//------------------------------// // 14 - Uncertainty // Story: Reflections // by RQK //------------------------------// Twilight Sparkle’s world folded back into being. She blinked for a moment and then stood up to examine the room around them. The throne room was just as they had left it, complete with the flashcards still on the table. And she clutched at her head. “This is bad…” Crystal Faire stumbled off the table and toward the doors. “Really bad,” Sunset Shimmer echoed. “I’m not sure how I can even deal with this,” Starlight Glimmer said as a shudder ran down her spine. “How any of us can deal with this,” Twilight agreed. Chrysalis snorted and stuck her nose into the air. Crystal threw the doors open with her magic and stumbled through, wheezing, “I need some air.” She made it a few steps past the doorway before lighting her horn and disappearing in a white flash and an airy pop. Twilight blinked at the display and then hopped off the table. “Oh…” “Did she just travel to some other timeline somewhere?” Starlight asked. Twilight shook her head. “No, no. I… Actually, I know where she went.” She whirled to face the others. “Stay here for a bit, okay?” Sunset raised an eyebrow and considered Chrysalis. “Uhhh, sure?” “You’re really going to leave us alone with her?” Starlight asked. Chrysalis bared her teeth. “I will be right back. Just…” Twilight said with a sigh, “don’t tear each other apart, okay? Talk about what timelines you’re from, I guess. Something.” Starlight and Sunset exchanged glances and then turned to face Chrysalis. Twilight lit her horn and her world folded into a single point. She re-emerged to bitter cold and snow hitting her muzzle. She looked around the flat surface that was her roof and noted the snow layered across it. The sun sat just above the horizon, casting red glows on the nearby tower and the huge crystal star that sat atop it. She spotted hoofprints in the snow and followed them to the edge of the roof where she found Crystal looking out across Equestria, her cloak flapping in a light breeze. Twilight shivered but nonetheless trotted forward. “Crystal?” Crystal swallowed. “I can’t believe I didn’t see it before,” she croaked. Twilight trotted up right beside her. “See the bleeding?” “I’ve seen collapsed timelines before. I’ve told you that much. But those should have been my first sign that something was wrong.” Crystal shook her head. “I ignored it. I didn’t see it.” “The multiverse is dying,” Twilight said. The words themselves required her to replay them in her mind. She almost couldn’t believe what she had just uttered. She had seen and heard a number of fantastic things ever since they had met, and much of them had been, however far-fetched, true. And this couldn’t be true. She needed it to not be true. “Something has to be done!” Twilight exclaimed. “Or else, every single one of these infinitely many realities will eventually collapse!” “I know…” Crystal stammered. Twilight slapped some snow. “Ugh! This is bad! This is very bad!” Crystal hung her head. Twilight whirled. “But you… you might be able to do something about this. Crystal, you are the only one in the entire multiverse that can do what you do, right? You have to do something!” Twilight screamed. Crystal shuddered and withdrew into herself. “I don’t know if I can… I don’t think I can…” “You can! You have to! More and more realities are dying by the moment!” “I know…” “Then do something! Anything!” Crystal ground her teeth together and whirled to face Twilight with her eyes the size of dots. “I want to!” she shrieked. “But I don’t know what to do here! I don’t know if there’s anything that I can do here! I have no plan!” Twilight reeled. “No… No…” Crystal’s legs gave way and she collapsed into the snow. She curled herself into a fetal position and rocked back and forth. “I can’t… I can’t…” Twilight stepped back. “A-ah…” She could feel the strength leaving her legs, no, the strength leaving her everything. She felt numb. She couldn’t even be bothered to notice the cold anymore. “Ah…” Crystal lay there in the snow, staring off into space. “I can’t…” Twilight swallowed. “Crystal… Yes, you can. I know you can. You’ve been across the entire multiverse. You’ve seen things that most ponies could only dream of. You’ve had a plan for everything! Your possibilities are infinite!” “But this is so much more than that,” Crystal replied. “I’ve solved timelines within the multiverse. But… I’ve never even dreamed of having to solve the multiverse itself.” Twilight’s legs gave way. “No.” “I am out of my depth, Twilight. I don’t know what to do…” Crystal sighed and curled up tight. “I’m… not capable of doing this.” * * * Chrysalis glanced around the room. She could spot her reflections in the wall’s many faces. “So, this is her castle. I’ve seen it from outside, but I’ve never actually been inside it before.” Her expression scrunched into one of disgust as she said, “What a gaudy and ugly looking place this is.” Starlight rolled her eyes. “Say what you want about it. This place is home.” “Well… I do sometimes wonder what the Ponyville Zoning Board thinks of this place, though,” Sunset said. Chrysalis snorted. “Gaudy.” “I think it looks nice. Kinda out of place in Ponyville, but…” Sunset shrugged and said, “Can’t really blame her when a magic chest just plops this whole thing down. But it’s nowhere near ugly.” “You would think so, Sunset Shimmer,” Chrysalis hissed. Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Uh, did we meet in your home timeline?” Chrysalis threw her head back and laughed. “Oh, that’s precious. Of course we met, you cretin. Do you not remember when you and those others came to my hive and dared to try and usurp my throne?” Sunset shook her head. “I’ve never met you before. Not in my timeline, at least.” “She wasn’t at the hive,” Starlight seconded as she took a seat in one of the nearby thrones. “Heck, before all this multiverse business… I’ve never even met her.” “Well, I will have you know that it was you, you,” Chrysalis said as she pointed at Starlight, “and that accursed Twilight Sparkle who showed up in my throne room that day.” Starlight frowned. “Twilight? Didn’t you capture her?” “We tried,” Chrysalis replied, standing tall and regal, “but she somehow eluded us. We watched that castle from every direction. She never left it. And yet… she evaded detection. Whichever place she chose to hide in, she chose it well.” Sunset’s mouth formed into a slant. “Huh. She must’ve hidden in the mirror.” Chrysalis deadpanned. “The… what?” Starlight took a step back. “Ah, maybe we should have Twilight tell you about that one.” Chrysalis, for several long moments, stared Starlight down. She buzzed her wings once, twice, and then shook her head and turned away. “Not like it matters anymore,” she said, her voice drawing down toward a whisper. Starlight sighed and took a seat. “Must be tough, huh? Losing everything like that…” “Hah. As if I had anything going for me.” Starlight shook her head. “I’ve asked Twilight what it was like losing her timeline like that. I’m not sure if I still know how it feels.” Sunset blinked. “Wait. Twilight lost her timeline?” “Uh, yeah! Her home timeline collapsed. She lost everything!” Starlight said as she threw her hooves into the air. “She’s been here ever since.” “What the hay; when did this happen?” Sunset asked. Chrysalis raised an eyebrow and cocked her head to see Starlight out of the corner of her eye. “A while ago,” Starlight replied. “It was before you and I met, apparently, Sunset. She’s not from this timeline.” Sunset stared into space for a moment. Her eyes narrowed with each passing moment, and a couple of times, she scratched her head. “Wait… Okay, wait. If she’s not from this timeline... then where is the Twilight that is from this timeline?” Starlight hung her head. “Well… she’s dead.” Chrysalis cracked a devilish smile. “Oh, really now?” she asked as she turned to face them once more. Sunset straightened up but her expression quivered. “Oh… I see. You kinda lost your Twilight, huh?” “Yup,” Starlight replied. Sunset sighed. “Well, I guess I kinda know how that feels. From back home, I mean.” Chrysalis chuckled. Sunset shot Chrysalis a glare and then turned back to Starlight. “That’s pretty messed up, though.” She ran a hoof through her mane and sighed and said, “But I guess everything’s messed up now. This thing with the multiverse…?” “Yeah,” Starlight replied, “that’s messed up.” Sunset stumbled over to another one of the thrones and took a seat in it. “It’s a lot to think about.” Starlight shuddered and began to stare into space. “Y-yeah…” she muttered. “You know, I’m… thinking about the other mes out there, and the other yous,” she said as she looked at Sunset. She looked up at Chrysalis and said, “And, I guess, I wonder about all the Chrysalises out there that are dying right now. I wonder about the changelings that are dying right now.” Any hint of a smile on Chrysalis’ face faded. She buzzed her wings again as she swiveled away from them again. Me, dying? she thought. Her hoof ran to her thigh. She thought about what had once been there. She thought about how close death had come to her. Sunset let out a drawn-out sigh. “Yeah, I guess I’m thinking about that too. Hard to believe the multiverse is dying. That’s… I don’t know…” Chrysalis narrowed her eyes and glanced at them over her withers. “Indeed, it is. And what?” Starlight glanced up at Chrysalis and, after studying the changeling’s stern gaze, deflated and sank deeper into the throne. “Yeah… and what?” * * * A gust of wind blasted some snow onto them. It howled in their ears. Twilight felt it blowing right through her, further punctuating how empty she felt at the moment. She felt like the world could have ended and she wouldn’t have batted an eye. I was standing in this exact spot when a world ended, even, she thought. She lifted her head and drew her eyes across the rolling hills that covered the parts of Equestria just north of her. She looked up at Canterlot, still clinging to the side of the mountain. She ran her eyes over the countless lights that dotted the city. Twilight scooted over to Crystal and lay a hoof across her form. “I don’t think I’m capable of it either. Not by myself, anyway.” She thought of the countless ponies that lived there; she thought of the countless ponies living everywhere. She thought of her friends and family. Crystal’s eyes briefly flashed up to Twilight and then she let her head hit the snow. Twilight could feel a part of herself grow whole again with every thought. Because they make my life worth living. And I don’t want to see any of that happen ever again. Twilight rubbed Crystal’s back. “But I’m willing to try. I hope you’re willing to try too.” Crystal sighed. “I… do… I want to try. Except…” “Except?” “I don’t even know where to start… let alone come up with an entire plan…” Crystal mumbled. “You don’t have to come up with an entire plan,” she said, “because we can come up with a plan together.” Crystal blinked and then raised her head to look Twilight in the eyes. “You don’t have to do this alone, Crystal,” Twilight said. “I’m here to help you. You just have to… let me help you. Let us help you, even.” “You… help me?” Crystal wheezed. “Of course.” Crystal blinked. “I don’t…” Twilight sat back. “Crystal… you’ve spent your whole life helping other ponies out, haven’t you?” Crystal, still curled up in her fetal position, loosened up. “It’s… what I do.” “You’ve helped countless ponies with problems that they couldn’t take care of themselves. Right?” “…Yes.” “And now you have a problem that you can’t take care of by yourself. None of us can take care of it by ourselves. But if we work together and help each other out…” Crystal remained silent for many long moments. Her eyes didn’t move off Twilight for a second. Finally, she sighed and shook her head. “Even if I did… I still wouldn’t know where to even begin.” Twilight nodded. It was a fair point. She wiped a bit of snow off Crystal’s cloak while she thought. “Well, Sunset and Starlight…” Twilight paused as she tried to mince her next words. “And Chrysalis too, I guess—I can’t believe I’m saying that. They don’t know what you and I know.” Crystal shook her head. “So… show them what you showed me. Bring them up to speed.” Twilight smiled. “It’ll be a start, I think.” Crystal remained still for a few moments more. Eventually, she dug one hoof into the snow, and then another. She climbed, slowly, to her hooves. She breathed slowly and surely and eventually regained her tall and regal composure. “Perhaps it will.” * * * A metallic object shaped like a pony’s foreleg skidded across the floor. A few sparks flew off the exposed wires before the whole thing fell silent. That which it had been attached to, a robotic pony, fell over. The report of the fall echoed throughout the throne room. The metal wings were bent in odd shapes and the metallic horn on his head looked half-pressed inward. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, who held a bruised and battered Twilight Sparkle close, sat at the other end of the throne room. They gasped and wrapped their forelegs further around their ward. Sunset, Starlight, and Chrysalis observed the whole thing from the side. The metallic pony writhed about for a moment and tried to stand up. The eyelids opened to reveal green, cybernetic eyes. Crystal, who stood down the carpet from him, met those eyes dead on. “I do not understand…” the metal pony said, his voice filled with static, “how did my attack do nothing to you?” “Explaining that to you is below my pay grade, Test Tube,” Crystal replied. The metallic alicorn glowered at her. “My name is Metallix.” Crystal snorted. “Your name is whatever I decide it is. Especially with how close you came to making everything worse.” Crystal smiled and lit her horn. “You are intelligent, Test Tube, moreso than most. That makes you useful. So, I will let you keep the body, but I’ll be taking your magic. You must come up with a much better approach.” She shot a beam at his body. It splattered against his metal shell and then wrapped itself around his whole. Metallix cried out and his body writhed about. The beam that connected the two shifted, changed color, and reversed direction. Orbs of energy left his being and shot straight into Crystal. She remained unfazed throughout the entire process. The spell finished after a few seconds and the whole room fell silent. Metallix tried to stand but his remaining legs couldn’t find traction. The entire metallic frame creaked and groaned and finally went clang as the legs gave way and he lay splayed across the carpet. Crystal smirked. “That’ll do.” She turned to Celestia and Luna. “I’m going to leave him to you. Who knows? You might even find something useful for him to do.” Celestia and Luna said nothing. Their eyes flip-flopped between Metallix, Crystal, and the mares on the side. Their gaze lingered over Chrysalis in particular. Crystal chuckled and then turned to the others and motioned for them to follow. The four of them trotted through the set of double doors at the head of the room which Crystal shut behind them. Now, let’s see, Crystal thought. Millions of timelines swam through her head. Oh, this set has a catastrophe in Cloudsdale. I could fix this one. Let’s… pick the one where the tornado doesn’t tear up the Shy household. Hmmm, there’re some here where Rarity doesn’t lose a big client. Let’s go with that one in particular; avoids tornado and Rarity keeps the client. Here are some other things… Crystal stared into space. “Everypony, we’re about to be in the air in a few seconds. Be ready.” Sunset blinked. “What?” Crystal’s mind’s eye touched a point within the branching timelines. Reality folded together for a few moments. Once it folded back out, Crystal flapped her wings. Starlight wrapped magic around herself which kept her aloft while Chrysalis flapped her wings as well. Sunset, on the other hoof, simply fell. Crystal rolled over and wrapped some magic around Sunset. “Yes.” Sunset trotted on air for a few seconds and then looked down. Equestria looked like a mishmash of greens and blues and it was hard to make out anything individual from their height. She swallowed. “Oh, you weren’t kidding.” Chrysalis snickered. Sunset lit her own horn and wrapped magic around herself. “It’s a good thing I learned this trick from Starlight,” she said as she looked Starlight in the eye. At Starlight’s confused frown, Sunset added, “In my home timeline, I mean.” A series of loud booms above them broke them from their reverie and the four of them glanced up. The gigantic cloudy structure of Cloudsdale hung above them. Lightning streaked across the night sky and hit several solid structures elsewhere in the city. Tornadoes spun their way across the cloudy streets, tearing up a few houses here and there. A few more lightning bolts emerged from a structure in one corner of the city. The building consisted of cloud-like material just like the rest of the city. A few rainbow waterfalls fell from its entrances. A loud rumble later, an entire section of the weather factory fell off and plummeted toward the ground. A few dozen pegasi congregated underneath and caught it. “Now, in this case, the weather factory is out of control,” Crystal explained. “It will destroy the city if it keeps up like that.” “I have a question,” Sunset said. Crystal’s mind’s eye saw infinitely many timelines that branched off from this moment. Sunset said the same thing in nearly all of them. Crystal nodded. “I see that you want to know what exactly I look for in a timeline.” Sunset nodded. “Well, it’s like this: there’s the main problem that I come here to solve. That’s what the four of us are doing. But I also try to pick timelines where problems the world over can be made to solve themselves.” Crystal paused as something went boom within the city. “It could be some dispute in Griffonstone, or it could be criminals getting caught.” “So... you can pick and choose from possible outcomes and say, ‘I want all these to happen.’” “Exactly. For example, I’m feeling a bit generous, so I’m throwing this timeline’s Chrysalis a bone and forcing the probability where she turns left at a fork.” She paused as a sly grin appeared on her face. “Her turning right would lead to a dragon encounter which she… probably will not survive.” Chrysalis frowned. “…I am not sure if I should thank you.” “You’re welcome,” Crystal replied with a smile. “I think I see how all of this works now,” Sunset said. “This is really cool stuff.” Crystal scanned the nearby clouds. She spotted a silhouette swinging from cloud to cloud with what looked like a grappling hook. Starlight sighed and shook her head. “Crystal, I have a question about these timelines that you say are collapsing… Do you have any idea of what caused this all to happen in the first place?” Crystal frowned. She opened her mouth to respond when the silhouette’s grappling hook fell loose from the cloud mid-swing. The silhouette plummeted in their direction. Still broke off, hmm? Don’t worry, Windy Weathertop. It turned out to be a white-coated earth mare who looked like she had clouds for a mane and tail. She tumbled through the air with the tail-end of the hook still wrapped around her barrel. Crystal lit her horn and shot out a gusty wind which caught the mare mid-descent. It shot her straight back up, giving her enough height to give her grapple hook another throw; it stuck into a cloud and she safely swung further into the city beyond. Crystal watched the spot for several moments and then sighed. “The truth is, Starlight…” she began as she furrowed her brow and frowned, “I don’t know. I have no clue.” “Not even a guess?” Sunset asked. Crystal solemnly shook her head. “Then, how long do you think it would take for all the timelines to collapse?” Starlight asked. “I don’t know. It could take forever. But if nothing puts a stop to this… it will happen. Nothing will exist anymore.” Chrysalis, who had been watching the city, turned. Sunset floated herself close to Crystal. “Well… you’re gunna try to fix it, right?” Crystal minced on her words. What eventually came out was unintelligible even to herself. Her mind’s eye found the timeline that Twilight was in. She looked at the top-most part where the crystallized sections ended. She picked a point just above it and reality folded together again. It folded back out and the four landed on top of the Cutie Map. Twilight stood near one of the walls and she turned to face them. “Because we’ll help you out,” Starlight said. Crystal paused. She then turned to Starlight. “…Help?” “Yeah, help,” Sunset agreed. “If you’re going to fix the multiverse, we’re going to help you do it.” “I may not know much about all this stuff,” Starlight said. She rubbed her foreleg and added, “I might not be the smartest mare in the room either. But I’ll do whatever I can.” “I just know that if we all work together,” Twilight said as she hopped onto the Map with them, “we can do anything.” “You, me, Twilight, and Sunset…” Starlight said. She turned to Chrysalis, narrowed her eyes, and pointed. “Maaaaybe?” The others turned to face Chrysalis too. “The last thing that I want to do is have anything to do with you putrid ponies.” Chrysalis groaned and rolled her eyes. “But I doubt you’re going to just let me go anyway. And I suppose I have a vested interest in continuing to exist.” Chrysalis poked Crystal in the chest and bared her teeth. “Do not even think for one second that I do not despise you.” Crystal blinked and glanced around at each of them again. Three of them wore warm smiles while the other kept an indifferent frown. “You’re sure about this?” Crystal asked again. They met her with nods. Crystal considered them in full. She had seen their faces thousands of times before. She had seen thousands of them walking different paths in life. Those paths had been to themselves; they had been insignificant to her and she had been insignificant to them. The four in front of her were not that. The paths had crossed. Surely, she was significant to them. Maybe they were significant to her. Crystal nodded and closed her eyes. Her magic undid the button that held her cloak together. She lifted the entire piece off her and then folded it several times until it made a nice square. She levitated the folded cloak next to her and took in a deep breath. And then Crystal Faire, now bare to them, opened her eyes and smiled. “Well, alright then. We have a lot of work to do.”