MLP Loops special - Season 4 finale
94.10 (Crisis)
Rarity paused before hoofing over a swatch of her fabric to her old acquaintance, Suri Polomare. Why did she feel like she'd done this before? Oh, no matter. It wasn't like anything bad would happen, right?
Why had she thought nothing bad would happen?! Suri had replicated her entire line! With her own specially made fabric! This was the WORST! POSSIBLE! THING!
Rarity blinked from the stage as she realized just what she'd done. She'd let her talent for making fabulous dresswear supersede her friends! This was... This wasn't the worst possible thing. No, this was much too low to be that pleasant. She...
A flash of rainbow light lit her eyes. Yes. She knew what she had to do.
Rarity stared at the spool of rainbow-colored thread in a daze. That had all somehow worked out perfectly. Rather improbably perfect at that. So why did a once-in-a-lifetime series of events seem so familiar?
And then it hit her. This all had happened before. She was repeating her life over and over again and... Oh, she was Awake now. How bizarre this was. Usually she Awoke and had to wait for her Loop memories to hit, not trudge on half-Asleep or whatever had happened and wait for her awareness of previous Loops to kick in. And not only was this rather late in the Loop, Twilight didn't seem to be Awake this time. Either there was a stealth Anchor or...
She looked at the spool of rainbow-colored thread right at the moment it shimmered with rainbow light.
Oh. Oh, my.
Dash looked as the Wonderbolt pin she'd gotten from Spitfire, wondering why all of this seemed so familiar. Why it seemed she'd struggled between her loyalty to her friends and her desire to be the best stunt flyer ever before. And then it hit her.
"Whoah, that's kind of trippy," she shook her head.
"Isn't it though, darling?" Rarity said from behind her. "Finally Awake I see."
"Yep. You do the whole 'I'm sort of Awake but not quite' thing too?" Rainbow asked her fashion-forward friend. "And why are we Awake so late this time.
At this, Rarity gleefully pointed at Rainbow's Wonderbolt pin, causing Dash to look at it just as it shimmered with rainbow light.
"No... No way..."
"Oh my gosh! This has been the greatest revelation ever!" Pinkie cheered as she heard how Cheese Sandwich had been inspired to become a party pony by herself. And that he wanted to throw this epic birth-aversary party with her! It was so much better than trying to beat him at partying and making her friend sad as a result. "It's so great I'm having deja vu about how great it is!"
"...and then he gave me his rubber chicken to say thanks and whoah did you two Wake Up like this? It's like I'm baseline Pinkie getting the looping memories instead of looping Pinkie getting my earlier memories!" Pinkie chattered to a grinning Rarity and Rainbow Dash. "Any idea what's going on? Is it super cool?"
"Check the chicken Pinkie," Dash's grin widened. Pinkie did so and saw it shimmer with rainbow light.
"ARE YOU SERIOUS?!"
Fluttershy wanted to kick herself for being so foolish as Seabreeze hoofed her a flower from his homeland. Why did she think that pampering the breezies was being kind? Or even really taking care of them? It was selfish is what it was. Just as selfish now as when she'd done it the first time and... Oh. Well, never let it be said that a lesson learned twice wasn't still a valuable one.
"You just finish Waking up?" Dash whispered to her as they flew out.
Fluttershy nodded as they floated out and, as Twilight reversed the spell and turned them back to normal, she conveyed a wordless question to her foalhood friend.
In response, Dash tapped the flower in her mane, causing Fluttershy to remove it and take a close look. It shimmered with rainbow light.
Fluttershy's eyes widened. Could it be...?
Applejack flipped the bit Silver Shill had given her as her friends, minus Twilight, surrounded her. She'd thought that she was taking care of her family by letting Granny Smith think the tonic worked, but in the end she'd realized she was only hurting them by not being honest. Now if only she could figure out why it all seemed so familiar...
"Well, never let it be said that I can't earn an honest bit!" she chuckled, and then winced as the memories hit.
"Awake, darling?" Rarity sing-songed.
"Gotta be," Dash smirked. "It's the only time she realizes what a lame joke that is."
"Okay, what in tarnation's goin' on?" Applejack demanded. "Twi's obviously not Awake and this is pretty durn late in the Loop."
"Check your 'honest bit'," Fluttershy grinned herself. Mostly because Pinkie was vibrating with so much excitement she wouldn't be intelligible.
Applejack rolled her eyes, but did so. It shimmered with rainbow light.
"It does that in the baseline too, gals," Applejack began dismissively before an alternative occurred to her. "Wait, did you all Wake Up right after...?"
Four nods answered her.
"With deja-vu right before...?"
Another series of nods.
"With the lesson attached to the event clear as crystal in yer head?"
More nods.
"Then... It's finally happenin', ain't it? And Twi's the only one left..."
"That's what we've concluded, darling!" Rarity grinned.
"Your time will come."
The words of Celestia did little to reassure Twilight about her doubts. At least those weird feelings of deja vu she'd been getting since shortly before arriving in Ponyville had finally stopped.
Now if only she could figure out why her friends all seemed so excited. There didn't seem to be any reason for it...
Discord. Celestia had chosen Discord to deal with the threat of Tirek. Even as she despondently led her friends to the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, Twilight just couldn't get that thought out of her head. Why not her, she was capable, smart, powerful, skilled, and... and why did she just get a flash of Tirek as some tyrannical living sun?
Twilight shook her head and tried to focus on something else.
"...but stil.. ..... .etting Discor. .... .are of this?" she heard Rainbow Dash faintly behind her.
".. ....se!" Rarity whispered back. "It's bas..... ........ ... .. ...cover ... ... for herself."
Huh. Seemed like her friends at least were also having trouble accepting the decision.
Twilight found herself agreeing with Applejack after Discord's little 'visit'. He was more annoying reformed than not.
"Well, Discord does have a point," Fluttershy reminded them. "What if there is something important in the box?"
Twilight raised an eyebrow at how her friends all perked up at the idea. Huh. "Well, there's only one way to find out."
After many, many hours of reading the castle's extensive library, they were no closer to finding an answer.
"The answer's in one of these books," Twilight insisted to herself. "I just kno–"
Twilight cut off as her eyes landed on the journal she and her friends had been keeping. The one Discord had bookmarked.
'I wonder...' she thought as she levitated it to the table before her and opened it to one of the marked passages.
She'd found it. Each of her friends had faced a trial where their talents or desires seemed to conflict with their Element of Harmony, but in the end, they'd chosen to do the right thing regardless of how hard it was and in doing so helped somepony else do the right thing as well. And each of them had received a token of friendship from those they helped.
The chest was connected to the Tree of Harmony. The tree was connected to the elements. The elements were connected to them. So, just maybe, those objects were connected to the keys needed to open the chest.
Which had, somehow, brought them to the current situation of Pinkie trying to strangle a rubber chicken.
"I don't think that's going to work," Twilight deadpanned right before she had to duck a ballistic rubber chicken as it slipped out of Pinkie's grasp.
It flew over her head and struck the chest square on one of the keyholes. There was a flash of light, a surge of magic, and suddenly the rubber chicken was a key. A key that floated over and fit perfectly in the lock.
'Huh...' Twilight blinked.
A few moments later and the rest of the objects had been turned into keys, and each fit snugly into one of the locks. Leaving only one missing.
Hers.
Spike had burped up the urgent message from canterlot while she was realizing that her lack of an Element dillemma meant the box couldn't be opened, and she'd left with all haste.
The news was bad. Discord had joined forces with Tirek. Tirek was stealing the magic of all three tribes now and with it the control of the world that the ponies enjoyed.
And the princesses' plan was to voluntarily give up their magic before Tirek could steal it.
'Wow,' Twilight thought as the magical transfer finished. This... she'd never felt like this... had she? She felt like she could do anything. Anything at...
One look at the three magicless alicorns killed that thought. Their tired eyes. Their complete lack of cutie marks. Her promise to keep all of this a secret, even from her friends.
She had never felt this helpless.
She needed more control. Her attempt to raise the sun resembled Celestia after a bender. And why did she know what that was like?
Anyway, she needed to practice controlling this new magic. And she had to do it without the help of her friends, no matter how eager they seemed.
"Are we really gonna let her go off like that?" Applejack asked the others. "She's sparkin' like a bug zapper in a mosquito swarm."
"Yeah, she clearly needs our help," Dash agreed as Pinkie nodded so furiously she almost lifted off the ground.
"We agreed to leave this to baseline until Twilight's trial came to pass and she Awoke," Rarity reminded them. "We know she's keeping a secret, darlings, but Tirek or no, I'm certain this is part of her Element trial. Like we all did, she has to find her way herself."
(Masterweaver)
"So Tirek is draining magic, huh?" Applejack changed the subject. "And if'n we're really doin' tha baseline thing, we're probably gonna have to let 'im. How do we handle this?"
"Ooo! Ooo!" Pinkie bounced up, passing out strange devices. "I made these a while back with Discord and Twilight. They'd force our magic down to ordinary levels by temporarily containing excess energy in our subspace pockets."
Rarity took hers with trepidation. "...why, exactly, did you not mention these before?"
"Well, Twilight tested one. It works, but she said she felt constantly tired while it was on." Pinkie shrugged. "She thought it was a wash, since they only work when willingly activated."
The five of them glanced between themselves.
"...For Twilight," Rainbow finally declared, activating hers. "...ooooooog, wow. Yeah. Woo. I'm alright, just a bit woozy..."
(Crisis)
Fluttershy stared at what she saw happen. Discord, Unawake or not, had turned on them. Tirek had forcibly taken their magic before they managed to break free. And then he'd betrayed Discord as well.
The draconequus was even now staring in shock at the necklace Tirek had given him. What he'd thought a symbol of allegiance merely a token of inevitable betrayal.
"I guess..." she sniffed, feeling both hurt and weaker than she'd ever felt. "It really is all up to Twilight now."
Twilight blinked as her uncontrolled flight plowed her right into a hoof bigger than she was. Tirek's hoof.
"You're going to give me what I want!" he bellowed at her.
'Not likely!' she thought as she teleported away.
Twilight stared at the ruins of the Oaks and Branches library. Her home.
'That's it,' she thought as Owlowicious, whom she'd barely rescued, flew off. 'No more miss nice mare!'
A teleport later and she was unleashing a blast at Tirek whose radius was wider than her own body. And after he blocked it, growing twice as wide as Tirek himself. The mystery of why she wanted to yell 'kamehameha' would have to wait.
Twilight breathed heavily. She and Tirek seemed evenly matched, but this was her talent. She could win.
"It appears we're at an impasse," Tirek declared. "So how about a trade?"
Twilight gasped as her friends, plus Discord, appeared trapped in bubbles over Tirek's head.
"Your friends for all the alicorn magic in Equestria!"
It was an impossible decision. Her friends or her magic. What was she without her friends? What was she without her magic?
Her friends were pleading with her not to do it. After all, if she did, then Tirek would have control over the entire world. All races, pony and not, would be subject to his tyranny. But, to give up her friends even then...
"Enough!" Tirek bellowed. "I want an answer and I want it now!"
Twilight looked at each of her friends in turn, and then a flash of rainbow light lit her eyes. She knew what she had to do. Really, there had never been another choice.
"I will give you my magic," she declared resolutely. "In exchange for my friends."
They all rushed to Twilight's side as Tirek grew to mountainous proportions. Even Discord, who she'd demanded freed despite his betrayal.
"Tirek tricked me into believing that he could offer me something more valuable than friendship," Discord offered sadly. "But there is nothing worth more. I see that now."
He fingered the necklace Tirek had given him.
"He lied when he said that this medallion was given as a sign of gratitude and loyalty," the powerless spirit of chaos lamented and began to remove the trinket. "But when I say that it is a sign of our true friendship, I am telling the truth."
And with that, he placed it around the equally powerless Twilight's neck.
It was a sweet gesture, they all admitted to themselves. Even if Equestria was still doomed.
And then the familiar shimmer of rainbow light flashed across its surface.
"You think...?" Applejack dared to hope.
"Only one way to know," Twilight told them.
As she watched the medallion complete its transformation into a key, Twilight felt a sense of giddy anticipation she couldn't entirely put her hoof on.
As she bid all of her friends to join her and turn their keys as one, she finished Waking Up. Her memories of past Loops leading up to this moment became clear as she watched the Harmony Chest open at long, long last.
The rainbow that emerged hit the tree, causing the Element gems to glow brightly and then all six of them were engulfed in pillars of light. They were pulled into the chest and emerged transformed.
"Not a bad way to Wake Up," she smiled. They hadn't gotten the Elements back. Not exactly. It was more like they were the Elements. More now than they had ever been even in the Loops.
"So nice of you to join us, darling," Rarity smiled back. "Shall we?"
"Let's," Twilight smirked. It was time to teach Tirek a lesson.
Tirek went down with hardly a fight, and the harmonic wave resulting restored all of his stolen magic. But it didn't end there. The chest was rocketed to Ponyville where it planted itself and grew into a great shimmering tree-palace with them being transported before it.
Then, and only then, did their transformations end.
"Sweet maple!" Rarity exclaimed as they all stared. "Is that... yours, Twilight?"
"I believe it is," the voice of Celestia declared from behind them.
Twilight had to admit, a new home with thrones for each of her friends arranged in a circle, a stronger bond than ever to the Elements and each other. Plus one heck of a heartsong and accompanying celebration.
That had been worth the wait.
(Masterweaver)
"Right!" Twilight grinned. "First order of business, RESEARCH!"
Her friends all giggled.
"...No, I'm serious, I want to be able to do that on command." The alicorn waved. "The rainbowy transformation thing. Which means we need to figure out the exact trigger."
"Well," Pinkie mused, "I don't think any of us are ever going to be able to do it solo. It felt like a group thing..."
"And there's tha fact that it was locked in the box," Applejack pointed out. "Actually, the box is in tha ground, can we get to tha keys?"
"Well, the keys were all ordinary items before," Fluttershy mused. "Maybe we can just get those items again and keep them in our Pockets..."
"Maybe the keys are part of the palace now," Rainbow suggested. "Like... the skeleton, or different sections?"
"Whatever the case, opening the box early is going to be a priority in this whole effort," Rarity said definitively. "Otherwise, we'd have only a week at a time!"
Twilight smirked evilly. "Mwahahahaha! I HAVE TURNED YOU ALL INTO EGGHEADS!"
"NOOOOOOO!" cried Rainbow.... and then they all cracked up again.
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Lol, this got featured? Well deserved
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Eeyup! I was wondering how this would play out, I half expect thatt next time they will all go alicorn and send Tirek packing.
(Hmm, I wonder whether they have it on the transcript site I bookmarked...
)
(Update: This account really makes me wish we could Favorite individual chapters. It's that good, people.
)
Ooh, nice. I was wondering how this would play out, Loop-wise. Congratulations to the writers of this chapter. You did well.
That was wonderful.
However…
I cringe whenever I hear people associate Twilight's über wave motion beam with the Turtle Destruction Wave.
It's not. It's actually a direct reference to Marisa Kirisame's Master Spark.
*cough*
Sorry.
Anyway, as I was saying, that was wonderful, I've greatly enjoyed how much all of the contributing authors have expanded the MLP multiverse.
Tirek escapes in that whole time traveling episode in season 2, what happens if the mane six defeat Tirek early?
I don't get why they were so interested in rainbowy things
>Pinkie trying to strangle a rubber chicken
Chokey chicken!
Well that's one set of the EoH down, still two more to go.
Two things I'm really curious about.
1) Just what in the world are the 'Eiken' loops?
2) What chapters contain Warhammer40k, Mass Effect, Halo, or XCOM tidbits?
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Not sure exactly what the Eiken loop is, as it's never been described.
Basically, it sounds like a loop that has been locked to Read-Only. More specifically, it's the safest loop that a Looper can be sent to.
And I guess it's boring.
Every looper that has done a really stupid thing that has caused a loop to crash has been sent there for a time-out at some point. Think of it as detention. Anybody who has gotten in trouble in high school can tell you how boring detention is.
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Teen Titans Go!
........
Top that.
6874177
just...
google 'eiken' and you'll start to understand
This is Eiken
vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/eiken/images/2/2c/EikenBeach.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20080701053107
Now think about the fact that most loopers end up there as female, with similar proportions to the ones in the image, or as males mysteriously irresistible to all nonlooping females. Except Caboose and Slaanesh. Caboose likes Eiken, and almost always ends up married to I don't know who but theyre in the picture, and Slaanesh loops as a eunuch.
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How do you know about who sanlesh loops in as?
no one else posted this, so i will:
At least it wasn't Mima's Twilight Spark
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I was more thinking of this:
All those years, and I just wondered. Was THIS(mlp loops special season 4 final) written AFTER the next chapters. Because I am in the process of reading it again, and I haven't met Tirek Sunstar or however he is called yet. The next loop is the Megaman fused loop, with some heavy stuff, if I recall, even gods(alicorn Twilight, chaos goddes Pinkie) just DROP like flies... It's there that he should make an appearance.