The Dragon Queen leaned against Celestia's hoof and closed the gap between their muzzles. Both glared intently at each other but with different purposes. Celestia's was filled with a righteous determination while DQ's was filled with a bloodlust and 'divine' need to accomplish her goals.
"Why are you stopping me, Celestia?" the Dragon Queen asked.
"Because Twilight is one of my subjects."
The dragoness scoffed and kicked away from the alicorn. "She's nopony's 'subject'. She, along with her comrades, are only a plague upon our own world and refuse to join me to ensure the survival of our species. I'm only doing what's right!"
"Doing what's right?" Celestia shouted with anger. She charged at the dragoness and missed her strike but managed to block a fireball with her wing again. "I saw what you did to them. You transform them. Twist them. They're not ponies anymore; They're just little toys to you!"
The dragoness responded to this by charging into Celestia and using her sharp teeth to grab the alicorn by the foreleg and toss her against a large boulder next to them. The Royal Ejge watched intently while Twilight breathed regularly to recover as fast as possible.
"Their previous forms were 'toys' to everything and everyone! You never lived through what I lived through and you never will thanks to my plans! I had to change them to let them survive in an environment no longer viable to pony kind."
Celestia summoned several floating lines that appeared phased out of existence. Flat bubbles of light floated around these lines as if they were under water and letting loose vast quantities of gas. The kirin knew exactly what they were and dodged away from them as best as she could. Each line they would collide with another would warp the space around them, confusing the victim of their whereabouts and leaving them open to attack.
"And then what, let everypony else die?" Celestia fell to her side after being hit in the face with a large rock. She stumbled back to her hooves and showed that she wouldn't back down. "What you did was warp them against their will and use them. You didn't give them the chance at better lives! You enslaved them!"
The Dragon Queen bared her teeth in pure rage. Using her unique magic, she focused the spell into her forehooves then let it loose onto the white alicorn. She didn't have time to react and found herself flipping backwards at phenomenal speeds. Dazed and on the verge of vomiting, Celestia found herself being lifted by her throat and face-to-face with DQ. The dragoness used a transitional period between dragon and pony form to be able to stand upright.
"I did what was necessary! You weren't there!" she shouted in rage. "I saw everything. I saw the King Dragon awaken and start destroying everything around it while dragons gathered. We couldn't stop them. We were powerless. Even I was powerless in front of that abomination." As she reminisced, her grip tightened around Celestia's throat. "The dragons were reshaping the world to better suit their new leader, but they encroached on the ejge's territory. That's when the true apocalypse started."
Celestia channeled the magic in the dragoness' claws and morphed it temporarily to let false lava flow through her veins and burn them from the inside-out. She fell onto her hind legs, looked at her hooves, then back at the alicorn having coughing fits.
"That won't stop me either!" She yelled. "We struggled like you did. The minotaurs and griffins were predators and better at hunting than you or I! They were the first to start hunting the dragons, but when the ejge arrived, they mistook them for additional enemies and made even more!" The hooves of the dragoness audibly sizzled as they healed while Celestia's coughs calmed down. "Just outside of my home, I saw the battle raging in my own lands and it was about to hit my home. I looked in every tome I could then found the right one!" DQ looked up and gave a disturbing smile. It was almost like she was going insane or, rather, already was. "I used the forbidden spell I was given not for me, but for them!" she gestured to all the ponies around her. "I survived the ensuing battle that destroyed my home, but didn't manage to save anypony. When I saw later that ponies had survived I extended a 'claw' to them. After all, if I could get such power, couldn't I give it out in return?"
"But in return, you waged war on everypony who refused your alleged 'gifts'."
"They weren't 'gifts'," the kirin corrected. "They were requirements of survival! You wouldn't send a pony in the desert without water, would you?!"
"Don't use fallacies to forward your arguments!" Celestia shouted. They both readied themselves for another confrontation. "Who even are you?! You say you saw it all, but how?"
DQ shook her head in disappointment. "Because I was YOU at one point!"
"What?!"
"Are you serious?" She frowned. "I gave several hints. I even made it painfully obvious that I was you at one point!"
Twilight limped forward and smacked the kirin gently on the rump with her spear. "Then why was Celestia depicted as a black alicorn associated with the stars?"
Twilight was bucked in the jaw by the pony who scoffed at her. "I'm surprised you would even mention that now when you didn't before. Still...That was my sister after she returned. My link to the elements was destroyed and so the spell dissolved faster than it should have. The mare who should've gone berserk and tried to get rid of me as I did her saw the devastation to the world." The kirin rubbed her chin and started thinking. "I'm guessing something snapped in her and almost returned to her original form, but because of her appearance and her well-placed love for me, she adopted my old name and passed herself off as a figurehead for ponies everywhere until I found her and got rid of her."
Celestia's pupils shrunk at what the mare in front of her just said.
"Well-placed? Her love was ILL placed!" Twilight corrected.
With a flick of her wrist, the kirin created a localized explosion that flipped Twilight away from her. "Oh, shut up, you," she calmly ordered. "Like you would know."
"You...You killed your own sister?!" Celestia was on the verge of crying.
"Pfff, yes. Why are you crying? She betrayed us! You should be grateful!"
"G-grateful?!"
"Yes! She betrayed us once then betrayed us a second time!...Ah...but wait." DQ smiled sheepishly. "Oh, she didn't even know it was me. Ha. She did fight bravely though. Oh, if only if only."
Images flew through Celestia's head and her imagination was running wild. She was seeing Nightmare Moon returning to the world then returning to her original self and approaching ponies to help them with her knowledge and vast powers.
"How?" Celestia muttered.
"Oh, she was teaching some ponies how to fabricate better weapons with easier techniques, then I found her amongst these ponies I later granted a better life to. She was SO feisty!" DQ laughed. "Still, she didn't listen, so I just killed he--"
The dragoness couldn't finish her sentence because Celestia started bombarding her with stones of magic that gradually increased in size until they became house sized. Exhausted, the mare fell over. She was glad it was finally over.
"You broke my wings!" DQ exclaimed.
Bloodied and bruised, the dragoness climbed out of the immense crater Celestia had created and limped on three legs. "I don't remember that spell!"
"That's because..." Celestia gasped between breaths. "I went through special training you never went through. One thing I know for certain is that I'll never be you! You might be 'me', but you aren't the same one as I am now. You're a lost and corrupted version and I disown you."
DQ winced in pain and glared at Celestia. "Then I'll show you why nopony ever managed to kill me!"
The dragoness resumed her original form and glared down at the ponies below her. In her rage, she forgot one of the two things capable of taking her down was right next to them, and in her heavily wounded state, there was no way she would be able to deal with it. The Royal Ejge sliced through the dragoness and landed right in front of her. Cringing in more pain, the dragoness toppled over, landing heavily on the ground. Her 'soldiers' witnessed the event and flew to her aid. While the Royal Ejge wanted to stop them, it was too exhausted to do so, hence why DQ did not compress into a singularity from her wound. Together, the four dragons managed to fly their leader to safety, and all but the ejge dispersed.
Celestia looked at the Royal Ejge and smiled while it tilted its head slightly. "I hope this improves relations between our two people," she struggled to say.
The alicorn awoke in a single, plain white room in a hospital bed surrounded by doctors catering to her every need. She was wrapped in bandages and had a magic locking ring placed on her horn.
"I'm back at the castle?" she wondered aloud.
"Yes, Princess," one of the doctors answered. "We were worried that you would never awaken.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"About three days."
"Well," she chuckled. "That isn't much." She rubbed her head and groaned in pain as she recalled the events that had transpired. "What about the guards?"
The doctors and nurses looked at each other and their expressions weren't that of a sour satisfaction. "Only three thousand three hundred and fifty-seven of the ten thousand survived."
Celestia covered her face with her hooves. "And what about Twilight?"
"Oh, she and her dragon slayers survived the battle as well. So, that's one positive."
"A good positive is that there were still survivors."
"Well, yes, but--"
"Anything else?" Celestia interjected?
"Well..."
The guards had a 'thank you' present for Twilight in the form of the corpse of the King Dragon that had been brought to the castle with extreme difficulty. The Royal Ejge even left one of its scales for her, having voluntarily plucked it off its body and placed it atop the mare. Despite having multiple fractures, Twilight immediately rushed to make a weapon out of the ejge scale and armor out of the King Dragon's once she had awoken and learned of the 'gift'. It was unprecedented. She had two of the most powerful materials in the known world. Still, she was forced back into her bed multiple times, although Sparkles and everypony else had trouble keeping her in bed, even with straps.
Three months later, as Twilight finished the final designs for her armor and weapon and wore them proudly, a temporal portal opened in Canterlot where she came through. The unicorn, Celestia, and many others rushed to see it. It was the same stallion that sent Twilight through in the first place.
"Twilight, is that you?" a white stallion asked.
"Yes!" she cheered then winced in pain.
"What are you wearing?"
"Armor from the skin and scales of the King Dragon."
There was very loud and resounding 'WHAT?!' that came from beyond the portal. "That's amazing! How did the battle go?"
"Well...That's a long story..."
"Twilight," Celestia interrupted. "Who is this?"
When she came into view, the stallion immediately became hostile. "What's the traitor doing here?!"
"Not this again," Celestia sighed.
"It's okay. While she IS 'her', she didn't follow the same path. This is the original Celestia.
"...I don't get it."
"Celestia, this Marble. Marble, this is Celestia." Twilight faced the alicorn again after her little presentation. "He is the one who sent me back in time," Twilight explained.
"I see. Pleased to meet you," Celestia smiled.
"I can't say the same."
"What are you doing there?" Twilight asked.
"We wanted to know if you were successful in your mission and what you were planning on doing."
"...Well..." Twilight scratched the back of her head.
"We're not forcing you to return. We're doing fine either way. You already helped another timeline survive, and the 'us' of that time will not have to deal with the horrors we have."
"Wait, you knew that we wouldn't disappear?"
The stallion frowned in disappointment. "I told you that before you left."
Twilight scrunched up her face and stomped forward. "Is there a way to bring you all here?!" she asked.
"I...Well...I don't supposed it's impossible, but..."
"But?"
"We're about three hundred in total, and many of us are in the caves, still. To bring us all, including our city, to that time would require a power equivalent to the output of the sun."
"Then let me worry about that," Celestia smirked.
The stallion was about to protest, but Twilight stopped him with a gesture to "zip his lips'.
"However, we cannot bring your city with us. You can, however, bring parchments, scrolls, books, and anything else you have that contains your knowledge to allow you to rebuild in the same comfort as before."
The stallion leaned and looked at Twilight with a befuddled expression. "Book?" he wondered.
"I'll explain later."
"Then give me a minute. We're currently under another siege."
Celestia's whole body glowed a bright sheen of gold that engulfed the portal as did the energy being used on the other side. The stallion did say that bring Twilight back would be a problem for the 'wizards of old', and Celestia could still be considered as such. Everypony that had gathered around to see what exactly was going on were completely blinded. The spell Celestia was using lasted for a solid five minutes, then everyone was dropped in front of the lake where the war had taken place those few months past. The stallion and all of Twilight's companions rubbed their eyes and looked around, confused. Many of them started jumping everywhere in panic hen they noticed they were on grass, while others simply fainted. All of her work and efforts amounted to this one moment, and it gave her more than she ever wished for. Twilight's smile nearly reached her ears. This was a new temporal tangent, but with new tangents came new events, and because of the Dragon Queen's meddling, a few things were going to have to be taken care of before anything else.