Chapter 1: Fractured

Author's Note:

Inspired by the Season 5 finale, the third Equestria Girls movie, the Reflections arc of the comics, and my own love of playing with the Multiverse Theorem, I bring you one of the most confusing stories I will likely ever write. Still should make for a fun ride!

SPOILER WARNING: For the above inspirations, some spoilers will be inevitable, but I will try to keep them to a minimum. As I used my other story 'A Somber Tale' as a backstory for the Dark Magic Twilight, there will be some spoilers for that as well, but again I will try to keep them to a minimum.

Now that that is out of the way, enjoy the multiverse madness!

A flash of light lit up the throne room of Twilight Sparkle's castle, as a circular portal opened up above the map-table at the center. The portal immediately discharged three figures; the young dragon Spike, the unicorn mare Starlight Glimmer, and the alicorn princess Twilight Sparkle. Before any of them had a chance to react, the same magic that had led to so much trouble ripped the scroll that created it from their grasp. Hovering between the map that dominated the room and the portal above it, the scroll re-absorbed its magic, before ascending towards the portal it had created.

However, the scroll had been severely damaged by Starlight Glimmer.

As it passed through the portal, the strain of the magic it contained finished the job, ripping it into two pieces. With the destruction of its vessel, the magic burst free, as the portal snapped shut. As the immense force of magic crashed against closing fabric of reality, something had to give.

As the mares and dragon below stood up, their attention was drawn by a strange sound from above.

CRACK

A flash of light lit up the throne room of Twilight Sparkle's castle, as a circular portal opened up above the map-table at the center. The portal immediately discharged three figures; the young dragon Spike, the unicorn stallion Starlight Glimmer, and the alicorn prince Twilight Sparkle. Before any of them had a chance to react, the same magic that had led to so much trouble ripped the scroll that created it from their grasp. Hovering between the map that dominated the room and the portal above it, the scroll re-absorbed its magic, before ascending towards the portal it had created.

However, the scroll had been severely damaged by Starlight Glimmer.

As the stallions and dragon below stood up, their attention was drawn by a strange sound from above.

CRACK

"Ahahahahaha! You were right! I didn't understand magic before, but I do now!"

The skies above Canterlot High School grew dark as Twilight Sparkle, a student from another school, was transformed by stolen magic. With a blast of magic, she destroyed the statue at the school's entrance, ripping open a hole to Equestria in the process. Several additional blasts followed, tearing open additional rifts and causing the assembled students to flee in terror.

"Twilight, you can't do this!" Shouted Sunset Shimmer, a unicorn from Equestria that had been banished to live in the world of humans.

"Why not?" Twilight asked as an insane smile spread across her face. "There's another world right there and it's just filled with MAGIC!"

"But you're destroying this world to get it!" Sunset replied, trying to appeal to Twilight's sense of reason.

"So what?" Twilight shot back, the raw power having twisted her mind. "There's more magic there and I want to understand it ALL!"

With that, Twilight shot her most powerful blast of magic yet. However, as it broke through the barrier between dimensions, an immense force of magic crashed against her own, fracturing reality even further with a sharp sound.

CRACK

"Go fish." Rarity said in a bored tone, looking at her cards as she brushed a lock of her bedraggled hair from her eyes.

"Anypony else have a bad feeling about something?" Rainbow Dash asked as she cowered in her bed, listening to the sounds of battle from outside.

"I do." Pinkamena Pie replied sadly. "I'm glad we decided to stay inside. It looks nuts out there!" Outside the window, green lightning crashed trough the sky and the sounds of combat could be heard coming from the Castle of the Two Sisters. "I hope nopony was expecting to see us pop up in some convoluted storyline today."

Twilight rolled her eyes as she adjusted her glasses. She had come to Ponyville in the hopes of learning magic from the all-powerful Queen Celestia, but the alicorn was always too busy trying to take over Canterlot for Twilight to get a chance to speak with her. Instead, the young unicorn was stuck hanging out with her friends. Although, 'friends' was a bit of a stretch. It would be more accurate to say that they were the only ponies Twilight could stand spending time around, and even then they often pushed her to her limit.

Setting down her cards, Twilight moved to the door, saying, "You girls keep on playing, I'm going to try and figure out what is going on out there."

"Better you than me," Fluttershy said snidely.

Twilight stepped outside... and then the world fell apart.

CRACK

Twilight grit her teeth with the strain as her magic was forced to its very limit. She locked eyes with the stallion across from her, his fanged teeth clenched in equal concentration. Dark Magic filled the room, emanating from both powerful ponies... and from the portal between them.

"It's time to end this, Sombra!" Twilight shouted. "Neither of us can keep this up much longer."

"I could not agree more," the dark stallion replied. "We just need to collapse the entrance and deal with the ones that escaped. Then, they will never threaten Equestria or the Crystal Empire again." As he threw everything he had into his magic, Sombra nonetheless spared a smile for the mare beside him and said, "If we fail, I just want you to know something Twilight. I am lucky to have met you. I could not have asked for a better student, and perhaps..."

Twilight cut him off. "Don't talk like that. It will work, but you better teach me some amazing Dark Magic tomorrow, after causing all this trouble!"

Two pairs of eyes glowed bright green as the portal before them twisted and shrunk, shadowy forms twisting within, trying to escape. A grin to rival Sombra's spread across Twilight's face as the portal shrank ever smaller. As it collapsed in on itself, however, the strain on reality caused something to give way.

CRACK

Twilight groaned as she slowly regained consciousness. Forcing her eyes open, she found herself staring at the ceiling... or rather, the glowing rift in the air where the ceiling should have been, stars dotting the night sky beyond it.

"Starlight Glimmer, is this another part of your spell?"

Although Twilight had opened her mouth to ask exactly that question, another voice had spoken first. A voice that sounded like her own, only slightly deeper. What she saw when she looked to the source had Twilight convinced that she was either dreaming or hallucinating.

Beside her lay an alicorn with the same color coat, the same color mane, even the same color eyes as her. In fact, the pony would have been identical to her had he not been a stallion, rather than a mare like herself.

Whether from her movement or the sound of her gasp as she saw him, the stallion turned his head to look at her, his face morphing into an expression of shock to mirror her own. In unison, the pair jumped to their hooves, spread their wings slightly in surprise, and blurted out, "What's going on? Who are you?"

Before either could react further, however, a new voice broke in, although it sounded just like that of the female alicorn. "This is all really amusing, but will you two stop that already? We need to figure out what happened before any more of us appear."

Despite those words, the two alicorns moved in sync once more, turning to see who spoke to them. The mare in question also shared their coloring but was a unicorn, no wings gracing her sides. She sat on Twilight's throne, the map table and the chairs surrounding it being the only parts of the castle that remained, her eyes shut in concentration and her front hooves massaging the sides of her head to ward off a headache. The only way in which she differed from the female alicorn (besides a lack of wings) was a curved, red horn on her brow, rather than a unicorn's normal spiral.

As the stallion attempted to process the sight of yet another mare that looked like him, the alicorn princess asked, "Who are you? And what do you mean 'more of us'?"

"I am Twilight Sparkle," the unicorn replied, "and considering I was helping my teacher collapse a dimensional prison when this all happened, I'm guessing you are, as well, just from another version of Equestria." Without bothering to open her eyes, the unicorn added, "As for 'more of us', there are five of us here now. Or at least, I'm assuming we're all Twilight."

The alicorns both calmed down as they considered this.

"Starlight Glimmer's spell must have caused some sort of damage to my own dimension," the stallion replied.

"Same here," the alicorn mare added. "We had just gotten back to the castle when... something happened." Suddenly, she realized what the unicorn had said, "Wait, did you say five of us?"

Gesturing to the side with a hoof, the unicorn replied, "The other two haven't woken up yet."

On the other side of the map table lay another pair. One seemed to be an ordinary unicorn, who shared Twilight's coloring, although of slightly darker shades than the other, with a pair of glasses askew on her muzzle. The other was not a pony at all, but rather a bipedal creature not seen anywhere in Equestria. The alicorns only recognized her from their trips through a magical mirror.

"Is that me as a human?" The alicorn mare asked nopony in particular.

"That would be my best guess," the stallion beside her replied.

"Are they alright?" The princess asked. "If we're all the same pony, shouldn't we have woken up at the same time?"

"Interdimensional travel is hardly my specialty, but after I went to the mirror world, my teacher hypothesized that some worlds are more similar than others," The unicorn replied. "I think it has to do with how powerful our magic is, letting us recover quickly from the unexpected dimensional displacement."

"But you're still a unicorn, how did you wake up before us?" The alicorn mare asked. There was something about the unicorn's strange horn making her nervous.

"I didn't. Your voices woke me up," She replied. "But just because I'm a unicorn doesn't mean I'm weak." Then the mare opened her eyes for the first time since she awoke, revealing the distinctive coloring brought on by Dark Magic use. "After all, it took two alicorns to stop my teacher and he never had wings."

Both the alicorns jerked back as they recognized the similarity to King Sombra. Seeing their reactions, the unicorn rolled her eyes, before smirking and saying, "I know, I know, 'Dark Magic is evil', 'it will corrupt your mind', 'you look like Sombra when you turn into a shadow', etcetera, etcetera. I've heard it all before but I've also used Dark Magic to save Equestria enough times to know that it can be used to preserve Harmony just as well as the Elements. Better even, since I can use it without putting my friends in danger."

The alicorns exchanged a glance but were distracted by groaning before they could reply. Slowly, the other unicorn sat up and adjusted her glasses. Looking around, she froze as she stared at the other Twilights. The two alicorns waved at her, hoping to get some reaction, and see what this version of them was like. Sighing, she grumbled, "Sure, why not? I wasn't having a bad enough day without dealing with alternate reality versions of myself."

"Wow, you figured that out even faster than I did," the Dark Magic Twilight commented.

"Well, I never had a proper teacher, so I had to learn to figure things out for myself," The bespectacled Twilight replied. Glancing at the sky, she muttered, "It was daytime in my world. Was there some sort of time difference, or was I just unconscious that long?"

Eyes widening at the memory of the last time this had happened, both Alicorns immediately looked to the sky... or rather, to the moon, which had an odd rainbow glow to it. "Nightmare Moon!" They gasped in concert.

Although the human remained unconscious for the moment, the ponies were all aware of one certain fact; Twilight's troubles were only just beginning.

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MoonlightDancer

MoonlightDancer #1 · Feb 6th, 2016 · 2 · ·

So far so good
I'm loving it, and I can't wait for the next chapter!

Little Voice

Little Voice #2 · Feb 14th, 2016 · 2 · 1 ·

Hmmmmmmm. Good set up. Not publishable good, but that's asking a bit much. Nothing terrible, groan inducing, or just plain bad in the writing so far, but not enough going on for something like that to rear its ugly head.

All in all ... You still have my attention. Do continue. I hope this turns out to be a well written fic.
No, seriously, I actually do hope this turns out good. I've seen plenty an amazing idea completely and utterly ruined due to poor writing. No pressure.

Five Shades of Twilight - Maltrazz

Chapter 1: Fractured

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