Table of Contents

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

selves. Everything but her.

Had they informed Twilight? Was this an intervention? Maybe
that was why they had beaten her here. “H-hey girls!” she said with
an unsteady wave.
A small, purple dog emerged from below them and looked up
at her with a wide-eyed expression. “Sunset!” Spike exclaimed as
he leaped up toward her.
She laughed as she scooped him out of the air and pulled him
in close. “Hey, Spike! Good to see you!”
The humans watched through crossed arms and token chuck-
les.
As she situated him in her arms, she looked back up and tried,
and failed, to find Twilight within them. She instead turned her gaze
to meet the five staring back at her and swallowed. I might as well
get this over with…
“Listen…” Sunset said, kicking the ground, “I need to apolo-
gize. Again. I didn’t mean to break the parade float, okay? I’m… I
didn’t mean to do it…”
The five girls reeled for a moment before turning to each other,
silently sharing an entire conversation through perplexed expres-
sions and light shrugs.
“Sunset…” Spike trailed off.
Fluttershy brushed her long, pink hair out from in front of her
face. “What are you talking about, exactly?”
Sunset frowned. “Uh…”
Applejack jumped a foot into the air. “What in tarnation!?” she
cried, pointing over Sunset’s shoulder.
Sunset whirled around to find that five similarly appearing hu-
mans had appeared at the school’s entrance. She went to respond but
then found her double-take. The five in front of her looked like the
five behind her, even down to the very clothes on their bodies.
Somehow, she knew, the years of dealing with Princess Celes-
tia’s double were about to pay off.
The rest of them, however, erupted into a short burst of sharp
gasps and perturbed expressions as it hit them full force. They stared
intently at each other to see who would move first. And then, after a
4
 Prologue

rapid-fire of gasps, the doubles rushed forward to meet each other,

inspecting each other as they would themselves in the mirror. At
times, they even tried to parrot one another.
Sunset watched with careful eyes. Half of the humans moved
in jerky, uncoordinated, and even unenergetic manners when com-
pared to their doubles. They curled their hands like hooves and their
legs seemed to betray them with every step; Sunset herself had been
through that phase before. And that cinched it.
“You look like you’re all from Equestria, aren’t you?” she
asked with a grin. “You must be Twilight’s friends.”
All ten of the doubles stopped, and then half of them—the
guilty half—nodded.
Sunset nodded and smiled the sort of “I knew it” smile.
“Great!” she exclaimed. “Welcome to Canterlot High! Maybe we
can give you the tour when Twilight comes through,” she said.
The five Rainbooms (she assumed) lit up at the mention of
Twilight’s name. They squirmed about as they shot each other smiles
as wide as their faces and clapped their hands together with glee.
“I mean, she is coming, right?” Sunset asked quizzically, now
turning her attention back to the Equestrians.
The five Equestrians shrunk down, turning their gazes toward
any place in the courtyard but her. They took hold of themselves as
knots moved up and down their throats.
At that point, Spike rolled himself out of Sunset’s arms. The
metal collar around his neck clinked as he landed. He plodded back
toward the Equestrians as if he had to concentrate on putting one
paw in front of the other.
Sunset’s smile faded as her eyes darted worriedly between the
five Equestrians. “Right?”
Spike shook his head and turned to her. “Sunset…” he said,
“there’s something we need to tell the school… but we wanted you
to hear about it first.”
“T-tell me… what? Spike, where is Twilight?”
The Equestrians looked up through sullen grimaces, save
Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy. The former turned her back to them
to hide her disgust and the latter kept her eyes glued to the concrete.
5
 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

Ponyville was dead and alive at the same time.

Hundreds gathered in the center square, carrying out hushed
conversations under the glow of the moon above them. Dozens more
filed in through a long line that stretched to the castle at the edge of
town where a ring of flowers grew with each addition.
The fields to the south remained unplowed, unfinished dresses
still lay draped across their mannequins, and a few clouds were un-
accounted for in the sky.
Six individuals looked across the crowd from the top of the
hill. They stood silent, stalwart, like shepherds watching over their
flock. They draped hooves over each other’s withers with each new
set of attendees that appeared.
Every so often, a few ponies came up to them to introduce
themselves and share their own personal stories. Aside from the oc-
casional question, the six remained silent throughout, content to lis-
ten. After everything was said and done, they offered their gratitude
for sharing and showing up.
But even as the gathering drew on, their energy slowly dwin-
dled until, after an entire evening of holding it in, they broke down
and descended into a cacophony of wails and sobs. Like a cascade,
the rest of the attendees surrendered, and soon the entire town was
caught in a bitter uproar.
Eventually, once all the weeping died down, one of them pro-
duced a candle. A single lick of his fiery breath lit it ablaze, and it
glowed softly against the night. He raised it into the air, allowing all
7
 Memento

to see it from every direction.

In an almost immediate response, his five companions, each as
distinct as the next, raised their own flames skyward.
The crowd took it as a sign, and most of them produced can-
dles for themselves. Scores of flames, some lit by match and others
donated by other already-lit candles, flickered into life and then
were raised toward the night sky. Not one single pony made a sound.
In the darkness of the night, the city of Canterlot also produced
a red glow. A singular red dot appeared at the front of the mountain.
The light off the moon, on an equal queue, intensified, bathing the
entire land in a sheet of white. In the distance, several rainbows shot
into the sky from an airborne location. And, from the far north, a
river of ethereal lights coalesced forth from beyond the horizon and
danced through the sky.
Several similar displays, silent voices shouting in unison, rose
up throughout the rest of the magical land of Equestria.

===============================================

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.
8
 Memento

Craning her neck to look around, Sunset tried to scout out

some of the other attendees. She spotted a blue-hued and haughty-
looking unicorn wringing the life out of a lavender magician’s hat in
the opposite row. A wall-eyed pegasus nearby held her half-asleep
daughter closely. A trio of fillies huddled together, sharing low whis-
pers that occasionally became shouts. Next to them sat a black-and-
white striped equine who was not any sort of pony that Sunset knew
of. The equine chanted under her breath as if in prayer. Near them
sat a green unicorn who, judging from her reading glasses and the
subtle wrinkles near her eyes, was rather experienced. Sunset
pegged her as an author.
Grouped together on the side of the aisle opposite hers sat sev-
eral ponies who all but clung to one another, and it was that which
told her who they were. A mare and stallion couple clung to each
other, just like they had when they arrived, and she knew there was
no way to console them from the way they wailed. The captain of
the guard and his alicorn wife took seats next to them, opting for a
more silent route. Other ponies surrounded them that, by her guess,
had some sort of relation, though Sunset didn’t take the time to pin
them down exactly.
On her own side, in the same row as her, sat five ponies that
contrasted each other in almost every way. The five of them dragged
their hooves against the floor as they glanced determinately at eve-
rything around them. Every so often, they would yank at the black
neckerchiefs around their necks as if fighting for air.
Their spitting images sat in the row in from of her. Their black
attire was much more careful and prudent, making most other ponies
look naked by comparison. With each passing minute, their hairs
split further (or in one case fell flatter than before), their eyeliner
coursed down their faces, and another shade of color drained from
their coats. Layers of makeup tried and failed to hide the bags and
red swells under and around their eyes. At no point during the entire
past hour had they been able to silence themselves.
A small, purple dragon completed—yet contrasted—them.
Spike sat at the beginning of the row with his hands perpetually
twisted together as he twiddled his claws, as if he was a record that
9
 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.

***

Taking stock of Twilight’s belongings and baggage went at a

sluggish pace, and even with what little there was, it took some time.
At a few points along the way, work came to a complete stop. To her
credit, Pinkie Pie tried cracking jokes and sharing words of encour-
agement but, without her usual enthusiasm, they lacked the ‘oomph’
that they needed.
13
 Memento

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

want to talk to us that night.” She pointed to herself. “That’s what I

really want to know.”
“And why didn’t we realize something was wrong then?” Flut-
tershy croaked.
“I think we should have ignored what she was saying when we
came here and kicked that door down!” Rarity exclaimed, channel-
ing a greater energy than before. “Or something like that. Then we’d
know what’s what!”
That was new. If there was a moment to jump in, this was it.
“I didn’t know you all came here,” Sunset said, now stepping toward
them.
Applejack, having thrown the last of the papers on top of a
pile, now turned. “Oh, Sunset. Ah plum forgot you were there.” She
met Sunset halfway and laid a friendly hoof across her withers.
“Thanks fer comin’ out today, sugarcube, and for helpin’ out tonight.
It really means a lot to us.”
Sunset half-forced a smile. “No, thank you for, you know, go-
ing out of your way to come tell us in person. I know that must have
been really tough.”
“Indeed, ’tis quite the odd place,” Rarity mused. “Although I’ll
admit it was nice to finally be able to meet you and your Canterlot
High friends, I just... eh… wish it wasn’t under these circum-
stances.”
“I’m sure they feel the same way about you guys and Eques-
tria,” Sunset replied reassuringly.
“Did they already go back?” Applejack asked as she let Sunset
go.
“Yeah. They boarded the train an hour ago. I’ll likely go back
tomorrow…” She looked around at their looks of expectation, and
quickly added, “But there’s no rush.”
“We were here,” Spike said, sitting up. “We were going to sur-
prise Twilight with a trip to the Canterlot Opera House.”
“And then we were going to throw a big birthday party the day
after that,” Pinkie Pie added.
“But...” Spike continued, “she was really really busy the first
time we stopped by and didn’t wanna be disturbed. I’m her number
17
 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,

If you are reading this, it means I have lost my life repelling a

great evil.
I had too little time to prepare for it. I was unable to think of
any other way. My hooves were tied.
You don’t want to know what things would have happened had
this thing got out. I shudder to think of it, and I take solace in the
fact that I can spare you that knowledge. But I was able to shut the
door on it, and in doing so, I terminated it, permanently. It will never
befall Equestria.
These past years have been the best of my life. Thank you for
the wonderful memories. Thank you all.

20
 Memento

Your faithful friend,

Twilight Sparkle

Sunset scowled and fought the urge to crumple up the note in

disgust. That was the grand final goodbye Twilight Sparkle, the Prin-
cess of Friendship, had written for her closest companions? It
couldn’t be.
Sunset went over the note again, noted the stains once more,
and then turned it sideways and over and backward to see if Twilight
had left anything else. Nothing.
She hummed disappointedly and abandoned it on the desk
when she next passed by.
She paced several more laps around the room, trying to answer
any of the various questions that she had. But, with each non-answer,
her pace slowed until she was almost at a crawl.
This can’t be it. This isn’t right.
She arrived at the large window that dominated the northern
edge of the space. The rest of the nighttime castle looked back at
her. The silhouettes of the various towers rose up through the dark.
There wasn’t a shred of light to be found.
She could hear Twilight’s voice telling her, “It’s no big deal.
Don’t worry about me.” Like everything was supposed to be okay.
Like it wasn’t supposed to hurt.
But it was not okay. It hurt. A lot.
Why, Twilight? she thought, feeling a heaviness in her eyes.
This isn’t you. This is not you.
She tried jamming what bits and pieces of information she had
together, but nothing meshed. There had to be more to it. There had
to be. But there wasn’t. Twilight had died stopping a monster. Nearly
everything about it was straightforward.
Except for one thing. Whirling around, she trotted toward the
middle of the room. With the flare of her horn, she snatched the crys-
tal ball off the table. Taking a seat under the hourglass in the center
of the room, she stared into crystal ball, resolved to inspect its every
nook and cranny until something showed itself.
Sunset could see an overhead view of the study area. She could
21
 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

and respectful bows.

“You don’t have to do that, Miss Velvet,” Celestia said.
Twilight Velvet chuckled. “Oh, hahaha. Sorry, sorry. I just
wish I would have known you were all coming over. I would have
made us a dinner for six,” she said with a grin.
“It’s not too late; we still can you know,” Night Light sug-
gested, rising to his hooves. “A little bit of pre-birthday action,
hmm?”
At once, all four visitors cringed “…No,” Shining Armor re-
plied, kicking at the floor, “that’s actually not what we came here
for.”
Twilight Velvet paused. For the first time since Shining had
entered, she frowned. She glanced between the four new arrivals,
each of whom looked at her or looked at her husband. They seemed
glued in fact. It was as if they were waiting for her to do something,
or for something to happen.
She had every reason to believe he had other reasons for visit-
ing, but only then did she notice the moisture around their eyes. The
long and strained faces that they each wore. Something must have
happened. After all, it wasn’t every day that her son returned home
still in full uniform. With all four princesses in tow—
Three. Three princesses. One princess was missing.
It couldn’t be.
“Mom… Dad…” Shining Armor began, his voice crumbling
by the second.
No.
A long and hard glance passed between the two parents and
they gravitated toward one another. Night Light voiced it for the
both of them: “Where is your sister, Shining?”
Luna stepped forward to speak, but a hoof from Celestia stayed
her. Meanwhile, Cadance draped a supportive wing over Shining
Armor’s withers.
“Where is Twilight?” Night Light shouted, his voice cracking
with worry.
Shining Armor swallowed. “There was a situation…” he be-
gan.
24
 Passing

“What happened to Twilight?”

“Dad! I…” Shining let out a very long sigh as he tried to get
the words out of his mouth. “Twily… Uh… I mean. There was a
monster—”
“No...”
“She went up against it... and she lost—”
“No...”
Twilight Velvet’s world melted around her and she could
hardly navigate it, much less remain upright. It couldn’t be true. She
collapsed onto the floor, trying desperately to keep some sort of foot-
ing. She failed.
The tears flowed down her face before she could even tell what
she was doing. Her legs refused to respond, and her choked wheezes
were the best that she could muster. It just could not be real.
The royal sisters, even though their expressions remained dis-
cerning, had let out a few loose tears of their own.
No, it was very real.
“I’m... so sorry!” Shining cried as Cadance sobbed into his
shoulder.
“Oh, my baby girl,” Night Light cried. “My baby giiiiiirrrl...!”
Twilight Velvet sank into the ground, intent on never rising
ever again. In that moment, her world had surely ended.

===============================================

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

on it, dear. Her appearing at all is… odd, as it is.”

“So maybe we should keep watching for if it happens again?”
Fluttershy asked.
“We could, but…” Rarity set her fork onto her plate and met
Fluttershy’s eyes and said, “I don’t think it’ll get us much any-
where.”
“If it’s anything to do with Twilight, I’ll take it,” Spike said
with a snort as he flicked a few small gems across his plate.
Applejack nodded. “Exactly. We oughta keep lookin’ for Twi-
light’s sake. Ah know she’s… gone… and all, but all the more reason
why we oughta pay attention.”
Pinkie Pie giggled. “Yeah! Besides, I’m sure she just went to
bed is all. She’ll be back in no time flat.”
That’s right, Sunset thought. There’s so much more to this. She
thought back to what she had seen the night prior; what all of them
had seen. We could see Twilight writing in her book. Writing furi-
ously even. We could hear her muttering too!
Sunset let out a thoughtful sigh as she idly played with a way-
ward fluff of egg. Twilight must have known what this crystal ball
was all about, but… what possible use could she have had for it?
“You look so focused, Sunny!” said an energetic voice.
Sunset blinked. “What? Huh?”
Pinkie Pie leaned over until she was right in Sunset’s ear. “I
said, ‘You look so focused, Sunny!’”
Sunset nodded. “Yeah, I uh… I’ve been thinking a lot about
this since last night. Heck, since long before that, really, that’s why
I went in the first place. I’m convinced that ball is special.”
“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.
“I can’t help but think that there’s a lot more to this thing than
we’ve seen. I mean, Twilight must have thought it was important
enough to have on her, right?” Sunset said with gusto. Then she
thought about what she was saying and shrunk back into her seat.
“Well... maybe not. I’m not sure what I think.”
“Makes sense to me,” Rainbow Dash said with a shrug.
“There’re just… too many questions,” Sunset said as she
pushed some of her mane out of her face. “How is it that Twilight
28
 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

“Weird, huh?” Spike said as if reading her mind.

“Yeah,” she replied as she continued to gaze out the window.
“Everyone is going about their lives.”
“Yeah,” he said as they rounded a corner, “And, I guess we’ll
have to go back to ours too, eventually.”
“Maybe,” she said, “but the train doesn’t leave until tonight.
And I think the others’ll come around.”
“Maybe.”
Sunset pursed her lips. The question she wanted to ask, she
knew, was better kept to herself. But her mouth moved anyway.
“And what about you?”
Spike withdrew into himself, wrapping his arms around his
body and shivering. “Honestly,” he sighed, “I haven’t figured out
what I'm going to do yet.”
“...Don’t you have any other family?”
“No,” Spike replied curtly. “Twilight was my entire family.
She hatched me from my egg and everything.” He hugged himself
even tighter. “Now that Twilight’s gone… well...”
She winced. I should have seen that coming. Good job, Sunset.
Spike reached up and grabbed the crystal ball out of Sunset’s
magical grasp. He looked into it for long moments even though
nothing worthwhile displayed inside. “What about you?”
She let off a small smile. “Well,” she began, glancing up to-
ward the ceiling in thought, “I’ve found family in my friends, I
guess. But, I’d never have gotten them if it weren’t for Twilight.”
She shook her head. “I don't even want to think about where I’d be
right now...”
Spike nodded.
“She gave me my life,” she said. “Figuratively speaking.”
Spike raised his hand in response. “Same. Literally speaking.”
The two exchanged warm smiles and light-hearted chuckles
and continued onward through the castle halls.

***

30
 Passing

Fluttershy sat on the floor underneath an alcove in the book-

shelves. She had hunched over the ball, poking and prodding at it
every so often but to no avail. The image remained the same.
“Streamers, dear?” Rarity’s voice asked incredulously, “Re-
ally?”
Fluttershy looked up to find two ponies standing over a collec-
tion of saddlebags. Each saddlebag was, unlike the night before,
now at capacity again, and all of them now lay near the study area’s
desk. One of those bags, however, had several shreds of paper stick-
ing out of it.
Rarity, who stood with the fresh aroma of several filled teacups
emanating off a tray behind her, stared Pinkie Pie down with a pierc-
ing expression.
“Whaaaaaat?” Pinkie Pie wailed. “I had to bring streamers for
in case of streamer emergencies.” She glanced at her saddlebags and
then added, “Same reason I brought a trampoline and a sousa-
phone!”
Rarity deadpanned toward the saddlebags on the floor, looked
back up to meet Pinkie Pie’s innocent gaze, raised a hoof and sucked
in a breath to voice her objection, then shook her head and backed
off resignedly. “Just…”—she levitated the tray in front of her
friend—“take your tea. Just take it.”
Pinkie Pie grabbed the cup (with her mouth) and trotted off
with a carefree smile.
Rarity now lumbered over with a concerned scowl still on her
face. “I say, I simply don’t know what goes through her head some-
times,” she mumbled to herself before donning a smile. “Tea, Flut-
tershy?”
Fluttershy giggled under her breath and nodded in response.
“Thanks, Rarity.”
Rarity levitated the cup off the tray, set it down right beside
Fluttershy, and then wandered off to serve the others.
Taking a solitary sip, Fluttershy turned her attention back to
the crystal ball in front of her and immediately drew a blank.
With a sigh, Fluttershy sat backward and took a moment to
examine the room itself, trying to imagine Twilight Sparkle’s life
31
 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

“W-what? What?” she stammered, scrambling to find her foot-

ing as she landed.
“What in the hay is all this!?” Applejack barked, pointing to
the ball.
“You—you’re not even possible!” Twilight cried.
“Listen, Twilight,” said a voice that sounded just like Sunset’s,
“I have some very important things to give to you.”
Not possible.
Sunset’s ears drooped backward at the sound of her own voice.
With trepidation, she slunk over to the ball, hoping she would not
see what she thought she would see. But, lo and behold, there she
was. An exact image of her had appeared inside the ball with Twi-
light.
Not possible.
“Do you even know what you’ve done!?” Twilight roared.
“I don’t understand...” Sunset said.
“I understand perfectly,” Sunset said. “Twilight, you know
that spell that I just did. I am safe from it tethering me.”
Twilight paused, placed a hoof to her chin in thought, and then
nodded. “Okay. ...I see. What do you need?”
“We need to copy what’s in this book,” she answered, holding
up the blue book within her grasp.
“What’s going on!?” Spike called out as he appeared at the
head of the staircase.
Rarity turned to Spike with a frown. “Sunset Shimmer tele-
ported into the ball,” she explained.
Spike nearly sprinted over to them. “But she’s right here!”
“And how much time do you have?” Twilight asked.
“Not long,” Sunset replied.
Twilight flared her horn, and the several discarded books in
the area relocated across the room, leaving a clear area before them.
“Then do me a favor and hold these,” she commanded, levitating
over the empty journal from before and no less than two wells of ink.
“Alright.”
“Of course, but she’s in there too,” Rarity replied, indicating
with her hoof.
35
 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

Twilight briefly disappeared into one of the alcoves below the

bookshelves. She emerged again a few moments later, levitating a
spherical object behind her.
Spike sat up with a huff, letting his expression fall. While the
object that she carried looked like a pure white to him, he could tell
it was made of crystal.
“Uh oh. Uh, girls,” Spike said, pointing, “she’s got a crystal
ball here.”
The group packed themselves around the crystal sphere and let
out a series of confused groans.
“And that’s another thing!” Spike yelled, throwing his hands
into the hair, “Where did she ever get this… thing from anyway?”
he said, pointing at the offensive object.
“So, there’s another thing we haven’t figured out,” Rainbow
Dash snorted, stamping a hoof against the floor. “Great.”
Pinkie Pie grabbed her temples and flared a grimace. “There’s
too much that doesn’t make sense! Make it stoooop!”
There was a long moment of silence. The seven of them looked
between each other, waiting to see if anyone would say it.
“I think…” Rarity finally hazarded, casting sorrowful glances
at all of them, “this whole thing is over our heads.”
There it was. The stroke of death. In that moment, a pony had
died, truly and effectively. Their best friend was gone.
“So then, I guess...” Sunset choked, “that’s it?”
Several frowns looked back but only one spoke, doffing her
hat as she went. “That’s what it looks like, sugarcube. It’s over,”
Applejack quivered.
Sunset backpedaled, looked forlornly between all of them, and
then hung her head. “Okay. Okay,” she whimpered.
What could Spike do? There wasn’t any point in arguing it.
Rarity was right. But then that meant that Applejack was right. He
wasn’t ready, but when would he be ready?
Spike stood up, tears starting to form in his eyes. “I guess I’ll
put this back then,” he said, reaching for the ball.
Twilight still sat at her desk, reading through the journal from
before. Her crystal ball lay right beside it, but it did not have her
38
 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

in!” she said, fumbling with the handle again.

“Sorry, girls, I can’t do that right now,” Twilight’s voice re-
plied.
Rainbow Dash cocked an eyebrow. “...Why?”
“It’s… it’s dangerous to be in here right now!” Twilight’s muf-
fled voice exclaimed.
Applejack cocked her head in earnest. “Uh, Twilight, we’ve
handled dangerous things before.”
“It’s really serious business, and I can’t get you involved this
time. I’m sorry, but please, trust me on this one.”
“Twilight, darling,” Rarity chuckled with the shake of her
head, “we are going to go to see Don Giofilly together. You must
come with us!”
“…Then go and have fun,” Twilight replied without missing a
beat. “Don’t worry about me.”
Rarity backpedaled. The ears on her head flipped backward as
she let out a small and somewhat offended, “Humph!”
Spike opened his mouth to speak but found that the words he
wanted to say were locked away. He wasn’t sure what to say instead.
He looked down at the tickets in his hands again, and then he looked
back at the door. Twilight had turned down the tickets.
No, rather, she had turned down them.
Even then, the sounds from behind the door continued.
“Hey…” Pinkie Pie said, placing an ear to the door, “I hear
voices. Twilight, are there other ponies in there with you?”
There was a slight thump against the door but there was no
response other than “…No.”
“I hear them too,” Rainbow Dash said, now pressing her own
ear against the door. “What’s going on, Twilight? Can you at least
tell us what’s going on?”
“...No.”
Spike curled his fists into a ball and stepped forward. “Twi-
light, come on! Talk to us! Talk to me!”
“…I am sorry,” Twilight replied, her voice growing tremulous,
“I just… I just—I don’t need you here right now. Please. Just, go
away.”
41
 Transcend

“Twilight!” Spike cried, vainly reaching forward.

“Go away!”
All six of them recoiled. The two ponies closest to the door
had to leap backward out of fear that the entire frame would burst
apart on them. The others covered their mouths to suppress sharp
gasps.
Spike lost his balance and fell backward onto the ground. The
tickets flew out of his grasp and scattered all over the balcony, but
he made no attempts to gather them.
Fluttershy let out a whimper.
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Fine,” she snorted. “Have it yer
way, Twilight! Come on, y’all! Ah guess she doesn’ wanna spend
her birthday with her friends after all!”
There was no response.
Applejack held up her resolve for a few moments, but as the
seconds passed, her scowl dissolved. She then hung her head and
slunk toward the stairs.
One by one, each of the others let go of their own reservations
and followed suit.
Fluttershy shook her head. “I guess now is not a good time,”
she said. “We should just try again later...”
It didn’t make sense. Twilight had never turned them down be-
fore. At least, not as far as Spike could remember.
He picked himself off the balcony floor. Twilight… doesn’t
want us here? She doesn’t want me here? His hands curled into fists
as his whole body shook. S-she doesn’t want me here? She doesn’t
want me here.
Even as the others were out of sight, he made no attempt to
hurry. He descended one step, then two. He took one last parting
glance back at the still-locked door as he pursed his lips. He then
slumped his shoulders and trudged down the rest of the staircase,
vanishing with the others into the night.

===============================================

Sunset Shimmer paced around outside of the group before her,

42
 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

“In a few days’ time,” Twilight said, “I am going to take my

own life.”
There was a long and pronounced pause.
What?
Hairs from mane and coat stood on end as did some scales.
The precursors of a cold sweat formed on their brows. Hearts
throbbed more forcefully within their chests.
Sunset reeled. Had Twilight really just said that?
Twilight Sparkle’s frown grew increasingly deeper with each
passing second of silence. Hesitantly, she turned, cursed her choice
of words under her breath, and then looked back out at Canterlot
again.
“What…” Rarity started, placing a shaky hoof on the ball, “w-
whatever do you mean?” She spoke slowly, straining as she tried to
force each word out.
“I am going to sacrifice myself to stop this thing. It is the only
way.”
Rarity held a hoof over her chest as if it would help her catch
her wind again. “...Why?”
“T-twilight,” Spike stammered, “I don’t understand.”
Tacitly, Twilight nodded. “I’m sorry. It’s… complicated. The
whole situation is unfortunate. I… I…” She exhaustedly rubbed her
face.
“Twilight?”
“Spike?”
Spike swallowed. “We… we don’t know what you know.
Look. I… I uh… I understand, that… you had to do what you did.
But I don’t know anything about this thing you fought. Nopony
knows anything about it except you. I just want to know what was
so bad about this thing.”
Sunset agreed. But then why did she not? A nervous heat had
overtaken her body and she shook. After something like that, she
knew there was nowhere to go but down. Down, and down, and she
was pretty sure they wouldn’t like what they found. But then that
would have left Twilight alone.
After a few moments of reflection, Twilight nodded solemnly.
48
 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
 Transcend

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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 Transcend

“Can’t,” Twilight asserted. “As long as it has at least one pony

to tether to, it will always be able to get through.”
Rarity gulped. “You can’t seriously be suggesting—”
“It’s all or nothing, girls.” Twilight took a long, purposeful
pause to let out a discontented sigh. “Do you really want me to ask
you to die?”
Before Rarity could answer (she had even taken the breath to
do so), Twilight shook her head. “Actually, never mind. But... even
if I did, what if I accidentally bumped into somepony else? What if I
accidentally ran into Sweetie Belle?”
Rarity found the air itself lodged in her throat. What came out
instead was a long, desperate wheeze.
Twilight rubbed a hoof against the floor. “Or Mrs. Cake? Or
Princess Cadance? Would I need to ask them to lay down their lives
as well? And what if something goes terribly wrong and I’m exposed
to hundreds? No, thousands?”
“For Celestia’s sake, Twilight!” Rainbow Dash thundered.
“There has to be another way!”
“Believe me, Rainbow Dash, I’m trying to think of one!”
“Well try harder!”
“Yeah, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie blurted. “You can get this!”
“Indeed!” Rarity agreed.
“Girls…” Twilight winced.
“Twilight…” Fluttershy pleaded.
“You’ve got answers to everythin’. Ah’m sure you’ll pull
through this too!” Applejack exclaimed.
“But…” Twilight gnashed her teeth together.
“Please, Twilight,” Spike whimpered, now on the verge of
tears. “You have to! You just have to!”
Twilight Sparkle reared, spreading her wings to full length.
“No!” she screamed, stomping the floor, “I can’t! Don’t you see!?”
It was as if the next heartbeat was skipped entirely. Most of
them recoiled in dismay and surprise. Several hoofs flew to mouths
in attempts to hush startled gasps. No one knew how to respond to
that.
Twilight stood there in the center of her room, shocked by her
52
 Transcend

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
 Transcend

me everything,” Twilight continued. “It doesn’t matter what hap-

pens; I am going to die all the same. My fate is already sealed.”
“...Buck you, Twilight,” Rainbow Dash stammered, “Just… b-
b-buck you.”
“Oh, T-twilight,” Fluttershy sobbed.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Twilight whimpered. “I am going to
fail at being your friend. I…”
All of them held their breath. They looked down into the ball,
following Twilight’s every movement.
Standing tall, Twilight took a deep breath and walked toward
the window, levitating the ball closely behind her. She looked out
over the rest of Canterlot and even reached out to touch it only for
the glass to meet her. Freedom was mere feet away but entirely out
of her reach.
“One time…” she thoughtfully began, “I was taught, that…
yes. I don’t have all the answers. That if there are answers to find…
She told me I can count on all of you, my friends, to find them.
“I’d imagine that she’s in the room right now.”
Several sets of asking eyes looked toward Sunset, and she nod-
ded in meek acknowledgment.
Twilight closed her eyes resignedly. “I am going to die. But
if… if you still have any suggestions… then I’m all ears.”
There were no responses. The six of them continued exchang-
ing glances, trying to take solace in each other’s pain; to see if any-
one else had even the briefest glimmer of an idea; to see if anyone
else had the smallest notion on how they could help their best friend.
None came.
Spike’s head fell on the ball in utter defeat. “Sunset Shimmer?
Will you t-take this from me?”
Sunset startled, and then she nodded. “Uhm, sure. I can… do
that.”
“Twilight… we’ll… need s-some time. Okay?”
“...Okay,” Twilight wheezed, her voice filled with disappoint-
ment and regret, “I understand.”
With that, Spike offered up the object. Sunset wrapped her
opal-colored aura around the crystal ball and she gingerly took it
54
 Transcend

from his grasp.

Spike slunk toward the stairs. “If you all need me,” he said,
“I’ll be downstairs.”
Applejack started after him. “Actually, A-ah’ll come with ya,”
she quivered, scooping up her empty teacup.
“Me too,” Rarity said in agreement.
The other three nodded in solidarity.
Five mares and a dragon slowly hobbled back toward the liv-
ing quarters below. Sunset stood, watching their slow and labored
pace; it was as if they were in no certain hurry to disappear. Only
when they finally disappeared did she chance a forlorn look into the
crystal ball.
Sunset felt like several daggers had been plunged into her
chest. She could hardly believe that this was happening to Twilight.
Had happened to Twilight. Her best friend was going to die and there
was nothing she could do to stop it. Nothing.
Sunset heard the light tinkle of breaking porcelain from down-
stairs. Immediately after that came a crashing wave of wails and
screams.

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 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

“Is something the matter?” Celestia asked.

I am caught. I should have known that she would see right
through me, she thought. Luna rolled over on the bed and attempted
to stand. “Sister… I am so…”
“Unsure?”
“Conflicted.”
Celestia remained in the doorway.
“I do not know what ails me this night,” Luna continued, “and
I feel that I cannot speak of it either.”
Sucking in a breath, Celestia entered the room and pushed the
door closed behind her, making sure that it clicked in place. “Luna,
you can talk to me. What is on your mind?”
Luna’s only reaction was to trot over to the window. However,
rather than look down at the city outside, she stared at her own
slightly distorted reflection.
“Are you still upset?” Celestia asked.
Luna snorted. “Thou knowest I am not the only one upset.”
Celestia didn’t respond.
“Sister,” Luna continued, “I am well aware that thou have been
skipping on some of thy royal duties.”
“We both have,” Celestia replied quietly, walking over. “You
can talk to me. I can see this is eating at you.”
“She saved me from the nightmare, Sister,” Luna said. “She’s
the reason why I am here tonight. You have said it yourself that we
are together now because of her. She brought me back!”
She stomped her hooves against the floor, causing the very
room to tremble.
“And then she goes and does this,” Luna thundered, “and I
didn’t even know about it! She was here five days and we didn’t
even know about it!” She gnashed her teeth together. “Sister, I did
not even think to check to see how she was doing! This is most dis-
tressing!”
Luna turned her gaze down toward the floor. She took some
deep breaths in an attempt to compose herself. “You were right at
the ceremony. Twilight Sparkle hath done wondrous things for
Equestria and saved our hides many times over. I…” Her voice fell
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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!

***

The rotunda stretched in a direction well beyond Sunset Shim-

mer’s reach. She had never once given any thought to the frays and
patterns in the architecture, having focused her attention on the frays
and patterns of text instead.
But her eyes had earlier fallen on a particular discoloration in
the ceiling pattern and her attention had been held there since.
She could hear every detail of every report from below. It was
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 Decisive

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.

***

Applejack heard something touch down outside the door. She

stirred from her slump against the wall. “Welcome back,” she said,
knowing it was but a token gesture.
Rainbow Dash shook her mane out of her eyes and trotted in-
side. She entered to the despondent raising of heads. She slinked
toward a lonely cushion near the back wall, and eventually collapsed
into it with a long and drawn out groan.
The room was silent save for the occasional sniffle and light
sob. The rhythmic tick of a clock on the wall passed around them,
and all of them momentarily lost themselves in it.
“Oh, Twilight…” Fluttershy said, trailing off as she reclined
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 Decisive

against the wall.

The six shared several silent glances and offered nods of ac-
knowledgment.
“What are we going to do with her?” Rarity mused. “This is so
typical of her, honestly.”
Applejack shook her head and half-snorted, half-chortled. She
then let herself sink back against the wall and adjusted her hat.
Twilight had sacrificed herself before; once with Chrysalis,
once with Tirek, and now with the Nameless. Eeyup, that’s our Twi-
light, Applejack thought.

***

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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 Decisive

Twilight snorted, stifling further laughter before resuming her

writing.
Sunset rubbed her leg out of shame but let off a refreshing
laugh. “anyway, that’s what’s happening with them.”
Twilight nodded. “That’s good. That’s good. And…” she said
as her tone suddenly grew somber, “how are my friends doing?”
Sunset glanced toward the stairwell. The downstairs was
deathly quiet, and she knew why. It only meant the tears were over.
Nothing else. Except she did not know how to express that.
Twilight heard nothing but interpreted it all the same. She bur-
ied her face in her hooves. “I guess I’ve really messed up this time,
huh?”
“I dunno, Twilight. I mean…” Sunset paused and tried to think
of something but only managed to sigh defeatedly. “I don’t know
what I would have done if I were you. How could I say if it was
right?”
“It’s not what I wanted to do.”
“I know.”
“I really don’t know what else to do. I mean, there’s no way I
would let them get involved. Not this time.” She paused in her writ-
ing, prodded the page with the quill a few times, and then lifted it
away altogether. Twilight flipped back a page to see what else she
had written, but after a solitary glance, she closed it altogether. “It’s
a difficult situation.”
“I see you care a lot for them. I mean, well… Is that what
friends do?”
“Of course. We look out for each other. I look after them, and
they look after me. If I could, I would go to the ends of this world
and back for them.” She stopped for a moment to think, and then she
grinned melancholically. “This is just my way of doing that this time,
I guess.”
Sunset swallowed. “You would… die for them?”
Twilight nodded. “Yes.”
Sunset flinched. Die? For another pony?
“I’ve actually thought about this from time to time,” Twilight

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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.”

***

Sunset descended the staircase. Each stride took longer than

the last and her gaze did not connect with anything but the floor.
Tentatively, Spike stood up and walked over, intent on meeting
her halfway. “Well?” he asked.
Sunset shook her head inconclusively before she strolled over
toward the kitchen area, setting her sights on the tea kettle.
“What did you talk about?” he asked again.
“We talked a little bit about the lengths we’d go for each
other,” she said, gathering a cup and saucer before pouring her drink.
“Like, how she would do anything for you guys. Including what she
did.”
Spike hummed affirmatively.
“We know she would,” Rarity said, rolling over on the sofa.
“She’s a good mare. I’m just… disappointed that she didn’t give us
the chance to do the same.”
Sunset scratched the back of her head. “I just… I don’t get the
whole concept. ...I don’t know if I could do what she did. And I def-
initely don’t feel any better knowing she did it for me. Or, I guess,
you. Or Equestria. Whatever.”
“Ah reckon...” Applejack said, “the one thing we can do to
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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

64
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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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book is the reason why.”

“Okay,” Rarity cut in, “but what book would Twilight need?
We’re in a library.” She motioned to the entire room with her
hooves. “There are plenty of books for her to choose from. And I
doubt the stock has changed between then and now.”
Sunset raised a hoof to her chin in thought. “That’s a good
question. We have no idea where the book came from.”
“Well, Ah reckon we can’t have a book appearin’ out of thin
air,” Applejack said. “It’s gotta be somewhere.”
“Twilight’s read every book in here up and down,” Spike
pointed out.
“But hasn’t that what’s her face that Twilight gave this here
place to—”
“Moondancer.”
“Moondancer. Hasn’t she moved some books around?”
Spike shook his head, “Yeah, but she’s only taken a few books.
We talked to her three weeks ago and she hasn’t taken anything since
we were here back then.”
“Yeah, but… fahne,” Applejack conceded, crossing her fore-
legs. “Ah know this is Twilight we’re talkin’ about.”
“Then maybe it came from outside of the collection,” Rarity
suggested.
“That seems to be the case,” Sunset agreed.
“So then, the next question is where that outside is.”
“Future Sunset time traveled with the original book,” Pinkie
Pie argued. “She must have got it from the future.”
Rainbow Dash sailed through the air above them. “Will time
travel. I think? I’d think it’d have to be soon enough that she’s still
in Equestria, though.”
Applejack nodded. “Can’t be too long from now, Ah’d say.”
“But that’s still pretty complicated,” Rainbow Dash protested.
“I mean, why not just grab the book from wherever Twilight needs
the book from and then just teleport in?”
“Because then she’d need to know where it was at the time,”
Fluttershy replied.
“Okay… but... can’t Sunset look up library records to see
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 Decisive

which books go where?”

“That still doesn’t tell us what the mystery book is,” Rarity
said, shaking her head.
Rainbow Dash groaned loudly and threw her hooves exasper-
atedly into the air.
Applejack gave herself a knock to the head. “Mmkay, so here’s
what ah think: maybe it’s somethin’ that weren’t around back then,
but might come around in a few days?”
“…I think I might know just the thing,” Fluttershy piped up.
All of them, including Sunset, shared a collective glance, al-
most having a short follow-up discussion through their eyes, only to
arrive at a consensus.
Spike sprinted over to the ball and took it in his hands. “Twi-
light! Twilight!” he called.
There was no response.
“Twiiiilight!” he called again with a little more desperation.
“Yes?” Twilight replied as she reached the top of the stairs.
“That, uh, book that future Sunset gave you. Was it stuff on the
Nameless?”
Twilight paused as she considered what those words meant
outside of their immediate message. “Yes. That’s what it looks like.
Why?”
“I want to see it,” Sunset said.
Spike relayed her request, and then he looked at Sunset dis-
cerningly.
Twilight cantered over to the desk, opened her copy of the
book, and took a few cursory glances at some of the pages. “That’s
what I can gather, at least. I haven’t been able to look at all of it yet.
So far, a lot of this is a series of numbers. There’re some computa-
tions in here, but…”
She flipped through some more pages. “There’re some notes
scribbled in the margins here, but pretty much everything else is just
math.”
Sunset stared holes through the ball. The flowing curls of each
letter and number appeared familiar to her.
“Honestly,” Twilight continued, “I had my doubts on whether
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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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a bit, recently…” She leaned in to carefully discern the curls and

strokes.
And then Twilight gasped. She covered her mouth to keep it in,
but it was still audible. “Sunset! This… this is…”
“Yeah,” Sunset said as she placed a hoof on the crystal ball.
She looked at the book in Twilight’s grasp and gulped. “That’s my
hoofwriting alright. I wrote that book.”

***

“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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Within moments, the entire scene went from several disjointed

areas to one singular scene in which their attention was undivided.
“I don’t know about the rest of you, but I intend to see this
whole thing through. Maybe it’ll surprise us. Maybe we might get
Twilight back. Or maybe this won’t even go anywhere and it’d be
just a waste of time.” Sunset swelled as she said, “But I will do it.
Because… Twilight is worth it.”
Those that had been sitting immediately stood. Each of them
wore small and intrigued grins. In fact, they were almost glowing.
The best part, however, was that they were looking to her. Waiting.
As if she would give them some amount of direction in light of the
new developments.
In fact, Sunset had them in her corner as she prepared to do
something that was possibly bigger than anything she had done be-
fore.
This must be how Twilight feels all the time, she thought. And
then she smiled, finding herself tickled. This is going to be interest-
ing.

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Working

Queen Chrysalis approached a small ledge and looked at the floor

below.
Several changelings went about their day-to-day routines as
they attempted to maintain the nest. A few of them flew up to the
walls and covered them with a sort of slime. The walls responded
by changing shape, flexing their proverbial muscles, before return-
ing to their enigmatic motions.
Others still buzzed around each other, engaged in aerial games
as they looped and swirled around each other in intricate and inde-
terminable patterns. Small crowds gathered below them, throwing
around several wagers on who would come out on top.
It made her smile. She couldn’t remember the last time she had
seen her subjects brimming with so much energy. It was infectious,
actually.
Chrysalis heard a lone drone touch down behind her. She
looked back just enough to see who it was out of the corner of her
eye. “Xagnax, report,” she commanded.
Her trusted lieutenant gave a quick salute. “I have the normal
news, My Queen,” he buzzed. “The outer watch reports normal ac-
tivity on the grounds. Zharzan has also reported back about a possi-
ble food source forty klicks south of here.”
“Excellent,” Chrysalis said without turning her head. “Send
several scouts down there and take detailed surveys. I want to know
what we’re eating.”
“I have saved the best news for last, My Queen. Word has
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come that Twilight Sparkle has died.”

Chrysalis actually paused at that point. She dragged an idle
hoof across the dirt. “...What did you say?”
“Twilight Sparkle is dead.”
Had she heard that right? Her old enemy now gone from the
world? Her old enemy out of the way?
Chrysalis sneered. Then she threw her head back and laughed.
She snickered and snorted and guffawed and the echoes of each re-
port carried far throughout the vast cavern; some down below even
gave her quick glances.
“My Queen?”
“Oh!” she cried as she wiped away a tear. “This is rich! Twi-
light Sparkle gone. I love it.” She yielded to her laughing fit once
more.
Xagnax suppressed a smile in order to appear presentable.
“What should we do in response, My Queen?”
Chrysalis blinked. She placed a hoof to her chin in thought.
Even if Twilight was gone, Shining Armor and Mi Amore Cadenza
were not. And the other Princesses. And those things that Twilight
Sparkle called friends. They were all there.
Her muzzle twitched. That was a thought. But a thought that
would need time; it surely would not be realized soon.
“We will do nothing for now,” she concluded. “Perhaps, on a
later date, I will send those putrid Equestrians my regards. ...But not
now. We will continue our current trajectory. Do you have anything
else to report?”
“None, My Queen.”
Chrysalis waved him off, “As you were then, lieutenant Xag-
nax.”
The drone bowed, and with a buzz of his wings, he sailed past
her, flying off to retire for the day.
Queen Chrysalis, for a few brief moments, went back to
watching over her children. A wide and malevolent grin, one so wide
that even her backmost teeth were bared, spread across her features.

===============================================
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Sunset Shimmer glanced at the page that sat in front of Spike

and frowned at how blank it was.
The six of them—Rarity had gone downstairs to answer the
door—sat in a circle behind the hourglass. Sunset, per her habit, had
taken a seat right next to the old (but no less clean) fixture. Each of
them idly worked, busying themselves as they tried to overcome the
first obstacle:
“How do we go about this?”
As the evening sun’s golden hue steadily overtook the room,
the rumblings in their stomachs and their increasingly voluminous
yawns became more frequent.
Twilight Sparkle lay near the hourglass in her own time, stud-
ying the book that she had copied off of Sunset Shimmer with a
greater attention than she had afforded it before. Every so often, she
would jot down a note or two on some scratch-parchment on the
side.
“Diiiinner,” Rarity announced as she ascended the stairs, “is
served.” Several trays and dishes, full of delectable delights, levi-
tated behind her. The wettest steam, so thick it could be seen and felt
from a distance, wafted off the tops, accompanied by the tender
crackle and pop of heated soy.
The six on the floor rose with elated cries and even a few en-
thusiastic jumps. In rapid succession, they practically stole every-
thing away from her. They set the assortment in the middle of the
circle and immediately began passing out plates and utensils and
otherwise serving themselves.
“Yes, well…” Rarity trailed off, taken aback.
“Hey, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie said into the ball. “We got dinner!”
“That’s nice, Pinkie,” Twilight replied in a curt manner.
“Ah’m starvin’!” Applejack exclaimed as she piled on some
mashed potatoes before taking a seat on the floor.
“Heh, it’s like a slumber party,” Sunset mused, taking her own
seat.
“Certainly… um… we don’t have a table,” Rarity stuttered. “I
mean, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time we’ve eaten on the floor,
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but we’re in a castle and eating on the floor is soooooo… garish.”

Several sets of eyes attached to mouths already full of food
looked up at her.
Rarity scowled. Slapping a hoof against her face, she mum-
bled, “I don’t know why standards are so low.” With a huff, she sit-
uated herself into the circle and took a bite as well.
“But Twilight,” Pinkie Pie said, nearly pouncing on the ball,
“you should eat with us too!”
“No. I have to figure this out, Pinkie,” Twilight replied off-
hoofedly.
Rarity placed a hoof on the ball. “We are going to figure this
out, so why don’t you take a break for a second and come eat with
us?
“…Well,” Twilight conceded, placing a considering hoof
against her chin, “I guess I could grab a sandwich from downstairs.
There’s plenty of spare food in the pantry. Probably Moondancer’s
doing.”
Rainbow Dash nearly fell over. “Wait wait wait,” she began,
placing her hoof on the ball so Twilight could hear (which had be-
come a common habit). “You mean to tell me there was food down-
stairs this whole time?”
Spike deadpanned. “Of course there’s food down below. Just
graze anywhere.”
Twilight threw her head back and cackled as she disappeared
down the stairs.
Rainbow Dash, on the other hoof, gave him a stink-eye.
“Thanks a lot for the help.”
“Yeah, even I knew where to look,” Sunset said. “You know,
because I’ve lived here before.”
“Well, when was anypony gunna tell me that!?” Rainbow Dash
cried.
“Uh—”
“Yeah, I didn’t even know that!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.
“That would have been useful earlier, Sunset!” Rainbow Dash
said.
“Um, sorry?” Sunset tried.
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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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build it?” Fluttershy asked.

Sunset cringed.
“I mean,” Fluttershy continued, “don’t we need as much time
as we can get? Four days isn’t a lot of time to cross the world. Or
make the journey back.”
“I’ll need time to examine these things too. A day, maybe,”
Sunset groaned.
“So, really, I guess we only have three days.”
“Some of these things might be a whole three days’ journey,
even for Rainbow Dash!” Rarity cried before flailing herself back-
ward onto the hard plaster floor.
Rainbow Dash looked up from her plate of food, scowling
from behind scattered bits of corn stuck to the rim of her lips.
“It’d be nice if we had a way to be back here whenever we
want, like,” she said with a shrug, “uhm, some way to…”
“Do that teleportin’ thing Twilight did sometimes,” Applejack
finished.
Several eyes turned Sunset who twirled her piece of chalk
about and about.
And, after a moment, Sunset shook her head. “I’d need time to
develop it. Sorry.”
Rainbow Dash groaned and threw her hooves into the air.
“Gah! Why don’t we have enough time!?”
All of them fell back into a listlessness, idly twiddling their
hooves or taking further bites of their now-cooled meals. In short
order, they fell into more relaxed and uninvolved states.
Meanwhile, the sun continued to sink lower and lower.
Spike drummed his claws against his arm as he stared at his
plate, his brow furrowed in a focused expression. And then he
gasped. “Wait! I got it!” he exclaimed, hopping to his feet. “If that’s
really it, why don’t we just get nine days’ worth of time? Let’s have
Twilight do it!”
“What are you gettin’ at?” Applejack asked, raising an eye-
brow.
Spike spread his arms triumphantly, “I’m saying let’s have
Twilight do it! We don’t have to wait for the crystal ball because
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we’re already a few days ahead of Twilight. We could have Twilight

find out where the stones that we want are, and we can have her
think of a way to get us home! So all we have to worry about is
going out and getting them.”
“Oh... for dang’s sake.” Applejack laughed and slapped her
plate. “Why didn’ we think of that earlier?”
Rarity nodded with an impressed frown. “Doing it the old-
fashioned way,” she said.
“We’re getting our regular time loop game on!” Pinkie Pie ex-
claimed, pumping a hoof into the air.
“Uh, Pinkie Pie, we don’t have a ‘regular time loop game,’”
Applejack replied with an amused grin.
Pinkie Pie giggled, “Don’t worry, not everypony does.”
Spike walked toward the ball. “Let’s see if Twilight could do
it then go from there.” He picked it up before he finished, “And hope
we don’t have to start all over.”
Twilight flinched. “What huh?” she said as her quill streaked
across the page. She then looked down, saw her error, and pouted.
“Twilight,” Spike said, “we need some things from you.”
“Okay.”
“We need you to make a machine that will find these stones
you were talking about.”
“Okay, Spike,” Twilight said, jotting it down on a small note-
pad.
“And then, when you’re done with that, we also need a way to
instantly teleport home by ourselves.”
Twilight wrote that down as well. “Okay, but what do you want
those for?”
Spike looked up at the rest of them for support before he
looked back toward Twilight. “We’re gunna put together the spell
that you have on you. We’re really close to having a plan, we just
need to know if you can do that.”
“…Yes, but…” Twilight sucked in an uncertain breath. “I
would need a few days.”
“Yeah yeah, we know,” Spike continued. “And then, when you
do, could you hide what you come up with somewhere so we can
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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

The seven of them of them shared smiles. “Well alright then,

we know she can do it,” Applejack said, jamming her hoof into the
air.
“Nice going, Spike!” Rainbow Dash said as she touched back
down.
Rarity leaned over. “You were fantastic, my Spiky-wikey,” she
agreed as she nuzzled him on the cheek.
As Sunset took the box from Rainbow Dash, she looked at the
letter again. Part of her almost couldn’t believe it. Sunset stood there
and marveled at the box, completely unaware of herself levitating
the plate back onto the top of the apparatus. She had seen better
boxes back in her day. And she couldn’t think of a case where a box
would be anything spectacular. Yet, somehow, the fact the box even
existed eclipsed every other aspect of it.
Spike made this happen by forcing a time loop, she thought as
her body jittered with excitement. This...!? This is incredible! I have
to look more into this time stuff!
Spike blushed. “It was nothin’.”
“Are you kidding!?” Sunset cried. “That was brilliant, Spike!”
“Oh, go on!”
Sunset excitedly clapped her hooves together before turning
her attention back on the box. “Wait wait wait wait wait. Wait. Wait.”
Sunset gave her noggin a slight rap to put herself back on focus. She
looked at the note on the box again and read it over twice. A new
thought formed and she threw it in with the other thoughts to see if
it would blend.
“Okay,” she finally concluded, “she isn’t specific about what’s
in the box. That’s good stuff.”
The other six looked over at her with questioning expressions.
“The contents of this box are in flux right now, and that’s really

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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.
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It only works once, though, so use them wisely! These were

pretty difficult to make!
I’ve also listed on the back of this letter several coordinates. I
was able to track down twelve of them using the parameters I put
into my machine.
In addition, you’ll find several items that you’ll need for the
places you are going to. Each of them is labeled with their corre-
sponding coordinate. There are extras so take what you need.

Twilight Sparkle

Spike crossed his arms and laughed nervously. “I’ve never

coughed up entire ponies before. Letters, maybe, but not ponies.”
Rainbow Dash swiftly scooped up the red one and said, “Ha!
Not too late to learn how, right?”
“That’s dandy,” Applejack said, taking the orange one. “Feels
good to have a plan.”
Pinkie Pie did a cartwheel over toward the box. “Gum that lets
us teleport across the world! This’ll be fun!” she exclaimed, nabbing
the blue one.
Rarity took the purple one and gave it a once-over. “Not to
mention the applications these things would have.”
“Well shucks,” Applejack replied. “Not that I’d expect any-
thin’ less from Twilight.”
Fluttershy, meanwhile, took the last one (the pink one), and
then she looked at the other objects in the box.
“Alright,” Sunset said. She turned to the chalkboard and jotted
down the several coordinates Twilight had written on the back of her
letter. “Let’s talk about who’s going where.”

***

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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while. Sunset watched as the others gathered on the platform.

“And my transfer is in Vanhoover,” Rarity said as she rum-
maged through her saddlebags for the umpteenth time. Satisfied that
she had everything, she adjusted her conspicuous sunglasses and
gazed toward the evening sun.
“We’ll have a few hours together, at least!” Pinkie Pie squeal-
ed. “This is going to be so exciting! I mean, trains are always excit-
ing. Not as exciting as the time I went—” she sharply gasped before
returning to her smile from before, “—but I mean, really.”
“We’ll be heading over to the docks as soon as y’all leave,”
Applejack said, shifting her own saddlebags into a more comfortable
position on her back.
“Ooooh, I so wish I could go where you’re going!” Rarity ex-
claimed with sparkles in her eyes. “Dirigibles are so... so sophisti-
cated. So grandiose. I don’t have enough chances to ride in those.
You and Fluttershy are so lucky.”
Applejack shrugged. “Meh.”
Fluttershy, meanwhile, smiled in return. “It’s okay, Rarity. At
least you and Pinkie will be together.”
Over to the side, Rainbow Dash slipped on a pair of goggles
so that they hung from her neck before starting some stretches. Her
saddlebags had been momentarily set off to the side as she flapped
her wings about and whatever else she could do to warm her muscles
up.
Smiling at the others, Sunset decided to trot over. “Getting
ready, huh?”
“Yeeeah,” Rainbow Dash replied in a vacant manner, “it’s
gunna be a long flight.”
“You’re sure you can do it?” Sunset realized that was a bad
question as soon as it left her mouth.
“Hey, nopony can cross an ocean like me,” she scoffed before
starting some hoof-touches.
A loud whistle bellowed out of the engine at the other end of
the platform, followed by the conductor’s authoritative, “All
aboard!”
Spike looked at the five of them, but specifically at Rarity and
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Pinkie Pie. “Well, it’s time, I guess.”

Both mares gave each other nods.
“We’ll see all of you again in three days,” Rarity said.
“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed.
“Good luck! Be safe!” Spike said.
Rarity, with a warm grin on her face, trotted over and took him
into a solitary embrace. “We will, we all will.”
And without prompting, the other four friends joined in the
embrace, sharing giggles and blurting well-wishes. There was a bliss
about them that could not be halved even with a wedge.
It had happened so fast that Sunset could only watch. It had
been a hug shared between them, friends who had been so intricately
woven into each other’s lives. They had each taken cues from each
other that she did not know how to detect.
And at the moment, to them, she did not exist.
She was ever the outlier.
Maybe that was how it was; how things were supposed to be.
“See you girls later!” Spike called as they broke to go their
separate ways.
Two mares boarded the train and soon pulled out of the station.
One pegasus took to the sky, sailing toward the horizon long past
Ponyville. Two mares set out for the air docks, intent on boarding
their ship toward far-off lands. All were sheltered by the radiant hue
of the twilit sky.
Sunset Shimmer and Spike stood on the platform, watching
their friends fade into the distance. Even as the train rounded a cor-
ner and disappeared into the mountains, as the airship-bound duo
disappeared behind a street corner, and as the pegasus became a dot
in the sky, the two of them sat as if they were compelled to watch.
Spike grinned and then let off a few chuckles. He stopped short
of bouncing up and down as he looked to Sunset with expectation.
Sunset felt some of her hairs even starting to stand on their
ends and she too chuckled.
Sharing a nod with each other, they turned back toward the
tower with a completely renewed fervor. This wasn’t at all where
she had expected to be at the end of this day. But she could tell from
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the energy everyone had that the possibilities weren’t swimming

through just her head.
And Sunset smiled.

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Accuracy

Several scores of sparkling ponies moved about the streets below,

crisscrossing each other in varied patterns as they went about their
day-to-day activities. There were several visitors interwoven with
the crowd, acting out tendencies more likened to tourists. It was easy
to tell them apart from the locals solely by the fact that the former
were not made of crystal.
The word pristine usually came to Shining Armor’s mind
whenever he looked at the rest of the Crystal Empire. Today, that
word had not come to him.
The city looked like it did on a completely normal day. As far
as he could tell, not a single speck of dirt could be found within
several hundred yards of the castle, and the population appeared as
placid and carefree as ever. That was usually a cause for delight.
One of his favorite things to do, after all, was watch the citi-
zens of the Crystal Empire as they carried on and built their lives,
little by little; a definite contrast to how things had been mere years
before. The prospect that the Crystal Empire had hosted the Eques-
tria Games was just the cherry on top.
Princess Cadance stepped through the opening and joined him
on the balcony. Like him, her mind was elsewhere. Nonetheless, one
hoof came to rest on the banister while the other wrapped itself
around his neck.
In response, Shining Armor pulled the love of his life in close.
Affectionate strokes passed between the two of them as they contin-
ued to watch the city below.
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Every so often, one of the citizens would look up and, partly

out of sympathy, would wave at them with the quick and cheery
wave characteristic of two neighbors on opposite sides of the street.
Each wave given brought a smile to both their faces, and soon
enough, they returned the gestures in kind.
“They know,” Cadance finally said, breaking a long silence.
Shining Armor cracked a small grin. “How are you feeling to-
day?”
“Not as nauseous as the past few days. Ow,” she groaned,
wincing as another fresh wave overtook her.
He pulled her in even tighter, though his touch remained a gin-
ger and delicate gesture. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Cadance laid her head on his. “What about you?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Several more ponies waved in unison. They automatically
waved in response.
“This feels all wrong,” he continued. “For the longest time,
she’s always been there. No matter how far away I was, I always
thought about my little sis and all the cool and amazing things she
was probably doing.
“I’ve never even imagined this world without Twily…”
Cadance let out a dejected sigh. “I know, Shining. I know. I
miss her too… I… Oh stars.” She grabbed at her face and held it
there for a few moments before shaking it off. “I didn’t think it
would look so… same-y.”
The Crystal Empire looked exactly as it did a week ago. And
the week before that. And the week before that.
Shining snorted. She has a point... We’re the only ones that’ve
really changed through all this.
“And I guess…” Shining Armor softly began, “nothing’s re-
ally changed.” He took several deep and composing breaths, slowly
taking on a firmer and confident stature. “Twily or no Twily, the
Crystal Empire will always keep going. And that just means they’re
all still depending on us to keep going.”
Cadance grinned. “That sounds more like the Shining Armor I
know.” Giving him a quick peck on the cheek, she pulled herself off
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the railing and began to saunter back inside.

Shining Armor took one last look out over the populace and
smiled before following suit.

===============================================

An airy whistle had been Rainbow Dash’s only companion for

the past few hours. She normally tuned it out, but considering that
the only other thing to notice was water, she had picked up on it
quickly.
And, she decided, the constant whistle was actually fairly re-
laxing. The way the air caressed her hair, the way it swam under-
neath her, the way it fluffed her feathers, all were things she yearned
for.
She couldn’t remember a time she had been airborne for such
a length of time. In fact, there had never been a time where she had
even come close. Another glance toward the horizon yielded nothing
new. She saw water as far as the eye could see in all directions. She
imagined that she was at least halfway across the ocean by this point
but there was no way to tell besides baseless intuition.
The latest cloud finally disintegrated from under her and that
left her on her own once more. Several hour’s worth of cloud surfing
had saved her wings, but there were no more clouds on the open
ocean.
It would do for a while.
Rainbow Dash closed her eyes, brought her wings into her
body, and then began to fall out of the sky. The listless sea far below
slowly made its way up toward her. What it lacked in variety, it made
up for in freedom. It was featureless and unobtrusive, two things
she’d never find on land.
As she continued to fall, she tucked herself into a ball. Her
body punched through the air as it flipped forward over and over.
And the best part was that she was in complete and utter control.
Whether or not she crashed into the water was entirely up to her. For
a few brief moments, she even considered it.
Rather than dwell, Rainbow Dash took the opportunity to yank
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the buckle on her saddlebag. It held fast and firm.

With a smirk, she turned her attention back toward the water.
Even as she continued tumbling, she remained acutely aware of how
high up she was. She let herself fall even further, momentarily losing
herself in the sensation.
And then, just before she hit the water, Rainbow Dash spread
her wings again. Her wings caught against the air, pulling her out of
the dive. And then she flapped them again, picking up even more
speed. She sped across the water like a bullet.
The air resisted for a few moments. A cone formed, trying to
collapse itself and push her back. Rainbow Dash smirked, driven to
fly even faster. And then the air yielded.
BOOM!
The cone gave way and Rainbow Dash shot forward, now
completely unrestrained. A large, multicolored ring expanded be-
hind her, cutting into the ocean’s surface like a hot knife. The water
heaved, thrown upward with tremendous force.
It wasn’t fast enough to catch up with her.
As Rainbow Dash, in a long streak of multicolored light, sped
just above the surface, the water below parted, divided by the very
air rushing over it. She glided over the water, riding the Sonic Rain-
boom for all it was worth with a huge smile on her face.

***

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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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.

***

The early-afternoon sun filtered through the large window, di-

rectly hitting the chalkboard. Several equations and diagrams spread
across its face with barely any room remaining. A layer of white
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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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“Okay,” Sunset replied, turning back to the board, “well, that’s

the general area where the upper bound is.”
“Okay, I’ll do integration up near there. It might take a little
bit because I have to do this numerically, but we’ll get at least an
estimate for now. I’ll improve that once we’re able to improve our
numbers.”
“That sounds good. I’m going to go finish building our ma-
chine, so I’ll talk to you again later.”
“Will do!”
Sunset walked toward a small alcove underneath the upper bal-
cony bookshelves. The beginnings of a machine the size of a dresser
greeted her. Exposed boards and dangling wires lay orphaned across
the fledgling device, all of which she was sure she would be able to
consolidate into something that actually worked with the new mate-
rials.
Spike set the materials into a nearby corner and sat down to
sort them by size and apparent use.
“How much was it?” Sunset asked, levitating the ball off to the
side as she took stock.
“Oh, about two hundred bits for all of this,” Spike replied as
he set some nuts into a small pile. He then produced a few receipts
and handed them to her. “Had to go to a few places for some of this,
but I got it.”
Sunset frowned at the numbers. “Oof. My bank isn’t gunna
like that…”
“How’s work?”
“Uh… It’s going. I think we’re figuring some stuff out.”
“That’s good. How are Twilight’s readings going?”
Sunset paused in her step. Biting her lip, she doubled back on
herself. “I haven’t checked in a while actually… Hold on.”
She levitated the ball back into her grasp. A glance told her that
Twilight had gone into the zone. Rather than disturb her, Sunset in-
stead thought movement commands into the ball. The scene shifted
to the other side of the room to the very same alcove.
A similarly built machine chugged on in its place. Rather, it

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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.”

***

The spacious window at the front of the hall offered a spectac-

ular view of the ocean below. The constant hum of the airship’s en-
gines whirred some distance away from them. The room’s simple
architecture hid behind the lavish furniture, all clean and squeaky
and not unlike the several guests milling about.
The journey was slow and listless, and that was fine in Flut-
tershy’s book. It allowed her to compose herself and reflect on recent
days. This was not where had expected to end up after all that had
happened; she wanted to be back home with her animal friends. She
was positive that they were so worried about her, especially consid-
ering how she had stopped functioning in the immediately following
days.
A glass of grape juice in her hoof brought her back around as
she took a small sip. There were other ponies in the room, socializ-
ing with each other in flavors dictated by the small orchestral quartet
off to the side. A small bar opposite the musicians showcased a large
selection of fine wines and other drinks she was unfamiliar with.
“Hoowee,” a wonderstruck voice said from behind her. “If
Ah’d known there’d be so many ponies here, Ah’d have brought my
apple cart.”
Fluttershy giggled as her friend appeared beside her with a
similarly looking glass in her hooves.
Applejack’s choice was a little stronger than her own, but not
by much. “Enjoyin’ the view?” she asked as she swirled her glass.
Fluttershy nodded. “Yes, Applejack. It’s really… relaxing. The
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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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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.”

***

Sunset sat in front of the window, transfixed on the tower

across the way where, with any amount of luck, her old mentor was
currently at. She was so lost that she nearly didn’t register the ding
that sounded throughout the room. “That’s probably Twilight’s ma-
chine,” she announced.
Spike, busy installing some switches and knobs on the oppo-
site side of the half-complete apparatus, leaned into view. “Really?”
“Yeah. I think.”
Spike nodded happily. “That’s good,” he said nonchalantly be-
fore returning to his task.
She let her eyes fix on the tower. She had no way of telling
how Celestia would react to her. Or maybe it was her own sense of
shame that kept her from going over. All that she knew was that any
facsimile of a conversation had not happened, not even when they
had been in the same room during the funeral.
She couldn’t tell if she was staring out of longing or out of fear.
“Sunset! It’s ready!” Twilight called.
Sunset snapped herself out of her stupor. She used her magic
to summon the crystal ball over to her and gave Twilight a token
“That’s good,” before letting out a sigh.
Spike stretched his arms and then glanced toward the window.
The golden glow outside told that Celestia was about to lower the
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sun. He almost couldn’t believe it.

There was a grumble in his stomach and the debate was put to
rest. “I think we should grab some dinner soon, Sunset.”
“I agree with you there,” she said as her own stomach started
to protest.
“How are you two doing?” Twilight asked as she orbited her
machine, turning off several gauges as she went.
“Tired, Twilight,” Sunset said as she picked herself up from in
front of the window and headed over to where Spike sat on the floor.
“We’re almost done, but wow. I think I’ve lost my touch. I’m not as
fast as I used to be.”
Twilight giggled. “I guess you don’t build machines in your
world, huh?”
Sunset scowled. “Not particularly, though I know how to pro-
gram one. Somewhat.”
“Really?”
“Well, how do you think I was able to fake those e-mails and
texts that my friends… uh… yeah.” Sunset lost a little of her vigor
as she spoke. “I can get around technology.”
Spike hummed. “Definitely,” he began dryly, “after all, those
pictures of Twilight were pretty, uh, first-rate.”
She glared him down. “Hey, why don’t you go talk to Snips
and Snails about that? I’m sure they’ll find a few coloring books for
you.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “Whatever.”
“Well, you’re doing some helpful stuff here, and that’s all that
matters, Sunset.” Twilight flipped through a few pages in her book.
“This set of parameters you included in the back of my book really
helped.”
“...Oh?” Sunset stammered, pausing in place. “Well, that’s
good. Uh…”
“Well,” Twilight corrected herself, “there’re lots of parameter
sets here, but this one was the only one not crossed out. I’m assum-
ing the others in this book are no good.”
Sunset blinked. “You mean, in the book that I gave you?”
“Yes. Of course, finding stones is easy. I could find about a
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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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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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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.”

***

The station’s glass awning shielded the whole platform from

the nighttime rain. Rarity gazed at the architecture and smiled. I can
spend an hour here before my train arrives.
“Well now, Pinkie,” Rarity began, trying to sound as formal
and authoritative as she could, “I must be off.”
Pinkie Pie stood in the doorway to her train car with several
tears in her eyes, and in short order, they shot outward, forming vis-
ible waterfalls. “Waaaah! Rarity, I’m going to miss you so much!”
Rarity chuckled, breaking the charade. “It’ll only be a couple
of days at best, dear. Besides…” She pulled Pinkie Pie in for a hug.
“I’m going to miss you too!”
The both of them shared sympathetic giggles as they em-
braced.
“I tell ya what, Rarity,” Pinkie Pie began cheerfully as they
broke, “I’m going to throw us a big party when we all get back!”
“With lots of streamers?”
“With lots of streamers!”
Rarity smiled as the train whistled. “I’ll hold you to that then.
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Bon voyage, Pinkie. Best of luck!”

Pinkie Pie waved as she retreated back into the train car. “Bye,
Rarity!” she said with a wave. The train car lurched forward, and it
slowly but surely carried Pinkie Pie away.
Rarity stood there and waved for longer than necessary, even
after Pinkie Pie was out of sight. Even as several train cars starts to
pass by her, she didn’t move from the spot, content to see it com-
pletely pull away from the station.
She was sure it was going to be okay.
Even if one of her best friends was now increasingly out of
reach, even if her other friends would be in similar situations, those
situations were by no means light. She had no idea what to expect.
Yes, it was only for two days, but those were two days where
anything was fair. Where she’d be all alone.
Was she ready for that?
“Byyyyeeee, Rarity!” shouted Pinkie Pie’s voice. Rarity
snapped to attention once more as the caboose pulled by her, only to
find that Pinkie had reappeared out on its rear platform, now waving
at her. Again.
She laughed at Pinkie Pie’s antics and gave a friendly wave
back. Somehow, that last act had done the trick, as Rarity dispelled
those thoughts from before. Immediately feeling better, she gathered
her belongings and headed toward the waiting room.

***

Fluttershy held onto the metal doorframe. The drop down to

the ocean below was one step away. How far below was impossible
to tell, and the lights from the rest of the dirigible polluted any
moonlight she could have used.
Applejack held onto her stetson to keep it from blowing away.
She blinked like a madmare all the while, occasionally trying to dig
something out of her ear.
“Y’all ready!?” Applejack cried over the wind.
Fluttershy’s teeth chattered for a multitude of reasons. The
cold night air was only one of them.
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“You’ll do fahne, sugarcube!” Applejack urged. “Just remem-

ber to flap your wings when you jump!”
“…I don’t know, Applejack,” Fluttershy murmured. But even
she couldn’t hear it over the cacophony of wind and engine.
“What!?”
“I mean, I’m really really really not sure of this.”
Applejack held a hoof to her ear, her expression even more
curious than before.
Fluttershy paused, wishing that she didn’t have to say anything
else. After a few moments of consideration, she sighed and then
faked a wide grin.
“That’s tha spirit, Fluttershy!” Applejack exclaimed enthusias-
tically. She pumped a hoof into the air to drive the motion home
before she swallowed and hit her ears again.
Fluttershy idly nodded, still keeping a smile. Turning her at-
tention to the water below, she snuck in a gulp. The night sky wasn’t
particularly inviting. But she had to.
Spreading her wings, Fluttershy let the rushing air catch her.
Briefly, it tugged her at an odd angle and she tumbled, but she
quickly reoriented herself. In short order, she came into a stable
glide alongside the airship and looked up to the earth pony now
standing in the doorway.
“See ya in a few days!” Applejack called out.
Fluttershy smiled warmly and waved. She then banked over
and away, heading off through the night into parts unknown.

***

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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herself over her sprawling schematics, now wrinkled and torn in

several places. After examining the front panel for the twentieth
time, she all but threw the schematics aside in frustration. With that,
her hairs split even further than they already were.
With a frown, she moved over toward the newest set of read-
ings, now spilling out of the machine and into a small bin. “Nothing.
I built this thing exactly how I designed it. I don’t know, Sunset…”
Sunset grimaced. “Well, maybe it was a fluke or something.
What is it saying now?”
“I’ll know in a few moments.”
Sunset ignored her still-rumbling stomach and nervously
glanced over at Spike. She couldn’t help but wonder how long the
sky outside had been dark for (and she knew the answer to that ques-
tion was past what she could measure).
Spike wiped his eyes and let off a yawn before folding his arms
together.
Twilight’s eyes darted along the printed lines, again writing
her interpretations down on her chalkboard. Sunset followed suit,
immediately flipping the board over and, keeping her gaze fixed on
the ball, performed her own breakdown of the data. Her chalk and
Twilight’s chalk both dragged across their surfaces.
The last of the reads spilled out of the slot and Twilight imme-
diately turned her attention to the numbers she had generated.
“Same so far?”
Sunset glanced up her own numbers. “Yeah.”
Twilight immediately went to work on turning her numbers
into actual coordinates, and Sunset swiftly followed suit.
The work was quick, and when it was done, Twilight scowled.
“I’m getting the same numbers as last time, Sunset…” she grum-
bled.
Sunset looked over her own set of numbers. They were the ex-
act same as the ones Twilight had calculated. They were the exact
same ones from the first time.
And they were still not the same places that the others had
traveled to. “But this doesn’t make any sense!” Sunset cried in dis-
belief. “Our methods were perfect! Everything is working right!”
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Twilight frowned. “Same thing?”

“Same thing. I got the same numbers as you just now, but these
are still not the numbers we need.”
Twilight reeled in disgust. “Ugggggh,” she groaned, gri-
maceing as she rubbed her face.
Sunset frowned concernedly. “Are you okay, Twilight?”
Twilight shook her head. She silently gathered the papers con-
taining the readings with her magic and started toward the desk.
“The Nameless is still feeding off my energy, and I’m exhausted. I
can’t really think straight now.” Twilight flicked the crumpled pa-
pers into a heap on top of the desk before she looked up to where
she thought Sunset might be looking from. “I’ll... start a new set of
readings with some different parameters. I’ll run it through the
night, I suppose,” she said as she levitated the master book off of
the desk and headed back over to the machine. “But, ugh… I think
I’ll just wait until morning to get back on this.”
Sunset sat back with a look of chagrin. She glanced forlornly
over at Spike to which his only response was to shake his head dis-
approvingly.
Twilight opened the book once more, took a cursory glance at
the back pages, slid some dials on the machine, and then pushed a
button. The apparatus whirred to life once more, whining as it went
through its search.
Satisfied (but only just), she carefully laid her book beside the
machine and then headed toward the stairs. “I’m going to bed, Sun-
set.”
Sunset sighed and let herself slump down dejectedly. “…Okay,
Twilight. Go get some rest. I’ll see you in the morning.”
Twilight smiled weakly before turning toward the stairs. Si-
lently, she drifted down and out of sight.
Without another moment’s hesitation, Sunset nearly threw the
ball onto the floor beside her before retreating into herself, burying
her face into her hooves and curling into a ball. “...Buck,” she mut-
tered under her breath.
Spike shook his head. “Sunset?” he asked, walking over. “Are
you okay?”
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Sunset let out a long deep sigh. “…No.”

He rubbed the scales on the back of his neck, his expression
uncertain. “What… what does this mean?”
“I’m really scared right now, Spike, because I don’t know what
this means!” she blurted, throwing her hooves into the air. “Maybe
it’s just Twilight is using the wrong set of parameters right now and
she’ll use the right ones later, but that would mean that the book is
wrong. Or maybe the book is right and she sent us the wrong num-
bers on accident. I just, I don’t know; it could be anything!”
“She has to be able to come up with those numbers, though!”
Spike countered. “Because ‘Is, was, will be!’”
“How!?”
Spike flinched. “U-u-uh, I-I don’t know.”
“Yes!” Sunset snapped. “That’s the whole point! We should
know how to do this! That was our way to do this and it didn’t work!
We can’t say if our numbers are correct!”
Spike trembled. The thought seemed to hit him like a piece of
cobblestone. His features contorted into an aghast expression, and
his hands balled into shaky fists as he tried to contain himself. “S-
so…” he said worriedly, “we might have sent them to the wrong
places?”
“Yes, Spike…” Sunset trailed off, shuddering. “We have to
deal with the very real possibility that we’ve sent Twilight’s friends
out all by themselves to Celestia knows where for nothing.”

***

Several thunderclouds raged on beneath her, and Rainbow

Dash knew she could use none of them. The singe marks on the bot-
toms of her legs attested to that. She could only see the faint outlines
of ominous shapes against the light of the moon, though those
shapes would occasionally flash with bright white lights.
She had learned her lesson from the last few times she had al-
most been struck.
The last she had checked, she was still out in the middle of the
ocean, and she had not had a moment’s rest in hours. Her wings felt
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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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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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It had been destroyed in a battle and then eventually removed; that

site was now a hole in the ground. She knew that tree had been a
part of the town since before she was born, but it had recently be-
come undeniably attached to Twilight Sparkle’s image. That tree
was now gone and dead.
A new tree, a crystal tree, sprang out of the ground not far from
there. Today, she had special reason to frown at it: no flowers re-
mained around the tree. Mayor Mare was surprised at how often she
had been frowning lately. She wasn’t the only one; she had noticed
that, every so often, everypony would stop and look up at the castle
above the town with crestfallen expressions.
After all, she found it hard to forget when a reminder towered
over the rest of the town.
She placed a hoof against the curtains. Her job was to know
Ponyville in and out. She had been doing just that for years. At the
moment, she could not recognize what town lay outside her window.

===============================================

Pinkie Pie watched an earth pony lay a pocket compass onto

the corner of a map. Smoothing the paper out, he looked up through
eternally cracked and dirtied glasses.
“Miss Pinkie,” he began with a deep-throttled voice, “the place
you’re looking to go to is a bit difficult to travel to.”
Pinkie Pie frowned dramatically. “But come ooooon,” she
whined, “there’re artifacts that I need to get! This is not how you
archeologist.”
Stone Obelisk took a brief glance up the thick mist over the
Crystal Mountains behind him. “I might be willing to go with you,
but then again, I am the lead expeditionist in my party, and as such,
I will not separate from my students for no good reason. And be-
sides…” he said, glancing back at her with a contemptuous scowl,
“you’re not even a part of this research expedition. I can hardly be-
lieve you even found our camp…”
Two younger unicorns, who had been examining a set of rocks
at another folding table nearby, glanced up at them.
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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—”

***

“Like that, silly,” Pinkie Pie said.

Stone Obelisk raised a bewildered eyebrow. He scanned the
surroundings and shook his head. “And here I thought you had gone
quiet…”
She groaned and cracked her neck. “Are we there yet…?”
“Nearly. There should be a cave just over that ridge,” he ex-
plained, trotting up the incline.
“Okie dokie lokie...” she wheezed.
The higher up the ridge they climbed, the more she found her-
self fighting for air. While Stone Obelisk took it in stride, Pinkie Pie
felt herself grow heavier and heavier by the second. Eventually, she
practically dragged her hooves through the dirt.
I want to crawl there sooooo baaad, she thought.
The hill eventually crested and the spry professor nearly
bounded to the apex.
Slowly, amidst many heavy pants and breaths, Pinkie Pie
caught up with him. She promptly collapsed into the dirt.
“Ho, Pinkie!” he exclaimed, almost bursting at the seams, “we
are almost there! Do not lose heart just yet.”
She squinted. She could make out the faint outline of a for-
mation through the white, ambient fog. The smallest grin pursed her
lips.
“Auh, I just, hah, need a moment,” she said as she reached into
her tangle of a mane and procured a small and shiny flask. Quickly,
she tipped it over, slurping the orange juice as it poured out.
The professor smiled demurely.
After a moment, Pinkie Pie replaced the flask and stood up.
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“Well, thanks for getting me this far, at least!”

“Mmmmyes. However, I am curious,” he said inquisitively. “I
am assuming that you have a good idea of what it will appear like,
but say we enter that cave and it is revealed that the cave does not
descend far enough.” He cocked an eyebrow. “You did mention that
these objects are typically found underground.”
Tentatively, Pinkie Pie reached into her saddlebag. She pulled
what looked like a glass jar the size of a muffin. Within it swirled a
vortex of magical energy. She had long abandoned the thought of
trying to hear what it had to say. “I think,” she began, “that’s what
these things are for.”

***

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.”

***

“Well? What do you think?”

“Yarrr, we can’t very well put this back together.”
“Do you think she’ll be disappointed?”
“She has two more in ’er sack.”
“Yes, but two more what?”
Rainbow Dash groaned.
“Ah, she be comin’ to.”
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“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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Hoofbeard let his muzzle fall against his hoof. Questioningly,

he looked over to Jewel.
She shook her head downheartedly.
“Alright, lass,” he said, “I have a proposition for ye. The truth
be we know where ye be off to.”
Rainbow Dash went silent and rolled over. She stifled her re-
maining grunts as she continued to wipe sand from her eyes.
“Me ship be nearby. Jewel and I will take ye to where ye need
to go. But first…” He cleared his throat with a loud grunt. “You’ll
tell us what’s got you so worked up out here.”
Through reddened eyes, she stared him down and went to
spread her wings but, to her dismay, they, just like right before the
crash, failed to respond. Her snarl faded as another thought came to
her: I have no idea where I’m at right now either.
She considered the two and frowned. And besides… they’re
friends too, aren’t they? Yeah…
“Well, okay,” Rainbow Dash began, straightening up, “it’s like
this…”

***

Applejack looked up once more at the beating sun. It pounded

at her and every pore screamed in protest. She sweated from places
she had been previously unaware of and fought the urge to wipe her-
self dry.
The sand swam underneath her hooves; at least, whenever it
didn’t try to jump onto the two-sizes-too-big shawl across her back.
Small dust-clouds blew off the tops of adjacent sand formations
nearby.
With the nearest settlement a few hours behind her and the next
probably a few more ahead of her, she inwardly thanked Celestia
that the sun would set soon.
She grabbed her map out of her saddlebag. The landscape of
dunes stretched for miles around. Ah think I’m in the right spot, she
nonetheless thought, checking back and forth between the map in
her hooves and the sand beneath her. Or, ’least Ah’m mighty close.
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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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The pegasus nodded. “Well, uhm, thanks. But I really didn’t

know...”
Charlok spoke. “We don’t fault you,” Milbeak translated.
She uncovered her head. “Really? Oh, that’s a relief,” she said,
standing up.
With a nod, Charlok spoke some more in his native tongue.
And Milbeak straightened up. “You did say you didn’t know what it
would do. We remember,” he translated.
Taking a brief glance toward the hole in the ground, she then
bowed. “Thank you for your hospitality. I really really appreciate
it.”
“You... welcome,” Charlok himself replied with a smile.

***

Spike shook his head and glanced over at several calculus

books on the side. He trailed over an intermediate algebra book as
well and then to the beginner’s mathematics book in his hands. With
a shake of his head, he threw it over his shoulder and ambled back
to where Sunset stood.
How do they do it? he thought.
He took a seat next to the ball, letting his eyes wander toward
the chalkboard as Sunset put the finishing touches on yet another
differential equation, whatever that was.
“Uh-huh,” Twilight said as she flipped through another large
tome, jotting down notes on a sheet of paper. “I… I had difficulties
with that too at first. It’s really interesting that they exist over there.
I mean, they even act the same too!”
Sunset backed away from the chalkboard, shook her forehoof
with a snort and pointed “Yes!” before she turned and took a seat
next to Spike. Flashing him a brief smile, she placed her hoof on the
crystal ball. “You should’ve seen me the first time I met Principal
Celestia. I nearly flipped!”
Spike chuckled. “You two talking about Canterlot High?”
Sunset nodded and stifled a chuckle. “Yup.”
“Oh, yeah.” Twilight giggled. “I have so many questions
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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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Sunset swore as she backpedaled, bumping into the chalkboard

and sending it crashing to the floor.
“You have got to be kidding me! You have to!”
“There’s no way!” Spike cried, scrambling to his feet. “I just…
she can’t be in an alternate world. Right?”
Sunset held a hoof over her mouth. Her eyes oscillated back
and forth as the hairs on her mane and coat stood on their ends.
“…Right?” Spike asked.
Sunset didn’t respond.
Twilight ruffled her feathers as she stood up.
Spike looked between the mare in the room and the mare in
the ball. His free hand balled into a tight fist “But… but… she’s
right there!” he yelled. “That’s Canterlot there! That’s Twilight
there! That’s what our world looks like!”
Silent stares were all he received in return.
He pointed into the ball. “That’s not an alternate world! E-
every time we’ve gone to some other world—and believe me, it
wasn’t just Canterlot High either—they’ve been totally different!”
“It doesn’t have to be ‘totally different,’” Twilight countered
coldly. “It could be in something small. It could be the difference
between your world and my world is a street sign or… Mayor Mare
could be a pegasus, or…”
Sunset swallowed and placed her hoof on the ball. “…O-or it
c-could be that… our sets of coordinates are different.”
Twilight let out a long snort as she stalked over to the window
again. She kicked at the floor, and her wings refused to sit comfort-
ably at her sides. She summoned the ball after her with her magic
and she spoke softly. “…Yes. That would do it. It’s entirely possible
that I live in an Equestria, one… that’s like yours in every way…
except that my coordinates are not your coordinates.”
Spike growled tightened his grip on the ball.
Sunset shivered without discernable end. Her teeth chattered,
her eyes fluttered, and her movements were jerky. She slipped off
the ball and retreated, backing away one long and strained step at a
time.
Finally, she turned. And then she ran. She ran down the stairs
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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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Sunset’s frown grew even deeper before she snorted and

averted her gaze. “I can’t deal with all of this. I don’t know how.”
Spike nodded solemnly but did not respond.
“I… I don’t know what I’m doing. I want to buck something.
I want to curl up into a ball and cry myself to sleep. I want to hurt
myself. I want to hurt someone else. I want to leave. And you know
what I think?” Sunset paused to suck in a huge breath. “I think I
actually don’t know what I want.”
She lifted a hoof to her mouth and chewed on it for a few mo-
ments. “Is this what it feels like when someone dies?” she asked.
Spike hesitated. “…Uh—”
She swiveled around and stared daggers at him. “Is this. What
happens. When someone dies?”
He stood rooted to the spot for many moments. I don’t know,
he thought as he twiddled his claws together. This is the first time
it’s happened to me either. What do I tell her? He swallowed, “Sun-
set, I…”
Sunset gritted her teeth. “S-say we succeed,” she said with a
huff, “We get all the stones we want and we end up saving Twilight’s
life? But that Twilight in that ball might be from an alternate world.
So even if we save her, our Twilight is still dead.
“Twilight dying was bad enough, but I’m making everything
worse because I can’t let go!” she exclaimed, stomping the floor.
“I’m driving myself insane because I can’t let go of the fact that
she’s dead and I’m dragging you and everypony else down with me!
Do you hear me!? I’ve screwed up everything because I can’t let
go!”
Her horn glowed ablaze and her eyes turned white-hot. Her
mane flowed in all directions as it too glowed increasingly brighter.
“And what happens if another one of my friends suddenly dies,
huh!? How bad are things going to get then!?”
No, Sunset, no! Spike thought. Don’t do this! Please don’t do
this!
Sunset’s aura now likened her to a miniature sun. “If this is
what happens when you have friends and you end up losing them,”
she boomed, “then maybe I’d be better off not having friends! I want
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to go back to being the old me!”

Oh my Celestia! Spike thought. He took a wayward step back-
ward before ducking underneath his arms. What was she going to
do? Burn him alive? Hit him with a megaspell? Throw him out the
window? The option for talking, feeble before, now shriveled up en-
tirely. He steeled himself.
But nothing came.
He peered up from underneath his arms.
What he saw instead was a statue of a mare on the altar. She
had her hooves glued to her mouth like she had just uttered a blas-
phemous joke in front of Celestia’s face. The color had drained from
her muzzle, and bit by bit, she started to shake.
“I don’t mean that,” she said, hyperventilating, “I-I-I-I d-don’t
mean that.”
Spike sighed and dropped his shoulders. “Sunset.”
“I don’t mean that.” She quivered and shrunk backward. “I d-
don’t mean that. I don’t mean that.”
He took a step forward. “Sunset!”
“I’m sorry! I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—”
“Sunset Shimmer!” Spike yelled, his voice near cracking,
“Listen to me!”
She cringed, trembling like a leaf in the wind. But where her
quick succession of breaths had echoed through the room before,
now she lay deathly silent.
Spike let out a long sigh and approached her, testing his first
steps to see if she would shy away before picking up the pace.
He collided with her. His arms took her into a tight and con-
clusive embrace. He didn’t let go even as Sunset swayed to and fro
within his grasp and sucked in several short breaths as she went (alt-
hough both eventually began to subside).
“I’m here, okay?” he said.
She laid her head on top of him and let out a long and weary
sigh. He stroked her back like he would have done with the Cake’s
toddlers.
“How do I deal with this, Spike?” she said with a broken voice.
Spike shook his head. “I’m sorry, Sunset, I just don’t know.”
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“Then what do I do?”

“Hmmm?”
“Spike, y-you’re the only friend I have here. What do I do—”
Spike blinked. “But I’m not,” he interrupted as he pulled away
and grabbed her by the cheeks, fixing his gaze with hers. “You have
a few friends here too. Remember?”
Sunset flinched, looking around the room like she was search-
ing for something. “You mean them? No. Those are Twilight’s
friends. Not mine…”
“But they are your friends.”
“No they’re not.”
“Yes they are,” Spike replied with a harder voice than before.
“Sure, maybe they’re not as close to you are they are with Twilight.
Maybe they aren’t the same as your friends from Canterlot High.
But they still think of you as a friend.
“And trust me, we’re all happy that you’re here.”
Sunset snorted. “I don’t know… it just doesn’t feel that way.”
Spike chuckled and crossed his arms. “We’re all in a bad way.
That’s all.”
Sunset turned a shade of red and averted her gaze. She opened
her mouth to speak, shut it tight again, and then shook her head.
“Even if they are my friends… they aren’t here right now. I still
don’t have any answers to this,” she said, hiding behind her hooves.
He frowned. “No, I guess not.”
He tapped his foot against the floor and drummed his fingers
against his arm while turning his mental wheels. A long-cooked re-
sponse then came to him. “But I know somepony who does.”
Sunset peered up at him questioningly.
Spike’s gaze drew to a tower outside one of the windows. He
followed it upwards where it stretched outside the frame. “And ya
know… I think she’d like to talk to you too.”
She bit her lip and looked over at the tower as well. She wiped
a drop from her eyes and nodded solemnly. “I guess you’re right. It’s
probably time. …I probably should have done it days ago.”
Spike nodded.
“Just not right now,” she said, twisting the curl in her mane.
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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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Normally, Sunset remembered, the pair of guards would have

flanked the large ornate door. Tonight, however, they directly barred
it. “The Princess has already made her position clear,” one of them
said with an indifferent scowl. “You’ll have to come back later.”
Sunset shifted uncomfortably. “No, please. I must see her.
It’s… it’s very important.”
“We are very sorry, miss. You must come back later.”
She grit her teeth together. It was only a door. A teleport-proof
door, sure, but a door all the same. It separated her from her desire;
a few feet away, but somehow incomprehensibly out of reach.
It had to be providence. Somehow, even after several dreams
in the night, this was what she wanted. She wanted the door to be
closed. Sunset retreated a few steps. Besides, she had no way of
knowing whether she’d get a favorable reaction. A few more steps
back and she’d be on her way back to the tower. It was the perfect
ending.
The guard looked over Sunset’s shoulder. “Not even you, Prin-
cess Luna.”
Sunset paused and whirled around to see a dark blue alicorn
looking down her nose at her. The air, which bent around the mare’s
very presence, prompted Sunset to buckle by the slightest bit.
Princess Luna smirked as she considered the guards. “Oh, I’m
not here to see my sister.”
The stallion in front of the door frowned. “Then I must ask that
the both of you le—eeeeaaaevvve!” His body glowed with a dark
blue aura as he, as well as the guard next to him, were swept off their
hooves. “Help!”
“Silence, you!” Luna hissed as she magically shook the pair
for good measure. She then turned her attention to Sunset and
winked. “Go on through. She’s waiting.”
Sunset looked back and forth between the alicorn princess and
the guard-turned-captives, and she frowned. Oh for Celestia’s sake,
she just had to do that, didn’t she? Oh good… Oh good…
She took a step toward the door, and then took two steps back.
After taking one last fleeting glance at Luna, Sunset sighed. The
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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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And Celestia drew a deep breath. “Sunset…”

Sunset flinched. “C-Celestia…”
Celestia inched forward. “My stars,” she said, barely above a
whisper, “you’ve returned... You’ve finally returned to me…”
Sunset flinched again. She stood, even more wide-eyed than
before. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be true. But it was true. Never in
her wildest dreams. Not after what she did.
And then Sunset let a tear fly down her face. And then another.
Sunset surged forward. She galloped into a full sprint. She
bounded straight into Celestia’s receiving embrace.
The sound of the door closing behind her went through one ear
and out the other. The two of them exchanged jubilated shouts and
bawling exclamations before they settled for weeping into each
other.

***

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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Sunset gasped under her breath. Broken.

He’s in another world. And he’s as good as gone!
“But how lucky am I…?” Celestia said.
“Huh?”
Celestia laughed the sort of long laugh that shook her entire
body. “How lucky am I that I had some ponies in my life that make
saying goodbye so hard?”
Sunset blinked. “But… you’re not…?”
“Of course not, Sunset. While it is, perhaps, the price that I pay
for having known him, I, for the life of me, just cannot imagine a
life where I never met him. I think just knowing him bettered my
life. My memories of him are so precious, and even if I can never
have him back, I can find the strength to carry on. It’s strength that
I have thanks to him.”
“So,” Sunset said, “he was worth all that?”
At that, Celestia draped her hoof across Sunset’s back and gave
her a grin. “Always.”
Well… Sunset thought, what would my life be like without my
friends? What would have happened if I had never met them? She
let off a faint smile. Nothing good, I guess. I’d be in a pretty bad
place.
Maybe I don’t ever want to go back to a life without them.
But… even then, they’ve bettered my life already.
Sunset chuckled before nestling herself into her mentor’s
bosom. “I guess you’re right. Looks like I still have a lot to learn,
huh?”
Celestia chuckled before turning her gaze back to the fire.
How right Spike had been. Already, Sunset could feel the vigor
from before coursing through her again. The sensation was satisfy-
ing. For once, something in Equestria had gone right, more right
than she could have hoped.
How could she describe it? Was it elation at being proven
wrong? Relief that she had been forgiven? It nearly didn’t make any
sense. After throwing everything in Celestia’s face, the prospect of
being in the same room had long left her conscious.
Just by showing up, she had been forgiven. Was that really the
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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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Broke

The low, dulcet plucks of a bass guitar reverberated around the

school’s practice room without a particular pattern. Applejack idly
played any note that her fingers happened to hit, unsure if any of it
would make for a decent song.
The human glanced at her other friends. Rarity sat in front of
her laptop and switched back and forth between her Mystable page
and some rough sketches from her VariantArt gallery. Fluttershy sat
next to her and attentively scrutinized each new design, piping up
with the occasional question. Pinkie Pie held an ear over the set’s
snare drum, sticking the drumhead with one hand and adjusting a
knob with the other.
Rainbow Dash burst through the door. “Nope, nothing,” she
announced.
The rest of them collectively groaned.
Applejack’s fingers slipped across the strings, producing an
atonal shriek. “Why in the hay hasn’t Sunset come back yet? It’s
been three days for dang’s sake.”
Fluttershy shrugged. “Maybe she just needed a little more time
home?”
Rainbow Dash dropped to the floor. “You think she’d at least
find a way to tell us if she did that. The portal’s still open,” she said
as she opened her own laptop. “I checked.”
Rarity frowned. “I guess that means we can’t exactly write to
them…”
Fluttershy shook her head. “We could always go through, but,
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well… where would we look?”

“This ain’t lookin’ too good,” Applejack concluded.
“Well, I don’t think we can really practice without her,” Rain-
bow Dash said. She clicked a key on her keyboard which prompted
a short ditty.
“So Ah guess you’re gunna just sit there and play Hoof Life
again?”
Rainbow Dash deadpanned. “Ehem. Buck Mesa mod.”
Applejack snickered before returning to her bass guitar, now
trying for a particular pattern. Things may come and things may go.
Some go fast and some go slow. Few things last, that’s all I know.
The notes flowed in and out of each other, and the rest of the
room slowed down as a result.
The notes that came afterward, on the other hand, jumbled to-
gether into an incoherent mess. She briefly tried to return to the tune
from before, but she found that it escaped her fingers the second
time around, much to her chagrin.
“Ah’m still worried ’bout her,” she said. “Like, what if she
never comes back?”
Fluttershy folded her hands together and stared at the floor’s
reflective tiles. “I sure wouldn’t like to lose her too…”
Pinkie Pie threw herself onto the drum set. “Yeah,” she said
with a frown, “that’d be the worst thing ever.”
“I hate not being able to do anything about it,” Rarity added.
Rainbow Dash snorted. “The only thing we can do is wait.
Dammit.”
Applejack crossed her arms and nodded. She turned her gaze
to the window. Gosh, Sunset, Ah hope you’re safe…

===============================================

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!”

***

Spike chuckled to himself. The mare beside him nearly

skipped through the halls of the castle. In fact, he almost mistook
her for outright floating. In short order, his steps started to match.
“I’m guessin’ it went really well, huh?” he asked with a laugh.
Sunset Shimmer giggled. “You bet it did. I’m really glad that
I went.”
“That’s great!” he exclaimed as they rounded the corner.
A hallway full of doors greeted them, most of which Spike
knew were locked. One opening, however, hosted a set of crisscross-
ing metal bars instead.
“Oh, great,” Sunset growled. Her ears folded back as she fur-
rowed her brow.
Spike grinned and held up a golden option. “I have the key.”
Sunset frowned. “…Oh, right. Yeah.”
Chuckling, Spike placed the key into the steel lock and turned
it once. It clicked loudly and the gate swung open with a metallic
shriek.
Even with the colorful selection of tomes and scrolls on
shelves orbiting the hourglass in the middle, the amount of brown in
the room struck him first. Just looking at it made him yawn and he
had to fight a sudden heavy feeling in his eyes.
And then he sneezed. Twice even. He looked around once
more and ran his finger across one of the shelves, streaking through
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a thin layer of dust on the surface.

“Okay,” he said, squeezing the clinging dust off, “if I remem-
ber... the time spell that we used is over on that shelf there.”
The two crossed the library to the shelf in question and Sunset
used her magic to grab a rolled-up piece of parchment off the top.
She glanced at it quizzically and shook her head before replacing it
amidst the others. The second and third turned out negative as well.
On the fourth, she let out an intrigued, “Hmmmmm.”
“Find it?” he asked.
Sunset chuckled. “Nono. This isn’t it. Although... I didn’t
know you could do that with gravity.”
Spike laughed. “Yeah.”
She searched through a few more before she exclaimed, “Ah!
Here it is!”
He gave a toothy grin. “Cool! You have the time spell now.”
Sunset gave a cursory glance over the contents. “Huh, this is
neat. I thought this spell would be more complicated, although...”
she said as she ran her eyes down the page again, “this looks like it’s
just a modified teleportation spell at its core that has an additional
time component.”
Spike shrugged. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“…Okay.”
Sunset chuckled. “Well… Mind you, this is still a pretty com-
plex spell by normal standards. But, heh, this is foal’s play compared
to the spell we’re putting together.”
Spike grunted and shot his hand into the air. “Speakin’ of, I
was thinking. It kinda looks like that spell you and Twilight are put-
ting together is really, like, all over the place. Twilight’s good, but
I’m not sure she’s that good.”
Sunset rolled her eyes, “Oh, she’ll probably just pre-cast it.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “…Uh? What?”
“Pre-casting? You know…?”
Spike frowned.
Sunset groaned and slapped her forehead. “How do you not
know what pre-casting is?
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Spike deadpanned. “Well duh, dragons don’t use magic.”

She scoffed and nearly pulled her own face off. “Fine, what-
ever. Pre-casting…” She took a moment to take a deep breath and
twiddle her mane. “Most of the time, when you do magic, you per-
form the spell as you cast it,” she explained. “Most spells are really
simple anyway so regular casting is the most convenient, plus you
can change it up on the fly. But with pre-casting, you build the entire
spell beforehand, and then you cast it.”
“Sooooo, it’s kinda like you’re planning it out before you per-
form it, right?”
“Exactly. You can change the spell however you want, but the
catch is that once you cast, you have to commit to the entire length
of whatever you made.”
Spike nodded. “Mmkay, I think I see. I guess that’d be useful
for something that big, huh?”
“Yup,” Sunset said, turning her attention back to the time
travel spell. “It’s also the basis for computational magic.”
Spike gasped. “Oh! That!” he exclaimed, snapping his fingers.
“That’s number twenty-two. Now I get it!”
“Uh-huh. So like for this one…”
Sunset flared her horn and concentrated on the scroll in front
of her. A ball of light containing a patterned maelstrom of ethereal
energy appeared above her head. The swirls took the shape of blobs
at first, but as she concentrated, the shapes that orbited around the
core became more jagged, more robust, and more diversified in their
construction.
“All I have to do is touch my horn to this, and I’ll be on my
way to the past.”
But that wouldn’t be a good idea! Spike thought. He pointed
at the scroll, “Yeah, uh, you might want to read that.”
Sunset buried her face into the scroll again. She read it from
top to bottom as her built spell floated just above her head, ready for
casting. “You can only do this spell once per lifetime,” she mur-
mured, parroting a line off of the bottom. “So once I perform this, I
won’t be able to do it ever again.”
The ball of energy fizzled out. Sunset chuckled nervously and
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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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disturbing lack of footholds up to the opening as well.

“It’s in there?” she asked.
Stone Obelisk nodded sagely, brushing some dust off his lapel.
“Yes. Both your stone and the being guarding it are in there.”
Pinkie Pie nodded. “Welp, here we are then. This is it.”
Stone Obelisk raised his eyebrow. “The end of the line.”
Pinkie Pie narrowed her eyes and smirked. “My entire last four
days have led to this moment.”
Stone Obelisk reached into his saddlebag and pulled out a pur-
ple orb. “Well, in that case, you will want this.”
Pinkie Pie grinned. She placed the stone into her saddlebag and
simultaneously fished out another object. It was large, circular, and
somehow bigger than the saddlebag itself. Pinkie Pie threw her
trampoline under the opening.
Stone Obelisk looked on in abject horror as she then procured
a large and curly musical instrument out of the very same saddlebag.
She carefully placed the sousaphone on the ground.
He adjusted his glasses once, and then took them off to clean
them. After replacing them on his face, he blinked several times and
then mumbled something about buying new ones.
“I packed them because I knew I would need them,” Pinkie Pie
explained.
“Y-yes, I can see that. I-I think I’ll need to contemplate every-
thing I’ve ever known after witnessing that.”
Pinkie Pie honked him on the nose. “It’s just a saddlebag,
silly!”
He deadpanned. “Then I’ll have to dedicate the rest of my life
to understanding that saddlebag of yours. …After I study the sto-
nes.”
Pinkie Pie giggled.
“I must say,” he said, straightening his collar, “this has been
very engaging. I’m very glad to have come on this small adventure
with you.” He smiled and tipped his pith. “Farewell, Pinkie Pie.”
With that, the earth pony turned and trotted off into an opening
in the rocks behind them. His hoofsteps faded into the distance, and
soon enough, all traces of him left the scene altogether.
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Pinkie Pie looked between the sousaphone and the trampoline,

and then she turned her sights to the opening in the cliff face, imag-
ining what sort of creature lay inside. But then again, she would find
her final stone if successful.

***

Crystal ball in hand, Spike wound through the streets of the

city. He wandered without direction, delving around corners purely
on whim. Then again, even after living in Ponyville for so many
years, Canterlot was like the back of his hand. Several memories of
several places he had gone to with Twilight took their turn in his
head and, without conscious command, his feet worked to take him
there.
Within the image shown inside the crystal ball, Twilight Spar-
kle slumped against the desk as she poured a concoction out of one
vial and into another. A small puff of smoke erupted as the ingredi-
ents interacted. She frowned.
“Well…” she said, “I just have to let this sit for half an hour
and then I’ll be able to finish this gum off.”
Spike glanced another group of communicative aristocrats up
and down as he passed by them. “That’s great!”
“Yes. It is,” she said, turning her gaze toward the window for
a few moments.
Twilight then walked over to the chalkboard. She had drawn a
diagram of a bottle on its front, much like the twelve bottles she had
sitting off to the side, labeled with instructions for a simple enchant-
ment. She flipped that over to reveal the other side: range calcula-
tions and diagrams and a set of half-finished equations atop layers
of smudged chalk. She levitated a piece of chalk up and stood in
front of the board for a few moments, glancing from section to sec-
tion.
She then snorted and launched the chalk into the board. It
broke in two on impact and both pieces clattered to the floor.
Spike furrowed his brow. “Twilight? Are you okay?”
Twilight slunk toward the window. She tried to look over the
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walls of the castle, frowning deeper when it became apparent that

craning her neck failed to improve her view. She looked back at her
wings and gave them a couple of flaps before taking to the air. Even
then, she couldn’t keep a constant rhythm and wavered as a result.
With a loud “Augh!” Twilight plummeted to the floor and
landed in a heap. After trying to rise to her hooves (only for them to
fall out from under her), she sighed defeatedly and rested against
the glass.
Spike ground his teeth together. “Twilight?”
Twilight looked into her reflection and sobbed. “I-I can feel it,
Spike. …The Nameless wants out.
“I’m fighting it with every bit of my being… I’m doing every-
thing that I can to delay it, but…” She felt at some of the split ends
in her hair. “I just, I-I don’t know how much longer I can hold out!”
“Twilight…”
Twilight tried to reach toward the city but the window stopped
her far short. She futilely banged her head against it and let out a
distressed cry. “I guess… I want out too… I want to go someplace
else. Anywhere. Anywhere but here.”
Spike groaned and used his free hand to rub his face. He held
the ball close, hoping that he would somehow travel through it. He
wanted to hold her tight. No, he needed to. Because she needed him.
How can I help her?
As Spike continued to walk through the street, he glanced at
his surroundings. A thought came to him, but he shook his head. He
knew her. He knew what she liked the most. Nothing in that tower
would satisfy that.
And he wasn’t in the tower either.
Spike blinked. He skipped a step, which was punctuated by an
“Oh!” He looked into the ball and said, “Hey Twilight! I know
what’ll cheer you up!”
Twilight shook her head and sniffled. “…What?”
Spike reached the corner of the street and stopped there. He
looked down the adjoining streets one by one and focused on the
area around him, looking for details.
“So I’m standing here on this street corner,” he said, “and
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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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Spike blushed. “Haha, well, that’s what happens when I spend

so much time with you.”
Twilight snickered and rolled her eyes. “Suuuurrre.”
Spike shrugged and glanced up the street. He smiled and gave
himself a mental pat on the back.
Twilight looked back out the window. Without even looking,
she levitated her own crystal ball over and clutched it against her
chest.
Spike looked down. Even though her crystal ball still appeared
as an impassible white to him, she could see something. He guessed
it was still the rock cavern. She could hear their voices when they
talked, but that was the full extent of their interaction.
I’m sure she could use something other than just our voices,
he thought. I’ll have to ask Sunset if we can do something about that.
“Spike?” she asked.
Spike looked down, “Yeah?”
Twilight clutched her crystal ball tightly. “Can you describe
more of it for me?”
Spike grinned. “Sure.”

***

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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if it’s just one world, then our course of action is clear…”

The crystal ball with the number nine paused in front of her,
and Sunset grabbed it out of the air. “But not with the parallel
worlds theory…”
She tossed the flame back into the expanse where it exploded
into a million pieces, bathing the immediate surroundings in a glit-
tery coat of embers. “So,” she thought, “let’s just pretend for a mo-
ment that she is in a parallel world.”
Sunset trotted forward. “Probably the first question I should
ask is where do they differ from each other.”
One of the embers in front of her face mutated, taking the form
of a brand new flame. This one contained the image of a clock.
“Another question would be what role the crystal ball plays in
all of this.”
Another ember burst. This one hosted the image of a plain
crystal ball.
“And then there’s the matter of the discrepancies in the book.”
A new flame with an inequality sign appeared.
Sunset turned to the clock. “Let’s start with you. If the worlds
are really divergent, then in which capacity? If it’s just like in the
coordinates like Twilight said, could there be possible divergence
earlier?”
She scratched her chin in thought and shook her head. “No.
Up until the discrepancy with coordinates, the worlds followed each
other. That can be proven by the time loop that Spike caused, since
that depends on both worlds coinciding.”
The flame containing the clock wriggled and writhed as the
image within changed. The new picture took the form of Spike’s dis-
embodied head overlaid by a circular symbol. The flame began to
orbit around her head.
She narrowed her eyes. “But wait,” she thought, “if that is the
case, that raises another question: if Twilight is in a parallel world,
how did we get a package from her through the hourglass?”
A flame with a box appeared. It swirled around her head just
like Spike’s flame did.
She kept her attention on it, and then she turned her gaze to
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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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Sunset blinked. “We’re… all collecting different pieces to the

same puzzle.”
A flame containing a puzzle piece appeared.
“And if that’s the case, the differences of which stones we’re
chasing are completely arbitrary. The entirety of the stones will
eventually be collected. And, eventually, all of the information will
exist. Scattered, maybe, but it will exist.
“If all of that information was ever in one place, we’d be able
to write this spell. Right?”
The docile flame fizzled into a much smaller one about a ques-
tion mark. “…So, how do I access this infinite network of infor-
mation?”
The smaller flames began to orbit around the raging inferno
of the infinity symbol. Sunset watched as they whirled around faster
and faster and she could hardly tell any two apart before long. Sun-
set watched, slack-jawed, as the speeding items slowly closed in on
the inferno.
They hit. The inferno engulfed them before growing into a
monster of a fire. Sunset had to shield her eyes for a moment as it
raged at its highest capacity.
The inferno suddenly shrunk down to the size of her hoof. It
was smaller and stiffer than all of the other flames before it, but
unlike them, the fire glowed a hot blue color. Against the fiery-red
background of the expanse, the blue flame ate every bit of her wan-
dering attention.
Sunset crept up to it, sucked in a breath, and grabbed at the
blue fire. The flame in her hoof exploded and engulfed her. Sunset’s
body disintegrated and the rest of the expanse followed suit.
“Eureka!”
Sunset’s eyes flew open.
The rest of the tower greeted her. The shadows had crept to
different places in the room from when she had gone under. A quick
look down revealed the lingering smoke ribbons of spent incense
and the globbed forms of the candle bases. The hourglass behind her
was now mostly spent.
She stood up with a huff. “I know what I have to do now.”
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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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She began pawing at the ground. “Please go faster. Please go

faster. Please please please please pretty please please. Please go
faster.”
With a loud boom, the ground heaved, sending debris in all
directions. The stone shot upward, bathed in a shower of sparks, and
at the moment of its apex, it floated there.
Fluttershy gasped. Finally! she thought. Without a second
thought, she popped the piece of gum into her mouth and positioned
herself underneath the stone.
In the darkness, a set of red eyes appeared and moved against
the backdrop. With every passing second, dozens more followed be-
hind them. Their cries grew in increasing number as they emerged.
The sparks fizzled out and the stone fell into her outstretched
hoof.
Fluttershy bit down.
The gum exploded and her entire body dissolved into a series
of green-colored flames. The fires banded together and sailed
through the air, disappearing toward the exit.

***

Applejack charged headlong through another patch of grass

before she dared to crane her neck toward what ran behind her.
Several primates, covered from head to toe in hair, thundered
behind her, hurling high-pitched and primal screams at her. Their
rugged and reddened faces slipped between expressions of rage and
bewilderment, but in both cases, they glared her down through
beady eyes.
Applejack groaned. How in the hay did I get into this mess?
She looked forward to focus on outpacing them. Her saddle-
bag’s loose buckle flapped with each step, and the contents tumbled
about. At times, they dug into her side and she attempted to shrug
them off each time, but the pounding was starting to pile up.
As she charged through the long, yellow stalks of grass, she
craned her neck to look over their tops. The path ahead appeared to
thin out ahead of her. She leaped into the air for a better vantage
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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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 Broke

Sunset quickly glanced around the bookshelves on both sides

of the room, centered on the desk area, then magically grabbed down
a blue sketchbook. “I want... you to let me copy your entire book.”
Twilight glanced over at her journal. “You mean, the one I
copied off of you?”
“Yes,” Sunset said, stamping a hoof against the floor, “that
one. I’d like to copy that through the night.”
Twilight nodded. “I think… I can enchant the journal to flip
pages every few minutes. I’ll keep the ball close by if you need me
to make adjustments in the night.”
Sunset clapped her hooves together. “Great, thanks.”
“Anything else?”
Sunset placed a hoof against her muzzle as she looked into the
crystal ball. She glanced hard at the journal, stroking her chin all the
while.
“Yes,” Sunset finally said, “there’s one last thing.”
“Alright, what is it?”
She swallowed. “Twilight? Do you trust me?”
Twilight glanced upward with a contemplative frown, and then
she slowly nodded. “With my life, Sunset.”
Sunset sucked in a breath. “Okay. Alright. So, when all of this
is said and done… whether or not we have The Answer for you or
not… when it’s time for you to leave… I want you to burn your
journal.”

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 Nine
Interval

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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 Interval

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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 Interval

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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 Interval

“What’s the damage?”

Sunset swirled Pinkie Pie’s stones around her own head.
“Well, with these two, we now have ten stones… out of the twelve
that we set out to get.”
Pinkie Pie’s hair all but shot into the air. “What!?”
“Oh good heavens, no,” Rarity muttered.
Fluttershy hid her look of surprise behind both of her fore-
hooves. “Oh Celestia…”
Sunset glanced over toward Rainbow Dash and Applejack,
who each did their level best to hide themselves behinds hooves and
hats.
Sunset shrugged. “I’m not worried,” she said.
The five mares met her with close variances of “Huh?”
Sunset met their stares. “I’m... I’m not.”
Rarity gave a nervous chuckle. “I don’t know how you can
even say that, dear. We’re short. We don’t have everything that we
need. I don’t know how you can say you’re not worried.”
Sunset brushed her mane out of her face again. “Well, because
there’ve been some really big developments here over the past three
days. The game’s changed. Not entirely in the best of ways, but...”
She stomped the floor, “Either way, it’s not so much that we have to
collect every single one we come across, we just… have to do our
part. We’re ten stones further than where we started.”
She glanced between them as she backed up toward the stairs.
“I think I can make it work. So really, girls,” she said, focusing her
attention on Applejack and Rainbow Dash, “don’t let yourselves get
beat up over this, okay?”
The two mares yielded enough to engage again but kept to
their shelly postures.
“Waaaaaaaait a darn second!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, waving
her hoof in the air like a schoolfilly. “How are you gunna make ten
work?”
Sunset shrugged. “Have Spike explain it to you,” she said. She
glanced over at him. “You think you can do that?”
Spike groaned and rolled across the floor. “I’ll do it already.
Gosh,” he said, still grasping at his stomach.
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 Interval

Sunset giggled. “Thanks. You’re the best.” She turned back to

the mares. “I’m going to go upstairs and put all this together.”
“But what should we do, dear?” Rarity asked.
The others looked up at Sunset expectedly.
She shrugged. “Hang out? Relax? I dunno.”
“But there must be so much left to do!” Rarity cried. “Surely,
there must be something—”
“All that’s left to do,” Sunset interrupted, “is record the infor-
mation on this stuff, and I can do that on my own. I’m… probably
the only one that could do it anyways, haha.”
The roar of a coughing fit rose from within the crystal ball.
The six mares and dragon craned their necks to look at the object
with several worried frowns on their faces. Twilight draped herself
over her book, letting out short, muffled cries as she massaged her
temples.
Spike crossed his arms. “She’s getting worse…”
Applejack adjusted her hat. “Today’s the last day, ain’t it?”
Rainbow Dash appeared to melt into grayscale at those words.
Sunset nodded solemnly. “It’s do or die time.”
Applejack grimaced. “Auh, could’ja not say those words?”
Sunset cringed. “Oh crap. Sorry.”
Snorting, Applejack turned to the rest of them, “Then, Ah
think, maybe we oughta be there for her today. Especially since we
been out who knows where.”
“I’d like to spend some time with Twilight too,” Fluttershy
said.
“Me too,” Rarity seconded.
“I think she really needs you today too,” Sunset said, casting
another glance on the ball.
Rarity suppressed a gasp. “Say, Pinkie, do you recall what we
discussed when you left the station?”
Pinkie Pie gasped so hard that even her mane gasped. “Oh!
Uh…” And then she gasped again. “Yes! Yes! I remember now. Lots
of streamers!”
Applejack raised an eyebrow. “Throw Twilight a party?”
“I could figure it out!”
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 Interval

“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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 Interval

Spike shrugged. “Yeah, well, it’s what we have, I guess.”

Applejack nodded. “All we gotta do for now is trust Sunset to
know what she’s doin’. Ah know Ah do.”

***

Rainbow Dash batted an unused streamer, sending it to unfurl

itself across the floor. She then took a seat, shook some of the water
out of her mane, and glanced back toward the apple-bobbing tub.
Finally, she looked over at Applejack who leaned against the wall
with a half-eaten apple and a proud smile.
And Rainbow Dash frowned. I’ll beat you next time for sure!
Her gaze wandered over the decorations. Several long lines of
colored paper wove from wall to wall, perimetering several balloons
that clung to the ceiling.
Pinkie Pie pronked toward the haphazardly put-together punch
table nearby and poured herself a cup. In one fell swoop, she downed
it and tossed the paper cup into the trash bin before moving on.
Rainbow Dash’s gaze drifted toward the crystal ball on one of
the cushions. “Hey! Pinkie Pie!” she called out.
Pinkie Pie landed on a point. “Yeah, Dashie?”
“Can you roll Twilight over here?”
“Yup yup!” Pinkie Pie replied as she steered over to the ball
and rolled it off the pillow.
Rarity came by at that moment and the ball rolled right into
her, prompting her to trip and subsequently smack the ball away. She
landed with an audible “Oof!” She then stood and dusted off the
offended area. “What the deuce just happened?”
Rainbow Dash sprang to her hooves. “Woah! Easy there!” she
cried and scrambled over to retrieve the ball.
“Why, whatever are you doing?” Rarity asked, narrowing her
glare.
“Pinkie Pie was just passing me the ball. You got in the way.”
Rarity scowled. “That is no way to treat Twilight Sparkle.”
Rainbow Dash frowned. “We weren’t throwing it or anything.”
“None of that! Now, I’ll just take that right off your hooves,”
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 Interval

Rarity said, enveloping her aura around the crystal ball.

Rainbow Dash hopped on top of the ball. “Hey! I had it first!”
Rarity jiggled the ball. “Get off it, you ruffian! I am confiscat-
ing it from you!”
Rainbow Dash pulled against Rarity’s magic, furiously flap-
ping her wings. “As if!”
“Ugh! Let go, Rainbow Dash!”
“No way!”
“Tug of war! Tug of war!” Pinkie Pie chanted. “Tug of war!”
“It’s mine!” Rarity barked.
“Mine!” Rainbow Dash roared back.
Pinkie Pie scurried over with a shrill “HereRarityletmehelp!”
before she all but threw herself on top of Rarity.
Rarity’s yelp was the only thing that Rainbow Dash heard be-
fore all resistance disappeared. The next thing that she knew, she had
careened headfirst into the wall behind her. The vague feeling of an
object flying out of her grasp registered before she landed on the
floor in a heap.
“What’s going on here, girls?” Fluttershy asked, emerging
from the kitchen area with what looked like two muffins tucked un-
der her wings.
The ball careened right into Fluttershy’s face and she fell back-
ward with an audible yelp, scattering her delectables across the floor.
The ball soared over her for a few moments as small and imaginary
breezies danced around Fluttershy’s dazed muzzle.
Rainbow Dash grimaced as she watched the ball begin its
downward descent. But, to her relief, Fluttershy came to quickly
enough to catch it.
“What…?” Fluttershy said, blinking as she tried to compre-
hend the object in her grasp.
“Fluttershy!” Pinkie Pie called, leaping off Rarity. “Roll the
ball over here!”
“Huh?” she asked before looking down at said ball. She then
smiled innocently. “Oh, okay,” she said and let it go.
Applejack walked over at that moment and intercepted the ball
mid-roll. “What in the hay are y’all doin’?” she asked with a firm
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 Interval

and demanding tone, casting a cross expression between all ponies.

Spike appeared next to her and crossed his arms.
Rarity scrambled off the floor. “These buffoons are being all-
around disrespectful to Twilight!”
Rainbow Dash snorted. “It was an accident!”
“I helped Rarity play tug-of-war with Rainbow Dash!” Pinkie
Pie chimed in gleefully.
Rarity snorted. “Helped!?”
Fluttershy raised a hoof. “Was I helpful?” she slurred.
“All of you settle down right now!” Applejack barked.
“What’d you think Twilight would say if she knew what y’all were
up to?”
“Up to what!?” the mare in the ball exclaimed.
The room collectively groaned to varying degrees of distress.
“Aw shucks,” Applejack grumbled. “Twilight, they’re all
throwin’ this here ball you’re in around and stuff.”
Twilight deadpanned. “Girls! I am not a toy!”
In a single fell swoop, the entire room grew silent. Uncertain
glances passed between the six of them as Twilight’s choice of
words circulated.
Spike blinked and then touched his claw against the crystal
ball. “...Did you really just call yourself a ‘toy’?”
“I—” Twilight frowned as some color disappeared from her
face. “Oh no…”
Rarity narrowed her eyes and laid her hoof on the ball as well.
“Why ever would you say you’re a toy, Twilight?”
“No... You said you dropped me and—” Twilight stamped the
floor. “No! You dropped the ball.”
“That you’re in.”
“Yes.”
Rainbow Dash felt several pieces of water well up in her eyes
as she struggled to contain the torrent building up from her chest.
She fell backward, unleashing it in all its fury. “Bwahahahahaaha!
Twilight’s a toy now!”
“Maybe she was always a toy!” Pinkie Pie blurted.
“She’s not a toy!” Applejack barked.
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 Interval

“I am not a toy!” Twilight seconded.

Spike threw his hands into the air. “Seriously? Since when
were Twilight and the ball the same thing?”
“Twilight started it,” Rainbow Dash pointed out.
Applejack shook her head. “Well, fahne. Ah guess we all sorta
dropped the ball on this one,” she said.
A long silence passed through the room. Pinkie Pie raised a
hoof. “Uh, Applejack?”
Applejack threw her stetson to the ground. “Oh, hayseed.”
Twilight snorted. “I hate all of you.”
“Oh poo,” Rarity replied, placing her hoof on Applejack’s
withers, “you don’t mean that.”
“Of course she doesn’t hate us,” Fluttershy replied cheerfully,
“she just really really really really dislikes us.”
Twilight blew her mane out of her face and buried her face in
her hooves with a defiant huff.
Rainbow Dash squinted and stared the alicorn in the ball down.
She laid a hoof on the ball and thought it near Twilight’s face, and
there she spotted the smallest upturn on the corner of her lips. Ha!
She’s actually trying not to laugh. I bucking knew it.
“How the hay did all this start anyway?” Applejack asked.
“I had Pinkie Pie try to roll it to me because I was going to say
something,” Rainbow Dash explained.
“And?” Applejack asked. “What were you gunna tell her?”
At that, Rainbow Dash snapped to attention. The gears in her
brain whirred and clanked about as she worked to rewind herself to
her thoughts from before. A second passed. And then several. She
realized that, even after that, she hadn’t found it.
Rainbow Dash chuckled. “…I forgot.”

***

Sunset held an ear to the large, cylindrical machine and lis-

tened to the thumps and whirs. She perked her ear, imagining the
airy whine of several lasers shooting into the stone somewhere
within.
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 Interval

Nodding to herself, she trotted over to the desk. Her attention

landed on a rustled blue notebook filled with pages upon pages of
fresh ink.
Sunset sat down on the velvet cushion and summoned over a
stack of paper containing several readings and results. Her eyes
scrolled across the several numbers and figures within the text. As
she did so, she used her magic to turn the blue notebook to a blank
page.
She then levitated a quill over and jotted down her findings,
keeping a careful eye on the readings themselves, only looking over
occasionally to check her transcription. She went line by line, num-
ber by number, and bit by bit.
She reached the final page of readings and gave her notes one
last glance before she gave an affirmative hum. She set the stack of
readings off to the side and then turned to a small slip of scratch
paper on the corner of the desk. She looked down the list of coordi-
nates on that paper, half of which were crossed out.
She located one of the remaining ones and ran her quill across
it once. And then only five remained.
Sunset hummed. What should I do about the two that we
missed? she thought. I should go ahead and figure that out.
She located the two items in question on the list and decided
to start with the top one first. Applejack missed one because of mon-
keys, she thought. She was attacked not far from her destination.
Might be safe to assume they were acting territorially? That’s defi-
nitely a danger spot.
She hovered over the set of coordinates in question, hummed
in thought, and then wrote the word Monkeys next to it in a similar
manner to the notated ones found in the book. Now those that come
after me will know to take care over there.
Sunset shifted in her seat. And what about the one Rainbow
Dash missed…? She missed that because… She glanced up at the
desk and shook her head. …Because she tried to fly across an ocean
all by herself.
She felt a vessel pop in her head. “Typical,” she growled.
She sighed. I’ll just leave that unmarked. Some other version
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 Interval

of us can get that.

With that, she folded the book shut and nodded. Well, that’s all
for the moment. There’s not much else I can do right now…
Sunset heard a fit of laughter from the room below. With curi-
osity, she stood up and trotted downstairs.
She found the six others gathered on a circle of cushions with
what looked like a collection of cards spread across the carpet in the
middle. It was an organized collection of cards, even. Sunset craned
her neck to look through them and, upon seeing the design of the
cards, recognized that it was, in fact, a card game.
Only Pinkie Pie remained standing. She looked heavily en-
gaged in a grand tale of intrigue and suspense. The very air swelled
as she rose up, holding the crystal ball with one hoof and making
increasingly broader gestures with the other as she neared the cli-
max.
“…And so,” Pinkie Pie said, “he shouted to Sammy as he
pulled the steering wheel on the carriage, ‘Better Nate than lever!’
before running the snake over.”
Most of them erupted into roaring laughter and fell backward
in their seats. Those next to each other leaned on each other for sup-
port as they attempted to belay the tears from sliding down reddened
faces. This only served to provoke Pinkie into a celebratory backflip.
Fluttershy was the sole exception. She flip-flopped between a
smile and a whimper, shifting uncomfortably in her seat all the
while. Eventually, Fluttershy placed a hoof to her mouth, trying to
hide the full-on grin that had appeared on her muzzle.
Sunset heard Twilight’s laughter through them solely because
she had been looking for it. Then again, that was the clever thing
about the crystal ball; even a pony nine days behind them could en-
joy Pinkie Pie’s grand joke, and enjoy it she did.
It was as if Twilight was with them. Like today was just like
any other regular nothing-was-wrong day. How things were before
the mess. Twilight was with them.
Twilight was with her friends.
“Don’t lie, Fluttershy,” Rainbow Dash said, pointing, “you
thought that was funny too.”
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“Ooookay, I guess it was a little funny,” Fluttershy said with a

small giggle.
After a few more moments, Spike cleared his throat. “So Flut-
tershy, are you two going or what?”
The pegasus nodded and motioned for the ball. Fluttershy
looked at the cards in her hand, whispered into the crystal ball, and
then looked out at each of them. “Okay, so Twilight and I are going
to move our Surprise to Applejack and Pinkie Pie’s problem,” she
announced, moving a card around the board, “and then we’ll also
play our Firefly there. And then we’re going to put a troublemaker
on Rainbow Dash and Spike’s problem.”
Several exclamations rose up as the mares and dragon took in
the end result and threw around several variations of the phrase
“double solve.”
Rainbow Dash lay a hoof on Fluttershy’s withers. “For buck’s
sake, Twilight.”
“What?” Twilight asked as she sat with an innocent smile on
her face.
Rainbow Dash looked down at her hand. “I have to discard
half my cards now. Thanks a lot.”
She snorted. “Oh, you didn’t stop us? That’s too bad.”
“Pffft,” Rainbow Dash snorted, “smack-talk is not very prin-
cess-y, Twilight.”
“Oh no. We’re usually much subtler about that. I don’t think
you’d even be able to tell that we’re doing it.”
Sunset smiled as the two of them, soon three when Rarity
joined in, continued to bicker onward, discussing the move in full.
Her eyes glazed over the other four who happily watched from their
seats.
Somehow, the prospect that Twilight was supposed to die did
not even exist. It was as if they had forgotten all about it. Sunset
watched as the seven of them lived in the moment, enjoyed each
other, jested at each other, comforted each other, laughed with each
other, and many other things she couldn’t put her hoof on.
It was the way things were supposed to be.
Cracking a grin, Sunset silently began retreating up the stairs.
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“Hey, Sunset!” Pinkie’s voice called out to her.

Sunset paused in her tracks and looked back. She found the six
of them looking over at her expectedly. “Hey,” she said tentatively.
“Whatcha doin’?”
Sunset blushed uncertainly. “I uh, I just had a moment. I just
thought I would check up on all of you.” She took a few more steps
up the stairs.
Rainbow Dash scratched at her face. “Do you still have a mo-
ment?”
Sunset paused again. Her heart skipped a beat. “Yeah. Why?”
Rainbow Dash waved her over, “Then get over here already!
We’re playing four teams to thirty victory points and Rarity needs a
partner.”
Sunset blinked. They weren’t inviting her over, were they?
“What?”
“Come on, Sunset!”
“Yeah, come on over! We even saved a seat for you!” Pinkie
Pie exclaimed, patting an empty cushion.
The rest of them remained silent behind warm and inviting
grins.
Sunset blushed, taken aback. Her thoughts flip-flopped back
and forth between the machine upstairs and the friends in front of
her.
Sunset paused. Friends in front of her. Was it really possible?
Her mind ran back to what Spike had said two days prior: ‘But they
still consider you a friend.’ Twilight’s friends considered her a
friend.
They are my friends too.
Sunset smiled. “Yeah, I’d love to,” she said and walked over
to them.

***

Sunset’s eyes skipped across the sheet of paper in front of her.

She flipped it over and examined the contents on the back as well
before she nodded to herself. “Hey, Spike!” she called.
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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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huff. “Sure! Okay. What is it?”

Sunset adjusted her view. “Grab that paper on the desk over
there.”
Twilight cantered over to the desk and summoned a quill from
its holder. She dipped it into the inkwell. “Ready.”
Sunset cleared her throat and turned her eyes to her own sheet
of paper. “Tau beta gamma epsilon tau tau pi alpha omega thirty-
six…” Sunset continued down the sheet of paper as she read the in-
structions.
Twilight dutifully wrote down each sigil. She stopped once to
cough and nearly fell against the desk another time, but she recov-
ered each time and eventually transcribed the spell. She eventually
began nodding. “Oh, I see what this spell does. It’s going to take
what I hear and turn it into an image.”
“Yeah, pretty much,” Sunset replied.
“Huh. What’re you going to do with that?”
Sunset smiled. “Stay where you are and you’ll see.” She flared
her horn and summoned a mirror set within an intricately sculpted
golden frame. Sunset set it in front of the seven of them and then
motioned for them. “Gather around, everyone.”
Rarity gasped. “Ah! Are you doing what I think you are doing,
Sunset?”
“Yup.”
“Good heavens!” Rarity exclaimed. “You are an absolute ge-
nius, Sunset Shimmer!”
“I see it too,” Fluttershy seconded.
“What’s she doin’? What’s she doin’?” Pinkie Pie asked, try-
ing to climb over everypony.
Rarity smiled. “You’ll see, darling.”
The six of them gathered around Sunset and looked into the
mirror. Sunset held the crystal ball against her chest as the other po-
nies clung to her in kind. Spike took a position in front of them. She
could feel them as they brushed about and tried to get comfortable.
Soon enough, they settled into a definite pose.
Keeping her eyes on the mirror, Sunset thought the ball’s view
so that she could see Twilight’s face in the crystal ball’s reflection.
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“Eyes on me, everyone. Are you ready, Twilight?” Sunset asked.

Twilight flared her horn and smiled. “I’m ready!”
Sunset grinned and flared her own horn. “Say cheeeeese!”
“Cheeeeeese!” they all said.
Sunset’s horn produced a short but deafening shriek that made
even Sunset herself wince. The form faltered as they reeled about,
but they recovered shortly after.
Inside the crystal ball, Twilight also winced at the sound, but
then her horn flashed in response. Twilight glanced up as her horn
shot a beam of light out, creating a small screen in front of her. She
blinked once. “This is…”
She saw the image of six mares and a dragon huddled inti-
mately together, all with broad, toothy smiles on their faces. An
eighth face, her own face, looked out from within a crystal ball.
It was just like she was with them, her friends.
Sunset looked into the ball and silently motioned for the others
to do as well. The seven gathered.
“Woah,” Rainbow Dash cooed.
Twilight approached the picture. She reached out for it, only
to pout when her hoof passed right through it. At that, she stepped
back and decided to gaze at it in earnest. And then she giggled.
Pinkie Pie slapped herself in the face. “Oh my gosh! Wow!”
Twilight’s eyes welled up and she hid a smile behind her hoof.
“It’s… it’s beautiful. I… I don’t know what to say.”
Spike chuckled. “That’s pretty sweet. Better than anything I
coulda come up with,” he said, giving Sunset a pat on the back.
The other mares hugged each other as they watched, letting
some loose tears fall down their faces.
“I wish I could save it,” Twilight cried. A tear slid down her
muzzle and she giggled. The more she giggled, the more tears she
shed.
“Thank you, Sunset Shimmer,” Twilight said.
Sunset giggled along. “Y-you’re welcome, Twilight.”
“I hope all of you don’t mind if I,” she paused to let off a
cough, “just stare at this picture for a while, do you?”

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The seven of them nodded. “Take yer time, Twilight,” Apple-

jack said. “We’ll be here when ya want us.”
“Talk to you in a bit!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

***

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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over toward the machine in the back corner.

He scratched his head. “That… reaching into the universe
thing that you talked about?”
“Accessing the omniverse,” she corrected.
“And how does that work?”
“Well, we have more information than she does. And the layer
above us will have more information than we do. It’s a feedback
loop.” She scanned through several pages of her book, checking that
everything had been accounted for.
Finally, Sunset snapped the book shut. “It’s just a matter of
sending the complete set of information back down to us.”
Spike twirled the crystal ball in his hands as he watched.
“There’s only one more thing to do,” she said as she trotted
back over to the desk, “and that’s to time travel and have Twilight
copy this book.”
He nodded. “And then what?”
“We’ll either get The Answer from the layer above us… or it
never existed in the first place.”
Spike picked up the scroll containing the time spell off the
desk. “And we’ll either be able to get Twilight back or… we were
never gunna get her back.”
“Yup.”
Spike nodded. “Moment of truth then,” he said as he unfurled
the scroll.
“Yeah. I can only use this spell once in my entire lifetime.”
Sunset gulped. “I sure hope I can make this count.”
Spike glanced back over the desk, mentally checking each
item that he thought she would need. Yet the question he had escaped
his mouth anyway. “You sure you have everything?”
Sunset let out a long breath. “…I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Then let’s do it.”
Sunset flared her horn. She scanned the lines of the spell be-
fore her and a ball of ethereal energy appeared above her head. Spike
watched as the pre-cast took form, spawning several sigils within
the vortex much like the ones he had seen a day prior. He even tried

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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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Spike stood at attention. “Well!?” he hastily asked.

Sunset let out a long, deep sigh of relief. She chuckled once
before levitating the book onto the desk.
She then looked upward. “Okay!” she yelled, “it’s done!”
Spike looked up. Even though the patterned ceiling was the
only thing above them, he looked all the same as if he would see
somepony watching from above.
Sunset stepped forward. “We’ve done our part! We’re done!
Pass The Answer down to us!”
Spike expected to hear a voice. Any voice. Some sort of con-
firmation. A set of instructions.
The answer to everything they had worked on.
Their salvation.
“We’ve done our job, okay?” Sunset called again. “We need
The Answer right now! We’ve done our part!”
Spike blinked as nothing happened. His scales stood on their
ends and he took labored breaths. No.
A worried look spread across Sunset’s features. “Do us a
solid!” she cried. “Please! It’s time! And we’ve done our part! Give
us something!”
The crystal ball remained silent.
Spike started to shake. There was just no way. It wasn’t hap-
pening. It wasn’t.
Sunset didn’t register herself backing into the desk. “We…
we’ve done o-our part… W-we… w-w-w-we… Ah… A-Ah…”
Spike held his head. “No way… we didn’t fail.”
“Ahhhhhhhhh…! A-Ah! Ah-hahaha…”
“Please Celestia no…”
No response. None came.

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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.

===============================================

The steady pitter-patter of rain hitting the windows (or magical

barrier in the case of the downstairs balcony), combined with the
simultaneous crusade against the castle’s stone walls, howled throu-
ghout the tower. The rolling thunder shook the tower, vibrating sev-
eral objects within into a chorus of what sounded like a metallic
clang.
Spike punted one of the cushions into the wall. He watched it
bounce lifelessly off the surface before he turned to another pillow
and punted it as well with a frustrated cry.
On the couch, Sunset Shimmer isolated herself behind a
curled-up position. Her eyes rocked from side to side in a searching
manner.
Spike ignored the rumbling in his stomach and skipped over to
where the others stood about.
Applejack paced about furtively. “Ah can’t believe it…”
Rarity cradled her face in her hooves. “I knew this was a long
shot. I knew it.”

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While Fluttershy’s eyes remained glued to the floor, the ma-

kings of a scowl flashed across her features for a brief instant.
Applejack shook her head. “Ah can’t believe it…”
Rainbow Dash thrashed her hooves against the wall once
more. The resulting bangs mixed with the torrential booms from the
storm outside.
“Girls,” Pinkie Pie interjected, flapping her forelegs about,
“we only have a few hours left! We need to think of something!”
Spike held himself close. They weren’t in the place he wanted
to be. This was not the ending he wanted.
“Whatdowedo?” Pinkie Pie cried. “Whatdowedo?”
“We should have done something else,” Rarity grumbled,
crossing her forelegs.
Applejack tried to hide her face behind her stetson. “Ah was
so sure this thing with the stones was gunna work.”
“And now here we are and it didn’t work.”
“But didn’t you hear what Sunset said earlier, though?” Pinkie
Pie interjected. “She said that if this happened, then this us getting
stones was never gunna work.”
Rarity’s eye twitched. “But that’s just it, dear! If this was never
going to work, then we should have tried something else.” She
snarled. “We were foolish to follow Sunset Shimmer so quickly.”
Several gasps rose up in response. Spike opened his mouth to
reply but then realized doing so would have made him contradict
her. Instead, he crossed his arms and grimaced.
“Rarity!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed. “That’s mean!”
Fluttershy shook her head. “I’m… afraid I agree with Rarity.”
“Oh for land’s sake!” Applejack threw her hooves into the air.
“Can’t either of you see what’s wrong here?”
Rainbow Dash shot up. “Yeah! What’s the big idea?”
“You two are the ones to talk!” Rarity scoffed, pointing an ac-
cusatory hoof. “You didn’t even complete your tasks!”
The hairs on Rainbow Dash’s mane stood on their ends. “Oh,
don’t you bucking dare.”
Applejack brandished her hoof. “Why I oughta—”
Fluttershy shook her head. “Uhm, yeah. Rarity…”
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Rarity looked over with a raised eyebrow.

Fluttershy frowned. “That was really kinda mean…”
“Yeah,” Pinkie Pie yelled, “that was a really low blow!”
Rarity sighed. “Fine! But I still say that Sunset should be—”
“No. Ya know what? Fine!” Applejack exclaimed. “Blame me
and Rainbow Dash! Go right on ahead! But keep Sunset out of this!
We did what we could and what we could just wasn’t enough.” She
pointed toward Sunset. “Ya can’t blame her for tryin’.”
“She tried harder than all of us, even!” Pinkie Pie seconded.
Rarity glowered for a moment before casting a glance at the
fetal mare on the couch. Sunset’s blank expression melted her in re-
sponse, and Rarity hung her head in shame.
Spike decided to barge in on that moment. “Stop it. Don’t any
of you even remember what Twilight said?” he asked, pointing at
the crystal ball. “She said she could do something if she had all of
those stones. Sunset did exactly what Twilight talked about, we did
exactly what Twilight talked about.”
Applejack snorted. “That’s right. We did the only thing we
could do at the time,” she said with the stamp of her hoof. “Weren’t
nothin’ else we coulda done.”
Several coughs erupted from the ball. Each cough became in-
creasingly labored until, finally, Twilight sounded like she was about
to choke. They looked to find Twilight Sparkle sprawled across the
floor, rubbing her temples amidst several pained moans.
Rarity shook her head. “Well, we simply must do something
else now!” she exclaimed.
“Ah know!” Applejack cried.
Fluttershy frowned. “But what?”
Applejack gnashed her teeth together. “Ah don’t know!”
Rainbow Dash looked out of the window. Past the sheets of
flowing water, the sky offered tiny shreds of fleeting daylight. The
sun would set soon. “Well, we need to think of something and we
need to think of it now! We’re running out of time!”
A flash of lightning outside the tower lit up the room, casting
their silhouettes across the walls. A loud boom accompanied it
which made them shiver.
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Spike could feel the ever-diminishing time choking him. The

feeling worsened with every second. Somehow, he could name the
dread festering in his stomach. Spike felt his body go cold and he
looked at the downpour outside.
Where were they to go from there? For once, Spike had no
answer.

***

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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Twilight’s ears twitched as she listened to what Rarity had

said. Swallowing, she crept toward the door and stopped just short
of it. “H-Hi, everypony.”
“Twilight! Twilight! Hey! Let us in!” Rainbow Dash’s voice
said as the handle jiggled again.
Rarity furrowed her brow as she thought the ball’s view closer
to the door.
Twilight fought through a crestfallen expression and shook her
head. “Sorry, girls, I can’t do that right now.”
“...Why?” asked Rainbow Dash’s voice.
Rainbow Dash blinked. “Wait… this is…”
Pinkie Pie jabbed a hoof toward the ball. “This is when she
turned us away!”
“It’s… it’s dangerous to be in here right now!” Twilight ex-
claimed.
“Uh, Twilight, we’ve handled dangerous things before,” Ap-
plejack’s voice said.
“It’s really serious business, and I can’t get you involved this
time. I’m sorry, but please, trust me on this one.”
“Twilight, darling,” Rarity’s voice chuckled, “we are going to
go to see Don Giofilly together. You must come with us!”
“…Then go and have fun,” Twilight replied without missing a
beat. “Don’t worry about me.”
Applejack furrowed her brow and touched a hoof to the ball.
“Wait a sec, Twi. Listen!”
Twilight looked upward with a raised eyebrow.
“This all’s happened before!” Applejack continued. “Ya gotta
talk to us this time! Don’t do the same thing our Twilight did!”
Rarity’s “Humph!” sounded through the door.
Rarity nodded. “Twilight, it’s just us. This is it! This is your
chance! You said you were worried about running into other ponies.
You said that if you had another chance, you’d take it. This is it!”
“Darn the tether, Twilight!” Applejack said. “Let us in!”
“Go, Twilight…” Fluttershy urged.
“Come on, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie shouted.
“Hey…” Pinkie Pie’s voice said, “I hear voices. Twilight, are
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there other ponies in there with you?”

Fluttershy gasped and pointed toward the door. “We heard
us…”
“Tell them, Twilight!” Rarity yelled. “Tell them! Let us in!”
Twilight ground her teeth together as she stared the door
down. She reached up to turn the lock and open the door but shied
away. Finally, Twilight turned and slumped against the wooden
frame. She sat for what seemed like an eternity with a contemplative
expression. Shades of a grimace flashed across her features.
Twilight glanced upward. “But… all of you are alive in the
world above mine…?” she whispered.
Spike shuddered. “…What?”
Sunset’s head popped up from behind them. She leaned on
Spike’s shoulder and watched without even acknowledging her own
presence.
Twilight Sparkle closed her eyes with heavy resignation.
“…No.”
A thunderclap shook the tower.
Rarity’s mouth all but fell to the floor. What… are you…?
“Twilight!” Rainbow Dash screamed.
“I hear them too,” Rainbow Dash’s voice said. “What’s going
on, Twilight? Can you at least tell us what’s going on?”
Twilight shook her head. “…No.”
“Twilight Sparkle!” Rarity roared. “What are you doing!?”
Applejack banged a hoof against the ball. “What in tarnation,
Twi!?”
“Oh my bucking—” Rainbow Dash cursed before placing a
hoof on the ball. “No! Don’t you bucking dare!”
“Twilight, come on!” Spike’s voice exclaimed. “Talk to us!
Talk to me!”
Rainbow Dash turned her attention to the door. “You have to
stop her!” Rainbow cried. “Open that door!”
Rarity shuddered before turning her attention to the door as
well. “Kick it down!”
“…I am sorry,” Twilight replied, her voice growing tremulous,
“I just… I just—I don’t need you here right now. Please. Just, go
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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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the past few days.

She flipped through several pages, sighed as she slid a hoof
down some unfinished equations, and then snapped the book shut.
Her eyes glazed over toward the trash bin near the stairs.
“Twilight…” Spike said.
“Yes?”
“…Why did you do it?”
Twilight sniffled. “It’s because… I… If I’ve said it before, I’ll
say it again: I don’t want to lose you.”
“And I don’t want to lose you either, Twilight. Please,” Spike
pleaded.
“I’m so sorry, Spike, but we’re out of time. I have to go stop
the Nameless or else it will get out.”
“We could have stopped it together,” he choked. “Twilight,
you shoulda said something. You shoulda said anything. You shoul-
da let us in.”
Twilight solemnly shook her head. “Out of the question,” she
said in a firm and pointed manner as she levitated over a box of
matches.
Spike felt a tingle run down his spine. “What are you doing?”
“I am expunging all the data,” she said. “I have to preserve
the loop.”
“But the loop is going to get you killed, Twilight! All of you!”
he yelled.
“And it’s going to save you! All of you!”
The others looked up at that moment. One by one, they wan-
dered over. They remained quiet and kept their distance, but they did
so with each other.
“I chose this path, Spike,” Twilight explained. “I chose it sev-
eral days ago. I will not let this monster tether to you. Not now! Not
ever!”
Spike threw a claw into the air. “That’s insane! That’s crazy!
Twilight!” Spike took a moment to rub his face in frustration. “Twi-
light… that means you’ll… die!”
“I know.”
Spike flinched. The several words that had climbed to the top
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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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Twilight swallowed and levitated a quill over. “I… I know that

I can’t be there for you. But… I can make sure you don’t have to
worry about what happened to me. I know this won’t mean much,
but I owe this to you, at least.”
The other six shared uneven glances. A few swallowed.
“Dear everyone,”
Twilight muttered the words aloud as they made them onto the
paper.
“If you are reading this, it means I have lost my life repulsing
a great evil.”
Pinkamena snorted, trying to stifle the shivers running down
her body. In a flash, she disappeared up the stairs and shortly reap-
peared with the farewell note in her mouth.
“I had too little time to prepare for it. I was unable to think of
any other way. My hooves were tied.”
The seven of them glanced over the contents of the letter in
Pinkamena’s hooves. Strained glances passed between them as the
letter slowly realized itself.
“You don’t want to know what things would have happened
had this thing got out. I shudder to think of it, and I take solace in
the fact that I can spare you that knowledge. But I was able to shut
the door on it, and in doing, so I terminated it, permanently. It will
never befall Equestria.”
Several of Twilight’s tears splattered in several locations and
she bent over the desk for support. The quill paused as she looked
out the window toward the newly risen moon. A moon whose face
had changed since she had moved to Ponyville. A moon whose face
had changed when everything began.
Twilight looked back at the paper and cursed under her breath.
“These past years have been the best of my life. Thank you for
the wonderful memories. Thank you all.
“Your faithful friend,
“Twilight Sparkle”
For some moments Twilight considered her work even through
her sobs. Her quill hovered over the word ‘faithful’, lingering over
her choice there as if debating whether it was the right one or not.
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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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out a long wheeze. “Oh… T-Twilight… No…”

The five ponies behind him looked up to where his eyes fixed
themselves on. One by one, they screamed and shouted and slung
profanities. Primal voices and mannerisms burst forth from the very
depths of their souls at the sight. But, all the same, the five of them
eventually devolved into holding each other and crying in one voice.
At the very heart of the pillar, encased deep within the crystal,
rested a solitary lavender horn. Pristine but unattached, without a
body to call its own.

===============================================

Twilight Sparkle scanned the grounds outside the window, tak-

ing stock of anything and everything that happened to move. In the
darkness of the new night sky, only a few stray lights on the ground
and even fewer in the air moved about; the telltale signs of the Lunar
Guard as they patrolled.
She then turned and as she passed the desk, she levitated the
crystal ball over to her.
Five ponies gathered around the crystal ball to watch Twilight
as she went about. As the mare in the ball disappeared down the
stairs, Applejack placed her hoof on the ball in order to follow that
mare down.
Twilight sighed deeply as she reached the bottom. She took one
last glance around the room, pausing at several things within. She
eyed the bed on which she had slept, the counter where she prepared
her meals, and the freshly watered plants around the room. Her
frown deepened with each item that she passed over.
For a moment, Twilight glance at the tall hanger on which a
brown hooded cloak hung at the ready. With a roll of her eyes and
the shake of her head, Twilight continued on without it.
She approached the blue double doors that spelled the tower
exit. “This is it, everypony,” Twilight announced with a gulp. “Time
for me to go.”
The torrential downpour outside the tower seemed to, almost

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in response to those words, beat harder against the glass. A thunder-

clap shook the tower, accentuating the bedlam.
“At least take us with you, dear,” Rarity croaked.
“Yes,” Fluttershy agreed.
Twilight glanced toward her own crystal ball and nodded.
“Okay. I will.”
She stepped forward and placed her hooves on the door han-
dles. With a creak, the doors parted, and Twilight stepped outside.
The Canterlot air greeted her with a low whistle and a caress of her
mane. Twilight drank it in and the smallest inkling of a smile etched
itself across her muzzle.
As their hearts pounded in unison, the five sucked in a collec-
tive breath.
Another thunderclap shook the tower.
Twilight flapped her wings and took to the air. She soared high
into the sky, higher than the highest tip of the castle. She glanced
down at the brilliant city below, laying her eyes across the crisscross
of lights. Some buildings shone in the moonlight.
Twilight drew higher and higher until she flew well above
where the night patrols flew at. She drew toward the mountain, tak-
ing an occasional glance at one of the towers. She spotted Luna
perched in front of a telescope, looking down toward the rest of
Equestria, seemingly unaware that Twilight was even there.
Applejack worked to keep the ball’s view on Twilight. Every
so often, she made a correction to the course based on her own
thoughts and the occasional prediction by the other four. But the
more that Twilight outpaced them, the more Applejack moved to-
ward the cave entrance instead.
Eventually, Twilight landed on a ledge well above the city. She
took a better look at the city below before casting a glance at the
castle, settling on Celestia’s tower in particular. She smiled briefly
before venturing onward.
Twilight passed by several hut-like structures and mounds of
dirt and sand as she walked toward the mountainside. The occa-
sional table and set of tools lay around the outskirts of the site. She
paid them no mind.
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Spike walked up at that moment. “Where is she now?” he

asked.
Pinkamena Diane Pie sighed. “Twilight’s at the entrance now.”
Spike shuddered and crossed his arms. “Well… uh… I guess
we have time still.”
Rainbow Dash shook her head. “And we still can’t do any-
thing,” she said.
Twilight looked up as the mountain met her and the cave’s
mouth swallowed her whole. She cantered on, heedless of the spent
torches attached to each side of the tunnel.
“I remember,” Twilight began, turning her gaze toward the
crystal ball as she levitated it beside her. “I remember the first time
Cadance and I got out of these caves. All this time, I had never even
known these caves were here. Shows how little I got out when I lived
in Canterlot.
“And then, around the time the Crystal Empire reappeared…
that’s when they expanded mining operations here.”
The six listened in silence.
Twilight sighed. “And ponies got lost in here. Just like Ca-
dance and I almost got lost in here. I wanted to make sure that never
happened to anypony ever again.” She sucked in a breath. “I never
even dreamed it would lead to this.”
Twilight rounded a bend in the cavern before it opened into a
large chamber. Several pillars of rock held the spacious room to-
gether while piles of spent rocks and the occasional stuck shovel and
pickaxe littered the floor. Several smaller tunnels ran off like tribu-
taries on a stream. Twilight crossed the room to one tunnel, in par-
ticular, and trekked downward.
As Twilight continued onward, her expression grew somber. “I
wonder…” she thought aloud, “how many others over the years
have thought like me… and gone down there… and have had to sac-
rifice their lives just so it wouldn’t get out?”
With each passing step, the walls lost their rounded appear-
ance in favor of a more jagged path. The dirt eventually gave way
to walls of complete crystal. Smooth surfaces of all different shades
of color fit together like puzzle pieces. Every piece let off a soft and
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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.

***

Sunset Shimmer wiped her brow and flipped the chalkboard

over. She flared her horn again and sifted through the pile of broken
chalk pieces on the floor. She then used her prize, a mere stubble of
a piece, and drew out a new equation.
The numbers practically flew off her hoof and the calculations
did themselves. But the more and more she wrote, the more she rec-
ognized the series of numbers. Again.
Sunset dug her head into the journal that contained all the work
she had done over the past few days, again. With a frustrated groan,
she wound up to throw the chalk against the board. Again.
The torrential rain gave the windows an extra battering at that
moment, prompting Sunset to whirl around before she could follow
through. She felt at the pounding heart in her chest before she
glanced at the water cascading down the windows.
Calm down, Sunset… just stay calm! she thought to herself.
She used her hoof to push out a long stream of breath and felt the
beating in her chest subside.
As the storm outside eased up (but remained violent all the
same), she drew back to the chalkboard in front of her and glided
the chalk into a resting position.
The writing on the board still glared back at her. Sunset gave
it an unsatisfied scowl. She lifted the eraser off the floor and wiped
the whole side clean before flipping the board over and erasing the
other side as well.
Sunset fell onto her haunches with a sigh and buried herself
within the book again. Sunset skipped through several pages as she
tried to find something unsolved; for some sort of key that would
allow everything else to fit together.
There’s got to be something that I’ve missed! she internally
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screamed. There has to be! There has to!

***

Pinkamena stared out the balcony as the rain bounced against

the magical bubble just past it. Her eyes drew toward the sky as
lightning flashed through the clouds, causing them to flicker be-
tween bright and dim.
As her eyes drew along the briefly revealed contours, she
counted the seconds in her mind. She counted down until the mo-
ment. Somewhere, somehow, days had turned into minutes. How in
the wide wide world did we end up like this? she thought.
“Then why don’t we have Sunset go back in time again!?” a
voice behind her cried. Pinkamena turned to see Rainbow Dash
floating above her friends in a bellowing posture.
Spike threw his hands into the air. “I told you already: she
can’t. Only once in a lifetime, remember? She already used it.”
“What if Rarity used the spell?” Applejack asked as she ad-
justed her hat.
Rarity shook her head. “Goodness, I’m not nearly that capable,
darling.”
“Then let’s just ask Princess Celestia or Princess Luna. Ah’d
reckon they’d be able to do it.”
Pinkamena pushed herself off the railing. “But like,” she said,
turning around, “what would they do?”
The five of them turned with disgusted snarls.
She slunk toward them. “It’s not like they know how to fix
this. Even if they went back in time and tried to stop Twilight, how
could they undo what that mean-meanie-pants Nameless is doing to
her?”
Several of them reeled and let out distressed groans.
Spike picked a speck of dirt off his arm and flicked it across
the room. “Besides, it’s not like they could help her. She’s in an al-
ternate world.”
Fluttershy grabbed a hold of her mane and held it close. “B-
but, what about our Twilight? If there’s some world above us that’s
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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…

***

Spike held the crystal ball close. He held it so close that

nopony could have wrested it from him. He kept his eyes glued to
the inside of the ball. He ignored the rain against the windows, and
he ignored the scratches of Sunset’s chalk, for the only thing he
wanted to attend to was Twilight.
Twilight stalked forward. The long path before her curved
downward in an uncomfortably wide arc. Every bit of wall looked
the same and, in the cavern’s low lighting, there was no way to tell
if it would end soon.
But Spike knew better. He knew it would end soon. He knew
it would all end soon.
“Twilight, there has to be another way,” Fluttershy said, plac-
ing her hoof on the ball. “Please.”
“We’ve been over this, Fluttershy,” Twilight said, “there is no
other way. There never was.”
“That can’t be true…”
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“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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eyes like she had just emerged from a daze.

“Surely you have something?” Rarity asked. “Anything!?”
“Rarity, I…” Sunset stammered.
“Please, for the sake of Celestia, tell me you have something
on that board of yours. Anything at all.”
Sunset was uncertain of where to keep her eyes. She went to
the board, to Rarity, to the board again, to Spike, and to Rarity again.
She tried to speak a couple of times, but the words fell short.
“Sunset,” Spike tried.
Sunset shivered. “I…” she tried. She looked at every nook and
cranny of the board, but with each part, her colors drew paler. She
stared at her work for a long time, regarding every number and every
symbol.
And when she looked to the two of them again, her eyes spar-
kled in a plea for forgiveness. The next moment, Sunset dropped the
chalk entirely. “I… don’t have anything,” she whimpered.
Spike gulped. No Sunset, don’t…
Sunset caved. She fell face-first onto the floor and shielded
herself with her forelegs. She made no more sounds and made no
indication that she would move from that spot.
Rarity flared her nostrils. “Oh no no no no no no! Absolutely
not!” She pointed an angry hoof at Sunset. “You will stand right
back up. Right now!”
Sunset did not budge.
“You will stand up! Spike!”
He averted his gaze out of shame.
Rarity recoiled. She stared into the ball for a few moments as
the mare inside it continued on. Her teeth chattered as the words
tried to form. “We’re…” Rarity cried as she sniffled, “we’re really
here. We’re really here!”
Twilight tripped and fell into the dirt, kicking up dust as she
fell. She coughed several times as she climbed back up one hoof at
a time. She massaged her head and tried to stretch the rest of her
body, but the painful screams she uttered afterward told of how well
that had worked.
“Oh stars!” Rarity exclaimed. “Twilight! I’m sorry! I’m so so
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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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Spike nodded. “Always.”

Twilight held her head up and nodded. She gently lay the crys-
tal ball to rest on the ground beside her. “Okay...” Twilight said and
took a deep breath. “Alright… I am ready to die.”
A tear fell down her face before she broke into a smile. “Good-
bye, everypony…”
Spike said nothing.
Twilight stepped forward. Every clop of her hooves echoed
throughout the cavern. They echoed throughout the tower. At a slow
and deliberate pace, Twilight crossed the threshold. Every step
lasted for an eternity. With every step, Twilight looked farther for-
ward. The crystal ball behind her could only watch.
A weak thunderclap boomed outside the tower, but even when
paired with the rain, it failed to silence the hoofsteps from the ball.
The double doors jerked and slid toward each other with a
loud groan. The mare in the chamber paid the doors no mind as she
trotted toward the center.
Spike closed his eyes.
And in that moment, by his reckoning, the doors on the life of
Princess Twilight Sparkle shut tight with a resounding and eternal
thud.

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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.

===============================================

Sunset Shimmer idly scratched her head and slumped further

against the desk.
Even as she tuned out the hard, rapid pitter-patter of rain
against the windows in favor of thoughts, there was little to think
about. Judging from the other ponies lying about the room, staring
at whatever their eyes happened to land on, she assumed that they
were the same way.
Spike, on the other hoof, had disappeared downstairs with the
crystal ball sometime prior. Sunset supposed that she could go find
him, but to do so would have required her to rise from her position.
One thought formed in her mind. Even with Twilight now
gone, nopony else wept. Nopony bothered to move about either, but

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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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Sunset sorted through them into several stacks. But as much as

she tried to skim over them in her attempts to ignore them, they
stuck. Every paper was a reminder of what had just happened and
what was about to happen.
A few minutes later, five stacks of scribbles and mathematics
took the desk. At that, Sunset collapsed once more with a dejected
sigh.
Her eyes wandered the room again in search of something else
to busy herself with. She felt her jaw go stiff when she found none.
Sunset slumped further against the desk just like she had been be-
fore.
She was sure that if somepony was watching her from the
world above theirs, they would be disappointed.
Sunset wanted it to be over. Sunset wanted to be done and
reach the end. She wanted to go home and forget. She wanted to see
her friends again. She wanted to move on. She wanted to be alone.
She wanted to stay. She wanted to get to know these friends of
Equestria. She wanted to run from friendship forever.
And she didn’t know what she wanted. Again.

***

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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high-pitched splats. A single light, cubbied inside the door’s mag-

nificent golden frame, lit the deck itself. A few guards roamed the
grounds outside, evidenced by lights floating in the fog. Sunset im-
agined that they carried umbrellas or protective enchantments.
Spike sat on top of the banister, gazing out at what little he
could see. The crystal ball remained clutched in his hands as the
heavy rainfall cascaded down the both of them.
Shielding her eyes, Sunset stepped into the rain. It fought
against her, attacking her mane and coat. Every drop drilled into her,
but she plowed through all of it.
Sunset lifted her hooves onto the banister as a way of sitting
next to him. Spike made no indication that he knew she was there,
and in return, she made no fanfare to signal her arrival. For some
moments, the two of them looked out at the rest of the castle.
“Well,” Spike said, after many long moments, “we tried.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “Yeah, and look where that got us,” she
said.
“Much better than suddenly finding out she’s gone though.”
Sunset nodded as she moved some hair out of her eyes. “I
guess that’s true.”
Spike kicked his feet against the banister as he tracked a
nearby moving light.
“Weren’t you the first one to find her?” she asked.
“Yeah.”
Sunset let out a long breath. He was talking, at the very least,
but somehow, he didn’t appear against it in any capacity. Somehow,
Sunset felt comfortable asking a question she knew would not have
been answered a few days prior. “How did it feel?”
Spike shook his head. “It was… a lot worse than this. I mean
really, I can’t even.”
“…Ah.”
“I mean, what should I say?” he said with a shrug. “I panicked.
I mean, I did. I’m pretty sure I did.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. “But…?”
“I… don’t really remember.”

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Sunset’s chuckle escaped her mouth against her will. “Re-

ally?”
“I mean,” he said as he flipped the ball in his hands, “we prob-
ably spent at least ten minutes looking for Twilight when we came
and that door behind us was open. I bet she was already dead by
then.”
Sunset nodded and rolled her hoof for him to continue.
“We couldn’t find her note at first,” Spike said, “because she
put her note on the back of the map. And the map was what we
found. But… When we did find it…” He pointed to himself. “When
I found it… I guess I didn’t wake up until we’d all ran down there
and found her in that… thing.”
Sunset furrowed her brow. “I guess it must’ve been quite a
shock.”
“Yeah, it must have.” Spike laughed. “I just wonder what
would have happened if we had got there ten minutes earlier,” he
mused. “I bet we’ll find out.”
“Huh?”
“I’ve just kinda been thinking about it, is all. We saw Twilight
leave it note-side up.”
“Well then,” Sunset said, “I guess their version of you won’t
miss it so easily, huh?”
“Nah, I guess not.”
The two looked into the darkness as the rain bombarded the
both of them. The light from earlier had since moved further into the
darkness until, at least as Sunset saw it, it instantly disappeared as it
presumably rounded a corner.
Sunset felt her mane stick to her head and she shook it in an
attempt to give it air.
Spike peered into the ball. The cavern lay quiet and empty save
for a crystal ball on the ground. The doors towered over the scene
but made no moves. Likewise, Spike made no moves to move the
ball to any other spot.
Sunset adjusted her lean against the railing and cleared her
throat. “I, uh,” she began, averting her eyes, “I have a small confes-
sion to make.”
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Spike raised an eyebrow in response.

“I convinced Twilight to burn the book,” Sunset said. “She got
rid of all her data because I asked her to.”
Spike’s expression remained unchanged for many long mo-
ments and he tapped his fingers against the ball. “And?”
Sunset frowned. “And? That’s it.”
“That’s all?”
“Yeah.”
Spike widened his eyes. “Oh,” he acknowledged, “I thought it
was gunna be something big.”
Sunset shrunk. “You’re… not mad?”
“Nah.”
Sunset blushed. It sounded too absurd. “But—”
“I trust you enough to know you had a good reason for it.
Right?”
Sunset shivered as the rain sent a chill through her. “Yeah.”
Spike nodded. “Can you tell me why though?”
“Yeah. It just was my way of making sure that I copied off of
her,” Sunset replied. “Be pretty bad if we got them mixed up or
something like that.”
Spike considered it. “Why’s that matter?”
Sunset nodded and stared back into the dark. “I had a plan. I
had a thought. That what we have… is all the information that those
versions of us in those lower layers would have gotten. What we
started with was the result of their efforts. Our efforts only added to
what was there.
“I read from a Twilight in a layer below. And then I have to
add onto what’s there. That’s why it matters.
“So, when I time traveled and give Twilight her book, then
maybe a version of me above us reads from her, and then adds her
own information.
“I figured that if we copied each other, then we’d have more
and more information each time. And then finally, somewhere at the
top layer—if there is a top—they’d be able to put it all together and
provide an answer. They’d send it down after the work was done.”
Sunset collapsed onto the rail. “Maybe it never existed,” she
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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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Spike blushed. “Aw, shucks.”

The two looked into the darkness as the rain became a light
drizzle. Sunset could feel her hairs stuck together and decided to
ignore that for a few seconds more. Sunset hummed as a rogue gust
of wind blew across her face. “I gotta say, you’ve really changed in
the past few days.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Me?”
Sunset nodded and smiled. “Totally. I think… I think you’ve
grown up.”
“Really?”
“I do,” she said and gave him a playful slap across the back.
Spike shied away but his growing smile and his even redder
face betrayed him. “That’s good.”
“Yeah,” she replied. As Sunset looked into the sky, the rain, in
turn, splashed against her face. She blinked. “But it’d be kinda
crappy to go through all this only to get sick from staying out in the
rain. We should probably go back inside.”
Spike considered it. “Alright. Just a few more minutes though,
okay?”
Sunset shook her head and smiled. She turned her gaze back
toward the darkness as she straightened up on the railing. “Okay.”

***

Sunset shook herself, sending droplets of water flying in all

directions. A floating towel captured a large bulk of them while the
rest splattered against the floor. Sunset then took the towel and
wiped the rest of herself down.
Spike cleaned himself in a similar fashion, wiping down the
ridges lining his back. Satisfied at that, he hung his towel around his
neck and leaned against the wall.
Sunset continued along, wiping drops of water off her legs.
She then made quick work of her tail. Nodding to herself, Sunset
hung her towel across her backside.
The two locked eyes, compared each other, and then chuckled.
A few muffled voices sounded from the upstairs, prompting
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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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Rarity crossed her forelegs. “I can’t even begin to fathom what

that could possibly be.”
Applejack grit her teeth together. “It wasn’ all that cut and dry
at Froggy Bottom Bog either.”
Pinkamena raised a hoof into the air. “It’s gunna be something
we’d never expect to happen,” she said.
“If it has nothing to do with Twilight,” Rainbow Dash snorted,
“then I don’t care what it is.”
Fluttershy glanced between all of them and then settled in the
object in Spike’s hands. “Uhm, what if it’s something that we’ll be
able to see from here?”
Spike flipped the crystal ball in his hands once and then peered
down into it. “I dunno, Fluttershy. There’s not much to look at.”
“Twilight’s crystal ball?”
“Yeah, the crystal ball in there should still show the caverns,”
Spike said, pointing.
“Huuuuh. What is Twilight doing?”
Spike thought the ball’s view through the doors and into the
chamber.
Twilight Sparkle remained in a sitting position amidst the
steady red glow of the sigils on the walls. Every so often, in a slow
rhythm, Twilight took a deep breath and let it all out again. Her eyes
lay shut like she was half-asleep.
Spike shook his head. “Still waiting for it to happen,” he said
with a grim frown.
“Seems like there’s nothing to see there then,” Rarity scoffed.
“Yeah. All that’s left is for us to come along and find her. And
then we’ll start this whole mess allll over again.”
The others nodded and voiced several variations of “Uh-huh.”
Sunset let out a sigh. “…Yeah,” she said.
The others were right. There just wasn’t anything more to see
within the ball aside from the fateful moment. Some other version
of them would come along within an hour and find the ball as it was
(with it looking at the caverns), and the cycle would begin anew.
Sunset blinked.
Wait.
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Sunset held a hoof against her forehead as she thought. Some-

thing’s not right.
I know there were certain things that we saw over the past few
days. We saw things happen. Heck, they threw us for a loop.
Just like I time traveled to give our Twilight a book, I saw their
version of me time travel to give her a book. And I know, for that to
happen, we have to be able to find Twilight at all. I have to find her
that first night.
And if the ball in her world still looks at the caverns, then they
can’t find her that first night. Sunset felt a drop of sweat form on her
brow. The cloak thing I could let slide, but this…! This is a huge
contradiction!
Sunset knocked against her own skull. And I have no idea
what… or rather, who could possibly resolve it!
A long pause went by as a few thoughts swirled around her
head, and then something clicked. Sunset peered through her mane
and frowned. This isn’t over.
She cleared her throat. “Actually, could we possibly go back
and talk some more about The Answer for a moment?”
“Yeah, like it would do us any good now though,” Rainbow
Dash said. “Twilight’s already gone through the door and every-
thing.”
Rarity nodded. “Quite so. After all, we couldn’t even get our
voices through a wooden door, much less those massive stone ones.
There is absolutely no way she’ll be able to hear us with her crystal
ball sitting outside. And I doubt anything we say or do is going to
convince her to come out and talk.”
“Y’all used up all the time travel spells too,” Applejack
pointed out.
“Only once per lifetime,” Spike added grimly.
“Maybe that’s why it’s the doozy,” Sunset argued. “That’s the
last thing we’d expect right now, right?”
Spike tapped his fingers against the ball. “Uh-huh. Aside from
something coming out of nowhere and fixing everything.” He re-
ceived several stares. “What?”
Rarity straightened herself. “Alright, sure. Why not? Tell us
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where you’d like to go with this, Sunset?”

The other five turned to her, even as another wave of spasms
overtook Pinkamena’s body.
“My thought,” Sunset said, “was that we would get The An-
swer from the world above us. The one watching us from nine days
into the future. And then, obviously, we would turn around nine days
from now and give The Answer to them,” she explained, pointing at
the crystal ball.
The others nodded in agreement.
Sunset glanced between the six of them and said, “Would you
all agree that we’d do everything to make sure we could pass it to
the world below us?”
Again, the others nodded.
Sunset turned her attention to the crystal ball and stared holes
into it. The ball remained quiet, just as it had in the many long
minutes before.
I can’t let up until that contradiction goes away, Sunset
thought as she twisted her curly mane. I don’t know where this is
going to take me…
“Okay,” Sunset said, “I’m going to ballpark this and see what
happens. What if… The Answer exists but we’re not supposed to get
it until the right time?”
Applejack frowned. “Sunset…” she began and tried to reach
out to her.
“Just humor me, okay? What would we do with it?”
Puzzled expressions washed over their faces. As the rain out-
side died out, leaving only the low howl of wind as it wrapped
around the tower, they kicked at the floor and scratched their heads
and drummed thoughtful rhythms on whatever they could find.
And then Spike gasped. “I know what we’d do!” he said with
a snap of his claws. “We would hide it where no one would look for
it!”
Sunset paled. Somehow, she knew what words came next, but
her mouth moved anyway. “And where might a place like that be?”
Spike pounded his chest. “That’s easy, Sunset! That’s real
easy!” He let off a toothy grin and declared, “I would put it in the
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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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“I was right!” Sunset shouted with a wide smile on her face. “I

was right! It does exist! It does exist! And, we…”—her smile
faded—“can’t… use it. Oh stars, we can’t get it to Twilight!”
All at once, several groans rose up between the seven of them.
Sunset frowned. Eight, counting Twilight from the future.
Rarity shook her head and flipped her mane behind her head.
“Alright, but Twilight, did you use The Answer in the past?”
“Yes, that sounds pretty accurate,” Twilight’s voice said, “I
was… uhm, dead for a while. But, using this spell, I was able to make
it so that it could be reversed and I could be brought back.”
Sunset felt her body go solid. “So… you did die?”
“Yes. I died. And then, thanks to you, I recovered.”
Rainbow Dash scowled as her ears pinned backward. “Okay,
wait a minute, lemme get this straight… You’ve done this whole
magic spell before and so you must’ve had it. So why couldn’t you
give that to us—oh I don’t know—a little earlier when it might have
counted?”
“Quite so,” Rarity said with a frown, “and you could have at
least let us know you were okay a little earlier.”
The crystal ball went silent for many long moments. And then
it sighed. “I forgot the spell,” Twilight’s voice croaked.
The fury in Rainbow Dash’s expression melted away. “You
forgot?”
“Yes... There’re a lot of things that I forgot on account of me
dying. I can’t even remember exactly how to get to the chamber. I
know that map could help, but… I’m so sorry.” Twilight’s voice wa-
vered and crumbled to a point where her voice was but a whisper.
“If I had just remembered, then maybe you could have saved me in
your world. Or the one you’ve been watching.”
Spike wiped a stray tear from his eyes. “Oh, Twilight…”
“I’m a really bad Twilight,” her voice said. “I’ve just felt so
guilty because I watched you go through all of this for me and when
you needed me to do something, I couldn’t. I’ve just… felt so awful
that I am alive and your world’s me is… not.”
Applejack doffed her hat. “Twi, it ain’t your fault. This whole
thing’s been mighty messed up. Ah’m just glad at least one of ya is
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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.”

***

Sunset looked up from her half-completed page to the large

image hovering above her. The image contained two sheets of paper:
one for her and one for Fluttershy. For her part, Fluttershy worked
feverishly, scrawling several lines without looking up.
The others wrote at an equal intensity where they had to lick
their lips as their mouths ran dry and where sweat drops formed on
their brows. But whereas Rarity could copy several lines without
having to double check, Applejack and Rainbow Dash flip-flopped
between the originals and their hoofwritten copies. The other three
each fell somewhere in between.
Except for Spike who currently sat backward, knocking his
feet together and watching over Rarity’s withers as she worked off
of the image that she shared with Pinkie Pie.
Pinkie Pie held up her paper. “Page twenty-two is done!” she
proclaimed.
Sunset placed her quill down to take a good look at the page.

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Several lines spanned the paper, leaving little to no margins. Sym-

bols that she had never seen before (but knew they corresponded to
an entry from the first six pages) interwove with magical sigils to
create a wall of text. It sounds like computer compression, she
thought.
The occasional footnote, written in a thankfully plain lan-
guage, appeared in a few of the open spaces. At the very top, the
word Exit headed the page, coupled with a page number. She had
seen the words Entry and Library before that.
“That looks like the page that I have,” the crystal ball said
after a few moments. “Here come twenty-seven and twenty-eight.”
Sunset slotted Pinkie Pie’s completed page into the growing
stack and then flared her horn.
Meanwhile, Spike stood up and hopped over to where Pinkie
Pie sat. The two bumped fist to hoof as he sat back down.
A high shriek echoed throughout the tower that made each of
them wince and then look up as Sunset’s horn lit up in response. The
horn sputtered once, and Sunset fought to keep the existing images
up as a new picture sprouted out of her horn: two new pages con-
tained in a single picture.
Sunset rotated the image so that the two could see it. Spike and
Pinkie Pie responded by jabbing their quills into their respective pa-
pers and taking off.
Sunset looked back down at her own page and pressed her quill
against it. She bounced it in place and thought about the Twilight
that looked down on them at that very moment. How Twilight was
alive in another world. That the Twilight in another world had sur-
vived.
She looked at the projected image in front of her. Her eyes ran
past the symbols on the page that she meant to copy down. She knew
that they were there. Her quill refused to move all the same. Copying
was meant to be a simple task; all she had to do was write what she
saw. She had even done a whole book the previous night, so her
share of ten pages should have been easy.
Instead, Sunset snorted and threw her quill onto the parchment.
At once, everyone looked up. “Sunset?” Rarity asked with a
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concerned frown, “What’s the matter?”

“Sorry. I’m thinking,” Sunset replied.
“About what?”
“Oh, I’m just,” she said and pushed her mane back, “thinking
about our Twilight. I can’t believe all of this.
“I mean, because the whole point of The Answer was to save
Twilight and it was set up so that every Twilight in every world
would get it. But… somehow, that stopped with you, Twilight.”
“Gosh, I’m… I’m so sorry,” Twilight’s voice quivered.
“I was so sure!” Sunset yelled, slamming her hoof against the
parchment. “You said it yourself, Applejack, that what we saw to-
night is exactly what happened before. All of our worlds act just like
each other, so aside from what we did and where all of you went to
collect the stones, what happens in one of them happens in all of
them.”
She pointed to the ceiling—at the Twilight in the future. “And
yet you’re alive, but ours isn’t.” She grabbed a hold of her own mane
and pulled, hard. “So… what did we do differently!?”
A series of groans rose up from the others. Applejack pulled at
her face while Rarity blushed and averted her gaze.
Not to mention what the heck the deal is with Twilight’s crystal
ball not showing the tower like we first found it yet, Sunset thought.
“I imagine it’s my fault,” Twilight’s voice said. “Out of all the
Twilights out there, I must have been the first one to not remember
the spell.” A long, resigned pause passed and then the ball said, “I
am such a terrible friend. I’ve… failed so miserably, and you’ve lost
your world’s Twilight all because of me.”
“That’s nice and all,” Rainbow Dash said as she stood up, “but
I don’t think this is all you, Twilight.”
Applejack narrowed her eyes. “Rainbow, what’re you on
about?”
“I mean, it was different in there too. Remember the cloak?”
Rainbow Dash asked.
Fluttershy nodded, “Of course I remember the cloak. Because
we found it at the door.”
Pinkie Pie giggled, “Oh yeah! Because our Twilight wore it!
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And… their Twilight didn’t. So there’s a difference—”

“Wait,” Twilight’s voice interrupted, “what are you talking
about? What cloak?”
Everyone looked toward the ceiling at the same time as if they
could glare the disembodied voice down. “You know,” Spike said,
“the cloak? The one you had hanging downstairs?”
“I know which one you’re talking about but… I never wore
that.”
Spike shook his head and laughed in disbelief. “I guess our
Twilight was the only one that did, then.”
Pinkie Pie waved her hoof through the air, “We did find that
thing next to the ball though when we went down there.”
The crystal ball did not answer.
“Twilight?”
“I… this is weird,” Twilight’s voice stammered. “I do remem-
ber seeing a hooded figure that night. I couldn’t tell who they were,
but when I tried to rush out and... um… see them off, they disap-
peared! But they left their cloak behind!”
Spike crossed his arms and drummed his fingers against them
in thought. “And then, after that, your world’s version of us would
have found that cloak.”
“Uh, doesn’t that put some cloaked pony there in our world
too?” Rainbow Dash asked, looking between everyone for looks of
approval.
“But that’s a problem because we had that thing checked,”
Spike said. He pointed upward to where he thought she was watch-
ing and bellowed, “We traced that cloak to you, Twilight!”
“That is weird!” Twilight’s voice said.
Sunset ground her teeth together but said nothing in response.
She instead looked at the others to see their reactions.
Even with all of these similarities between the worlds, Sunset
thought, the Twilight we’ve been watching and the Twilight watch-
ing us are two worlds away from each other. There’s just no way she
could possibly help her now!
Sunset scratched at a discoloration within the floor. Is there?
Twilight’s voice sucked in a breath. “I remember this much:
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they disappeared in a bright flash of light, and I saw burn marks on

the ground. It was kind of like when Sunset teleported in however
many days ago that was.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah. I even compared the two spots using my own crystal
ball, because they looked so similar. …I learned how to move the
view around after I died and came back.
“I guess,” Twilight’s voice said, “now that I think about it, it
looked like it might have been a time travel spell.”
Spike furrowed his brow. “We saw burn marks at the door too,
you know.”
“This keeps getting stranger and stranger. So, somepony time
travels in, and it’s apparently me. I mean, certainly, I can’t do that
because—” The crystal ball went silent.
Rainbow Dash glanced worriedly at the ceiling. “Uhm, Twi-
light?”
“Twi?” Applejack seconded.
A long and pregnant pause passed throughout the room. And
then, “Ahhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!” the crystal ball cried in astonish-
ment.
“Twilight!” Spike cried. “Are you okay?”
“I... I... Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh. Oh gosh. I could
get by on a technicality...” Twilight’s voice said at around a million
miles an hour.
“What?”
Another pause passed, and then, “L-look, y-you girls did a
great job. Just… uh… stay there for two seconds. Okay?”
Sunset frowned. “Uh, okay?”
Rainbow Dash flung her completed paper into the center of the
ring before she collapsed onto the floor and pouted. Rarity turned
her attention back to the image in front of her and raced through a
few more lines before she too, delicately, placed her paper into the
center.
The other four set their quills back down on their papers and
either yawned out loud or attempted to stifle them.
Sunset furrowed her brow. What is she up to?
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Pinkie Pie’s body convulsed again and she yelped in response.

Her voice shook as her body did. “The doozy! The doozy!”
For a moment, Sunset looked into the crystal ball. Twilight re-
mained in her sitting position in the center of the room, oblivious to
anything that had just happened. She was at a peace never attained
before.
Twilight’s eyes shot open as a loud groan erupted from the
doors at the head of the chamber. She whirled around as the doors
quaked and rocked and then slid apart. And then she let out a gasp.
All at once, the seven let out startled cries and bunched around
the crystal ball, craning their necks to see what was happening. Sun-
set’s horn chose that moment to cut out, and the several images that
had been floating about disappeared.
And then Sunset pointed. “There’s something standing behind
that door!” she exclaimed.
Within the entryway, a hooded figure stood with one hoof
pressed against the crystal ball. The brown cloth shrouded their face
in darkness. Sunset could barely make out some features on the bot-
tom of the muzzle, but she had enough to tell that, whoever it was,
they were frowning.
“Ah!” Rainbow Dash blurted. “They’re gunna get tethered!”
“Who goes there!?” Twilight shouted from the center of the
chamber.
“No!” Pinkie Pie cried, throwing her hooves into the air,
“they’re gunna ruin the whole thing!”
Sunset narrowed her eyes as she glanced at the figure. Cloaked
figure…
Cloak.
She felt her heart swell within her chest, almost painfully at
that. “I’m going to see who that is,” Sunset said. She grabbed the
ball and thought the ball’s view forward.
The image moved at a slow and deliberate pace and crept to-
ward the cloaked pony beyond the doorway. As the image drew
closer and closer, the figure grew more discernible. Once the crystal
ball’s view arrived at a clear angle, Sunset angled it up.

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And then time seemingly stopped. “…Twilight Sparkle?” Sun-

set tremulously announced.
Twilight Sparkle looked back out from under the hood’s edge
with a determined frown. Her eyes remained on the crystal ball un-
der her hoof.
The other six sat as still as statues. A tremulous and whispered
“…What?” from Fluttershy was the only reaction they afforded.
The Twilight in the center of the chamber lowered her head
like she was about to charge. “Whoever you are, you need to get out
of here right now!”
The hooded Twilight remained focused on her task, whatever
that was.
The seven watched without a single sound.
The hooded Twilight behind the door took her hoof off the ball.
No sooner after did a white light surround her. The glow grew and
grew before it eclipsed her entire body.
The hooded Twilight looked up and grinned.
Sunset gasped. That’s a time spell! And it’s pulling her back!
she thought.
The space around the hooded Twilight cracked, and in that in-
stant, she vanished in a shower of white-hot sparks.
The cloak did not. It remained behind, singed from the explo-
sion. It floated for a few moments as it rode the shockwave and up-
ward rush of air before it started to fall.
For a moment, Sunset only heard the pounding thump of her
beating heart. It had been beating fast before, but as she watched the
cloak’s slow, graceful descent, it seemed like an eternity between
each successive beat.
The cloak landed without making a sound.
And then silence.
Sunset blinked.
She couldn’t bear to move. She imagined her body would not
budge had she wanted it to. The tower dissolved around her to the
point that she could only see the crystal ball in front of her.
Just outside the door with the ball.
“That, and that tacky little cloak over there,” Rarity’s voice
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said in Sunset’s head, “but we’re not concerned about that.”

That was a future Twilight… A Twilight who died and came
back, Sunset thought.
Twilight sprinted over from her spot in the center of the room
and skidded to a halt in front of the two objects on the ground. Her
eyes lay on the cloak, and she briefly regarded the burn marks un-
derneath it, before she turned her discerning eye to the crystal ball.
“Is that… Canterlot tower!?” she cried. “My ball shows Can-
terlot tower!”
Sunset felt a chill run down her spine, and she shivered. Future
Twilight... moved the ball?
“Why would they do that!? Why would they move it there!?”
Twilight screamed.
Sunset swallowed, but even then, her throat felt dry. The room
grew cold and Sunset felt frozen to the spot. The wind caressed the
windows, and the resulting whistle went through one ear and out of
the other.
The thought, the singular thought, swam through her head
again and again and each time, her expression grew more pro-
nounced.
“Because…” she whispered, shaking, “we… would have
never… found you… that first night... otherwise…?”
Twilight looked upward with a concerned frown. “What?”
Sunset’s jaw all but hit the floor.
What happens in one world happens in all of them.
Is, was, will be.
And then Sunset screamed and shot to her hooves. “I got it!”
she exclaimed, “I finally got it! I know how all of this works now!”
In one instant, the others stood up in alarm. “You what!?”
Spike cried.
Sunset shook her head. “Everything makes sense now. What
happens in one world happens in all of them! We didn’t do anything
different after all!”
Rarity gasped. “Oh my stars! Did we… did we just do it!?”
“We…” Rainbow Dash began, tossing her mane around, “we
what?”
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Fluttershy’s jaw hit the floor. “Wow.”

Sunset looked back down into the ball and snorted. There’s still
something we have to do! Sunset grabbed the ball again. “Twilight,
can you hear me?”
“I can hear you,” Twilight replied as she continued to survey
the items. “Who was that? And what were they doing here?”
“Twilight, we know who they were, we know what they did,
and we know why they did it. Twilight…” she said as a grin spread
across her face, “we have it! We have The Answer!”
Twilight paused as she processed the response. Then she
looked up through wide eyes. “You… have it?”
“We have it.”
Applejack all but leaped into the air. “Hooey! This is the break
we’ve been waitin’ for!”
Twilight glanced back into the chamber as a large, wide smile
overtook her features. “Great! That’s… phenomenal! What is it?”
Sunset used her magic to summon over the stack of transcribed
pages. She flipped through them and set the ones that she wanted—
the first sixteen pages—aside.
“I’m going to have to send you multiple images. Can you han-
dle that?”
Twilight chuckled. “Of course I can. How hard can it be?”
Sunset lifted the first two pages and stared at them. “Alright,
here they come,” she said and flared her horn.
One shriek later, an image of two pages appeared in front of
Twilight. She immediately took to examining it. Meanwhile, Sunset
prepared the next two pages and, using her spell, sent them into the
ball as well. Another shriek later, another image containing two
more pages appeared. Twilight moved it so that it floated right next
to the first image. The two continued until all sixteen pages had been
sent.
Twilight looked between all the images and a ball of white light
appeared before long. It appeared as a blob at first, but as Twilight
concentrated, the blobs took form. The unfathomable shapes soon
transformed into a patchwork of sigils and a crisscross of lines. The
patterns settled onto several rotating layers. With each development,
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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.”

***

The cavern’s crystalline walls zoomed by at speeds faster than

Sunset cared to discern. Her eyes remained forward, split between
the pages of the string-bound book in front of her face and the path
that the cavern ground snaked through the mountain.
With each page, the ball of light trailing beside her grew larger
and larger. The pre-cast lit the pages in front of her with increasing
strength. Sunset could barely make out the taps and clops of running
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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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out of the room and then disappeared around the corner.

Sunset drew in a breath and touched her horn to the spell.
The ball of light flashed once and then streamed into Sunset’s
horn. Her horn lit up in response as a wave of energy pulsated
through her body. Sunset could feel her insides rock as it interpreted
the pre-cast. It felt like the crack of a whip. Sunset held her breath
as a means to bide it, but the burning grew hotter and hotter with
each passing second.
And then Sunset felt a red and orange aura around her. She felt
the white-hot glow in her eyes and the raw magic around her grate
against her skin. Sunset rose off the floor, and regardless of how she
kicked at the air, the spell refused to let her back down.
Her insides tingled, and for a moment, she felt a crack shoot
up her horn. Just like she had after putting the Element of Magic on
at the Fall Formal, she thought her insides would then rip apart.
The aura shot out. Several tendrils made beelines for the po-
nies behind her. They cried out and screamed as it scooped them up.
And then another, like an afterthought, took a hold of Spike as well.
Sunset looked back behind her as they writhed about and she
let out a shocked, “No!”
Her six captives cried out in pain as the spell poked and prod-
ded at them, although the spell treated Spike with comparative tame-
ness. Their cries reached a crescendo as a set of white pillars of light
sprang out and engulfed them. For a moment, the ponies disappeared
entirely.
A set of new ponies emerged. Ponies that looked much like the
old ones but appeared much more extravagant. Colors from all parts
of the rainbow striped through their manes and tails, both of which
had grown to unproportioned lengths. Each of them, even within the
grasp of Sunset’s aura, glowed with white auras of their own.
“The Rainbow Power!” Rainbow Dash cried.
Sunset blinked. For a moment, she wondered if anything had
happened to her own body, but she did not look.
“It’s draining me!” Rarity cried as she struggled against the
magic around her.
Spike gasped. “The spell! It called the Rainbow Power and it’s
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trying to use it to power itself!”

Pinkie Pie fought against it enough to look straight ahead.
“Sunset!”
Sunset had to fight against her own aura just to reach back to-
ward them but found herself too far away. “Girls! I…!”
Applejack let out an exhausted grunt before she craned her
neck and surveyed the aura around her. She smiled and went limp.
“You got this, Sunset. Ah trust ya...”
Fluttershy looked over and, despite her pained expression, she
nodded. “Me too,” she said. The aura around her, in response, loos-
ened its grip.
The others looked up to Sunset and threw out determined
grins. Even Spike, who floated below in an untransformed state,
smiled up at her.
Sunset smiled and nodded affirmatively. And then the ravaging
cackle of magic within her turned warm and vibrant.
She turned her attention back to the pillar before her and let
the spell run its course. Where the spell had been a raging inferno
inside her before, much like the Element of Magic had been, this felt
like a coursing river.
The light from her horn, now at a blinding intensity, reached
toward the rest of the cavern. The walls rumbled and the lights
within the symbols all over pulsated. The crystal pillar in the center
of the room shook and swayed.
The pillar did not shatter as Sunset expected it to. Instead, the
crystal melted. It cascaded downward, leaving the trapped horn
floating in place, before it spread across the floor like a puddle. And
then the puddle rotated. The molten crystal ran slow like molasses
but appeared clear like water.
Sunset felt a powerful surge of energy run into her horn.
Sparks jumped off the end and she struggled to keep conscious, but
instead of fighting it like before, she concentrated on funneling it
through. The energy emerged through the tip and spread to all direc-
tions, rocketing off to speeds faster than she could fathom. She could
feel the spell reaching for something, or somethings, but couldn’t
readily tell what.
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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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Causality

A cloudless night allowed the moon to take precedence over the

land of Equestria. While dull compared to previous nights, the white
ball in the sky shone with a still-impressive ferocity. A sheet of stag-
nant air complimented it, leading to an overall stillness that few ap-
preciated.
A low rumble rose from the ground. The earth vibrated, send-
ing reverberations throughout the trees, through the plains, and fi-
nally into buildings. The tremors grew in intensity; water sloshed
about within their basins and bell towers hummed as their metallic
bells resonated.
The residents of Ponyville rushed out of their homes. They
glanced around with worried expressions as they wiped the slumber
from their eyes. Neighbor turned to neighbor and fledgling rumors
spread about.
Was it a monster? An earthquake?
The citizens of Canterlot cried out as a pillar of light erupted
from the mountaintop. The incomprehensible energy radiating off
the beam blew through their manes and even caused some to lose
their balance. It bent the very air around it and, to a degree, it even
pulled on the city below.
In one of the northern parts of Equestria, a dark and bulky stal-
lion silently watched the light show on the horizon. He stroked his
hoof through the hairs on his chin and hummed to himself.
The citizens of the Crystal Empire also looked up at the light
on the horizon but with wonder. Their coats shimmered and sparkled
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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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upon the mountaintop. He considered what had just happened and

smiled, baring his fang.
“Well well well, it’s about time,” Discord the draconequus said
with a chuckle before downing another handful of popcorn.

===============================================

Sunset Shimmer knew only darkness. She could feel a pulsat-

ing sensation within her chest, and she soon figured that out to be a
beating heart. That at least told her that she wasn’t dead.
She tried to move around but couldn’t tell if her body was re-
acting to her commands. Did she have a body? In her darkness, hav-
ing a body had no meaning. But wait, again, she had a heartbeat. So
she had a body. It just would not obey.
But when it came down to it, she could not find any energy to
move said theoretical body. She was drained, just like the night that
she had crawled out of a crater.
Feeling returned to where her eyes were supposed to be, and
she opened them. Her blurred vision faded into a large, hemispheri-
cal room with dozens of symbols on the walls and floor. But where
she remembered red, a cool purple glow lit the area. The air nipped
at her coat but did not bite like a chill nor burn like a warmth.
She blinked once and craned her neck to see five ponies (who
appeared much closer to how she remembered them than they were
before) and a dragon on the floor behind her. They lay sprawled out
every which way. She could see some paleness in their coats and,
for a moment, she worried.
But they breathed, and that gave her some relief.
With a smile, Sunset rolled over to face the center of the room.
Like the others, Twilight Sparkle lay on the floor, perfectly still as
she slept, save for the steady heave as she breathed. Sunset chuckled
at the sight.
Sunset wiped some of the drowsiness from her face and when
she looked next, Twilight’s eyes had popped open. Rather, Twilight
stared at her. Her face remained expressionless, but the smallest
twinkle in Twilight’s eyes spoke to her.
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Sunset grunted. She tried to lift herself to her hooves, only to

have them fall out beneath her. Instead, Sunset crawled, dragging
herself across the floor. She used her magic to help lift herself up
and ease her work.
Even then, her trek was slow. Even when she slid forward,
Twilight seemed no closer. But unlike before, Sunset felt okay with
that. They didn’t have minutes or hours like before, but years. Life-
times.
Sunset went until she joined Twilight in the center of the room.
At that point, she flopped onto her side with an exhausted sigh.
“Hey, Twilight,” she said.
Twilight’s expression remained unchanged.
“I… never thought I’d see you again,” Sunset continued. “In
the flesh, I mean. I’m so glad you’re back. You did it. You beat the
Nameless.”
The corners of Twilight’s mouth managed to curve into a grin.
Sunset chuckled. “Whoever thought we’d be here, huh?” she
mused.
Twilight tried to lift her head so that she could see over Sunset,
anxious to see the rest of her friends.
Sunset looked over her withers. “They’re alright. I think we’re
all a little low on energy right now,” she said before she looked Twi-
light in the eye. “Especially you, huh?”
Twilight nodded.
Sunset smiled. “There’s no rush.”
Twilight groaned and lifted a hoof off the floor. She extended
it, stretched it even, before she let it fall to the ground in front of
Sunset. Twilight retained her intent stare.
Sunset considered it for a moment and reached out with her
own hoof. She found she had to move closer just for it to reach and
strained to shift forward. Their hooves connected and held firm.
Twilight smiled and looked up at her. Sunset could see the
twinkle in her eyes; she looked like she was about to cry out of sheer
joy.
Sunset, in response, held on even tighter. “You’re welcome.
Anything for you.”
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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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the cool and increasingly blue sky.

Sunset beamed. “Twilight,” she said. “Twilight.”
She did not stir.
“Twilight, look,” she said, using her magic to shake Twilight.
“It’s morning already.”
Twilight blinked once before she looked up as well. She stared
into the sky, centering on the bright ball above. As a light wind blew
through her mane and tickled her coat, Twilight took a long whiff of
the air.
With a happy sigh, Twilight fell against Sunset’s back again
and returned to a blissful rest.
The other six sprinted past them and plowed their way into a
group of ponies that had been standing at the far end of the site.
“Princess Celestia!” several of them cried at once.
Celestia smiled. “My little ponies, how good it is to see all of
you,” she said. She looked through each of them and then raised an
eyebrow. “But whatever are all of you doing here?”
All at once, they looked back to Sunset who crept toward them
with a blush on her face. She, in turn, motioned to the mare on her
back.
The guards gasped in unison before they shot glances at each
other for breaking protocol. Princess Celestia failed to notice
through her own wide-eyed expression. “By the stars…” she half-
whispered.
Twilight looked up once, and with a weak smile, waved back.
Celestia stared for a long while. She placed a hoof over her
mouth in an attempt to control her breath, and her mane seemed to
freeze in place. Her eyes drifted from the mare on Sunset’s back to
someplace far above the mountain and back again.
“Could it be?” she wheezed.
“Yepperoni!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed as she danced around. “We
totally did! It was a long fight and we fought hard and then we kinda
didn’t fight but then we did this real hard thinking stuff and then
whoosh,” she said, arching a hoof through the air, “we kinda did it.”
Rarity nodded. “We did. Although really, Twilight helped us a
lot along the way.”
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Celestia blinked. “Twilight… helped you with this?”

Rarity giggled. “It’s… complicated.”
“Short version is yes,” Sunset added.
Celestia threw her head back and laughed. Her loud giggles
echoed off the mountainside and could likely be heard in the city
below.
Her guards looked up at her in questioning. “Princess?” one of
them asked out of concern.
Celestia wiped a tear from her eyes. “Oh my goodness. I guess
I should have known this was happening all along. I mean, after that
spectacle last night…”
Applejack frowned. “Spectacle?”
“We”—Celestia motioned to her guards—“were preparing to
mount an expedition into the cave, in light of the magical surge last
night,” Princess Celestia said. And then she smiled as she peered
over at Twilight. “But I can see that is no longer necessary.”
Spike crossed his arms. “Yeah, but, we should probably still
make sure she’s okay and everything.”
Celestia nodded. “Yes, I agree. We should get her to Canterlot
General. Come, my little ponies.”

***

Sunset’s attention drifted back and forth between Twilight and

the nurse watching her. The nurse, for his part, ran down a list on the
clipboard floating in front of him. The heart monitor on the wall
beeped in a constant rhythm while several numbers underneath went
to statistics that Sunset had never studied.
The others sat around the edges of the room, each well out of
the way while the nurse went about his checks. Rarity washed some
dirt off her face using a sink on the wall. Rainbow Dash sat with a
hoof against the window, staring out at the afternoon sun. The other
four sat in the corner where they talked in hushed whispers (with the
exception of Pinkie Pie whose voice trumped the others).
Nurse Heartbeat took a quick glance at the papers underneath
before he nodded. “Well,” he said, “it looks like most everything
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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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Rainbow Dash reclined against the windowsill and let out a

long yawn, letting her eyes stray back toward the clear blue skies
above.
Fluttershy smiled. She smiled the sort of smile that lit the
room. Not too big, but not too small. A smile just right, one that
could not have possibly been broken within that moment.
Twilight remained blissfully asleep. She let out a moan as she
shifted in the bed.
Sunset felt fuzzy inside just from watching all of it. A world
with Twilight Sparkle. That was her new reality.
How things were meant to be.
Sunset scratched at an itch behind her ear. But… it’s not com-
pletely over yet. We have our Twilight, but… She looked at Twilight
and frowned. There are other worlds below ours that don’t yet.
She crossed her forelegs. I have to go make sure they can get
The Answer and get theirs back too.
Sunset looked up. “Spike?” she asked.
Spike looked over. “What?”
“You sent The Answer to the princess, right?”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Yeah, I did. Did it right before you
did that spell.”
Sunset stood up and sidled toward the door. “Okay, okay. I’m
going to go put it you-know-where.”
Spike nodded and turned his attention back to the mare in the
bed. “Alright, you go ahead and do that.”
Sunset took one last look at Twilight and bit her lip. “I guess
I’ll see you all later,” she said.
“Are you heading home afterward?” Spike asked.
Sunset nodded in response. “Yeah. I’m catching the afternoon
train.”
He regarded her for a moment before he grinned. “Okay. See
ya later.”
The others looked up and smiled.
Sunset looked over to Twilight one last time as a wide grin
spread across her face. She almost did not want to go. No, she did
not want to go. But somehow, she had every reason to go too.
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Twilight was with her friends.

Because things were how they were meant to be.
Sunset hummed to herself and then stepped out of the room.
She only managed a few steps before a pair of unicorns
rounded a corner in front of her. They charged straight at her. Sunset
flinched and then recoiled entirely, but then the pair moved off to
the side as if to get by.
Sunset frowned. Hey, I remember those two. She looked at
them as they slid past her; a blue-coated stallion and a grey-coated
mare.
The two unicorns dove into the door that she had just come out
of. A batch of cries erupted from within a moment later, among them
a “My baby girl! My baby’s girl’s alive!” from what had to be the
stallion.
And through a pause, a subdued reply of “Mom… Dad…”
rang out to her.
“Oh, Twilight!”
Sunset smiled. Her chest swelled, and she could not suppress
the giggle that brushed past her lips. At that, she continued onward.
And yet, in those endless halls, Sunset heard only her hoof-
steps. They echoed throughout the hall for only her to hear.

***

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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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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you would be home by now.”

Sunset could imagine the nod on the other side of the crystal
ball. “That’s right. I’ve spent the last few days in Ponyville just try-
ing to settle myself back in. I mean, when I wasn’t watching you all
and the mess that I caused. But… yesterday, the girls had to talk to
the princess and insisted that I come with, except they locked me in
this tower with my family while they went and talked.”
Sunset grinned. So, they will bring Twilight back here nine
days from now, huh? she thought.
“I will be honest, I was a little bit irked by all that, but now I
understand what all of them were doing. They were making sure that
I closed the loop.” The voice in the ball paused, and then added,
“Plus they also wanted to do what they were going to do before this
whole mess. So I’m going to Don Giofilly later tonight.”
“Yeah, and in doing so, you passed two obstacles that I thought
were impossible.”
The ball considered it. “Which are?” Twilight’s voice asked.
“That there’s no way to travel between the worlds.”
“Hmmmm. You’re right. There’s no way to travel between the
worlds. But then I remembered that the worlds act a lot alike. So I
figured that if I did something in my world, then it would happen in
their world too. It was just a matter of figuring out what.”
“Right. But you chose time travel. So secondly, you managed
to time travel despite the once-per-lifetime rule.”
“I remember that rule too. And then I realized that, having died
and come back, I technically started a new lifetime and thus wasn’t
bound by the once-per-lifetime rule. So I could use it again.”
Sunset shook her head. “Which that is… really smart. You’re
a genius, Twilight.”
“I knew, in that moment, that I could do it. That my job… was
to travel back in time and open that door… so that I could receive
The Answer from you and be saved.” Twilight’s voice giggled. “I
screamed. I about gave Cadance a heart attack. You should have
seen it!”
“Ha. I bet you scared them pretty good.”
“I did! You should have seen them when I found The Answer
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in the hourglass, too.”

“Which,” Sunset said as she held up the stack of papers, “I’m
about to make possible.”
“Which your world’s version of me will find… and then they’ll
do what I did. Although... I do wonder how much locality the loop
has. I mean, I would think this wouldn’t happen wherever we first
published The Answer.”
“Yeah, they’d do things very differently I guess.” Sunset
shrugged. “But buck that. Not my problem.”
“Same could be said about whatever world started with no in-
formation. Or whatever is below that. I wonder what they did.”
“Buck that.”
“Maybe I’ll look into this in the coming months. This concept
of the infinite is so fascinating!”
Sunset half-snorted, half-chuckled. “Well, have fun with that.”
“Anyway, before you put that into the hourglass… I actually
have one last page to send to you.”
Sunset raised an eyebrow. One last page? We… are missing a
page? She nodded and summoned over a quill and a new sheet of
paper. “Okay, okay, I’m ready to copy it down.”
Sunset flared her horn as the crystal ball let out a shriek. An
image formed in front of her and she took a moment to glance at the
image within. To her surprise, the page contained not numbers or
equations like she expected but, rather, plain text.
A cover page, she realized.

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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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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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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There was a pause. And then, “Okay.”

Sunset began writing, dictating as she wrote.

“Dear Diary,

“Once upon a time, I learned that the magic of friendship

doesn't just exist in Equestria, but everywhere. That you can seek it
out, or you can be alone.
“I was taught that friendship is everywhere, but never could I
have seen it more prominently than this past week. The spark of
friendship transcends all borders. Whether separated by a few miles,
a few days, or maybe even a few worlds, if you look for it, you will
find it.
“And maybe that’s all you need.
“At first, I didn’t look for it because I did not think I would
gain it. Likewise, a wise pony that I know didn’t look for it at first
because she was afraid to lose it. But in the end, we looked for it and
found what we needed.
“The best of friends can help each other get through troubled
times. They’ll share the burden of your hurt even if they feel the exact
same way, and maybe that makes it that much easier. You can count
on your friends to help you find a way through.
“Because no matter the circumstances, wonderful things hap-
pen when you reach out or let yourself be reached.

“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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“You will be.”

Their laughter echoed off the walls into parts of the tower un-
known.
“I should mention that a couple words were changed in my
version,” Twilight’s voice said. “Just another example of world div-
ergence, I guess.”
Sunset trotted down the stairs with both ball and paper behind
her. She slid her diary draft into her saddlebag and then lifted the
whole thing onto her back. She then nodded to herself. “I really want
to tell the others goodbye. I wish I had done that at the hospital…”
“Well… Let me see...” The crystal ball didn’t answer for a mo-
ment. Sunset could not tell what Twilight was doing in a world sev-
eral days into the future.
Sunset opened the doors to the tower. She looked back once
and levitated the crystal ball onto one of the cushions.
“Okay. I just checked to see if the others were still at the hos-
pital in your world. So, if you said something, I didn’t hear you,”
Twilight’s voice said.
“And?”
“I couldn’t find them. It… looks like they left.”
Sunset’s eyes fell to the floor. “…O-oh,” she stammered.
“But… don’t worry about it too much, okay?”
Sunset stared back into the empty tower. Even with the bright
white and blue palette that looked back at her, even with the cush-
ions that littered the floor, even with all the books upstairs—more
than most ponies could want—the tower felt empty.
And it was her fault.
“Sure...” Sunset croaked after a few moments. “Thanks for
checking for me.”
“You’re welcome.”
Sunset stepped into the doorway but paused. She turned. “And,
before I forget… I’ve been hoping that I might be able to say this to
you. And I think now is the best time to do it.” She grinned. “Happy
birthday, Twilight. Or, birthdays. However you want to call it.”
Twilight’s voice giggled. “Thanks, Sunset. It means a lot to
me. Tell everyone at Canterlot High that I said, ‘Hi.’”
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With a nod, Sunset turned outward once more and slunk

through the doorframe. Her magic grabbed a hold of the double
doors and pulled them closed. The double doors locked with a click,
and after one last longing look, Sunset descended the staircase.

***

Canterlot’s train station was a building that Sunset could swear

was halfway made out of windows. She trotted inside and slid into
the ticket line. As the ponies in front of her conducted their business,
her eyes glued themselves to the clock on the wall, watching it tick
on.
Finally, she reached the front. The stallion behind the counter
looked at her from behind his thick spectacles and pulled at his half-
greying beard. “How can I help you today?” he asked with a worn
and tired voice.
Sunset used her magic to fish her bits out from her saddlebag
and tossed them onto the counter. “One-way to Ponyville, please…”
“One-way to Ponyville,” he echoed as he scooped the bits into
a register. The stallion reached under the counter and slapped a train
ticket onto the countertop. “Your train leaves in about two hours.
You will want to be here at the station at least thirty minutes before
it arrives.”
Sunset nodded. “Thanks.”
“Have a wonderful day and hope you have a safe trip!” the
stallion said with a smile.
Sunset slunk toward one of the windows and tossed her sad-
dlebag against it before taking a seat herself. Her eyes drifted toward
the drop-off a few yards past the tracks and Sunset saw the vista
beyond. Her eyes glazed across the plains below, tracking a small
stream that meandered through the landscape. And then she fol-
lowed it back up before going over its length a third time.
And she let her mind wander. She let it wander to the last few
days. She let it wander to thoughts of those who had been with her
through them.
She wanted to see them one more time. She wanted to tell them
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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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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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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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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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Sunset nodded. “See you in a second.”

As Princess Celestia boarded the train and disappeared into the
car, Kibitz strolled up to the conductor and whispered into his ear.
The conductor considered it, checked his watch, and then nodded.
Sunset turned to the six behind her. She looked into each of
their eyes and blushed. “Well… it’s been a blast,” she said. “This is
it.”
“These past few days sure’ve been somethin’,” Applejack said
with a smirk.
“They sure have!” Rainbow Dash exclaimed. “That was…
fun? But… let’s not do that again.”
The seven of them laughed in response to that.
“Well, we all won in the end, didn’t we?” Pinkie Pie said, look-
ing around.
“We did, and I’m tired,” Spike said.
“Anyway, we sure appreciate all that ya did,” Applejack said
with a tip of her hat. “We owe ya.”
“This was all you,” Rainbow Dash added.
Sunset frowned. “No, it wasn’t,” she replied.
Rarity stepped forward. “Sunset Shimmer… You were the one
that kept us going, even when we… doubted you. You were the one
that figured out these other worlds and how they worked. You fig-
ured out those nasty contradictions and set us all on the right path.
My, you were the one that found Twilight to begin with.” She mo-
tioned to the other five. “I think I speak for all of us when I say that
we don’t know where we would be without you. You… have given
us our lives back.”
Fluttershy nodded and smiled. “Thanks, Sunset. For every-
thing that you did for Twilight.”
Sunset held up a hoof. “Please, girls. You give me way too
much credit. I could not have done with without all of you,” she said,
placing a hoof to her chest. She let her head hang, and for some mo-
ments, she stared at the platform’s wooden floor.
“You made me feel like I had a place in this world again,” she
said. “You girls… you all went to the ends of the world for Twi-
light.” Sunset pointed to herself and laughed. “I just sat in a tower
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and wrote stuff.”

The others giggled along.
Sunset turned. “And Spike, you saw me go to a dark place, and
you picked me right back up. You helped me with so many things
and…” She shook her head and chuckled. “Twilight couldn’t ask for
a better assistant.”
Spike beamed and beat a fist against his chest.
Sunset could feel some water welling up in her eyes. “I think
it’s all of you that helped me the most. I am… so happy that I got to
meet all of you. And I’m going to miss all of you.”
The train let out a long whistle that made them jump. They
looked over to the conductor who remained on the platform. He met
their stares and rolled his hooves in a “wrap it up” motion.
“I have to go, I guess,” Sunset muttered.
She looked back toward the five ponies and a dragon, all of
whom smiled back at her. Six individuals with whom she had made
friends with.
These friends of Equestria.
Her friends.
“But, after all, I’m just a portal away.” Sunset took a breath as
she thought about her next words and she eventually grinned. “This
isn’t goodbye; it’s just goodbye until next time!”
The six swarmed her, scooping her up in a multi-faceted em-
brace. Their forelegs locked together and their voices mingled as
they let forth several well-wishes and compliments and many, many
other things in between. Sunset grabbed onto them as well, wishing
that she never had to let go.
All at once, the seven broke. Sunset turned and stepped into
the train car. After one last wave to them, she too, like Celestia be-
fore her, disappeared into the car.
The train’s engine let out another whistle and lurched forward.
The rhythmic sound of steam as it pushed and pulled bellowed up
as it shot smoke into the air. The train gained speed and as it did it
drew farther and farther away.
Finally, the train disappeared around the corner, bound for
someplace far beyond the city.
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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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Pie said, voicing it for them.

Sunset chuckled to herself and stepped forward. “Hey, every-
one,” she greeted.
The six humans before her whirled around in their seats. After
a moment of taking her in, they shot to their feet. “Sunset!” they
cried in unison.
“You came back!” Rarity exclaimed.
Sunset blushed. “Yeah, yeah. Sorry, I didn’t mean to be gone
so long. It’s just… some things came up and I really had to take care
of them.”
Rainbow Dash laughed. “And here we were thinking about
heading home for the night.”
Sunset frowned. “Huh?”
“Well,” Fluttershy said, “we’ve been here for a few hours al-
ready.”
“Sorry, Sunny,” Pinkie Pie said, pointing to a box on the
ground, “pizza’s already cold.”
Sunset’s eyes drifted down to the boxes on the ground and she
noticed the label emblazoned across their surfaces. …Right.
She shook her head, “What are all of you doing here? I thought
being on the grounds at night was against the rules?”
“Which is why I am here,” Celestia said as she leaned against
the handrail. “This has been a difficult time for all of us, but espe-
cially for you six. And they… they have come here practically every
night for the past few days hoping that you might show up. And I
can’t and won’t say no to that.”
Sunset held a hand to her mouth to hide her chuckle. But the
red in her face gave her away.
“So, Sunset,” Rainbow Dash asked, “what all held you up so
long?”
There was the question. Sunset grinned. “I was… on a very
interesting adventure.”
“Yeah?
“We learned a lot about what happened. Actually, we kinda…
sorta… shaped it. Really hard.”
They met Sunset with confused frowns and raised eyebrows.
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 Epilogue

“I mean,” Sunset continued, “time travel got involved… and…

parallel worlds got involved… It was confusing at times. But we
were there in those days leading up to Twilight going down.”
Rarity, after exchanging glances with the others, said, “So…
you changed the past?”
Sunset shook her head. “No, it’s like… we were always a part
of it. Is, was, will be.”
“Soooooooo,” Pinkie Pie began, “what? What actually hap-
pened then?”
Sunset felt a smile spread across her face. The smile showed
her teeth, and behind those teeth, she tried and failed to stifle her
giggles. With each moment, she lost more of her control, and her
laughter grew in volume.
“Sunset Shimmer?” Celestia asked with a concerned tone.
Sunset beamed at them as her giggling continued.
Fluttershy gasped. “No way!” she exclaimed, pointing straight
at her. “You can’t possibly say…”
Sunset nodded. “I can!”
Rarity’s eyes widened and she gasped. “Are you say—are you
saying what I think you’re saying!?”
“We figured it out. We made it happen. She’s doing fine.” Sun-
set giggled. “She says ‘Hi,’ by the way.”
The humans before her jumped for joy and shouted all sorts of
exclamations and cheers before finding the girl closest to them and
scooping them into an embrace. All except Rainbow Dash who
sprang up higher than Sunset thought possible and punched the air,
and Celestia who stood with her arms crossed and with a grin spread
across her face.
“That’s amazing!” Rarity shouted.
“Yay!” Fluttershy exclaimed.
Applejack broke her hug first and turned to Sunset. “That’s
mighty swell! Ya gotta tell us all about it!”
“I’d be happy to tell you all about it,” Sunset said as she
cracked a smile. “Just… not right now though. It’s a really long story
and I’m—” she wiped away a baggy feeling in her eyes, “—about
ready to pass out in my bed…”
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“And,” Celestia interjected, “it is very late. So I’m going to

have to lock the front doors up now.” She pointed to all the boxes
and lanterns on the ground. “Set all of this in my truck,” she in-
structed with a knowing smile. “I’ll take care of it.”
The girls nodded and picked up several items and hauled them
across the lawn. At that point, Sunset noticed the line of cars parked
on the curbside. While she recognized the station wagons and com-
pact cars, the pickup truck was unfamiliar. She headed in that direc-
tion with the folding chairs.
One by one, the six of them set the items into the back of the
pickup and then gathered on the sidewalk.
Sunset turned to face them. “I can’t wait to catch up with all
of you. I’ve… got so much to say. And I’m sure a lot has happened
here too. I learned so much these past few days and I…” She looked
between each of them, all of whom looked back at her with smiles
on their faces. “I’ve missed all of you so much. It’s so good to be
home with you girls again.”
And with that, her five friends drew toward her and took her
into one large group hug. As they took her, Sunset could feel a
warmth within herself, one which, somehow, she knew had been
there all along.
As they broke, Sunset looked to the sky. “So… I might sleep
in. Does three-ish tomorrow at the café sound good to everyone?”
They met her with a flurry of nods, “Uh-huh”s, and “Mm-
hmm”s.
Sunset looked up as Principal Celestia approached them once
more. Celestia paused as she noticed Sunset’s glance.
Sunset’s friends followed suit and looked up as well.
Celestia shook her head. “It would be unprofessional,” she as-
serted.
“Technically, so is this. Please,” Sunset pleaded, “we’ll buy,
even. It’s the least we can do for tonight, I think.”
Even behind a stoic frown, Sunset could spot the twinkle in
Celestia’s eye. “I’ll think about it,” Celestia replied. “You girls have
a good night.”
“You too!” they all replied in unison.
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 Epilogue

As Celestia climbed inside her truck, Sunset turned to her

friends. “I’m going to go get some shut-eye. See all of you tomor-
row!”
The rest of them broke and responded with “Goodnight!”s of
their own and then headed their separate ways.
Sunset watched as each of them filed into their cars (or, in Rar-
ity’s case, hopped into Applejack’s car). With the roar of their en-
gines, her friends pulled out and drove around corners, disappearing
for the night.
Sunset turned her gaze toward the reds on the horizon. The
picturesque glow of the ever-receding blue and red calmed her with
its serenity. As a nightly wind blew through her hair, as a cool howl
brushed past her, she knew that nothing could cut it. It was there just
like on any other night. And just like it would be on nights to come.
After all, the full, lively twilight above her had to mean only
one thing. Sunset Shimmer knew that much.

274