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Prologue .............................................................................................................................. 3
Memento ............................................................................................................................. 7
Passing .............................................................................................................................. 23
Transcend .......................................................................................................................... 40
Decisive............................................................................................................................. 56
Working............................................................................................................................. 72
Accuracy ........................................................................................................................... 88
Relapse ............................................................................................................................ 109
Broke ............................................................................................................................... 137
Interval ............................................................................................................................ 163
Expunge .......................................................................................................................... 184
Surrender ......................................................................................................................... 199
Feedback ......................................................................................................................... 214
Causality ......................................................................................................................... 245
Epilogue .......................................................................................................................... 270
Prologue
The vibrating book in her backpack had to mean only one thing.
Sunset Shimmer knew that much.
The halls of Canterlot High School bustled with life as several
conversations crowded the air and students of all sorts brushed past
each other. Gaggles of teenage girls shared giggles over cell phones
as they shot texts to friends on opposite ends of the building. Exam
review guides took to the air in the form of paper airplanes and were
met with several playful attempts to swat them out of the sky.
As soon as Sunset found a gap within the crowd, she slung her
backpack off her shoulder and fished inside. She pulled the book out
and flipped to the latest page.
Meet in front of the statue as soon as you can.
Sunset frowned. She glanced at the previous pages and com-
pared their neat and steady lettering to the blocky and jagged writing
on this one. Twilight didn’t write this, she thought.
Snapping the book shut, Sunset picked herself up and dipped
into the next hallway. She brushed past student after student as she
wove through the halls, hoping that the message didn’t herald some
new disaster. The school was two for two in that regard after all.
Sunset passed through the school’s tall, circular foyer and
opened the glass doors at the front, emerging into the sunlight be-
yond. She looked down the lawn at the statue of a horse stuck in a
rearing pose. A group of humans huddled in front of it, each glancing
about every direction. They ran their eyes at the bricks in the build-
ing, the concrete street behind them, and, more often than not, them-
3
Prologue
Applejack removed her stetson and held it to her chest with a plead-
ing look in her eyes.
The Rainbooms now stood by in complete and utter silence.
Their eyes grew wider with every moment.
Sunset felt a shiver run down her spine and she swallowed.
“Where… is Twilight Sparkle?”
With water in his eyes and a quivering frown on his muzzle,
Spike said, “Sunset, that’s why we’re here. S-something has hap-
pened…”
6
One
Memento
===============================================
While only a couple hundred had been admitted into the hall,
one glance into the sprawling square outside revealed thousands
more, packed together so well that one would be hard-pressed to find
any inch of grass unclaimed. The proceedings spilled into several of
Canterlot’s side streets and then some.
It was high noon, yet the sun and moon sat on opposing hori-
zons. The lights produced by both melted together into an orangish-
bluish glow. Several stars, brighter than usual, dotted the sky. Not
one single attendee complained about the change in sky; most found
it fitting, in fact.
Sunset Shimmer’s eyes drifted around the room which she
knew could fit an entire house and have room to spare. Several spi-
raling pillars held the high ceiling above them. Light flooded in
through several equally tall windows spanning most sides of the
room, assisted by several fresh candles on the walls.
The regal hymn of the organ, charting a song full of somber
notes and sweeping movements, filled the hall.
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Memento
kept playing the same few seconds over and over again. And, while
all the other attendees had thrown the occasional string of words,
Sunset had not heard his voice since arriving.
A large, empty lavender box sat squarely on the altar. A single
picture frame sat atop it, in which the image of Princess Twilight
Sparkle grinned happily back at them.
***
Sunset shifted upright in her seat when the organ faded out and
a hush fell over the room. Her old mentor, Princess Celestia, ap-
proached the empty casket.
Every second that she gazed upon her was a twist of the knife;
a reminder of what had gone so wrong. She had even told herself
that she would sit in the same room as Celestia for the past two days,
but she still wasn’t ready.
Principal Celestia, she could deal with. Princess Celestia, she
could not.
But, for Twilight’s sake, she pushed her reservations aside and
contented herself to listen.
Celestia scanned the scores of wet muzzles looking attentively
at her, took one last aside glance at the casket beside her, and then
cleared her throat to speak.
“My little ponies,” Celestia said, “I will be brief. I know there
are a lot of things to be said today, and there are quite a few of you
that will want to share your own words with us.
“First, I am very pleased that so many of you could join us
today. Thank you all for coming. It is hard to believe that it has been
but three days.”
Celestia’s voice grabbed the entire room; it was gentle and
flowing like silk but at the same time radiant and forceful.
“I have known Twilight Sparkle for many many years. When
she was but a filly, I took her in as my personal protégé and spent
much of her younger years teaching her magic. Since then, I have
watched her exceed every expectation set upon her. And many
moons ago when I sent her to Ponyville to learn about friendship...
10
Memento
I think it is safe to say that everypony here knows how that turned
out. Not only did she learn, she made it her own. In fact, she became
friendship.”
At that point, she cracked a small grin. “Which worked out
very well, I think, because otherwise, I might still be in Tartarus right
now.”
Sunset responded with a much-needed chuckle. The audience
around her did the same.
Celestia continued, sliding back into her expression from be-
fore. “I have watched as she—and her friends—learned many valu-
able lessons about friendship. I can still vividly recall the letters that
she would send to me detailing her exploits… They were a constant
joy to read.
“Twilight and her companions have also stopped numerous
other foes and beasts on several occasions. And I cannot say this
enough, but they also brought my dear sister back to me. I believe...
that Twilight has performed several services for Equestria—for all
of us. And...”
At that point, Celestia’s smile disappeared from her face. “Just
over a week ago, Twilight Sparkle arrived in Canterlot in pursuit of
one of her many studies. She arrived to continue her research on
those caverns beneath our beloved city, those labyrinthine caverns
that have been here longer than this city has.
“But, during her expedition, she found something. She found
something that even I had no knowledge of. We don’t even have a
name for it. And we do not know what this thing may have done had
it escaped from its prison deep within those caverns, but… it must
have been terrible...”
Celestia’s voice trailed off well into the distance, allowing si-
lence to invade the room. Her ever-flowing mane seemed to slow
down by the tiniest bit, but her solemn expression didn’t change.
The only real visible change was the single hoof that glided up to
cover her mouth.
Celestia wasn’t.
Sunset spied a small, clear orb fall from behind Celestia’s hair,
and then realized it had come from the obscured eye.
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Memento
Celestia was.
Sunset gnashed her teeth together and then bit down on her
hoof.
It wasn’t real.
The rest of the crowd also met Celestia with a small and un-
charted chorus of sniffles and wheezes.
The princess of the sun then brought her foreleg and slowly
swung it outwards, using it to usher along a long, deep breath.
“And Twilight Sparkle took it upon herself to destroy it,” she
said, her voice now much more unsteady.
“Three days ago, almost four, she made her final journey to
that wretched place and bested that foul thing. Her farewell letter
was found by her most trusted companion, Spike the dragon,” she
said, motioning toward him with her hoof, “here in the castle, Spike
went on to find… her remains.
“Her only possessions on her at the time of her death were a
hooded cloak and a crystal ball. No doubt her tools.”
Celestia hung her head and flapped her wings against her sides.
She went silent for long moments as she shook her head. When she
looked back up once more to face the crowd, her expression ap-
peared broken.
“Princess Twilight Sparkle,” she bellowed, her booming voice
casting a complete silence over the crowd, “sacrificed herself to stop
the Nameless! She laid down her life to make sure that it would
never bother anypony ever again. She has paid the ultimate price.”
She let out a long sigh. “Even in her last moments, she contin-
ued to commit herself to us. Twilight Sparkle thought to save Eques-
tria, just like she has done many times over. And now she is gone for
it. But I can promise you all this…” Her tone grew firm. “Even if
she is now no longer with us... she will always have a place in Eques-
tria. Now and forever more.”
Celestia stopped once more. She searched about for long,
drawn out moments for words that never came. Her lips quivered
and her movements were uneven.
Celestia hung her head out of resignation and stepped off the
platform. She retreated to the side and took a seat next to her sister,
12
Memento
a dark blue alicorn who appeared only a little less eternal than her
elder. A few seconds later, something unspoken passed between the
two sisters and they grabbed a hold of each other.
Over the course of the ceremony, several ponies took to the
altar and gave eulogies of their own, some more personal than oth-
ers. Some had difficulty saying what they wanted to say, however
(and one had to be escorted off the stage mid-speech.).
Those without the strength to speak, like Spike in front of her,
remained in the audience, enraptured all the while. Spike occasion-
ally moved to stand only to pause at the edge of his seat and shy
back into the twiddling of his thumbs.
Sunset sympathized; she couldn’t very well go up and speak
either but for her own reasons. After all, she was a footnote com-
pared to everypony else; a few sentences in the book of Twilight
Sparkle’s life, maybe a few paragraphs at best. Around her sat chap-
ters, even entire acts; all were ponies much more integral than she.
Even as her eyes remained fixed on the altar, even with it less
than two rows ahead, it felt so far away. There were so many things
she wanted to say. But what right did she have to speak before all of
these ponies?
Sunset wanted to get all of it off her chest. She wanted to be
heard. She wanted to share her slice of Twilight’s life with the world.
Because maybe it would help.
But it wouldn’t fix things.
She looked at the picture on top of the coffin again and then
buried her face in her hooves and sobbed to herself.
A world without Twilight Sparkle. That was her new reality.
***
But Sunset had to remind herself that, bar Spike, she knew
nothing of the individuals before her. It was true that they were just
like her friends at Canterlot High but they, without a doubt, were
much more storied. And none of those stories included her.
What right had she to be there?
As a result, she relished the room’s welcome familiarity. There
were the towering bookshelves containing tomes of all sizes, once
exhausted through many late nights of studying; the rusted machines
that served as eyesores whenever she had been between experi-
ments; the sprawling window where she would content herself with
watching the setting sun on lighter days, it was all there. The smaller
details had been tampered with, of course (the desk, for one, had
been moved), but it was still the student’s paradise.
Her eyes fell on the large hourglass in the center of the room
and she smiled. Thank goodness that’s still there! she thought. She
drew her eyes over its curves, observing the sparkling gold casing
and the reflective glass container. The many study sessions she had
spent underneath it came rushing back; the calming sounds of run-
ning sand had helped her keep her focus during those times. The
sand rested at the bottom and she figured that now was not the time
to disturb that; maybe that would come later. I don’t remember that
much sand, though.
“The one time I didn’t go with her, this happened.” Spike
sighed and curled up on the floor.
A unicorn, carrying the lingering scent of some creamy and
fruity perfume, sat down beside him. “You've explored those caves
with her plenty of times. You couldn’t have known,” Rarity said,
draping a reassuring foreleg across his shoulder.
Pinkie Pie unceremoniously stuck her head between the two.
“I dunno about you girls, but I’m more wondering how long she
knew about it,” she added, failing to notice the slightly annoyed
scowls those two gave her.
“And why didn’t she say anything?” Fluttershy croaked, col-
lapsing further onto the floor.
The ponies sat around in silence.
“The one time I didn’t go with her, this happened,” Spike said.
14
Memento
Rainbow Dash, who flew idly above them, regarded him once
again and snorted. “We could have easily taken on that Nameless!”
she exclaimed, crossing her forelegs. “She should have told us about
it.”
Fluttershy frowned. “I don’t know... It sounded scary...”
“Naw,” a somewhat-throaty voice interrupted. An orange earth
pony placed a couple of empty journals off to the side before dou-
bling back toward another large stack of papers. “Ah agree with
Rainbow Dash on this one. Remember Tirek?” Applejack said.
“Ohhh, yes,” Fluttershy said with a stronger voice, “there was
that.”
“We gave him a butt whoopin’!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed
again, punching the air like she was fighting a bugbear.
Sunset observed as the six continued bouncing words off each
other. Inwardly, she started to take solace in the fact that they didn’t
know much more than she did. She then groaned as she remembered
that there wasn’t much to begin with.
How had Twilight not at least told them?
She decided to shift her attention toward the desk where the
most curious of the items rested. The first was a piece of parchment
with what looked like a crudely sketched map of the path leading to
the cavern (though Sunset could discern some dark spots on the page
too). The second was the brown hooded cloak that Celestia had spo-
ken of, folded square and lined up with the corner.
For the moment, she decided to focus her attention on the most
peculiar of the three: a crystal ball the size of her head that sat on
top of the cloak. No one had told her what role it played; only that it
had played a role somehow. She was moreover interested in the way
the ball behaved: she could see a clear image of the room that she
stood in, but the viewpoint that it offered was much different than
the placement of the ball. Moreover, she did not find herself standing
in the spot she was supposed to be in.
She noted that as she looked at it from differing angles, the
angle of the view also seemed to change, as if tracking her every
movement and responding in kind. Her mouth twitched in response.
That’s curious, she thought, levitating it off the table for a closer
15
Memento
look.
“Wow, Twilight must’ve had a campfire in here!” Pinkie Pie
suddenly exclaimed.
Sunset, and everyone else for that matter, glanced toward the
stairs to find Pinkie Pie peering into a nearby disposal bin.
“There’re a lot of papers in here,” Pinkie Pie continued, briefly
poking her head in. “It looks like she burned a book!”
Silence drowned the room for many moments. Sunset walked
back over with curiosity, baggage and all.
Applejack, on the other hoof, didn’t even look up from the
schematics she had looking over. “Okay. Ah don’t think that Twi-
light did that.”
“Maybe somepony else was in this room before her?” Flut-
tershy offered.
Several of them placed hooves (or claws in Spike’s case), to-
ward their chins with short and occupied hums.
Pinkie Pie rose up into a tall stance and she gave each one of
them a quick glance and then declared, “Changelings.”
“...Naw, that’s not it,” Applejack then said with a shake of her
head, resignedly rolling up her paper.
“It should be!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, now glancing around for
approval. “There was a changeling disguised as Twilight here and
did all this stuff. Wrote the note? Set the book on fire? It’s fishy to
me.”
“But the ball she had does look like the crystal ball Chrysalis
sent us that one time,” Fluttershy noted.
“Pinkie Pie,” Rainbow Dash said at length, landing on the
floor, “I don’t think it was them.”
“Weeellll?” Pinkie Pie replied, zipping up and pressing herself
challengingly against Rainbow Dash, “What else would you say it
is, then? Huh?”
Rainbow Dash shot everyone else pleading glances but only
received a few shrugs in return. She rolled her eyes. “Changelings it
is.”
“Honestly,” Rarity said as she caressed Spike’s scales, “we
don’t have much else. At least it would explain why Twilight didn’t
16
Memento
one assistant; I should have known something was wrong when she
didn’t even want me there. Second time we came around, she was
gone,” he said, now arched into a slump.
Rarity responded by pulling him in.
Her birthday! Sunset mentally cried. She nodded in acknowl-
edgment but did not speak. Her head found its way into her hooves
just like it had done many times in the preceding moons. The sting-
ing that she felt when she got the news revealed shades of itself
again. I didn’t even know it was her birthday...! She didn’t even tell
me. And then this happened...?
Then she remembered what she had seen at the ceremony and
used her foreleg to push out a long exhale. The stinging within her
subsided. “That’s too bad.”
Applejack, noting Sunset’s shift in tone, looked. “So, whatcha
make of that there ball, Sunset?” she asked, pointing at the object
near Sunset’s head.
Sunset backpedaled slightly and then looked to where Apple-
jack had pointed. “Oh. Oh! I forgot I brought this over. I’m not sure
what I think just yet. But it seems interesting. This was found at the
scene?”
“That, and that tacky little cloak over there,” Rarity said, point-
ing, “but we’re not concerned about that.” She received some stares.
“Well, most of us aren’t.”
“Both of those were found just outside,” Fluttershy acknowl-
edged.
“And we know both of them are hers,” Rarity seconded. “We
checked.”
Spike crossed his arms as he considered the object. “She had
to have done something to it, right? I mean, it shows this tower. It’s
shown the tower since we found it.”
“Probably because Twilight brought it back here,” Fluttershy
said.
“There’s probably something magical going on with it,” Spike
said. And then he shrugged. “But we still don’t know what.”
Sunset considered the crystal ball again. “Interesting,” she
murmured, rubbing her chin. But even as the others went about their
18
Memento
devices, she remained rooted to the spot. Did she figure something
out then?
***
Sunset rustled the sheets as she rose from a light slumber, car-
ried out of the embrace of the sandmare by her earlier thoughts. She
emerged into a scene of darkness and silence. Her bedchamber was
empty save for standard guestroom decorations, although, even in
the blackness, she could make out the familiar painting of Clover
the Clever high on the wall. The corridor offered less variety but that
only made the patterned carpets and the high pillars that much easier
to remember.
As she stepped out onto the grounds, Sunset glanced up at the
moon. She frowned. I don’t remember it looking like that, she thou-
ght, noting a significant lack of the Mare in the Moon.
How many moons had gone by? How many moons had it been
since she had run out on Celestia? Sunset had stopped counting.
How else had this world, her home world, changed after so many
years?
She’d have to ask later.
Sunset used the moonlight to illuminate her way as she trotted
across the grounds. She found the tower and ascended the staircase
and, after fishing the key out of the foliage just outside the door,
went inside.
The room that greeted her shared the darkness of the others,
but seeing it in such a manner only served to bring back several more
acute memories. Even with an absence of several years, the dark
could not hide the room from her, but she still calculated each step
that she took past the door.
She flared her horn and a small orb of blue light appeared be-
side her. It wasn’t the same as the flashlight app on her cell phone
but it would do. Climbing up the stairs into the study room, she sent
her light into the space above where it intensified and bathed the
room in a bluish glow.
Her eyes drifted toward the crystal ball which still lay on the
19
Memento
desk. A quick glance changed her mind, however, as she didn’t im-
mediately notice anything different from earlier.
Instead, she levitated over the piece of parchment that had
been laid next to the ball. A diagram showing a network of tunnels
etched itself across the paper. A simple drawing of a three-tower for-
tress representing Canterlot Castle sat at the very top. At the very
bottom, presumably well into the mountain, a single room had been
labeled with an x. The x, as Sunset understood, signified ground
zero. She herself had never ventured into those caves so, while the
map gave her some ideas, they ultimately amounted to nothing. In-
stead, she turned the map over.
A note revealed itself on the other side. It bore many of the
features she expected the writing to have but, unlike the neat and
precise writings she had seen through the journal between herself
and Twilight, the writing on this page was haphazard, messy, and
rushed.
Oh, she thought, they mentioned this note earlier, didn’t they?
That was another thought: what had Twilight been thinking up
until the moment of her demise? What could have possibly com-
pelled her so much?
Pacing around the room, Sunset read through it.
Dear everyone,
20
Memento
make out the room’s delicate curvature with ease. But where the
lights were off in the room she sat in, they lit the room in the picture.
It’s not a live feed then. At first glance, the picture appeared the exact
same as earlier.
No. There was more. Sunset looked into the crystal ball again.
The sky outside was also completely dark.
Sunset nibbled on her hoof as she continued to look at the ball.
So, the sky in the ball has changed to nighttime, so that must mean
time has passed, she thought. She grimaced and pressed a hoof
against her forehead. But that just leaves me with even more ques-
tions. Ugh.
“What makes you so special?” she asked it through gritted
teeth.
As if in answer, the image in the ball changed, and then Sunset
realized that something had entered the frame.
The object registered, but Sunset had to look at it a second time
to make sure. And a third time. She wiped her eyes to make sure she
wasn’t hallucinating. No, the crystal ball showed her exactly what
she thought it was showing her.
“...Sweet Celestia.”
Contained within the image of the crystal ball was Princess
Twilight Sparkle, prancing around the room as if she had never died.
22
Two
Passing
When the front door opened without warning, Twilight Velvet im-
mediately looked down at the half-wrapped present in her hooves.
Twilight isn’t supposed to see this until tomorrow! she internally
screamed. Her eyes darted around the room before she settled on a
wayward blanket which she could cover it with.
But a tall, husky stallion entered the room instead. At that, Twi-
light Velvet sat back and let out a relieved sigh. And when Shining
hung in the entryway for a second, looking at something outside, she
took a second to compose herself.
“Shining!” she exclaimed, standing up. “Welcome home!”
“…Hi, Mom,” Shining Armor replied at a near whisper.
Another stallion poked his head out of the study, lit up as
recognition washed over him, and then cantered out. “Shining Ar-
mor!” Night Light exclaimed, throwing his forelegs around his son.
“My boy! Good to see you!”
Twilight Velvet’s eyes pushed past Shining for the moment
(though not without noticing his guard uniform) to see Princess Mi
Amore Cadenza right on her husband’s heels. “Cadance, good to see
you too! I hope the train ride went well?”
Cadance smiled weakly. “Yes.”
But Twilight Velvet’s eyes had already passed over her as two
more, grander than the next, emerged through the threshold. “…And
Princess Luna?” She cowered. “And Princess Celestia!?”
The two sisters glided into the room with little fanfare.
Even Night Light suddenly jumped. The two each gave quick
23
Passing
===============================================
It was late enough that all of the morning shift had already
made their use of this dining hall, and that left them to eat alone.
Nonetheless, the thick aroma of fresh soy eggs wafted from the
nearby kitchen. Even then, the occasional servant would appear to
take food to places elsewhere in the castle.
The long, finely varnished, and well-decorated table set the
tone for the meal, and the room’s grand (though solitary) window
offered a pleasant backdrop of the valley below, but the room itself
was comparatively smaller than many of the others.
Sunset Shimmer shuddered. Years of compulsory dinner par-
ties with plenty of prissy ponies left her feeling claustrophobic
25
Passing
whenever she saw this place. She was thankful that the ponies (and
dragon) around her acted nothing like that.
As she entered the room, she saw a couple others who had
risen before her. Applejack was a given due to her life on the farm.
Pinkie Pie and Spike had also beaten her there. A soft cough revealed
Fluttershy arriving right behind her.
The crystal ball lay in the center of the table. Those at the table,
when not taking food off their plates, leaned over them to carefully
glance into the ball.
“Morning, everypony...” Sunset half-yawned.
They responded with a mixture of responses and yawns.
She glanced at the ball. The view looked like it had been the
day before: an overhead shot of the tower with nothing out of the
ordinary. Sunset narrowed her eyes. No, she thought, the nighttime
sky has turned back to day. So, there’s a passage of time.
Sunset cleared her throat. “Anything?” she asked.
Applejack, who had taken the opportunity to stuff her face
with a pancake, replied with a muffled “Nooo.”
The two newcomers took the remainder of the window-side
seat cushions which were positioned across from their companions.
In short order, a pair of servants drifted out of the kitchen and word-
lessly presented steaming hot plates to the both of them.
The eggs melted in Sunset’s mouth, prompting her to squirm
in delight. Canterlot High School had never even come close to com-
paring to what they could do here, that was for sure.
As silver clinked against china, Fluttershy looked around.
“Where are the other two?” she asked.
Applejack spoke with an empty mouth this time. “Well, Ah
knocked on their doors when Ah left. Not sure ’bout Rainbow Dash,
but Rarity…?” She considered it. “She might be a while.”
The room grew silent once more as they returned to their
meals. Spike contrasted them as he nearly plowed through an assort-
ment of gems, a loud crunch punctuating each bite.
“We’re here!” a shrill voice shouted from just beyond the open
door. “We’re here! Sorry we’re late!”
Every one of them looked up as the final two ponies entered
26
Passing
the room. The first, Rainbow Dash, teetered over to the table and
took a seat between Applejack and Pinkie Pie.
Rarity, however, remained at the door as she took in the stares
that they gave her. She then observed the numerous split ends and
tangles present around the table and fluffed her glistening mane as
she glided toward another empty seat. “Well, obviously, I refuse to
be seen around Canterlot Castle looking like a ruffian. Some of us
have standards, you know.”
“Mmhmm,” Applejack hummed. “An’ what’s yer excuse?” she
asked, turning to face Rainbow Dash.
“Yeah, Applejack,” Rainbow Dash replied and slumped into
her chair, letting out a long-winded groan as she did.
Applejack frowned in an irritated manner. After a moment, she
reached up and grabbed her stetson before whacking Rainbow Dash
with it.
Rainbow Dash jolted in her seat, revealing her bloodshot eyes.
“Hah!? Wha!?”
“Up an’ at ’em, sugarcube,” she said as the servants arrived
with fresh plates. She turned to the one serving Rainbow Dash. “Can
ya bring this one some coffee?”
The servant nodded. He reappeared a minute later and placed
a steaming mug in front of Rainbow Dash. She, in turn, dove in
through sip after sip.
The meal recommenced in silence as the seven ate, each at dif-
ferent paces. The first to arrive finished their meals first but did not
leave the table. The later arrivals took each finish as a reason to pick
up the tempo, but the vigor only lasted temporarily each time.
Rainbow Dash stretched in her seat. “Aw, yeah. That’s good,”
she said, patting her stomach. She then turned her eyes to the crystal
ball in the center of the table and rested her head on top of her
hooves.
All at once, the six others turned their attention to the crystal
ball and stared into it as well.
“I wonder if Twilight’ll show up again,” Rainbow Dash
thought aloud.
Rarity didn’t even glance up from her plate. “I wouldn’t count
27
Passing
appeared at all? What reason would Twilight want it for? What was
she writing about when we saw her last night? What was she mut-
tering about, even?”
Pinkie Pie frowned. “Couldn’t really hear it clearly, ya know?”
Sunset nodded. “All things considering, I’m kinda thinking
right now that I might miss the train home.”
Applejack raised a concerned eyebrow. “Don’t ya have to go
back to school?”
Sunset shook her head. “Not really. I’m pretty sure I have at
least an 110% in at least three classes, plus I'm several assignments
ahead.”
Applejack let her spoon clink against the plate. “You can do
that?”
Pinkie Pie giggled, “She was Princess Celestia’s prized pupil!”
Applejack smirked and nodded in approval.
Sunset stood up from the cushion with a determined frown. “I
am going to figure that thing out,” she declared as she levitated the
ball off the table. “And I will stay for as long as it takes.” And with-
out another moment's hesitation, Sunset set her napkin over her fin-
ished plate and trotted toward the door.
“Wait up!” Spike called as he rushed to catch up with her with
an enthusiasm in his voice that had not been heard in a long while.
***
As the two of them sauntered down the halls, Sunset took the
opportunity to look out the window and into the city beyond.
Unlike yesterday, the square lay empty save for a small scat-
tering of busybodies. Some lined the edges, whom she guessed were
engaged in business deals or friendly run-ins, while others walked
across en route to destinations unknown.
The sun shined in a cloudless sky just like on any other day.
The haphazard symphony of high-pitched chirps from the morning
birds serenaded from the gardens nearby.
It was as if yesterday hadn’t even happened. But it had hap-
pened. So, why do things look so normal?
29
Passing
***
30
Passing
before she arrived in Ponyville and the many days that she likely
spent here.
When Twilight had been all but alone. Without friends, bar
Spike. And, for a brief time, she had returned to that place of soli-
tude.
Why?
Fluttershy took the ball in both of her hooves and idly fumbled
with it. The ball spun in the air, with which her angle of the image
changed, but she was aware it did that much.
Gosh, it would be very very nice if there was a way to move
this view forward, she thought.
The scene within the ball, as if on cue, shifted in response.
Fluttershy let out a startled cry and briefly lost hold of the ball.
The movement ground to a stop. She scrambled to keep it within her
grasp.
Recovering, she looked again and noted the change. A contem-
plative grin washed over her muzzle and she took the ball in both
hooves again, this time with a firmer grip. Forward. Stop. Backward.
Stop.
The view in the crystal ball obeyed.
“I think I found something,” she announced.
Her four friends, one by one, gathered around.
“Sunset’s right,” Fluttershy began, holding the ball up in
presentation, “there’s more to this thing than we thought. Look.”
Pinkie Pie looked straight into the ball and gasped. “Hey, yeah!
Look,” she said and pointed, “the view’s near the wall!”
“It’s pretty simple when you think about it.” And then Flut-
tershy frowned and internally face-hoofed at her choice of words. “I
mean, that’s… how you do it,” she said, slowly and carefully string-
ing her explanation together. “You think about… it. I thought the
word forward and… it started… moving… forward,” she said be-
fore she retreated into a sip of tea.
“Fabulous,” Rarity said, jovially clapping her hooves together,
“now we know how to control the view.”
“Gimme that,” Rainbow Dash suddenly interjected, snatching
32
Passing
the ball out of Fluttershy’s hooves (which gained some raised eye-
brows and one certain scowl). She angled the ball so that she was
looking downward, and then she thought. The view crept toward the
floor then the scene briefly turned black as it passed through. And
then the crystal ball showed the first-floor living area.
Twilight Sparkle lay splayed out on the couch by the tower’s
front door with her head buried within an encyclopedia. Her blood-
shot eyes searched through several pages per second as she mum-
bled something about more coffee under her breath.
“Yes! Look!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed cheerfully as she set
the ball back down on the floor, “Twilight’s okay!”
Twilight’s ears twitched before she snapped her current book
shut and levitated it over to a large and increasingly disorganized
pile on the side. She then used her magic to grab the next book from
her assortment.
Before she opened it, she rubbed a hoof down the length of her
face and let out an unenergetic groan. She then consulted the journal
that she had been writing in the night before, taking greater care
with her consumption of contents than with previous books.
A second, empty journal right beside it went unheeded.
Fluttershy giggled happily and continued to smile even as her
friends let out screams of delight. It was much like last night all over
again.
Seeing Twilight again felt like watching Rainbow Dash per-
form a Sonic Rainboom for the first time. She wanted to jump for
joy and scream whatever cheers she could think of. How strange it
was that an image of Twilight could evoke such a feeling. I guess a
lot has changed in four days…
Eventually, the five of them settled down and contented them-
selves to watch between sips of their tea.
And then Applejack gagged mid-drink and quickly downed
her cup. “Hold on a bit. Ah want to see what she’s writin’ there,” she
said as she took the ball in her hooves. The view zoomed in on where
Twilight was scribbling.
A wind suddenly overtook the room, causing several books to
whimper by way of their pages. It threw Twilight’s journal into a
33
Passing
frenzy.
“Oh, horseapples!” Applejack yelled in disdain.
Twilight looked up with an annoyed frown, but she then regis-
tered the apparent light source from elsewhere in the room and
shrunk back into the couch. She watched as sparks danced around
before dying on whatever surface they found first. The wind grew
and grew, sweeping several books and various other items across
the floor, and it finally got to a point where Twilight had no choice
but to shield her eyes.
“What in the world is going on!?” Rarity cried.
“I can’t see!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, shielding her eyes.
The bright light disappeared without warning and the bedlam
ceased with it, and Twilight cautiously looked up to observe the
damage. Her eyes went wide. “You!?” she cried, shooting to her
hooves. “What are you doing here!?”
“Who’s she talking to?” Rarity asked.
“Applejack!” Pinkie Pie said through gritted teeth.
“Yeah!” Applejack quickly nodded and moved the image into
a better spot. She then readjusted her hooves on the crystal ball for
a better viewing angle. And then she gasped.
A mare, who likened to a phoenix, tightly clutching what
looked like a blue book within her foreleg, stood up. She shook off
the sparks that still clung to her body. She flicked her red and yellow
tail once to shake off some of the aftershocks and then did the same
with her mane.
Pinkie Pie ground her teeth together and then all but leaped
into the air. “Sunset Shimmer!”
***
Sunset hit her head against the underside of the cabinet, caus-
ing the glassware inside to clink in protest. “Aow!” she cried, rub-
bing her head. Even as her world momentarily spun, she flared her
horn anyway. The first floor disappeared, and her body felt like it
stretched for a moment, before she reappeared in the study area a
mere second later with a light and airy pop.
34
Passing
Spike peered into the ball. “Well that can’t be right,” he said,
crossing his arms perplexedly.
The pages of Sunset’s book glowed and even seemed to shake.
Ink poured out of the wells that Sunset was holding and swirled
about the empty journal which squirmed and writhed about like it
was a beast.
The ink, bit by bit, dripped onto the empty notebook before co-
alescing through the cover and into the rest of the pages.
As they went, Sunset’s eyes drew to a spot on the floor within
the image. There was a large sizeable burn mark, much like one that
she had noticed downstairs. It was in the same spot and everything.
She blinked. But… but…she thought.
Gritting her teeth, Twilight poured it on, trying her best to not
let her knees buckle. Both books shook violently as she prepared ink-
perfect copies. The original and the copy started to agree with each
other and there was nowhere left for Twilight’s spell to go. Aside
from the differently colored covers, for all intents and purposes, they
were the same book.
“What is it that you were trying to do, dear?” Rarity asked.
Sunset’s mouth hung limp as she tried to fathom any sort of
explanation, but none came. There was no explanation. There
weren’t even the makings of one. This was not possible.
Twilight cut the spell off, and then she clutched at her chest
and panted heavily. She even wiped a few drops of sweat off her
brow.
Sunset took a cursory glance through the new notebook before
galloping over to Twilight with both that and the original in her
magical grasp.
The two ponies compared the books side-by-side. Their grins
grew even wider with each page, blossoming into triumphant smiles
by the time they reached the final set of text.
And then, without a single moment’s reprieve, Sunset Shimmer
suddenly disappeared in another explosion of sparks, taking the
original book with her.
And just like that, all eyes shifted onto Sunset. Discerning
scowls bore down on her, and she could not help but cower.
36
Passing
***
Spike stroked his chin as he watched the scene within the ball.
Twilight Sparkle had since moved back into the study area. She
poured over the new information, trying to find anything that could
be useful. At times, she turned to the green notebook she had worked
on before the interruption. Every once in a while, she would make
an intrigued “Hmmm.”
“So, first Twilight appears in this crystal ball, an’ now Sunset
Shimmer,” Applejack thought aloud as she paced about deliberately.
“This is gettin’ weird!”
“I don’t understand…” Sunset murmured, leaning against the
hourglass for support.
“No kidding!” Rainbow Dash cried, doing her own form of
pacing through the air above them. “The portal was closed the last
time we checked, except somehow she was here!?”
“I’ve been at Canterlot High this whole time. I… This doesn’t
make any sense.”
“She doesn’t even have a way to open the portal,” Rainbow
Dash continued. She paused and looked down at Sunset and raised
an eyebrow. “You... don’t, right?”
“N-no,” Sunset tremulously replied, “and... even if I did...”
“You’d still need to go between Ponyville and Canterlot.”
“Plus I’d have to remember even doing it.”
Rainbow Dash grit her teeth. “Yeah,” she grumbled, “and then
there’s that.”
“Well, Ah believe her when she says she weren’t here,” Apple-
jack said, giving Sunset a calm and reassuring smile.
“Uhm, maybe the ball is a red herring?” Fluttershy suggested
as she played with some dirt on the floor.
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash replied, “I think Twilight would have
disagreed with you on that one.”
Pinkie Pie rolled onto her back. “Changelings?”
“No!” several of them shouted in unison.
“I sure hope not,” Rarity replied independently.
37
Passing
attention.
Spike looked longingly at her for many long moments; at the
one pony that meant more than the world to him. She was there. And
now it was over. There would be no more Twilight because it was
over. He wanted to reach into the ball if he could just tell her he
loved her one last time. But it was over.
Finally, he sniffled. “I'm sorry, Twilight...”
Twilight Sparkle jerked so much that she accidentally bumped
against the table. Her gaze immediately shifted, and her facial fea-
tures transformed into a horrified expression. “Spike!?” she called
out.
Now Spike recoiled violently, so much so that the ball fell out
of his claws. “Woah!” he exclaimed.
A round of surprised cries from the others immediately rose up
and added themselves in.
“Did she just talk?” Fluttershy asked.
“Did she just talk to you!?” Rainbow Dash beamed.
“Lemme see that!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, snatching the ball as
it rolled past her. “Twilight!?”
“Pinkie Pie!?” Twilight cried out with greater urgency.
The seven of them exchanged glances, looking for an explana-
tion. They turned their attention back to the alicorn within the ball,
who was now looking wildly around the room.
“Hello!?”
39
Three
Transcend
Five mares and a dragon ascended the stairs leading up the side of
the castle tower. Excited voices hosted several coinciding thoughts
and ideas.
As they ascended, Spike looked at the tickets in his claw. The
night at the opera started in less than an hour. He knew the show
would be a good time and could only imagine how elated Twilight
would feel about going.
And that said nothing for tomorrow. The rest of what they had
planned for Twilight’s birthday was going to be, as they had collec-
tively put it, “Fantabulastic!”
Rainbow Dash flew up to throw open the tower’s large wooden
door only for it to click in place. “Huh?” she said as she jiggled the
handle some more to no avail.
The rest of them furrowed their brows and shared uncertain
glances.
Spike crossed his arms. “Huh, I thought she’d be here.”
Bits and pieces of sound emanated from the other side, but
they were so low and so muffled that, even as they lent their ears in
unison, none of them could pick up on what they were.
Rainbow Dash banged her hoof against the door. “Twilighhhh-
ht!? Are you in thereeeee!?” she called.
A few seconds of silence passed. And then, finally, came a
wilted, “H-Hi, everypony.” The thick wood that separated them
muffled Twilight’s voice, but she still sounded mostly clear.
Rainbow Dash perked up. “Twilight! Twilight! Hey! Let us
40
Transcend
===============================================
not taking her eyes off the crystal ball for a second save to glance
between the six others as they huddled around it.
Within the crystal ball, Twilight Sparkle continued glancing
around the room, pacing back and forth all the while. “Spike?
Pinkie Pie?”
“Why can’t she hear us anymore!?” Rarity asked at a near yell,
looking questioningly between all of them.
Applejack gave a broad shrug. “Ah dunno! Ah mean, Spike
was holdin’ it, then Pinkie grabbed it an’—”
“Wait,” Sunset began, pushing through a gap and pointing, “try
putting your hooves on the ball.”
Applejack scooped the crystal ball off the floor in compliance.
“Sugarcube, can ya hear me!?”
“Applejack?” Twilight said, now turning her attention to the
apparent source of the sound: her own crystal ball. “Yes, I hear! But
where are you!?”
Fluttershy started to reach out but hesitated. She felt her hoof
grabbed as Applejack helped her complete the distance. That
prompted her to go through with speaking. “We’re here. We’re here
at the castle.”
“Fluttershy?”
“Canterlot Castle, I mean.”
Twilight narrowed her eyes as she paced around the room.
“That’s... strange…” she said, “I thought all of you were in Pony-
ville. In fact, last I checked, you were. So what…?”
“Well, Twilight,” Fluttershy said, “you see—”
Rarity jammed a hoof into Fluttershy’s mouth before she could
say anything more. “Sorry, Twilight,” Rarity said with a chuckle.
“We’re a bit rattled here and...” And then she realized that she wasn’t
touching the ball. “I mean—”
“It’s okay, Rarity,” Twilight said.
“Well…” Rarity did a double-take. “Wait. What? Did you hear
me just now?”
“...Yes. Why?”
“Well, ain’t that interestin’,” Applejack hummed, scratching
the back of her head.
43
Transcend
“What?”
Applejack took her hooves off the ball, stepped back for a mo-
ment, and considered the picture.
Rainbow Dash replaced her. “So, Twilight!” she began, plac-
ing her own hooves on the ball. “What is that thing anyway?”
“What thing?”
“This…” The words Rainbow Dash wanted tumbled around
her throat before retreating altogether. “This... ball thing! This!”
Twilight levitated the crystal ball off the desk, bringing it in
front of her discerning eyes. “Well”—she thoughtfully rubbed her
chin and narrowed her eyes in observance—“I first found this in the
caves. You know, the ones I’ve been trying to map out over the past
few weeks?”
“Yeah.” Rainbow Dash nodded comprehendingly. “The ones
you said you and Cadance were in during that thing with the change-
lings.”
“Well, I found this at the very bottom of the caves. There’s a
hidden chamber down there,” she explained, “and nopony has
found it because it’s so deep. See, when I found it, I noticed that it
was showing an image of the chamber. But, no matter how I moved
it around, it always showed the same spot, except at different an-
gles.” Twilight chuckled. “Which I find that fascinating, for one, and
two…”
A pair of large, blue eyes suddenly pressed themselves against
the ball. It counted. “Really?” Pinkie Pie asked with her usual high
and bubbly voice. “All we see is this white circle thing.”
“...That’s funny. Because it doesn’t look at all white. I mean,
it’s crystal for sure and—” The beat was almost audible. “In fact,
there’s a question there,” Twilight said dourly, “How in the world
are you talking to me right now? ...Let alone see what I’m doing?”
“Oh, see, that’s just it!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed and slapped the
ball. “We have a ball of our own! And we’re pretty sure it’s yours.
We just touch the ball to talk—”
“Or touch somepony who’s touchin’ the ball,” Applejack said,
draping a hoof on Pinkie Pie’s withers. “An’ Ah reckon so on and so
forth. Just as long as we’re connected to it somehow, you can hear
44
Transcend
us.”
“Oooh!” Twilight cooed, whirling around animatedly. “Fas-
cinating! That means I could use this as a communication device! I
knew this thing was special, but now I’ll have to look at it even more
closely,” she said, zealously looking at it from top to bottom.
The mares all gave nervous chuckles.
Sunset nodded. That also means that if I’m away, then she
can’t hear me. That’s useful information.
Meanwhile, Spike still stood over to the side with his arms
crossed tight against his chest. He stared intently into the ball but
made no movements to speak.
Sunset glanced over at him and frowned. But what could she
do?
“So wait,” Twilight asked, “where are you, again?
“We’re in Canterlot Castle, you see,” Rarity replied. “We’re
standing where you’re standing right now.”
A silence prevailed throughout both versions of the room. Sun-
set scratched her head. Yeah… she thought, that might be an issue.
Twilight, however, laughed. “Fantastic. I’m being pranked.
Good one, girls. Seriously, where are you?”
Applejack shook her head. “But we are in Canterlot Castle.
We’re right here just like Rarity said. We just, uh, don’t know how
yet.”
“Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, “are you in an alternate dimension
again?”
Twilight puffed her cheeks with uncertainty. “I… don’t think
so?”
Rainbow Dash snorted, “That doesn’t look anything like an-
other world.”
Pinkie Pie put a hoof to her chin this time, making a long and
drawn out “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.” Then she shrugged.
“Nope. I got nothin’.”
Sunset walked over to the hourglass and leaned against the
frame in thought. There were burn marks downstairs, and from what
they had seen, the ones in the ball were still fresh.
She still had no answer to what they had seen and, when it
45
Transcend
came down to it, the explanation she had in mind skipped over that
at best and predicated a contradiction at worst. “What if it’s time?”
she thought aloud. “What if we’re looking back in time right now?”
They all looked back at her. “You really think so?” Fluttershy
asked.
Spike looked over with a raised eyebrow.
Sunset nodded. “I mean, I guess. Yeah.”
“Twilight?” Fluttershy asked, turning back toward the ball,
“What day is it for you?”
“Day?” Twilight considered it. “Uh… It’s... well… it’s noon
here. And my birthday is in four days from today.”
“It’s noon on four days after your birthday for us,” Pinkie Pie
said. And then she paused. “No. Wait. Yes. It’s four.”
Rarity thought it over. “So that means that’s eight days—wait,
have to include the birthday too—so I think nine? My word, Twi-
light!” she gasped. “We’re nine days ahead of you!”
“Wow!”
“That’s incredible!” Twilight exclaimed. “Oh oh, that means
that my crystal ball is looking nine days into the past too! Oh my,
there are soooo many applications to this.” She hopped around the
room like a schoolfilly. “Just think of the information that could be
shared! You could potentially use this to communicate with the far
future! Or, the far past! Ohhhhh!”
At that point, Spike let out a very long and labored snort.
“Girls,” he said, his voice almost inaudible, “can I talk to Twilight
for a minute?”
The six of them turned all at once, allowing frowns to overtake
their features.
“Twi,” Applejack said, “Ah think Spike wants a word with ya.”
Twilight nodded as she landed on the floor. “Okay! Okay.”
Spike approached at that point and received the ball from
them. He wandered around the room in thought, switching direc-
tions several times as he went. Finally, he said, “Hi, Twilight.”
“Hello, Spike.”
He clenched his teeth. “H-how have you been?”
Twilight kicked a hoof against the floor. “I’ve been… good!
46
Transcend
Great.”
“That’s good,” Spike said. “Since I... have the chance to, I
gotta warn you about something. Something that’s going to happen
in a few days.”
Sunset hummed. Oh, I see where he’s going with this.
After taking a quick glance back at the rest of them so as to
drink in some support, he said, “There’s… gunna be a thing. I think
you’ll encounter it in about five days. You’re going to run into this
really scary thing. It’s supposed to be super powerful or something.
And, as far as we know, you’ll be by yourself when you face it.”
Twilight frowned. “Spike…”
“Please, Twilight. Please. You need to get ready for it, so that
it doesn’t…”
She continued to look up. She was momentarily expressionless
and yet, in some way, she seemed to shrink. Her wings beat for just
a moment as she shifted them about. Through shaky eyes, she finally
smiled. “Okay, Spike.”
Spike frowned like a harsh skeptic, glanced between the mares
around him, and swallowed. “You know about it already. Don’t you,
Twilight?”
Her smile persisted but her eyes grew moist. “Yes.”
Spike shook his head in disbelief. “S-so, this is nothing new?”
With a look of longing, Twilight went over to the large window,
basking in the sunlight that made it in. She glanced down toward the
grounds below, studying a collection of guards as they relieved their
squadmates of their shifts. “No,” she said with a pensive tone. “I’ve
known since last night. I spent several hours trying to figure out
what I’m dealing with. Which I have.” She paused. “I came up with
a plan. I wasn’t sure about it earlier… But now? Now I know for
sure what I need to do. I guess you probably already know what it
is.”
Spike’s fingers squeezed nearly hard enough to crack the ball
and he let out several deep and discontented breaths. With a frown,
he let it out. “What?”
The mares stood their ground, firm in their stance as they read-
ied themselves for what came next.
47
Transcend
“Okay. Okay. Then I’ll tell you what I can about the thing.”
The seven of them took their seats. Not that Twilight could see
them or anything.
“I don’t have a name for it,” Twilight began, her voice soft,
calm, and collected. “Maybe you do by now.”
“We’re just calling it the Nameless,” Spike offered.
“...Fair enough. This Nameless is a very powerful entity the
like’s I’ve never heard before. And there’s nothing in the books I
have. And I’m just guessing from what you’ve told me that it’s not in
any other books either.
“But I have been able to glean a fair bit of information about
it just from the glyphs inside the chamber.
“This chamber is deep within the caves under Canterlot,” Twi-
light explained, pointing in the direction of the mountain. “There’s
a large chasm where not even the miners were able to build, but you
can hop down it if you know where to go. It’s a mile or two down
there, I think, but you’ll find a large door. This door opens to any-
pony that stands in front of it. Lodged in that door was where I found
this ball,” she said, giving it a slight rap in acknowledgment.
“And you guys went to that place that night, huh?” Sunset
asked, taking care to keep her distance from the ball.
The six others nodded silently.
“And then there’s a large, hemispherical room on the other
side of that. It has to be at least the size of the castle back in Po-
nyville. Maybe even larger. Not sure. But there’s a lot of power there.
I could feel it from the moment I entered.”
“We got that note from her and the map,” Fluttershy added
with equal discretion. “We ran down there, but I think we were too
late.”
“An’ it went from there,” Applejack finished.
“But the place is covered in glyphs,” Twilight continued with
greater gusto as she thought about her findings. “So many symbols.
It’s a very very old language but one I recognized immediately. I
spent most of yesterday deciphering all of them. The place had a lot
to say. It was really interesting.
“I have a pretty good idea of what I’m up against. I also know
49
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the mechanism on how this thing is sealed away, and how exactly
that seal is broken.”
“And,” Spike said to the ball, “why is this Nameless so bad?”
Twilight’s breaths became panicked. She attempted to steady
herself and catch her breath. Even once, she had to use her front
hoof to push out a long sigh and then had to do it again. It worked
for a second and then her trepidations came back with a vengeance
and she was back where she started. “You don’t want to know.
Please… trust me on this.”
There was not a sound from them.
The clops of Twilight’s hooves on the hard plaster floor echoed
throughout the hall as she continued around the room. They momen-
tarily subsided as she thoughtfully slowed around the hourglass, but
when they came back, the reports were longer and more thoughtful.
“I already wish I could forget it,” she said finally.
Rainbow Dash surged forward at that point. “I think you
should talk to us then!” she demanded. “We’ve been through a heck
of a lot of things, Twilight. And I think we could take it down, just
like we have every other time in the past. We can help you!”
“It’s not that simple!” Twilight hissed.
“How is it not simple!?” Rainbow Dash argued.
“I need to tell you about the seal then.”
Rainbow Dash narrowed her eyes. “Fine! We’re listening...”
“The seal is highly intricate. In fact, it works a lot like the door
in that anypony can interact with the spell; not just unicorns.
“In addition to the spell that seals the door, the door is supple-
mented by a wide network of small stones. Most of them are under-
ground, and they all contain bits and pieces of information about
what’s in the door; information that I could use.
“But there are a couple of problems,” Twilight said with a huff.
“For one, these things reek of power and, for all intents and pur-
poses, they are untouchable. So that makes even collecting even one
very difficult.” Her muzzle swished from side to side as she thought.
“Although they might be depowered in your time, so maybe…”
The seven of them exchanged hopeful smiles.
Twilight shook her head. “But, for two, there are thousands of
50
Transcend
these things. Tens of thousands. And they’re all scattered across the
entire world.”
The smiles immediately faded.
Twilight ran a hoof through her mane in frustration. “I could
actually do something if I had all of that information! But instead…
I’m stuck with...” She paused. “I might be able to kill this thing by
tricking it into the door as it closes. I’m still thinking about that par-
ticular detail, though.”
“But won’t you die if you did that?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Twilight nodded solemnly. “Yes.”
Applejack laid a hoof on the crystal. “Why is it needed at all,
Twi?”
“It’s… it’s the way this thing operates,” she said, straightening
up again. “The door that seals this thing is not entirely perfect, and
just from the fact that it was recorded, the whoever built it must have
known it wasn’t perfect either.
“While the… what was it? Nameless. ...It can’t get through on
its own, no. What it can do is get through with assistance. This thing
tethers onto living things and uses their energy to eventually pass
through the door.”
She let out a tired sigh. “I could feel it draining my power from
the moment I stepped into that room, and even now, I am slowly
growing weaker. I was tethered the moment I found that place.
“And, in a few days, it’ll have taken enough of my energy to
make it through the door.”
“And you couldn’ at least tell us?” Applejack asked.
“Also no. The other part of it is it can make new tethers if I’m
around any pony for any period of time. If I even spend any amount
of time with you, you’ll be subject to its power too.”
“An’ why can’t we jus’ blast it with tha Rainbow Power like
we did Tirek?”
“I, well…” She backpedaled. “I’m still not even sure how to
use it correctly. ...It hasn’t exactly been consistent.”
Sunset groaned as several images of the Battle of the Bands
came rushing back.
“Then let us at least join you at the door!” Rainbow Dash cried.
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own words. In fact, out of all of them, she was taken aback the most.
She took many steps backward in horror as if she had just offended
Princess Celestia to her face. She looked around the room, trying to
gauge reactions that she would never see. Her knees wobbled and
all of her features quivered.
Twilight buried her face within her hooves.
And then came the sounds. Even through a mask of hooves,
Twilight’s cries were clearly audible.
Her body shook with each sob, and she slowly collapsed from
the tall, regal form she had assumed before into a low and solitary
lump on the floor.
Sunset felt a huge knot in her throat. The prostrate alicorn be-
fore her was a far cry from what she had ever imagined. Twilight
was her better in all ways. Now she looked like a dog.
She had to hide her grimace. It wasn’t fair.
The others exchanged uncertain looks of astonishment which
quickly melted into guilty frowns and slumped withers.
“Look…” Twilight said, standing slowly while wiping the
tears from her eyes, “I don’t want anypony to die for my sake.
“And especially you, my dearest and closest friends. I am…
just… so afraid,” she whimpered. “I’m afraid of losing all of you. I
just… I can’t. I can’t put you at risk. You are all too important to me.
I can’t even bear the thought of losing any one of you, and that’s
exactly the risk I would be taking if we all went together.
“I know I can’t survive this by myself, and really this whole
plan of mine is a bad idea, but…” she trailed off, looking at the
ceiling forlornly, “it’s the best bad idea I have.”
No pony could even move. The seven of them sat there, letting
idle tears flow down their faces.
“And besides…” Twilight croaked, hanging her head defeat-
edly, “in our world, time is fixed. It’s immutable. Whatever hap-
pened was always going to happen and, consequently, whatever
happened can’t be changed. Is. Was. Will be.”
Sunset shuddered. And then she paused. She put a hoof to her
muzzle in thought. Was that really true?
“Just the fact that you’re talking to me like this right now tells
53
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55
Four
Decisive
Princess Luna rolled over in her bed and leered at a pile of sheets,
her sheets, off to the side. She reached out with her hoof but found
they lay outside her reach. Snorting, she whipped her head back onto
her pillow.
The same few thoughts played through her mind again and
again. They refused to leave, their resolve just as strong as it had
been some time before. Had it been an hour? Three? She wasn’t sure.
Luna rolled over to look at the clock on the wall, only to find
that it had fallen face-first onto the floor. She frowned. Oh, of cour-
se. That’s my fault.
The door to Luna’s room creaked open and a large, white ali-
corn sidled in, still adorned with her usual golden regalia. “Luna,”
Celestia greeted.
Pretending to be asleep would have proven useless, Luna de-
cided. “Greetings, Sister,” she said at length.
“How are you?”
“I’m fine, Sister dear,” Luna replied, waving dismissively. “I
am just fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I am sure.”
Celestia smiled demurely. “You forgot to lower the moon to-
night.”
Was it that late already? She twisted her head toward the win-
dow and her scowl deepened on seeing that, indeed, the sky outside
was dark.
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Decisive
down to a very subdued tone and she grabbed her leg with shame as
she said, “I could not do the same when she needed me.
“I have failed in my duty to her. I have not repaid my debt.
Now I never will get the chance.”
Celestia did something that she would never have done in front
of anypony else; she sniffled.
Celestia then walked up, and just as purposefully as she had
entered the room, she wrapped her forelegs around Luna.
Luna’s only reaction was to reciprocate.
They held each other for the longest time. Neither moved, and
neither spoke.
“...Sister?” Luna croaked.
Celestia felt something wet hit her backside. “Yes, Luna?”
“...Why must these things happen?”
Celestia frowned and responded by holding her sister even
tighter. “I don’t know, Luna. I just don’t know.”
===============================================
Applejack steadied herself against the wall. Her face felt like
it was going to fall off, but she resisted.
Pinkamena Diane Pie, meanwhile, sat in the corner, lost in a
well of screams. The former party pony had grown a shade darker,
and her once-poofy hair had fallen straight and listless. Together
with Fluttershy, who had locked in an embrace with her, she pro-
duced cries that overtook the entire floor.
Rarity, meanwhile, had planted herself on the couch nearby,
burying her face into the pillow. The fabric underneath her now bore
stains from the makeup running down her face.
And Spike sat at the edge of that couch, having drawn near her
like a magnet. But unlike the others, Spike remained silent. The tears
in his eyes forgot to fall. Furthermore, he forgot how to wail as well.
He appeared like a husk in the shape of a baby dragon.
Applejack shuffled toward the tower’s large entryway. A cool
breeze invaded the room, blowing the door back and forth on its
hinges. And as she hobbled over, her thoughts drifted toward their
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Decisive
escapee.
On its own volition, Pinkamena’s body started doing things on
its own. First, her ears flopped backward, and then her knee
twitched. To top it off, her eyes then fluttered.
Applejack turned her head to the sky.
BOOM!
The castle quaked and rocked. Applejack had to place a way-
ward hoof on the doorframe to balance herself. She looked on as a
large, multicolored disk appeared in the sky outside, accompanied
by a light-and-melted-sounding reverberation.
That was Rainbow Dash somewhere above the city. And Ap-
plejack could just imagine the scream over the report.
Twilight Sparkle wanted to end her own life. Had ended her
own life. Had.
There was one thing Twilight had been right about. Applejack
knew so. She would have died alongside her best friend. Gladly.
BOOM!
Applejack narrowed her eyes as another rainbow appeared.
And Pinkamena’s body had not stopped twitching yet.
She had not died along with her best friend. She had succeeded
Twilight without choice.
She slammed a hoof against the wall, leaving a small dent.
Twilight was dead. Twilight had died. Twilight was going to die.
Dead, died, would die.
Is, was, will be.
BOOM!
***
almost a given since she had friends that held the same identities,
and that helped to pick them apart. Same essences, different bodies.
Funny how Twilight had once had access to two versions of each of
her best friends. Even the way they cried was reminiscent of her
friends from Canterlot High.
She had come to know that over the past few days.
The newest familiarity in a series of familiarities that she
wanted no part of.
But now they were gone and now nothing stopped her from
soaking in every reminder of her past failures. At Canterlot High,
she had done one thing right. And in Equestria, she had done every-
thing wrong.
Sunset let her head fall to the side, turning her focus to the
tower on the other side of the castle, where her single greatest failure
resided. She had lost Celestia because she had pushed too far.
Just like she had almost lost everything pushing too far during
the Fall Formal.
And she had, evidently, pushed too far even now. And now
here they all were in a situation she was sure everyone would have
rather not known about. Her ears fell back on the wails from down
below and she buried her head in her hooves. Good job, Sunset.
You’ve managed to screw up again.
***
***
Sunset decided that she had put it off for long enough. How
long “long enough” was escaped her, but noticing that the shadows
in the room had changed had been enough of an argument. With
trepidation, she floated the ball over.
“Hey, Twilight,” she said as she wrapped her hooves around it.
Twilight Sparkle, who had been writing some equations down
in a journal, looked up with interest. It took her a moment more to
register what was actually happening, but when she did, she let off
a smile. “Sunset! How good it is to… see? No, hear you.”
“You too, Twilight,” Sunset replied warmly. “I’ve missed you
so much. I know we write to each other, but still…”
“Yes. How are all of your friends doing?” she asked as she
resumed her work.
Sunset blushed, “They’re doing pretty alright. They’re kind of
mad at me right now, though. I um… I broke a parade float on acci-
dent.”
“You what?” Twilight asked, somewhat shocked.
“I broke an entire parade float.”
Twilight glanced up from her book once more, dumbfounded.
“How did that happen?”
“I just, I just… I just accidentally the whole thing. Don’t make
me talk about it. But honest, Twilight, I didn’t mean it,” Sunset said
with a shrug.
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62
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began, nearly setting the quill down upon the page. “It’s usually af-
ter Spike’s gone to bed or something like that. But I’ve given it spe-
cial thought since I came up from the chamber.
“And it’s a fact of life,” she earnestly explained. “Everypony
dies eventually. It’s the price of having a life. And so I look at my
friends… And I know. I know that every single one of us is going to
go someday. I… I’m afraid of us being driven apart, Sunset. Death
is one heck of a way to do it.”
And then Twilight Sparkle grinned. “But you know the conclu-
sion I’ve reached? If I had to do it now so they could go on and be
together for another sixty years, then I’d do it a million times over.
I will always make that choice. Because some ponies are worth dy-
ing for.”
***
help her right now is to be here for her. Ah think she could really use
her friends.”
“Mmhmm,” they collectively agreed.
As she took another sip of her tea, Sunset noticed the broken
remains of Applejack’s teacup near the door. She wrapped her mag-
ical aura around the shards and lifted them into the air. “I do wonder
about that time stuff, though. I mean, I’ve read stuff on time when I
lived here before, but most of it was theory,” she explained as she
levitated the pieces into the garbage disposal.
“Oh, yeah,” Pinkamena said, “that. We had an episode where
that happened once.”
Spike hummed in agreement. “Twilight traveled through
time.”
Sunset tapped a hoof against the floor as she tried to decipher
what they had said. “…Twilight Sparkle traveled through time?” she
asked incredulously.
All six of them nodded.
“Ah don’ understand it much,” Applejack admitted, scratching
her head. “Ah honestly think that Pinkie Pie can tell ya ’bout it better
than Ah can.”
Sunset automatically glanced over in Pinkamena’s direction,
even though she didn’t mean to.
“Yeah, this one time,” Pinkamena began, sitting up, “Twilight
had a real doozy of a thing. It all started when she got a message
from future Twilight. She time traveled in and was looking really
bad.
“So, Twilight assumed that there was a disaster. And she spent
the whole week freaking out about it, but she ended up causing it
too. Like, everything that she did to prevent the thing that she was
trying to prevent actually caused the thing that she was trying to
prevent.”
Pinkamena straightened up as she progressed through her tale,
a sign that her former energy was returning. “And so, eventually,
Twilight, and Spike, and I broke into the Starswirl the Bearded Wing
by politely asking a guard to let us in! And then we found a time
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Decisive
spell where Twilight could go back in time but oooonnly for a mi-
nute, and oooonnly once in her entire lifetime.
“And then Twilight went back in time and caused the whole
thing!”
“It’s like she said,” Spike concluded, “Time is fixed. ‘Is, was,
will be.’”
Pinkamena let off a smile before she slumped back against the
wall.
Sunset crunched down what had just been said, going over
each individual sentence as she created a mental picture of exactly
what they were talking about. The latter half was the fact that, ap-
parently, a time spell existed in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing and
she had never seen it. The second part was that the time loop, as
Twilight had described, was stable.
But then the crux of the matter returned to her mind once more.
“Time travel is possible…?” Sunset trailed off as she set the teacup
and coaster on the floor in front of her.
“Yepperooni,” Pinkamena replied.
Fluttershy wiped some orphaned water from her eyes. “Maybe
that’s what you were doing earlier?”
Time traveling in to have Twilight copy a book, Sunset thought.
I time traveled.
There was a long and almost palpable pause. And then Sunset
rose to her hooves with a wide-eyed expression. …No.
I am going to time travel.
Sunset whirled around so fast that her mostly empty teacup fell
off the saucer. She took care to right it before she turned tail once
more and scurried up the stairs, leaving behind several looks of be-
wilderment.
She raced over to the crystal ball but found Twilight absent,
supposedly outside the reach of the ball’s sound. That was no good.
With her mental wheels still running faster than she could keep
up with, she instead turned her attention to the shelves. Using her
magic, she yanked out book after book, fueled by what she remem-
bered of her time in the library.
But these were not the immediate books that she wanted, and
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she tossed them aside with little regard to where or how they landed
as she levitated more and more out of place. Cursory glances at their
covers ruled them out as well.
“Sunset!” Applejack yelled, being the first to catch up, “What
the hay is goin’ on?”
The others soon showed up behind her, wearing confused
looks on their faces.
“I need to find a book!” Sunset said, throwing another across
the room before she moved over to the ladder and started to ascend.
“Remember what Twilight said? ‘Is, was, will be.’ If time is really
fixed like Twilight says, then at some point here, I am going to time
travel.”
“What’s that got to do with anythin’!?” Applejack thundered.
“It means”—her eyes stopped on a candidate before ultimately
rejecting it—“that we’re not out of the woods.”
“Why?”
At that point, Sunset stopped. Taking a deep breath, she
stepped off of the ladder. “See, it’s like this. I know magic. A lot of
magic. In fact, it’s possible that I know more magic than Twilight. I
even know quite a bit of dark magic; believe me.
“But time travel magic is not one of them.
“So now, what reason would I have to not only learn it but then
use it for whatever it was I was doing there? There’s a contradiction
here.”
Five of them let out a flurry of sharp gasps and exclamations.
Meanwhile, Pinkamena’s hair shot upward and then tangled
itself into a poofy mess once more. “Oh my gosh, you’re totally
right!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, jumping up and down. “It’d be a time
paradox if you don’t time travel!”
“So now,” Sunset said as she glanced over the cover of another
candidate, “we should think back; what was I doing exactly?”
“Oh! Oh oh oh!” Pinkie Pie said almost faster than they could
register. “You came in carrying a book! And you wanted Twilight to
copy what was in it!”
Rainbow Dash nodded in agreement. “That’s what I saw too!”
“Then that’s it,” Sunset said, “I’m going to time travel and that
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Decisive
or not it was actually Nameless, but now that I think about it, yes.”
She ran her hoof along a couple of lines in the text and chuckled. “It
might be a lot of numbers right now, but it might be possible to turn
this into something legible.”
“So hey, we were right!” Applejack exclaimed.
“Yippee! We did it!” Pinkie Pie cheered. Within moments,
there was a loud and bubbly pop before a shower of long, multicol-
ored strands of paper rained down upon all seven of them. That was
accompanied by a small round of laughter.
Except for Rarity and Sunset. But with the former, Pinkie Pie
already had some consolations ready to go. “Told ya, Rarity:
streamer emergencies,” Pinkie Pie said.
Rarity’s scowl deepened.
Sunset, meanwhile, looked back and forth between the pages
that she could see in the book. Her frown grew deeper all the while.
“Why can’t it be regular words, though?” Rainbow Dash
asked, now turning her attention back to the mare in the crystal ball.
“I could read regular words,” she said with a smirk.
“Quite right,” Rarity concurred, “That’s very specific infor-
mation to send back.”
“That’s because mathematics can explain lots of things,” Twi-
light replied. “I’m not all too surprised, really.”
She casually flipped through some more pages. “If you ask me,
this is the beginnings of a very complex spell. More complex than
I’ve ever seen.”
“Well, ain’t that somethin’…” Applejack cooed, though with
a noticeable quiver in her voice. Her eyes drew up toward Sunset.
Rarity seemed to reach the same conclusion and looked over.
“Sunset, dear?”
Sunset didn’t answer.
She shook her head. She had to be seeing things. She recog-
nized the way this penmanship flowed, leaned, and even faltered.
The writing couldn’t be familiar. Could it?
“There’s just one thing I’m a bit confused about,” Twilight
said, now scrutinizing the writing itself. “This writing looks a bit
familiar. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen it before. As in, I’ve seen it quite
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***
“So, I’m going to write a spell…” Sunset trailed off for the
umpteenth time.
“Yeah, yeah,” Applejack said as she leaned against the wall.
“We know already.”
Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash held their own private and un-
related conversation near the kitchen area. Spike, meanwhile, was
plopped on the floor next to the ball, refusing to leave it.
Sunset didn’t want to particularly bother them anyway.
“Well, we know at least one thing,” Rarity said, “and that’s that
you don’t have to be here any longer than five days. You’ll know if
it works or not by then.”
Sunset scratched her head. She looked over at the crystal ball
for a few moments as thoughts about time came to mind. Ultimately,
she didn’t partake in it.
“I just wonder what sort of spell is in there,” Fluttershy thought
aloud. “I mean, that’s what Twilight said, anyway.”
“Plus, that mathematics is too fancy for me,” Applejack said,
half-complaining. “Ah haven’t the foggiest what it is. Ah reckon you
can tell us best.”
They went quiet for a few moments as they reflected on what
they had seen. However, wandering eyes eventually fell on Sunset
as Applejack’s statements soaked in. She could tell them best.
“I honestly don’t know what the spell does yet,” Sunset re-
plied. “All I know is that I’m compelled to write it, time paradox or
not. But… getting Twilight out of this mess would be a really com-
pelling reason, right?”
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Working
===============================================
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“We have food now though so let’s not worry ’bout it,” Apple-
jack chided.
For the next few minutes, the seven friends (along with the
eighth inside the ball who had indeed reappeared with a sandwich
in tow) ate in relative silence (although they did make some small
talk or occasionally asked for dishes to be passed around).
About halfway through the meal, Sunset stood up. “So hey,
now that we can focus a little bit better, let’s have a serious go at
this. Everyone agreed?”
Everyone nodded affirmatively.
Using her magic, Sunset drew upon a simpler spell: she created
a chalkboard out of thin air and placed it near her own spot. After
taking one last bite of some green beans, she levitated the chalk up
toward the board. “So, besides writing off collecting those things
Twilight talked about, what else do we have? Spike?”
Spike looked down at the blank piece of paper in front of him
and then frowned back at Sunset.
Sunset cringed. “Okay. Well… I think…” She looked at the
board. “I think we don’t really have any other options. I think we
have to put collection back on the table.”
“But there’re so many…” Fluttershy squeaked. “I don’t know
if we’d be able to get them all.”
Rainbow Dash snorted, “Yeah. There’d need to be a few hun-
dred of us to do that. Which—”
Pinkie Pie gasped. “Dashie! I thought we agreed not to talk
about the Mirror Pond!”
“…I wasn’t thinking about the Mirror Pond—”
“No buts! You don’t talk about the Mirror Pond. That’s the first
rule of the Mirror Pond.”
“Maybe we don’t have to,” Sunset cut in, shooting Pinkie Pie
a piercing glare. “Maybe we just need the most important ones, or
something like that.”
“I don’t know…” Fluttershy trailed off uncertainly.
Sunset lifted the chalk up toward the board. “Well, why don’t
we pretend we did that for a second,” she said and wrote the word
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collection on the board. “If that’s really where we’ll get our infor-
mation from, then we managed to fill quite a few pages in the book
Twilight got from me.” She frowned and said, “…Will manage to
fill quite a few pages in the book I will give to Twilight.”
Pinkie Pie nodded, “That’s trueeeee. There were a couple hun-
dred pages at least!”
The rest of them shrugged.
“Yeah, I guess,” Spike said. “Let’s see where this goes.”
Sunset nodded as she took the chalk and underlined the word
on the board.
“So now, that must mean our task now is to figure out how to
acquire these things,” Rarity said.
“Well,” Rainbow Dash interrupted, “we don’t even know what
to do with them when we get them.”
“That’s true…”
“You’re both right. We’ll have to figure the both of those out,”
Sunset said, writing each on opposing sides of the board.
“But,” Rarity argued, “it’s not going to do us any good if we
aren’t able to find them in the first place.”
Applejack wolfed down some more mashed potatoes. “Ah
reckon we should start with that then.”
“What if we had a machine?” Pinkie Pie suggested, hoping to
her hooves and spreading her forelegs ecstatically. “Then we could
use science to track them all down! That’s what Twilight would do!”
The rest of them hummed affirmatively and exchanged nods.
Except for Spike. “Okay,” he said, “but so we build this thing,
and then how would it know what to look for?”
“Ah think Twilight would be able to tell us that one,” Apple-
jack replied.
Rarity nodded as she dug her spoon into her own share of
mashed potatoes. “That’s very true. She knows more about these…
What are they called? Stones? She knows more about them than an-
ypony.”
Spike shrugged before biting down on another gem. Pinkie
Pie, meanwhile, did a celebratory backflip in place.
“But won’t we still lose time if we have to take the time to
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find it?”
Twilight took a moment to flip through some pages in her jour-
nal before she used her magic to grab a book off the top shelf. Twi-
light idly scanned the cover for a few seconds, humming thoughtfully
all the while.
She then grew wide-eyed. “Ooooh, I see what you’re doing!”
she exclaimed, whirling around. She cantered toward the hourglass,
and after looking it up and down, she smirked. “Okay, if I succeed
in both, I’ll put them in there. Go check there now.”
Sunset, who had been drinking out of her cup at the time, sud-
denly spit all of it out and then pounded at whatever had remained
caught.
Fluttershy stood up. “Sunset?” she asked, her voice full of con-
cern. “Are you okay?”
Sunset straightened herself up. “Yeah yeah, Fluttershy,” she
said, trying to shoo her away. “It’s nothing, I’m okay. Thanks.”
Taking one last deep breath for good measure, she turned her
attention to the large hourglass. All of the sand still rested at the bot-
tom, so she used her hoof to flip the hourglass over. It offered no
resistance despite being twice her size. The soothing feel of the
metal frame brought a smile to her face. It was just like old times.
After a few mesmerizing seconds of watching the sand fall
(and listening for the telltale ssssh of the sand falling into the bottom
chamber), she used her magic to pry the plate off of the top chamber.
On an unspoken cue, Rainbow Dash flapped her wings and
lifted herself above the apparatus and reached in. She then fished
out a lacquered box, small enough to be carried with ease yet big
enough to command a grip.
Sunset magically grabbed at a letter taped to the front of the
box. An idle glance at its contents revealed another note. Unlike the
fateful note of farewell, the typography was much more even and
meticulous, more like the hoofwriting that she remembered.
My friends,
Hopefully you are reading this just after I told you to search
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the hourglass. This kit contains everything you’ll need to collect the
stones.
Use it well,
Twilight Sparkle
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good for us. It gives us the chance to favorably collapse the proba-
bility function,” Sunset explained.
Everyone else besides Pinkie Pie frowned. Sunset could even
see the proverbial thought shooting past their heads.
Sunset puffed her cheeks in embarrassment. “I mean uh…
look. Okay, sorry, I got carried away there. Basically,” she held the
object up in presentation, “anything could be inside this box until
the moment we open it. We have the chance to decide what’s in the
box. So, we should think about how many of us are going out to
collect.”
Immediately, four sets of hooves and a set of claws went up.
Sunset wasn’t sure if it was because they understood what she said
or if they were just blindly following the last part.
“I should go,” Spike argued.
“...I should stay,” Fluttershy whimpered.
Rainbow Dash blew some hair out of her face. “Uhm, I don’t
think that’d work out so well. I think all six of us should go.”
“Well, I’ll need some help here,” Sunset said, “since I’ll have
to build something that can read the stones, and probably work with
Twilight to figure out the math she’ll need for the spell.” She paused,
and then added, “I’m a little rusty.”
Applejack nodded. “Spike,” she said and pointed, “you know
this place up ’n down. Ah think you’d be a big help here.”
Spike mulled that over. “You got that right,” he said, beating
his chest as he puffed it out pridefully.
“An’ Fluttershy… you can fly,” Applejack pointed out. “You’d
be able to get to a lot of places much faster.”
Fluttershy cowered. “Yes, but I still don’t think it’s a good
idea…”
“Well, why not?”
Fluttershy frowned. “Go to the furthest reaches of the world
all by myself? I don’t know if I can do that…”
“Of course you can, dear,” Rarity said, draping a hoof over her
friend’s withers. “You’ve helped us face down far worse things than
a road trip.”
Pinkie Pie laughed and swung her foreleg around Fluttershy’s
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neck and said, “Yeah! Plus, we’ll be doin’ it too! You can betcha that
all of us will get through this!”
“Well, um,” Fluttershy began. But then she sighed. “Oh, al-
right. It is for Twilight, after all.”
“Are we locking this in?” Sunset asked, glancing around for
approval.
The five mares nodded.
“Twilight?” Spike called.
“Yes?” Twilight answered.
“One last thing. Everyone but Sunset and I are going out.”
“Got it.”
At that point, Sunset took hold of the box again. She examined
it closely, and then she shared a nod with the others. Tentatively, she
opened Twilight’s box.
Another carefully written letter greeted her. For the moment,
Sunset set that aside so that she could see the contents inside. Right
below where the letter had been situated sat five colored balls, each
the size of a gumdrop. Somehow, Twilight’s choice of color with
each seemed intentional. Scattered underneath those were an assort-
ment of miscellaneous items, each labeled with a string of numbers.
Sunset examined one such set of numbers. She recognized lat-
itude and longitude immediately, but the third set caught her by sur-
prise. On closer inspection, she recognized them as meters. She fig-
ured it had to be depth.
Nodding in approval, she turned back to the letter.
Dear friends,
These five colored balls you see are a new invention! They are
Okay seriously I’ve tried writing this darn letter five times and
I keep getting carried away with the technical details so I’m just
going to skip that.
This is teleportation gum. You chew on it and it will instantly
transport you home. I’ve managed to recreate the method Princess
Celestia uses to send letters through Spike, and the gum makes sure
it doesn’t happen until you use it.
83
Working
Twilight Sparkle
***
Steam bellowed every which way as the train sat ready to de-
part. Several ponies from all trots of life filed in at a relaxed pace.
The conductor checked his pocket watch before eying the snack bar
just inside the station door, licking his already-chapped lips all the
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Working
87
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Accuracy
===============================================
***
The wheels spun and spun as the train thundered along the
tracks. The landscape galloped by at a breakneck pace. The trees that
flashed by outside appeared to wave at the passengers as they
swayed in the wind.
One of the windows slid down and a pink-maned pony stuck
her head out. Feeling the breeze, Pinkie Pie let it flow through her.
It met resistance as it got tangled in her mane, and in short order, a
bug got caught in her teeth. That didn’t stop her, however. She gave
a whoop and punched the air outside.
Rarity, meanwhile, relaxed against the opposite seat. The area
around her eyes still felt moist from the cucumbers, but those eight
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Accuracy
hours were already over. Now placing her comb back into her sad-
dlebag, she then reached into a pocket on the wall and drew out a
pamphlet to do some very light reading.
The only reason Rarity recognized the name Equestrian 500
was that Rainbow Dash had been involved in that race at one point.
Even as she read through the roster, she started to wonder how her
friend was doing.
Rarity quickly decided there was nothing to worry about. If
anything, Rainbow Dash was a certainty. She would do what they
needed her to do or she would die trying.
Rarity frowned. Maybe there was reason for worry after all.
Meanwhile, Pinkie Pie had wandered over toward another
booth. She was bothering a chocolate-colored colt but, judging from
the fact his game box now lay forgotten on the seat, he didn’t seem
to mind.
A vanilla-colored mare watched from her seat next to the colt,
examining the scene with an amused expression. Briefly, she looked
over and met Rarity’s gaze, and the two of them shared light-hearted
chuckles and happy grins.
Rarity gazed back up at Pinkie Pie and nodded to herself. It
beat traveling by herself by far. There were very few that she would
rather be with.
At that point, she turned her gaze to the scenery outside. The
car rattled as it rolled over a bumpy section of the tracks. They were
traveling at a rapid pace after all. Her eyes wandered over the land-
scape as it flowed up and down.
Somewhere up ahead of them, the engine bellowed a long and
drawn out whistle that resonated throughout the plains. It served as
a reminder of how far away they already were, yet somehow it didn’t
feel that way at all.
***
smears upon its green surface held traces of numbers and strings of
words.
Sunset Shimmer looked over her current work once more, ran
the math one last time in her head, and then placed a hoof on the
crystal ball. “I think we’ll want to integrate this function, Twilight,”
she announced.
Twilight looked up at her own busy chalkboard. She hovered
her piece of chalk between some of her own computations before she
nodded sagely. “I agree with that. So, how should we bound it?”
Sunset stroked her chin in thought, trying to search over the
data they had been going over together. Finding nothing, she flipped
through the pages of what she had worked out on her own. “I say six
seconds and… show me page thirty-four again?”
Twilight idly used her magic to shuffle through several pages
in her master copy.
Sunset looked over Twilight’s (or rather, her future self’s)
work and considered what she had. “When is A6’s kinetic energy six
hundred and seven kilojoules?”
“Give me a second.” Twilight flipped her own chalkboard over
and started writing a new equation on it. “Factor that out… then
square that number…” The chalk danced furiously as she distrib-
uted and divided through.
“Sunset!” a voice from the stairs called. Spike then reached the
landing with several bits and pieces of metal, including screws, nuts,
and sheets. “I got those pieces that you wanted.”
“Great!” Sunset exclaimed. “Thanks, Spike.”
Twilight’s ears twitched but she ignored it, electing to stay fo-
cused on her calculations.
“Where you do want them?” Spike asked.
Sunset pointed toward the half-constructed apparatus in the
corner. “Over there. I’ll be along in a sec.”
Spike nodded happily before walking over that way with the
items he had collected.
“It’s going to be when t equals twelve point thirty-six sec-
onds,” Twilight announced. “There’s a statistical error of twenty-
three milliseconds.”
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Accuracy
was the original machine nine days removed which Sunset had be-
gun to repurpose into what was now going up. Twilight’s machine
whirred and clicked, performing several calculations and crunching
several sets of numbers as it scoured the entire band.
Sunset took her hooves off of the ball. “It’s getting there. It’s
not stuff we need to wait on, though.” She smiled, glancing back at
Spike. “Thanks to you. I still can’t get over how ingenious that was.”
Spike chuckled and shrugged. “That was pretty good.”
***
music’s nice, and nopony is giving me any mind… so it’s good. Are
you doing okay?”
Applejack shrugged. “Nothin’ Ah haven’t seen before. But be-
lieve me, Ah don’t miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“This.”
Fluttershy shook her head and frowned, uncomprehending.
For a few brief moments, a sly smile flashed across Apple-
jack’s features.
“Oh, Fluttershy,” Applejack began, a noticeable nasalness in
her tone, “you simply must try the J’het la’tor, it is to die for. Any-
pony with the slightest bit of culture is drinking it.”
A long pause passed between the two of them. Applejack took
the opportunity to grin and take a drink from her glass (which, just
to top the whole thing off, she did so with graceful motions and a
pompous smirk).
“That was pretty good!” Fluttershy exclaimed quietly, letting
her mouth hang limp. “I thought you were Rarity for a second.”
Applejack chuckled. “Uh, that wasn’t a Rarity impression.”
Fluttershy’s eyes widened for a moment before she giggled
sheepishly. “Oh, that’s right. I kinda maybe sort of forgot about that
part about you.”
“It weren’t nothin’, sugarcube. Ah left that life behind a long
time ago.”
Fluttershy blushed. “I know. I’ll just have to remember next
time.”
The two exchanged friendly giggles before they took a sip of
their drinks in tandem.
“Speaking of Rarity…” Fluttershy said, adopting a more seri-
ous tone, “do you think her and the others are doing alright?”
Applejack didn’t even think about it. “We’ve all been through
thick and thin. They’re all very strong.”
“And what about you?”
Applejack paused. “What about me?”
Fluttershy grabbed her foreleg. “I just hope that you’ll make it
out okay too.”
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Accuracy
Applejack let out a sigh. For a few moments, she scratched her
muzzle. “Ah’ll be okay, Fluttershy,” she replied. “Ah feel really
good ’bout all of this.”
“Are you sure?”
“That’s the honest truth. Ah believe in what Sunset Shimmer’s
got us doin’.”
Fluttershy considered it. “You promise?”
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Ap-
plejack said, acting out all of the accompanying motion as she went.
Fluttershy nodded and gave her friend a wide grin. “Okay.
Then I think so too.”
***
score with any set of parameters. The hard part is knowing which
ones we want…”
Sunset hazarded a glance. Several numbers and symbols took
up an entire column, notating directions and ranges and other pos-
sibly desirable properties. From what she could tell, the page was
one of a few, though not several. And, as Twilight had said, every-
thing but the one was crossed out.
“But you took care of that. So thanks,” Twilight said.
Sunset chuckled nervously. “I see. I see. Cool.” However, un-
beknownst to Twilight, she shot Spike an uncertain glance.
Spike looked like he had caught on. “Uh, does that mean
you’re going to have to make those… uh, thingies that Twilight just
said?”
Sunset shrugged nervously in a motion that said, I guess so!
“And then there’s these,” Twilight said again. She turned a few
more pages, and the parameter lists disappeared. They were re-
placed by sets of coordinates. And there were pages and pages of
them. Like the scores of parameters, the hundreds of coordinates
were crossed out.
But what Sunset found especially odd (which was on top of a
whole slew of odd things) was the word complete at the top of the
page. Sunset scratched her chin. What does that mean?
Inside the ball, Twilight flipped onto another page. The coor-
dinates within were not crossed out but instead had short notes next
to them. Examples included Bugbear, Avalanche, and Changeling
nest.
“Although I’m not sure what to do with any of this. There are
a lot of extra coordinates here. Any ideas here?” Twilight asked.
Sunset let a drop of sweat meander down her face. “Uhhhhh,
heheh, yeah.”
Twilight laughed. “It’s no big deal. I’m sure we’ll discover it
later.”
Sunset gulped. “Yeah.”
At that point, Twilight turned her attention to the machine
which was spitting out a long strand of paper. She funneled it
through her hooves as it went, reading the numbers scrawled across
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Accuracy
it while her magic copied them down into a separate sheet of parch-
ment. Eventually, she had twenty unique items.
Sunset guessed that the list would be thinned out later.
“Sunset?” Spike called, holding up a large metallic plate.
“Where does this go real quick?”
After a moment’s consideration, she said, “Right there be-
tween those two panels,” and pointed at an open spot on the side.
Spike nodded, placed the piece, and then rose to his feet. “Al-
right. I’m ready to go and eat.”
“I’m with you there, Spike.” She turned her attention back to
the mare in the crystal ball. “I’ll… think about those coordinate
things later. I’m just glad to see you have your numbers, Twilight,”
she said as she started to follow the dragon.
“Thanks, Sunset,” Twilight replied. “I’m pretty happy with
this. These are good numbers.”
As Sunset descended the stairs after Spike, she looked into the
ball to see what her friend had computed. She did have some curi-
osity after all. Her eyes ran across the parchment, taking in the dig-
its. Twilight had already gone through the trouble of converting the
computations into coordinates. Along her parchment were several
values of latitude and longitude. Funnily enough, the numbers
seemed unfamiliar.
Her heart sank.
She looked at them again, and then she looked a third time. In
quick order, she concluded that what she had seen was not her im-
agination.
The numbers were unfamiliar.
“Uuuuhhhh, T-Twilight…” she quivered as she reached the
landing and rooted herself to the spot.
Twilight froze, and then she looked up with a worried frown.
Spike, who was halfway toward the door, also stopped. He
swiveled around, a half-confused and half-apprehensive frown on
his face.
“I’m not sure t-those are good numbers,” Sunset stammered.
Twilight flinched. “What… What do you mean by that?”
Sunset blinked again, not quite sure what she was supposed to
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Accuracy
do. She had only taken a few looks and she hadn’t put her hoof on it
yet, but the numbers that she had seen raised several red flags.
“Spike?” she called at length.
Spike gulped. “Yeah?”
“Where did you put those coordinates that we got in the box?”
After a moments’ hesitation as he tried to understand what was
happening, Spike silently and uncertainly walked into the kitchen
and fetched the sheet of paper off of the counter. “These?”
Sunset scoured their list up and down, taking in what they had
been given. She immediately compared them to the numbers inside
the ball. She took several back-and-forth glances between the two
but was unable to form a connection between both papers.
“Twilight, we have a little problem here...” Sunset trailed off.
“What?” Twilight asked.
“None of your numbers look like what we have.”
***
***
***
Ding!
Sunset nearly threw the chalk to the floor, abandoning her
equation on the board entirely to scramble over to the ball. “Well!?”
she asked anxiously.
Spike, who had been doing a little bit of reading near the now-
completed machine, also looked up. He snapped his book shut and
attentively stood up.
Twilight stirred but did not leave her current task. She hunched
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Accuracy
***
like they were about to fall off. The Rainboom was starting to catch
up with her. With all of that considered, the harsh reality that speed
was not endurance was starting to set in.
She briefly wondered what things looked like down below.
The water had to be very uninviting from how the storm whipped it
up. And she figured there wasn’t anything to be found down there
anyway because nopony would possibly be out there.
Well, except maybe one.
Rainbow Dash flapped her wings as she approached another
towering formation. It rushed up to meet her but, like every other
that had come before it, she planned to soar up and over.
And then, at the most crucial moment, something pulled within
her wing and then it stopped responding.
She gasped. “No!”
The cloud rushed forward and swallowed her. Wet rain, latent
static, and severe winds barraged her body, the latter of which threw
her every which way. Rainbow Dash tumbled about, crying out des-
perately as she tried to find something, anything, to stabilize herself.
Her wings flapped about completely on their own, heedless of her
will.
The wind slammed her pegasus body against the clouds, caus-
ing her to grunt and groan all the while. She ricocheted between sev-
eral formations without much reprieve.
And then, to make matters worse, Rainbow felt a familiar sen-
sation where all of her dropped simultaneously, and her rapid tum-
bling meant she could do nothing about it. She was falling out of the
sky.
“Come on, darn you!” she exclaimed, but her wings still re-
fused to cooperate. “Come on!”
Panicked, she tried to grab at a nearby cloud, but it crumbled
in her grasp. The next one did the same. They managed to slow her
down, but even then, she fell through them far too fast.
And then she suddenly couldn’t feel the clouds around her an-
ymore. Rainbow Dash paled and twisted in the air. “Noooooooo!”
A bolt of lightning illuminated the water’s rough, churning sur-
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Accuracy
face for a few brief instants. Seconds later, in the shadow of dark-
ness, Rainbow Dash crashed into it, and her entire world became a
new black.
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Mayor Mare had to put her quill down, but not before she took a
mental note. Sixteen forms. Sixteen papers. That was how many she
had managed to finish in a row. That was a record.
One of Sugar Cube Corner’s cupcakes lay on the edge of her
desk. She had only taken a single bite out of it, and that had been at
the bakery. The hot steam had long since faded and now the confec-
tion lay ready to crack and split open at any moment. Just the sight
of it made her shudder.
With a sigh, she stood up from her cushion and pushed it off
her desk where it landed in the trash bin where it belonged.
The Cakes would understand.
Mayor Mare sidled toward the window and looked out past the
edge of the town. The fields at Sweet Apple Acres were still a barren
brown, built in disorderly lumps that refused to be tamed. She
squinted and imagined that she could make out the faint shape of a
large pony pulling a sleigh in the farthest corner.
She turned her gaze toward the square below. The sun shone
down on the grass just like on any other day, and yet the entire pal-
ette through her window appeared monotonic. The few ponies that
passed through were equally so.
The market had seen much lower attendance than usual as
well, both from vendor and shopper alike.
The fields and playgrounds, usually full of fillies and colts, sat
empty.
Her eyes drew to the former site of the Golden Oaks Library.
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===============================================
Pinkie Pie crossed her forelegs even tighter and stared into
him. She puffed her cheeks so hard that her face turned red.
The professor’s eyes fluttered as his scowl grew wider. Finally,
he sighed. “…What did you say these objects were again?”
Pinkie Pie immediately sprang up. “These things are part of a
thing. It’s this really really big worldwide thing that seals this really
scary thing behind a door. These stones are really powerful. And
also—”
“How do you know they exist?” he asked incredulously.
Pinkie Pie wildly flailed her hooves, “Because we have num-
bers and a whole bunch of other stuff on them!”
“From a verifiable source?”
“Yup! We have Sunset Shimmer—”
Stone Obelisk cocked an eyebrow, “That name doesn’t ring a
bell—”
She honked him on the nose, “Annnnnnnd, Princess Twilight
Sparkle!”
Several heads turned up from books or poked out of tents, all
with curious and wide-eyed expressions. Whatever conversations
that had been going on before were momentarily suspended.
Stone Obelisk had to step back and take it in. “…That is a very
verifiable source. I wonder how she is doing?” He paused to ponder
his position a bit more, and then he nodded sagely. “Very well, Miss
Pinkie. I will entertain this.”
“Yippee!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, leaping into the air before
diving into a hug. “Ooooooh thankyouthankyouthankyou! I’m so
happy!”
Stone Obelisk wriggled and writhed in her grasp, making all
sorts of grunts and groans which quickly descended into gasps and
wheezes.
And without warning, Pinkie Pie zipped back to where she had
been before, smiling expectedly.
He quickly let off several gasping coughs, thumping madly at
his chest. After a moment, he paused to catch his rhythm again. He
straightened his lapel and brushed some dust off his collar. “Well, at
any rate, there is just one issue that needs to be sorted out. You see,
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the area you wish me to take you to is difficult to get to. We will
have to work out a way to travel there.”
Pinkie Pie raised her hoof his into the air, “Oh! Oh oh oh! Me!
Me! Pick me! Let’s all travel by asterisk!”
Stone Obelisk deadpanned. “…What? Travel by asterisk?
How does one even travel by—”
***
***
Spike took a whiff of the dark liquid now inside the pitcher he
carried in his claws. The thick and tantalizing aroma of cocoa swam
through his baby dragon nostrils. The batch was ready.
Readying the tray, he pattered toward the stairs.
He saw Sunset Shimmer at the top, splayed out in front of the
crystal ball. She rubbed a hoof across her face, but that did nothing
to diminish the bags under her eyes.
Twilight Sparkle, meanwhile, flipped through several pages of
the very book she had received from a time-traveling Sunset Shim-
mer. Pages upon pages of equations and figures and diagrams
passed by with relative speed as she noted nothing of particular in-
terest.
A piece of chalk floated readily above her. She had already
used it to note down the sections of the book that had grabbed her
attention, partly because some parts had not been clear.
“You want some coffee?” Spike asked as he walked up, taking
a cup in his claw and extending it in offering.
Sunset looked up with a frown. “Sure, thanks,” she said, reach-
ing out with her hoof and taking it from him.
He smiled before setting the tray off to the side. Taking his
own cup, he lay down belly-first in front of the ball as well, all with-
out taking a single sip. “So,” Spike began, “it’s just the coornits and
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the perrymatters?”
Sunset nodded. “That’s right.”
“These parameters are pretty straightforward,” Twilight said.
“You just cross out the ones that you don’t want to do. Agreed?”
“That sounds about right,” Sunset replied. “We just don’t
know why there’re so many to begin with.”
“And we don’t know what’s going on with the coordinates. I
mean, a lot of them are crossed out, so the same logic should apply.
So why put all of these ones—” she flipped a page to the section
containing the notated, uncrossed-out coordinates, “separately and
not cross them out?”
Spike huffed, “Not to mention there’re a whole bunch of those,
right?”
Sunset scratched her head. “Yes. I… I umm… think that is im-
possible.”
“So,” Twilight said, “now we have to figure out why I have it.
…Add that to our ever-growing list of contradictions.”
Sunset thumped her head against the hard floor with a long
moan. “Why must everything go so wrong!?”
Spike kicked his legs against the floor. While he had faith that
Twilight could pull it off—no, that Twilight and Sunset could pull it
off, their goal seemed to somehow slip further away.
If they let it. “So, I guess,” he said, “we’ll just go with the
normal plan in the meantime. Right?”
Sunset shrugged defeatedly before rising to all fours. “Yeah.
Let’s… let’s get to work.”
***
“Poor thing.”
A mild pain shot through her back for what felt like the first
time. “Uhhh, who’s there?” she asked as she attempted to open her
eyes.
A cloudless daytime sky greeted her. Several seagulls flew in
lazy circles overhead, passing several squawks between themselves.
A slow and steady wind caught the debris from a crashing wave
nearby and coated her with a light spray.
An earth pony, carrying the strong and tired stench of salt, and
(strangely enough) gills, looked down at her through his one good
eye. He gave a satisfactory smirk, showing off his one golden tooth.
“Welcome back. We reckoned ye were lost to Wavy Bone’s locker.”
“Hoofbeard!?” Rainbow Dash cried, bolting upright. Some-
thing pulled and snapped within her back. Letting out a sharp cry,
she retreated, allowing herself to fall back onto the warm, gritty
sand.
“Easy, lass,” Hoofbeard said, “don’t pull yourself out of
shape.”
“You were floating out at sea when one of our mantahawk
friends found you, you’re very lucky,” a female voice said.
Rainbow Dash rolled over. A pony, whose tail made up her en-
tire lower body, perched on top of a rock. She had never seen such
a pony before. No, wait, she had. Faint memories started to return.
“You! You’re…!” Rainbow Dash frowned. “Uh… Help me out
here…”
“Jewel,” the merpony said with a smile, indicating herself with
her fin.
“Jewel! Yeeeaaah. I remember you now.”
Hoofbeard adjusted his bandana to let some dammed sweat
trickle out before he sat back against the rock. “Actually, we sent the
mantahawk to track ye. Jewel and I thought it curious that ye be
crossing the ocean by yerself.”
Jewel chuckled. “And it seems to have paid off. You’re lucky
to be alive.”
“So then, you mind telling an old shipmate why you be out
here by yerself?”
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Rainbow Dash rolled over and tried to lift herself onto her
hooves. She moaned with each joint that popped with more pronun-
ciation than the last. She tried flapping her wings, but they only went
in every direction other than the one she wanted.
“Listen, thanks for saving me and all,” she said as she brushed
the built-up sand out of her coat and tried to shake out whatever
clung in her mane. “I mean, it’d be awesome to catch up with you
and stuff, but I reaaaally have to get going, heh heh. Where’re my
things at?” she asked, looking around.
Hoofbeard looked over at his lover with a cocked eyebrow, to
which Jewel nodded affirmatively. “You see, lass, your booty be
over there,” he said, pointing. “But the catch is—”
Rainbow Dash charged over to her saddlebags. She threw the
flap open and dug her hoof through it. She tossed several items into
the sand, making notes as she went. She nodded when she threw a
small red sphere into the sand. Good, the gum’s still there.
She took out a jar containing a swirling magical vortex. She
nodded again. There was one. And another. Two.
But she remembered three. And then she flipped the bag over,
shook it out, and even stuck her head into it. Nothing.
“Where’s the other one!?” she cried, throwing her saddlebag
into the sand. “I had three of these, where’s the other one!?”
Hoofbeard shifted, reaching for something behind him. “I wa-
ger these be what you’re lookin’ for,” he said as he produced several
small and jagged shards of glass which glinted in the sunlight.
Rainbow Dash backpedaled and tripped over herself. She
made several squeaks, but nothing resembling a worded response
came out.
“I tried to tell ye. It must’ve happened when ye hit,” he said,
yanking at his beard.
“But forget that,” Jewel said, narrowing her eyes in concern.
“You’re in no condition to fly.”
Rainbow Dash clinched her teeth, “B-but, I-I-I, I have to. N-
n-n-n-n-no no no,” she stammered. She smacked the area around
her, throwing up several clouds of sand and dust. “No no no no-ow!”
She screamed again when it proceeded to blind her.
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***
She replaced the map and then took out a small glass jar. She
peered at the swirling vortex of magical energy inside and then
placed her hoof on the cap. As far as she could remember, all she
had to do was let the spell out, and it would do the rest.
Sucking in a breath, she twisted.
The energy contained within shot out so quickly that she lost
her grip on the jar. The energy crackled loudly in the air in front of
her and it burned parts of the sand below via several arcing sparks.
Applejack heard a zaaaap before the ball of energy dove into the
sand.
Applejack stared down for long moments. The sand blew idly
by and the rest of the desert went on as if nothing had happened.
A minute passed.
She started sweating for other reasons.
Nothing.
Applejack facehooved. “Oh for land’s sake—”
Without warning, the sand in front of her heaved and jetted
into the sky. A shining object shot into the air amidst the debris, cap-
tivated by a mass of sparks. Applejack had to lower her stetson just
to block out the light.
A moment later, the dazzling display abruptly quit. The object
plummeted to the ground, trailing smoke behind it, where it landed
softly in the sand below.
Applejack looked down at the object: a small and opaque orb,
easily a fraction the size of the crystal ball back in Canterlot. Its pur-
ple glow easily poked through the white-hot illumination of the de-
sert afternoon.
She hesitantly prodded it.
Nothing happened.
Letting out a sigh of relief, she picked it up and gave it a once-
over. So, she thought to herself, this here’s a stone.
***
Under the grey and clouded sky, the purple shine of the orb in
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the air bathed the entire surroundings in a stinging light. But it dis-
appeared just as quickly as it came about.
Fluttershy’s first instinct was to reach out and catch it as it fell.
But as it landed in her hooves, she mentally scolded herself, thinking
that perhaps it was the teeniest tiniest bit of a problem if she maybe
tried to touch it without checking to make sure it was safe to touch.
But she felt nothing. Aside from the warmth that it provided
against her hooves, Fluttershy felt nothing. Nothing was trying to
invade her body, at any rate.
She played with it for a few moments, giggling under her
breath as she admired its features.
A voice beside her spoke in a language she didn’t recognize.
Fluttershy paled before crooking her neck over.
A diminutive and boney griffon met her gaze. The red streak
lines painted across Charlok’s face scrunched together as he nar-
rowed his eyes, and that said nothing of his beak-piercing. He spoke
more of his language.
A second griffon, who dwarfed the first, ruffled his feathers.
“He says that ‘you did not say it would do that,’” Milbeak said.
Fluttershy shrank and tried to hide behind her own mane. And
then she took a good look around.
The village’s central square had stopped. Mothers held their
kids close to their chests and several others pressed themselves
against walls and ledges and clung to anything else they could find.
She sunk down, trembling against the ground. “Oh goodness,”
Fluttershy whimpered, “I didn’t know that would happen, p-please
don’t hurt me…”
The smaller griffon spoke again. The larger griffon then pro-
vided the translation: “Do not worry, we are only a little spooked.”
Fluttershy stopped shaking but did not rise.
Charlok looked down at the hole in the ground. He dug at it
with a claw, sampled the dirt with his beak, and then he shrugged.
The griffon’s throaty voice then cast itself across the village, dis-
persing the crowd, and then he spoke to Fluttershy again.
“You were right. There was something underneath our remote
village that we did not know about,” Milbeak translated.
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***
about that. I’d love to do research on the nature of the two worlds.”
“Well”—Sunset kicked her hindlegs around as she thought—
“we could probably do that. We do have the books to communicate
with after all.”
“You’re right! We do!”
“Yeah, to think that they exist in both of our worlds. All of
them do. It’s just so… interesting.”
“That the two universes are so much alike!”
“But they have their own little differences too.”
“And,” Spike offered, placing his claw on the ball, “the best
part is you can talk to each other, even if you can’t go between them.
I mean, now that we have the message journals and all.”
The three of them shared voluminous laughs before falling into
complete silence.
Sunset turned back toward the chalkboard, twiddling her mane
as she went. Her eyes wandered over it for a few moments as she
checked the parts she had done.
Twilight, meanwhile, turned the page in her book and then bur-
ied herself within the text.
Spike received the ball and then vacantly drummed his claws
against the floor as he set his gaze on the ball itself. Now that I think
about it, he thought as a chuckle escaped his lips, this stuff with the
ball looks a lot like what goes on with the mirror, don’t it? Heck,
everything we just described could probably describe what’s going
on here. It’s like Twilight’s in another world right now.
There wasn’t a sound to be heard from between the three of
them. Their devices carried on just like before.
Like Twilight’s in another world right now.
Spike blinked.
Wait, he thought.
Sunset slowly and shakily rose to all fours with bits of dry
sweat forming on her brow.
It couldn’t be.
Twilight’s book slammed shut with an echoing thud. She looked
up to where she thought they were watching from. “You don’t think—
?”
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faster than Spike could register. She ran without looking back. The
sound of her charge echoed throughout the tower, only to be broken
by the loud boom of the large, wooden entry door.
Twilight slapped a hoof against her face. “I need to get out of
this tower…”
He did a double take. He took one step toward the stairs, and
then another toward the desk. Stairs. Desk. And then he straightened
up. “Twilight, I-I’ll be right back. Okay?”
“Okay,” she replied.
Spike set the ball down onto the floor before sprinting down
the stairs.
***
Spike barged through the door at the end of the hall. The room
that he entered dwarfed all the others. The ceiling loomed several
floors overhead, supported by several pillars that were as still and
silent as sentinels. Both aspects served to volley the report of the
door slam around the room several times over.
The casket on the altar was three days gone. Now in its place,
Sunset Shimmer whirled around. “Don’t come any closer!” she
barked, backing toward the window.
“Sunset!” he cried, running across the room.
“Don’t come any closer, Spike!”
“Sunset! Talk to me!”
Sunset stomped at the floor and charged something on her
horn. “Go away!”
He skidded on the long, red carpet leading to the altar, nearly
falling forward as he did so. He had heard those words before.
Spike shook his head and balled his fists. “No. I’m not going
to make the same mistake with you that I did with Twilight!”
Sunset took herself back, her wide-eyed expression etched
across revolted features. The light in her horn steadied itself as she
considered him at length.
He swallowed. “Please, Sunset. I just, I just wanna know
what’s wrong. Please, tell me!”
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“W-why don’t we go back for now and get some more work done
before the sun goes down?”
Spike grinned. “Sounds good to me,” he said, before turning
toward the door.
Behind him, she gave one last look at the tower outside the
window, and then followed suit.
***
Rarity took one last glance over the side of the carriage at the
hole in the mud before humming affirmatively. “That was much less
hooves-on than I expected, but I’ll gladly take it.”
She leaned back against the seat and instead looked at the stone
beside her. It was glossy and vibrant like an amethyst, free from
scuff marks and scratches and internal tessellations, like the whole
stone had been cut uniformly into the perfect, undented sphere it was
now.
Rarity thought thrice about trying to cutting it into something
usable (after she got the information that she wanted out of it, of
course).
Shelving the thought, she leaned forward and fished into the
saddlebag on the coach’s silk carpet floor. She took out a small pam-
phlet-map. Only a hundred miles north? That’s convenient, she
thought.
“Is everything okay back there?” a deep voice called out from
the front of the cart.
A bulging stallion looked back at her through soft and rounded
eyes. The crusted mud that clung to his hooves accentuated his shiny
black coat. The concerned cock of his eyebrow went almost unno-
ticed against the vague hint of a smile perpetually plastered across
his muzzle.
Rarity leaned forward and rested her gaze on everything apart
from his face. “Oh, everything’s peachy, mister Range Rider. Abso-
lutely delightful.”
“I’m right happy. But maybe it’s time we left?”
Rarity thought she heard the slow and viscous burst of a dirty
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bubble and she looked around again. She frowned at the trees which
looked like they would fall forward under the weight of the moss
and drown in the soft and runny earth at any moment. “Uh, eheh,
yes. Quite so.”
The carriage lurched forward as the wheels broke out of the
muddy molds around them. Range Rider’s hooves slipped here and
there, prompting him to dig deeper into the mush. Soon enough, they
gained enough pace that the carriage practically pulled itself.
Still, she worried, for a mud stain on the upholstery just would
not do. She had half a mind to charter it for the Grand Galloping
Gala. Instead, its evenly painted surfaces and lustrous padding con-
trasted the dank and grimy environment. She slapped herself. What
was I thinking?
“So, that was a spectacle there,” he said. “Was that all what
you needed to do?”
Rarity regarded the stallion once more. Oh, right, that’s what I
was thinking, she thought with a smile. “Yes, of course. I got exactly
what I wanted.”
“Well then, if that is the case,” he said, “then maybe it’s time
for me to take you back?”
Mmmm. That molasses. I simply must keep this one for a while
longer. She cleared her throat. “I’ll give you an extra hundred bits if
you take me toward Grazing Gorge.”
“Are you sure?” he called back, a slight waver in his tone.
“That’s a hundred miles north of here.”
“Positive. Besides, you don’t have to take me all the way there.
I’ll be able to finish it off.”
Range Rider shrugged. “Grazing Gorge it is.”
“You are most kind, darling. Thank you.”
With a happy sigh, the mare reached into her saddlebag, pro-
cured a pair of cucumber slices, and then reclined against the velvet
cushion.
I am so lucky that my two stones are nearly right next to each
other. Who would have thought?
***
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flared her horn and the massive frame creaked open, catching sev-
eral times on the hinge as it turned.
Cautiously, she entered.
The crackling fireplace and sprawling velvet bed met her gaze
first. Her eyes then drew to the night sky that patterned the walls,
completed by a tapestry depicting a shooting star. A clock on the
wall counted each passing second with a pronounced ticking noise.
Her fibers screamed that this was, in fact, Celestia’s room, and
not that of her sister. Yet, even as everything demanded the same
recollection as the rest of the castle, Sunset drew a blank. She tried
and tried and tried some more, but no matter how she looked at it,
the room was new to her.
A large, golden neck ornament and complementary shoes
watched her from a rack on the back end of the desk. An equally
regal tiara guarded them from the desk itself. Sunset regarded the
very placement of the objects and swallowed.
Something moved through an archway on the side and she
swiveled. And then Sunset Shimmer froze.
Princess Celestia gaped back at her. Even her mane had ground
to a halt. Celestia inched out of the archway and came to a halt at
the edge of the carpet.
One billion thoughts ran through Sunset’s head. Several pre-
rehearsed conversations fought their way to the top but all fell by
the wayside. The second-hand on the clock nearby took several eter-
nities to stagger along. She could hardly breathe and yet, somehow,
the need to breathe wasn’t there.
Several years wound about in a painfully slow manner, coa-
lescing through several emotions as they went. Princess Celestia
now stood in front of her. Not principal, princess.
Imposing. Pristine. Powerful. Just as a princess should be.
Petrified. Bare. Incredulous. Just like herself.
Sunset could see that the mare in front of her was trembling
ever so slightly, just like she was. Maybe the mare on the opposite
side of the room wasn’t Princess Celestia. Maybe, somehow, just for
now, she was simply Celestia.
But, as she remembered, Celestia was angry at her.
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***
The fire crackled as it danced back and forth before the two of
them.
Sunset watched as the wood splintered and then fell apart. She
dug her hooves deeper into the mattress below her, nuzzled herself
deeper into Celestia’s side, and let out a degenerate sigh.
Celestia responded by curling tighter around her.
As the flames continued to reflect off her eyes, Sunset pursed
her lips. “Who would have thought there was a chamber down
there?”
Celestia hummed. “I still cannot believe that it was right under
my muzzle, and I never even knew about it.” She flared her horn and
levitated a new piece of wood out of a chute on the side of the fire-
place. Celestia gingerly fed it to the flames, and they responded with
a renewed vigor. “This entire …series of events went under my muz-
zle.”
“Was there really no clue?” Sunset asked, looking up at her
mentor.
“You would think, for all the time I have been here, I would
notice these things.” Celestia gravely shook her head, “But I did
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not.”
“Not even a little?”
Celestia closed her eyes. “There…” she began, “was one in-
stance that struck me as odd. It was after I had lowered the sun. I
was reading when I looked over at the tower that she was staying in.
It was dark at the time. But, for just a few seconds, the whole tower
lit up with a bright white light.
“But”—she hung her head in defeat—“curse me, I did not even
think anything of it. I received the terrible news an hour or two
later.”
Celestia gazed at the tower in question. “Goodness, what was
she doing in those last few days?”
At that, Sunset let off a fragmented and subdued chuckle. “Y-
yeah…” she said as she turned her gaze back to the blaze in front of
them. Somehow, the flames took the form of Twilight’s face, and
Sunset sighed with a discontent frown. And now I’m seeing things.
I must be losing it.
“Princess?” Sunset asked tremulously.
“Just Celestia is fine,” Celestia replied with a smile.
“…I think I need help.”
“Certainly.”
Sunset shivered and shrunk into herself. “I-I…” She gave Ce-
lestia a few fleeting glances but averted her gaze each time. “I can’t
get over her.”
“…O-Oh?”
“I can’t… deal with the fact that she’s gone. I’ve never lost
anypony before. I don’t…” She took a deep breath. “I can’t deal with
this. It hurts. I’m not sure if having friends is worth this.”
Celestia regarded her former student as a long frown spread
across her face. Slowly, she let her eyes wander the room before she
settled on a tree in the corner. Humming affirmatively, Celestia
flared her horn, levitating over a small mirror shard that had dangled
from one of the tree’s branches. “Sunset Shimmer,” she said, “let me
tell you a story that I think may help you with this problem.”
Sunset looked up attentively.
“Once upon a time, there was a great king who was loved by
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many. He was very adept and brought happiness to all of his people.”
Celestia narrowed her eyes and twirled the mirror shard about. “But
dark forces sought to destroy everything. Slowly and slowly, he
watched as his world slowly crumbled.
“But… given the chance to right what went wrong… he prac-
tically leaped on it. He gave up his mind, body, and s-soul so that
his… world might be safe.”
Celestia let out a long and exasperated sigh, turning her gaze
to the fire.
“…He sacrificed himself?” Sunset asked.
“Yes.”
“…Just like Twilight did?”
“Yes.”
Sunset shook her head, “But… I’ve never heard about this
king. He’s never been in any books, and—”
“I know.”
Sunset quizzically tilted her head, noting that Celestia now
wore the largest grimace she had ever seen.
“I never told you about him. He was a well-guarded secret.
Plus this was very recent. In fact… Twilight Sparkle was there to
witness it, and…” Celestia swallowed, allowing a wayward tear to
drip down her face, “I was also there to watch it. Every long and
painful moment of it.
“And that memory haunts me to this very day.”
Sunset tensed up, trying to push her next question back down
her throat. But after a few moments, she yielded to her curiosity.
“Who was he?”
Celestia glumly shook her head. “For one thousand years, he
was… somepony very dear to me.”
Sunset flinched. The answer surprised her but, somehow, it
didn’t. Of course.
Celestia brought the shard to face. “This piece of the magic
mirror is the only thing that I have to remember him by.”
…Magic mirror? Like the one that leads back to my world?
She scanned the shard in Celestia’s magical grasp. But that’s just a
fragment, so the mirror she’s talking about is…
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case? Maybe she had been forgiven long beforehoof. That didn’t
make sense. Parts of her didn’t want to forgive herself for the past.
How could somepony else forgive her? Only a pony better than her
could do that.
Sunset hummed. Celestia was better than her.
Looking up, Sunset noticed that, for the first time since the day
they had met, Celestia appeared to her radiant like the sun itself.
As Sunset then decided, there was nopony else she would ra-
ther be with.
“Celestia?” she asked.
“Yes?”
Sunset smiled, turning a small shade of red, “Do you think
that… uhm… I can spend the night? With you? Maybe?”
A little bit of water welled in Celestia’s eyes. Her smile, un-
characteristically, showed the slightest amount of teeth. Celestia
leaned down and nuzzled Sunset on the cheek. “Of course! That
would be delightful.”
The two of them shared a laugh that echoed through the night.
Sunset paused, “Well then, I should… probably go let Spike
know,” she said before giggling. “He might get worried.”
“Actually,” Celestia said with a grin, “I can take care of that.”
***
Spike gagged and then emitted some green fire with a loud
burp. The flames materialized into a scroll in the air in front of him.
He snatched it out of the air without a second thought.
Carefully, he unfurled it and let his eyes glide down the page.
As he did, he toddled over toward the study area’s sprawling win-
dow, And then he looked toward Celestia’s tower with a grin. Way
to go, Sunset.
Rolling the note up, he doubled back toward the crystal ball on
top of the desk and switched it with the note. “I’m gunna go to bed
here in a second.”
Twilight looked up and yawned as she placed the last few pa-
pers on top of a stack. “That’s all done, so I think I will too.”
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Spike moved toward the stairs, intent on taking the ball to his
bed like he had during the previous couple of nights, but he wasn’t
able to make it two steps before he paused again.
“Hey, Twilight?” he asked. “How did I do today?”
Twilight hummed. “Spike… I think you’ve done a fantastic job
over the past few days.”
He drummed his claws against the ball. “Do you think I’ve
done well like… for myself?”
Twilight smiled. “Of course I do. Why do you ask?”
Spike looked back up at Celestia’s tower and smiled. Well, he
thought, maybe because I’ve got this figured out after all. Or maybe
I don’t, but I can do it. I can do this.
He chuckled. “It’s nothing. Good night, Twilight.”
She looked upward and smiled. “Good night, Spike.”
Taking great care, he slowly set the crystal ball back down on
the desk. He waddled down the stairs, without Twilight but instead
with a small smile on his face.
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===============================================
Rainbow Dash wiped the sweat off of her brow, but by the time
she had subsequently thrown the shovel head-first into the ground,
new sweat formed in its place. The hole she currently stood in was
easily the length of Hoofbeard’s ship in depth.
And Hoofbeard, who stood at the edge of the hole, too wiped
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the sweat off of his brow before placing his large tricorn back onto
his head where it belonged. “I think we be earnin’ a break.”
Rainbow Dash nodded, flew up to meet him, and then col-
lapsed into the sand and looked out to the sea fifty yards from their
position. “I just hope Jewel is having more luck than we are.”
Hoofbeard sat back as well. “I wager they are. We have one of
those treasures already now. And hopefully, by the end of the day,
we will get two more.”
“I’m just glad they can go down for me. Diving is cool, but not
to the bottom of the entire ocean.” She paused. “I woulda done it
too,” she added.
The captain took in a deep whiff of the thick and salty air and
fixed his gaze on the blue skies. He briefly tracked a pelican as it
soared in idle circles before the crash of a wave broke him from his
daze. His attention meandered down to a pair of coconuts hanging
off of a nearby coconut tree.
“I’ve been doing a wee bit o’ thinkin’,” he half-muttered as he
stood up and trotted over to the tree.
“Huh?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“I have a query, ye see. Just something I be—” he gave the tree
a sharp kick and caught the coconut that fell, “—wonderin’ about.”
“Shoot.”
“Ye say she already be dead. But you’re on this quest since ye
reckon you can save the lass. But, I be thinkin’: what if ye get all
these treasures…” He paused as he searched for a nearby rock,
found none, and settled on his shovel instead. “Ye get all these treas-
ures, ye return home, and then nothin’ happens? What’ll you do
then?”
Rainbow Dash blinked. She scratched the back of her head.
“Well…”
“Say, it turns out you could not have ever done it?” Hoofbeard
shook his head. “Even if you find all yer treasures and even if you
scrounge up every little thing you can outta them, you still be goin’
home to a dead mare?” he asked before tapping the shovel to the
coconut, breaking it in two.
Rainbow Dash crossed her forelegs and tapped her hoof
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against the dirt and sighed. “See, Hoofy,” she began, “the way I see
it, there ain’t no way I can be any worse off, because I’m there al-
ready. If she’s really dead, then… I guess it is what it is.”
Rainbow Dash stood up and puffed out her chest with a huge
cheeky grin. “But I have hope, and so I’m going to fight for her.”
Hoofbeard flashed a toothy grin. “Then that be a good enough
reason for me. I’ll see this dig through with ye. Coconut?”
Rainbow Dash blinked before looking at the split nut and the
nectarous water contained within. Hoofbeard offered half of it to her.
She nodded. “Ya know it!”
***
swallowed. “So when I do perform the time spell, I’ll have to make
this count then, haha…”
Spike crossed his arms and stared her down. The floor
thumped from the taps of his foot.
Sunset turned a shade redder. “…Sorry. I wasn’t going to cast
it anyway. I just wanted to show pre-casting. That’s all.” She held
her foreleg in shame. “…Didn’t mean to worry you.”
Spike sighed and shrugged. “It’s okay.”
Sunset looked at the scroll one last time and then furled it back
up. “Listen, Spike, I have a favor to ask you.”
“Okay.”
“Later on today, after we’ve done today’s work… can you take
Twilight and give me the tower for an hour or two? I-I need to do
some serious thinking so that I can figure things out, and I kinda
would like the place to myself.”
Spike turned toward the door, motioning with his arm for her
to follow. “I could probably do that. But what do you want us to do
in the meantime?”
Sunset trotted behind him. “I dunno. Just whatever. All I need
is the tower.”
Spike toddled through the entryway and looked down the hall.
“Sure, okay. I’ll find something for the both of us.”
Sunset used her magic to shut the door behind them. “Do you
have any idea of what you’ll do?”
Spike placed the key into the lock and turned it once. Then he
looked up at her with a smile. “Yeah, I got something in mind.”
***
Pinkie Pie glanced up the cliff face in front of her. She ran a
hoof through the dry dirt underneath her hooves as she considered
the steep grade. It had to be at least thrice the height of Sugar Cube
Corner.
She fixed her gaze on a sizable hole in the face. She rubbed
her chin as she thought about how to get up to that very hole which
had to be halfway up the face by her measurements. She noticed a
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***
there’s this… smell of honey in the air. It’s thick, and hot, and I kinda
wanna walk down to the bakery down the street. I can see their sign.
It’s bright and it’s got bold lettering, and so every other sign looks
small compared to that.”
The many nights from years ago when Twilight would sit be-
side his bed with a book in hoof came rushing back.
“There’s an older couple; they’re hanging out in front of the
shop and they look like they’re about to smash their muffins into the
other’s face from the way they’re waving them around. There’s an-
other couple watching them down their noses from the other side
and I bet they’re all, ‘How dirty.’”
The days where Twilight would dive into books, into other
worlds, and not emerge until hours later, also sprang to mind.
“And there isn’t much else happening here. There are a few
other ponies around. They all got like these three hundred-bit mane
cuts, and their noses are so in the air, I bet they can’t see the ground.
And everything else is blocky and white and all the stores on this
street sort of blend together.”
Twilight continued to gaze out the window but her ears re-
mained fixed on the ball. She stifled every sob that tried to run
through her muzzle, and soon those stopped altogether.
“And the sun’s shining and there’re no clouds in the sky, but
the grass is all crunchy because they had to cancel some weather a
few days ago. They’ll make it up tomorrow, though. And there’s this
constant whistle from the wind as it goes through all the buildings.”
Spike looked around the intersection and nodded before re-
suming down one of the streets. “That’s my street corner.”
Twilight continued to stare out the window, but now she sat
completely silent and remained that way for a few moments. And
then the smallest crack of a smile graced her muzzle.
“Did that help? Spike asked.
Twilight chuckled and wiped away a tear. “It sure did, Spike.
That was beautiful. I really needed that. Thank you…”
“It was nothing, Twilight.”
“You’re really good at it though. I think you’d make Jade
Singer proud.”
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***
Sunset brushed aside another object and then let out an “Aha!”
Using her magic, she fished the box of candles out and then backed
away from the cupboard. “Finally, I found you.”
She whirled around and grabbed a pair of bowls from the tab-
letop before ascending the stairs.
Thousands of books stared down at her as she reached the top,
and she paid them no mind. She trotted over to the hourglass, went
to set her items down, and then paused. She looked at the spot before
her where a pair of incense rods and a pillow lay waiting before she
turned her gaze to the sprawling window behind the hourglass.
With a chuckle, she levitated every item to the other side of the
hourglass and, after giving Celestia’s tower a smile, Sunset sat.
She stood the sticks of incense and the candles around her,
took a deep breath, adjusted one of the candles, and then she flared
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her horn. The objects flickered to life; a dull flame stood on the tip
of the candles while a small, steady stream of smoke wafted off the
incense.
With her magic, Sunset flipped the hourglass over. The sand
within shifted and began falling through; it made a ssssh as it trick-
led into the bottom chamber.
She took a long whiff of the incense’s wooden smell and let
out a long and wistful sigh. The human world just didn’t compare.
When had she last achieved this setup? Sunset smiled. Probably just
before my last midterm under Princess Celestia, huh?
Sunset took one last look at her setup, took a long whiff of the
burning incense, and then she closed her eyes.
The rest of the tower melted away. All of her senses faded and,
shortly after, her perception of black did so as well.
Peace.
Quiet.
Tranquility.
Sunset took a long, deep breath and opened her eyes.
An eternal plane of coalescing reds and oranges greeted her
instead. Sunset peered across the idle expanse of her own mind and
smirked.
“Alright,” Sunset thought, “let’s review the facts.
“We’re dealing with the prospect of parallel worlds, worlds
just like this one. One staggered nine days from the other.”
A small and disembodied flame appeared in front of her face.
The flame danced for a moment as an image formed within its body:
a crystal ball with a large number nine painted across the front. Sun-
set watched as the flame started to orbit around her head.
“We don’t have any proof yet that this is the case. That was
just a possibility that we thought up. If it is not the case, then we will
eventually retrieve the information that’s in the book right now.”
She watched the flame as it circled around and furrowed her
brow. “And if we are unable to reproduce the information in the
book, or if Twilight can’t reproduce those sets of coordinates, then
we’ll have proof that this parallel worlds theory is the case.
“We’ll know either way within these next couple of days. And
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the flame containing the crystal ball. “If I want to answer that,” she
thought, “I’ll have to figure this out.” She mentally called the flame
in close, to which she grabbed at it and juggled it between her
hooves.
“In terms of communication between our world and hers, it’s
hilariously lopsided. We can see her and hear her and we can even
look anywhere else to boot. But she can only hear us and what she
hears comes out of her crystal ball.”
An eye and an ear versus an ear. “Information is somewhat
one-way because of that. Why is this important? Because our Twi-
light had to receive the same set of instructions as theirs did, from…
somewhere. Another version of us?
“How could that be? If the ball operates the same between
both worlds, then what she should see is nine days into her past.
That’s eighteen days behind us.”
Several of the flames banded together and produced an arrow.
“So that means that, at one point, while our Twilight was at
the rear of this arrow, another version of us was at the head of it,
just like their Twilight is at the rear of this arrow and we are at the
head. We talked to their Twilight, and they talked to ours.”
The arrow mutated into two arrows, each crisscrossing the
other.
Sunset stared the flame down for a few moments, examining
her mental diagram. Then she snorted and slashed through it. “No,
that’s not possible,” she thought. The flame disintegrated, and the
former arrow rematerialized in its place. “That would mean that
causality would be going in a figure-8. That completely breaks the
immutability of time.”
A new flame, showcasing two parallel lines, popped into being
beside the arrow. “How can I lay this arrow so that both lines are
the same?”
For what seemed like an eternity, Sunset stared at the two
flames, gritting her teeth together all the while. She tried to jam the
arrow in between the two lines but found each permutation dis-
gracefully asymmetric.
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She allowed the arrow flame to engulf the box flame. The re-
sulting fire glowed even brighter than the one before it. Sunset at-
tempted to curb the flames, but they continued onward. Instead, she
tried jamming the arrow again.
After a few more unsuccessful attempts, she frowned. “Okay,”
she thought, “let’s try this.”
Sunset duplicated the arrow. She placed both arrows between
the lines in front of her, each pointing to opposite lines. The design
didn’t click. “But one of those arrows makes sense,” she thought.
She played around with the second arrow, trying to make it fit. “The
arrow has to point at a place nine days before it. And whatever ar-
row comes off of that has to point at a spot nine days before it. And
then that has to point at a spot nine days before that.
“But then it’s just going back and forth between these two lines
indefinitely! That’s not possible! There’s nowhere for it to go be-
tween the two worlds! It could only work if…!” Sunset paused.
“If…”
Sunset looked over her mental diagram. The second arrow ro-
tated in place as she considered her options. She moved it to the
outside of her diagram so that it touched the tail of the first arrow
with the line itself running between them. Only then did she see some
sort of semblance of symmetry (one which ran through the arrows
pointing into the lines and then the lines themselves).
Sunset backpedaled. “If there’s a third line…”
The two lines became three, and Sunset slotted the second ar-
row between them.
She frowned. “Okay, but now that third line is missing some-
thing. I think I have to do the same thing with this.”
A third arrow appeared, and she stuck that to the tail of the
second. Sunset frowned before bringing out a fourth line. “Now the
fourth one is off! I need a fifth! And a sixth! And…”
Sunset Shimmer felt a drop of sweat run down her face. “N-No
way…” She stared daggers into her diagram and grit her teeth.
“There will never be enough lines. T-there will never be enough
worlds for this picture to work, unless…”
A shiver ran down Sunset’s spine. “So… basically… the big
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takeaway from this… is that there are i-infinitely many worlds. And
they’re all connected through the crystal ball!”
With that, she took the crystal ball and threw it forward. The
minuscule fire transformed into a raging inferno with a large, glow-
ing infinity symbol in the very dead center, leaving singes on her
coat in the process.
“Infinitely many worlds below us. And infinitely many worlds
above us.”
Sunset ran a hoof through her curly mane. “Oh… bucking
buck. What the buck.”
She ran her eyes over the large blaze before her with a worried
expression on her face. Briefly, she assumed a fetal position in the
middle of the expanse.
“Get it together, Sunset!” she cried to herself. “Get it to-
gether… You should have known this was possible after reading
about omniverse theory.”
Sunset righted herself and let out a long sigh. “Okay, okay.
Infinite worlds. And they only differ by the coordinates we were sent
to. Why do the coordinates differ?”
A new flame, this one containing a set of numbers, appeared.
The inequality symbol from earlier flew forth and mingled with it.
“It’s safe to assume that the Nameless in our world is the same
Nameless in all of theirs. Otherwise, we would have some serious
divergence going on. So… it’s safe to assume the data we’ll find in
our world is the same as what could be found in theirs.”
Sunset placed a hoof on her chin. “But why the difference?
What determines which stones we go after?
Sunset thought back to what she had seen in the book. She
knew that it contained several sets of parameters for searching for
stones. There was also a long list of coordinates. A good number in
each set had been crossed out.
A large but docile flame which showed both aspects floomed
into existence. She examined the picture within.
“We’re collecting twelve. We could reasonably say they will
collect a different twelve below us. Could it be reasonable to assume
that they have collected a third set of twelve above us?”
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***
Rarity looked up at the sun and brushed some dirt off the side
of her mane. I should have paid the extra bits for the cart, she
thought.
She placed the opened bottle on the ground next to her before
reaching into her saddlebag for a handkerchief. The embroidered
edging tore in several places and the dirtied body looked browner
than its native white. Rarity let out a dejected wheeze, reached back
into her saddlebag, and found no alternatives.
Oh my, this really is my last one, isn’t it? she thought. She lev-
itated the cloth near a dirty patch on the underside of her neck,
paused, and then decided the cloth was somehow dirtier than she
was. “Ew,” she said with a disgusted grimace.
The flicked the cloth once and shook her head. “I am going
straight to the spa when I get home,” she thought aloud. “I wonder
if Princess Celestia knows any good places to—”
A loud zaaaaap pierced the air as a purple ball shot out of the
mud, interrupting her train of thought as it unceremoniously
splashed her. She shrieked as it hit her coat and she reeled back. That
only served to throw up even more mud.
“Disgusting!”
Rarity looked up at the glowing orb above her, basking in the
dazzling display of sparks. A magical aura held the stone in place
for many moments, allowing Rarity to position herself underneath.
And she winced. Goodness, how long has that stone been un-
derground in all of that dirt? And then she looked over at the worn
cloth in her magical grasp. She gasped. “Ideeeaaa!”
Just as the magic spell dissolved and the stone began to drop,
Rarity glided the handkerchief underneath, using it to scoop the
stone right out of the air.
She let out an affirmative “Humph” as she levitated the whole
package back into her saddlebag. Without so much as even a glance,
she then magically pulled out a small, purple sphere. The hard object
shined against the rays of the sun.
Had it really come time to chew on the teleportation gum?
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Rarity chuckled, eying the object. Then she took one last look
at the cliffs around her and one sour glance at the muddy ground
underneath her. “Indeed. I am leaving now.”
She popped the gum into her mouth and chewed down. An ex-
plosion of a flavor that she couldn’t place cascaded through her muz-
zle. The energy coursed through her body, and in short order, it swal-
lowed her whole. She could feel her entire being torn apart, bit by
bit, and yet it didn’t hurt.
As her world twisted and distorted and collapsed into itself,
she had one last thought. Hmmm, I wonder if anypony else has en-
countered anything unsavory at their sites.
My, what trouble that would be!
***
Fluttershy tentatively set down the lantern and reached into her
saddlebag. Her eyes darted between the various tunnels snaking
away from the large cavern she currently stood in.
She swallowed; she could barely see in front of her face, let
alone clearly tell which tunnels went where. Or if they even existed
for that matter; the telltale depressions of their mouths were her only
clue of their whereabouts.
A screech shot forth from one of the adjoining tunnels. She
winced under the sound and whipped her attention back toward the
ground.
Still nothing.
Her hoof bumped against something round in her bag and she
yanked it out in a heartbeat. The teleportation gum shone against the
lantern’s light.
A cascade of cries and shrieks and the cacophony of rushing
air burst from the tunnel. A drop of sweat ran down her face and she
grit her teeth. “Come on, please…” she muttered.
She flipped the teleportation gum in her hoof several times
while staring at the spot on the ground.
Fluttershy hoped the lantern wouldn’t decide to die.
The howls became more voluminous and drew closer still.
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***
point.
Rather, the whole earth dropped off altogether. She paled.
Applejack dug her hooves into the dirt as she landed. The dirt
rebounded under her hooves and she skidded.
And then her hoof caught on something and Applejack fell
face-first. Something shifted in her saddlebag.
A speeding glint caught her eye and she looked up. Her one
remaining glass bottle, containing Twilight’s stone finder spell, flew
through the air and then broke against the hard ground.
Zaaaaap went the spell. Applejack watched as the ball of elec-
tricity hung in the air.
The baboons behind her stood by in enraptured awe at the spell
twisted and crackled about, any trace of their malevolence eroded
from their features. A few even reached out at some of the sparks
that arced in their direction.
Applejack lowered her stetson to block out the view. Now that
the bottle was broken, the spell was cast. If there was one thing Ap-
plejack knew from the instructions, the spell had a range.
Applejack gulped. Ah’m not near where Ah need to be!
The vortex surged once, twice, and then it dimmed for a mo-
ment. No, rather, unlike the last time when the spell had rocketed
into the ground, this one fizzled in midair. Several loose figments
blew away in the breeze as it disassembled itself. The spell disinte-
grated until only its core remained, and then that disappeared in a
dim flash of white light a few moments later.
A cool wind swept through the area, passing several decaying
leaves through and around all of them. Everything else stayed still
and silent. An eternity brushed past them.
Applejack shakily rose to her hooves.
…Ah failed.
Applejack whirled around to face the baboons who returned
their attention to her in kind.
Ah failed.
One of the baboons screamed.
Their serene picture quickly dissolved into the party of shrieks
and cries from before. Several pounded the dirt and bared their fangs
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and made several lunges toward her but never went all the way.
Applejack retreated, step by step. Step by step, the line of pri-
mates inched forward.
Applejack’s hindhoof pierced through the earth, sending sev-
eral rocks tumbling into the gorge. Applejack cringed and pulled it
back. “Wooooaaaah nelly.”
She grabbed her hat as she looked between the mob in front of
her and the drop behind her.
She grit her teeth together. Looks like Ah’m finished.
Applejack cautiously reached in and grabbed her orange piece
of gum, keeping her eyes trained on the pack all the while. She then
fumbled with the strap on her saddlebag, managing to pull it tight.
She took one last look down at the earth far below and swal-
lowed.
Applejack whirled around once more and then leaped off the
edge of the cliff just as the baboons surged forward. She quickly
wrapped her free hoof around her stetson to keep it from blowing
away as she plummeted down the side of the cliff face.
She threw the gum into her mouth. She twisted around to take
one last look at the baboons who had piled up against the edge of
the cliff.
Ah’m sorry, Twilight… Ah failed you.
Applejack bit down and then exploded into a plethora of green
embers that the wind scooped up and carried away.
***
Sunset gazed out toward the sun through the first-floor bal-
cony. For a moment, she rested her forelegs on the balcony and pon-
dered the rest of the sky.
She frowned. We have a storm scheduled for tomorrow, don’t
we? she thought. Rain could easily get in here with this open bal-
cony. Hmmmm.
Sunset flared her horn and fired a short and weak bolt out.
However, the bolt rebounded against an invisible wall and struck the
floor beside her instead.
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She glanced down at the small mark left on the floor and
chuckled. Well, she thought, at least that still works.
The large, blue double doors behind her creaked open and Sun-
set whirled around. “Spike! You’re back!”
Spike skipped through the opening. “You bet. Any luck?” he
asked with a scratchy voice as he presented the ball.
Sunset used her magic to take it from him. “Lots of it. I think
I’ve made a huge breakthrough.”
Spike nodded before he plopped himself on the couch. “Tell
me about it?”
She grinned. “Well, for starters, I realized that we’re dealing
with an infinite worlds scenario.”
He frowned. “…Uhm?”
“Basically, if Twilight’s in her world and we’re in another
world, then I think there’s a third world that’s watching us from nine
days into the future,” she explained. “And then there’s a fourth one
watching them. And it just goes on to infinity.”
Spike frowned and crossed his arms. “Uh… yeah… So, re-
ally… it’s just like we thought, huh?”
“Yup.”
Spike’s scales flattened. “And… does that mean our Twilight
is, you know… actually gone?”
Sunset swallowed. “Maybe. And we owe it to her to not let this
other world’s Twilight make the same mistakes our Twilight made.
We still have time to save her life.”
She leaned forward and said, “But I have a plan. It’s kind of a
gamble, but if it pays off… I’ll not only save her, but ours, and every
Twilight in existence.”
Spike’s jaw dropped. “You… you really think so?”
Sunset nodded. “But I have to get working on it right now.”
Spike nodded and handed the crystal ball to her. “Okay. I’ll be
down here if you need me. I’ll probably be burping the girls up
soon.”
Sunset turned and ascended into the study area and, after tak-
ing a moment to bask in the towering bookshelves, looked down into
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the ball. The view showed the living area. She surmised that Twi-
light had gone down there sometime before Spike had returned. She
glanced around the balcony within the ball, and then, on a whim,
glanced around the room in search of Twilight.
Her eyes stuck on a particular object in the room. A brown
hooded cloak hung on one of the hangers.
Sunset rubbed her chin perplexedly. That must be the one
she’ll wear to the door, she thought.
She shrugged and willed the view into the study area.
Twilight hunched herself over a chemistry book, flipping
through several bookmarked pages as she glanced between it and
the vials on the desk.
Sunset placed her hoof on the ball. “Hey, Twilight.”
Twilight’s ears twitched and she glanced upward. “Hi, Sunset.
Figure anything out?”
Sunset nodded, “Yeah, I figured a lot of stuff out. I’m going to
try and access the multiverse.”
Twilight ran a hoof across the page. She blinked several times
and took a long, deep breath. “Okay. Okay. Do you have a plan?”
“It’s my ‘go for broke’ plan. The all or nothing. My way of
getting The Answer. And to make it work, I’ll need a couple of things
from you.”
“The Answer?” Twilight asked.
“That’s what I’ve decided to call the spell,” Sunset replied.
Twilight stared blankly into the page, idly flipped it, and then
glanced over at her own crystal ball.
Twilight snapped her book shut and cantered over toward the
desk. After swiping some loose articles out of the way, she pressed
her quill against a blank notecard. “What do you need?”
Sunset smirked. “First things first: do you remember the first
set of coordinates that you generated?”
“Yes?”
“Those coordinates are correct. I want you to send them
through with your care package.”
Twilight wrote down a single sentence on her notecard. “Okay,
I’ll do that. What else?”
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Two dozen fillies and colts filled the playground with idle laughter
and playful screams. Some kicked up dirt as they ran around trying
to tag each other while others traded crayons at the picnic table and
subsequently returned to their doodles.
Three fillies sat under a tree on the outlier of the grounds, hud-
dled around a notepad containing a few choice words.
The pegasus shrugged. “Chimney sweeping?” Scootaloo sug-
gested.
The earth pony shook her head. “Coal shovelin’,” Apple
Bloom said.
“Hole digging?”
“Uhh, minin’?
The unicorn shook her head. “No. That’s not it,” Sweetie Belle
said.
The three collectively glanced toward an ash gray colt as he,
instead of riding the seesaw like the colt across from him, stood next
to it and pushed it up and down with his hooves. The soft grunts he
made with each push gained a playful giggle from the seesaw rider.
Sweetie Belle grinned, banged the ground in excitement, and
then stood up with a huff. “I think I know what Hard Whack’s spe-
cial talent is!”
Apple Bloom raised an eyebrow. “Ya do?”
“Sure! I think he’d be a metal worker!”
“An’ why’d you say that?”
Sweetie Belle pointed. “Duh, because he spends a lot of time
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working with really tough objects. You remember two weeks ago
when the printing presses got all messed up because some metal
parts went bad? He went home and made some new ones.”
Scootaloo hopped to her hooves. “Hey, yeah! I remember that!
Miss Cheerilee said that they were working much better than they
were before!”
Apple Bloom nodded. “Metalworkin’, huh? That actually
sounds good and all. Write that one down, Scootaloo,” Apple Bloom
said.
Scootaloo nodded and jotted it down on the notepad. “And
what about Rumble over there?” she asked, pointing toward a grey
pegasus colt as he caught a frisbee and threw it back.
“Yeah,” Sweetie Belle said, “good question.”
“If he’s anythin’ like Thunderlane,” Apple Bloom said, “Ah’d
guess Rumble’d be good at storm clouds.”
The other two fillies gave affirmative hums as Scootaloo wrote
down another line on the paper.
Scootaloo traced a hoof down all four lines and then nodded.
“Yeah, I think this is what we’ll be able to get to this week.”
“Gosh,” Sweetie Belle said, “do you girls think that Twilight
would think we’re doing the right thing here?”
The other two shrunk down. “Yeah…” they sighed in unison.
“Ah think she’d be right proud of us,” Apple Bloom said.
“She was all over our thing with Troubleshoes,” Scootaloo
added.
“I can’t believe she’s gone!” Sweetie Belle squeaked before
burying her face into her hooves.
Apple Bloom and Scootaloo looked across the playground
once more. Even then, the fillies and colts continued on, oblivious
to their devices. A group of colts from the class below them, none of
whom had cutie marks to call their own, started a game of foursquare
in the corner.
Scootaloo snorted and jammed a hoof into the air. “Come on,
girls, what’s say we get started? For Twilight!”
Apple Bloom nodded and met her hoof to Scootaloo’s. “Fer
Twilight!”
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Sweetie Belle looked between the two, giggled, and met her
hoof to theirs. “Yeah. For Twilight!”
===============================================
Sunset Shimmer pushed her mane out of her eyes as she looked
at the four ponies before her. While they made idle conversation,
dropping hints and teasers at their escapades of the last few days,
she glanced back down at the small collection of parchments on the
floor.
Sunset took the opportunity to add a few lines to the page be-
fore glancing over at Spike as he grasped at his stomach.
Spike heaved and nearly keeled over when a large burp es-
caped him. The discharge also let off a large, green ember that
swirled about the air. The flames condensed into the form of a pony.
A second later, Pinkie Pie landed on the floor with a thud.
Pinkie Pie gagged and pressed a hoof against her mouth to sup-
press something in her throat. As she undid her saddlebag, she
scanned the room, focused on the crystal ball, and snatched it up.
“Augh! Twiliiiight! These taste like baked bads!”
Twilight Sparkle, who hunched over a small, lacquered box,
laughed between coughs. “It’s teleportation gum! Were you expect-
ing it to be strawberry flavored!?”
Pinkie Pie massaged her tongue. “My poor taste buds… Ick!”
Spike scowled, clutching himself. “Your taste buds? Try my
stomach…” He splayed himself across the floor and let out a long
and pained moan.
Sunset frowned for a moment before turning her attention back
to the new arrival. “So,” she said, “Pinkie Pie, do you have anything
for me?”
Pinkie Pie gave Sunset a wide-eyed stare before leaping into
the air. “I do! I do! Here, lemme see…” She reached back into her
saddlebag and grabbed two purple orbs. “Here you go!”
“Nice.” Sunset grinned and magically grabbed him. “Thanks.”
Rarity gave her mane a quick fluff and then cleared her throat.
“So that’s all of us back now,” she said before narrowing her eyes.
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“Ya sure?”
Sunset nodded “It’s not a bad idea.”
Spike rolled over. “I could go for that.”
“I’ll be up there if you need me,” Sunset said. She then turned
and crept up the stairs.
***
Spike folded his arms together and studied the five mare’s ex-
pressions.
Applejack, who had removed her stetson, placed it back on her
head. “So… it’s kinda all or nothin’, huh?”
“That’s what Sunset’s saying,” Spike replied.
A silence passed between the others.
“Well, Ah guess Ah get it. Or not. Ah don’t know about all this
infinite stuff. This whole thing’s mighty weird, but…” Applejack
scratched her head.
“Twilight being in an alternate world is kinda cool,” Rainbow
Dash said. She then frowned. “Uh, I guess that’s not so cool for our
Twilight though.”
“But hey!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “We could totally save their
Twilight. She’s not dead yet, you know.”
“But ours could very definitely be dead,” Rarity said.
“Mmmmyeah. But ours doesn’t have to be either,” Pinkie Pie
said, “if what we’re doing right now works out.”
Rarity shook her head. “What we’re doing right now is a mon-
umental gamble. And I simply don’t know how I feel about that.”
Fluttershy sighed. “I don’t really know what’s going on. I
mean, the idea of saving every Twilight, especially ours, sounds
great and all—”
Rainbow Dash chuckled. “Yeah. And this does it.”
Fluttershy frowned. “It seems… It seems like a bit of a
stretch.”
“Quite right,” Rarity agreed. “Now, I stand with all of you
when I say that I want it to succeed, but Fluttershy’s right. This is a
long shot.”
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***
***
***
“Yeah?” he replied.
“You remember that thing for cheering up Twilight that you
asked me about?”
“Yeah.”
She presented the paper to him. “I just finished it.”
Spike gasped. “For real!?”
She nodded.
He pumped his fist. “That’s great! Thanks, Sunset!”
Applejack turned her head at that moment. “You what now?”
“I just wrote a small spell,” Sunset said.
“Yeah, what kind?” Applejack asked as the other four mares
converged.
Sunset gazed toward the nearly setting sun outside the win-
dow, judging the time. Out of the corner of her vision, she could see
some pegasi outside already moving a few rainclouds into place in
preparation for the coming rainstorm.
“Well, it’s a spell in two parts,” Sunset explained. “My spell
takes a snapshot of what I’m seeing and converts it into sound; the
other half of the spell takes what you hear, converts it into an image,
and then displays it in front of you.”
Rarity stepped forward with a small frown. “I see what you’re
getting at. So, you would use your spell to have somepony on the
other side of the room perhaps be able to see what you see?”
Sunset nodded reluctantly. “…Something like that. I mean,
you can’t do like a continuous thing. It’s only one picture at a time.”
The mares looked at each other with uncertainty. “Uh, yeah,”
Rainbow Dash said, rolling her eyes. “That sounds very useful and
all…”
Sunset grinned. “Well, wait ’til you see what we do with it.
Where’s the ball at?”
Fluttershy held up the object in question. “Here it is.”
Sunset levitated the ball out of Fluttershy’s grasp. “Hey, Twi-
light!”
Twilight rolled over. “Yes?”
“I have a quick spell that I want you to learn.”
Twilight blinked, and then she stood up with an enthusiastic
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***
Spike twisted himself further into the couch cushion and let
off a contented sigh. He pat his belly and gave a satisfied burp as he
glanced at the crumbs on the plate beside him.
He glanced toward Applejack and Rarity who debated over a
small assortment of wines in front of them. He watched as his favor-
ite unicorn explained the taste of each and who might be apt to drink
them while Applejack would occasionally acknowledge.
He then blinked as Applejack launched into a long-winded ex-
planation of wine culture and what determined which wines were
popular and where they would be kept at parties and dozens of other
things that Spike (and, by her flabbergasted expression, Rarity as
well) hadn’t even dreamed of considering.
Rarity had nothing to say in response. That caused Applejack
to chuckle.
Spike turned his head as he noticed Sunset descend the stairs.
She looked around the room for a moment before setting her eyes
on him.
Spike sat up in his seat.
She continued to stare him down and then motioned him over.
Spike gulped. It’s time.
He hopped off the couch and ran over to fetch the crystal ball
off of its cushion. He then met up with her and they ascended the
stairs together.
“I’ve pretty much put all the numbers in,” Sunset said, “and
I’ve done as many calculations as I could. But what we have isn’t
enough to save Twilight.”
Spike grit his teeth together. “Uhm, so does that mean...?”
“Not yet,” she said with the shake of her head. “Remember
that I figured this was going to happen. We’re still on track.”
The two arrived in the study area, to which he followed her
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Interval
to double check the spell itself, even though it was an entirely for-
eign language to him.
Sunset glanced at the spell above her head and, with another
sigh, she tapped her horn to it.
Her horn sucked the orb of light into itself before it began
glowing a bright white. It was the sort of light that suddenly brought
back memories of Twilight in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing. The
time spell. The white light grew brighter and brighter, and as it did,
a wind overtook the room. It threw the several papers on the desk
back into the shelves and sent several nearby books tumbling across
the floor.
Sunset disappeared in an explosion of sparks.
Spike crossed his arms and leaned against the desk. He took
the moment to glance at the dark clouds outside the window. Drops
of water slid down the outer face of the glass; new drops joined them
every so often. The first clap of thunder boomed in the distance, sig-
nifying the beginning of a shower that would last at least a few
hours.
He then glanced around the room again; first at the centerpiece
hourglass and its golden construction, then at the tall bookshelves
that orbited the room. For a moment, he tried to remember some of
the books just by their bindings. The machine in the corner sat with-
out so much as a sound, a day’s worth of work completed.
He then grabbed the crystal ball off the desk again and juggled
it within his hands. He whistled a short and jaunty tune but, to his
chagrin, found that it ended sooner than he would have liked.
He had seen the spell before. Even if those memories con-
tained large amounts of ice cream and a stomach ache that he had
not forgotten, he could also remember that Twilight had been gone
for a minute. From the looks of what he had seen a few days before,
Sunset had managed two minutes.
Spike scowled. This is the longest two minutes of my life, he
thought.
The air in front of him began to glow again, and Spike shielded
his eyes. With a loud pop, Sunset reappeared in a shower of white
sparks.
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Ten
Expunge
Chrysalis. Failure.
Sombra. Failure.
Starswirl. Amethyst Key. Luna. Sunset Shimmer.
Twilight Sparkle… Now the latest failure.
Princess Celestia stared into the picture frame. A princess
stared back at her. Her former protégé, adorned with a crown and a
large dress that brought out her radiance.
But the childlike smile drew Celestia’s eyes above everything
else. That smile was full of wonder at the things around her, taking
in all the sights and cherishing every moment. And the eyes were
the same as she had seen several years prior. Those same eyes had
looked up at her when they met at that entrance exam and invariably
sparkled every time afterward.
She was the one success Celestia thought she had. And Celes-
tia had failed her.
Her regalia felt heavier than ever before.
Celestia strained under their pull. With a grimace, she stepped
out of them. She practically threw every piece into its place on the
rack atop the desk.
With the exception of her crown. For long moments, she held
it in front of her. She gazed over every part of it.
That crown was the symbol of her place. It marked her as the
ruler of Equestria. It represented and required her success.
A shiver ran down the entirety of her spine. I can’t look at this,
she thought.
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She went to place it on the desk like she normally had it, but it
toppled into a crooked position instead. She made no attempt to cor-
rect it.
Instead, she took the picture of Twilight and drifted into the
adjacent room. Celestia sidled up to another desk in the back corner.
She placed the picture frame on the corner before taking a seat in
front of the mirror.
Her mane required little grooming on most days. And on days
like today, which were nothing but court hearings and signing doc-
uments, the physical demand was low; not enough to disturb her im-
age.
Celestia looked her reflection up and down. She noticed every
little split end, every little knot, and every little splotch of missed
dirt. She noticed the slight bags under her eyes, the misplaced red in
her face, and the mismatched frays of her otherwise sparkling white
coat.
I look like a mess, Celestia thought as she scanned her features,
trying to recognize the mare in the mirror, trying to recognize the
image of a princess that peered out to her every time she stepped in
front of her reflection.
But with each sweep, her frown grew deeper. Another quick
glance at Twilight’s picture sealed the deal. Because I am nothing
but a mess.
She gave the stranger in the mirror an accusatory glare. Who
are you to be princess? she thought. Who are you to call yourself a
ruler? A protector? Celestia cast a piercing glare on the reflection.
How can you protect a country… when you could not even protect
her…?
The more she stared at the mare in the mirror, the more she
trembled. Her hooves clung to the desk like she was hanging off a
cliff. She might as well have been.
And then it occurred to Celestia just who the mare in the mirror
was. How could… I…?
She slammed her head onto the desk. The force of the blow
sent the picture of Twilight toppling off the desk. The frame landed
with an audible crack, coating the floor in a glassy dust.
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Celestia rested her head there as every little thought and mem-
ory she ever had of Twilight Sparkle flowed through her mind. The
friendship letters, the ascension, the rough waters at the wedding,
defeating Lord Tirek... The small smiles, the warm conversations.
The occasional night by the fire.
Celestia wept. Tear after tear flowed down her face and
dripped onto the lacquer. A small puddle formed underneath her
muzzle with each new drop as her sobs steadily grew in volume.
Twilight had done everything right. Celestia had done every-
thing wrong. And Celestia was still alive.
And Twilight Sparkle, her better in so many ways, was not.
Celestia’s cries echoed throughout her room. The walls shook,
the furniture trembled. The possibility that it could be heard well
down the hall skipped over her head. They echoed into the night,
into the endless void, with no reprieve in sight.
===============================================
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***
Rarity felt another hair split as she watched the mare inside the
ball. “Twilight! Tell me what you want us to do! Tell me tell me tell
me!”
Twilight scowled as she folded another piece of paper and
placed it on top of the stack. She levitated over the next set of read-
ings and folded those onto the top of the stack as well. “I’m telling
you like I told the others, Rarity: there’s nothing you can do now,”
she replied at length. “You should have known that this was com-
ing.”
“Out of the question. Don’t you dare tell me to give up on
you.”
“I’m sorry. There really is nothing you can do. Really and
truly.”
Rarity shifted uncomfortably on the couch. She passed a
glance to each of the others, most of whom had gathered in a tight
circle as they ran their mental wheels. Every so often, a few words
of suggestion would pass between them, only to be shot down with
simple rebuttals.
Twilight levitated over the various notecards and miscellane-
ous scribbles that had accumulated over the past few days. “I’m go-
ing to pour my remaining life energy into the door as the Nameless
tries to surface. That will kill it forever,” she said before throwing
the cards into the wastebasket at the head of the stairs. “And that
will be the end of it.”
Rarity pounded her hoof against the ball. “But Twilight!
That’ll kill you too. Don’t you even think about making the same
mistake that our Twilight did!”
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Twilight didn’t answer. Instead, she used her magic to grab the
crystal ball before toting it down the staircase.
Rarity sighed and thought the ball’s view downward to follow.
Twilight slunk into the kitchen area where she set the ball on
the counter. For a moment, she leaned against the wood, trying to
catch her breath. “If I had a chance to do things differently…” she
croaked, “maybe I would. Maybe I wouldn’t do all of this.”
Rarity saw Spike glance up out of the corner of her eye. She
looked back down. “You still can! We… we might not be getting our
Twilight back. I know that. But you’re not bound by what our Twi-
light did! You have that chance!”
“Maybe,” Twilight said, her voice just above a whisper. “My
future isn’t entirely written.”
The handle to the front door jiggled, causing Twilight to spring
backward in alarm. Even clear across the tower, Twilight could see
the handle oscillate up and down as if somepony was trying to enter.
Rarity frowned. What in heaven’s name is going on now? she
thought.
“Huh?” came Rainbow Dash’s voice from the other side of the
door.
“Huh,” Spike’s voice said, “I thought she’d be here.”
A drop of sweat appeared on Twilight’s brow as she stared the
door down. She raised a hoof to trot over but failed to take the first
step.
Rarity gasped. “Sweet Celestia. Girls! Come quick!” she
squeaked as she frantically waved them over.
Four mares and a dragon leaped up from the floor and scurried
over to where Rarity sat. Rarity, in turn, hopped off the couch so
they could crowd around.
“Nine days ago,” Rarity said, “we came to the castle to pick
up Twilight to take her to the opera. Remember?”
Pinkie Pie gasped. “Yes! I do! I do!”
The door thumped a few times. “Twilighhhhht!?” Rainbow
Dash’s voice called. “Are you in thereeeee!?”
Applejack let her mouth go slack for a moment. “No way.
That’s happenin’ now?”
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away.”
“Twi!” Applejack cried.
“Twilight!” Spike’s voice cried.
“Twiiiiliiiight!” Pinkie Pie cried.
Fluttershy hid a sorrowful squeak behind her hooves.
Twilight gnashed her teeth together and appeared ready to
tear something apart, even with her eyes still closed. A moment later,
she tilted her head back and screamed into the sky, “Go away!”
Applejack frantically pounded a desperate hoof against the
crystal ball. “Don’! You! Walk! Away!”
Rarity let out a short, uncontained, and somewhat-desperate
scream. This is not happening. This is not happening. This is not
happening. This is not happening!
“Fine,” Applejack’s voice finally scoffed. “Have it yer way,
Twilight! Ah mean, it’s not like we came all the way here just for you,
anyway!”
“Don’ you walk away, you gal-dern idiot!” Applejack tremu-
lously yelled.
Twilight remained pressed against the doorway. She held her
breath, not daring to move so much as an inch from her spot.
Rainbow Dash almost collapsed to the floor. Her knees shook
and her features quivered. “Uh-uhhhh… N-n-no…”
“I guess now is not a good time,” Fluttershy’s fading voice
said. “We should just try again later...”
The room lay still and quiet, and the ponies within remained
equally so. The roar of the torrential downpour outside returned in
full force and dominated the area. Distant booms made their way in,
shaking the windows and rattling the china on the counter.
Rarity let her head fall against the ball in defeat. “Oh my god-
dess…” she wheezed.
“She…” Fluttershy croaked.
Sunset gulped. “W-was that how it happened before?”
Applejack threw her hat to the floor. “That’s exactly how it
happened before.”
That was it. It was set in stone.
Rarity heard a deep, wooden thump, and snapped to attention.
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She looked around for a moment before she realized it had come out
of the ball. She looked.
Twilight banged the door with her hoof again before she slid
down the frame. The princess let out what sounded like an agonizing
scream, futilely banged against the door a few more times, and then
collapsed completely into a series of shrill wails. Streams of liquid
poured down Twilight’s face as her labored cries cascaded around
the tower. “Oh Celestia… Oh C-Celestia… Ooooohhhhhhhhh!”
Pinkie Pie’s mane lost its volume and fell to her sides. Pinka-
mena then buried her face in her hooves and wept. Fluttershy buried
herself into Applejack who, in turn, wordlessly held her close. Sun-
set hung her head defeatedly and slunk off.
The remaining three held still as statues as they looked down
upon the broken mare within the ball.
***
Spike opened his mouth to say something but, for what seemed
like the twentieth time, he growled instead and retreated. And with
that, just like every other time before that, the shaking in his hands
worsened.
Twilight floated several pieces off the machine, dislodging
parts between the occasional sob. The various plates and beams ac-
cumulated into a pile at the very back corner of the room. Twilight
threw a bunch of screws into the pile before wiping her face of dirt
and water.
Several thoughts swam through Spike’s head and he couldn’t
decide which one he wanted to out. But with how his entire body
was shuddering and with the heat crawling up his spine, he could
tell that something would out.
He scratched at another itch on his head. His hands balled into
fists against his will. He tried to control his breath but found that
control steadily escaping him.
Twilight sat back, examined her work, shook her head with an
exasperated huff, and then walked to the desk. She used her magic
to pick up the journal, the item in which she had been working over
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of his mouth sunk down again. He knew that the response to that
required words that he did not yet have.
Twilight struck a match and held the resulting flame up to her
eyes. She cantered over to the trash can and stared at the countless
scraps and notes that she had placed within. She dropped the match
into the bin and the contents lit up. The flames danced within the
receptacle and grew by the moment.
“I-I’m so scared,” Twilight quivered. “I’m… I didn’t think thi-
ngs would end this way. I’m so afraid…”
Spike furrowed his brow. “Twilight…”
“But I know it works! It won’t be for nothing!” she exclaimed,
stamping a hoof against the floor. “You are living proof of that!”
“And what about us!? You’re going to leave us without you!”
Spike fired back.
Twilight flinched.
“I already live in a world without you, Twilight. And you’re
about to make another one. I’ve already lost mine, but Twilight… I
need you!”
“Spike, I—”
He shook his head. “I can’t do it! I can’t. I can’t!”
“Spike!”
Spike banged his claw against the ball. “I can’t lose you
again!”
Twilight reeled. Every hint of anger in her expression vanished
as her mouth fell against her will. She blinked several times, trying
to stave off the urge to let more tears fall. She clutched at her chest
as if she was afraid her very heart would shrivel up and stop.
Spike sighed. “I can’t…”
Twilight grimaced. Her frown drew so deep that her mouth ap-
peared like it would fall off her face. She swallowed. “Oh, Spike…”
she croaked. “I… I’m sorry. I’m so sorry…”
She trotted over to the desk. She examined its contents for a
few moments and eventually settled on a small piece of paper. Said
piece contained her diagram map of the caverns. She flipped it over
and found the other side blank.
Spike watched with a crestfallen expression.
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Finally, Twilight settled for throwing the quill across the room.
Spike fell onto his haunches, set the ball onto the ground, and
then buried his face in his hands. He had to resist the urge to cry out
several things that he knew he would regret. He had to resist the urge
to hurl the ball out of frustration because he knew he would regret
it. He had to resist the urge to contradict Twilight more than he al-
ready had because he knew that it would go nowhere.
Twilight wiped her face before she settled on the journal once
more. She lifted it up, scanned the cover, and then turned toward the
somewhat-diminished inferno within the trash bin.
Twilight tossed the journal into the trash. The flames within
responded with renewed energy, streaking upward as they engulfed
the tome. Twilight watched the book writhe about with a cold and
lifeless expression. The blank glaze in her eyes reflected the dancing
flames. As the inferno grew, the flickering glow cast itself on the
walls in greater magnitudes and the crackles grew louder and
louder.
This was the way it ended. Spike had known that from the start.
As his mind drifted to the charred mess that Pinkie Pie had found in
the trash several days ago, he knew it even more.
Nothing had changed.
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Surrender
Spike hopped from ledge to ledge without any real regard for where
he went. The landings offered little ground and took considerable
effort to peg down, but he put his full capacities to navigating them.
Reaching the bottom was his only concern.
Ledge after ledge met his feet as he spiraled around the deep
hole in the cavern. The ambient light from the crystalline walls gave
him enough to see. Through exasperated breaths and clouded eyes,
he looked down and saw the bottom.
And he saw a passageway at one end. Spike hit the ground
running, heedless of the several voices behind him, heedless of the
scattered bones, and heedless of the stale smell of saturated dirt.
He clutched the letter in his hand even tighter as he sped down
the tunnel. He felt every drop of blood boil under his scales as he
ran faster than ever before. His frantic pants echoed throughout the
cavern as he bolted down the corridor.
Even as the passage turned left and started on a long spiral
downward, Spike continued onward, certain that he drew close to
the end. His heart beat faster and faster with each leg of the route.
He chanced a look behind him to see five ponies racing after
him. The five of them bore worried frowns as they tried to keep up.
Their eyes remained fixed on him all the way. He hadn’t even
thought of explaining anything to them.
Reaching the bottom was his only concern. I have to get there!
I have to get there!
The path eventually took another left and then Spike saw it:
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large and ornate double doors that rose up in front of him. Stone
swirls ran up and down their height, creating intricate pictures of
beings he could not recognize. In the middle, where each door met,
a small and perfectly hemispherical crater dug into the grey rock.
He ran the short distance to the doorway and found two items
on the ground. A clear and pristine ball made of crystal sat on the
ground before the doors; he saw but failed to register the picture of
the Canterlot tower within. The second item drew his attention in-
stead: a single dusty, brown cloak sat on a charred spot of ground
behind it. His body shuddered as he recognized the cloak as one that
once hung in Twilight’s old abode.
The door let off a short, metallic shriek as light coursed
through several previously invisible leylines within the rock. And
then, with a loud groan, the stone doors slid sideways into hide-
aways in the wall.
Spike didn’t wait for them. As soon as enough space presented
itself, he slipped through the opening between the doors.
A large, hemispherical room greeted him. A red glow ema-
nated from the sigils lining the walls. Even the very air burned like
an angry hot. Several rings adorned with several symbols, each as
unique as the next, wove around something blue in the center.
Spike looked up and realized that it was a towering pillar of
crystal. The structure likened itself to a tree whose roots spread
across the room and stretched toward the walls. Magnitudes of
branches near the top of the crystal tree held the top portions of ceil-
ing up.
Spike saw something in the center of the pillar and stopped.
He narrowed his eyes as he discerned it before all breath rushed from
his lungs. His knees then gave way and he fell to the floor.
“Is that…?” Rainbow Dash exclaimed as she landed behind
him.
The other four rushed up and stumbled to a halt as well. “What
in the…?” Rarity gasped.
Spike’s eyes welled up against his will. He could not tear his
eyes away from the crystal structure. He grasped the paper in his
hand tighter than before. As the first drops fell down his face he let
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almost intangible glow that, when put together, lit the cavern before
her.
Twilight descended down and down and made no sign of turn-
ing back.
***
***
nine days into the future, couldn’t they have helped her?”
Rainbow Dash threw her hooves into the air, “Yeah! You saw
how it was! They”—she pointed to the ball—“tried to come to the
tower just like we did! So maybe there’s another us in some world
above ours, yeah? And they talked to our Twilight!”
“Yeah!? So!?” Spike roared. “Guess what!? Our Twilight is
dead! My Twilight!”
The storm outside whipped the tower with a surge in its down-
pour and a crack of its thunder.
“But what about theirs?” Rarity asked. “She is still there.”
Applejack swallowed. “That’s true… but how are we gunna
do it?”
“Don’tcha know!? It’s out of our hooves!” Pinkamena ex-
claimed.
“How much time do we have?”
Rainbow Dash snatched the ball up and then landed in the mid-
dle of them. She thought the ball forward until the view showed
Twilight again. “Hey, Twilight, where are you at?”
Twilight approached the edge of a large crevice and peered
over the ledge into the bottomless blackness below. She whimpered
once as she looked up and spied the end of a mining cart rail jutting
over the far end of the expanse.
“Cadance had to fly us across on our way out,” Twilight said.
She turned her attention to the hole in front of her and swallowed.
“And the chamber… is down this chasm.”
“Oh word, she’s nearly there,” Rarity hissed.
A clap of thunder drowned out Rainbow Dash’s swear.
We really really really need more time! Pinkamena thought.
Applejack hurled her hat across the room with a frustrated yell
and then galloped up the stairs with a determined scowl on her face.
Pinkamina asked no questions and bolted after her.
She chased Applejack, who near-missed Sunset, and they ar-
rived in front of the study’s sprawling window.
“Somepony! Anypony!” Applejack cried. “Are you watchin’
up there? Say somethin’, please!”
Pinkamena joined her friend at the window. “We need help!
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We need help!” she yelled, trying to find any sort of invisible face
looking down on them.
“Please! For land’s sakes!”
The rivers of spent rain unheeded them and continued to wash
down the outside of the glass.
“We’ll take whatever!” Pinkamena cried. “Give us a magic
spell! Give us more time! We’ll take it!”
Sunset crept up behind them and peered upward into the glass
as well, a piece of chalk still clenched in her magical aura.
The other four appeared at the top of the stairs and stood there
with sad and worried expressions.
“Come on! Ah know y’all can hear us!” Applejack cried.
“Say something! Say anything!”
“Answer me already!”
Pinkamena felt a pinch in her knee and gasped to herself. A
pinchy knee! That means…
Applejack stamped a hoof against the floor. “Ah didn’t go all
the way across the world just for you to not talk! So come on al-
ready! Talk to us you… no good… varm—”
The sky outside lit up as a bolt of lightning streaked down just
outside the window. It reached out with its electric tendrils and drew
down the length of the window’s metal bracings as it brushed past,
sending small sparks coursing through the framework.
In the same instant, the bolt reached the ground and then the
loudest boom shook the tower to its very foundations. The glass rat-
tled, the floor shook, and dust fell from the ceiling.
Several of them screamed and ducked and plugged their ears
in response, and then, in the moments following, shakily rose to their
hooves again. All except Fluttershy, who remained petrified on the
floor.
Pinkamena looked back at the crystal ball in Spike’s grasp.
Twilight walked in a downward spiral around the chasm.
Every slow and calculated step took her a foot deeper into the moun-
tain and closer to the door. Every so often, she would duck under a
rogue crystal. Other times, the ledge cut out, forcing her to make a
short leap across. All the while, Twilight’s crystal ball floated closely
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behind her.
Spying a shortcut, Twilight spread her wings and leaped
across the gap, skipping two full revolutions down the spiral. But
Twilight slammed into the wall and her hooves slipped, and she was
saved only by the fact that her body refused to slide off the ledge as
well.
Pinkamena felt whatever color that remained in her face drain
away. Wait… she thought.
Rainbow Dash let out a frustrated scream before she stormed
down the stairs in a huff.
Twilight struggled to climb onto her hooves again. She nearly
made it before her legs gave way under her, only for her to try again
without missing a beat. Once upright again, Twilight set forward
like nothing had happened.
Twilight still journeyed to her death, and the crystal ball re-
mained silent.
Pinkamena collapsed onto the floor. I… I…
***
“Darling,” Rarity said, touching her own hoof to the ball, “you
can’t. You simply can’t.”
“I can. I have to,” Twilight replied. She looked further into the
cavern and frowned. “It can’t be much farther now.”
Fluttershy fought back tears, and for a moment, she managed
to swallow what had worked up from the pit of her chest. “Don’t go,
Twilight… Don’t go. Y-you can still go back and get us.”
Spike bit his lip, wishing he had something to say. Anything to
turn the conversation (and, perhaps, the mare inside the ball) around.
“It is going to try and surface soon,” Twilight coldly replied.
“It’s too late to turn back.”
“No!” Fluttershy cried.
“It’s too late.”
“Oh… Twilight…” Fluttershy buried herself into Rarity and
let off a sob. And then another. She burst into a maelstrom of choked
cries and moans as she pressed herself deeper into her friend, espe-
cially as Rarity wrapped a hoof around her.
Applejack and Pinkamena, both of whom lay against the
room’s giant window, glanced over. Neither said a word nor gave
the slightest change in expression, and in short order, they returned
to mindlessly watching the storm outside.
Spike ground his teeth together. First those two, and then Rain-
bow Dash. Now Fluttershy had succumbed.
Rarity’s cheeks turned a bright red and she growled. “Well, I
am not quite ready to give up on you, Twilight Sparkle!”
Twilight shook her head and continued trotting onward.
Rarity looked up. “Spiky-wikey! Tell her!”
“Tell her what?” Spike asked.
“Something! Surely you must have something?”
Spike grimaced. “Don’t ask me,” he said and pointed to Sun-
set, “she’s the one with all the things.”
Sunset’s chalk danced across the board, and with each stroke,
another hair on her already-messy mane popped out of place.
Rarity straightened herself. “S-Sunset!” she shouted.
Sunset dug the chalk into the board too much and the nibble of
a piece shattered into a shower of dust. She looked over with wide-
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so sorry!”
Spike frowned but nonetheless continued to think the ball’s
view forward.
At that moment, Twilight rounded the corner. large double
doors greeted her. The ornate stone doors towered over her and Twi-
light stopped to admire the etched pictures on their front. But once
that was done, Twilight allowed a shade of color to drain from her
already-pale coat.
“I’m here,” she announced.
“Oh s-stars, I can’t look,” Rarity quivered. She turned and
sobbed into Fluttershy in return.
Rainbow Dash appeared at the head of the stairs. She refused
to enter the room and instead elected to rest against the banister with
a sorrowful glare. Her scowl quivered, showing hints of every other
conflicting emotion.
This was it. The one moment Spike never thought he would
see happen. Even with the knowledge that it had taken place nine
days ago, Spike felt blindsided. Twilight was about to die.
Spike glowered at it all. Twilight had died. Twilight was dead.
Twilight was going to die.
Dead, died, would die.
Because this had happened nine days ago. Because it had al-
ways happened nine days ago. It would forever happen nine days
ago.
Several leylines in the double doors in front of Twilight spark-
ed to life. With a slow and wretched creak, the doors parted, reveal-
ing the chamber beyond. The entryway turned red from the light
within the chamber. It was much brighter than Spike remembered.
Twilight held up her crystal ball and examined it. “Bringing
this back here… Who would have guessed? Maybe in another life, I
might have learned how to use this thing.” Twilight frowned.
“Maybe…”
She sighed. “I have to let you go now. Sometime within the next
hour, the Nameless will make its attempt. I have to concentrate.
“…I just want to let you know that I am so so grateful that I
could spend these past few days with all of you. I am… So grateful
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that I got the chance. There’s no other way that I would have wanted
to do it.” Twilight blushed, “And… I just hope you don’t remember
me as a bad friend...”
“Never,” Spike huffed.
“I am going to leave the ball outside of the door.” She looked
up with pleading eyes, “Okay?”
Spike balled his fist. The cycle was complete. Twilight’s crys-
tal ball in front of the door, in its place for them to find and start the
cycle anew.
No cloak, but what did that matter? Twilight was still lost ei-
ther way.
Because it didn’t matter. They would always lose Twilight.
Because there was no escaping “Is, was, will be.”
Spike looked at the others.
Applejack and Pinkamena remained glued to the windows, but
each had an eye in his direction.
Rainbow Dash remained in the stairwell, but now had turned
away out of disgust.
Rarity and Fluttershy remained in a heap on the floor, trying
their best to stifle their croaks and wheezes.
Sunset remained curled up on the floor. She made no attempt
to even open her eyes and see what was happening. Her ears lay
frozen atop her head as if blocking out the sound. Like she was gone.
Like she had shut down.
Spike clutched the ball tighter than he ever had before. A mo-
ment later, his knees gave out and he fell to the floor. Heartbeat after
heartbeat ticked by and none of them did anything to lessen the
weight in his chest.
Spike sucked in a breath. He used one of his hands to push it
back out. “Okay. Twilight. I… understand. Go save the world. But…
I’m going to be right here, okay?”
The smallest inkling of a smile appeared on Twilight’s muzzle.
“Spike…”
“Okay?”
Twilight considered those words for many long moments. And
then she smiled. “Of course. I know you’ll always be there for me.”
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Feedback
The cool howl of a wayward breeze washed over the valley, chart-
ing a chorus of rustling branches through the wood and on the plain.
It formed streak lines with the grass as their sways reflected the
moonlight.
The moon itself hung high in the sky, shining an intense blue
light down upon the land, enough to make even the most isolated of
crevices navigable. Several bodies sat against windowsills in awe at
its magnificence.
The land of Equestria lay silent and still. The occasional ani-
mal broke the peace, but even they kept to themselves more than on
most other nights. The towns and cities lay deserted as ponies re-
mained in their homes.
Like a whisper, a name cropped up. In several little pockets,
from the voices of small colts and fillies, came a name. Through
hushed conversations over bedsides, a name passed between parent
and offspring. When one presented questions, the other answered.
Soon afterward, bedroom lights disappeared into the night.
And then the name appeared again. The name of a late mare
passed from the mother to father and then back again before it van-
ished back into the ether. All were wonderings of her life, who she
was, and what she had gone through. They tried to fathom what
those closest to her thought, how they felt, especially now that it was
over.
Various ‘What If?’s presented themselves between them with
their offspring as the subject. What if it had been their daughter?
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Their Son?
One by one, the conversations resolved with varying assur-
ances that it would not happen. Everything was safe. Everything was
okay.
Silent thanks and other expressions of gratitude followed.
One by one, in the cities and towns across Equestria, the lights
went out until, finally, only the moon remained. As ponies of all
shapes, sizes, colors, and identities slept soundly in their beds, the
night ticked by just as it had for thousands of moons before.
The name took off through the minds of a collective uncon-
scious. It appeared in the dreamscapes and sometimes, within un-
conscious ramblings, made it back into the real world.
But for a select few that had more than a name, other things
took shape. A lavender alicorn appeared to them for those who had
seen her. A scratched voice spoke to them for those who had heard
her. She ate, she ran, she lectured, she read, and she did many other
things for those who had known her.
And for many hours long into the night, the idea persevered.
In that sense, that late mare lived on within the serenity of the Eques-
trian night.
===============================================
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even that was a step up from the absolute messes they had been be-
fore.
Sunset told herself it was easier the second time. She wasn’t
sure if she believed it.
Sunset pushed back her curled mane and looked out of the
room’s large window. Though a light haze had fallen over the
grounds outside, the rain fell with less intensity than before. Sunset
could hardly remember the last time she had heard the crack of thun-
der or witnessed the bright display of lighting.
She snorted at the thought. Maybe the storm would end soon.
No, she thought, it will end soon.
While Twilight, nine days ago, remained alive for within an
hour more, the doors had closed behind her. The seconds counted
down but she had no idea how many seconds there were to count
down, nor did she care, because Twilight was as good as dead either
way.
On the other side of the room, Rarity scrutinized some dust on
the curb of her hoof. Fluttershy fiddled with the feathers in one of
her wings. Applejack scratched at an itch in her ear. Meanwhile, the
other two did nothing but lie on their backs and stare at the ceiling.
Sunset’s eyes drifted through them and then toward the large
amounts of chalk dust and scattered pieces of parchment that coated
the floor. She stood up with a sigh and used her magic to clear up
the loose papers and stack them into a messy pile off to the side. She
then summoned a broom and dustpan out of the corner of the room.
The etched sounds of her broom across the floor echoed
throughout the tower. The others stirred as Sunset swept, and then
they watched in full as she emptied what she had into the trash bin.
Sunset swept up another pile of chalk dust, trying to capture every
scrap.
How much longer did it have to be?
Sunset continued until the few grains remaining evaded her
sweeps and she called that good enough. She returned the trash bin
to its spot near the stairs and returned her tools to their spot in the
corner. She returned to the stack of papers and moved all of them
onto the desk.
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***
As Sunset descended the stairs, the very first thing she noticed
was not the open entry door, but rather the dragon sitting outside it.
She stopped at the bottom and sighed. Even across the room,
the rain sounded sobering, cleansing even. Like it would wash away
all her trouble.
She glanced into the kitchen. While the hardened floor had
been cleaned, for the most part, she could still spot the faint burn
marks of a time travel spell. Burn marks just like she had seen in an
alternate world below her. Her marks.
Some things just couldn’t be washed away.
She pushed the thought out of her mind again as she headed
for the open door.
The rain splashed against the deck, creating a cacophony of
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said with a sigh. “There was never a way to save Twilight. And all
the work has been for nothing. An infinite amount of work for noth-
ing.”
The rain intensified. The light bombardment turned into what
felt like a flogging. And Sunset let it hit her. She felt soaked in places
she didn’t know she had as the water dripped down her body. The
storm howled on, sounding deafening even without the rolling thun-
der.
For a moment, Sunset wished that she could drown in all of it.
“Well, we still tried, I guess,” Spike asserted.
Sunset dared to glance up.
“I mean, yeah,” he continued. “I kinda hoped she’d be able to
use The Answer to fake it all while still killing that Nameless. That’s
what we tried to do. And it didn’t work. But we got to spend some
time with Twilight before she left.”
“But we failed,” Sunset argued.
“I know.”
“And it hurts.”
Spike looked toward the sky, allowing the rain to directly
splash against his face. “Oh, yeah, I know. And it’ll probably be a
long time ’til I can get over it. A really long time. But I think I can
kinda take it now. I think, actually… right now…” He turned and
locked eyes with her. “Right now, I actually feel a bit okay with it.”
Sunset tilted her head with a quizzical expression. “Huh?”
Spike searched for his words. “You know, I mean, we know
what happened now. I’m not so worried about it anymore. Besides,
Twilight... she’s my hero.”
Spike caressed the crystal ball and looked into it like an ador-
able little foal. A grin spread across his face and he let out a sigh.
“We had a lot of fun today,” he said. Then he frowned, “Maybe
not so much at the end, but…”
Sunset nodded. “Agree with you there,” she replied.
Spike chuckled. “And… we had some good moments. That
thing you did with the picture was really really cool.”
Sunset chuckled. “Heh, thanks. But it’s nothing compared to
the hourglass trick that you did.”
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***
the two to listen in. The voices sounded questioning, concerned, but
neither Sunset nor Spike could glean anything else.
“Looks like they’re coming around,” Sunset commented.
“Yeah, there’s that.”
Instead, Sunset took the towel to her face for good measure.
The faint sound of moving hooves registered in her ears, but she paid
no attention to them.
Spike, however, stepped out into the living room and looked
up as Applejack descended the stairs. “Heya.”
Applejack stumbled but ultimately kept her balance. “Oh,
there ya two are. Ah was fixin’ to run out lookin’ for y’all.”
Sunset peeked out from under the towel. “Huh? Why?”
Applejack frowned. “Y’all might wanna get up here right
quick. There’s uh… a thing goin’ on. Ya gotta come see this.”
Spike and Sunset exchanged worried glances before the both
of them threw their towels to the floor. Spike grabbed the ball, and
the three of them bolted up the stairs.
Four ponies had gathered in one corner of the room, but it ap-
peared more like three of them had gathered around the fourth one.
As far as Sunset could tell, Pinkamena lay propped against the wall
as her body convulsed this way and that.
“What’s going on?” Sunset asked with a tremulous tone in her
voice.
The former three turned around to meet them. “Sunset,
Spike…” Fluttershy said.
“Pinkie Pie is having a very serious reaction,” Rarity said with
a worried look on her face. “Just look.”
Pinkamena’s entire body convulsed. “I-it’s been a-a-a w-w-
while, b-but I-I k-know this one!” she exclaimed as the shudders
wracked her body.
“That means a doozy is about to happen,” Fluttershy said.
“Y-y-y-y-ou b-b-b-et!” And then the jitters subsided, to which
Pinkamena blurted, “And it’s gunna happen right here!”
A long silence passed through the room as each of them
scratched their heads in thought. The window nearby whistled from
the light rain that hit it.
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hourglass!”
All six mares let out sharp gasps in response.
“…Sweet Celestia!”
In a single moment, all seven of them jumped. They glanced
between each other to see if it had been one of their voices. Their
widened eyes then centered on the crystal ball and, at that moment,
they turned completely frozen.
The ball had spoken.
“Who is the world was that!?” Rarity cried.
Fluttershy gasped. “Could it be…?”
Pinkamena’s mane and tail shot up and out and then tangled
into a series of knots. “Twilight!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “Is that
you!?”
More silence passed. Their hearts beat within their chests, their
attention remained fixed. No one made a sound, not even to breathe.
And then finally, “Yes!” the crystal ball said with a voice that
sounded just like Twilight’s. “I’m here! I’m here!”
Several cries of “Twilight!” rose up in unison as smiles spread
across their faces and they jumped for joy.
But Sunset frowned. Her glance immediately fell on the mare
inside the ball who appeared just the same as a few minutes before.
Sunset shifted. It’s not her, she thought, but it’s…
Sunset stamped a hoof against the ground. “You! You’re the
Twilight from the world above us, aren’t you!?”
“That is correct,” Twilight’s voice replied.
“That is incredible, darling,” Rarity said as she clapped her
hooves together, “absolutely incredible. So you’re talking to us from
nine days into the future.”
“I am. And you’re not going to believe this, but I have it. It was
exactly in the place you just talked about.”
Sunset beamed, “You have The Answer!?”
“I have it right here!” Twilight’s voice yelled with triumphant
strength.
“Wow!” Fluttershy exclaimed.
Rarity’s gasp barely made it past her mouth before her hooves
met it. “Sunset! Do you know what this—”
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safe.”
“I agree with Applejack,” Fluttershy seconded.
“I’m sorry,” Twilight’s voice said again.
Sunset cracked her neck. “Twilight, you said you had The An-
swer. Right?”
She imagined the nod on the other side. “I have the whole
thing,” Twilight’s voice said. “I fished it out of the hourglass just a
few seconds ago.”
Sunset nodded as she broke through the group and trotted to-
ward the desk. Her horn lit up and the dozens of papers on top of the
desk shifted around. A stack of blank papers presented itself before
her and, after taking a moment of bumping them into line against
the desk, she took the topmost one and turned. Sunset looked to the
ceiling with a determined scowl. “Then we might as well copy it
from you, just as I had originally planned.”
“That sounds good to me, but…” Twilight’s voice paused.
“You’re going to need a lot more paper than that.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “What? Will five more do?”
“No, it will not. This magic spell that I have on me is seventy
pages long.”
Sunset balked. “Se... seventy pages!?” she cried, her jaw slack-
ened in disbelief.
The other six exchanged confused frowns.
“Well, no bucking wonder you forgot it,” Sunset muttered as
she took the whole stack instead, “that length of spell is unheard of.”
Twilight’s voice laughed. “Oh, just wait until you see how it’s
laid out. It managed to compress a few hundred pages worth of in-
formation into those seventy pages.”
Sunset felt the blood rush through the veins in her head. “And
here I thought the time spell was complex, and that was only a page
long.” She threw her hooves into the air. “Whatever!”
At that point, Sunset turned to face the other six who had an-
ticipatory grins on their faces. “Okay, everyone grab a quill,” she
commanded as she levitated over a cupful of quills and some ink.
She then passed out ten pieces of paper to each of them. “So, Twi-
light’s going to need all of that, huh?” she mused.
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“From what I can tell, you only need to give the other me the
first sixteen pages.”
Sunset nodded. “Only sixteen?”
“Yes. There is ten pages of actual spell for me, fifty-four pages
for a second caster, and then a six-page library full of words that
both spells use.”
Sunset blinked several times before slapping herself in the
face. “It’s… a spell in two parts. Of course.”
Twilight’s voice laughed and then made the sound of a clearing
throat. “Yes, speaking of spells in two parts, I’m going to transmit
you some images now.”
Sunset nodded to the others, all of whom pressed their quills
at the top of their papers in response. The six of them grinned toothy
grins, the “we got this” sort of grins, and almost shook from the an-
ticipation.
Sunset flared her horn. “We’re ready, Twilight.”
***
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the layers grew in number; first five, then twenty, then over one hun-
dred, and with each layer, the ball of light grew to accommodate
them.
“I’m only halfway done with the spell,” Twilight mused. She
looked at the pre-cast and the images surrounding her and smiled.
“But I think I can take it from here.”
“Go get ’em, Twilight,” Sunset urged. “We’ll see you on the
other side.”
Twilight nodded and after giving the two items on the ground
another discerning glance, Twilight turned around. Her images and
pre-cast followed closely behind her as she trotted, with a new
spring in her step, back into the chamber.
The doors groaned once and then slid closed once more.
Sunset fell backward onto the floor with a loud groan.
“Yee haw!” Applejack said, tossing her hat into the air.
A loud and bubbly boom sounded throughout the tower as
Pinkie Pie, pressed against a cyan-colored cannon, showered them
with streamers of all sorts of colors. A round of laughter erupted as
the strands of paper rained down on them.
“Great!” Spike said, clapping his hands together. “Now what?”
Sunset looked up toward the ceiling. “Hey, Future Twilight,
are you back yet?”
“Yes,” the crystal ball said, “I’m back, I’m back.”
“Great. Come on,” Sunset said, beaming as she hunched back
over her half-finished paper. “Let’s finish writing this spell down
and set things right once and for all.”
***
ponies and a dragon behind her, but she made sure they never fell
behind.
The path turned left and Sunset skidded to a halt. Large double
doors made of stone glared down at her, groaned, and then slid into
the walls. Sunset glanced back at the six behind her and nodded once
before proceeding into the chamber. The rest followed closely be-
hind her.
The wide hemisphere of a room glowed an angry red. Lit sym-
bols ringed around the floor and dotted the walls. But a towering
tree-like crystal pillar with a purple horn stuck in the dead center
arrested all attention.
Sunset stopped halfway to the pillar and let her eyes glaze back
over the pages. The pre-cast continued to grow as Sunset poured
more of her readings into it. Even with ten pages left, the swirling
ball of light remained more complex than anything she had ever seen
before.
She glanced back at the ponies and dragon behind her, all of
whom looked back with intent expressions. “I don’t entirely know
what this spell’s going to do,” Sunset said, “but once I start it… I
won’t be able to stop it.”
The others nodded. “Well, we’re ready whenever you are,”
Spike said.
Sunset swallowed and turned her attention back to the pages.
Her eyes darted back and forth between working down the current
page and consulting a pattern from the library pages. Line by line,
the pre-cast grew.
Five pages left. Four. Three. The pre-cast sparkled as the
scores of layers within rotated at unfathomable velocities.
Finally, Sunset closed the pages, letting out a breath that she
had been holding since stepping into the chamber. While her eyes
remained on the pre-cast in front of her, running through it every
which way, her magic moved the string-bound book into Spike’s
waiting grasp behind.
“Here goes!” Sunset announced.
Spike drew back and let out a burst of green fire. The papers
burned within until nothing remained. The green embers then sailed
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Seconds later, a purple orb appeared before her. And then an-
other, then a score, then a few hundred. Many more appeared out of
thin air and swirled around the center of the room, counter to the
liquid below.
Stones, Sunset thought.
One by one, the stones dove into the liquid. Several splashes
dotted the surface as each orb disappeared. With each addition, the
rotating pool spun faster and faster, turning purple as a result.
The room rumbled with such intensity that small specks of dirt
and dust sheeted off the ceiling. As more and more stones teleported
into the room and then kamikazed into the liquid, the hum turned
into a ground-shaking roar from the quaking of the walls and the
sheer velocity of the whirlpool below.
And then the purple horn that floated in the center of the room
lit up and sucked the molten crystal up toward it. The liquid spiraled
around the horn at first and then swallowed it whole. As more and
more rose up, the liquid compacted into a solitary sphere around it.
And then the sphere exploded in a bright white flash. An out-
burst of pure, saturated energy rose up in a hot column of light so
bright that, even behind shielded eyes, Sunset found herself blinded.
The roar reached its apex, deafening her as well.
She winced under its power for many moments before it died
just enough for her to take a peek, something the ponies and dragon
behind her followed suit in.
Twilight Sparkle stared back at them through white-lit eyes
and an unconscious frown. Her rainbow-like hair and tail swayed
with the energy that flowed through them. Animated by the spell
itself, Twilight floated before them with her wings spread to their
full length.
Sunset’s mouth hung limp for many moments before she man-
aged to curve it into a small smile.
And then Twilight’s body sucked the column into itself and,
with one last flash of light, all the tugs and pulls of the spell broke
down.
All at once, all eight of them found themselves thrown to the
floor.
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Sunset’s world faded out and then she fell to the unconscious.
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as they soaked it in. Their ruling couple did much of the same from
a balcony on the Crystal Palace.
The end of the pillar reached into the heavens. It surpassed
Cloudsdale in height and only stretched higher from there. The light
grew in strength and blinded those below. The roar crescendoed and
the shaking grew to a point where wall decorations dropped to the
floors below.
In a small village in the middle of nowhere, two griffons
watched the beam rise up and up. They quietly spoke in their native
languages, just like several other griffons nearby.
Just as it looked like the beam would reach the moon, the tip
exploded with a loud bang. A large set of star-shapes appeared in the
sky: one monolithic, purple star-like figure with five white compan-
ion stars. The constellation eclipsed the moon, covering the land in
a warming, lavender-colored glow.
In Canterlot, two alicorn sisters appeared on one of the castle’s
balconies. They looked toward the blazing stars above them. The
younger looked to the older as the latter considered a large stack of
paper that had appeared in her fireplace. The older then glanced back
up toward the symbol with a smile on her face.
In the city below, a unicorn stallion and unicorn mare rushed
into each other’s embrace at the mere sight of the mark. They
shouted out of joy as tears fell from their eyes.
Amidst a collection of tents near the base of the Crystal Moun-
tains, an earth pony adjusted his glasses once and hummed to him-
self. His students sat in fascination, throwing around hypotheses on
what it could mean.
Out on the open sea, a salty sea-dog and a mermare looked up
toward the symbol in front of the moon and let out a hearty laugh.
In the Badlands, a changeling queen snorted at the sight. She
whirled around and stomped back through an opening in the hive.
The pillar of light flashed once before it pulled the star out of
the sky and receded into the mountain. The rumbling dwindled down
to a light shiver and then faded into the night altogether. The moun-
tain spoke no more, and Equestria fell silent.
High above the plain, a single floating figure looked down
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===============================================
With a smile, Twilight closed her eyes once more and drifted
back into her unconscious.
Sunset’s heart swelled within her chest.
She smiled to herself and closed her eyes as well, content to
welcome the sandmare back. She had one last thought before she
disappeared once more:
We did it.
***
Sunset’s hooves dug into the ground as she trotted along. The
crystal walls had since changed back into dirt ones and a few mining
tools lay here and there. Long, unlit torches jutted out of the walls
at frequent intervals.
She looked over her withers at the weary souls behind her. The
six of them shuffled (or, in Rainbow Dash’s case, flew) along, letting
out occasional yawns as they went. They traveled close together,
neck to neck. Sunset smiled as Fluttershy listed several things that
she planned to do when they returned to Ponyville. Rarity soon fol-
lowed.
Finally, Sunset looked at the figure straddled across her back.
Twilight remained asleep, unaware of what conversations occurred
behind them.
A light appeared at the end of the tunnel. Sunset straightened
up as they approached it, gaining a noticeable length in her stride.
“We’re almost there,” she announced.
Rainbow Dash rubbed her eyes. “No kidding? It looks a little
bright out there.”
“Probably because we’ve been in the dark so long,” Rarity re-
plied.
Sunset laughed. “Yeah. We sure have.”
They drew closer and closer and the light, in turn, grew
brighter. When they finally reached the mouth of the cave, they all
had to shield their eyes.
The sun’s rays caressed them, splashing color into their coats.
It peeked out from the edge of the horizon, initiating a dance with
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***
checks out. Vitals are fine, brain function is normal. She’s very low
on her nutrient levels and we will need to take a couple of days to
correct that.”
“But she’ll be okay though, right?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well, after… what… happened…” the nurse said as he read
off the clipboard, hints of disbelief in his voice, “there isn’t anything
that we did not expect. All things considering, she looks really good.
I expect we’ll be able to discharge her within two or three days tops.”
“Wonderful, absolutely wonderful,” Rarity said. “Thank you
so much.”
The nurse flared his horn and used his magic to slot the clip-
board back onto the front of the bed. “You’re welcome. All she needs
is a little bit of rest right now, so don’t all of you visit for too long,
okay?”
“You got it, doc,” Rainbow Dash said.
That’s a nurse, Sunset thought.
Nurse Heartbeat kept his smile as he exited the room and
turned down the hall.
Sunset lay back against the wall and sighed. She looked around
the varnished wooden padding on the walls, the painting of a tree
just next to the door, and the crystal-clear windows. She had imag-
ined it to be sterile (and it probably was), but this felt warm. She felt
composed and relaxed. She felt like she had a clear head.
Despite the hospital gown, Twilight appeared just she had at
any other time. She slept with a foal-like smile spread across her
face as she clutched an extra pillow to her chest.
Sunset nodded to herself. Things are going to go back to nor-
mal, huh?
Pinkie Pie scooted across the room and draped herself over the
edge of the bed. The others giggled in response, even as Pinkie Pie
batted at Twilight’s mane.
Spike’s hands met Rarity’s hooves as they watched, and the
two, even though their attention remained on Twilight, grew a shade
redder in response.
Applejack hid her belly-throttled laughter behind her hat. She
grabbed a hold of her cushion to keep her balance.
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***
Sunset entered the tower, letting the door creak shut behind
her. She fetched the stack of papers out of her otherwise-packed sad-
dlebag and looked over them once. She flipped through the pages of
The Answer once while the rest of her magic lay her saddlebag next
to the door.
She looked around the room. For the past five days, it had been
her home once more. For the past five days, Sunset had relived days
long past. Years, even. For once since arriving, Sunset could focus
on the tower without drawing herself back to Twilight. She could
focus on the memories of what had once been her home.
Sunset looked over toward the living room where several cush-
ions lay strewn about. She smiled as she imagined six ponies, a
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Causality
dragon, and a crystal ball all huddled around a card game on the
floor. And then she imagined another scene where the eight had
posed for a picture, where that picture then sent itself across time
and space.
Sunset blinked. That had all happened the day before.
With a worried frown, Sunset ascended the stairs into the study
area and levitated The Answer onto the desk.
Sunset looked at the hourglass, the one spot she had always
gone to. Sunset again smiled as she imagined six ponies, a dragon,
and a crystal ball huddled next to it as they bounced ideas off of a
chalkboard. And then she imagined them as they argued over the
origins of a book.
That had been a few days ago.
She furrowed her brow. Somehow, as she looked, any memory
she could think of was with them. Everywhere she looked, she could
see them. She could hear them as they talked, laughed, cried, and
slept.
Today, the tower seemed quiet, like a ghost of its former self.
Something was definitely missing. Six somethings, in fact.
Sunset shook her head and instead strolled over to where the
crystal ball sat on the floor. “Twilight?” she called. “Can you hear
me?”
For a moment the ball remained silent. And then, “Huh? Yes?
Sunset?”
“Hey.”
“Hi.”
“I just came from the hospital,” Sunset said.
“I know, I saw,” Twilight’s voice replied.
Sunset strolled over to the window. She looked across the rest
of the grounds, and then her eyes glided up the magnificent towers
of the main castle. She considered their shining contours and their
perfect curves.
“Maybe I left a little too fast,” Sunset mused.
The voice in the ball did not respond.
“Anyway,” Sunset continued with a shake of her head, “I’ve
been thinking a lot about it and I’m pretty sure of what all you did
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last night.”
“Oh?” Twilight’s voice asked.
“The burn mark downstairs made us think that only one pony
time traveled in when in fact it was two. I time traveled first, leaving
the initial mark. Then you time traveled, using my mark to mask
your entry.
“I imagine that you immediately grabbed the cloak off the
hook so that nopony would see you. You then went upstairs, looked
at the map to remember how to get to the chamber, and then tele-
ported to the door. You opened the door for yourself while setting
the crystal ball up so that we… well… your world’s version of us
could later find you in the crystal ball.”
Sunset shrugged, “Because none of this would have ever hap-
pened if I hadn’t spotted you in the crystal ball that first night.”
Twilight’s voice laughed. “Yeah, that’s exactly what I did. How
did you figure it out?”
“The note was found map-side up instead of note-side up like
you had left it just after writing it. I knew somepony had turned it
over. Cloak is obvious because you had to conceal your identity.
Both of those place you in the tower at some point.”
“Okay, that’s pretty smart. But how did you know it was that
specific spot?”
“Princess Celestia saw a bright flash of light come from the
tower that night. You know, the kind of light that a time spell pro-
duces.”
“Really? That’s interesting.”
“And nowhere else in the tower had burn marks.”
The crystal ball went silent. And then, “I can see why you were
Celestia’s star pupil once!”
Sunset laughed as she turned around to face the hourglass. She
used her magic to lift the top off the apparatus just like she had sev-
eral days prior. After leaning the lid against the golden frame, Sunset
ran her eyes down the glass, catching her reflection among its
curves.
“I just wonder though,” she said as she levitated The Answer
over to herself, “what are you doing in Canterlot anyway? I thought
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Causality
The Answer
Written by Sunset Shimmer
Co-written by Twilight Sparkle
Data collection by Applejack, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow
Dash, Rarity, and Spike
This one-time-use spell is the product of several realities’ worth of
work and represents the love of close friends who went above and
beyond for one dear to them
Sunset blushed as she copied her own name down from the
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Causality
image before her. I… they gave me top billing. It’s like they… at-
tributed this… to me. Her smile grew wider and wider with each
name that she took down, and by the time she reached the summary,
Sunset beamed with pride. She wiped away a few tears as she com-
pleted her work and held it up to really drink it in.
She took the completed copy and bound it to the stack. After
that, she placed the stack of papers into the basin and lifted the lid
back onto the top of the hourglass. She then used her hoof to flip the
hourglass over.
“It’s done,” Sunset announced.
Sunset hummed as she watched the sand trickle down between
the chambers. The grains, so fine that she could not distinguish one
from another, flowed past each other on their way to the bottom. A
small mound appeared on top of the papers and soon enough, the
papers disappeared entirely into the sand.
“Sunset…” Twilight’s voice quivered, “I have a… confession
to make.”
Sunset hummed absentmindedly.
“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it since I came back. And
I’ve made a huge mistake. You can’t tell anypony else, okay?”
Sunset blinked and looked up toward the ceiling. “…Okay?”
Twilight’s voice sucked in a breath. “Rainbow Dash was right.
She said that we could have used the Rainbow Power to defeat the
Nameless. It would have worked. I know it would have worked.”
Sunset swallowed. No way… Can that be right? she thought.
“I underestimated friendship,” Twilight’s voice continued.
“Even though it has helped us through so many things before, I got
so scared… I… It clouded my judgment. This whole mess really is
my fault.”
Sunset shook her head. “It would have worked?”
“It would have worked.”
Sunset felt her eyes drag themselves to the floor. A shiver over-
took her and her whole body felt numb. The past few days of heart-
ache and sadness had happened because Twilight had clouded judg-
ment?
Sunset grabbed at her head and tried to force it out. But the
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Causality
thought clung to her head. The despair came rushing back. The an-
guish, the sorrow. And the joy.
She paused. What was joy doing there? What was determine-
ation doing there? What was hope doing there?
What were the other six doing there?
As she thought about it, everything else was there because the
other six were there.
Because it should have been an awful time. But, thanks to
them, it had not been so much. They had given her positive things
during a negative time, and she had done the same for them. Sure,
the days had been filled with despair and anguish and sorrow, but
they had given each other joy and hope and reasons to stay deter-
mined.
None of that would have been possible without them, huh? she
thought to herself.
Sunset half-snorted, half laughed. “Now I know I messed up,”
she muttered. With a sigh, she turned back to the crystal ball and
stared at it intently.
“What?”
She messed with her curled mane and her eyes shifted about
as she thought. With each moment, her mouth curled more into a
grin. “Hey, Twilight?” she finally asked.
“Yes?”
Sunset sucked in a breath. “Before the funeral… we all got to
talking and they told me about this friendship diary that all of you
put together. That’s a thing, right?”
“Yes. I usually keep it in the castle library back home. Though
I have it with me right now. I’ve gone through some of it over the
past few days.
Sunset smiled before she headed over toward the desk. She
grabbed one more piece of parchment and set her quill against it.
“Well, I was going to wait until I got to the portal to write this, but…
maybe I should write something now.”
Twilight’s voice hummed. “You’re… going to make a diary
entry?”
“Yeah.”
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Causality
“Dear Diary,
“Yours truly,
“Sunset Shimmer”
Sunset set the quill down and looked over her writing. After a
once-over, she gave herself a satisfied nod and levitated the crystal
ball over.
“That…” Twilight’s voice said, “is a good entry. I think… I
should try to learn from that.”
Sunset smirked. “Are you reading all of that from your own
copy?” she asked.
“I was.”
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Causality
***
goodbye. She wanted more time with them. She wanted to feel what
she had felt when she was with them.
This time, Sunset knew what she wanted.
***
“Sunset.”
The word went in one ear and out the other.
“Sunset!”
Somepony is calling my name?
She blinked.
“Sunset Shimmer!”
Sunset whirled around to find Rainbow Dash leaning in dan-
gerously close to her face.
Rainbow Dash snorted and stood up. “It’s like you’re deaf or
something.”
Sunset scrambled to her hooves. She looked past Rainbow
Dash to find the other five nearly staring at her with half-smirks.
“Oh! I…!” she said, turning red. “You’re here! I thought you’d have
gone back to Twilight by now.”
“Well of course we’d like to be with Twilight,” Rarity said,
“but we have all the time in the world for her. You, on the other hoof,
are more important right now.”
Sunset recoiled against the glass, looking between their bright,
smiling faces.
She then chuckled under her breath and wrapped a hoof around
her own foreleg. “I um… I left that hospital without properly saying
goodbye properly and…”
“What?” Applejack asked. “Did ya think that we weren’t
gunna see ya off?”
Sunset blinked. Seeing me off? She rubbed the back of her
head. “I guess I didn’t. I forgot all about it. I’m not very good with
these kinds of things yet.”
Spike laughed. “That’s why I asked you if you were leaving
later, so that we could meet you here.”
“We wouldn’t miss it for the world!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
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Causality
Sunset turned red and let out a relieved giggle, not letting up
even as she wiped a tear from her eye. “You all are the best.”
“Attention passengers,” echoed a voice throughout the sta-
tion, “the train from Hollow Shades will arrive in the station mo-
mentarily with continuing service to Ponyville and Las Pegasus. All
customers embarking to those locations should gather their belong-
ings and make their way onto the platform.”
Sunset levitated her saddlebag onto her back. “That’s me.”
Fluttershy stepped toward the sliding glass doors. “Should we
all head out there then?”
Sunset nodded and started for the door.
A flurry of gasps enveloped the building as several ponies
dropped to the floor. Sunset looked up to see what could cause such
a reaction and spotted Princess Celestia standing in the doorway to
the station. An older stallion, dressed in a tailored red coat, stood by
her side, using his magic to steal a glance at his pocket watch.
Celestia searched for a moment before locking her gaze on
Sunset. She smiled and glided forward.
Sunset turned to the other six. “I’ll meet you all out on the
platform, okay?”
Her friends nodded with a flurry of affirmative hums as they
stepped through the doors and out onto the platform.
Sunset turned back toward the princess as the latter appro-
ached her. She bowed. “Princess.”
Celestia leaned forward, “You do not have to bow to me, Sun-
set,” she said with a smile.
Sunset climbed back onto all fours. “What are you doing
here?”
“I heard that you might be leaving. I thought I should see you
off.”
“Well, I’m glad you came,” Sunset said with a chuckle.
“Although I also came here…” Celestia said, clearing her
throat, “to see if you’d be willing to spend an extra day here in Can-
terlot.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “An extra day?”
Celestia motioned with her head toward the five ponies and
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Causality
dragon out on the platform. “They told me some of the details. They
said that you had a lot to do with what has happened. So… I had
planned on holding a ceremony in celebration of your efforts.”
“A ceremony just for me…?”
Celestia nodded. “Of course.”
Sunset looked back out onto the platform. A ceremony just for
me... she thought.
But then her eyes fell on the six. As they talked about some-
thing that Sunset could only guess at, even in their equine forms,
they reminded her of the people waiting for her back home.
Sunset held up a hoof. “I appreciate that, Princess, but… I
don’t think that’s possible.”
“Oh?”
“I really have to get home to my friends at Canterlot High. I’m
sure they are so worried about me.” She kicked at the floor. “I’ve
been away from them for nearly six days and I never even told them
I was still here.”
Celestia paused for a moment as she thought those words over.
Her wings rustled at her sides as she looked down to Sunset. And
then she smiled and nodded. “I understand. You must miss them very
much.”
“I do.”
Celestia chuckled. “Well,” she said, drawing up, “Twilight was
right about you. I’m so glad.”
Sunset blinked. “About what?” she asked.
“You’ve really changed.”
Sunset smiled. “Thanks. But I’ve still got a long ways to go.”
“Perhaps.”
Sunset sighed and rubbed the moisture from her eyes. “And,
really, I’m still pretty worn out.”
“It has been a very long ordeal for all of us. But I suppose it
has been especially long for you,” Celestia said. She looked out the
window and drew her own eyes toward the orange glows of the sky
and her setting sun. “And, in a few short hours, you will be home
with your friends again, safe and sound.”
Sunset looked out the window as well. “Yeah…” she trailed
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Causality
off.
The telltale rumble of an oncoming locomotive shook the
walls and a loud whistle sounded from outside. The mishmash of
steam and the in-and-out of hydraulics grew louder as the engine
pulled into view. Several carriages behind it ground to a halt as they
lined up with the station’s platform.
“I wish…” Sunset started.
“Hmmmm?”
“I wish I could have spent more time catching up with you.
There’re so many things I want to tell you about. All the things that
I’ve learned ever since I found friendship, all the things that I’ve
experienced. …And all the things that I’ve missed after I ran away.”
Celestia looked on as several ponies stepped off the train. At
the same time, several more ponies filed out of the sliding door to
meet the new arrivals. Bits of laughter and cheer rose up as ponies
reunited.
She glanced down at the stallion to her side. “Kibitz?”
The stallion drew a notepad out of his coat pocket and scrib-
bled something down. “I’ll take care of things here, Princess. Do as
you wish.”
Celestia smiled and then sauntered over to the ticket counter.
The ponies in line edged away as she approached, allowing her to
pass and approach the attendant. “One ticket to Ponyville, if you
please.”
The stallion behind the counter stood at his full height. “Of
course, Princess Celestia!”
Celestia smiled and turned back to Sunset. “I would be more
than happy to listen to all of it on the way there. That is if you’d
like,” she said with a wink.
A smile spread across Sunset’s face faster than she could move
it herself. “That would be great.”
Nodding, Celestia stepped through the sliding glass doors and
out onto the platform. Sunset (and, a fair distance behind them, Kib-
itz as well) followed.
Celestia stopped at the entrance to the car and turned. “I will
find a seat for the two of us.”
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Causality
Sunset Shimmer’s world twisted about, but it bent her less and less
with every passing moment. Finally, it stopped just enough where
Sunset could move on her own. She put her hoof—no, that changed
into a foot somewhere along the line—forward.
Her foot hit concrete. At that, she planted her other foot on the
concrete as well and looked up. She saw a black sky that faded into
blue and, near the far-off horizon, red. A few stars poked their way
through, and with each moment, more and more appeared out of
hiding.
Her eyes drifted downward to find a sizable building arcing
around her. The faded red bricks rose up higher than most buildings
in Equestria. Canterlot High, in its own way, resembled a palace.
“And we were able to repair our float right in time for the pa-
rade,” a voice said. It sounded like Fluttershy.
Sunset’s eyes centered on the front steps. Several lanterns lit
the features on several individuals. Several individuals that she rec-
ognized. Her best friends. While most sat on the steps, two of them
sat on folding chairs that faced the center of their circle. She could
see what looked like flat boxes lying around but could not tell what
they were.
But at the very top of their circle, to her surprise, sat Principal
Celestia who she shifted in her seat and smiled. “Well, I am very
pleased to hear that, I’m sure Sunset would be happy to know you
recovered.”
At once, five of them slumped in their seats. “Yeah…” Pinkie
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Epilogue
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