Chapter 5: Don't Bet Your Future...
Several hours of questions, explanations, some consolation, and even more explanations later, the girls were once again gathered around their usual table, having foregone cleaning up after the party ended to instead listen to Sunset’s rather astonishing tale.
“Well, you’re right, it certainly sounds like some form of time magic,” Princess Twilight mumbled, sniffing lightly as she fidgeted with the rumpled tissue in her hands, “but I still don’t understand how it could have happened on this side of the portal.”
“Me either,” Sunset shrugged, “I was kind of hoping you might have an idea where we could at least start trying to figure it out.” She glanced at the clock on her phone with a grimace. “Though at this point the best we can probably do is brainstorm a little. If time always resets at the same point, I’ve only got another eighteen minutes until it happens again.”
A tiny smile found its way onto the other Twilight’s lips as she adjusted her glasses. “You’re going to take what you learn with you into the next loop and pick up where we left off, making incremental progress toward eventually solving the problem. Clever.”
“I don’t know if I would call it that,” Sunset shrugged. “From where I’m sitting it’s pretty much my only option.”
“So… lemme get this straight,” Applejack said, “ya been through this night how many times now?”
“Only two so far,” Sunset sighed and gently massaged her temple. “Well, three if you count this one.”
“And no one else remembers any of it?” Fluttershy asked.
“Nope,” Sunset shook her head. “The only thing that seems to carry over is my own memory. I hurt my leg pretty bad before this all started, but now it’s as if that injury never happened.” She hesitated. “I mean, I guess in a sense it really didn’t happen… ugh, now I know why people say time travel is confusing. No wonder I’m getting a headache.”
“Headache, schmeadache!” Rainbow Dash grinned. “This is awesome! Think about it! You can do all kinds of crazy stunts and stuff without worrying about getting hurt! You could do whatever you want!”
“I believe Sunset is more interested in finding a way to fix this problem than she is in using it to perform ‘crazy stunts’,” Rarity said, coupling her remark with a set of air-quotes. “Besides, what would be the point of doing all those things if no one would remember them?”
Rainbow Dash frowned, crossing her arms and hunkering down in her seat. “Well she’d remember.”
“We also have no basis to assume that time would still reset if something serious were to happen to Sunset,” Crystal Prep’s Twilight mused quietly, her head bowed in concentration.
Applejack sat up a little straighter. “Serious meanin’... what, exactly?”
Twilight looked up and blanched as the group’s collective focus fell over her. “W-well, she’s obviously the focal point of this loop, but that doesn’t mean she can afford to be careless. Relatively minor physical injuries are one thing, but we have no way to test what would happen if she were to… um, die.”
Fluttershy audibly gasped, and the tension in the air thickened as the girls exchanged pointed looks.Twilight swallowed hard and adjusted her glasses before continuing.
“Sunset’s death could just trigger the loop to start over, but it could just as easily break the cycle. There’s really only one way to know for sure, but… well, you know.”
“Translation,” Rainbow piped up, “don’t get killed.”
“How is that different from any other day?” Sunset deadpanned, though she wished her stomach felt as calm as her voice sounded.
“Ooh, ooh!” Pinkie Pie burst out, waving her hand in the air for a moment as if she was waiting for a teacher to call on her. “You could totally eat a billion, jillion cupcakes without worrying about getting fat! That’d be safe to try, right? Nobody ever died from cupcakes!”
“That’s… actually not a bad idea,” Sunset admitted with a nod. “I certainly wouldn’t mind pigging out on more of that vanilla oat swirl, and I have the feeling I’m going to need all the stress-reducing comfort food I can get my hands on.” She gave surprisingly helpful party planner a bright smile, which was returned ten-fold. “Thanks, Pinkie.” She turned her attention back to the Princess seated across from her. “So what do you think?”
Princess Twilight’s head was bowed, her unfocused eyes aimed at the tabletop as her hands continued to idly wring the tissue in their grasp. Sunset frowned.
“Twilight?”
Her head snapped up. “Oh! Um… sorry, I was… lost in thought.”
“You don’t need to apologize,” Sunset took the Princess’ hand in her own. “I know how awful it is to dump all this on you right now, and I really, really wish I could put it off, but I don’t have a choice. I need your help if I’m going to figure this out.” She smiled. “After all of this is over we’ll patch things up with Flash, together. I promise.”
“I’d like that. Thank you, Sunset,” Princess Twilight nodded, the edges of her mouth curling ever-so slightly. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat. “Okay, well… when it comes to time travel, I’m afraid my experiences are actually pretty limited. Before the recent incident with Starlight Glimmer I’d only ever used time magic once, so the first thing we’re going to need to do is gather some research materials.” She looked to Sunset. “It’s going to be a little tricky, though. The only place I know of that might have the information we need is the Starswirl the Bearded section of the Canterlot archives. Just getting there is going to take us a while, so we won’t have much time to research before the loop resets.”
Sunset nodded slowly along with Princess Twilight’s reasoning. “You could get to Canterlot faster if you flew there yourself, right?” she asked. “If I stayed here with my journal and you took yours along, you could write anything you find back to me.”
Twilight frowned. “Yes, but it would take longer if I was the only one researching… I suppose I could bring Spike along, but-”
“Wait,” the other Twilight spoke up, “what about Starlight?”
A septuplet of blank stares greeted her for a moment. The silence was broken by the resounding smack of Princess Twilight’s palm greeting her own forehead.
“Of course! How could I forget? Starlight Glimmer is staying at my castle now! She re-wrote Starswirl’s time travel spell; she’s practically an expert!” She shook her head again, slumping even further into her seat. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It’s all right, Twilight,” Rarity laid a comforting hand on the Princess’ shoulder. “You’ve had as taxing an evening as Sunset, after all.”
Sunset, for her part, nodded once. “Rarity’s right; what really matters is that we’ve got a pretty solid lead now.” She turned to the other Twilight and shot her a wink and a smile. “Nice going, Sparky.”
“Oh,” the girl said, averting her eyes as a light blush tinted her cheeks. “No problem, i-it was nothing.”
“So,” Fluttershy’s soft voice floated to their ears, “what should the rest of us do then?”
Sunset shrugged. “I’ve still got a few minutes until the reset, but there’s not really anything else to do at this point. Just… wish me luck, I guess.”
“Good luck, Sunset,” Rarity smiled.
“Yeah,” Rainbow Dash chimed in as Fluttershy nodded and offered a supportive smile. “If anybody can pull this off Sunset, it’s you! Kick time’s butt!”
“Good luck, sugarcube,” Applejack said, catching herself in a yawn that morphed into a long stretch as she stood. “If’n it don’t matter anyway, we might as well hang out until your time thingamajig happens and you up and disappear.”
“D-disappear?” Fluttershy squeaked, retreating behind the pink curtain of her hair.
“Pfsh!” Rainbow Dash cut in, tipping back in her chair and putting her feet up on the table. “Really AJ? I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works.”
Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, good, for a moment I thought-”
“If anything, we’re gonna be the ones who disappear when Sunset goes all Bill Murrhay on us.”
“Eep!”
“Applejack, Rainbow, could you please try to show a smidgen of tact; you’re upsetting Fluttershy!” Rarity chimed in. She scooted over and laid her hands comfortingly on the timid girl’s shoulders. “There there, darling, it’s all right. No one is going to disappear.”
“Oh, like you’re suddenly an expert?” Dash frowned. “I’ve seen Buck to the Future! When you mess up the past, people get erased from history!”
“Dangit Rainbow, that was a movie,” Applejack crossed her arms. “It ain’t real. ‘Sides, Sunset ain’t goin’ back to before we were born or anythin’.”
“Ooh, oooh!” Pinkie Pie jolted to attention. “What if Sunset brings one of us along with her for the ride next time? Then there’d be two of us in one place! How super-crazy and unexpected would that be?”
The rest of the room stared at her for a moment until the Twilights simultaneously raised their hands.
Pinkie’s jaw dropped as she glanced rapidly between them. “Omigosh! She did it already!”
Princess Twilight opened her mouth to reply but abruptly found herself staring into Pinkie’s ever-excited baby-blues from a distance that violated every personal space boundary known to man or ponykind.
“Are you from the future?!” She said in an urgent, hushed whisper that sent chills down Twilight’s spine.
Luckily the Princess didn’t have to answer, as Applejack promptly picked Pinkie up by her collar and plopped her back in her seat.
“Simmer down, girl. That Twilight ain’t from the future, she’s the same pony princess from another world that we’ve always known.”
Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, ‘cause that sounds so much more normal.”
“Makes more sense than folks up an’ disappearin’ for no good reason,” Applejack put her hands on her hips with a frown.
“Whaddya mean ‘for no good reason?’” Rainbow frowned right back. “I’m telling you…”
As Rainbow launched into her somewhat dubious, movie-reference filled rebuttal, Sunset rested her chin in her hand and looked on. The sight of her friends engaging in another of their roundabout, good-natured, everyone-laughs-about-it-later arguments brought a warm smile to her face. To them, this was just another Friday night in more ways than one, and even though Sunset was the only one stuck in time, her heart swelled at the notion that she wouldn’t truly be facing this challenge alone.
Sunset’s moment of calm was quickly upended as Princess Twilight pushed out her chair and stood.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah,” The Princess answered with an exhausted half-smile, “just need to use the little filly’s room and wash up a bit, that’s all.”
Sunset nearly got up to follow her, but hesitated, instead to merely watching as Princess Twilight shuffled to the labeled restrooms near the back of the cafe. She sighed, turning back to find that the remaining Twilight was trying--and failing--to suppress a grin.
“What is it?” Sunset asked.
“‘Sparky?’” was all Twilight replied with.
“Sorry,” Sunset grimaced, “I thought it’d be less confusing if one of you had a nickname. No good?”
“Yes!” Twilight blurted. “I mean no! I mean… I-I don’t mind.” She instinctively tilted her head down to hide an embarrassed blush. “It’s just that no one’s ever given me a nickname before. Well, aside from my brother; he still calls me ‘Twily’ sometimes, but he’s family, so he doesn’t count. Er, well, he counts, I mean it counts since it’s still a nickname, but I was always really close with him growing up so the fact that he gave me a nickname isn’t that surprising, and it’s really not as big of a deal as when some other random person does it.”
Her head snapped up as her face went ashen.
“N-not that you’re just a random person! Haha, that would make it seem like you weren’t important to me, or that I wasn’t grateful for everything you’ve done; which I am! I’m incred-”
“Sparky.”
“Yes?!”
“Breathe.”
Twilight did as she was told, placing one hand on her chest and slowly extending it out in front of her while she exhaled.
“Better?”
“Yes, thanks,” Twilight said with a nod. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” Sunset laughed. “Honestly I’d rather see you all worked up than all mopey like you were the first two times. Speaking of, you wanna tell me what’s been-”
She was interrupted by a soft set of chimes from her phone as it vibrated in her hand. She looked down at the device with a wistful grimace and a sigh.
“Time’s up. See you again in a second, Sparky.”
“Are you leaving already?” Princess Twilight asked. “I know it’s kind of a long story but I was almost done… and wait, who’s Sparky?”
Sunset looked up from her phone to find herself on the other side of the room, looking into the mildly confused faces of Rarity and a pair of Twilights. Vinyl’s music was back in full force, as was the rest of the party going on around them. She took a deep breath.
Here we go.
“Girls, we need to talk.”
Guessing time again! Next chapter's A/N will have the link, 
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I like this story, although it's a bit repetitive *ba dum tis*
Excellent. Now Sunset has a plan, and she just needs to get it into action without spending all evening explaining the situation again.
Good chapter. A bit, well, 'flat,' I suppose, but it's an exposition-y chapter so there's really no other way to do it, and for an exposition chapter it was quite good. Bravo!
Explanation necessary and understandable.
Also, 'Sparky', love it! Looking forward to more.
Third time's the charm, or will Sunset forever suffer on the edge of tomorrow?
Dem references.
"Stay alive."
"That's literally what I've spent my whole life doing."
Heee!
For now.
I'm growing to like (fan depictions of) Sci-Twi more than (any depiction of) Pri-Twi, because unlike her pony predecessor, she actually seems to have kept a vibrant personality. Wonder if that holds up in Legends of Everfree.
the horse puns dont work in the EG universe its based on our world just use the real movie names
Good to know that Rainbow Dash has her time travel movie references in line. Bill Murrhay indeed.
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33.media.tumblr.com/af88ce0d919358140fb0e1ac6d5b69c6/tumblr_inline_o2io3sDTOx1qkol2d_540.gif
7501483 7503004
Yeah, gotta lay the ground rules and get the yap-yap out of the way so we can get to the good stuff,
7506844
What's that quote from? It sounds vaguely familiar...
7509110
I think Pri-Twi has, at this point, had enough on-screen character development that the writers kind of feel like there isn't much left to do with her... which, in part, is why we now have Starlight Glimmer, both as a 'new Twilight,' and to add an additional facet to Twilight's role on FiM. I just wish Glimmy herself had retained some of her uniqueness; the way they play her now she just seems so... generic,
I really miss her old mane, T.T
7517976
None; just made it up,
7517990
I've seen people take this position before, however it's not one that I myself subscribe to. The fact that the school is named 'Canterlot' in the EQG world suggests that horse puns are still *ahem*... 'running wild?'
Besides, puns are fun. I like fun,
7518044
See? Artie gets it!
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I don't think it's actually from anything. I was just rewording your lines for comedic effect.
Worst part about a time loop, taking time to explain that you're in a time loop. At least Sunset has a better deal than Jack and was listening the first time.