This story is a sequel to What Lies Beyond the Dance

Season 5 Spoilers

In a place beyond time itself Celestia, Chrysalis, and Discord play games with the fates of mortals. But why? And what could have caused such games to come about?

Only one being knows the full answer. Luna, witness to her sister's fall. She alone has lived countless lives as her sister remakes the world time and time again.

Her tale is tragedy, her suffering endless. But she must remember, for is both arbiter and victim of her sister's crime. So she tells her tale again.

Spoilers. This story takes place during Season 5's ending episode, "The Cutie Re-mark".

Starlight can't be defeated. But then again, she can't win either. Both she and Twilight and trapped in an eternal time loop. After realizing this, Starlight alters her spell to transport Twilight and Spike beyond time itself. Unfortunately she's dragged in as well and taken to the place where time ends. In that endless nothingness where even time is meaningless and realities merge she and Twilight find...

Celestia, Discord, and Chrysalis playing cards and betting on the lives of mortals. And it's not as funny as it sounds.

Have you ever seen a pony that just seemed out of place? Perhaps some mannerism, some behaviour that just struck you as odd? Some piece of clothing that didn't seem quite right? perhaps a coat or mane whose colour just seemed flat-out weird. A strange build, a strange voice, or maybe they were perfectly normal, except that you swear you just saw the exact same pony not five seconds ago somewhere completely different?

Of course you have. Everypony has encountered an Outsider at some point. But never up close, it's always at a distance, and they're always gone before you have the chance to challenge them.

But sometimes the rules get broken. Sometimes fate gets distracted for a moment, and a lone unicorn mare gets to see something that she was never meant to see.

Twilight Sparkle's day is about to get very weird.

FAQ and Supplemental Materials (Potential Spoilers for new readers)

Featured! Twice!
...I really don't know what to say!

Special Thanks go to Horizon for initial proof-reading, editing, and signal-boosting, provided as a prize for spotting an Easter egg in his story Hard Reset II. Seriously, it's an awesome, brain-warping story and you should go read it right now.

Thanks also go to my editors for putting up with my atrocious grammar and spelling errors - Ganelon, Ephraim Blue, BronyWhooves, Commonancestry, Princess Autumn Forest, and Morning Sun

Cover art credit goes to EMedina13 and tamalesyatole. I am looking for more appropriate art, so If you think you can do better, let me know.

Twilight gets a visit from a familiar stranger. Except it's not a stranger. It's Twilight, from the future. As future Twilight hangs out with past Twilight, past Twilight comes to a startling realisation... Her future self is kind of a jerk!

Quite obviously blatantly copied from based and expanded from this comic by 1trickpone.

Preread by Chicago Ted, thanks!

Twilight Sparkle has come across the impossible. A book she's never read before, with an odd plus-like shape emblazoned on the cover. What is this book, and what does it mean for Equestria?

Meanwhile, Isaac has been stuck in the basement for a long time - centuries? Millenia? But when he finally finds a way out, will he be able to adapt to the planet that's moved on without him?

Crossover with 'the Binding of Isaac : Rebirth', a game by Edmund McMillen.

Rated Teen, because somebody can't keep it polite.

Featured on 5/31/18!

Check out another great tBoI crossover, Binding of Isaac: Beyond by IAmNotSmartest!

Celestia had a vision, of two beings, one of darkness, one of light. They claimed that they would reclaim Equestria and return it to dust. The next day, a small creature appears, frightened, scared, and afraid of her very touch. A child. A child who may herald the end, or save Equestia from its demise.

Isaac has been in the basement as long as he can remember. So many times has he descended through this purgatory of death and murder, god and demons, so many things that hurt, burned and killed.
Then one day it stopped. A secret room that opened the chest he had known so long, and he was free. He could leave the Basement.
He didn't see anything else that followed him out.
He didn't expect the world to have changed so much in his absence.
And he never could've imagined they'd all be ponies.

And ponies never imagined that simple children could ever save them from the forces of evil.

Holy Hell! This got featured! (1/8/16)

A-again? Thank you! (1/22/16)

IAmNotSmartest.omfg has stopped responding. Close the program? (2/12/16) >No >Hell no >Back the %#$@ off

IT JUST KEEPS HAPPENING I DON'T UNDERSTAND. (3/22/16)

And again? I though Friday the 13th was supposed to be an unlucky day! (5/13/16)

*Incoherent stuttering* (5/30/16)

Character list will be updated as necessary, those not immediately listed are:
- King Sombra
- Twilight
- Spike
- TBC

Characters from the Binding of Isaac are under Other, as you'd expect.
Correct me if I get an item's effect or description wrong!
Correct me if I get grammar or spelling incorrect, I'll fix them as I'm aware of them!

Cover art is by me.

Huge thank you to TrueGentleman, who has taken it upon him to aid me in the editing of this story! (Stopped as of 18 onward)

Appreciation for HydraLightning, proofreader from CH3+.

And a special thanks to awesomesauce4 for inspiring me to start on this! Here's their story!
|The Unbinding|

Discord's the only creature in Equestria who can recognize the human for what he is -- not the long-lost Seventh Element that never actually existed and couldn't have existed before the human arrived, but a meta-reality warper, an entity far more powerful than Discord with the power to warp the minds of all around him and the very rules of magic to make sure that he's always the Big Hero. And the role the human's assigned to Discord is the Villain to beat down or kill.

Pre-reform Discord's fine with being the villain. But on his own terms. Not dancing on some alien interloper's puppet strings.

Without friendship, or even allies, Discord's going to have to find a way to defeat a creature who can alter fate itself and who can even mind-control him. Or he may just end up worse than dead.

Art by Tenchi-Outsuno. Progress Bar at my writing journal.

Trigger warnings: Mind control (magically induced love, magically induced friendship, magically induced stupidity, Discord being Discord), noncon/dubcon (magically induced love, other forms of highly dubious consent), rape (female on male), violence/gore (mostly against Discord), literally everything in chapters 19-21, humans not being presented as unilaterally wonderful and superior to ponies and/or draconequui.

This story is a sequel to A Stitch in Time

Having discovered the message left for her by Star Swirl the Bearded in the distant past, Twilight once again finds herself caught up in the middle of a struggle against forces far greater than herself. In order to even stand a chance she'll need to travel further and wider than she ever has, and forge some unlikely alliances with old enemies. All to bring down the powers that have manipulated and shaped her entire life, and retake control of her own future.

The conclusion of the Time Loop Trilogy, which began with Hard Reset
Available in Spanish thanks to dgs1993
Series TV Tropes page

This story is a sequel to Hard Reset

After the events of Hard Reset Twilight's life and mental well being are slowly returning to normal. Her recovery is cut short, though, when a letter arrives informing her that the time loop spell she cast is causing severe damage to space and time itself. In over her head, Twilight tries to summon anypony who will know how to fix it. The pony she gets is the last one she ever thought she would meet... and nothing like she expected him to be.

Available in Spanish thanks to dgs1993
Series TV Tropes page