we did with Sunset back in the day. Redemption all around!" Sunset's Rainbow Dash says with a smile, Ponyville Rainbow Dash having taught her how to fold her wings properly when they had chatted. "It was pretty awesome, and we got a great friend out of it! Then we found these things a few months later during summer break." Rainbow says with a smile as she shows off the element necklace around her neck, the main factor of identifying who is who in the party.

Twilight's eyes twinkled a little bit, the researcher inside of her sparking up as she heard Rainbow Dash speak about the adventures from her world. "Woah. I guess it makes sense. If we have elements of harmony in this world, then it stands to reason that there's some in yours." She says as she rubs her chin a little bit. "Although ours don't give us any real powers, although. Maybe ponying up is how you all gain access to the special talents that your other halves have. Although, I don't know anypony that can read emotions by touching someone." Twilight racks her brain momentarily, sighing a little as she sits on a cushion. "Aside... Nah. No." She shakes her head. Unity was the only pony that could bore into somepony's mind, but aside from Wallflower, Twilight didn't know if she had any other descendants. As these thoughts ran through Twilight's mind, she shook her head rapidly to get the ideas out of her head.

Sci-Twi tilts her head, knowing the look on her counterpart's face. "Oh, it's alright, we'll figure it out at some point. There's no need to rack your brain about it. I know I did for a while until the girls helped me stop hyper-fixing on the magic and just let it flow! Sometimes, the most obvious answer is the one in front of you, you know." She says with a smile. She was genuinely trying to help Twilight. Twilight smiles in kind back to Sci-Twi and giggles a little, sighing happily.

"You're right, thanks me. Nothing like a little pick me up from an alternate version of you to help you!" She nods toward her counterpart before continuing, "I don't know why the elements give you all these powers, but it's pretty awesome that you're all using them to help everyone in your world."

City Applejack sighs and sits back. "It'll be a bit harder to do that, though, with all of us going to different Universities soon. The only two stayin in Canterlot City are Twi and Sunset." She says with a drawl, the mention of college making the humans turned ponies a little more melancholy. Sunset smiled a little and giggled after a moment.

"Relax, we'll still meet up. After all, there's always the summer. Not to mention, we all have our roots in Canterlot City anyway. It's not like any of us are going to disappear entirely. You're all just going to school to help out your businesses in Canterlot City already, anyway. Well, aside from Rainbow Dash, at least." Sunset says as she motions to the lead soccer star for the Canterlot Wonderbolts Soccer Team. Who happily does a little pose in place.

Sci-Twi giggles a little. "I would have sworn that Rainbow Dash was going to end up a pilot or something, but sports just seems to be her thing in the end. The Wonderbolts Soccer Team scouted her right out of high school. She's been really excited about it. Course, the training camp is all the way in Cloudsdale City, so we won't see her for the first year or so till she starts to play home games. That is if Sunset decides not to take Princess Twilight's deal." Sci-Twi says with a glint behind her glasses. "Which honestly would be a waste. You know you can visit whenever you want, Sunset."

Sunset nervously smiles. "I just. I don't really know if that's the right choice right now. I still have plenty of time to think about it, though! No offense, Twilight. Erm. Princess Twilight. It's just a big decision, and I dunno if I can live up to expectations and all." She says with a mumble and stammer, unable to articulate her thoughts when Sci-Twi puts her on the spot. However, the deliberation was evident on her face. In reality, the rest of the humane seven were going to college the next day. Sunset had already considered Twilight's offer and wanted to accept it quite a bit. But she felt out of place at the moment.

Twilight smiles softly and gives Sunset a pat on the shoulder. "It's your decision. I'd never force it on you. You know what's best for you, and I trust you to make the decision you want." Twilight says with a soft smile, the encouraging words feeling like a soft breeze to Sunset. As Celestia's student, she always felt stressed and even a little distant from her teacher, but Twilight just had that air around her that made you want to trust her.

Sunset's confidence was short-lived, though, as two larger-than-life party crashers opened the door to the room with great flair. "WE ARE HERE!" Says Luna as she enters the room with her sister. She did not notice her sister freeze up as she and Sunset locked eyes. "Apologies for being late, Pinkie! Night court dragged on a little bit. Thestrals have been returning to Equestrian land recently, so we're trying to get them all settled and comfortable."

Pinkie blinks. "Of course, Princess! It's totally alright." She then zooms over to Twilight. "Did you send them an invitation? Because I thought you said no to Celestia and Luna while Sunset was here." She quietly whispers to Twilight as Discord appears behind the three.

"Oh! I saw their names on the register as unsent. So I just thought I'd flick them an invitation. Look at me, being helpful for once." Discord grins at Twilight, who glares at him quietly. Twilight sighs and raises her wing to block Celestia's view of Sunset.

The party goes silent at this act. The natural-born Equestrians let out a little gasp at Twilight's act. Twilight's action even took Sunset aback, and she knew Twilight's true nature. No one would ever do this to the Princess, especially not Celestia, except if they wanted to meet the sun's wrath. "Celestia, Ignore what you saw and enjoy the party. She's very clearly not ready." Twilight says confidently to Celestia, looking over and smiling at Sunset. "Don't worry. If you don't want to talk to her, you don't have to Sunset."

Celestia's glare towards Twilight and the glare Twilight returned caused literal sparks of magical lightning to fly between the two Alicorns. Twilight was just thankful that Luna had entirely purged Celestia's spirit of darkness all those years ago, so there was no Daybreaker emergency if this ended up being a fight.

Sunset, meanwhile, didn't even notice her pose until Twilight spoke to her. Her ears lay flat and bent down slightly. She was still terrified of her teacher, her entire body trembling just at her short glimpse of Celestia. Despite her growth, she never truly felt she had redeemed herself enough to face her perfect teacher, but she didn't want to see her previous teacher and her future teacher fight either!

This moment was a chance, a chance sent by Faust herself. It's probably her only chance to do this. She could do this! With a deep breath, Sunset stared right up at Twilight and nodded. "I got this."

Twilight stares in surprise as she looks back at Sunset before a smile appears on her face. "Alright then. I got your back." The Purple wing lowers, allowing Celestia and Sunset to see one another again. The tension between the two alicorns defused in that instant.

Sunset braces herself for whatever reaction may come, opening her mouth to speak, only to find herself in a tight embrace moments later. Celestia quietly holds Sunset in a tight hug, mumbling to her Ex-Student.

"I'm so sorry, Sunset," Celestia says to Sunset, not releasing her for even a moment.

Sunset tears up a little in the hug, hugging back in return. "I am, too."

The ponies surrounding the pair smile and allow the two to have their moment, halting the party briefly. Discord grumbles as he gives Luna a handful of bits, who haughtily laughs at his misfortune. After the two finish having their moment, the party continues. It was the most fantastic party the group had ever participated in, but nothing came close to the rekindling of Celestia and Sunset's relationship. It was strained and stressed, and it would take time to mend fully, but Sunset felt at home in Equestria for the first time since she left.

Sunset's mind was made up when she and her friends returned to their world, promising to return the next day.

Chapter 1: The Map of Harmony - Part 1

Author's Note

Note this and the next part were supposed to be one chapter.

I biffed it a bit and over estimated the amount of story to be told.

SO it's split into two parts, just like the show would do.

Enjoy~! :twilightsmile:

Chapter 1: The Map of Harmony - Part 1

A series of violent convulsions abruptly shatter Twilight's peaceful slumber. Her body and horn flicker with a faint, erratic magic as she battles an unseen force in her dreams. With a sudden surge of adrenaline, she jolts awake, her head colliding with the baseboard of her bed. Her disguise spell had worn off in her sleep, leaving her in a form too large for her tiny bed.

"Ponyfeathers," Twilight says as she looks at the baseboard, which has been scratched and broken by her horn as she tossed and turned in her sleep. The headbutt caused the already damaged object to fall apart entirely, the pieces that her horn carved out clunking to the floor with loud, piercing rings from contact with the crystal. Twilight stares at the pieces with a squinted look before facehoofing. "Nope. Just. Deal with it later."

Twilight exits her room after cleaning up the discarded pieces of wood, entering her nearby bathroom to freshen up a little. After tossing some water in her face and drying it off, her eyes meet with her reflection's gaze. Taking a deep breath and with a small burst of magic, Twilight's larger form disappears, replaced with her smaller alicorn form yet again. Clearing her throat, Twilight tilts her head side to side, each bob accompanied by a smile. "Mm. Too wide." She mumbles out as she cycles through different smiles and pitches of voice.

Twilight spends around half an hour speaking to herself in the mirror, a ritual she got in the habit of doing when she was queen. Yet this time, it wasn't because she was publicly speaking or preparing to meet with other world leaders. This time, she aimed to look warm and friendly like she used to be, something she hadn't really thought about in several years. A small photo of her and the other element bearers rests on the mirror, nostalgia, and longing for her past self, making her give a half-cocked, comfortable smile. It'd be best just to let it come naturally. Does she need to practice her smile just for a meeting with her friends?

Twilight contemplates this momentarily, a knock on her bathroom door derailing her train of thought. "Twilight, you still in there? Sunset and the others are waiting for you in the big main room!" Spike says while he's worried about Twilight, he isn't going to bring it up over and over again. Twilight's new routine was odd, especially compared to her old one, but he takes quite a bit of time to get ready in the morning himself, so he has no right to complain. After all, scales are pretty tricky to clean properly!

Twilight blinks as she opens the door. "Wait wha? I thought they were coming at noon!" She quickly says as she rushes out of the bathroom. Spike watches Twilight as she cleans up the room with a flash of magic.

"It is noon," Spike sighs as he watches Twilight finally leave the room. "Didn't your alarm clock go off?"

Twilight tilts her head quietly as she looks up to the ceiling. "Not. Sure honestly. I didn't see it on my end table when I woke up. It's probably outside in the dirt. Or in Canterlot." She shrugs, curious about where her absurd strength could have thrown the alarm clock. Hopefully, it didn't hit anything important, like someone's house or cart.

Before entering the room, Twilight takes a deep breath. With a swift push on the door with her hoof, she puts on the most natural smile she can muster. "Sorry I'm late, I overslept," Twilight says as her eyes meet her friend's faces. Just for a moment, she thought she saw her friends from the past, but Twilight shook the cobwebs loose before she could get nostalgic.

"No problem, Twilight, I just got here myself," Sunset says with an awkward smile, standing up from a little fold-out chair she brought from the other world. "We were just talking about how we need a table here. It's kinda empty."

The other girls nod and murmur to each other. Rarity chimed in. "Oh, I have a lovely wooden table that we can put right in the center of the room. Granted, it would only fit some of the decor... Hm... Perhaps the Crystal Empire has some paint or varnish to make it shiny?"

Twilight giggles a little and looks towards the center of the room with a squint. "Hm." While the others are speaking about tables to put in the room, Twilight pokes at the indent in the ground, peeking down at it and searching around the area quietly. Spike tilts his head as he looks towards the floor and sees the little gap.

"This part... looks like it raises up," he says toward the group and Twilight before taking his seat, Twilight still wandering around the room and tapping her chin with her hoof.

"Mhm. Although I don't see any way to raise it up. Eh, oh well. A table will do." She says as she sits down on her throne chair thingy.

Suddenly, a loud noise rings out as the magic from the tree finally activates. Twilight's body gets a chill as she recognizes the feel of the sudden burst of magic. That ice-cold, almost analytical magic that believes in nothing but peace in its most perfect form. Yet, it felt... warmer than the last time she felt it. An almost relaxing, warm feeling washes over her, suppressing her growing panic attack as if she were being calmed. Beams of light spring out from the thrones, the beams of light shining up and into the crystal above. A large burst of magic shoots down onto the floor, which shifts as the castle's map and table rise from its resting point in the ground. The beams then redirect, returning to the chairs that they came from. The castle gently shakes as it settles, the map activating and showing each element bearer's cutiemarks floating above a small town in the middle of nowhere. Twilight's mark seems... different, though, as the floating mark is split in two, half showing Twilight's cutie mark and the other half showing Sunset's as it spins above the location.

"I didn't even know there was anything out there," Twilight says as she tilts her head and looks over the map. "This is a really accurate map of Equestria, too. Look, there's even a little Celestia and Luna in Canterlot Castle." She says as she peeks into the castle window. The little Celestia perks up and pouts at the sky before she poofs from the little hologram. Twilight let out a tiny smirk. "Well. I guess we know what we're doing today."

"Hold up, are we just gonna go follow a map that appeared out of the ground like that? It could be a trap, ya know. Who knows what we'll find out there!" Rainbow Dash says after a minute. "At the very least, we must be a bit prepared."

"The map is clearly magical, Rainbow Dash. Besides, if some ponies need our help, we should help them." Twilight mumbles. "Course, that does mean we'll have to put off the little tour of Ponyville Sunset. Is that alright with you?" Twilight says as she continues to observe the map, taking in all the little minute changes. A mountain here, a river there.

"I don't mind. Besides, not every day that you get to go on a magical quest given to you by a magical map that came out of the floor of a magical castle, ya know." Sunset then stands up and stretches a little bit. "When do you think we'll be heading out? An hour?"

Twilight and the others look at each other. "Honestly, an hour sounds fine. Usually, we head out when these things pop up, but." She tilts her head a little. "Why did we used to rush out to handle stuff like this before?"

Applejack sits back and thinks for a moment. "Ah, suppose it was because most of the issues were pretty on our faces. Waitin wasn't really an option. But this doesn't look like something we need to rush to. We'd need to take the train to get there, so we'll need to check the schedule." She says after a moment. Spike nodding

"I'll go check the train schedule, I'd go with it, but I still have a lot of stuff to do in the castle, so the rest of it is... liveable. There are a lot of things that fell through the cracks, even with us looking after the castle while Twilight was missing. Some of the upstairs rooms are pretty bad." He says with a nod. "You all being out actually helps with that. I can focus on cleaning up and fixing things."

Twilight smiles and gives Spike a hug. "Hey, you're part of this group too. Don't exclude yourself on our behalf." She says loudly before reducing to a whispering voice. "Besides, I could use your help if anything happens, Spike. Having Celestia and Luna one letter away would be beneficial if things go wrong."

Spike is taken slightly aback, mostly because he had hardly been invited to adventures for quite a while now. "Sure. I mean. I'm not gonna say no to that!" He says excitedly. "Guess I'm going! Let's all have some fun and do whatever we need to." Spike grins, laughing a little. "I'm gonna go get our train tickets and stuff."

The group watches Spike leave, Sunset tilting her head curiously. "Are you sure you want to bring Spike along?" Twilight nods.

"I want to enjoy myself with every creature, including Spike. A little quest isn't gonna get in the way of that!" Twilight says with a laugh. "I'll pack some snacks for the trip, too, Pinkie. I can make a mean sandwich now." Twilight says proudly. Her sandwiches were legendary in the past, and with the full line of ingredients in modern times, they're probably gonna be even better!

Pinkie nods quickly. "Okely, dokelie! I'll bring some cupcakes and other sweets then~! Who knows, maybe the quest can be fixed by filling up some bellies!" She smiles, and the group chatters a little before they disperse to prepare for an adventure!

Twilight meets the group at the train station, where the train waits for its royal passenger. Twilight isn't even late, yet the conductor is set to go when she arrives. Spike waves to Twilight, the last to arrive, although she hardly packed anything worth noting besides a few sandwiches. "Everypony got here way earlier than I thought. I guess the train came in early?"

Sunset nods. "Yep, so the conductor is taking a break and having the carriage we're gonna be riding in cleaned up. Said he didn't want a princess to ride in an unclean carriage." She says with a giggle. "You got a ton of fans, don't you, Twilight?"

Twilight turns a little red in response. Twilight only thought of her title once she was queen. Now, being called a princess makes her feel... strange? A good kind of strange, though, as she had none of the big responsibilities of running Equestria. "It's very nice of the conductor to clean up the train in his spare time. At least he isn't using his well-earned break to do it. Otherwise, then we'd have an issue." Twilight giggles a little, thinking back to her never-ending nights of work and times when she would skip her break to work more. "More healthy, too."

The group is greeted by the train conductor opening the door. "All heading to middle o' nowhere station! We're set for ya!" He says excitedly. He hasn't seen the element bearers use the train in ages, so this is both nostalgic for the aging pony and generally a happy day for him! The group giggles a little, Spike being the first to hop on and Sunset taking up the rear. Everyone gets settled down on the freshly cleaned and steamed train, the seats feeling soft, and the smell of clean linen is in the air. Everypony sits down in their groups, Sunset and Spike joining Twilight, Rarity and Fluttershy in the larger booth while Rainbow Dash, Applejack and Pinkie all play cards in the adjacent tabled seats. The ride is a three-hour ordeal, so they all get settled to pass the time.

Twilight stretches as she wanders the train. There was only around half an hour left on their trip, but her legs were getting cramped from sitting constantly. She liked to be more active than that.

This ended up being a mistake. Twilight's gaze was met with a sight out the window: the train rolling down the tracks, a small gorge in the distance, and two small hills, one with a single tree atop. Twilight's breathing started to get a little shallow; that day was not that long ago for her. Stumbling back into a seat, she broke her eyes away from sight and closed them. "It's fine. It's fine. I'm fine. It's okay. Calm down. Calm down." She says quickly to herself as flashes of very fresh memories run through her mind.

Twilight's eyes open to the empty field. The soft grass ran underneath her hooves as she looked to the sky. A figure flying above, ready to attack her. No one would be coming this time.

And Twilight lost.

With a jolt of adrenaline, Twilight pulls herself out of her thoughts of what could have been. Gasping and trying to catch any little bit of air she possibly could. The empty cart jostles as the tracks get a little lower in quality. With a quick hoof press to her chest, she instinctively needed to check her heart to see if it was still beating. Pupils dilated and her entire body tense, she finally took in her surroundings. She didn't know how long she was spiraling. Honestly, she didn't care at the moment. She was just glad to be out of her own head at this point.

But it didn't stop, unbidden tears flowing from her eyes. "Faust, dammit. You loyal fool." She says quietly to herself as she gently lets out a dry chuckle.

After a few more moments, Twilight stands up and wanders to the nearby washroom on the train. Her movements are akin to those of a tired zombie, or worse, just a regular zombie. "That... That was a light one." She says to herself in the mirror. "Just gotta keep busy. Don't think about it. Deal with it later." Twilight's mumbles are the only noise coming from the room as she re-adjusts her mane and splashes water in her face, trying to get back some semblance of life in her eyes.

It barely works. "It's fine. As long as nothing else sets me off, I should be able to avoid any meltdowns. Right? Yeah, Right..." She then deadpans as she rolls her eyes at her reflection. "Is my entire family cursed with the need to talk to themselves when stressed or alone? Ugh." She exits the washroom, returning to her friends to sit and relax. The group was a little curious about where she went, but her explanation of exploring the train again was an acceptable enough reason.

The group arrives at the quaint and quiet little station. They hop down from the train and look towards the nearby mountain they have to circumnavigate to reach their destination. Twilight smiles, "I got this." She then, with a whip of her horn, teleports the group right to the other side of the mountain. "A simple calculated teleportation spell always does the trick." Twilight proudly says. "Granted we still have to walk the rest of the w-wayyyyy WHA?!"

The rest of the group is similarly surprised as they are greeted by a sprawling metropolitan city. Every house is uniform and straight lines through and through. Each pair of house lines is topped off with a single house at the end. Various equally high skyscrapers and identical town halls are littered throughout the city. The cloud layer prevents the group from seeing the ground area. But each 'house' is clearly less of a house and more of an apartment block. Each line of buildings has exactly 5 apartment buildings. Each building has exactly 100 rooms. It's a symmetrical paradise.

Sunset coughs and breaks the tension. "Uh. I take it that this isn't normal? Metropolitan cities are standard in the other world. But yeesh, this one gives off an awful feeling, honestly."

Pinkie twitches and is the first to bolt down the mountainside. "Come on! We have to see what's going on!"

The rest of the group follows suit, Twilight's brow furrowing a little. "It can't be." She mumbles to herself.

As the group finds themselves just out of the town, they can finally see into it. It's a sprawling city with hundreds, if not thousands, of ponies. Each pony seems to have a wide, almost frightening smile, all with uniform manes and clothing. The females wear grey suits and skirts while the males wear black suits and ties. Each one marched to the beat of the other's hoof steps.

Each with an equal sign in place of their cutie marks.

"No," Twilight says as she sees the horrible sight before her. Breaking the silence. "No... No. No."

The rest of the group turns to their friend. Twilight's eyes dilated, and her breathing speeds up dramatically. Fluttershy immediately knows what's happening. "No. It can't. That's impossible. That's not possible."

Fluttershy speaks up quickly. "Rarity! Pillow!"

Rarity blinks. "Fluttershy, I don't just carry around a pillow with me at all times." She says as she digs through her bag. "But I did this time for the train ride." She then gives Fluttershy the pillow, quickly catching Twilight's head with it. The alicorn collapsed into a heap of nerves and stress.

"No... NO! Make it go away! I never want to see that again! I buried it. I BURIED IT!" Twilight yells out. Her friends are trying to help her get a grip on herself, but aside from Fluttershy, Rarity, and Sunset, the others don't know how to react. Spike helps by grabbing some water from Twilight's bag before joining in and trying to talk Twilight down.

Almost half an hour later, Twilight finally passed out from her meltdown. The group had moved her to a nearby cave system, Rarity laying Twilight on her emergency fainting couch. Rarity sighs a little. "Well, she's out finally. Although a meltdown that large typically means she won't be waking up. Nor will she be having any good dreams either." She sighs a little. "Someone should stay with her. Preferably one that can actually manage panic attacks." She taps her chin a little.

Spike raises his claw. "I'll stay with her. That was the worst panic attack I've ever seen her have, but she's still Twilight. I should be able to reign in any more of them as they come. That one just... Really caught me off guard."

Fluttershy continues to look Twilight over. "She'll probably be sleeping for a few hours. I haven't seen stress that bad since Mr. Fox couldn't find food for Mrs. Fox."

"What was that all about anyways?! She saw the ponies and instantly flipped! Twilight's usually way more level-headed than that." Rainbow says after a minute. Tapping her hoof a little. "Buried it? Buried what? This doesn't make any sense!"

Applejack chimes in. "Ah'm not the best one to say much about this, considerin that the way I deal with stress is just workin harder. But have yall been gettin the feelin that Twilight's been... ah dunno. Hidin somethins from us?"

The group murmurs a little and nods after a moment. "That's what ah thought. I don't want ta intrude on her stuff, but now ahm worried about her. Like real worried."

Sunset taps her chin. "She probably has a reason for not saying anything yet. Although if she does pass out again, we should all talk with her about it."

After a moment of mumbling, Applejack nods. "Ah, agree. Secrets are fine as long as they don't affect yer friends. Everyon has some. Just as long as she don't be lyin about them no more. She needs ta talk to us when these things might happn."

Fluttershy nods. "But we should give her a chance to say it first. I-I think. That's what I'd do, at least."

Sunset thinks for a moment. "Well. We still have a job to do here. The faster we get done, the quicker we can take Twilight back to Ponyville. The train only stops at." Suddenly, her face gets dark, and thunder roars behind her. "The end of the line!..." her face returns to normal afterward. "...Twice a day, so we need to try and get through this to make it before it leaves for the second time."

Spike nods and raises his claw. "I'll stick with Twilight, and if anything goes wrong, I'll send a letter to Celestia. The rest of you go and do your thing. Save lives and make things right. Just like superheroes!" He says with a grin, trying to get the group hyped up.

The ponies nod and put their hooves together. "Lets. Do. This." They say together... but they wait. Looking over to Sunset. "Come on! You're part of the group, too, Sunset. Get in on this!" Rainbow Dash says with a grin. The orange pony blinked in surprise and joined in. Holding her hoof awkwardly forward. She's still getting used to standing on three of four limbs for situations like this. "Let's go!" They break with flair before heading out of the cave.

Chapter 2: The Map of Harmony - Part 2

The cave's mouth exposes the outside light to the mane 6, each covering their eyes to some degree as they leave the dark and damp hideout. Sunset merely squints as she exits the cave. After all, in her time in the other world, light had been nearly everpresent for her, namely due to streetlights and car headlights. 'Light pollution made my eyes suck in the dark. Ugh.' Sunset thinks to herself, letting out a sigh in her head. The other ponies were talking to one another, trying to figure out plans and work out what they were going to do now that Twilight wasn't here to lead them. Although Sunset already figured that Applejack would take the lead, she decided not to take part in the conversation as much as she wished she could.

It just felt awkward, like what could she say? 'Hey, I know another you from another world! You can trust me to lead the way!' Yeah right. Although she did have to admit, she made for a decent leader for the girls back in the mirror world, even if Twilight did fill that role whenever Sunset couldn't.

"Huh. I wonder if Applejack would be the third in the lineup in my world. I feel like Rarity is a bit more down-to-earth there. Or even Rainbow Dash..." She taps her chin gently as she mumbles this aloud, unaware of the vocalization of her thoughts.

"Whatcha talkin about Sunnnnset?" Pinkie says as she slides over. "I think Applejack is wayyyyyyy more down to earth than the other two and a bit more handy, too." She says with a giggle, causing Sunset to stare.

"You know, I forgot to ask, are you my Pinkie Pie or Equestria's Pinkie Pie? Twilight told me that you two swap all the time at this point." She says with a flat yet somehow questioning stare.

"Mmmm not telling! That'd ruin the fun!" Pinkie says with a little giggle before bouncing ahead. Before anyone else could register what the pair were talking about, a white male pony approached them with a strange, unsettling smile. "Well, hello there, everypony! I'm so thrilled to see you! Welcome to this lovely little city! What brings you so far out here, away from civilization?"

The general invasion of personal space slightly takes Sunset aback as the white-colored pony presses directly into her face, causing her to recoil in surprise. "I see you are all quite weary! Please come into the city proper! We can provide you with a bed and some muffins to eat!" He says happily, turning around and marching into the city, his coat a surprising luster compared to the other ponies around the city.

"Oh, I forgot to introduce myself. I am Administrator Six, although you can call me Six for short! Pretty much everyone in my sector calls me that!" Six says with a happy little walk and pep in his step, smiling back at the group. "Let's walk and talk! Tell me about yourselves!"

The group looks at each other but follows nonetheless. Sunset and Pinkie stay at the back of the group, observing the area around them as the rest of the group chats with Six. Pinkie is the first to break the silence between the two as they pass by drab houses, smiling, uniform ponies with intensely de-saturated coats. Their smiles look incredibly fake, and their eyes are dull and hopeless, with little to no color visible in even the buildings until they enter further into the city.

"This place gives me the heebee jeebies. It almost makes me wanna do a long-winded exposition." Pinkie Pie shudders a little bit before continuing her whisper. "Ponies don't just... Smile like that." She tells Sunset before the pair speeds up to a trot, trying to keep pace with the rest of the group and not fall behind.

Sunset nods a little. "It reminds me of a boarding school, just on a city-sized level. I don't trust this place. It reminds me too much of another place in my world. At least we figured out why the map sent us here, considering how much of a mess this place is."

"So how did this town come to be, Mr. Six?" Rarity asks curiously, cringing internally at all the drab colors and lack of fashion. "And... I assume the colorless theme is a choice?"

Six waves to one of his residents as he passes by before turning to respond to Rarity as they walk. "Oh, of course! Firstly, it's just Six! Mr. Six was my predecessor. Dunno what happened to him! Ahahaha!" He laughs a little with a fake, exaggerated chuckle. "But in all seriousness, the drab colors are to remind everyone of the sacrifices they have made for TRUE equality. The color you see as we get closer to the city center represents the responsibilities you must uphold as you become of higher status! Equality is only true when there is a little inequality in the mix!" He says with a nod. "Still, it's amazing that the friends of Princess Twilight came to visit! Our leader is going to be so excited to meet you all! Shame the Princess didn't come."

Rarity presses in front of Applejack and continues to speak. "Yes, she got a little ill, so she stayed behind. I'm sure when she feels better, she'll join us here." She says with a smile that a merchant knows how to withhold the truth when needed. How is the fashion in the inner city compared to the outskirts, then?"

Six laughs a little before looking about and whispering, "Oh, we have your standard affairs, colors of all types, and professional artisans who came to the city! I do so very much hope you enjoy your stay here." He says with a smile as they arrive at a large checkpoint. "Now, you may all explore District Six at your leisure. Please meet me here in exactly twenty-two minutes! I must tell our leader about your arrival!" He says happily before he trots into the city proper. As the large gates open, there is a small glimpse of an appropriate, high-functioning city. With colors, glamour, and beauty abound, the monochrome gates shut, locking the group out.

"I don't like it here," Sunset says as the six ponies sit at an empty table outside a muffin shop they aptly named Muffin Shop #12. Sunset orders the group a batch of muffins and some water, and the rest of the group sits down to trade mental notes.

Pinkie Pie leans forward as she stares at one of the generic, grey, and rock-hard muffins, giving it a nibble and gagging a bit. "You're telling me. Even the muffins taste like nothingness and sadness. I didn't even know sadness was a FLAVOR." She then looks at the muffin and nibbles on it more. "Could go good with spicy food, though." She mumbles a bit after a moment, getting distracted.

Fluttershy looks around quietly and sighs. "A few years ago, this would have looked like paradise. Everypony seems happy and content with what they have. But..." She looks towards the various ponies marching down the streets to an invisible cadence. "It's just kinda creepy... No offense." She says to the baker who was arriving to give them their waters.

"Oh. No problem! It's always hard for visitors, but don't worry! Every pony deserves a chance to change their minds about equality!" She says happily.

Rainbow Dash and Sunset raise an eyebrow simultaneously. Rainbow asks, "How does this... Equality even happen anyways? I've never seen a town FULL of ponies with the same cutie mark. Similar ones? Sure, maybe."

Sunset adds, "It's possible for someone to MAYBE be born with twin cutie marks with someone else, but a town full of exactly the same marks is impossible."

"Oh! Admin Six didn't tell you? When you join our tow- I mean city- you go through a beautiful ritual where our leader removes your cutie mark! Then, you can share true equality with everyone else! Of course, if you're too important for your mark to be removed, you go through a separate ritual. Although I've never seen it! Even though I've been here since the beginning." She sighed, "Lost my old bakery because I wasn't worthy, but still! Smiles! Smiles all around! I'm proud that my mark is still in the original vault! Rather than in the metal one in the city center," She says with a peppy bounce.

Sunset raises an eyebrow. "A spell like that would take a ton of magic or a relic. I don't know of any relic that can remove a cutie mark like that." Sunset shakes her head, mentally running through every relic she studied. "The leader of the town must be... quite the pony."

The pony nods proudly, puffing her chest out a little in response. "She is. Starlight was and is quite the unicorn. I can't say much more than that! She is likely going to meet you herself anyway! I can say that she was the pony that taught everyone here the true meaning of friendship and equality." The pony then nods at the group, sighing quietly to herself. "Enjoy your stay~!" She heads inside, leaving the group to 'enjoy' their meal, propaganda playing endlessly through speakers sprinkled around the city.

"True meaning of friendship?" Sunset mumbles a little as she stares at the large, dreary city surrounding them. "They have skyscrapers, apartment blocks, and roads, but nothing feels alive here. It just feels. Fake." She then taps her chin in thought. If her hunch is correct, there must be some resistance. 'But worse than that, we're in serious danger here.'

Sunset then finally notices the rest of the group staring at her curiously. Rainbow Dash tilted her head. "You have the same look Twilight does when she's thinking way too hard." She says with a little smile. "We could use some good ideas right now, too, whatcha got?" The girls lean in towards Sunset, who blinks in surprise. She knew that they would be accepting, and I mean, of course, they would. But this is on a different level.

"Oh! I didn't wanna be rude or anything over this stuff. But uh. Honestly, I don't think we're really safe here." She says quietly, whispering to the others as quietly as she can. If she knows anything about places like this, it is that there are eyes and ears everywhere. "We need to figure out what's going on and fix this without getting ourselves wrapped up in everything." Biting her lower lip in nervousness. "Honestly, though, this seems more like something someone more important would handle."

"Yer kinda lookin' at those 'important' people, Sugarcube," Applejack responds as the girls sit back a little, each smiling in their own way. "And since yer here, you are too."

"It's kinda what we do, ya know. You even said you do it yourself in your world, too!" Rainbow Dash adds on, nodding proudly as always, before everyone tries to get her to quiet down a little. Waving away any stares they get from the surrounding ponies. "Okay, okay! Sorry." Rainbow says after a light scolding from Applejack, sighing lightly as she lays her head on the table.

The group let out a collective giggle, Fluttershy looking to Sunset. "Uhm. If you have an idea, we would all really appreciate hearing it. There's no bad ideas here." Fluttershy then tilts her head and gives a gentle smile. She is certainly much more confident than Fluttershy Sunset knows, something Sunset takes note of.

"In that case. If my world is anything to go off of, places like this tend to use something, in this case, everypony's cutiemarks being taken, to keep them here. But where there is oppression, there is resentment. It's just a natural thing. Even if Ponies are much more gentle than humans, there has to be a breaking point. I suggest we find any resistance around the town and see if we can't work with them. Course, we have to do it after the tour ends." She says as she looks towards the large gates slowly opening to reveal a small procession of Ponies marching forward. The rest of the mane 6 nod, wordlessly agreeing with Sunset's plan as they look towards the pony approaching their table.

"Hello there, friends! My name is Starlight Glimmer, and I am the leader of this lovely little city!" The light purple pony smiles as she brazenly has her cutiemark exposed, ponies staring in reverence... or perhaps fear at the unicorn. With one little glare at the large group, the ponies all disperse, returning to their duties. "I heard that you're friends with Princess Twilight Sparkle! So, of course, I HAD to come and greet you all personally. It's a shame that the Princess got sick, though. I hope she gets better soon."

Applejack takes the back seat, unable to keep up a charade like the others, who also formulate what to say. That is until Sunset walks forward. "She'll be coming in a day or two, I am sure. Till then, we're just here because a magical map sent us out here to fix a problem?"

Starlight's eye twitches a little, clearly worried by the idea. A map led them straight to her secret city? This is a problem. She was prepared to deal with Twilight Sparkle. Sure, after all, she was always watching and waiting. "Hm... A problem?" she rubs her chin before getting an idea. "Well, there is one issue! We have a group of evil individuals constantly trying to break the peace we have in our city! These ponies have escaped our grasp for quite a while! I'd really appreciate it if you could help us catch them." she nods. "Come, follow me!"

Starlight then turns around and trots towards the open gates. "You'll all be my guests here in the town center. So please come with me."

As the group enters the city's center, past the gates, they're greeted with a land whole of color, at least from the bottom. Once the buildings are exposed above the sight-breaking walls, they become grey and gloomy again, but they hardly have any chance to enjoy the sights. Starlight looks over her shoulder as the large doors slam shut. "That's what you thought I'd say, right?" Starlight turns to the cornered group, surrounded by several guards, as she stares at Sunset. "I'm not going to take any chances, having heroes wandering around my city. I hope you understand. But having you around has already caused more problems than I'm willing to deal with."

Starlight's horn begins to spark with powerful, unbridled magic. Energy crackles off of it with great intensity. Lighting-esque jolts and forks of energy fly off in all directions as the spell begins to charge up.

The mane 6 quickly tries to push past the guards. Rainbow Dash tries to fly up and tackle Starlight before the spell can be fired. But the guards rapidly use their bodies to block the attempt, toppling over. The Pegasus is greeted by the first blast of magic, which twists through her body, plucking her cutie mark from her body. A strange = sign mark replaces it as the prismatic thundercloud vanishes into thin air. Rainbow Dash falls to the ground with a thud as Starlight grins at the group. "That's one!" She says with a glint in her eyes and a smirk.

Sunset thinks quickly on her hooves, trying to push back some of the guards with a shield, projecting it around herself and her friends. "What did you do to Rainbow Dash?!" Applejack says with a glare behind the barrier.

Starlight was tsking at the attempt. "Oh, how adorable! What a thin and sad little shield! Don't worry about it, though. You'll be joining your FRIEND right NOW!" She says, rearing back as she fires the thick blast of magic at the group.

The ancient spell shatters right through Sunset's shield, the unicorn woefully unprepared for something that powerful. Even if she had her amulet... would she have been able to block it? All these thoughts run through her head. 'Would I have been able to block it if I still trained? Why did I never come home?' she grimaces as she and her friends are quickly gripped by the spell, each one progressively stripped of their cutie marks and dropped on the ground.

Everypony except for Sunset. While she lost her mark, yes, it was replaced by the equals mark, too. She landed on her hooves instead. Sure, she felt mundane and couldn't feel the magic she usually had.

But she didn't have that for years before returning to Equestria. Her body didn't feel burdened by the sudden sealing of her natural magic or her energy being drained. Heck, she felt more tired after finals than this. "What? How are you still standing?!" Starlight says in surprise before Sunset suddenly punches right past her guards. She can't move faster than a march but knows how to make every step count. PE class mile runs are handy when you can only step to an invisible cadence! Sunset only has a little she can do, but she knows she can do this at the very least. Rushing straight at Starlight, she gives the unicorn one quick headbutt, the pair's horns striking and forcing both to misfire. While Sunset's flare was slight and frankly pathetic, Starlight's horn fired up a powerful firework into the sky, one that could be seen for miles.

"Heh~. Might not be much, but consider yourself exposed." Sunset says with a cheeky, almost rude grin before she's tackled down by Starlight's guards. The orange unicorn never expected an introductory self-defense class to teach her something useful. At least she was able to send Spike a message.

Spike quietly watches the sky outside of the cave, staring upwards. Twilight was no longer thrashing in her sleep, but she still hadn't woken up. "They can do it without Twilight. I'm sure. Although we don't know what we're dealing with, this huge city is full of what looked like mind-controlled ponies!" He laughs a little dryly. "Ugh." he rubs his forehead and looks at Twilight, sleeping just a distance from the mouth of the cave. "As long as there's not any warning sign, they'll be fine-"

Spike stares up at the sky, seeing the fireworks go off. A magical spell he's seen Twilight cast only once or twice. While it wasn't the right color, he could still feel it. Something happened, as is honestly typical for these adventures. Still doesn't make it any easier.

Spike looks to Twilight's sleeping form, grabbing a quill and a scroll, beginning to write to Celestia and Luna. "Guess we might actually need the princesses." He mumbles.

Twilight's hoof then presses down on the scroll, still dazed and grunting. "Where did the others go? I have to warn them." She says to Spike before noticing the fading magical sparks in the sky. "Oh no..."

Sunset groans as she stands up inside the cell she was tossed into, a little grimace on her face as she rubs her forehead. "Great. I'm stuck in an actual proper jail. I was hoping for a weird small room that just plays propaganda."

"Oh, we stopped using that room a year ago or so," Starlight says from around the corner. "Although we do use it from time to time for fun." She smirks at the orange pony through the bars, making a hm noise. "I recognize the other ponies as Twilight's friends, but you. You're new. Who are you?" She says to Sunset with curiosity.

Sunset blinks and taps her chin. "I've been away. That's all you're getting out of me." She says with a smirk. "Not gonna get much more there." She chuckles to herself. "I don't deal with dictators."

"Dictator?! How dare you! I am NOT a dictator!" Starlight says as calmly as she can in the situation. "But that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter who you are. Because you'll never be getting out of here. I don't know how you can resist the effects of my spell so well, but you're a threat that I cannot allow to stick around!" She says with a stomp, attempting to intimidate Sunset. Sunset doesn't take a single step backward and glares at Starlight in response, utterly unimpressed by the unicorn's attempt at threatening her.

"You know, Twilight is gonna notice that we're missing, and she's going to come here. You'll lose. And when you do, every single pony that's harboring resentment. All those little rebels and everyone you've hurt will come for you. People and ponies like you always overlook something. You never see the full picture, and that is why you will ALWAYS lose." Sunset says with a snort.

Starlight glares down at Sunset. "I'll keep your marks close then rather than in the vaults." She says with a smirk. "So even if somehow you manage to free all the cutiemarks of the silly little serf ponies in the city, you'll NEVER be free. I hope you enjoy being markless for the rest of your life. Sunset, whatever!" Starlight laughs as she walks towards the stairs. Sunset sighed a little. "You get all that?"

"I got it." Says a voice behind Sunset. In the shadows, a cloaked pony steps forward. "I'll relay this to the resistance. Are you sure that Twilight will return our marks to us?"

Sunset nods in advance. "She's listening right now anyway. She knows what to do. There has to be something they missed, something... Important."

Sunset quietly taps her chin. "Another vault. The baker said that her mark is in an entirely separate vault, the original vault or something."

The cloaked pony nods, lowering her cowl and revealing her identity as said baker pony. "Oh, right. Honestly, I hoped you'd all take the hint and go to the mountains to find it. It's in a cave up there. Much of the resistance's marks are still there, but so are the marks of the administrators. Which could be an issue. We only know of one Administrator that would be on our side." She sighs. "But even just a hoof full of us getting our marks back could start a revolution. So we need to go for it. Did Twilight get that?"

Sunset nods, "Yeah. She's still here." She says as she stares at a glistening form of Twilight that only she can see. A powerful spell that, even with her suppressed energy, she can tell is draining the ambient magic rather rapidly. "Alright then. Time to break out. We got all the info we needed. Twilight, once you free the rebel's cutie marks, we'll storm the vault from the inside. So please hurry."

Outside the city, Twilight opens her eyes from her meditation. Spike looked at her expectantly, worried about the others. "The others are doing okay. Sunset is trapped in a dungeon. The rest are stuck in a shed that's just trying to brainwash them with constant propaganda. Sunset has a plan, though. We're gonna free some cutie marks from a vault out here." Twilight lifts Spike up to her back. "Which means we need to find greyslate."

"What's greyslate?" Spike asks Twilight, curious about what he should be looking out for.

"It's a special rock that has the ability to contain cutiemark magic. Theoretically, it can store cutiemarks permanently if you carve out little holes in it, meaning we need to find a semi-worked or hidden cave." She says as she searches around the nearby mountains from the air.

"Like that one?" Spike says as he points towards a small crack in the mountain. As they approach, it opens up into a reasonably wide cave.

"On point as always, my faithful assistant." Twilight says proudly, thinking, 'I was about twenty seconds away from just blowing the mountain up.'

Twilight then shakes her head as she enters the hidden cave, trotting just a few moments into the back, greeted by a wall full of cutiemarks. And another... In fact, all three walls are filled to the brim with at least 300 cutie marks! "Nine hundred ponies..." She says with a grimace.

'Nine hundred more ponies, plus the others. All your fault.' The little voice says in Twilight's head. The alicorn shook her head.

'Stop that. Stop thinking that way. Focus on the mission. Focus on what's going on. Deal with it later.' Twilight says to herself. 'There are more important things to worry about right now.'

The voice fades away after a moment. Suppressed by Twilight's current urgency towards her objective. "Hey, Spike."

Spike looks up at Twilight after a moment. "Yeah?"

"Let's break everything." She says with a smile, and with one punch, she shatters one entire vault of cutie marks, freeing all three hundred inside in that one mighty swing. "Oh, that felt good."

Starlight was confident. She knew that with all her planning and careful, well-thought-out ideas, she could beat back whatever resistance Sunset and her little friends could do with ease.

She was wrong.

Here she was, standing in the streets of her city, watching chaos unfold as hundreds of ponies found their cutie marks returning to them. While looking intimidating, the guard was still just a tiny force of forty. Even with the help of the one Administrator who had her back... There wasn't anything she could do. The vaults were being broken into, and all she could do was... well run. "How...?"

Sunset stands tall and proud, even without her cutie mark, staring at Starlight from the crowd. "Well... It was kinda easy."

Sunset smiles. "Once my friend here got her cutie mark back, she convinced some guards to let her in with her delicious baked goods, and from there, she released me from my cell."

Sunset pants as she keeps up her fast-paced march; PE class only takes you so far, and this is starting to get exhausting. "Where is the vault?! I thought you said you had a map of this place!" She says with a huff.

Sugar Belle stares at the map floating in her light blue magic. "Relax, we're almost there. It feels long because you can't run with that curse on you. We'll get you free soon, though. Everypony will rise up once they get their marks back!" She says proudly.

"Except my marks and my friend's marks aren't even there. We don't know where they are." Sunset says with a huff and puff. "But. If it's any consolation." Sunset mumbles as she thinks back to when her friends forgot about her. Working through figuring out the magic of the memory stone, sneaking into the restricted section of Canterlot Library... Getting caught by Luna twice. Avoiding Celestia was a pain then. In hindsight, she might have actually saved her friends in time to restore all their memories instead of only the partial restoration she managed if she had just spoken to her old teacher...

"I trust you all, though. Please help me save my friends. Please." Sunset says to Sugar Belle.

"Oh, don't you worry, Sugar. We'll keep you and your friends safe and sound. You can trust the resistance and the goodness in the ponies' hearts," Sugar Belle says with a smile as they push into the vast, circular vault. Thousands of cutie marks are stored inside the brittle stone and glass structure. Sugar Belle smiles as she stares at the cylindrical object.

"Now... Let's get everypony free." She says

"Turns out, it doesn't matter who you are. Hero, normal average pony, or even a villain. You can do good, and you CAN change. So how about you give us our marks back... and we can forget all about this." she says with a smile.

Starlight grimaces a little. "Cheesy. Way too cheesy. You and your friends ruined EVERYTHING! YEARS of work, YEARS of practice, and indoctrination! GONE overnight! And you talk to me about friendship and forgiveness. Well, let me tell you this, Sunset." She says with a glare towards the unicorn. "I will NEVER forgive you for this!"

Starlight then quickly charges her horn and teleports past the mob, rushing away at full speed while the large flash of light blinds the ponies around her. But even then, Rainbow Dash, with her quick eyes, notices something. "She has our marks in her bag!"

This riles up the citizens, who quickly make chase after Starlight... But her quick short-range teleports allow her to quickly create a significant lead on them. Before one last one sends her entirely out of sight.

Starlight pants as she appears from her final teleport right in front of a cave leading into the snowy mountains. She had lost them... All of them. Did she actually win in the end? How? "Hah... Haha.... YES! I did it...?" She trails off and sees a figure walk forward, wings stretching as Twilight reveals herself from the cave mouth.

"Your short-range teleports could use a little work. You left behind a trail. If Sunset had her cutie mark, she'd be able to track you from here to Yakyakistan." Twilight says to the pony. "But you already know that, right? Starlight Glimmer?" She says

Starlight is taken a little aback, stepping backward. "How do you-"

"Know your name? I know the names of all of her descendants. That was the first thing I checked when I returned. Although, using the equality spell. I gotta admit, you're just as dumb as I was at your age." She says with a sigh.

Starlight glares at Twilight. "What?! I gave them true friendship! I gave them peace and harmony! A place to live without strife! A place away from cutiemarks and the horrible things they impose on the average pony! I SAVED them. You don't get to say I'm dumb. What have YOU ever done for anyone? Disappear for years? Cause everypony to panic over you? Oh yeah, I keep up with the papers!"

Twilight just quietly stares at Starlight, looking at her with unchanging eyes. Not even reacting to the unicorn's anger. Twilight sighs once she figures that the pony is done ranting. "It's okay." She says with a smile. "You don't understand yet. Just. Give it some time."

Suddenly, Starlight feels a shift in the air, and Twilight has vanished from view. "I'm back here," Twilight says from the bridge, carrying each jar with her friend's cutiemarks inside. All six float in her colorless magic. I'm going to let you go, Starlight, not because I can't stop you or for any other ridiculous and illogical excuse you might come up with. But because unlike the other two."

Twilight looks downwards for a moment. "You resemble your great-grandmother the most. You might use the wrong methods and hurt some ponies, but." Twilight takes a deep breath, looking towards the confused unicorn. "You have good in you. I promise to bring that out of you, hell or high water." She says with a smile. A motherly smile even.

Starlight grimaces, but every fiber in her being is saying to flee. She's exhausted much of her magic and more. "I won't forget this humiliation. I will be back for you AND your little friends." She then quickly runs into the cave, a sneakily placed Spike dropping a small, dull rock in her path.

"I won't let your story end the same way as hers," Twilight says as she watches Starlight flee. Her magic glows violently as it breaks the jars open, releasing the marks inside from both her aura and the glass. All six marks go flying, returning to their owners. A festival and party quickly take shape in the town.

"Twilight, are you sure you don't want to go to the party?" Spike says to Twilight, who is sitting on the snowy mountaintop.

"Maybe later, Spike. You go have fun," she says, watching him leave with a wave and a smile, which fades shortly afterward.

"You can come out now," Twilight says. "Let's talk."

Chapter 3: A (Few) Conversation(s)

"I'd say bleeding heart as always, but we both know that's a lie." a voice says as its owner walks around the corner. Wallflower stands to the side, leaning on the rock Spike dropped from earlier. "I did expect you and Starlight to fight it out, though. Tsk tsk~, ruining my plans already? What happened to the impulsive and legendary Queen I was taught about?"

"You read my book already, Wallflower. Don't act coy and sit down. You aren't going to goad me into fighting you or your family." Twilight says as she clears a spot in the snow, watching her friends from afar. Already, the town has splashes of color, with painter ponies throwing paint everywhere and giving it life. Albeit chaotic life, but life nonetheless.

"Pfth. You're no fun." The green pony says as she sits down. "Eugh. Look at them, reveling in pure and utter chaos. There's no rhyme, reason, or effort. Paint is going everywhere, ponies are getting filthy, yet they're celebrating it." Wallflower shakes her head.

"Because it's fun," Twilight says to Wallflower, sighing a little as she finally relaxes a small amount, her cosmetic glamour falling off her body. She isn't relaxed enough to drop her guard; after all, she is sitting with a self-proclaimed enemy. But enemies have become friends before. "Order is just as necessary as chaos and bla bla." Twilight leans forward. "Not that you care. You're just doing what your predecessor did centuries ago. You aren't an immortal spirit; you're a young pony... comparatively, anyway. Don't throw your life away like this Wallflower. With your blessings and whatever else you're hiding, you could do much good for Equestria."

Wallflower sighs in exasperation. She really hates hearing these lectures. "I am doing good for Equestria, even if you don't see it that way." With that, she sits back, snow crunching beneath her haunches as she adjusts herself to get comfortable. "You made the equality spell yourself, so you know how it is. To be so close to a perfect utopia of order and peace that you can taste it on your tongue."

Twilight shakes her head. "Utopias don't exist for a reason. That was a big mistake that I still think about. Granted, I guess it wasn't very long ago for me. In the end, though, even she learned that lesson."

That elicited a response almost instantly. Twilight caught Wallflower's hoof with her own, only an inch away from her cheek. "You're still too young for this Wallflower. Points for keeping your temper in check that long, though. Now sit down or leave."

Wallflower pulls her hoof back, her gaze piercing into Twilight's head. If she could shoot lasers from her eyes, she would be doing so! "You don't get to speak for her," Wallflower says with a venomous, slithering tone. "No one does except for me! I am her successor! Me!" With that, she turns away. "Enjoy your win, for now, Twilight. I hope you like the gift I left you! It's eye-opening."

Twilight tilts her head in confusion, watching Wallflower walk towards a corner. "Gift? You didn't leave me a gift." Standing up, Twilight watches Wallflower carefully. Even though she's worried about this 'gift' that Wallflower left her, she has something more important to watch.

She needs to figure out how Wallflower's bloodline magic works. Until she can figure out how to see past the perception blocking and strange, almost Pinkie Pie ability to teleport when out of sight, she knows she can't simply just arrest the pony.

Wallflower smiles a little. "My bloodline magic isn't weak like Spectator's, Your Majesty. I can make it affect others I'm close to." She then smirks. "And even invert it to make it hard for someone to tell that a certain group is right behind them~. Ciao~" She says as she turns the corner and vanishes from sight. Relishing in the sight of Twilight's confusion, then surprise as her friends stand behind her. Both were gawking and wide-eyed at her appearance.

'Oh, it's so good to be bad.' Wallflower thinks to herself as she seemingly vanishes from the area.

"Buck!" Twilight says as she quickly glares towards where Wallflower trotted off to, attempting to swoop around the corner and catch the pony. She refuses to let this slide! But of course, as she does so, there is nothing there but snow and a stone path leading around the mountain. She can still see Starlight in the distance, but Wallflower is nowhere to be seen. Twilight lands on the craggy path, glaring in the distance before huffing angrily.

"Twilight?" A soft-spoken voice says from behind her, snapping her out of her rage.

Twilight closes her eyes, taking a deep breath. "Hey, everypony." She smiles as she turns to look towards them, her voice cracking mid-way through her sentence.

As soon as she turns to face them, the group staggers backward in recoil. "Twilight! You're uh... tall. Like really tall." Rarity tries to say, although her eyes are constantly moving, focusing on all the scars, from the one on Twilight's cheek to the one on her side to the most exposed one over her eye.

Rainbow Dash is less discreet, flying around her towering friend. "Woah. Twilight, you're in shape! Not just in shape, but like, you're on the level of the captain!" Rainbow rubs her head as she floats nearby. "No wonder your wings looked so much... more! What the heck were you doing that you need to have muscles like that?!"

Twilight sighs as she rubs her forehead a little bit. "Hey, it's not like I'm a bodybuilder. I'm toned, thank you very much! Don't go comparing me to Bulk or his family." She giggles a little. She figured Rainbow would focus on something other than her scars, which she greatly appreciates.

"Darling, I don't mean to be crass, but-"

"What in the sweet apples happened to you?!" Applejack says, overtaking Rarity for a moment. "Ah mean, tallness aside, those ain't just cooking injuries."

Spike chimes in, although he's fully used to Twilight's undisguised form. "I mean, it is Twilight. It could be cooking injuries." There is a moment of murmuring between the group. Twilight is deadpanning as she stares at her assistant. Who is absolutely not going to get any snacks tonight for that comment.

"Maybe we should let Twilight talk?" Fluttershy whispers out. Unable to be heard above the general murmuring and deliberation before she clears her throat. Taking a deep breath before shouting. "MAYBE WE SHOULD LET TWILIGHT TALK!... Please?" Every pony's ears perked up, the rest of the girls looking frazzled. Even Twilight was caught off guard by Fluttershy's sudden outburst.

"That is a good idea! Why just be confused when we can have some snacks and talk about it!" Pinkie says as she suddenly produces a picnic basket and coats from her mane. "I even prepared my super deluxe emergency 'on top of a cold, snowy mountain' picnic basket!"

Pinkie leaned in suddenly, whispering into Twilight's ear, "I packed extra sandwiches just in case!"

Twilight stands there, confused for a moment. Twilight's brain still hasn't fully adjusted to a fully realized Pie family member, and by the time her thoughts are sorted out, the others already laid out the blanket, and the group is simply waiting for her to sit. "Before we start, though, where is Sunset?"

"Over here," Sunset says, having teleported to the other side of the bridge. The others said they would look for you but never returned. Guess the beans are spilled, eh?" Sunset then sits on the blanket, and the group settles in before they all look at Twilight.

"So uh, there's no easy or nice way to say this, but uh-" Applejack begins before Rainbow takes over.

"What happened to you?! Why are you super tall? And uh, can I get your training regimen?" Rainbow says, stumbling over her words as she speaks rapidly, almost choking on her sandwich. However, after a moment (and a few glares from the others), Rainbow caves and mumbles. "Oh, and also yeah. Scars. Explain."

Twilight giggles lightly at Rainbow's genuine concern about asking about the scars. "Don't worry, I get it. I uh. Honestly, I didn't want you all to see me like this, but since it's out, I'm sorta resigned to the fact that it happened."

With a deep breath, Twilight sits back. "I would prefer not to talk about everything, but as for the scars." Twilight raises a hooft, pointing at each of the scars: "Assassination attempt, assassination attempt, and, who guessed it, assassination attempt. You'd be surprised what a pony with a knife can do when you're exhausted and too tired to fight back. Although one was a griffon. I think. They all sorta started to blur together after the tenth one." Twilight scratches her mane as she thinks back. Considering how many creatures, in general, wanted her dead over her time in the past, it was hard to remember which ones damaged her enough to leave a scar rather than just a gash.

Twilight then continues. "By the time the griffon war happened, I was already a bit too strong to take any real damage from anyone, so most of these I got when I was around, eh? Let's say like a thousand years old or so. Alicorn years make the math impossible."

By the time Twilight finishes mumbling and reminiscing, the rest of the group cannot hold back their exclamations. Words such as "Wha?!" and "Why?!" are thrown left and right as each pony and dragon speak over each other. Even Sunset and Pinkie, who know more than the others, are involved in the chaotic flood of words targeted at her.

"Girls, I can't-" Twilight gets cut off by more of their speaking and clamoring, a familiar feeling creeping into her mind, which she quickly suppresses.

"Spike can yo-" Yet again, she's cut off, the feeling returns, nagging at her, her eyes sharpening reflexively.

"Sunset, you already kn-" again, they cut her off. Twilight knows that they're not doing it on purpose; after all, they just found out their friend, by all intents and purposes, survived through at least three attempts on her life. However, along with all the mental issues that Twilight brought back with her from the past, there was one that she never was quite able to snuff out.

She has a short temper when someone is rude, even incidentally. This problem was never really an issue, primarily due to her rank, but now she's in a situation she was mentally unprepared for. Twilight does try to hold herself back, pushing the irritation down.

She's failing, though. Even with Fluttershy trying to help her get a word out, her breathing sharpens, and her thoughts become more cluttered with every passing word. The chaotic cacophony of voices begins to both feel and sound like daggers piercing into her skull.

Twilight snaps moments afterwards "EVERYPONY STOP TALKING OVER EACH OTHER!" Twilight yells out, using the voice of the Queen on her friends.

The voice of the Queen is the variant of the Royal Canterlot voice that Twilight and only Twilight could use. She would commonly use it on unruly groups, mostly to get them to quiet down or take a step back so she could answer their questions or adequately interact with them. Ponies of her time as Queen were resilient enough that the voice would often break their panic or mob mentality. The effects are instant, and the group quiets down as the ancient alicorn technique exposes much of Twilight's magical pressure upon her unprepared friends.

However, Twilight's sudden shift in presence and apparent displeasure terrify the group of modern ponies to their core. Rather than shaking their minds free from their panic, the special magical voice makes Twilight the source of it. Even the bravest of the group, a tie between Sunset, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack, nearly fall over from the instinctual fear they feel as their frantic, worried minds snap from 'worried about their friend' to 'worried about the upset monster in the metaphorical room.'

To them, there was simply one fact in their hearts. If they didn't quiet down, then they would get hurt. That's all they could think of, no matter how illogical. Even their years and deep relationship with Twilight were nothing compared to the force and pressure they felt upon themselves. It was as if Twilight's voice and presence suddenly shifted from her usual self to a persona demanding respect and fear.

There was instant regret on Twilight's face the moment the words left her mouth. "I uh. Are you?" As Twilight reaches toward the toppled-over ponies, Fluttershy and Rarity recoil away from her hoof. Twilight's ears flattened down a little.

"I didn't. I." Twilight's mind races, trying to find the right words to say. But the terrified looks on her friend's faces were all directed toward her.

It was soul-crushing. This reaction was why Twilight didn't want this to happen and kept everything a secret. With nothing left in her arsenal of excuses or a way to diffuse the situation, Twilight just quietly mumbles as she says, "I'll... I'll just go. Enjoy the picnic."

Before her friends could recover, Twilight left the group on the mountainside. She doesn't go very far, but she gets out of sight at the very least. It's easier to recover from terror when the object of it isn't in view after all. Twilight heads slightly down the mountain with a little trot, using her magic to make a nice patch of snow for her to sit in. Alone.

"At least I have a sandwich." She mumbles as she takes a bite out of the snack, the alicorn taking solace in that her friends are both the most forgiving and hopefully hardier than most.

"I mean, there's no way Spike will stay terrified of me, right? And Rainbow? Psh, she eats danger for breakfast! There's no way she'll stay that scared!" Twilight says to herself.

"Nah, they'll be fine; you just exposed them to an ancient technique made to suppress groups AND your immense magical power! Also, I think Fluttershy passed away from that. You're totalllllllyyyy mentally stable enough to be here!" Says a voice only Twilight can hear.

"If you're not going to be helpful, then Shut up. I don't need another voice stuck in my head telling me how much of a failure I am." Twilight grumbles out as she takes another bite out of her sandwich. The food tastes like sandpaper, not because of the quality but because of Twilight's racing mind.

"I'm not your silly scapegoat personality, Twilight. You have problems, a lot of them. Enough that you're projecting another you so that you don't have to face your issues. Which fair, you've got literal ghosts of your past up here, and frankly, if you have another panic attack, we're absolutely going to go off the mental deep end." The other Twilight says the shade 'sitting' next to Twilight, with no noise or physical imprint.

"Considering I'm having a stress hallucination right now, I figured as much. Tell me something I don't already know." Twilight says to herself. "Just go away. I don't wanna hear it."

With that, the shade sighs and shakes its head, vanishing into nothingness. With one last munch, Twilight finishes her sandwich.

Hours later, the group boards the train back to Ponyville, Sunset, and the girls wave to their new friends. Twilight can't help but smile at the six's interaction with the ponies of the strange town, watching from the window of the back train car. Having ditched the disguise, which no longer has a purpose, Twilight just quietly watches her friends, student, and assistant board the train. It's a lonely ride back, with only one visit from Spike near the end. But even then, such a small thing made her smile.

"You think they hate me, Spike?" Twilight quietly asks as she sits next to her assistant.

Spike scoffs a bit, having found his nerve relatively fast for somecreature his age. "Course, not Twilight. Just give them some time. I know it's been a while for you, but your friendship with them is stronger than a single slip-up. Besides, it's not like you all haven't felt true terror before, considering Tierk, Discord, and Nightmare Moon. They need time to find the bravery to talk with you again. You were pretty scary."

Twilight sighs a little bit as she leans on a hoof. "I need therapy." She mumbles out to herself.

"I'll make some time on your schedule," Spike says with an almost official-sounding tone as he pulls a parchment from nothingness and begins to write on it in big, bold letters, 'Therapy, say sorry to friends, and pancake breakfast.'

Twilight giggles lightly, sighing as she looks out the window. "Things... will be fine. Right?" She says to her reflection as the train passes the familiar mountains again. "Right, Moondancer?"

Spike tilts his head as he hears Twilight's mumbling, not taking his eyes away from a fresh paper that he is populating with a proper schedule for Twilight. "That's right. It is almost Moondancer's birthday again. I should get her a card." He mumbles to himself. "Thanks for reminding me."

Twilight, for all her wisdom, stares at Spike with confusion, utterly flabbergasted by the implications of his response. "Wat?"

Chapter 4: Mending Fences

Something has gone wrong. We don't seem to have an archived copy of that chapter.

Chapter 5: A Timeline of Consequences Part 1

"You'll be fine, Sunset. Besides, my speech is right after yours." Twilight says as she travels towards the large magic schoolhouse in Canterlot, her student Sunset following behind and shuffling through cards.

Twilight continues as she looks over her shoulder toward her student, watching the subtle signs of worry on her face. "You're the only pony qualified here to talk about things like advanced science and anything else from your world. You'll have to get used to making speeches like this eventually ANYWAYS."

Sunset flips through the cards again, going through them for the twentieth time that morning alone. Sunset then peeks from behind the cards with a huff. "You sprung this on me last minute! Besides, speeches I can do. TEACHING an entire class about stuff I'm far from an expert on is rough!"

Twilight blinks. "I gave you two and a half months! I told you about it when you and Fluttershy returned from the Smokey Mountains. Besides, I'm talking about cutie-mark magic. That's rough."

Sunset stares at her teacher with a deadpan expression. "Twilight, weren't you the one that made a spell that- MPGFHFN." Sunset's words are cut off by a hoof pushed over her mouth by her teacher. A little stare escapes her as she pulls away from it. "Alright, that was a low blow even for me, but still. The point stands."

Twilight sighs. "Yeah, well, Celestia asked if I could talk about how Cutie Marks can bring ponies together and push them apart. Pretty downer on the second part, but realistically, if ponies want to study them, they'll have to observe both the good and the bad. Are you still fine with being my second example?"

Sunset waves her hoof. "You know I'm always okay with helping out. Besides, I'd be a bitter prisoner in Canterlot's dungeons if you hadn't gotten your cutie mark... or just living life in the other world, I guess."

Twilight tilts her head a little and hums. "Perhaps. I did tell Celestia to go easy on you back in the day. Although considering how she and her sister act, sometimes I wonder if they even remember half my lessons."

Sunset laughs a little. "Yeah, no, Celestia was a stick in the mud before she taught you. Honestly, I'm pretty sure she just fell apart without Luna, no matter how prepared you made her for it, but that's in the past."

Twilight shrugs. "I did my best. Anyways, let's get in there and do our best."

"Wait. We're already here?! I'M NOT READY," Sunset says in a panic as Twilight drags her into the building.

"Cutiemarks can bind people together in a way that nothing else can. Some ponies can even achieve or gain their marks simultaneously, and typically, although there are only about three known cases of this, those ponies are irrevocably bound by fate. Cutiemarks seem to have a core connection with the world, if not the gods or whatever you believe in. Of course, this can work in the opposite direction. Ponies tend to value their marks and fall out with their friends if they do not get them simultaneously or in different fields. This is normal, but there are plenty of cases where ponies abandon one another to pursue their talent." Twilight looks over at Spike, who, to his credit, was able to stay awake this long, but has now fallen asleep. With a sigh, she uses her magic to tick the next slide, not wishing to wake him up.

Twilight takes a small sip of water before continuing, watching the students scribble down their notes. Her eyes caught the presence of Starlight Glimmer. Without missing a beat, however, Twilight continues her speech.

"Mm. Anyways, In my first example, you have me and my friends. When Rainbow Dash did the Sonic Rainboom when we were young, it brought us all together in the end! Since then, fate has bound us and saved Equestria several times. Even my student and friend Sunset here." She motions to Sunset, who waves. "Is interconnected to that story thanks to that one event."

Sunset nods and takes over, stepping up to the podium. "Without Twilight and the others, I wouldn't be here. I'd still be a bitter bully in my world or worse." She sighs. "I'll take a moment to say that Cutie marks are what you make of them, though. You CAN have hobbies and be good at things outside of your talent, like how Twilight makes the best pancakes, or I love to play music! So if you decide to study cutie mark magic, remember not to fall into the pitfalls we described today!"

Twilight gives her student a little nod as she takes the podium once again. Clearing her voice, she says, "Well, we have about five minutes, so we will be asking questions of the audience. It can be about either of our presentations today."

After ten more minutes, they leave the lecture hall, Twilight taking a deep breath as Sunset slumps against the door. "Aghhhh... That was so rough. I'm glad it's over! I'm going to go home and crash in my bed for the rest of the day." Sunset sighs out in relief.

Twilight giggles a little bit as she helps Sunset up. "Well, the day isn't over yet, Sunset." She says idly as she levitates Spike and puts him on her back. "We have a... villain to take care of by the seems of it."

Sunset groans loudly and flumps on the ground. "Fine. Should we get the others?"

Twilight hums, "Mmm. Nah, you and I haven't had a duo adventure together yet! I think the first one was the only one we went on together. The map is pretty good at sending you with the others, though."

Spike chimes in. "Meanwhile, you haven't gotten a single friendship quest since we went to Starlight's town."

Sunset dryly laughs. "Because sending Twilight to fix something is effectively a nuclear option. It's like sending Celestia and Luna to fix something, but like-"

"20% more awesome?" Twilight interjects as she smirks back at Sunset, teleporting herself and her student to Ponyville's town square.

"Yeah, something like that. It'd be interesting to see how you would have fixed the issue at the Smokey Mountains." Sunset says, the air between the two light, even though they figure they're walking right into a trap.

Twilight stops and taps her chin. "Mmm... I probably woulda made it way worse at the start, leaving it to Fluttershy to fix in the end since she's better at helping ponies come together. Although when it comes to figuring out the reason for their feud, I think I could have done that too." She shrugs. "Hard to say. I haven't had to do stuff like that in a very long time. Honestly, I'm not too confident in solving things peacefully anymore, Sunset."

Sunset gives Twilight a nudge to the side. "Hey, don't make me tell Moondancer that you're being defeatest now. You're fine, Twilight. A little rough around the edges, but fine nonetheless."

Twilight smiles. "I appreciate that Sunset." The pair look up towards the castle, Twilight's gaze distant as she looks up towards her home. "Let's get this over with."

The trio enters the throne room of Twilight's castle. Starlight is seated on Twilight's throne, grinning towards the trio as they enter the room. "Hello, girls. I hope you don't mind if I make myself comfortable. These seats are nice, and don't get me started on this map. Make it yourself, Twilight?"

Sunset tilts her head. "Wait, you? I was expecting someone... more interesting."

Twilight shrugs. "B-list villains have to make an impression, Sunset." Twilight idly says, a slight smirk appearing as she watches Starlight's rising anger as the villain's face becomes red.

Twilight looks towards Sunset, shrugging and saying after a moment. "I'll invite Tirek next time. You could do with the magic practice."

Starlight glares as she stomps her hooves on the table. "B-List?! I'm more dangerous than any villain you may have encountered!"

Twilight deadpans at Starlight. "You haven't exactly proven that now, have you-. Oh." She says, cutting herself off as she notices two objects on the table: a wound-up scroll, and a strange, yet familiar, gauntlet. Twilight feels the rising feeling of dread coming up from deep inside herself as the object settles on the table.

"Where did you get that?" Twilight says with a glare as she interposes herself between Starlight and her student, waving Spike to the side as to push him behind her. "You're messing with something you could NEVER hope to understand, Starlight Glimmer!"

"What's going on, Twilight?" Spike says as he tries to look past Twilight towards Starlight, who smirks as she stomps her hoof into the metallic object. Magical energy is coursing through her body, causing both her body and the gauntlet to glow a bright teal blue.

"A little gift from my cousin. She said with this, even you'd be helpless against what happens next!" Starlight then focuses all that built-up magic into the scroll, energy surging through the map as the castle flickers and shakes violently. All the energy that created it is focused towards one goal as a violent swirl of magic distorts through the area, swallowing the room and objects within. Starlight laughs as she travels through the swirling portal. "I'll make sure you never have a good ending again!"

The magic vortex swirls violently as the trio holds onto the ground, table, and even chairs to avoid getting pulled in. The gusts of wind are deafening and blinding. Even Twilight struggles to hold on, grunting out, "D-Dang it! It's her magic! Hold on! I don't know what spell she cast, but it can't be good!"

Spike grunts and yells out as he begins to lose his grip. "Twilight. I can't. Hold. AHHH!" With a loud scrape, the dragon loses his grip on the table, pulled into the vortex after Starlight in a spinning tumble.

Sunset is next to get pulled in, unable to hold onto Applejack's chair, grunting against the vortex's pull. "Too... Much. What in Tartarus is this?!" She yells out as she tries to keep her grip, a hoof falling loose before, with a little slip, she gets tossed into the vortex next. Horn sparking and failing to cast anything as the ambient magic in the room is drained into the spell itself.

Twilight finally manages to open her eyes, and the winds force her to squint, but she's barely able to make out the sight of her student losing her grip and the missing presence of Spike. "NO! I WON'T LOSE ANYONE ELSE!" She says as she dives in after Spike and her student.

Sunset groans as she wakes up, falling rapidly from the sky. Hooves flail quickly as she sees a cloud approaching, horn sparking wildly. "Come on. Come on!" She grunts as a bright flash appears over her body, causing her to land and bounce on the cloud like a trampoline. "WAHKUF." She groans as she flies back up, seeing Spike falling from above. Thinking quickly, Sunset casts a bright area teleportation spell, flashing herself and Spike to the nearest cloud and depositing the pair onto it with a groan.

Sunset narrowly catches Spike before he falls through the clouds. "Ugh... What. Was that?"

Spike groans as he wakes up, looking down before yelling, "AHH!" He quickly clings to Sunset's neck, staring at the clouds and the ground far below. "Phew... That's a long way down." He says after a moment.

Sunset grunts a little as she gently pulls him off her neck. "Scratched my neck there a bit, bud." She says as she casts the cloudwalking spell on him, setting him down. "Is this... Cloudsdale? No, this looks way older than when Rainbow showed me around."

Spike rubs his chin, quickly thinking through as many possibilities as he can. He snaps his claws as he comes up with an idea, "Time magic then. We should be careful not to mess with anything if we can avoid it. If Starlight's spell is strong enough to alter the past, then we'd be doing a lot of damage just by being here."

Sunset stares at Spike with a tilt of her head. "How did you?"

Spike chuckles a little. "Twilight has the Spirit of Time in her!.. whatever that means. She obsesses over this type of stuff. I wonder where she is, though. She should be here with us."

"Oh, Twilight won't be joining us, Spike. At least, I hope not. I sent her somewhere where she'll be a bit more occupied. I'm not crazy enough to fight her one-on-one." Starlight says with a shudder, floating towards the pair in her own patented brand of self-levitation magic.

"But you, the pony who RUINED everything for me. Now, you're going to watch as everything falls apart. Thanks to your little lesson, I can ruin your life, AND Twilight's life in one fell swoop here!" Starlight says with a little smirk.

Spike flatly stares. "Or you'll destroy Equestria because Twilight and her friends have saved it so many times. You really should probably think this through."

Sunset briefly giggles. The situation is absurd to her, knowing what she knows. Not to mention, Starlight saw the presentation. After gathering herself, she looks at Starlight seriously, her eyes trailing toward the budding race behind Starlight. It's almost begun. So it was THAT day. "You saw the presentation, Starlight. Are you trying to destroy Equestria? I thought you just wanted your 'utopia'."

Starlight glares. "This is more than just that. I want to prove that Equestria is better off without cutiemarks. Yeah, sure, Twilight and her friends solved tons of problems." She says as she steps around on the clouds, interposing between the race and Sunset. "Heck, they might have even saved Equestria a few times, but somepony will step up instead of them. Even if it has to be me!" She says as she quickly sparks her horn, sending a surge of wind right at Rainbow Dash shortly after the race begins, knocking the filly mid-flight down into a cloud, heind hooves sticking out of the fluffy object as she flails and fails to free herself. Sunset tries to stop the spell from making contact with her own. However, her hornwork is still rusty, her spell veering off slightly to the right of Starlight's. However, when the spell's impact on the ground, it causes a swell of energy that surprises the villainous unicorn, a large explosion disrupting the ground on impact.

"WOAH," Starlight says as she quickly ducks a follow-up spell from Sunset. "What was that spel-?! EEP!" Starlight says, cut off as she sees Spike flying straight at her, having been fastballed by Sunset. The baby dragon quickly latches onto her face, the vortex of time beginning to pull Sunset and Spike back into their new present. All she has to do is hold on for a moment longer.

"SPIKE THE BAG!" Sunset shouts as she flashes her horn with a powerful, blinding light. Spike uses the opportunity to move, exposing Starlight's eyes to the sun's radiance. It is only for a moment, but long enough for Spike to be able to tear her bag and steal the scroll right from it.

"NO!" Starlight yells as she tries to reach out with her magic, but she's far too late. Sunset and Spike were sent back to the present.

And she was stuck in the past grimacing. "Shoot. This is gonna be harder than I thought." Starlight says with a mumble.

Sunset and Spike groan as they fall out of the magical vortex with a thud, slamming down onto the table map with a groan. "Okay. Maybe we should have gotten the others for this. You think we still can?" Spike says with a grunt as he stands himself up.

Sunset stumbles a bit as she hoists herself up on the map, looking down on it, grunting as she holds her side. "Doubt it, if Twilight never met them, then I don't even exist in this world." Sunset yelps as she stumbles forward a little, her body cracking slightly as she begins to pulse a shining, red light from said cracks.

Spike's eyes widen as he quickly goes to Sunset's side, helping her stand as well as he can. "Sunset? What's wrong?!"

Sunset grunts a little, putting two and two together after a moment of looking at herself on the shiny, reflective surface of the map. "I don't exist here, remember? Without Twilight getting the elements, I'd have zero reason to come back here. Meaning, me being here is an anomaly."

Spike stares at Sunset, grinning a little. "You WERE listening to Twilight's lectures on time magic!"

Sunset giggles a little and huffs lightly. "I'd send that back at you, Spike, but this seriously hurts. Give me the scroll, " she says, waving her hoof in a 'give it here' fashion. Once Spike passes it to her, she begins levitating it over the map as she unfurls it and reads through it, the pulsing pain visible on her face as her eyes scan the paper.

"Normally, I'd take my time with this, but I'm not an alicorn. There's no way I have a chance to test this out in the limited time I got." She says as she grabs a stick and some mud, running it over some of the writing on the scroll before firing a blast of magic at it. The scroll glows brightly with Sunset's red magic, swirling before it sends a surge of energy into the map, a small red bubble appearing around the area.

"There... That should buy me an hour. Gngh. Two tops." Sunset says through gritted teeth. "Can't rely on Twilight either. Although, maybe we can find her." She says as she waves a hoof up and down in thought before putting both of her forehooves on the map and looking down at it.

"The Crystal Empire is massive... Yeesh. What villain was that?" Sunset says as she takes a deep breath, feeling much better in the bubble now as the cracks in her body begin to seal up gradually.

"Sombra, I defeated him myself by delivering the crystal heart! But if we weren't there to stop him..." Spike trails off as he realizes the gravity of the situation.

"Sombra is an old name. It's probably an all-out war." Sunset says as she stares at the borders worried about her friends, her family... She doesn't even know how to return to the past to fix this. She had to modify the time-traveling spell to keep herself stabilized in the timeline, so that was off the table.

As Sunset thinks, a voice rings out. "That is correct. After the Crystal Empire returned, there was an attempt at solving the issue similarly to how it should have been. Unfortunately, the pony that attempted it failed to resist Sombra's influence."

Walking forward is an off-teal pony, gently glowing as she enters the bubble, seemingly unaffected by the time distortion. She then looks over the map. "Fascinating. So you're planning on fixing this, I hope? Although, you're falling apart at the seams there a little." She says idly to Sunset, looking at the final crack seal up from the magic.

Sunset steps back a little bit, feeling... unsettled by the pony. "Where did you come from? There was nothing nearby."

The pony tilts her head, holding out her hoof, with what could only be described as a grin. "Oh, sorry, I was being rude. Nice to meet you, Sunset. My name is Unity, but you can call me-"

Sunset quickly steps backward from the hoof. "Oh, HELL NO!" She says with a stumble backward, grabbing Spike away from the pony as well. She nearly stumbles out of the bubble in the process.

The Spirit sighs quietly. "It's Tartarus here, dear. But yes, because Twilight never became Celestia's student, I was never sealed into the tree, so I'm here. Although your fear is expected, don't worry. I'm here to help." She looks up towards the spell, watching it as Sunset sidles and moves towards the opposite side of the table, making a little bit of distance.

Spike mumbles after a moment, still keeping an eye on Unity. "So that's why Wallflower was okay with this. She doesn't care if Equestria falls apart, she just wanted-"

Unity cuts him off and waves her hoof. "Me revived yes. Can we move past this already? You two couldn't hurt me if you wanted to, so you have no choice but to trust me anyway."

Sunset grimaces a little, looking at Spike for a moment. He nods towards Sunset, affirming the Spirit's statement.

"Or I could leave, and you two can flounder until your little spell runs out. I heard being shunted from time and space is quite... painful." Unity says with a glare. "I may be 'reformed,' but I still was a villain."

"So was I," Sunset says with a sigh. "Fine. I don't have time for other options right now anyways."

"Sunset. No!" Spike says, "We can figure something out! Find Celestia or Luna!"

"We don't have a choice." She says to Spike with a grimace. "Celestia and Luna are probably fighting a war, and I doubt we'll find anything else that can help us right now. Not to mention, I don't know how Celestia without Twilight's influence would react to me. As much as I hate to say it, Unity is our best bet."

"Good! In that case. This is long overdue, Sunset." She says as she steps forward. "I have a quest for you. I will return you to Starlight, but only moments after she appears in the past. You must defeat and stop her by any means without Twilight's help. Unfortunately, she will be busy for now."

"Where is Twilight?" Spike says, still not trusting Unity as he stares daggers at her.

"Oh, she was sent back to the height of her power. Back when she was the Queen of Equestria. Back when she trusted nopony." Unity says. "To the era of herself that she hates the most."

After a moment of blank stares and confusion, Unity drops all pretense, annoyed that the implication was lost. "She's fighting herself because she has bucking issues. I mean, has she HEARD of therapy?"

"Actually, she is going through therapy now," Spike responds. "Although she just started."

"Sides, you caused well over 99% of those issues," Sunset says with a little bite behind her words.

"Oh, my dear. 99% is underselling it a little, don't you think?" Unity says with a snide voice, grinning. Just egging Sunset on. "But." She holds out her hoof towards Sunset, staring at her with unblinking, soulless eyes. "I'm not about to let Equestria fall because of my family's mania again. I don't even WANT to return, much less in this manner. So, I'm going to help you. So. Do we have a deal?"

Sunset looks at the hoof before groaning. "Ohh, Twilight is going to kill me for this!" She says as she takes the hoof, shaking on it.

"Oh, absolutely!" Unity laughs before her horn glows brightly, a sizeable magical sigil appearing as she rips a hole into time and space above them, pulling Sunset into it. "Good luck~! Oh, and don't worry about failing. You've got infinite tries. Although, the spell does have a few minutes of cooldown and, of course, the entire, being shunted out of space and time probably puts a damper on things. Eh, it gives you a chance to explore the failed worlds, I suppose."

"WAIT, what about Spike!?" Sunset says as she manages to hold onto the table before being pulled in.

"I never said you get help! Good luck, Sunset. Don't worry, I'll keep him safe!" Unity says with a grin.

"SPIKE!" Sunset yells out as she's pulled into the vortex. "I should never... Have trusted you, Unity!"

"Ah, no. You really shouldn't have." The Spirit says back to Sunset as the pony falls into the vortex.

After a moment, the portal closes, Spike hiding behind the table rather quickly as he finds himself alone with the root of all evil. In his eyes.

"So Spike." Unity says after a moment of silence before pulling out a deck of cards. "Go fish?"

Spike stares at Unity incredulously. "What?"

"Oh, that was all for show. But ya know, becoming an alicorn through a test means somepony needs to fix something with minimal help. Twilight got away with your help because, well, Princess of Friendship. She gets friends to help her with her quest, then shablammo! When she's successful, she becomes an alicorn!" She waves her hoof as she sits down, dealing out some cards.

Spike tilts his head as he carefully reaches for the cards. Sitting down across the table for the time being. "And Sunset doesn't?"

"Course not, she's not gonna be a Princess of Friendship. That'd be way too confusing. The first card, threes?" Unity responds.

"So what's she gonna be Princess of then?" Spike responds... taking the cards and looking quietly. This isn't the first time he's played a game with a crazy spirit creature, after all. "Go fish. Got a Prince?"

"Hmmm. I guess you'll have to find out, hm~?" Unity smiles as she picks out two cards with her magic, sliding them to Spike, who immediately places them face down with two others. "Two Princes."

"Great..." Spike responds quietly, the pair continuing to play the game. "So if you're not evil anymore, what are you?"

"I dunno? Bored? Tired? I would say fluffy to be sarcastic. Just consider me like Discord. Except nicer because I don't play pranks on my pals." She says idly. "Except when they're fun. Oh, and I was reformed by Twilight instead of Fluttershy. For better or worse."

"Didn't you just- You know what. I forgot you're Discord's sister. Let's just play." Spike says as he stops himself from falling down another rabbit hole.

"Let's." Unity responds with a smile.

"AHHHH!" Sunset yells out, expecting to be free-falling again. Which she is. With a quick flash of her horn, she manages to pull off a teleportation spell, slamming herself into the clouds with a groan yet again.

"GET OFF!" Starlight says as she tosses Sunset off her with a flash of magic. Sunset squeaks out as she's thrown to the side, catching herself with some quick self-levitation, a trick she stole from her opponent.

"What?! It took me months to figure out how to levitate to fly!" Starlight yells out with a glare. Intensely annoyed by the ease with which Sunset figured out her personal spell.

"Yeah, well, you aren't the only one with a knack for magic!" Sunset says as she quickly flashes her horn, ready to cast a spell!

Only to be caught by a blast from Starlight's, the proceeding spell entrapping Sunset inside of a crystal, frozen in place. "Your spells might be strong," Starlight says to Sunset, tapping the crystal. "But your casting speed could use some work. A lot of work. Spent too long without a horn, I guess." She rolls her eyes as she bucks the crystal off of the cloud. "Have a nice FALL!"

Sunset rolls her eyes at the cliche line as she begins to fall, closing her eyes as she focuses her magic into her horn to burst out of the crystal, yet again catching herself with levitation magic once she's freed, albeit much closer to the ground. "Now... come on..." She grunts as she charges forward, flying back up, her magic pushing her at a semi-manable speed.

Unfortunately, Sunset narrowly makes it back, watching Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and the bullies leave, Starlight having defused the situation entirely. "Oh, fillies and foals, they always fight over silly things," Starlight giggles.

Sunset grimaces as she watches the group of fillies and foals leave. "I didn't know you could be so nice, Starlight. Maybe you should stop being so mean and become a teacher."

"Eugh. Please, teaching? I'll pass." Starlight waves her hand. "I'll stick with helping ponies escape the trappings of cutie marks instead."

Sunset stares and deadpans, about to ask a question before the time vortex opens up again. "I'll be back!" She says with a glare as she's pulled into the vortex.

When Sunset's vision clears, she feels the wracking pain yet again. "AGH." She groans out loudly, holding onto her side, looking around quickly, noticing the bubble in the distance.

"Unity made me pop out away from the map?! What's the point of infinite tries if I can't even get to the second one?!" She groans as she stumbles to the side, struggling to move towards the bubble in the distance.

"Sunset...?" A voice rings out from nearby as a familiar face walks forward from the bushes, adorned in carefully crafted, magical tribal wear.

"Celestia-?!" Sunset grunts as a spear is pointed at her neck from behind. "This is a cheap trap, you know," Sunset winces. "I can't exactly fight back in my condition."

Celestia stares down at her ex-student, a glare in her eyes. "Forgive the waryness, but we didn't leave on good terms, and considering the state of Equestria as is, we can't take any chances." With a glow of her horn, Celestia casts a spell on her ex-student, sighing a breath of relief after a moment. "She's not a changeling. We're fine... probably." Celestia sighs out a breath of relief.

Sunset blinks. "Changelings? So they took over in this version of the present... Interes- Ugh." Sunset grunts as she stumbles to her knees. "Buck. That hurts."

Celestia's glare vanishes once she sees Sunset in pain. "What's wrong?! Sunset?!" She says with worry in her voice, looking her over quickly.

Sunset grunts as she looks up at her old teacher. She needs help, and she knows it. "Time was messed with, and I don't belong in the new timeline. I'm... Trying to fix it, but I need to get to that over there. Please... I know you don't know it in this time, but I'm really trying to be better Celestia. I need your help. Just to get over there. That's it."

Celestia looks towards the dome, the glowing beacon that she left the grove to find. It was through changeling territory, a dangerous place to be for anypony, especially herself. Even as the ponies around her tell her about the risks, Celestia finds herself already giving Sunset a shoulder.

"I know the risks," Celestia says to the protesting Fluttershy. "But if what my student is saying is the truth, then we will have a better life for us soon. Return to the camp. Sunset, I hope you can run."

Celestia then puts her hoof onto Sunset's shoulder. "There's so much I want to say, but I suppose it's not my place. I just want to know... Are we family again in your timeline?"

Sunset's ears droop a little. "I... uh... I don't know. We still haven't talked too much. We did makeup, but. Anything beyond that? I really don't know. I hope so, though."

Celestia nods. "Well. If it's any consolation. I hope so, too." She says it with a soft smile before helping Sunset to get to the map.

Celestia doesn't make it through the trip, being captured by changelings to allow Sunset to escape. Sunset panted as she breathed a sigh of relief upon entering the stasis bubble, where she found Spike and Unity playing cards.

"I'm going to —" Sunset says as she stomps towards Unity, who simply flashes her horn, the large time warping sigil appearing again. Changelings that attempt to approach get zapped like bugs to an electric swatter as Unity's magic radiates out.

"Good luck on your next try!" Unity says with a wave as Sunset is again drawn into the portal, the pony giving the equivalent of the bird to the Spirit.

"She's going to punch you at this rate, Unity," Spike says as he places his next card down.

"And she'll earn that punch. Now draw three." Unity responds with her coy, playful voice.

Author's Note

Part 1 complete! And yes, this is a Sunset Episode! As I said, she's a main character too.

This and the next part are all considered one chapter. I just wanted to split it because... uh

Source material? Idk. I'm tired. It's 5 am.

Chapter 6: A Timeline of Consequences Part 2

Author's Note

Phew, this was... long.

Way longer than I thought honestly, but once I got it rolling it just came out... so good.

Anyways. Enjoy. :twilightsmile:

Chapter 6: A Timeline of Consequences Part 2

Sunset crosses her hooves as she falls through the swirl of time and space, sighing softly as she tumbles downwards. "Mm. I should be worried that I'm getting used to this. How am I going to stop Starlight? She has the advantage of time on her side."

Sunset mumbles to herself, preparing her horn. "There has to be a reason why she's like this. If I can figure that out, I can stop her. Ugh... How am I going to do that, though?! It's not like I can touch her and find out!" She then deadpans, realizing what she's saying, remembering about her special power from the mirror world.

"Wait. But how am I gonna do that... I left my magic necklace back in my room." Sunset grumbles and groans, trying to think of a plan. After a moment, though, she comes to only a single conclusion, one that would be a gamble. She takes a moment longer to think twice, but she can't think of one in the end.

"Fuck it." She says as she lands through the other opening of the portal, landing near Starlight yet again with a determined look on her face.

"That one took longer. Having trouble getting back Sunset?" Starlight says with a smirk, horn at the ready to fight against the unicorn again.

Sunset glares at Starlight before softening her expression and taking a deep breath. "Ya know, if you'd just look at the futures you're creating, you'd probably stop this." She says before quickly diving to the side to avoid a beam from Starlight's horn.

"Don't try to lie to convince me. There's no reason for me to believe you." Starlight says as she slowly starts to approach Sunset. An intense, hate-filled glare pointed right at her opponent. "Twilight won't escape her little banishment before the spell becomes permanent after the day ends, and you can't BEAT me!"

Sunset lands on her hooves, sighing slightly and glaring at Starlight. "So you really want to go through with this? Do you REALLY want to destroy all of Equestria like this? You seriously expect me to believe that you thought this through?" Sunset flashes her horn as she returns fire at Starlight, her accuracy and technique getting closer to when she was considered a prodigy.

Starlight yelps as the beam crashes into her shield, cracking it slightly. This startles Starlight, causing her to miss what Sunset said. "What?! How?!" Starlight's gaze sharpens before she and Sunset trade blow for blow. Unlike in previous times, however, Sunset can keep up, although the glow never leaves her horn, even when they stand at neutral.

"How?! You were not this good last time!" Starlight says, actually sweating a little bit from the short fight.

"You and Twilight aren't the only prodigies at magic, ya know! And honestly. Ponies are really soft. Compared to humans, we hardly know anything about fighting. Humans, on the other hand, hoof, whatever... They fight wars just because they look different from each other." Sunset raises her head, pointing her horn, and fires a very pinpoint, concentrated bolt of magic right at Starlight. It fires fast and is as small as a tiny stone, yet as it crashes into Starlight's shield, it shatters it entirely before disappearing.

"What?!" Starlight says with a grunt as she winces from the shards of her magic. Had that... kept going. A little shudder escapes the pony. Starlight thought she was invincible against such a weaker opponent.

"But I don't intend on hurting you. I'll convince you to stop this yourself. Unfortunately." Sunset looks over at the group of fillies and foals, watching their fight.

"Mm. It looks like you won this time. It's not a problem, though. I have some thinking to do before my next try." She then suddenly teleports in front of Starlight, glaring at her temporarily frightened opponent.

Sunset then flicks her opponent on the head with her hoof. "Don't underestimate me again, Starlight." She says with a friendly wink before getting pulled into the time vortex again, leaving Starlight to stew in her 'win.'

Sunset sighs and grimaces as she appears in the fake present yet again. Yet this time, instead of anything being wrong, it looked. Normal? The sun was warm, and Ponyville looked normal. Even Canterlot in the distance was fine. Sunset looked over her body curiously, seeing that the cracks in her being were small and didn't hurt. In fact, unlike the previous times, they weren't even growing.

"Hm," Sunset says in curiosity as she trots through the Everfree forest's fringes. She could see the time bubble in the distance but wasn't in any rush to get there, not with her time limit now removed or, at the very least, greatly extended.

"Equestria seems fine this time around. What changed?" Sunset asks out loud to herself, watching the city from the distance.

"Either way, this is pretty lucky. Some paper, a pencil or a quill, and ink would make this easier." Sunset says to herself as she scans for Quills and Sofas from a distance, seeing the green roof after a moment longer of walking.

"There we go." She says with a nod before beginning her sneak from the fringe of the forest towards the town. After a while, though, she notices a few ponies on the road. So few that she sees perhaps a single one in the entire walk toward the building.

"There's... Nopony around?" Sunset says quietly, looking into the town's empty streets, a slight shudder running down her spine. A populated yet depressed town is much less unsettling than a seemingly abandoned town.

After looking up at the sign and verifying that the building is still the quill shop, Sunset peers in through the unlocked door. The store is as she remembers it, with a pair of mattresses in the center and a wall lined with quills and ink. The bell on the door announces her arrival as she looks towards the quill and limited paper underneath. "Hello? Is anypony here?"

After a moment, there is a shuffling noise as Davenport peeks from the back. "Oh, a customer! What can I do-" He freezes up as he sees Sunset blinking.

"Uh. I need some paper and a quill. And some ink?" Sunset says after watching the pony freeze up, tilting her head curiously.

"THE ENTIRE STORE IS FREE!" Davenport says before diving back into the back room and slamming the back door shut, startling Sunset.

"O-okay. So I must have... quite the reputation here." She says as she sighs. She only has a few bits, so she leaves them on the register before taking some white paper, a quill, and an inkwell with black ink. She then exits the building, turning and leaving the town to find a quiet place to work.

"The map is at the park. I guess we should go there." She sighed a bit as she trotted towards the park, sitting on a bench outside the bubble. Sunset turns to wave hi to Spike from outside the bubble before unfurling the paper, scribbling on it, and looking towards the sun for a moment to get the time.

"It's around noon... This is gonna take a while. I dunno if I can do this in the time I have left." She says with a worried crack in her voice, staring at the writing on the page before hunkering down and getting back to work on her small project. She believed Unity would give her infinite chances, even if the spell became permanent. She, however, didn't want to deal with any lingering effects from failing a simple time limit.

About an hour later, the sun begins to creak downwards slowly. Sunset sighs a bit as she stares at the page on the bench, reading it over again. "This would be so much faster if one of you would help, you know, " she says pointedly towards Spike and Unity. Spike tried to help earlier, but Unity held him back, something about it not being allowed.

Sunset groans a little bit as she stares down at the page. "Ugh... I can't get the magic to bind correctly... That spell was probably made by Starswirl the Bearded! Not to mention, I'm horribly out of practice! How the hell am I supposed to do this?!" She says as she slams her hoof on the bench, causing the paper to be picked up by the air and drop to the ground with a flutter.

An unfamiliar voice rings out to Sunset's side, having picked up the page to look at it. "You could start with defining the spell's matrix a little more. Then you should be able to seat it. The rest of the spell seems adequately applied."

Sunset blinks as she quickly takes the page and looks at it. "The spell matrix. Of course. I missed the bind and the seating of the emotion magic!" She says as she excitedly grabs the quill, scribbling away at the paper before turning towards the pony.

"That should do it! Thanks so much." She then finally notices who is speaking to her.

Standing to the side of Sunset is another version of herself. Taller and imposing, yet still a simple unicorn. Their eyes are tired and filled with regret, yet the sight is still very much herself. She looks around what Sunset's age should be, had she never left Equestria. But if she never left Equestria...

"Relax. My villain days are way past me." The older Sunset says, able to follow her double's logic seamlessly. "Now I'm just a pony full of regret and pretty well-hated slash feared by everyone. Oh, and uh... Call me Shimmer so we don't get confused." She laughs dryly.

Sunset lowers her guard after a moment, sensing no intent from her other self. "Ah. So... we." She winces a little bit.

"Yeah. It was fun at first, being in charge of everypony and being able to do whatever I wanted." Shimmer says as she sits down next to her younger double. "Celestia stopped me from entering the mirror room, so I bided my time. Once Nightmare Moon returned, I stole her powers after beating her down and banished the two away from their own nation."

Sunset sighs a little bit. "I tried to merge Equestria with another dimension and nearly destroyed both," she says with a dry laugh. "It uh...It didn't happen, though. I got beaten by some heroes."

Shimmer nods in response to Sunset's story, processing it quietly. "Our issues aside. Considering the time magic bubble, cracks on your body, and Spike sitting in there looking like a dope, 'Hey!' I'm gonna guess this is some paradox crap."

Sunset laughs. "Yeah, a pony is trying to mess with the timeline, and I'm trying to fix it before sundown." She sighs a little bit. "I think she... went through something or other. Honestly, this is the first 'nice' Equestria I've been to since this started." Sunset grimaces as she thinks of all the horrible ideas she had for Equestria had she taken power at that time.

Shimmer tilts her head. "Mm.. Well, to be fair, you came at the perfect time for it. Had you shown up like... a year ago, you'd been beset by guards or arrested and treated like a science experiment. Now it's mostly ponies licking their wounds and waiting for me to find a replacement for myself."

Sunset rubs her own shoulder. "Well, still better than the other ones. Although knowing that I won is still kinda horrifying in its own way."

Shimmer laughs a little bit. "Oh yeah. I'd bet from your perspective." She sighs as she calms down her laughter, looking at her other self. "Hmmm, well, if you're gonna fix everything... Mind telling Celestia something for me when you do?"

Sunset tilts her head. "Uh... I mean, sure. Why not? I don't see the harm." Sunset taps her chin. "No promises that I'll remember it, though. I dunno how accurate the time spell is in that regard." She says idly. "Eh. I'll figure it out."

Shimmer smirks at that response. "Headstrong as always. Welp, guess I should do my part then." She then yoinks the paper from Sunset and looks it over. "I got a few more years on you when it comes to magic, lesse what we got."

Between Sunset and her other self, the two cobble together a single use of Sunset's empathy magic. It takes nearly the rest of the day, but Sunset is proud of what they made. "It's done. This should work just right! Thanks so much!" She says to her other self.

But Shimmer had already left, leaving a simple note on the bench. Sunset was so engrossed in her work that she didn't notice her variant leave. With a little giggle, Sunset smiles and gives a wordless thanks towards Canterlot, picking up the note for Celestia on the way. Sunset then returns to the bubble of magic.

"Ya know Infinite tries doesn't mean you should lollygag around." Unity says to Sunset the moment she steps into the bubble. "The spell's still gonna be harder to revert once it becomes mortal permanent. It'll take at least... I dunno. Twenty seconds? Kinda a lot of effort for something that shouldn't exist."

Sunset rolls her eyes. "Relax. I think I got it this time." She says with a smirk. "But I will need to see something really quick."

Sunset gets herself ready, levitating her spell. After checking something, she nods to Unity.

"Alright. Good luck, Sunset." Unity says, Spike waving to Sunset from behind Unity's slightly translucent body.

Sunset smirks as she hops into the time vortex one more time. She knew exactly what to do this time.

As Sunset falls through the vortex, she casts her new spell on herself. One chance. One moment.

Sunset leaves the vortex, rushing forward quickly after she catches her footing. She refuses to even let Starlight taunt her before reaching out. "ENOUGH!"

Starlight quickly tries to raise a shield, but she's far too slow. Sunset's teleport, leap, and rush gave way for the orange unicorn to grapple Starlight's shoulder.

Instantly, the two experience a rush of information flooding through their minds, with Starlight groaning as she feels Sunset's spell begin to twist and turn in her mind, searching for any and all information that may have caused Starlight's current actions. Sunset didn't know precisely how the shard worked in the first place. But she had a hunch, the magic that came from the stone was far too different from Starswirl's magic. Her little test of Unity's magic earlier confirmed it.

They were her old world's elements of harmony, long withered away due to humans being... well, what they were. Sure, she wouldn't be able to make a new stone, but duplicating the effect of the magic was just a matter of getting a little help. With a gasp, Sunset begins to see through Starlight's past, from losing her friend because of his cutie mark appearing to her isolation from the rest of the town.

So much to work through.

Starlight's life was quiet after Sunburst left for Canterlot. It was lonely and relatively empty. Her father always supported her, but she was a late bloomer, which caused her to be isolated from the rest of the fillies in Sire's Hollow. But there was always somepony that was willing to listen to her.

Starlight's father was adamantly against her meeting with her cousin. He said Wallflower and the other one were bad influences. So Starlight had to meet with her cousin's secret, keeping it from her father. Even after she got her cutie mark, Starlight still deeply resented the magical signs. One day, though, that all changed.

Starlight and Wallflower were meeting in secret again, this time in the town antique shop. She never really understood why her father hated Wallflower and the rest of his family. He always called them maniacs or zealots. Wallflower was never like that to her, though. He was always understanding and willing to listen to anything that Starlight had on her mind.

Wallflower hums a little bit after listening to Starlight talk. "What if I told you I had access to a spell that could say... Take pony's cutiemarks away?" She says idly in a whisper to Starlight. "I could teach it to you, ya know. I don't have much use for it, being an earth pony. Then you could find Sunburst and rekindle that friendship you had."

This prospect quickly took in Starlight. A spell that could eliminate the one thing she hated more than being abandoned?! She could introduce true equality into the world with that.

Wallflower continued to egg on Starlight in similar ways. Introducing her to the area where she could build her town slowly isolating her from other ponies by scaring them away at night. With Sunset's powers, she could see everything, even things Starlight didn't know.

Finally, the spell would end. Starlight quickly slaps Sunset's hoof off her shoulder as she gathers her bearings. "What did you just do?!"

Sunset steps back and sighs at Starlight. "I just... wanted to see. Ponies hardly ever become evil just because. Most of them have a reason, or three, to do so. We're not all Sombra. Heck, even he wasn't evil from the start." She then takes a deep breath. "My spell allows me to feel and see what trauma someone has gone through. I didn't know if it would work, considering I don't have my necklace here. But, I guess I just made a new magic spell entirely." She laughs a little bit with a smile.

Starlight pants a little bit and grimaces. "You... I saw it, too. I. I never wanted to see that stuff again! How dare you comb through my mind like a playground!" She says with a glare, her horn glowing to life as she sends a few rapid blasts of magic toward Sunset.

However, this time, Starlight is the one who is stressed and angry, her spells going wide and missing entirely. Sunset does not need to move to avoid the blasts, instead walking forward through the barrage of magic. "Starlight. I understand." She says with a mumble. "It's hard when you're isolated and alone. And once you have someone to cling to, listen to everything they say. At least for you, it was a family member. I clung to a stupid reflection in a magical mirror." Sunset laughs a little bit at herself.

Starlight steps back, grimacing as her spells slow down. "You have no idea how I feel. My friend abandoned me. He left me. He didn't even look at me twice once he got his cutie mark! Oh, and JUST because I got mine late, all the fillies and colts at school ignored or snubbed me, too! The only pony that was ever there for me was Wallflower!"

Sunset's ears flop. "Yeah, I know. Even ponies can be cruel. Heck, I was a bully in school, always acting like I was high and mighty just because I was Celestia's student. It was... Really lonely." She then looks up at Starlight.

"But I realized that I was doing that to myself. Just because I was being a jerk, I was pushing away everyone who cared about me and ignoring potential new friends..." Sunset sighs a little bit. "I still beat myself down for it. Especially with Celestia."

Starlight would typically have taken this moment to attack or even throw an insult. However, the earlier spell awakened old emotions she never realized were still alive in her heart. "It's just... So hard to be alone. No pony would ever want to be friends with somepony like me. Not after all the chaos I caused. Kidnapping, tricking ponies... There was always something in the way of it. Ponies would avoid me just because I was me!"

Sunset tilts her head, smiling at Starlight's wavering attitude. "I see a lot of myself in you. Ponies weren't exactly good to me, either. My parents abandoned me when I was like... three. I didn't want to trust anypony else after that. Hell, I didn't even trust Celestia. I thought she was trying to keep me from what was rightfully mine."

Starlight blinks in surprise at that. Ponies were usually orphaned because of deaths in the family. It was extremely rare for somepony to be outright abandoned, though. "What?" Starlight says after a moment. "Why?"

Sunset shrugs. "I dunno. I was told to stay at a spot, but they never came back. It's not exactly something I've looked back on. I lived on the streets for a few weeks before my creativity with magic caught Celestia's eye. I copied one of her spells that makes her all glowy and such. The one she uses for the Summer Sun Celebration."

Starlight tilts her head. "How... are you not resentful? Why haven't you tried to find them? A friend abandoned me, but your parents abandoned you!"

Sunset's smile flattens out, rubbing her arm momentarily with a hoof. "Trust me. I wanted to for a long time. After banishing myself to the Mirror world, all I could think about was coming back, taking control of Equestria, and finding them with an army at their doorstep."

Starlight blinks. "What changed then?"

Sunset smiles yet again, giggling to herself. "I guess... I found ponies I could believe in. Ponies I could trust." She looks at Starlight. "Ponies that could become my family if I let them. Then I realized that I had a family from the get, and all I could feel was... a ton of guilt for treating her the way I did." She sighs a little bit. "I still haven't really made up with Celestia how I'd like either. But It's something I'm working on! I think you could do well, too!"

Starlight looks at Sunset with a tilt of her head. "Trying again, huh?" She says as she watches the race nearing its end. Starlight was out of time to change the timeline again, whether she wanted to or not. "I. I don't know. I really don't want to end up in that situation again."

Sunset smiles and holds out a hoof. "If you do end up like that, you'll have me and my friends to help you next time. Ex-Villians gotta stick together, after all! With all the socially awkward issues and problems with it!" She says with a genuine smile. "Let's make our second chances count. What do you think?"

Starlight looks at the hoof, hesitating for a moment. Giving up here would mean the end of years of work. It would mean everything she's worked on would have been for nothing!

"It's okay. Sometimes, it's best to leave things behind you. Besides, wouldn't you like to be friends with Sunburst again one day? Properly?" Sunset says with a smile.

Starlight stares at the sky, the Rainboom surging across the landscape over them. The wind flows through her mane as she looks over to Sunset. "I guess it's something to work on," Starlight says, mimicking Sunset's earlier comment as she shakes the hoof.

With that, there is a bright orange glow between the two. The world flashed dramatically as Starlight and Sunset appeared in the proper present time. Twilight sits with Spike and Unity as the pair appear in the throne room.

Twilight smiles as she looks at Starlight and Sunset, giggling slightly. "I'd say that was a job well done," she nods. Sunset notes that Twilight looks refreshed and happy.

Twilight then says to Starlight and Unity. "I told you she was a special one."

Unity laughs a bit, watching as the bubble dissipates, sighing a little bit. "Finally back to sleep... I wish we could chat more, Twilight. Oh right. Before I forget, though." Unity smirked, causing Twilight's mane to stand on end. Still, before she could do anything, the spirit's horn flashed brightly, and Twilight and Sunset vanished.

Starlight yelps. "Wha?! What happened?!"

Unity laughs a little bit. "Relax, they'll be back. Now be a good great-grandaughter for me, alright? I'll be keeping an eye on you, Starlight. I expect great things." The spirit then vanishes, readjusted to the timeline as she wanted.

Spike was idly sitting on his seat, reading a comic he had stashed away. "You might wanna sit down, Starlight. It's gonna be a minute or two." He says idly, flipping through the pages.

The confused Starlight takes a moment before she follows his lead and says, "What in Tartarus just happened?"

Sunset and Twilight open their eyes in an astral space. A long hallway full of floating panels ahead of them, each one flashing with memories and events of Sunset's life. Twilight blinks in recognition of the area, looking towards Sunset. "Ya know. I had a feeling this was coming. Wish I had time to prepare." She mumbles a little bit. "Mm. Well, songs are overdone anyway."

Sunset, on the other hoof, is completely confused. "Huh?! What?! Where are we?! Are we dead?!"

Twilight laughs a little bit and smiles. "Nah. You've just finally earned it. Congratulations Sunset Shimmer." She says as she motions for Sunset to follow her.

Twilight smiles as the pair looks through the long laundry list of things the unicorn had done to help her friends in the other world. The times she returned to Equestria to help out the mane six here, too, while Twilight was missing. The list was short, but no one action or event was any smaller than the other. From the times she's helped out to the nearly full book of information from the past year that Twilight has. "You've really come a long way, my wonderful Student." She says as she looks towards Sunset.

Sunset smiles as she looks through all the memories of her friends, family, and even her new and old friends. The summer when they were almost trapped in a mirror, which only quick thinking got them out of, to Camp Everfree to just the simple songs she and the band used to do. "I guess. I just wanted to do the right thing the right way this time around." Sunset smiles as she looks at the panels of the most recent events, from the twin peaks to helping Applejack with chores. It was simple but still fun.

Twilight giggles a little bit. "Well, it seems like you have earned this. So allow me to be the first." She then stands at the end of the hall. Holding out her hoof. "Ready to take the next step in your work, Sunset?"

Sunset looks at the hoof and exhales. "Yeah. Whatever it might be. I'm ready."

Twilight smiles. "Glad to hear it."

With that, a bright flash of white overtakes the pair as Twilight casts a spell over her student. An old spell, one that required the latent energy of a spirit or direct permission from Unity to cast in most cases. As she feels the energy being allowed through, Twilight appears back in the throne room, the rest of the mane 6 already having arrived and speaking with Starlight in a much calmer manner. Thankfully, Spike could explain what had happened in a much more eloquent way than expected.

"Twilight? Where'd ya come from?" Applejack asks after seeing the sudden flash of light.

"That flash of light... Oh my. Could it be?" Rarity says after a moment, her keen eye noticing the gentle sparks around Twilight's form.

Before any of the others could say anything, a burst of magic surges through the throne room as a silhouette of Sunset's cutie mark appears in the air, slowly lowering to the surprised looks of the rest of the group. As Sunset lands on the ground, she groans lightly. "Did anyone see the number on that bus..." She wobbles to her hooves, unstable as she stands and rubbing her face with her wings.

Wait wings? Sunset's eyes burst open as she looks at herself. "Eh... WHA?"

The rest of the group is stuck in awe, aside from Twilight and Spike. Twilight motions over to Sunset. "Congrats Sunset. Welcome to the alicorn club."

Sunset blinks as she looks at the wings, then herself, and then up at Twilight before squeeing and hopping around excitedly. "I did it! I finally did it! Yes, yes, yes!" She says happily with great excitement.

To her credit, Starlight smiles awkwardly, happy for her new friend. "Congrats Sunset. Betcha didn't expect that!"

Sunset smiles brightly and hugs everyone, starting with Twilight and Starlight, before the rest of the group gets one big group hug! "Wait. I'm a princess now... Oh, yeesh, that's a ton of pressure. Wait, what am I even a princess of?!"

Twilight bonks her own head with a hoof. "Ack. I forgot. Ahem... Say hi to Sunset Shimmer, Princess of Empathy."

Sunset blinks and bounces in place. "Empathy?! Well... That's actually kinda on the nose."

Starlight taps her chin a bit, thinking, "Well, you did sorta make a literal magic spell for it."

Sunset laughs a little bit. "Oh, that? I just copied the spell of an Element of Harmony. No biggy..."

Twilight and the Mane Six gazed at Sunset in shock. After a moment, Twilight exclaimed, "You replicated an ancient spell made by essentially a deity. And you actually pulled it off!"

Pinkie adds on after a moment. "Yeahhhh I think I'm gonna need to make a bigger cake for this party. Even Twilight just had to finish a spell that Starswirl made for her test. Yours was uh."

Starlight scratches her own mane. "Deadly?"

Pinkie hms. "I was gonna say, really super duper mega hard!"

Starlight laughs at herself for a moment. "Hahah, yeah. Sorry about that."

Rainbow Dash shrugs. "Relax. We've made buddies from worse places Starlight. You'll fit in! Just ask if anypony gives you problems, and I'll straighten them out!"

Twilight smiles at how quickly her friends accepted Starlight into the group. "Well, I think a party is in order for tonight. Then you can get your first mission, Sunset."

Sunset blinks in confusion. "My first mission?"

Twilight smirks at her student. "Well, yeah, you have a student now. What? Do you think I'm gonna take teaching Starlight? I'll help out, sure, but you're my priority when it comes to teaching. Besides, it'll be good for ya." She pats both Starlight and Sunset on the back. "You two have way more in common with each other than with me."

Sunset smiles awkwardly. "Well, uh. Sure. But only if Starlight wants it."

Starlight hums. "Let's see. Be a student of the second real friend I've ever had. Or with Twilight Sparkle. I feeeel like you'd be a better teacher than frussy friendship Princess over there."

Sunset smiles with a twinge of annoyance at hearing her teacher get slightly mocked, even if she knew it was playful. "Then you better be ready. Because frussy friendship Princess was MY teacher."

The party goes well into the night. Sunset sighs as she sits on the upper balcony of the castle, away from the party for the time being. Silently, Sunset sits, thinking about her day and the process she went through. "I feel like I just got off a bad rollercoaster that wasn't up to code."

"Hm. I don't know what a rollercoaster is, but if it's what I think it is, you must feel quite ill." Celestia says from next to Sunset, landing on the balcony. Sunset, not even reacting to her arrival for a moment. However, once it registers, she gasps out.

"Princess Celestia! I uh." Sunset quickly hides the spiked tea drink she made for herself, pouring it out over the balcony. "What are you doing here? Thought you'd be busy resting for tomorrow!"

"Oh, I was about to go to bed when I noticed Twilight was having a party. Then I realized that today wasn't anypony's birthday, so I got curious. I saw the new pony and was about to go to bed, but then guess what I saw?" Celestia says with a smile as she levitates Sunset's glass, pouring the drink back into it, having caught the liquid in mid-air. She then floats the glass around herself.

"Uh, what?" Sunset says with a sheepish smile.

"Just a certain ex-student of mine bearing brand new wings and sitting alone on a balcony. Drinking some lovely special tea without me." Celestia sighs a little bit, actually looking upset and a little sad. She then drops her poise and says somberly, "I didn't even get an invitation to the party! I understand not wanting to speak with me, but... this is a huge day for you, and I wanted to be there when it happened."

Sunset's ears droop a little bit. "I uh... It was kinda sudden for me, too. But..." After a moment, Sunset stops herself. "No, that's not right. I'm sorry for not inviting you. I just."

Celestia stares towards Sunset. "Just what? I haven't pried and kept my distance as you asked. You know I'd never do anything to hurt you, Sunset. It just... hurts being left out of something this huge." Celestia sighs. "No... Maybe I'm just being childish here. I'm sorry for bothering you on your special night."

Celestia then floats over the drink to Sunset, who takes it in her levitation. Sunset watches as Celestia moves to fly away before saying, "Wait!"

Celestia stops after a moment and turns her head.

Sunset grimaces and downs the drink before taking a deep breath. "I'm sorry! I just... I don't know how I could ever repay you for everything you've done for me. I'm scared to be around you because I made such huge mistakes while living in the castle. I don't want to say something wrong and end up like that again. I don't wanna be abandoned again. I don't want to lose my family. So I thought if I kept you away, I'd never hurt you again, or Luna for that matter."

Celestia blinks, opening her mouth, but she's unable to get a word out as Sunset continues, the newly made Alicorn letting out all her feelings. "My parents abandoned me, I had nothing, and you just came out and took care of me. You raised me to be your successor, and I failed you. You should be furious with me! I ended up abandoning and failing you, and everything just went wrong! All because I was selfish. No amount of apologies should ever fix that. But you still accepted me back. You still wanted to be family. You kept the adoption papers even." She says as she thinks back to the first party that she saw Celestia at. The papers sticking out of the bag she had with her.

"I don't deserve any of this kindness or any of that love you've given me or gave me. I don't deserve to be your daughter. I don't even know why I got these wings. I feel... I feel like an imposter." Sunset says with tears. "Everypony is telling me that I've done well and earned this, but how can somepony who messed up so badly earn this?-"

Celestia then hugs Sunset, holding onto her closely. Sunset holds her head into Celestia's neck as tears fall. Celestia quietly says, with her own tears welling up. "I've messed up, too. Everypony has, from Mom, to Luna. Nopony is perfect. Sunset. That's the difference between friends, great friends and family. Friends will get upset when you mess up. They'll be angry and eventually might forgive you. Great friends will forgive you, give you a little push here and there, maybe tease you a little bit, but they'll forgive you. Family, however... Family will love you no matter what. I will always love you no matter what. You will always be my daughter in my heart, even if you don't accept it on paper. You've earned this, not because you deserve it, but because you've properly changed and become somepony worthy of those wings. You've become exactly what I saw in you all that time ago, and I could never be more proud of you."

Sunset embraces Celestia, weeping as she chokes out, "I'm so sorry, Mom... I'm so sorry." She clings tightly, finally releasing years of built-up hurt.

Celestia just holds onto Sunset. She's giddy, as can be in her head, but now is the time to be there for her daughter. There will be time for celebration later.

After Sunset finishes, having calmed down. Celestia wipes the tears off of her own face and Sunset's. Sunset smiles up at the taller Alicorn as she says, "Hey... uh. Do you still have those adoption papers? I... uh... I could sign those while we catch up properly over some drinks?"

Celestia giggles a little bit. "Oh, Sunset, my dear daughter, I have never left home without them since you came back," she says with an extremely excited smile. "Let's enjoy some proper tea inside, and we can sort everything out."

Sunset nods and heads back inside to the upper lounge with Celestia, the pair chatting for an hour or two before going to the party.

The party got much more rowdy after that, but that is a story for another time.

Chapter 7 - The Crystal Anniversary

"SHINING ARMOR AND CADENCE HAD A BABY?!" Twilight yells out in surprise, having just heard about her niece for the first time from her friends during one of their weekly meetups.

"YEOWCH. Twilight, watch the yelling! Your voice is insanely loud now!" Rainbow Dash says with a grunt as she rubs her ear with a hoof. Everypony else winced a little bit at Twilight's surprised voice. They had gotten used to Twilight's looks, but that didn't make their ears any more prepared for how intense her voice could get now.

Spike is the first to fully recover from the sudden outburst, although he dropped some pancakes on the way in from the sheer surprise. "Oofh... Yeah. Flurry Heart, she should be like. A year and a half old by now or so. We even had a Crystalling party. Flurry Heart destroyed the crystal heart, so there was this massive storm. The heart got fixed thanks to some timely intervention from Luna, though."

Pinkie Pie chimes in, devouring an entire stack of pancakes with one singular gulp. "Mmmmm. So yeah! Everything should be fine now! Probably. More razzleberry pancakes!" She says excitedly before rushing to the kitchen to make the next batch of pancakes.

Twilight sighs and holds her head in her hooves, momentarily distressed by the idea of missing that much of her niece's life. It only lasts a moment, however, as she realizes the obvious. "Wait, why am I upset? I can just go visit!" Twilight nods.

"True, you haven't seen your brother since you got back. Betcha, he misses ya." Applejack says after a moment.

"That's not entirely true. I saw Shining Armor the night I came back, but uh, only for like an hour," Twilight says with a sigh. "I really should have talked with him again, but uh."

"You completely forgot," Spike says flatly.

"Eyup. Completely." Twilight says with an embarrassed expression. "In my defense, I blame Discord."

Fluttershy tilts her head. "Why Discord? Did he get in the way?"

Twilight laughs slightly. "Heh. No, that's just an old way of saying, 'I have no excuse.' It's uh. I guess it's a bit of an old joke by now." Twilight exhales a little bit, rubbing her own forehead slightly. She's a bit upset with herself for forgetting to check in on her brother of all ponies.

"Well, I don't think any of us are gonna be busy for a bit. I'm still on leave from the Wonderbolts cuz of my last crash. We could all go to the Crystal Empire together!" Rainbow says after a moment. "We could even bring along Starlight. I think the pony that helped out Luna was Sunburst."

Hearing that name breaks Sunset out of her pancake-induced stupor, perking her ears and head. "Wait, really?! I was planning on hunting him down, but that'd be an excellent place for Starlight to start. Making amends with her first buddy would be great!"

Twilight flatly stares at Sunset. "Sunset, I don't mean to be a downer, but you realize you're Celestia's daughter now. Your mom will not want you to go to the Crystal Empire without at least an escort there."

Sunset stares back. "You seriously saying I'd be safer with a guard than you?"

Twilight takes a moment before blinking in a slight stupor. Twilight finally answers Sunset in the only way she can think of now. "Yesn't. Mainly because we've LITERALLY never gone to the Crystal Empire without something going horrendously wrong."

Rarity blinks. "Oh my, I dear, believe Twilight is right." She says after a moment of thinking. "What about that first summit you had as a Princess? I believe it was mostly calm, no?"

Sunset raises her hoof in response to that, sighing lightly. "I stole her Element of Harmony and almost caused the world to explode." She says after a moment, idly munching her pancakes with a shrug. "That was a mess of a few days, honestly. Massively so. Yeah, yeah, I get your point. I'll talk with Mom."

Twilight taps her hoof to her chin. "Yeesh, that place is cursed." She says after a moment, the rest of the group nodding in agreement, even Sunset. "Where is Starlight anyways?"

Sunset tilts her head. "Well, she's already friends with the rest of us, so I told her to go out to eat and introduce herself to the other ponies in the town. She needs to figure out social norms before we can start making thick-and-thin friendships. You know, so she doesn't instantly jump to awkwardly mind-controlling like... say, Applejack or Rainbow Dash."

"That'd be appreciated. Ah'd rather not be brainwashed if'n all possible." Applejack says with a nod.

Twilight nods. "Well, this will be a good time for you to get some Equestrian History work done, too. You've fallen behind on those lessons." She says with a nod. "You're Celestia's Daughter now, Sunset, so I've gotta be extra extra hard on you so you can really live up to it."

Sunset coughs and gasps as she chokes on her drink. "Ajfghf. That's... That's some HUGE hoofshoes to fill, and you know exactly why Twilight." She says through gritted teeth as she flaps her new wings. "I don't even know how to fly yet."

Twilight blinks. "Mmm... Point taken. Uh. Rainbow Dash?" She tilts her head at her friend.

Rainbow Dash smiles. "Well, of course, I can teach her how to fly! I'm not gonna leave her hanging. Although, you sure Twilight? You said you were just as good as I am when it came to flyin' now." She says with a twinkle in her eyes. "We should teach her together."

Twilight shrugs. "Sure. Why not? Sides, she should learn the tricks for flying with the longer wings Alicorns get anyway. And yes, then we can race again."

Rainbow Dash smiles and pumps her hoof. "YES! What's the score right now?" She asks excitedly.

Twilight rolls her eyes. "80 to 85. Your favor. Pretty good, too! Course, that was me in my smaller disguised form. You aren't gonna beat me at full size." She says with a teasing voice towards Rainbow, giggling a little bit.

Rainbow Dash smirks, "I'll take that bet, though. I've wanted to race you since we found out about this!" She smiles excitedly.

Sunset sighs. "I'm not gonna get good lessons, am I?" With a rub of her own temples, Sunset groans out quietly.

Twilight and Rainbow Dash blink in tandem as they look over to Sunset. Twilight speaking first. "You think we can't teach and have a race? Trust me, Sunset, you'll be doing a lot of falling. So we'll be pretty close to the ground at first."

Rainbow Dash nods, tapping her chin. "Since we'll be in the Crystal Empire, the snow will break your fall better than one of those super dangerous winter clouds they have up there. Those things hurt if you don't know how to land on them properly. If it weren't for that, we'd be using clouds to catch your fall."

Sunset blinks, thinking for a moment before smiling sheepishly. "Oh, uh... maybe. Uh. Oh! I can fly with magic! So, there is no need. Yeah!" She nods quickly. "I've done enough extreme sports to know that breaking a leg as a pony is gonna suck WAY more than breaking one as a human."

Spike blinks and taps his chin. "Pretty sure they both suck." He says as he itches his side, nibbling on his food. "Either way, I'd hope you two figure it out cuz once I get my wings, I'd really rather not crash a billion times."

Twilight sighs, tilting her head and wondering how to word this correctly. "Uh... There's no way Rainbow and I can teach you how to fly properly, Spike. Once you get your wings, we'll probably have to head to the dragon lands and figure out the details, but pretty sure scaled wings like dragons work way differently from a pony's feathered wings."

Rarity perks up instantly. "Of course! We could ask Ember!" She says with a smile and nods quickly. "Spikey and Ember are on pretty good terms after he helped her win the gauntlet of fire last year!"

Twilight blinks in confusion, asking for details about everything that happened. It takes Twilight a moment, but she gets the gist. "So you won, but you gave it to Ember?"

Spike nods. "Yep! It worked out well, too. She and I worked together and steamrolled the rest of the competition. Garble and his gang stood like... No chance. Which was hilarious." He laughs a little bit in his reminiscing.

Twilight smiles. "Well, that's very good of you, Spike. I'm proud of you." She says with a bright smile. "I'll see if I can't make a trip to the dragon lands. Speaking with this new Dragon Lord would be a good idea, too..." She then blinks and takes a deep breath. "Wait, no. no... I'm not doing that stuff anymore. Just a trip should be fine. Yeah." She exhales gently and calms herself down.

"One thing at a time, though, first visiting my brother. Everypony good for the day after tomorrow?" Twilight says after a moment. Everypony else nods in response, and the chatter dies down in place of delicious pancakes.

A pair of ponies are inside Canterlot Castle, having a relatively civil conversation, until one suddenly yells out in response to a request from the first. "ABSOLUTELY NOT!" Celestia tells Sunset, who winces from the second loud voice she's heard today.

"Firstly. OW. What is with you and Grandma YELLING SO LOUD?!" Sunset says with a wince, rubbing her ear with a hoof. "Inside voices! Ever heard of them, Mom?!"

Celestia sighs and takes a deep breath. "Sorry, sweetie, give me a moment." Celestia then takes another deep breath, recentering herself after a moment.

Celestia then opens her eyes and exhales. "Better. Anyways, the answer is still no." She says it in a dulcet tone, levitating her quill to continue working on her reports for the night.

Sunset sputters in surprise, "I feel like I know better than to ask, but WHY not?!" she asks, completely confused by Celestia's veto of her plans. "The others will be there, not to mention Twilight, Cadence, and Shining Armor."

Celestia leans on her hoof, looking towards Sunset from her study desk. "Sunset, literally every time they go to the Empire, something horrific almost happens. It's not that I don't trust Mother to protect you... Actually, no, that is exactly what I don't trust. Mother is a fantastic fighter, capable of defeating entire armies. Meaning she's not exactly good at keeping collateral damage to a minimum. Nor can she solve things peacefully like when she was the Princess of Friendship."

Sunset rolls her eyes. "Mom, you still get hyper-awkward around Grandma whenever you see her. Are you sure you aren't overreacting a bit?"

Celestia sighs a little and rubs her own forehead. "It's just a little awkward, alright? Mother is mother, valid, but I still taught her when she was just a filly. It makes things all... strange. But no. I'm not overreacting. If you want to go, either I go with you, OR you and Starlight go separately another day."

Sunset blinks and stares for a moment. "Sure. We go tomorrow then! See you then!" She then heads out of the room. Celestia blinking.

"Wait, what?" Celestia says as Sunset calls her bluff. That was... a blow to her pride, to say the least.

"Ohohohoooo~ Seems like thou hath been bested by your daughter, Sister!" Luna says with a grin on her face.

"I suppose I will handle tomorrow's work. You enjoy a family day with Mother and Sunset." Luna says with a smile. "Perhaps after this, you won't be so tense around Mother and trying to find ways of taking control of the conversation. I swear it looks like you two are playing mental chess whenever you run into each other. It's quite frustrating to see."

Celestia groans and slams her head on her desk. "Ugh. I guess so. I should prepare my disguise, then. I'd prefer not to draw eyes everywhere we go." she sighs as she stands up and heads to her room, leaving some work unfinished.

"You do realize you'll be going with Mother, right Sister? I doubt you'll draw any eyes with her waltzing around without a disguise." Luna says as Celestia opens the door to leave.

Celestia blinks, completely mentally stalling for a moment. "Oh, right. That's true. I haven't been out just for a walk in the city in so long. Uh."

Luna tilts her head, trying to figure out why her sister is mentally fried, before getting a grin on her face. "You have NO idea how to be normal anymore, do you? Mother was the same way for a while. Should I be worried about a second coming of Daybreaker at this rate? Maybe you can call yourself Eternal Daybreaker?" Luna says with a slight chuckle, quickly adding on. "I'm just teasing, of course."

Celestia sighed a little bit, giving Luna a little bit of a smirk. "Teasing your older sister? Very bold, Luna. Perhaps I should tell Moth- ahem, Twilight, why you still went to Nightmare Moon, even with all her warnings. Instead of the official story that we pegged all on me."

Luna sputters and coughs a little bit as she drops the vase she was levitating to get a closer look at, causing it to crash and crumble on the floor... Again. "AH, uh. No no. That's very fine. Yes. We can certainly just uhm. OH, look at the time! It's time to go to sleep for the day! Er, I mean, I need to get ready for uh. Yeah!" She then runs off quickly. "It was still partially your fault!" She says in the distance.

Celestia sighs and rolls her eyes, shaking her head quietly before scoffing as she walks towards her room. "Eternal Daybreaker. That is just way too much. Seriously, Daybreaker is cool enough. Right?" She says to a random guard.

The guard is too confused to respond, so he nods.

"So, that's why Mom is here," Sunset says with a very nervous smile as she motions to the undisguised, yet still vacation mode, Celestia behind her. Celestia is simply wearing a straw hat, sunglasses, and an explorer's vest, with no proper disguise on herself.

"Twilight," Celestia says with a stare that can only be described as 'cold.'

"Celestia," Twilight responds with a loving smile that strikes the inner filly inside of Celestia.

The others stare as Celestia coughs and heaves momentarily, composing herself just as quickly. "Ahem. I uh. Ugh." she grimaces, trying to find the right words before bluntly saying. "I am coming along because I do not want your group's awful luck with the Crystal Empire to hurt my daughter."

Celestia opened her eyes, having closed them while sputtering and coughing. She fully expected to see the element bearers and her mother be upset with her. Instead, however, the group was mumbling before Rainbow Dash spoke up.

"Yep, that checks. At least we'll have two Alicorns here when things go south."

"Eyup, Ah'll feel a lot more safe then." Applejack agrees quickly, giving a nod to Celestia and Sunset. "Hopefully, we can all enjoy ahourselves before then, though."

The newest addition to the group, Starlight, however, was staring. "Wait, we're gonna be traveling with CELESTIA?! How are you all not freaking out?! We're literally traveling with the presiding ruler of the country, and you're talking with her like she's your old buddy from your hometown!"

Everypony in the group stares at one another before tilting their heads. "Because she is our friend," Fluttershy says after a moment, smiling softly.

That simple statement alone was enough to fry Starlight's brain. Even though she knew about Twilight's stint in the past, she was the only one in the group who didn't know the whole truth. Wallflower mostly kept that a secret. So, a revelation of this size was still enough to erode her brain.

"Oops. I think we broke Starlight." Sunset says as she helps guide her student into the train with a wing. "I'll uh... handle this. Sorry, everypony!" She says with a giggle before giving Celestia and Twilight a small hug, following her stunned student inside.

The rest of the group pours onto the train after Sunset and Starlight, splitting off to sit in their seats. Twilight sighed as she sat down at the only seat she could fit in without her disguise.

This means Celestia is sitting there, too, resulting in a very awkward silence, only punctuated by the conversations between the other ponies in the train car.

"So. I see you've chosen to only cover up your scars?" Celestia says after almost half an hour of silence. Twilight had idly been watching out the window the entire ride, keeping silent.

"Hm? Of course! I wouldn't want to spook my niece." Twilight says with a tilt of her head. "It's the first time I'm getting to meet her. Oh, but no magic. Rarity helped with some makeup, and I'm making sure to keep things on the table. I'll tell her when she's a bit older."

"Flurry Heart is certainly a personality. She couldn't control her magic very well until after the Crystaling happened. Even then, we could only partially repair the Crystal Heart." Celestia says, shifting in her uncomfortable seat. Usually, she would take a chariot, but the suddenness of the outing meant she couldn't free up any to ride on.

"Hm. The dark magic inside of it was purified, so I'm not too worried about any of it leaking out. I want this trip to go well, so let's put our effort into making sure we don't end up stressed." Twilight says with a gentle smile.

Celestia coughs a bit as the awkward silence covers the pair again, quietly mumbling before looking up. "Have you told them yet?"

Twilight closes her eyes a little bit, wincing. "A little. Although, I lost my temper before I could tell them everything. The right moment just hasn't come up. Especially about that one detail."

Celestia grimaced slightly as a strange feeling rose in her chest. "It's almost been a year, Twilight," she said after a moment, unaware of her sharpened gaze and mild pout. However, Twilight's gaze was still pointed towards the window, seemingly indifferent and unchanged. Celestia could never read her mother's expressions, and that certainly had not changed with age.

"I know," Twilight says after a moment. "I just need to find the will and want to do it." She says quietly towards Celestia. "I also just want to enjoy life as a 'Twilight' for a little longer. Not to mention I am... uh"

"Not that Twilight anymore? Is there something wrong with that?" Celestia says with a raised eyebrow.

"I. Don't actually know." Twilight says after a long moment of thinking.

Celestia winces a little bit, sitting back against the rest of her seat. She doesn't really understand why, but that... hurts to hear. Still, she takes a small breath, looking towards the oncoming snow and the Crystal Empire rapidly approaching them.

Finally, the train stops, sliding into the station with a loud hiss. Quickly, the conductor runs out of the train and opens the train car for Celestia and Twilight, rolling out the red carpet for them and their friends.

The Crystal Empire's aesthetics are as Twilight remembers them. While some snow makes it into the city, it is warm and comfortable otherwise. "This place got so much bigger." Twilight mumbles, unable to remember how the Empire used to look. To her, it was just so much bigger than it ever was.

"Oh, right! This is your first time here since you came back." Spike says excitedly. "Has this place changed much since back in the day?"

"Oh yeah. It's way bigger... yeesh." Twilight says as she looks around the city for a moment. "But enough of that. Spike, did you remember to send the letter to Cadence and Shining? I sorta half expected them to meet us here."

"Yeah, I did... that's kinda weird. You think the chaos started early?" Spike says with a tilt of his head.

Almost immediately, the rest of the group begins to look around. Starlight and Sunset are slightly confused by their reaction, although after nothing happens, everypony seems to calm down. "Yeesh, you'd almost think you're all traumatized by this place." Sunset says after the group seemingly calms down.

"Less traumatized and more... wary, darling. Contrary to our earlier confidence, we do tend to attract trouble whenever we're in the Empire." Rarity responds with a wave of her hoof.

"It's uh. Kinda inconvenient when we're actually trying to take a vacation. So we're bein extra careful bout this all." Applejack chimes in after a moment.

Twilight taps her hoof to her chin. "Guess we can just make our way to the castle ourselves. Then we can split up. Everypony knows what they wanna do?"

Rarity smiles, "Absolutely! Me, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash are going to explore the Crystal Glades. Apparently, the gemstones there glisten in a special way that would look wonderful on my dresses!"

Rainbow Dash nods. "Applejack and I just wanna come along cuz we heard it looks cool. Cadence recommended it as a cool exploration spot last time we were here."

Fluttershy chimes in as the group continues to move toward the Crystaline Castle. "I'm planning on vising Glitter Drops. Apparently, she needs help with a Ursa Minor. Since she's on a nice nature preserve, I thought I could see all the cute winter critters and help her, too!"

Pinkie Pie bounces along the road before sliding and holding up a suitcase that is literally vibrating with its contents. "I just wanna see Flurry! I got her so much stuff for this visit! Toys, snacks, and more Toys!" she says excitedly.

Sunset nudges Starlight a bit. "Starlight and I are gonna meet with Sunburst, her old friend. See if we can't help them reconnect. "Baby steps, of course, but it's an important place to start."

In response, Starlight nods, and Twilight and Celestia are proud of Sunset's growth, which shows on their faces.

"Great! I'll see if I can't tag along with anypony else, but I do wanna spend time with Cadence and Shining, so that comes first." Twilight says with a nod, everypony looking at Celestia next, who blinks in confusion from the stares. It does take her a moment, but she does figure out the silent question.

"Oh, hm. Honestly, I didn't think this far ahead. I suppose I'll stick in the castle for now. I want to research the Crystal Heart and see if I can finish repairing it," Celestia says after a moment as she looks at the cracked artifact spinning on its magical pedestal. Twilight and the others stare at it for a moment as well.

"That would be prudent, actually." Rarity says. "Poor thing looks like it's struggling to function."

Twilight squints a little bit. "I can't touch that thing anyway. I don't want to find out if it remembers me." She says with a weak chuckle, much to the confusion of most of the group, to which Twilight says. "I'll tell you all about it tonight. That one is a LONG story."

With that, the group approaches the castle's large doors. The guards look at each other before standing aside. As Twilight approaches the slowly opening doors, her ears twitch as she hears something.

With that tiny warning from Twilight, a massive yellow laser is fired through the crack in the door. With a shift of her head, Twilight avoids the laser with minimal movement. Celestia quickly puts a shield around herself and the other ponies, which causes the laser to bounce up and off into the sky.

"SHINING WHERE IS FLURRY'S WHAMMY?!" Cadence yells out from inside, the group peeking in, only to see an utter mess of the room. Cadence is trying to catch Flurry, who is inside a yellow bubble of magic, flying around and searching for her toy. Wherever the bubble touches, it ends up causing the spot to burn or get singed, a testament to the baby alicorn's magic. Shining Armor is buried under a small pile of rubble, one hoof sticking out of it, just twitching.

After a moment, the pile of rubble gets burst back by a surge of defensive magic, Shining Armor staggering in a daze, having taken a full-force blast of Flurry's magic to his shield earlier. "Wha whoa... I'm alright. Cadence, we were supposed to meet Twilight and her friends about half an hour ago! Where is that toy?!"

After more searching, the married duo noticed that everything had calmed down. Twilight giggles as she boops Flurry Heart on the nose, having quickly found the doll with some of her magic. "The doll was underneath the rubble, by the way," Twilight says to Cadence and Shining with a smile.

Shining blinks. "Wait, huh? But that means it would have had to be in the barrier with m- TWILY!" He says as he quickly gives Twilight a hug. Twilight giggled a little bit as she returned the hug back.

"Nice to see you again BBBFF." Twilight says with a smile, carefully passing the now comfortable Flurry to Cadence, who, to her credit, is only mostly stunned by Twilight's appearance. She hasn't seen Twilight since disappearing, having been too busy to visit. Well, she wasn't there in Canterlot when Twilight returned.

"Is that really you, Twilight?" Cadence says after a moment, holding onto Flurry with one hoof as she looks over the tall, regal-looking alicorn.

Twilight smiles, nodding to Cadence. "I'd do our usual greeting, but uhm, I don't wanna ruin your floor, " she says with a gentle tilt of her head. "Sorry for taking so long to visit. I've just been readjusting to the era, I guess."

Cadence smiles and quickly hugs Twilight with a wing. "That's fine, Twilight. You know you're always welcome here. Your friends included- And Celestia." She blinks twice. "And the thief too? Wow, you have a lot of friends now."

Sunset winces and is about to speak before Celestia takes a half-threatening smile and tells Cadence in a reasonably cold tone, "Cadence dear, that's my daughter and Twilight's student you're talking about. Also, an Alicorn."

Cadence coughs a little bit in surprise and looks at Sunset. "You're Sunset Shimmer?! I'm actually really sorry about that. Your wings really blend in with your coat, and uh... Sorry. I'm more than happy to let bygones go anyways."

Sunset smiles a little as she raises a wing. "Oh, yeah, I keep them to the side, but I still haven't really figured out how to use them. I only got them two days ago. Rainbow Dash is gonna help me out with that tomorrow. Today, though, my student and I have some stuff to do. Mind if we drop off our stuff in a spare room?"

Cadence giggles. "Ever efficient, I can tell Twilight was your teacher. Sure, if you all want, we can have dinner together tonight. I'm sure you all have different things you want to do for your short vacation."

With that, the group disperses.

Twilight is happily playing and easily keeping Flurry Heart happy and busy, which results in Cadence and Shining Armor getting some much-needed relaxation for the first time. Twilight smiles as she happily shakes a little bear and has it dance, twirl, and play around in front of Flurry, keeping the filly engaged with cute noises and never letting her out of sight. That is until Cadence speaks up.

"Wow, Twilight, you're a natural at this," Cadence says with an impressed tone. "I haven't seen Flurry this engaged with anypony, not even her foal sitter! Or her father."

"Hey, I try pretty hard to keep her engaged! I'm just not that good at it yet." Shining says with a huff, puffing out his chest. "I'll get it down, and you can finally sleep eight hours a night."

"Eh, she's a mom. She's gonna wake up anyways," Twilight says with a matter-of-fact voice. She then gently levitates Flurry, putting the now tired-out and sleepy filly into a bundle of blankets and soft pillows. Even the bundle of joy had an energy limit... which was around four straight hours of uninterrupted, intense playtime.

"You two need a break, though, that's for sure," Twilight says as she finally sits down on a cushion, stretching her legs slightly and exhaling a shallow breath as she takes a relaxed pose. "You two look exhausted beyond exhausted."

"Not as Exhausted as Celestia is going to be if she plans on pouring over that many books," Cadence says with a yawn as she looks over to Celestia, who is currently sitting at Cadence's desk with several stacks of books.

"My mother made me pour over 50 books in a single night once because I broke a vase. This should be fine," Celestia says flatly, yawning gently as she reads through a book. Unfortunately, she has slowed down dramatically since the first book and is barely through her fifth. She squints her eyes and furrows her forehead before faceplanting her head into the open book. "Ugh. So many words. It's like reading through case law but somehow even more boring."

Cadence hums a bit in thought, leaning on Shining Armor. "Probably content fatigue. At least with work, you're getting new things every time... Hopefully. But all your books are just about the Crystal Heart over and over. Considering we don't know how it was made, it's probably pretty repetitive... Also, wow, you never talk about the Queen like ever. Are you opening up about your past Auntie?"

Celestia closes the book in front of her and shrugs. "Depends on some factors I have no control over. But you're right, my brain feels like mush." She then shifts over and sits on another cushion, finally laying down after gathering more cushions to rest on. "Ugh. Stupid inverted dark magic artifact thing."

Twilight also settles down in a cushion bed of her making, relaxing near the fire. "I'm actually surprised there isn't anypony that's just studied magic theory to the point where they've figured out a possible method to fix it. Shame we didn't bring Moondancer along. She might have known something. But she's busy with the rest of that friend group at Rainbow Falls. Especially since the Crystal Heart is going to likely break in a few days at this rate."

The rest of the group stares at Twilight with extremely panicked expressions, Twilight looking around in confusion. "What? Do I have something on my face?"

Celestia stands up and puts her hooves on Twilight's shoulders. "What do you mean the Crystal Heart will break in a few days?"

Twilight blinks as she looks at the group. "I thought you'd... It's literally falling apart every minute. Luna used the artifact rejuvenation spell or Spell of Relic Reconstitution, albeit still weaker but useful. It's like a bandaid for something that runs off of dark prism inversion for dark magic. Now, how you'd actually fix it... Honestly, I have no idea. The Crystal Heart hates me, so even if I did know, I'd probably make it worse."

Celestia rubs her forehead and groans. "What does that even mean?!" She says with a groan before flumping on her back onto the cushions behind her. "Stupid ancient magic. Stupid confusion theorums." She grumbles out with an exasperated huff.

Cadence and Shining Armor are surprised, not because of hearing that the Crystal Heart will break, but more about Celestia's... personality. Typically, she's so uptight and perfect, but something seems to have completely lowered her guard almost entirely. Cadence chimes in after a moment, saying, "I've never seen you this lively before, Celestia. You're completely relaxed."

Celestia perks up and blushes a little. "Ah, yes, well, It is technically my vacation. So... A little relaxation goes a long way, I suppose." Celestia fumbles over her words and sighs. "This is so stupid. Just. Call me when dinner is ready, I need some air." She says before leaving the room.

Twilight sighs a bit, the room in awkward silence for a while. "Hopefully, the others are enjoying themselves," Twilight mumbles quietly.

"Sooo. This seems a little... trial by fire ish, don't you think, Sunset?" Starlight says after a moment. "Kinda still a bit awkward, and it's tough to just talk to ponies in the right way and uh... Do you think Sunburst will even remember me? He's probably a super important pony and stuff by now!"

Sunset hums a bit. "Mmm. No spoilers, but I think you two will have more in common than you think. Just keep an open mind, okay? There aren't any steps or a list to follow. You gotta really feel it. Open yourself up and stuff."

Sunset and Starlight approach the small crystalline home, knocking on the door. Almost instantly, a book appears in the doorway after the door swings open. Sunburst reads down at the page momentarily before looking up from his book and adjusting his glasses. "Oh hey! Uhh. What can I do for you two?" The observant pony blinks, noticing Sunset's wings and horn after a moment. "Erm, your majesty?"

Sunset laughs dryly for a moment. "Just. Sunset. Side, I'm just here for... emotional support. So uh. You got this Sunburst." She nods.

Starlight blinks and actually pouts, saying to her teacher with a betrayed-sounding voice, "I thought you were supposed to be emotional support for me!"

Sunset giggles, "You know I'm here for you, Starlight. Now act like I'm not here," she says as she motions between the two. "Yeesh, I feel like I'm playing matchmaker for some reason, " she giggles.

Starlight and Sunburst blush, but the observant magus blinks. "Wait, Starlight?" He then looks his fellow unicorn over closely. "It is you! Wow! How are you doing? I never expected to see you out here! Oh, both of you can come in if you like."

Starlight takes a step back from the sudden excitement from her usually more mellow friend. Or at least as far as she can remember from foalhood. "Oh! Sure, as long as you aren't too busy with like. I dunno, wizard stuff?"

Sunburst shakes his head. "Magic theory mostly, being an important wizard takes... talent I don't really have. How about you?"

Starlight blinks and shifts in place. "Uh... I mean. I'm Princess Sunset's student?" She says with a smile and a shrug.

Sunburst tilts his head. "I wasn't even aware that Queen Twilight's student was taking a student of her own."

Sunset sputters after a moment. "Wait, how did you? That's like a state secret!"

Sunburst tilts his head before grabbing a book from a shelf. "Mysteries of Magic first edition, Twilight wrote it herself under her current pen name, Mare Mysterious. I'm guessing she didn't expect anypony to have books from that time anymore. Don't worry, though. I'm pretty sure there are only six of these books in existence. If it's that much of a secret, I'll be more than glad to."

Sunset groans and rubs her forehead. "Grandma is 100% more than likely to erase your memory. Just keep it a secret between us three," Sunset says with a furrowed brow.

Almost simultaneously, Starlight and Sunburst blink, stare at each other, and then look back at Sunset. "GRANDMA?!"

Sunset blinks, immediately having her mistake slapped right in her face. Sunset takes a deep breath as she gets a one-thousand-yard stare aimed at the ceiling, slipping into her more... human vocabulary for a moment as she says, "Oh, for ****'s sake... Well. This got derailed. I really hope the others are having a better time."

"Wow. This place is beautiful!" Rarity says as she and the other two slide past the brush into a clearing in the nearby snowy forest. Crystalline ice formations reflect the light between themselves, causing a wonderful assortment of colors as the prismatic effects of the ice split the light in all directions.

Rainbow Dash swiftly lands from above, gently crunching the snow below her hooves. "Alright, let's get the fancy ice you wanted. I'm surprised Maud knew about ice stuff as much as she did rocks."

Rarity smiles. "Well, I did need something specific for the next set of outfits. So, she did have to do some extensive research. Although, apparently, the ice formations do share similar qualities to gemstones."

Applejack blinks. "Ah, I have no idea what that means, sugar cube. But if ya need the fancy ice, I got yer back." She then positions herself near the trunk of the tree. Rarity levitates a few baskets underneath each strand of three gemstones. Applejack quickly bucked the tree and knocked down several solid pieces of chilling ice. As the baskets fill up, they begin to leak a cold mist out of them, which Rainbow Dash uses to package each of the baskets up in a fluffy, portable cloud.

"There we go! Thank you both so much." Rarity says as she uses magic to carefully move each cloud basket to the side. "Phew. Moments like these make me wish we had brought everypony else along. This place is lovely."

Rainbow Dash and Applejack sit down in the soft snow. As the group sits back after only fifteen minutes of work, they all stare at the frozen pond, Rainbow Dash stretching her neck. "You think Twilight is ever gonna... Ya know, finally, tell us about the entire Queen stuff?"

Rarity sighs a little bit. "It's been almost a year now, and no real signs of it, aside from that one time on the mountain. Unfortunately, we seemed to have scared Twilight out of it."

Rainbow Dash chuckles weakly, shuddering as she remembers how terrified she felt that day. "I really don't wanna think about that. I don't usually get scared, but whatever Twilight did made me feel like I would die. Or worse."

Applejack runs her hoof through the snow. "Yah, that was rougher than a rodeo. Haven't felt like that in a long time. Still, she clearly didn't mean anythin by it. So nothin by it. Now... Uh. Rainbow?"

Rainbow Dash blinks. "Oh, right. I had nothing to add but! Today, I hit a breakthrough. So!" She grabs a scroll from her pack, pulls it out, and rolls it out in front of the group, which is full of notes and ideas titled 'Big Secret Snooping.' "So we all know that Princess Celestia and Luna didn't tell us everything about Twilight's time in the past. Applejack's ability to see through lies set off that entire conversation. So, I've been snooping as the soon-to-be vice-captain of the Wonderbolts."

"And you really didn't have much last we heard, correct? Unfortunately, my contacts haven't heard anything either. The appearance of Wallflower is the only thing I've heard of." Rarity says with a tap of her chin. "Fallen noble house from ancient history, I believe."

Applejack then chimes in, pointing at a few notes on her section of the scroll. "Ah, haven't gotten anythin out of Twi or Spike. Twi is basically impossible to press. She just slips out of it before ah can ask anything concrete. On the other hoof, Spike doesn't talk to me much anymore... wow, that actually kinda hurts to hear that out loud."

Rainbow Dash nods. "Well, I figured somethin' out myself!" She then coughs a little bit. "Something. Although... It's a bit of a stretch. You know how awkward Celestia and Twilight were on the train ride back, right? Our old guess about them dating or something when Twilight was in the past is way out the window. That was not that kind of awkwardness."

Applejack hms. "Makes sense, Celestia seemed way more relaxed than you'd expect from something like that."

Rainbow Dash taps her chin. "It actually reminded me more of my parents and me. Erm... you'll be fine if I talk about this?" Rainbow says as she looks towards Applejack, who pulls the brim of her hat down.

Applejack says after a moment. "Ya can continue. Ah'm an adult. If I needta take a step away, ah'l do it."

Rainbow Dash nods, resting her wing on Applejack's back. "In that case. Ahem... So, I had a rebellious phase during my teenage years, especially after getting my cutie mark. I ignored everything my parents told me to do and just did the opposite. I never got into any big trouble because of it, of course. I didn't go THAT far. But I did really disappoint them sometimes. I barely finished school, didn't go to any advanced schooling or stuck through the extra years. After all, 'the Wonderbolts only require you to finish primary school,' I told them. But, even to this day, whenever I go home, there's just a different air. Like a soft fuzzy feeling from just being near somepony you know will always love you no matter what, even if you mess up."

Applejack twitches a little bit, and Rainbow Dash stammers for a moment. "Anyways, getting to the point. I think Twilight might be Celestia and probably Luna's mom. I don't know if it's adoptive or genetic, but probably adoptive if I had to guess. Erm... Mostly because of how Twilight talks about them and their dynamics. According to Spike, aside from him, Celestia and Luna were two of the first two ponies she went to see when she got back, on the same level as her mom and dad!"

Applejack sighed as she adjusted her hat for a moment again, the action making her feel just a bit better. "Actually, that does make sense. Why'd she go visit Celestia and Luna so quick? Hm... That does kinda give us a clue. But parent? Come on, Twi bein a mom?"

Rarity blinks and looks at Applejack and Rainbow Dash, realizing something. "Flurry Heart." With that, the other two ponies perk up and quickly catch on. "That's why she could handle Flurry Heart so well."

The trio sits in silence as they look down at the scroll laid out in front of them. Rainbow Dash blinked. "Holy buck, Twilight is Celestia's mom."

Rarity stares for a moment. "Now, now, that's just all speculation... but that would mean Twilight is Sunset's grandma, too. Oh. She must be so disappointed in Celestia and Luna for the entire Nightmare Moon debacle."

Applejack takes a deep breath. "... If she doesn't come out about this stuff ah'm gonna confront her about it."

Rainbow Dash perks up. "Woah, wait. She probably has her reasons for this Applejack! Not to mention, can you imagine how our lives would change if that came out?! It wouldn't be good either! Ponies already think I only got into the Wonderbolts because of Twilight in the first place!"

Rarity nods softly. "You are the youngest flier to ever join Rainbow Dash. Still, I agree with Rainbow, Applejack darling. We cannot simply out our friend because she's keeping some secrets from us."

Applejack sighs. "It's not cuz of the secret. Think about it for a second. Not from our perspective. But from Celestia's. Just for a bit. Think about how awkward it musta been. Think about how she might feel with her mother keepin this stuff a secret fer so long."

Rainbow Dash takes a while to process it, but Rarity's brow quickly furrows. "She must feel awful. Like her mother isn't proud enough to claim her... Hm. Well, that convinced me. Celestia is Sunset's mother. We should do everything we can to help her out as if she were one of our friends."

Rainbow Dash blinks. "Woah, that's a bit too fast to change your mind, don't you think? I barely broke free from that stigma..." Rainbow Dash grumbles slightly before feeling a hoof on her shoulder. Looking towards Applejack, she sighs and nods. "Fine. But only because I want to stop talking to Twilight's fake side so much. I wanna get to know the real her again." She says with a rub of her own shoulder. "Even if the real her is somepony completely different."

"Ah'm pretty done with dealin with the fake Twi, too. She's tryin' too hard." Applejack says with a nod.

Rarity sighs. "Oh... very well then. Honestly, this will be good regardless. How much could Twilight have changed after all?"

Fluttershy and Pinkie finally arrive at the nature preserve. Pinkie Pie decided to come along once she realized Twilight wanted to spend time with Flurry. So she had nothing to do except join Fluttershy on her adventure! "Sooooo, who me meeting!" Pinkie says excitedly, hopping in place and making her imprint on the snow with each hop deeper and larger.

Fluttershy smiles and pushes her mane to the side a little bit. "Glitter Drops. She and I met at the Critter and Friends convention a month ago."

Pinkie Pie nods. "Oh, right! Look at you, so much more confident and stuff, going to conventions all aloneeee." She nudges Fluttershy, who blushes a little bit in embarrassment.

Fluttershy giggles softly. "Only a little bit. But Rainbow Dash teases me that the shy part in my name doesn't fit anymore. Only really, really big crowds can get me frozen like the old days."

Pinkie Pie nods and quickly knocks on the lodge's door. "Friendship Deliveryyyyy!" She says happily. "And good for you, Flutterbrave~! Flutternotshy... I dunno. Just stick with Fluttershy. It's a good name! Besides, Best Pony 2011 can't change her name that quickly!"

With that in the air, the door opens, revealing Glitter Drops, who tilts her head. "Fluttershy! Thanks for coming! Come in, both of you!"

Fluttershy smiles and nods. "Thank you, this is Pinkie Pie. She came along to help out while we're out tracking the Ursa Minor."

Pinkie nods. "I'm great with critters! I take care of Gummy every day! Alsooo, I have to make sure there are no spoilers."

Fluttershy looks at Pinkie in confusion before shaking her head and looking back at Glitter Drops. "I'm surprised you asked for help, though Glitter Drops. I thought you could handle a Ursa Minor with your magic?"

Glitter Drops shudders a little bit. "M-maybe. But Ursa Minors sorta make me freeze up. It's why this one has been terrorizing the area for so long."

Fluttershy tilts her head. "Whatever for? They're just cute little cubs!"

Glitter Drops and sighs. "Well... When I was a filly-"

Pinkie Pie quickly appears over the foreground of the scene mid-way through Glitter Drop's sentence. "WOAH, WOAH! That's like. Super spoilers for the next chapter! Besides, this one has sorta gone on long enough, and introducing Fizzy to the story like this seems REALLY lame."

The Writer responds after a momentary lapse of clarity due to being argued with a fictional character in the story. "Hey, it's not lame. Flashbacks are like... Core components to writing!"

Pinkie huffs as the ponies behind her continue to wordlessly talk. "No, no! She's important to this story! Besides, the next chapter is gonna be like... Five parts long, so we can't be introducing her like this! Vetoed!"

The Writer, unable to wrangle in Pinkie, relents and moves on to the next part. "That's what I thought~." The Writer covers Pinkie Pie in ice cream as punishment. "YAY!"

The group met up for dinner, with every pony silently sitting in the large crystal hall and munching down their food. The air is tense with anticipation of any possible thing going wrong, as for half the group, the day has been utterly exhausting.

Twilight breaks the silence first, with her visibly exuding confidence and insurmountable poise. "So Starlight, you said that your friend had an idea on how to properly fix the Crystal Heart? Do you think it'll work?"

Starlight jerks up and talks stiffly after a moment. "Y-yeah! Uh. He's REALLY good with magic theory, and apparently, just completing a proper Crystalling with Flurry and the relic reconstitution spell between Sunset and Cadence would work. We could probably do it tomorrow and have the rest of the week to relax in the fully warm Empire. He didn't want to try it with Luna and Celestia since, in his own words, 'Their magic could possibly make the Heart pop like a balloon.' So he was just gonna be careful."

Twilight nods twice. "Well, that's good. Hopefully, this means we can avoid the usual chaos and just have a relaxing time."

"It's hard to relax with you around, ya know," Celestia says curtly. Fork idly stabbing her food.

Twilight blinks. "Wha? Where'd that come from?"

Celestia blinks with confusion at herself and sighs as she drops her fork into her food. "No idea. Sorry, today has just been a lot for me. I think I was doing hardcore research way too long without practice."

Spike tilts his head. "Ohhh yeah, I remember how crankly Twilight got when relearning all the modern spells."

Twilight huffs. "Modern magic is just so... Boring." She grumbles a bit, everypony loosening up with a slight giggle.

Celestia idly stares down at her food, almost as if trying to make it delicious or appetizing. But nothing, a voice ringing in her head softly.

"I knew you wouldn't stay away forever." The voice says softly, weak but still dangerous and venomous. "You never come here because I am here. You avoid the Empire because you never want to hear the truth. But now I have all the time in the world."

Celestia grimaces as she looks around at the chatting table, everypony is having a good time, to a degree. Celestia can tell Rarity, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash are planning something. She can tell that Sunset is stressed out about something. So many thoughts, observations, and ideas ring through her mind. "And yet you can't bring yourself to look at your mother's face. You still don't want to clear the air; you're afraid of what she might pick and that she might leave you again."

"This place is far too happy, far too excited. Far too pure for you. Mother would only be like this because she's disappointed in you. You failed as a leader. You failed as a sister. After all, the first thing she did when she saw you again was scold you, was it not? Not scold your sister, not scold you both. Just. YOU." The buried voice says.

"You may have defeated me, and you may have defeated my sister. There may be no chance of either of us coming back. But we will always be looming; we will always be there to crush your spirit. Your sister's spirit is indomitable, but yours has grown wearing and fragile. Was isolation that hard? Do you want Mommy to pat you on the back and tell you it was all okay?"

Celestia takes a deep breath. She wishes she could throw herself into her mom's arms and let out the 1000 years of loneliness, but that's not what a Princess does.

"Your sister is getting all the love again. And you get none."

Celestia takes a deep breath and sighs. She feels so vulnerable and naked without her regalia, but she doesn't need it at the dinner table here. But that vulnerability was the perfect size for that one sentence to press into her. "... Twilight."

Twilight tilts her head at Celestia. "Yes, Celestia?"

Celestia hoped that the chatter in the background would cover up her words, and it usually would, had it been anypony else in the entire world talking. No, everypony would hear it, regardless of whether they were speaking or not. After all, it was Celestia who was talking. Always perfect, Celestia.

"Are you... Proud of me? Like actually? Did I do a good job?" Celestia says, in a very soft tone of voice. One that a child would take when giving their report card to their parent, or asking about a painting they had drawn.

Typically, Twilight would have brushed it off, saying something like, 'This... Probably isn't the place for that.' or something along those lines. Celestia was fully expecting that. After all, at this point, everything was still salvageable. Twilight could continue playing her role in the lie and get away with it.

But Twilight knew that look on Celestia's face. She'd seen it before. She knew her daughter, and even if she was older, even if she was more mature, she could still understand how she felt. While yes, a public dinner was probably a terrible place for it, Twilight had largely avoided her daughters for the past year, and that had caught up to her just as much as it did to them.

Twilight promised herself to never make that mistake again. She would never discount or ignore the feelings that Celestia or Luna might feel again. Memories of seeing both of them in the hospital flash in her mind and reinforce her mental decision. No matter what, she had to answer this question now.

Twilight smiles and nods, giggling a little bit. "Of course I am. You did a great job."

With that bit of validation, the shadowy voice and presence in Celestia's heart faded away, the alicorn hugging her mother's side. Uncaring about the secret at this point.

Twilight sighs and rests a wing over the back of her daughter. "Well... That's that then." She says to herself as she looks at the other staring ponies.

"I planned a whole speech for this, but that doesn't feel right. So, while I have everypony's attention and my daughter is busy getting out 1000s of years of pent-up stress and emotion, lemme just say a few things. Shining, Cadence, being a parent is really hard, and you'll mess up and stumble, and with an alicorn daughter, you'll probably make her feel pretty awful sometimes. Just make sure to have each other's back. I know this because I've messed up a lot myself." Twilight says to the group, keeping them quiet with her mere change in tone of voice, sounding much more... Present and full, her tone neither allowing murmurs nor speech.

"So. Let me just... Reintroduce myself to everypony. Ahem. Hi. I'm Twilight Sparkle, Queen of Equestria and Celestia and Luna's Mother. Adopted. But I still love them just as much as I'd love my own."

And with that, the room explodes into an intense cacophony of voices.

Chapter 7x - Dinnertime Questions

"I KNEW IT!" Rainbow Dash says with a leap into the air. "Yes! I still got it! It took forever to figure it out, and honestly, I'm a little disappointed that I didn't get it off the first flip, but still. I WAS RIGHTTTTT!"

Twilight smiles a little bit and motions towards Rainbow Dash with a hoof. "Rainbow, I'm happy that you're happy, but this IS still the dinner table." She smiles, feeling a massive weight off her shoulders, regardless of her earlier mood. "I'm sure you all have many questions, so let's make sure this doesn't get out of hoof. One at a time, please?"

"That's asking a lot, darling. You dropped probably the biggest piece of drama and gossip you could have. Not to mention, you have kept this a secret for an entire year now." Rarity says, taking a little breath and trying to restrain herself.

"Then we should probably do this. Rainbow Dash goes first since she's most likely to not want to wait. Then Cadence and Shiny and finally anypony else." Twilight says after a moment.

The rest of the group nods and settles down, Rainbow Dash gladly taking the lead. She did feel like she earned it anyway.

"Normally, I'd be a bit upset, but this is so COOL! You founded the Wonderbolts, right?!" Rainbow Dash asks almost immediately, standing up from her seat again.

Twilight giggles a little, nodding in affirmation. "Sure did. Ah, it was so long ago that I can hardly remember it. It was sometime after we dissolved the legion after Flash Magnus and the others disappeared. I suppose that's pretty recent, all things considered, though. Still, they started off as a military detachment. I don't actually know when Celestia shifted their focus to what they are today."

Celestia blinks as she shifts her head from underneath Twilight's massive wing. "It was only about 1200 years ago. So, not long after you left. The only threats that existed were the Changelings since you did, ahem... Eliminate Grogar."

Twilight nods. "Well. That was a group effort. Still, worked out in the end. He won't be back anytime soon, if ever."

Rainbow Dash is stunned for a moment. "You... You knew Flash MAGNUS?!" She says excitedly as she leans even more forward on the table. "He's a legend! Like one of the Pillars of Equestria level of Legend!"

Twilight laughs. "Magnus?! Flash Magnus, is that famous here? He was kinda a dork back when I knew him. But that does make sense. He was a hero in his own right, so I GUESS I can give him a pass and say he fits the bill."

Cadence chimes in after a moment. "Did you know any of the other Pillars of Equestria Twilight?" She says with increasing interest that it was still on topic, so she doubted Rainbow would mind the intrusion.

Twilight sits back. "Uh... Honestly, I don't know who would have counted as that." After a second, Celestia whispers into Twilight's ear, causing her to perk up. "Oh yeah, no, I knew them all. Starswirl, especially for a while there, never meet your heroes is all I gotta say about that one... And since I know you're all super curious. Let me just go through them all."

Twilight shifts in her seat, and after making some paper, ink, and a quill appear, she begins to draw with her enchanted quills, each drawing a beautiful sketch of each of the Pillars. "Let's start with the leader, Starswirl. He's a jerk. That's about it."

Twilight then tosses said page over her shoulder. "Here we go, Flash Magnus. As I said, he had a good heroism stroke in him. It made him a little reckless, but he pulled through for everypony else."

Applejack chuckles. "Kinda like Rainbow. Cool." She says with a nudge to Rainbow's side.

Twilight giggles. "You'll find plenty of parallels between each of you. We even credited them for creating the elements so no pony would try to look into how they were made."

Celestia nods. "Mhm. It was a good cover story for that mess."

Twilight nods and taps her chin. "Mage Meadowbrook was a healer who discovered several cures for diseases that not even magic could heal. Yes, I know. Look, healing magic does exist. It's just dangerous to use, considering how thin magic has become. Medicine works. Anyways, she didn't care who needed help. She would give it out all in the kindness of her own heart. Just like Fluttershy."

The group all smiled at Fluttershy, who was curiously listening to the story. Twilight continued to speak after a moment. "Unfortunately, I didn't know the rest too well. Somnambula, Mistmane, and especially Rockhoof didn't really... Like me much." She mumbles a bit. "Honestly, fair on their part, though. Very fair."

At this point, Twilight was expecting another question, but with the silent stares of her friends, the nonverbal question lingered in the air. After some awkward silence, Twilight nudges Celestia a little bit before deciding to answer the question. "During that era, harmony and friendship had really taken off. After all, Unity was, as far as everypony knew, gone. Discord vanished to places unknown. The only thing left from that era was me and a few other leaders. Just uh. I was unique in that. I was the last creature of that era. I actually killed somepony. Sure, that was bound to happen throughout my lifetime, but well. That's something those three didn't understand, and honestly, I don't expect any of you to either. It was a different time, but there's still no real excuse. Especially as the Princess of Friendship."

Spike chimes in quickly. "Well, uh. Aside Sombra. Right?"

Twilight giggles. "Sombra isn't dead, Spike. The elements don't kill things. They banish or seal them. He's probably just sealed away in his own horn or something weird that got buried underneath the snow. Hopefully it stays that way. Still, that's why I didn't wanna talk about this stuff. I really do feel like I betrayed everything I was. But it was a trade, I guess. Princess of Friendship for being a mom to my daughters. I wouldn't have had it any other way."

There is a bit of silence, but Applejack is the first to speak. "Well, I can't say I agree with those methods n stuff, but as long as ya don't instantly resort to violence here and now, I don't think ah have the right to judge ya."

The rest of the group nods, although Shining Armor is still quietly watching his sister, having not said a single word yet.

Twilight laughs a little. "Relax. I might be out of touch, but."

After a moment, Twilight taps her chin and stares at the table. "Well, that's why we have Sunset at least. Look, I'm going to be completely honest with you, the last time I solved things entirely without violence was over 5000 years ago for me. Why do you think I don't come with on adventures much anymore."

Celestia is the first to perk up. "You don't go out with your friends anymore?"

Rainbow Dash instantly jumps on before Twilight can respond, "That's why you haven't come along on any friendship missions?! Because you're afraid you'll mess something up?"

Twilight smiles awkwardly. "That and I just wanted to relax. I did manage Equestria completely solo for several millennia. There were other heroes, don't get me wrong, but in the end, it was mostly me and... oh?" Twilight jerks forward as something collides with her free side. Looking down, she sees Shining Armor hugging her side.

Shining hugs Twilight's barrel tightly, holding onto her tightly. "You must have been so terrified at the start, Twilight. I can't imagine what it'd be like to be thrown into something like that without preparation."

Twilight silently leans a bit into her brother. His little act warmed her heart more than any fire could. "It was, uh. Well. Terrifying would be an understatement. I didn't expect the spell to work in the first place, and when it did, I ended up in jail. Then, I planned the first Grand Galloping Gala. I almost got executed... The King and Queen died because of poisoning. I got to adopt two adorable fillies, but I had no experience caring for them. I almost died like... every other day." Twilight leans forward and holds onto her head, not having thought about this stuff. In the past, her life consisted of constant action and movement, with little to no breaks. Taking care of the well-being of hundreds of thousands and eventually millions of ponies, taking care of a family.

Cadence and the rest of the group gasped. Cadence asked with bated breath after a moment, "What? Why would anypony want to kill you?!"

Twilight shrugs. "I dunno, you stop asking after the 20th time. It's not like the royal guards or even the guardship were any good back then. The nobility were there waiting to take power if the monarchy went down. It took generations to finally stabilize everything. That was just barely the beginning."

Shining armor holds onto his sister, clinging to her a little. "Well, it's alright. You're back now, and your big bro will make sure that you stay safe as much as he can. Sides, Equestria isn't half as bad as it sounds like it was, so you'll be safe."

Twilight laughs a little. "Equestria is basically perfect at this point. Thanks to this one and her sister." She says as she nudges Celestia, who's actually gone back to eating, a little embarrassed at herself for her earlier actions. "Celestia and Luna have both done a great job. Sure, there are a few things I'd have done differently, but in the end, they did basically perfectly."

Celestia blushes and looks away after hearing that. "Well, it would been upsetting if we couldn't keep up after asking you to leave. Even though we REALLY didn't want to, you did teach us well and enough." She says with a sigh. "Although we did still mess up more times than I can count. Sorry again, Sweetie." Celestia says as she gives Sunset a nuzzle on the forehead.

Rarity smiles and looks at Twilight. "Well, I'm sure you made a lovely Queen, Twilight. Out of everypony here, aside from the obvious, I couldn't think of anypony else who'd be able to handle such an important and difficult job."

Twilight breaks out in laughter. "Oh dear Faust, no, I sucked so much at it. Like I was TERRIBLE. Raising a family while also running a country? Do you know how many times I had to fight my kids? Twice! Technically, we did spar once before the big war, and there was the mind control incident. Not to mention, Celestia and Luna almost died at one point and were hospitalized for about six days after the entire Raident Empire thing. I nearly turned the world into a wholly cutie-markless and nonfree will, anti-fun zone. Celestia basically gave up her magic to stop me."

Celestia winces. "It was worth it, though. I don't regret it."

Twilight stares flatly at Celestia, sighing. "Don't act like it was okay, Celestia. You should have never had to go through that."

Celestia smiles awkwardly. "Well, at least it's mostly healed. I may not be able to cast ancient magic, but not being able to do anything but raise the sun would have made things super awkward when Luna was banished."

Pinkie Pie leans in. "No wonder Princess Celestia lost to Nightmare Moon then! It's like trying to bake a pie with one hoof behind your back!"

Celestia winces a little as she thinks back. "Yes, well, normally, I would have just put Luna into a bubble and been done with it, but when it comes to conducting magic, my sister is much better at it than I am. Even though I did avoid my horn being entirely rendered useless thanks to a certain Phoenix, the damage to my actual magic was done. After the Spirit of Magic left me, I became pretty pathetic magic-wise."

Twilight shrugs. "You're still much stronger than the average unicorn Celestia. Why did the Spirit of Magic leave you anyway?"

Celestia coughs a little and hums, "Why did they... Uhhhh... I dunno! Maybe they had something better to do? I dunno!" She says with an awkward, guilty sip of her drink.

Twilight and the rest of the group stare at Celestia. Most of the group just takes in how normal Celestia seems. Gone is the presence of an indomitable, perfect princess with an awkward adult who's had trouble growing up properly in its place. It causes plenty of mental whiplash for the group. Twilight, on the other hoof, along with Cadence, both stare at Celestia with the same stare, one that wordlessly says 'Seriously?' in the loudest gaze possible.

"OKAY FINE. I sorta... Had to give it up to use all six Elements of Harmony at the same time." Celestia says after a while. "I couldn't beat my sister even with the Spirit of Magic. Which is horrifically embarrassing, alright? I didn't expect Luna to practice that much..." She mumbles quietly.

Twilight giggles after a moment and gives Celestia a nudge with her hoof. "It's fine. She's your sister. No need to get competitive again." She sits back and leans back gently into Shining's hug. "Thanks, Shining Armor... I really appreciate the emotional support."

Shining doesn't move... and it's revealed that the young father is completely asleep. Twilight and Cadence both laugh a little at that revelation. Twilight then says after a moment, "You two really don't get much sleep, right? Luna was only a few years older than Flurry when I adopted her, and I BARELY got any sleep even then, mostly because of bed monsters. I can only imagine how it is with a baby."

Cadence slumps after a moment. "It's utterly exhausting."

Twilight nods and, after a moment, motions to Cadence and Shining. "You two should get some sleep while you can. Don't worry about being a host; I'm sure the others have a million more questions. Then we can keep chatting in the morning."

After a little more convincing and some effort, Cadence and Shining make their way to their bedrooms. With some help from Twilight, Shining can be transported without waking him up. Twilight and the rest of the group sit down in the reading room. Celestia and Sunset sit together, with Sunset relaxing underneath Celestia's wing. Twilight is sitting alone on a pile of pillows, or at least she attempted to do so, but her daughter and granddaughter sat with her immediately, preventing her from getting that sweet, sweet, soft, comfy spot.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group settled into couches, beanbags, or cushions, each relaxing in their own way. As they all settled, they quickly changed gears and looked at Twilight.

Rainbow Dash breaks the verbal silence, raising her hoof as she says, "I know this might be rough, but I think we all have the right to know. Why'd you keep this a secret for so long? When Celestia and Luna told us ages ago, we were kinda expecting you to tell us about being Queen like... three months in."

Twilight sputters a little, "Well, uh. I kinda just wanted to enjoy things as they were. Being Queen is cool and all, but I did do some horrible, terrible things as Queen, and I really didn't wanna like... alienate myself- WAIT." Twilight doesn't even ask for clarification. She immediately looks over to Celestia, who, to her credit, is already halfway out the door before she's dragged back in by Twilight's magic.

"NOOOOOOO! THEY WERE WORRIED I COULDN'T SAY NO TO THEMMM!" Celestia says as she's dragged back into the room, having almost made it out as she's pulled back inside.

Twilight smiles as she holds Celestia underneath one of her wings. "Anyways, it was mostly just me being scared of how you'd all react."

Fluttershy smiles and says, in response, "I think we all know that you're still Twilight, and we care about you all the same, even if you're a little more spooky or different." She nods.

The others nod in various stages of agreement after a moment.

Rarity taps her chin. "Actually, I think we would all appreciate something else too. How about the full story?"

Twilight coughs. The idea of doing that has Twilight on edge. After all, that story is long! "That's a big ask! It'd take all night to get through even half of it!"

Applejack tilts her head. "True, but come on, sugar cube, somethin' bout it clearly bothered ya enough where you kept it a secret this long. It'll do ya some good to talk about it."

Twilight nervously smiles. "Sure, I'll tell ya, but don't hold anything against me. You all asked for it."

The group nods. After all, everypony is curious about the story at this point. With a little sparkle of her horn, Twilight makes some hot chocolate appear for everypony to sip on, beginning to recount her time in the past. Initially, she starts off relatively light. After all, her time at the start of her misadventure was not too bad. The gala went well. It wasn't like she was in any significant danger, either. Her time spent with Celestia and Luna was terrific, and the only real thing hanging over her head was execution, which, in retrospect, she could have easily avoided.

At the end of the initial story, Rarity chimes in with a few questions, raising her hoof to get Twilight's attention. "Why didn't you just come back? If what you're saying is true, you were stronger than the ruling King and Queen."

To her credit, Twilight takes a moment before answering the question. It's not an easy question either, having had thought about that before. "Because I didn't know what they were capable of. Firstly, Eclipse and Solace never showed their power in front of me, and even after their death, I couldn't just up and leave when they asked me to protect their daughters. Eclipse basically had me watch 24 hours a day. It was safer just to go along with it and bite the bullet. After all, I was supposed to stay for only two months initially or something like that. After they were assassinated--"

Twilight takes pause to rest her wing on Celestia's back. Twilight doesn't talk about Celestia's birth parents with Celestia nearly ever, so this conversation dredges up bad memories for the Sun Alicorn. "Afterwards, I missed the return window, so I was stuck there for a minimum of a year. I just didn't realize how much longer a YEAR was back then. By the time the next return window showed up, I was already several hundred regular years old since the spell's relativity enchantment took my 24 years at the time and spanned them across 24 alicorn years instead."

The confusing magical theory goes over most of the ponies' heads to the point where even the unicorns have trouble processing it due to the difficulty and insanity of such a spell. Sunset, on the other hoof, was able to get the jist after a moment, and of course, Celestia was well aware of the dangers of time travel now. Starlight especially had direct experience working on such a spell, but even she was momentarily confused. "Uh... can we get that in non-Twilight speak?" Rainbow Dash asks after a moment.

Twilight thinks quietly for a moment. "Alright. So, time travel spells specifically usually have protection involved for the caster and anypony affected by them. Said protection is meant to keep you safe and stable in your time stream. That's why most of the time when I time travel now, I just appear in the same place not even a second later. It's just a better version of teleportation. That spell was old and still only partially complete, so the protection wasn't made to last longer than a week or two. Once the protection goes down, you adjust to the timeframe of the world if you're going backward, or just turn to dust if you're going forwards in time... Unless you're timeless like an alicorn, you just get older in that case."

Celestia blinks before staring at Twilight. "Wait. What? That means you had to live through that, like... 1500 years in an instant?"

Twilight smiles and sighs, "It certainly gives plenty of time to think. It was a very ramshackle spell. That's why I sealed that scroll away somewhere no one would find it. Starlight made a better time travel spell than I ever could predict a unicorn making! Hers was almost perfect."

"Almost? What was wrong with it?" Starlight says with a tilt of her head.

"Well, it was made to only target one point in time, so unless somepony wants to go watch the first Rainboom for some reason, it's pretty useless," Twilight says with a chin tap. "The theory is there, but it also requires power from Unity to cast, so the only pony that would even be able to dream of casting an advanced version of that is Unity herself and me."

Sunset hms. "I'm sure we could figure it out, but the matrix for the sustainment spell part was a mess."

Starlight nods. "It was based on Starswirl's theory of the unbreakable timeline. It's like taking a hammer to a brick wall. It takes a few swings."

Twilight giggles. "That's because time ISN'T supposed to let itself change. That's what makes your spell so impressive. It manages to break through one of the laws of nature."

Pinkie perks up after a moment, mostly silent the entire conversation. "WAIT, WE MISSED HOW MANY BIRTHDAYS?!"

Twilight blinks. "Uh, honestly, I have no idea. I stopped keeping track of my birthday a few centuries back. I don't even fully remember my birthday. I just sorta celebrated it when you guys had that birthday party for me a few months back."

Pinkie huffs. "If I had KNOWN it was that many, I would have done more! Also, your birthday is May 31st. How old are you now anyways?!"

Twilight tilts her head. "Uh... Timeless. Let's just go with that. I'm significantly older than Celestia, considering I got 24 Alicorn years, and that can be... ALOT or if there's a bad disease. Not much."

Celestia taps her chin. "I believe that period was when Alicorns still lived in their home village. Alicorn years were several millennia long at that point since generations were born so sparsely."

Twilight shrugs. "Let's just put an idle number to it. Consider me... Like 40 years older than Celestia."

Celestia smirks. "I consider myself 150 in the grand scheme of things. So that'd put you at 190."

Twilight bops Celestia on the nose. "Then let's do an even 200. Not like age matters when we're spanning thousands of years anyways."

The rest of the group quiets down. "How do you two do it?" says a quiet voice, everypony looking at Sunset.

"You've seen ponies come and go for so long, and you're still playing, laughing, having fun, making connections, and keeping up with friends. I can't imagine how many friends you had and lost throughout that time. Graduating and seeing my friends go to college worldwide made me feel alone enough to come back to Equestria. And DON'T get me started about the Anon-a-miss stuff. Ugh. That was just awful." Sunset says quietly, just stuck thinking about the future.

Twilight looks at Celestia, who simply nods. "Honestly, we didn't ever get over it or anything. There's a reason why Celestia has maybe three friends outside of her sister and me or why I'm so tense-looking sometimes. Sure. It hurts, but family is there forever, and you have the good times to reflect on. Those moments are worth everything, even though seeing and meeting each of your ancestors over and over and being there for them until finally, I just fully lost touch. Although, that mainly was Unity sabotaging all my relationships from the background."

Applejack grimaces. "Ah, I still don't like this 'Unity,' and I really don't like the idea that we keep using her power to protect the world. Feels... dirty."

Rainbow Dash nods. "Yeah. So... I kinda wanna propose that we avoid using the elements of harmony unless we really need them. Sides, Twilight even said she can't use hers anyways."

Twilight yawns. "Sunset qualifies to use mine. So that's not an issue. But that's up to you, six."

Rarity sighs. "Honestly though, Twilight darling, I still believe you can use your Element if you want to. You haven't changed so much that anypony here would believe in you any less."

The rest of the group nods in agreement, with Twilight defensively raising her hooves as she responds. "I've had enough Unity magic for a lifetime. I'll give it a shot if we really need it, but I'd also rather not find out if trying to use the elements when not worthy hurts. Still, I--"

Twilight stops as she perks up a little, her ears flitting upwards. "Hm... we should probably get some rest."

Celestia tilts her head. "Why? The night is still young. Literally and figuratively."

"There's a changeling in town. Just a drone, but we should get some rest. It will likely cause some panic just by being around. While one drone isn't nothing to worry about, especially one that's alone, the ritual must go flawlessly tomorrow to fix the Crystal Heart as it breaks." Twilight says with a stretch. "Let's just hope it doesn't cause any panic or leave before anything important happens."

The rest of the Mane 5 stare at Twilight. Spike said after a moment. "Twilight, we've literally never had a relaxing day here."

There's an idle silence before Twilight sighs. "Point taken. Let's just get ready for anything that can happen tomorrow.

The group nods and disbands for the night. Spike hopped up and hitching a ride on Twilight's back. "You think the changeling is here to cause trouble?"

Twilight taps her chin, thinking and just feeling out the air a bit. "Doubt it. That's why you're gonna be the one to find it, Spike. The Crystal Ponies listen to you. If anyone can convince them that somecreature is harmless, it's you. If it's friendly, make sure that they feel welcome. Okay?"

Spike tilts his head, smiling a bit. "You haven't changed at all, you know, Twilight. Sure, You're a bit more mature, but still the same pony on the inside. Sure! If you really think they're harmless?"

"I don't know what to think. I just don't sense hostility. Do what you think is best. Besides, you'll need to convince the others, and if they hear it from me, it'll be like forcing their hoof." Twilight nods sagely at her statement to reinforce how official it sounds. "They just found out I'm Queen. Even if they don't want to, they'll react weirdly when I ask them to do something for a bit."

Spike smiles a little and then laughs as he remembers something. "Yeah, even I was calling you Queen at the start."

Twilight rolls her eyes and shakes her head with a smirk, giving Spike a nuzzle on his cheek. "You were doing it to tease me.~ There's a difference."

With that, the two head to bed.

Chapter 8: Where the Storm Rises

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