"Starlight!"
"Sorry!"
Celestia stared. Twilight had vanished- okay, she could teleport, not too impossible. She had come back a second later with her wing bandaged- okay, that could be hoofwaved with time travel. But how- and why- had she brought along another Unicorn?
"Should I ask," she asked. "or will the answer just be more confusing?"
"Probably," answered Sunset.
The mauve stranger stared around at her, cowering to the ground and nibbling at the top of her hooves. "Oh sweet Celestia! I went back in time! I'm going to ruin everything! I probably already killed my grandma by standing here! I can feel myself fading out of the existence! Everypony out of the universe!"
Pinkie Pie was about to eat herself when she noticed StarSong glaring at her.
Twilight trotted over to the stranger, folding her wing over her. "Starlight, listen to me. History can't be changed that easily. You're not going to change anything by just being here. In fact, you'd have to be actively trying to avoid a stable time loop to change anything either way, and even then it would be almost impossible because this spell only allows for bootstrap paradoxes...."
Sunset rolled her eyes. "Twilight, only you can nerd-ify comforting somepony!"
"OBJECTION!" yelled Luna. "Celestia's done that a thousand times!"
Starlight stood up. "Twilight, we have to go back to the present! You're injued!"
"I'm fine, Starlight. You should go back."
"Oh yes, I'm going to go back and tell Princess Celestia that you directly disobeyed her-"
She was cut off by a green flame appearing in the air in front of her. They burned away in the air to reveal a scroll, which she grabbed with her magic. "Dear Starlight Glimmer, Twilight is allowed to go back. Sincerely......Princess Celestia...."
She growled, cursing under her breath. "Fine. I guess I'll go."
"Actually.....You can help us, since you're here."
"She can?" asked Sunset.
She had gone through the portal and met Starlight exactly once before, and they were less than trusting of each other.
"Yes, she can."
"But," they whined at the same time. "But I'm Twilight's socially awkward friend who has basically the same name as her and used to be evil!"
They paused and stared at each other. "Yes!" yelled Luna. "Listening to two Unicorns from the future saying that at the same time was on the top of my bucket list!"
"I told you to throw that out because most of those things won't happen!" snapped Celestia.
At that moment she realised the thing she had forgotten to do, trotting over to the newcomer. "Sorry, I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Celestia, and this is my sister Luna."
"She's a nerd!" shouted Luna unhelpfully.
"Err....Nice to meet you. I'm Starlight!"
Sparkleworks and Kimono trotted forward to introduce themselves but Starlight was hardly paying attention. She turned to Twilight. "So, what do you want me to do?"
"You and Sunset- I need you two to help me hold Sweetie Belle down with magic for a few seconds so I can do something."
"Err, sure- who's Sweetie Belle?"
At that moment a rock flew towards them. Starlight looked up, seeing a white Unicorn filly glaring at them. "Never mind."
"Follow me," decided Sunset, and galloped towards the white filly. Starlight nervously trotted after her to find the filly furiously shooting random spells everywhere. Starlight instinctively grabbed her with telekinesis and flinched violently as she felt something pushing her back.
"What the-"
She saw Sunset tumbling over and assumed she had tried the same thing. Sweetie Belle laughed. "You idiots! You fricken' idiots! What are ya tryna do, beat me? Not in a kazillion years!"
Starlight galloped a few steps closer, trying to grab her again and feeling something pushing her backwards, harder this time. She fell to the ground, awkwardly getting up. But half a second later the filly's horn was glowing. Before they knew it a tower of flames was shooting into the air before splitting apart and raining back down. Sunset instinctively conjured up a shield spell and the flames hit it and burned away.
Celestia galloped forward in the hope that she could help with what little magic she knew. She tried to do something, anything, but she had only gotten a horn a few days ago and had been learning magic for even less time than that. With all the strength she had in her, she managed to conjure up.....a flashing light that lasted for all of two seconds.
Sweetie Belle saw the light and allowed herself to be distracted for a moment. In that moment she felt something grabbing onto her, holding her in place. She moved her eyes around to see Starlight and Sunset's horns were glowing. "Blast!" she muttered.
Twilight trotted over to the filly, her horn starting to glow with a magenta aura as she lowered it to the white mare's head.
Sweetie Belle gasped.
Suddenly she remembered her friends, and everything they had done for her. The time they had persuaded her to sing in StarSong's karaoke party even though she was shy. The time she had won a medal for Scootaloo's outdoor sports party. All the nice things her friends had done for her.
What was she doing? Why was she doing this? Sure, she had heard the voice, but that was no excuse! That was when she realised- she had hurt Rainbow Dash! She looked around frantically and saw her biting into the shredded remains of her dress. Why was she so.....grey?
"Sweetie Belle!" yelled a voice. She turned. It was Twilight.
"What-What is it?" she stammered.
"You know that spell I used on you, just then?"
"Err.....Yeah?"
"Do you think you would be able to use it on the others?"
"Err.....Maybe?"
She turned around and nervously stepped towards Rainbow Dash only to collapse to the floor and burst into tears a second later.
"What happened? What have I done? What was the voice? What happened?"
Twilight sighed, sitting next to her. "Sweetie Belle, you weren't really in control of yourself when you tried to hurt other ponies. That Strife- he can cast spells on you without you knowing, and he can make you do things you wouldn't normally do."
Sweetie Belle nodded weakly. She stumbled to her feet, trotting over to Rainbow Dash. She grabbed the remains of the dress from under the older mare's hooves. Rainbow turned to her, and she took her chance, pressing her horn against her head.
Before she knew it she could see the blue coming back into her fur and her mane regaining its rainbow colours. Tears appeared in her eyes. "Wh-What happened?"
She looked around until she remembered and galloped over to Kimono, hugging her tightly. "Kimono! I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"
"I could say the same to you!" muttered Sweetie Belle, trotting over to them. "...Without the 'Kimono' part. Is your leg okay?"
She glanced down at the cut on her leg. There were a few drops of blood dripping from it but it didn't look that bad. "I'll be fine," she mumbled.
Sweetie Belle nodded, trotting over to Scootaloo. She stared. The Earthpony filly was just sitting there, staring at nothing. This was not the Scootaloo she knew. She nervously stepped forward, touching her horn to the filly's head.
Before she knew it the orange was comign back into her fur. She stood up, grinning wildly. "Hey, is it time for a game of blindfolded hill scootering? Where's Cheerilee?"
That was when she remembered. Cheerilee had ran off. "She ran off somewhere," she explained, gesturing in what she thought was the right direction. "Go find her."
Scootaloo nodded and galloped off. Sweetie Belle looked around and galloped over to Toola-Roola. Soon she had lifted the spell from her too. After a while Scootaloo came back, dragging her older sister behind her. Within minutes she was apologising, not a trace of grey on her.
StarSong was the hardest. The second Sweetie Belle started towards her, she flew higher in the air and no amount of jumping around like an idiot could get to her. That was when she felt feathers touching her.
"Get on my back." said Celestia.
Sweetie Belle nodded, clambering onto the Alicorn's back. Before she knew it she was flying after StarSong- and fast. Before she knew it she was close enough to jump over to StarSong's back. From there, her head was easily reachable, and she guiltily flew them back down.
"Sorry I lied to you."
Last was Minty. Sweetie Belle galloped over to her and held her horn to the grey mare's head. Her horn flickered a little and finally glowed. Minty smiled as her fur became green, her hair once again sparkling in different shades of pink.
"I'm sorry!" she yelled.
Oh, how she wished she could be.