Old Wounds (1)
Luna's memory cache is remarkably boring for such a forbidden spell. She merely stares at me for a short while, horn glowing. I had expected some bookshelf, or billboard, or huge steel vault, or something, to pop up from the surrounding mindscape — but the only apparent effect is a mild tingling in my scalp, which recedes as her hornglow dies away.
"It is done," she whispers as the mindscape fades around us. "Thank you."
I return to consciousness with a slow ticking in my ears. When I open my eyes, the cold — and mercifully non-aquamarine-tinted — stone of the experiment room is illuminated by the stifled glow of covered magelights. The wall clock reads a little after 3:00.
Luna is stowing the Circlet of Mind back in its lockbox. Celestia is curled up in a corner, eyes closed, breathing slow, with a sleeping Spike sprawled out against her side. Aside from the languid swinging of the clock's pendulum, the room is silent.
I sit up and stare at Celestia — my gut balling up as I try not to think about the conversation I know is ahead — but my thoughts are interrupted by an odd weight at my neck. I glance down. A large oval amethyst glimmers against the lavender of my coat, centered in a heavy silver setting secured tightly to my throat with a thick silver chain. The necklace tingles with restrained magical energy.
Luna finishes securing the locks and walks over to me. "In future loops," she whispers, "to instruct me to retrieve the memory cache, simply make reference to me of 'six persimmons,' or of the Qilinese gardens of that name. Long ago, during my theft of the Jade Horseshoes, I used this same spell to smuggle forbidden knowledge into the court of the Qilinese Emperor. I will know of what you speak."
"Okay," I whisper back, then tap the necklace with a hoof. "What's this?"
Discomfort flits across her muzzle. "I spoke of the unorthodox measures I took to stabilize you, yes? In brief, Twilight, that amulet is a phylactery, prepared long ago by a necromancer we defeated before it could be put to use. Your consciousness is now attuned to it, rather than your body."
"Uh. So to fix me, you bound my soul to an inanimate object? I'm a LICH now?" I can feel a migraine coming on — not the broken-brain kind, the you've-got-to-be-kidding-me kind.
"Yes. No. Somewhat." She rubs the bridge of her muzzle with a hoof; it looks like I'm not the only one with a hurting head. "In ordinary circumstances, you should be correct — such a process would have terminated your body's vitality immediately, and only the transference of spirit from the phylactery would animate it. But there is a suppressed second consciousness inhabiting your body, beyond the one I speak with now. Celestia suspected that to be Twilight, back when we believed you were a hostile spirit assuming control of her. As you are Twilight, that is impossible, but I know not who else it might be."
I have no idea where to start with my questions, but the interaction of this with my time loops seems pretty darn important. "So what happens if I take the necklace off? Does that count as dying? What happens if I don't die? Can I even be killed now? Since I'm bound to the necklace, what happens to me if I start the loop without it on?" The headache presses at my eyeballs. "I really don't want to get another lecture from the universe, especially since the Elements of Harmony already exploded saving me."
"The situation is unprecedented. We shall discover the answers as we proceed, taking every possible precaution to prevent paradox." Luna sighs. "I do apologize, Twilight. I tried every trick I knew before resorting to the techniques of forbidden magic. I have spent the better part of four nights on this. I do not say lightly that isolating your consciousness was the only method of stabilization."
"Because of the second … um, me?"
"Yes. No. Somewhat," Luna whispers. "There were not two but three components to separate, the third of which was a vast amount of foreign memory data."
"Three?" My migraine threatens to get worse, but then a piece of the puzzle clicks together. "Ah, okay. The One Loop."
"I was able to repair my own damage to your mind early on — due to the intervention of the Elements, it was not severe. The issue which caused your premature deaths was not my attack, but an overflow of memory far beyond what your mind was ever meant to contain. The recall of the overloaded memories was triggering physiological controls without regard to their effect on your body."
"Wait — The One Loop was killing me?"
"Yes. It was writ to such detail as to overfill a mortal mind on its own. Even after the separation of the two consciousnesses, it presented an immediate and insoluble hazard to your health."
I know exactly where this is going, but I still have to ask. "What did you do with it?"
"I removed it, naturally."
It's surprisingly liberating to realize that the universe is actively out to get you.
"Twilight?" Spike mumbles, blinking sleep from his eyes. Celestia lifts her head from the floor near his side, glancing over at me. Luna stares at me, frozen in place. Spike sits up. "Are you okay? What's so funny?"
"It's gone," I manage in between gales of helpless laughter. "All of it. Gone."
Celestia nods, staring into my eyes. "Luna," she mutters out of the side of her mouth, "I don't think you're quite finished."
I gasp for breath, light-headed and grinning. "No, no, humor is a perfectly natural reaction to a cathartic reversal of subversion of expectation. They've done studies and everything." They're all looking at me, lost. "See, I figured I was stuck in this time loop because the universe hates me — and then the Elements of Harmony gave me the perfect way out of this mess, so for a minute it looked like maybe things would turn out okay after all, but of course it was just a way to make everything worse — how could it have ever been any different? And now that it's done its damage I don't even get to try it." I glance around from face to unsmiling face. "Did explaining the joke ruin it?"
Celestia clears her throat, her eyes drifting away from me. "I … well. I'm afraid I don't see much humor in this, Twilight. Now that you're better, I owe you an apology. I owe you a great deal more than that."
Aaand here we go. My amusement plummets away like a feather drifting into a cockatrice's gaze.
"But you have to understand," she says quietly, "I have a world to save — not just from Chrysalis, but from every possible threat —"
"That's a strange way to start an apology." I'm really not ready to hear why it made perfect sense for her to talk Luna into brain-ripping me.
She sighs. "You're right. I'm sorry, full stop. But if there's one thing I know about my faithful student, it's how important it is that the world makes sense around her. If I just tell you I was wrong, my words aren't going to mean anything. You want to know why."
That line would have worked wonders on pre-Ponyville Twilight, or even pre-looping Twilight — and that's almost certainly why she's using it — but it's not what I need right now. Even if I were ready for this conversation, the naked appeal to rationality (is that a logical fallacy? Can it even be?) would leave a bad taste in my mouth. It feels like some continued identity test, like she's trying a little too hard to offer a Twilight-specific fix to our schism — except it isn't, because that's also how she behaved the last time things went sour between us, and in some ways that makes it even worse.
"Yeah, well," I say lamely. "Right now I'm still sorting through the consequences."
She nods. "We all are. This has gotten strange in ways that none of us could have expected."
That's what friendship is for, I want to say. That's what trust is for. That's how we face the unknown. That's what separates us from the monsters. But I can't look her in the eye. I don't want to be here. And if I open my mouth, I just know I'm going to pick a fight.
We sit in uncomfortable silence for a moment. "I do want to make this right for you," Celestia continues.
"Forgive me if I'm a bit suspicious of that," I allow myself to say.
"That's only natural. We'll have to make that better the same way we're fixing everything else: one loop at a time." Celestia gestures with a wingtip down at the evocation circle. "First order of business is to get rid of that ward, wouldn't you agree? It's not much, but we have to start somewhere."
I nod mutely.
"Tell me what else you want me to change." She glances behind her. "Oh … speaking of which, what should I do with the Elements? I don't know how much good they're going to do at this point."
"What do you mean?" I glance up at the bookshelf where they've been sitting during all the loops I've started here. The jewelry looks like it's been through a fire, and its gems are dull and dark, but the shelf itself is pristine. I blink. "Huh? What happened to them this loop?"
"This loop? Nothing, as near as I can tell. They've looked like that ever since the massive feedback surge and your accompanying mental damage." Celestia looks earnestly into my eyes. "What happened? I'd like to hear it straight from you."
Luna clears her throat. "Sister, if I might interrupt …"
Celestia glances at her sister. "Luna, this is important."
"I know. It is one of many topics which, if you are to make any progress in understanding our predicament, you both will need to discuss in full. But I am concerned, since there seems little point in you asking such a question now."
Celestia looks blankly at Luna. "Why wouldn't there be? I …" She blinks, and her mouth curls downward. "You told me that once she woke up you were done fixing her."
"You misunderstood. Not until she resets."
"But you said the reanchoring was a loop-independent alteration of her underlying consciousness. That was the point of it, to repair her in a way that wouldn't be undone the first time someone died."
"Correct, but due to the excised foreign memories, the work I performed is a potential source of discontinuity until she resets with knowledge of my repairs. If you were to reset first, and the loop spell attempted to add her memories back in … the damage would at minimum undo all that I have accomplished, and hypothetically might create a paradox that could threaten our timeline itself."
The corner of Celestia's eye twitches. "You definitely didn't mention that earlier."
"I was quite explicit that you not reset until my repairs were complete, under pain of severe existential consequences. I see I was insufficiently clear on the definition of 'complete'." Luna stares back with cool intensity. "Celestia, I must insist, in the most emphatic possible terms, that Twilight be the next to terminate her loop."
I decide to weigh in. "Look, it's no big deal." I try not to show my relief at the reprieve; if I reset, I can take a loop or two as a breather before fully diving into this. "Let's make sure I'm stable first, and have this talk right after my loop starts, where we can both reset and remember it equally."
"It won't be that simple," Celestia mutters. "At the start of this loop you were still trapped in the ward, and I didn't realize the need for my apology."
Oh, right. That … could complicate things. I'm about to backpedal when Luna cuts in: "You are not pressed for time, sister. It will be no great task for you to re-learn all we have discovered. Give Twilight Sparkle the ward password; I have already informed her of the nature of her repairs and the purpose of the necklace, and can easily verify that information upon her reset. At that point, she can bid us to recreate the investigation which led us here — with you resetting at that terminus, once again prepared for your conversations."
"That's reasonable," Celestia says after a moment's thought, though she doesn't sound at all happy about it. "She resets first. Twilight, the password is 'Look ever upward.' Tell me 'Fillydelphia.' I apologize in advance for next loop's behavior; it will take me some time to straighten out what happened, so I beg you not to take any initial suspicion personally. Let's get it over with."
Luna's mention of the necklace gives me a twinge of unease, and I turn to her. "Uh, actually … I'd like to know, first, that it's safe for me to reset." I tap the amethyst with a hoof. "What with the necromancy and all."
"You were wearing the necklace at the start of this loop," Celestia says before her sister can reply. "There will be no paradox. We'll figure out the rest later."
"Was my spirit in the necklace at the start of the loop?"
"No, but even if that reverts, your body will be animate and Luna can simply redo the reanchoring. There's no mechanism for harm — it's no more dangerous than it would be if you were standing at a slightly different location inside the circle." She gives Luna a pointed stare until Luna glances at me and nods in confirmation.
"Okay, no offense, but you're not thinking this through, again," I say, feeling my heartbeat speed up under the heavy jewelry. "That's one possible problem, and having an answer for it doesn't make the rest of them go away. For instance, now that I'm some sort of undead offense to equinity, what happens if I cast a Euthanatos and do brain damage that doesn't actually kill me?"
"Then it'll get fixed once you reset. You don't know any magic powerful enough to have meta-loop effects."
I stand my ground. "Sorry, that's not enough. I don't have the Elements of Harmony as a safety net this time, and given how much trouble I've already gotten into with unreliable memories, I'm not taking any chances. I want to know exactly what a Euthanatos is going to do to me before trying to reset myself. And if that's not going to work, I need to know, now, a spell that will."
Celestia sighs. "Fine. Come, Luna. Let's go back to your notes and get her an answer."
Luna opens her mouth, but appears to reconsider as she looks back and forth between us. "Very well," she says meekly, and the two of them turn to the door leading back into the central vault.
I'm speechless for a moment, but the opening of the door snaps me back to my senses. "Excuse me?" I say, raising my voice. "Get me an answer? I'm not invited to the research session that will determine whether my brain will break again?"
They look back. Luna has the grace to look ashamed, but Celestia's glaring. "I hope you're not implying that you have the knowledge to add anything productive to our discussion."
"No, and I hope you're not implying that's the only factor to consider here."
"Think logically for a moment, Twilight. I find it hard to believe that, after all the problems time looping has caused you — not to mention your front-row seat to the Want-It-Need-It disaster — you'd have any enthusiasm for dabbling in how both time and mind magic interact with necromancy."
"Under the circumstances, yes! How is that hard to believe?!"
"Twilight," Luna says, trying to sound stern and failing utterly, "there are lines which must not be crossed." She clears her throat and focuses her guilt. "We … have already failed you. Let us take the consequences of this upon ourselves."
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. I guess that conversation couldn't wait after all. "With all due respect, Princess," I say, "this is one of those consequences, so please let me speak." I open my eyes and stare at Celestia levelly, feeling my heart plummet to hide behind one of my ribs. "We …" In for a bit, in for a bank. "We have a problem, Princess. You don't trust me. And unless you're going to fix that, don't bother to apologize."
That gets their attention.
Celestia freezes, then turns back to me, casting a longing glance at the door over her shoulder. She takes a long breath, and pulls her muzzle into a smile. "Oh, Twilight," she says in her most gentle, maternal voice. "Listen to Luna. There's a difference between trust and prudence. I've had centuries upon centuries to see the consequences of trustworthy ponies dabbling with powers they don't understand — or, worse, understand but overreach. Don't make this into something it isn't. It's simply best that you don't cross that line."
"You don't get to 'Oh, Twilight' me right now," I say, standing my straightest and staring up into her muzzle. "I'm not talking about the research. Well, not just about the research. I came to you with a problem, and your reaction was to cage me and rip my brain apart."
"I thought you wanted us to talk about that where we could both remember it," she murmurs. "This isn't fair." The forced cheer is fading, degree by degree, from her muzzle. Luna, for her part, bites her lower lip, unable to look either of us in the eye.
"And what you did to me was?" My hooves are starting to shake with adrenaline; I have to get all this out before I lose my nerve. "Did I get a trial by jury in a loop I don't remember? Did you even listen to my side of the story before you decided I was evil?"
Celestia leans forward, speaking in clear, clipped syllables. "You took over the mind of the faithful student I care so deeply about. What was I supposed to think?"
"Celestia, she is —"
"I took over nothing! I'm the same Twilight Sparkle I've always been, but I woke up one loop and suddenly the world had gone crazy!"
"And I went to extremes to give that explanation the benefit of the doubt — only to have you lie to me, destroy my hope and toy with my feelings. Furthermore, I did not appreciate you using the cover of my faithful student's good name —"
Luna takes a step forward and brings one solleret down with a sharp crack. "Celestia! Stop! She is Twilight Sparkle. There can be no further doubt on that point."
"Let me speak," Celestia says coldly. "She questioned my actions. I was explaining the source of my earlier doubts."
"And in so doing, you evade the question at hoof. Do they persist?"
Celestia's mouth flattens into a tight line. "Kindly do not dictate to me the best manner in which to approach my student's concerns."
"Kindly cease avoiding mine," Luna says with equal frost. "Did you bid me delve back into the dark sorceries which once consumed me in order to preserve the existence of a pony you cannot even trust?"
Whoah. Looks like my talk wasn't the only one that couldn't wait.
I try to get a word in, but Celestia wheels on her sister. "I asked for what was necessary, and now we are far beyond that. Look me in the eyes and tell me that you trust her to learn dark magic."
Luna hesitates, guilt flashing on her face, then frowns, muzzle re-stiffening. "Do not cloud the issue. You drew the distinction between trust and prudence yourself. I trust Twilight Sparkle."
"Do you trust this one?" Celestia asks, raising her voice. "This Twilight has different memories than the one who saved you — and by her own admission, she works with the pony who tainted you and nearly killed us both."
"Wait," I say. "What?"
"Yes, sister. For all that, I do." Luna spreads her wings and raises a hoof. "I looked within her heart at your bidding — and the Elements of Harmony did as well, when they judged her worthy of their protection. Are you rejecting both my judgment and theirs? Then you are ill served by false words of contrition —"
"How dare you question my sincerity!" Celestia snaps, wings and hoof lifting to match Luna's defiant pose. "I acted wrongly, yes, and I admit that! But do not conflate the question of my guilt with the question of her innocence. She is not the only one who has had her trust betrayed."
The two alicorns stare at each other in silence, outstretched wingtips quivering. The temperature of the room drops a few not-entirely-metaphorical degrees. I glance down, and realize that I've taken an involuntary step back; Spike has backed into a corner and is staring with wide, frightened eyes.
I clear my throat, but neither of them so much as twitches in response. "Uh, Luna?" I say, hoping to sidetrack things. "What's she talking about? With the tainting and the killing?"
"My sister refuses to consider," Luna says pointedly, eyes still locked with Celestia's, "that in the vast sweep of possible Equestrian histories, the Mi Amore Cadenza of your acquaintance might have been redeemed."
Cadance is evil? Cripes, how badly did time get screwed up!?
"Incorrect," Celestia says with dire calmness. "I refuse to place this stranger above suspicion based on that possibility, when the world is at stake and evidence to the contrary continues to mount even now. Or do you think nothing of the timing of this conversation, and the casualness with which she approaches forbidden arts?"
I should know better than to open my big dumb mouth and step back into this face-off, but I can't let that one go. "Hold on. I think I have the right to understand a spell that was cast on me, especially when it's affecting the only thing I can rely on from loop to loop."
My heart stops as Celestia swivels her cold eyes to me. "You have the right to do a great many things. This decision is about your judgment."
"Then Twilight was correct. You do not trust her."
"I need a basis to trust her!" Celestia roars, head whipping back to Luna, eyes bursting into light. I nearly wet myself on the spot. I've never heard the Royal Canterlot Voice out of the Living Sun, and it is a thing of magnificent and horrible power. "Stand down and let us speak!"
Luna doesn't even flinch. "Here is basis enough." She blinks her eyes into radiant darkness. "She is Twilight Sparkle. My savior. Bearer of Magic."
"It is not nearly so simple, sister," Celestia hisses, "and every word you say makes this less amenable to rational approach."
"It is exactly that simple," Luna says with ominous finality. An intangible wind whips up, sending a ripple coursing through the galaxy of her mane, flaring the stars within. The aurora of Celestia's mane lifts and strengthens in response, lighting the walls with diffuse pastel glows. "Twilight Sparkle hath indicted thee for thy mistrust. Twilight Sparkle, who we wronged most greviously, in fear proven erroneous — who nonetheless offered us reconciliation and even now works to save us all." Gravity goes a little wibbly as she begins hovering a hoof's-edge off the floor. "Abandon thy fear, or admit it and face her judgment. I cannot allow again thy pretenses of a millennium past."
Celestia crouches. The glow of their eyes intensifies, and energy fills the room like static electricity before a lightning strike. My breath comes out in steam, which boils away before it can clear my nose; my skin breaks out in simultaneous sweat and goosebumps.
Oh, sweet alicorn shit. I did not need a front-row seat to the next Celestial War.
The air of the room begins to distort, pockets of superheated and subglacial air colliding and collapsing. Spike sprints across the room and dives behind the false cover of an old wooden chair. I scramble back and dive behind the false cover of Spike.
Then Celestia blinks.
And like that, it's over. The seething air slams from sublimation point to hard freeze. Celestia flinches, eyes closed, and takes several shallow breaths through her nose. Her wings droop, then fold, and there is a single click of solleret on brick as her raised hoof returns to the ground.
Luna holds her flared posture a moment longer, then resettles her own wings and blinks her eyes back to normal. Her hooves touch down, and I realize she's trembling. The room starts slowly thawing.
"Stars damn it, Luna," Celestia says faintly.
Luna merely closes her eyes in reply, breathing in and out through her nose, and Spike and I don't dare move. My erstwhile mentor turns to look at me. "Twilight?"
I peek out around the edge of the chair. "Yes?"
She's standing tall, body held in a rigid approximation of control, and there are fresh tears trickling down her cheeks. "The honesty she asked for puts me in an impossible position, but … I can't hurt her again, not even to save the world." She stops to breathe. "Twilight … I need you. The looping you, the one I'm talking to now. I can't defeat Chrysalis without you. But you're right, I don't trust you. The instant I realized what you knew, it was clear you were a threat to Equestria even more dire than Chrysalis, and even if we repelled the invasion, I was going to have to … address that. That hasn't changed. So I suppose that apology will have to wait."
Intellectually, some part of me knew that was coming, but to actually hear that from Princess Celestia is more horrible than I could have imagined. I feel the room go floaty around me. A burning sensation pools and pours through my chest, like somepony just ripped my heart out through my ribs.
"T-twilight?" Spike asks, looking between me and Celestia with the unalloyed horror that can only come from a child whose parents are fighting.
I touch a hoof to his shoulder in what I hope is a comforting gesture, and swallow through a dry throat. I wish I could tell him it's okay. I wish I could tell myself that. But it's a very long distance from okay, and the only possible thing to do is to pick up the pieces and bring them as far back as I can.
I force myself to my hooves, face Celestia squarely, and take a long, shaky breath of my own. "Well," I say. "That's a start. But I can't help you under these circumstances."
"That's the only sane response for you." Celestia looks over at Luna, and adds bitterly: "Which is why Equestria's only chance at salvation was to avoid this talk."
Luna meets Celestia's stare with glistening eyes and trembling jaw.
"Then so be it," she whispers. "It was my sister who I intervened to save."
Remember how I was going to skip a week to rebuild my buffer? Yyyyeah. Thanks to health issues that sent me through the emergency room and kicked off a rolling ten-day freakout, I've gotten jack shit done for writing since we talked last.
I'm at the ragged end of my prewritten material, but I will commit to posting the next chapter another two weeks from now, Tuesday Wednesday, April 23. (I'm going to do the same thing I've been doing and make my release date Tuesday evening, but if you start thinking "Wednesday" then I get to be early instead of late.) Here's to hoping that two weeks (minus Babscon) gives me enough time to get another chapter or two written and pre-read, so I can give you another commit date then. 
So let's move on to something more cheerful: story recommendations!
For winning Chapter 11's make-up-an-Easter-egg contest, Prawo Jazdy asked me to plug Query's "An Existential Nightmare In Equestria." This novel-length work is about a brony sent to Equestria by mysterious forces, and you should enjoy it for many of the same reasons you like Hard Reset 2. Okay, not the time loops or brain-melting memory loss — but you do have a snarky hero, with plenty of geek bonuses (the protagonist's a systems administrator, and the first chapter includes a sequence where he does some Unix commandline work), and the story engages in the same sort of relentless escalation you've seen here.
And Arania, who won the guess-the-egg contest, actually published a new story to claim their prize! If this is what happens when I run contests, I've gotta do them more often. 
"The Outsiders" is also thoroughly enjoyable for similar reasons to this story — it starts with Twilight Sparkle glancing out a window to see herself wandering through the palace gardens, and then draws back the veil on a conspiracy of alternate universes caught up in an existential struggle. It's got a remarkably deft touch with exposition — both in dropping hints of its wider world, and in painting the picture of how the Twilight we meet is different from the Twilight we know. In conclusion, I'll be following this one myself, and there's no better time to get in on The Outsiders than now (when it's on the ground floor).
Stats
Page generated in 0.038 seconds
Total duration
964 users online
1,263,883 hits today, 2,004,447 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
Fun fact: Until this morning, this chapter ended one paragraph before "Then Celestia blinks." (The rest was part of the next chapter.) But if I'd left it there — three cliffhangers back-to-back in four chapters (and this one facing a two-week gap) — when the authorities found my body they would have ruled it justifiable homicide.
Anyway, I like this better. The chapter ends much more quietly, but draws in one of the story's major themes, sets up the next chapter better, and really sharply defines Luna and Celestia's relationship.
4206317
Pffft, Four cliffhangers back to back? What is this, Anthropology?
Oh, and good luck with being spotted and whatnot. Hopefully it's nothing serious.
Before commenting on anything else, you're going to be at BABSCon? Stop by my vendor table and say hi! I'll be hawking pony ties!
4206371
Well hey! I recognize those. I do believe, sir, we crossed paths at Everfree, but now that I've written 50,000 ponywords you've liked and you've written 10,000+ words of comments on my story, we'll have to say a proper hello.
Edited to add: holy shit when did this pass the 50,000 mark
You can't imagine the glee I felt seeing a new notification and then having this update. AAAH!
I really love how real you make these characters, and how...believable the sisterly bout is. It becomes easy to imagine how Luna's banishment played out seeing them fight here. I just super appreciate how sincere and understandable all the character's actions are. They just make me think of them as real people with flaws and misunderstandings and jumping to conclusions.
I will wait excitedly for the next update, no matter how long it takes(take all the time you need, too)! I wasn't a giant fan of the first hard reset, but something about your writing style and how you approach these characters in this situation makes this one of my fave fics on the site. So thanks for the great reading experience! Even if it can get confusing, its the sort of wonderful confusion that's complicated but not TOO complicated, and once you figure it out its just 'OOOOH' and you feel like a frickin mind wizard and get more pumped to read further.
anyways words! Thanks for writing this! Super cool! I hope you get better, and I know how it is to freak out over every little thing when you're not sure of your diagnosis. Be strong! Thanks for giving us great brain food! Get well soon!
Oh, that's clever.
I wish Spike was looping so he could calmly stride in right this second with a bucket of popcorn and a folding chair.
RIght. Right, okay, okay, that's... you... HYPOCRITE!
I'm Australian. Did you know that? You do now. I'm an Australian that breeds its most horrible creepy crawlies. For fun.
I am mailing to you, Horizon, a box. A simple little package. Inside that package will be a quivering shadow, a shadow that you can't make out at first. Then it will move and shift and you will scream, horrified fingers trembling weakly against the side of the box until your grip slackens, dropping that sweet, sweet container of shifting darkness onto the floor, at which point spiders flecked with red, white and fur will erupt like a cold chitinous geyser and swarm, crawling upon you, jumping and launching themselves in inhuman bounds, pouring into your open, screaming mouth as you flail helplessly against the writhing mass, stabbing every bare inch of skin with horrific, slow-acting venoms.
Then they will feed and nest, and your paralysed, still alive body will become a hatchery for the vile blackness consuming you. The children will erupt, then, and feed, slowly gnawing away at you until finally nothing remains but wispy traces of bloodstained silk.
I love you! And this story! Please don't make me hurt you!
Neither of us wants that, now, do we?
This joke was brought to you by the Dude, too far corporation. Crossing the line twice since 1995!
EDIT:
I should clarify that, yes, this is a calmer and more thematic cliffhanging, but, gosh darn it to Bettsy, it's also worse. I knew Celestia and Luna duelling would, worst case, kill Twilight in the crossfire - otherwise paradox and no more story - but now, cornsarnit - you actually pull the curtain back a bit on the more interesting part of the story!
4206389 Hah, those numbers do indeed sound right! Looking forward to a proper hello then!
For as large as this fandom gets, it's very small too. And Everfree really was a blast last year, and I'm looking forward to it again this year. Of course, I am insane, but I think that's a prerequisite, and really ought to go without saying.
Wait. What makes Twilight a bigger threat than Chrysalis? Is it just that Cadance was her best friend, or is there something else about the whole thing that I forgot or missed or that hasn't been revealed yet?
And right about this moment, Celestia casts Euthanatos on herself.
4206528
NO! Don't pet that kitten! Where do you think I'm incubating the current hoard?!
R.I.P StrangeReasoning...
Oh cool, you're back.
4206464
Twilight (and, thus, also we) do not yet know the whole story, but there have been hints dropped throughout this arc, and next chapter should fill in some of the bigger blanks. It's a big question, so I encourage your fellow readers to sum up what's known, start a conversation, and speculate!
4206317, I had some serious déjà vu reading parts of this chapter.
"I have had a God in my brain. I don't recommend it."
"There's nothing more reassuring than realizing that the world is crazier than you are."
I'm loving this! I've been looking for an incursion of such insistant insanity as to intrap my intellect for incalculable increments of interest!
4206405 I enjoyed your brutal murdering of the author. Heres mine:
And I am a metalergist. I get to play with boiling hot liquid metal on a daily basis. To produse such extreme heats as are needed to melt, and then boil, metal we use something called a hotpot. Our hotpot in particular is located in the back of our shop. It is 7 feet wide and 11 feet deep and can reach temperatures of over 2000°F. Now the beauty of a hotpot is that the temperatures can be micro managed at will. That means after I've shoved you in I can increase the temperature to a nice simmer, just hot enough to cook meat, and watch as you dance about trying to avoid the hot metal. Then I would dile up the heat until your feet burn. You would fall and wichever parts of your body touched the metal would burn to. You would be in excrutiating agony as you rolled around to avoid contact. Then I would slowlely scale up the heat until the air that you breath is like fire. Your next frantic gasps would ferry superheated air down your throat where it would burn your lungs and render it impossible to breath. Would die from asfixiation in the fetal position with your burnt limbs pulled close to your chest, a tormented scream frozen on your dryed lips.
And the best part? I don't even mind cliffhangers.
4206317
It's a better ending, to be sure.
I am so frickin' confused. I think my confusion is confused. I think I took the wrong turn up Crazy Creek, paddled across Lunatic Lagoon, and am now stuck in Baffled Bay.
Wait, when did Cadance turn evil? And how does that factor in to previous chapters?
4206508
Yes, but...
The real threat in a story where Cady has to be put down by the Diarchy isn't Cady herself. It's grief-stricken Shiny.
4206464 Chrysalis is trying to overthrow Equestria. She's a direct immediate threat, but they are reasonably confident that between two alicorns, two loopers, and the elements of harmony, she can be dealt with.
Twilight is an unknown in a position of power. She's one of the elements, the lead in fact, which makes her the first line of defense against anything attacking Equestria. And now you can't trust her, because not only is she not the Twilight you know, but she's the Twilight who apparently had a close, personal relationship with Cadence. A Cadence who in this reality corrupted Luna somehow (maybe originally?).
This strange Twilight certainly poses more of a danger to the very foundation of Equestria than an external attacker. Of course we don't know the exact details yet, but Twilight could do more harm than Chrysalis, and they don't even know what her end goals are.
Celestia though isn't winning any brownie points here. And not being able to get past the fact that the elements certainly accept Twilight as being Twilight. As does Luna. (Luna of course won't remember this next loop.)
Queen Nightmare Somber-Cadence?
Actually, this... raises some interesting possibilities. So Twilight B is not destroyed by casting the spell, but rather suppressed; and Twilight now has a necklace which can hold her consciousness. I had thought that a major source of drama in the endgame would be the question of whether Twilight A or Twilight B got to live after sorting out the loops (Celestia B can go back, once Chrysalis is no longer looping, and prevent Twilight B from ever casting the Loop spell to retain Twilight B, or she can let Twilight B cast the loop spell to retain Twilight A).
However, this phylactery gives us another possible solution; one of the Twilights' consciousness can live on in the necklace, while the other remains in Twilight's head. (Exactly how helpful living in a necklace would be if nopony's wearing it is difficult to tell; but now I'm half-wondering whether or not the ending will involve Chrysalis, or another changeling, wearing the necklace and thus having their body controlled by Twilight).
As to Dark Cadance... I wasn't expecting that, I will admit. Cadance is an alicorn; I don't know how old horizon is assuming she in at the time of the show, but she may have been around before Sombra was trapped in ice. (She may even be the Mystery Looper, having suddenly found herself a thousand years in the past without Shining Armour may have made her insane and caused her to turn to darkness - given that she 'tainted' Luna, which implies that she triggered Nightmare Moon, that puts the timing of Cadance going evil about right. Or it could be that a looping Sombra, possibly after several fairly short thousand-year-ago loops, found a way to corrupt a young Cadance...).
It's also possible that Evil Cadance was in Twilight A's timeline as well, but that she was redeemed before Twilight A was born; or even when Twilight A was a filly, shortly before becoming Twilight A's foalsitter. If so, then presumably nopony ever mentioned it to Twilight A, and it was largely kept out of the history books. However, although possible, I consider that scenario unlikely; it's more probable that Dark Cadance was only in Timeline B.
(Incidentally, one fimfic I read once involving an evil Cadance had her take the name Decadance, which I think is a very good name for an evil Cadance)
And Luna B intervenes to save not Equestria, but Celestia B; reaffirming the theme that, even in a situation where nothing that happens is ever going to be remembered by anyone else, what you do matters because it changes who you are. Like Twilight discovered a few loops back, this loop matters. It seems that Celestia B still needs to learn that lesson.
--------------
I do hope your health issues get dealt with soon, horizon. Pay attention to the doctors, okay? They'll know more about this than I do, and can give you better advice than anything I type over here.
4206389 I was going to answer, but Word's wordcounts aren't cooperating. For this chapter, I think ~7.7% of the count is from your Author's Note and ~1.3% is from hyphenated words counting as more than one. So extrapolating gives... next chapter?
4207183 First, we know this is sort of an alternate universe because now we have Celestia and Chrysalis looping, which means Twilight must have changed something before she was born. Got that much?
Well, then we can conclude that Cadance being/turning evil happened long ago in this alternate universe. We don't know why. But now we know why none of Twilight's attempts at Cadance-based passwords worked.
4206686
Nice. I still like one of the deaths in The Grimm Fairy Tales, where an evil stepmother was rolled down a hill in a barrel. Filled with salt. While she was wrapped in barbed wire. Into a river.
Oh come on! Is it so hard for Twilight to ask for details? To compare notes? To determine what the Mystery Looper has altered, and how?
...on the other hand, I suppose seeing the diarchs narrowly avoid another world-shaking showdown would be enough to temper even Twilight's curiosity. Still, details on Cadence's situation would be nice.
In any case, I do hope the channels of communication open up a bit more, if only so Celestia learns of the disparity between her knowledge of history and Twilight's. That should help bridge the gap between them... assuming Tia believes it. Which she very well may not.
On a related note, I can't help but suspect that one of Twilight's mental roommates was Twilight according to this timeline. And now she's been evicted. Or put under house arrest or something. That metaphor denatured rather quickly.
Eagerly looking forward to more.
s2g this is some BioShock: Infinite-class shit
seriously though horizon how did you take Hard Reset and make things 1000% worse
all i know is that celestia needs to sit the heck down
and also that the delta-2 loop makes me cry deeply
except i don't actually know why it does, just that it does
4178740
..That wild stab in the dark was actually correct!
4207419
That's a concern, but I can imagine this Celestia seeing it as an even bigger concern that even a perfectly good looping-Twilight with such different memories might not consider this timeline to be "correct" - after defeating Chrysalis, she could well want to return the timeline to the way she remembers.
Since Celestia's defeat of looping Nightmare Moon and her planned endgame against Chrysalis require using the Elements to sever their looping spell, and Twilight - being necessary to use the Elements - can't have them used against her, Celestia sees that Twilight has just had the evidence presented to her that she can't trust Celestia to allow looping-her to remain in existence once they defeat Chrysalis (Celestia's plan becomes: Chrysalis is hit with Elements, Celestia immediately resets to a timeline in which Chrysalis is no longer looping, and in which she then prevents Twilight from performing the ritual), and Celestia cannot reset first to retain this knowledge on pain of spontaneous existence failure.
She believes the only way she and Twilight could have continued to work together was if she had managed to avoid this conversation, and now not only will Twilight remember having had this conversation, but Celestia won't remember it - Twilight could keep the knowledge to herself and try to use it to her advantage to prevent Celestia's eventual plan to prevent her from existing, or she can bring it up to Celestia, and barring a miracle, end up with neither of them trusting the other anyway.
I might have to stop reading this story on the grounds that it's breaking my heart to see these characters I care about in such terrible and unfair situations as this. And there aren't even any hints that it's going to get any better for them.
This story is starting to seem like a tragedy, and I avoid that tag like the plague for the simple fact that I cannot handle tragedy.
Hmmm. Was Mi Amora Cadenza actually evil when Twilight accused her at the royal wedding? Or was it really Chrysalis and the other Twilight also was fooled and everyone now thinks Cadence is evil? Or did everything work out the same but she's just evil now for some reason?
If Twilight was close with Cadence still, and Cadence is evil, I can see why Celestia might be suspicious of Twilight if she has been affected somehow. Add the Want-It-Need-It-Spell fiasco, which sounds like a spell Twilight could've learn from Cadence, makes it even more suspicious for Celestia. Add to that Twilight started looping on her own, and she knows some lost knowledge from a building that was burnt down a thousand years ago, which also contains dangerous dark magic or knowledge that could end the world. Add to that the whole "teachable moment" event, and Celestia's could view Twilight's mistrust at the time as a poke to see how much Celestia trust her. Then add to the fact that the Elements look "dull and dark" after they save Twilight's life; Celestia might think Twilight used some kind of dark magic on them to forced the Elements to save her. Then, one more time, add Twilight wanting in on any dark magic that's going to be affecting her memories. Add all that together, and I 'm beginning to see from Celestia's point of view, why she doesn't trust Twilight.
So, I'm guessing the second presence Luna found is the Twilight native to this timeline, right?
4207234
And the real threat there probably isn't grief-stricken Shiny himself, as much as it is the possibility that the Crystal Heart resonates to his grief, amplifying it across all of Equestria.
4206995
So before, in Hard Reset, we had Twilight looping, and only Twilight looping. Looping-Twi.
At the beginning of this story, Reset Harder, Celestia and Chrysalis are also looping. Looping-Tia, looping-Chrys. (Luna could loop as well, but she is anchored just before her banishment to the moon and cannot change her anchor point for reasons I did not catch. Thus, she will not loop as she would have to go through over a thousand years to get to this point, and may change numerous things if she doesn't act exactly as she did the first time through.) Looping-Luna, kind of.
Then we found out someone else is looping, anchored before Luna's point.
This "Mystery Looper," (ML) as known in the comments, changed something in a loop before the loop where looping-Twi and new-Spike talk about the Crystal Empire. This is when looping-Twi finds out something changed- her memories contradict new-Spike's. She is in an alternate timeline the new- timeline, because whatever it was the ML did so drastically changed things that new-Cadence is evil, there is no library in the Crystal Empire, and at some point, new-Cadance "tainted" new-Luna and nearly killed both new-Tia and new-Luna. Much more has changed, as shown by new-Tia and new-Luna's relationship, but nothing that seriously affected new-Twi/looping-Twi's ancestors or family, (or her friends' families, as far as I know), as she still exists and begins her loop in the library. However, new-Twi herself must be slightly different in personality, because new-Tia thinks she isn't really new-Twi. (She didn't have original-Cadance as a foalsitter, so her foalhood would be different, too. The new-Twi that belongs in this alternate timeline has a different past. When she begins looping, our looping-Twi's memories take her over and thus any differences are wiped out.) Also, new-Cadance is evil, and new-Luna thinks that in looping-Twi's timeline (the story we knew before things went crazy) she was "redeemed" when she actually never did anything wrong in our looping-Twi's timeline (the canon original-Cadance that we know from Hard Reset and from the show. Or if we're going with the theory that she was redeemed before she foalsitted Twi, then Luna is right.)
Because looping-Twi was looping in her original timeline, the new-Twi from this timeline never gets to loop. Before, looping-Twi was taking over herself from the past (original-Twi), like time travel that brings your mind back to an anchor point while rewinding everything around you. So anyone else, even those looping, would be rewound. (This is why you don't remember loops you don't die and "rewind" in- your mind is rewound to your last anchor, so unless you are first you don't even know it's happening. You just revert to what you were at that point, regardless of the loop you were in. Since your thoughts are exactly what they were before, you do exactly what you did before, unless someone else acts differently. The looper who reset begins this chain, so if they act exactly as they did, they could repeat the loop without affecting anything till the point where they died. This is how looping-Tia and looping-Twi had conversations they both remembered- they happened twice.)
The only differences between looping-Twi and pre-looping-Twi are added memories. So nothing about who she is changes when she is herself.
Now that she is in a new timeline, there are many more differences. Since Twi's memories are different from looping-Twi's from another timeline, they are replaced. However, these memories contradict the memories she should have had from being in this timeline- thus, Celestia's belief that she is not Twi. She's right; because she is not her Twi.
Presumably, looping-Twi's timeline is separate. So her Celestia, and her Luna, and her everything and everyone don't exist in this timeline.
If we follow the trilogy by Eakin, we see that every loop was real, and she was jumping to a new one that split off of the original timeline.
We have the first split, back before Luna's, when the ML changed something. One side is Twi's timeline, one is the one she is in now. No more loops are being created on her original timeline. (I assume, because looping-Twi transferred to the new timeline for reasons I don't understand. This may be where looping-Tia and looping-Chrys got stuck. Stayed here. Whatever.)
On the old timeline, we have everyone we've had since the beginning of the story- this is the timeline the story follows. We have hundred of splits here that end in looping-Tia, looping-Twi or looping-Chrys dying. Then ML dies, goes back to an anchor point waay back, and changes something. We get a new split way back before Luna went to the moon. New timeline. No more splits can occur here.
On the new timeline, we have new-Celestia and new-Luna and new-Spike and new-everyone. (Why their looping-selves didn't copy over? Actually, I'm not sure. When Twi starts looping, she should get Tia to loop, thus bringing her looping-Tia to the new timeline. I have a hole in my logic, and I don't know how to fill it in.) Oh, and evil-new-Cadance. Everything happens that we don't know about up until the point where Twi started looping on the old timeline. We are missing new-Twilight, because when she casts the looping spell, looping-Twi takes over. Anything that happens before this, looping-Twilight is unaware of, even if new-Twi knows about it. When she "takes over," the memories are replaced and she doesn't remember.
Then Harmony jumped in and gave looping-Twi the One Loop, which broke her mind. Multiple times.
I was jumping around while writing this out, so I apologize for typos, misspellings(I misspelled misspellings the first time I typed it and used backspace, not a loop, to fix it), unfinished thoughts and thoughts that branched out or repeated themselves. Or if I went in circles and started sentences like this one.
If I missed something or said something that doesn't make sense or isn't true, tell me. Because then I'm confused too.
Things I don't know-
-Why we have looping-Twi in the new timeline in the first place, instead of new-looping-Twi and original-looping-Twi from the two timelines separate when looping-Tia is separate.
-Why Celestia's looping-memories from the other timeline were lost- wouldn't she get these memories when she begins looping? The way Twi was "taken over" when she begins looping?
-What the ML did/who the ML is. (why Cadance is evil along with some other things)
-Many differences from original-timeline and new-timeline.
-Where the ML's changing-loop fits into the story (before the new-Spike and looping-Twi loop, because that was on the new timeline.) Inbetween this and the Spike loop, there may have been loops on new-Tia's side where she didn't realize
I'm not done with this, but I'm posting it, so anything that seems unfinished probably is. I was thinking as I went as well as skipping around.
I apologize if I only confused you more. Hopefully I cleared up at least one thing along with all the confusion I added. At the very least, maybe now you have specific questions for all of us commenters here?
4209401
This is the edge of the abyss. We're staring down, but we will not be jumping in, and from here it's a gradual process of backing away. I guarantee you, something significant changed here, and we will see that in a big way next chapter.
(Semi-spoiler in link: Do you play Go?)
4209787
I'm going to avoid that semi-spoilery link, and trust you, as the author, to know where this story is heading.
I'm going to take a very wild guess that the 'significant change' is that Twilight being a lich somehow grants her the ability to remember ALL loops, whether she's the one who reset or not. It's a silly, random guess that I'm pretty sure is wrong, but last time I had a wild guess about something in a story, it ended up being COMPLETELY right and I wished I'd said it in a comment so I could point at it and say "Called it!" Zecora WAS Celestia and Luna's 'mother' and the Spirit of Harmony...
4209734 Oh gods. Okay. I read all that. My opinion that this story has reached levels of insanity I dared not contemplate before has definitely been confirmed.
I'm less confused though. I think I got back to Crazy Creek, at least, since there's just way, way too many missing variables for me to have everything sorted. I think I need to reread some of the previous chapters. I fell off the Understanding Train probably a few back and that's how I ended up in Crazy Creek. (No, I'm not giving these up, dammit.)
I'd have questions, but I'm not sure how much good they'd do right this second. I get that Luna secured lopping-Twi to the artifact to help preserve her (and presumably new-Twi), and excised the One Loop info from her, also in an effort to preserve her sanity. I think I'm just going to have to sit back and wait for the next installment of lunacy.
I want to see an episode where Cadance was evil....
Would be interestin.
can someone fill me in on what the FUCK has happened the past 3-4 chapters in plain english, please?
my brain hurts.
4209734
It seemed pretty clear to me that in the original, pre-ML-altered timeline from Hard Reset, Twilight was the only one looping; original-Celestia, original-Chrysalis, and original-Luna weren't looping. So they wouldn't have had any looper-selves from the original timeline to overwrite them. If there's evidence against that, I missed it or am otherwise confused.
4209787 I clicked that link, and all I got was a 504 error.
4210188
Huh, it's working for me. Here's (same semi-spoiler alert) Wikipedia's definition of what I was linking.
Well it still could be Sombra who's the mystery time traveler, but whoever it was turned Cadence evil it seems, somehow. Hrm.
4206528
yeah, personally I can't make heads or tails of what anyone is talking about anymore or what the plot is or what the threats are.
4210356 I honestly don't see the relevance of Go.
4209169
Hm... that's an option to be sure, but Celestia doesn't seem to be looking at it like a bigger picture. Instead Celestia is focusing on a personal betrayal, she believes that the matter of Twilight's guilt is not yet settled, or settled, but for the worst, even after all this. Plus, whatever happened with Cadence was a personal thing, and I think some of that is being transferred onto our lavender protagonist. Look at how Celesita is talking this entire chapter. It's very personal betrayal, that has already happened, not even a possible future event. She still believes that Twilight knows something already that makes her a danger.
Aside: There's been another loop by Celestia. Twilight was wearing the necklace at the start of this loop. She wasn't at the start of the previous loop that we've seen.
4211019
Twilight takes over initiative from Celestia, maybe? My brother plays Go, it's a wonderfully complex simple game.
I was SO glad to see a new chapter! You made my day. I love that each episode something twists and blows my mind. I cant keep it straight in my head but I am just along for the ride.
I'm sorry to hear about your hemorrhoid attack. It must have been hard to write this whole chapter while standing up! That's dedication and we appreciate it for sure!
4210019
In this story, I'm assuming the events of Hard Reset/A Stitch In Time/You Can Fight Fate didn't/don't happen.
So when I say original, I mean Reset Harder's original timeline.
From the description-
...also, you must have read this chapter, right? Celestia is acting differently towards Twilight because something HUGE changed. The past is different, and Twilight isn't the Twilight she knows.
When Twilight looped before ML changed something, she went back and replaced her memories with an updated version. The only difference was that there were more of them.
Now, in the new timeline, looping-Twi comes from the old timeline and replaces new-Twi's memories at the moment she casts the spell. But this time, there are many differences as the new-Twi grew up differently. Mainly because Cadance is evil. And who knows what else changed?
New-Celestia, who is looping, shows up and sees Twilight acting like someone else and accuses her of not being Twilight. In the missing loop, we can assume she told them about Cadance, possibly even told them all the history she could remember. I doubt this though, since Celestia realizes this in the loop Twi remembers. Luna takes Twi into a dream and becomes frustrated when Twi only remembers the alternate timeline, but is still Twilight. (She doesn't think of her being from an alternate timeline- she says.)
Luna disregards Twilight's half-realization of the other timeline immediately, then later accuses her of being the Nightmare.
Luna kills her when she believes Twilight is the Nightmare. Harmony cuts in and gives her the One Loop. Luna asks for the memory and then she is bound to the necklace. Luna gets rid of the One Loop.
In a way, new-Celestia was right because she isn't new-Twilight, she's looping-Twilight from an alternate timeline. (Our original timeline, but new-Celestia's only one.)
So Twi from Reset Harder's original timeline came here when the new timeline started.
And that's how her memories worked.
So when Celestia started looping in the new timeline, why didn't the same thing happen to her?
If it's based on time, and so she couldn't get her memories because they didn't rewind far enough, then something happened to make her loop before Twilight activated Celestia's loops by the two-step password thing. (Something else happened in the new timeline before Twi's anchor to make Celestia already be looping, since Twilight was the original cause for her "waking up" her looping-self and new-Twi couldn't have looped yet as she was immediately replaced by looping-Twi.)
again, not done, but I have to go to school now.
Its weird, every new chapter, I have to go down and read the comments just to grasp what I have read. Now many stories are like that. Not sure if I should say well done or what. This story is amazing, that's for sure. But this story is also the most complex story I have ever read.
(Fanfiction wise.) It is also the main thing that has me coming back for more. Can't wait to see where this all ends. You're building up enough suspense in this story to rival LOST.
4212194
It's a "timeline, but not," sort of thing. Basically this entire fic is an alternate timeline for Hard Reset. In it, things proceed exactly as they were, except in addition to Twilight there was another looper also active, with a reset point of over a thousand years ago. Hard Reset had it's own alternate timelines, such as the one where Twilight became Changeling Queen or the timelines where the elements failed to work, that were destroyed in short order.
An action Twilight took had the unintended consequence of killing this looper. They reset, and change things around. The changes were great in part, and minor in others. Consequences of their changes are the differences in Twilights past, and that Celestia and Chrysalis are also loopers, Celestia from ages ago, and Crysalis recently. There's an altered past, but not necessarily a different timeline that Twilight can jump into. This is more Back to the Future stuff, where changes in the past propagate forwards, except the loopers are isolated from being mentally altered by changes made to their non-looping selves.
From what I can get at the moment, in any given timeline, only one of you can be looping. So as soon as Current!Twilight casts the loop spell, our protagonist, Looping!Twilight jumps into the drivers seat.
I might take a shot at that question about summarising the last three or four chapters later, but for now:
4211080
She does, and (broadly speaking) she is.
Twilight knows that her timeline is so different from this Celestia's that despite so many ponies being pretty Ripple Effect-Proof, at least some of the ponies she knows and cares about are so different in this timeline as to be effectively different ponies than the ones she knew. I don't think it's an overstatement to say that the Cadence she knew and the Celestia she knew are "dead" inasmuch as personality changes of such degree can be considered death. (The Cadence in this timeline may additionally be actually dead or imprisoned.)
A logical extension of this is that Twilight might want to return to what she sees as the original, "correct" timeline, a side effect of which would be "killing" this Celestia (and, to her mind, depriving Equestria of the perfect protection of a time-looping version of her). Celestia is stalemated fighting off a looping Chrysalis. If they worked together to defeat Chrysalis and Celestia lets looping-Twilight carry on afterwards, there's a real danger that she would wish to work out a way of repeating the effects of the thousand-year change to revert the timeline. She thinks a clash is inevitable.
4211019
From that first link:
A player has sente if it is their turn. (In particular, when they do not have to answer their opponent's last move.) Thus, a player who has sente can decide where to play next.
Celestia won't remember this conversation in the next loop, but Twilight will. Celestia will outright attempt to avoid this conversation if at all possible, so Twilight has a completely unforced move - she can decide whether or not Celestia ever learns that Twilight has learned what Celestia doesn't want her to know.