//------------------------------//
// Chapter 20: The Event 
// Story: Equestria 485,000 
// by Unwhole Hole 
//------------------------------//

“Long dress! Extended train! Short dress! Cocktail dress! Skirt and blouse combination! Trousers and blouse! Trousers and sweater!”

            Twilight did not know why these particular words were being spoken, although she recognized that the speaker was Rarity, and that the statements were pronounced with joy and excitement.

            “What is she doing?” asked Twilight. Applejack was beside her as they walked through a tall and narrow hall overgrown with pipes that sprung from the walls at every angle.

            “I have no idea,” said Applejack.

            Even when the corridor expanded into a large room and Twilight was able to see the other ponies, she still did not fully comprehend what she was seeing. The others were, indeed, in the room: Rainbow Dash lying on one side of it and looking slightly unwell, with Fluttershy standing beside her. Pinkie Pie sat very still in a high alcove in the wall, watching the events below in silence through her long, straight bangs. Rarity, though, was prancing around in the center of the room. To Twilight’s greatest surprise, she was wearing clothing.

            “Formal skirt and blazer! Modern fit sleeveless! Shorts! Business casual!”

            Every time she would state an outfit, the one she was wearing would momentarily collapse into pale liquid and reconfigure itself over her body, forming the garment or style that she had announced. Twilight at first regarded this with confusion, then amazement- -and then anger.

            “My morphiplasm!” she cried. “Where did you get that?!”

            “Oh!” said Rarity, swirling around and causing the morphiplasm to align itself as a long and elegant white and gold dress. “My apologies, darling, but I saw it standing there and, well, I was just so curious about modern clothing that I couldn’t help myself! I was going to put it right back, but then, well…” She stood up and raised her hooves above her head, causing the dress to convert into a double-breasted coat over a narrow skirt. “Then I saw what it can DO! Anything I think of, it becomes! I had no idea! I can make dresses…” The suit shifted to an entirely different form of a dress, “and blouses…” It became a blouse. “Or I can reduce it so it feels like I’m wearing nothing at all!” The morphiplasm suddenly shrunk around her body, forming an imperceptibly thin and extremely tight white layer around her body. Behind her, Rainbow Dash’s wings involuntarily extended with an audible “pomf”.

             Rarity paused, looking over her shoulder at Rainbow Dash. She then turned to Twilight. “I just can’t understand why you made it look so DRAB! If this is the future of couture- -”

            “RARITY!” shouted Twilight, causing the room to fall silent. “Don’t try my clothes on without my permission! I never thought I would be saying that to YOU, but you of all ponies should know how ANNOYING it is!”

            Twilight found herself panting filtered, recirculated air as the room remained silent. The only sound was her breathing.

            “You…you remember us?” said Rarity after a long, long pause.

            “She does,” said Applejack with tone of profound relief.

            “Not completely,” said Twilight, tempering Applejack’s enthusiasm. “I remember that I did once know you. A long time ago. Most of it is…blurry. I don’t know all of it.”

            Fluttershy spoke up as she helped Rainbow Dash to her hooves. “But you remember that we are your friends?”

            Twilight took a long time to respond. “Yes,” she said. “I remember that you were.”

            “Where?”

            They closed in closer, and Twilight took a few steps back. She did not want to get near them, largely for the same reason that she refused to breathe the Equestrian atmosphere.

            “My memory isn’t good,” she said. “Not from that time. But I don’t understand how you are here. It shouldn’t be possible.”

            The ponies looked at each other.

            “Yeah,” said Rainbow Dash. “I was kind of wondering that too.”

            “No you weren’t,” said Rarity, shifting her skin-tight leotard into a simple white blouse. Twilight was actually extremely impressed; she had never seen a pony with such profound control of morphiplasm. She did not admit that, though. “But I think we all are now.”

            They looked around, none of them wanting to speak. Eventually it was Fluttershy of all ponies who broke the silence.

            “The last thing I remember was an explosion,” she said. The others all turned to her. She recoiled slightly with a small squeak. “That is, while I was on the road to Applejack’s. I had stopped to help some snakes, and when they got across the road I was greeting some fieldmice…and then there was a big explosion! Oh, I was so afraid! I thought I was going to faint!” She paused. “But I didn’t. And I saw a light…”

            “I remember that too,” said Applejack. “Not the light part, but an explosion. One from down in Ponyville. I was just about to run over when…” She winced as though she were trying to think. “…I was here…”

            “Well, I certainly saw a light,” said Rarity. “It practically blinded me! And the explosion shook my whole boutique! Things spilling everywhere, falling every which way! Why, I even cut my hoof on…” She looked down at her hoof, but there was no wound. Not even the slightest sign of a scar. “…on my scissors…”

            “I saw it too!” cried Rainbow Dash so loudly that the others jumped. “It woke me up from my nape- -I mean it disrupted my cloud herding! The light went straight up toward the sky and nearly hit me! It came right from the castle!” She looked over her shoulder. “Hey, Pinks, did you see it too?”

            Pinkie Pie nodded silently.

            “An explosion from the castle?” Twilight was confused, and she wracked her brain. The memory came suddenly and without warning, and Twilight wished that she had not brought it back. Her teeth clenched as she recalled what had happened that day. It was something that had taken her many thousands of years to force herself to forget. “I know what that was,” she said, darkly.

            “What?” asked Rarity.

            “Twilight, if you know anything- -”

            Twilight looked at them. “It was an experimental spell,” she said. “We were testing it that day. Myself and Starlight. And…” Her mind blanked. “That blue unicorn.”

            The others looked at her, confused. “You mean Trixie?” said Applejack.

            “Maybe. I don’t remember her name.”

            “She was your rival,” said Rarity. “Well, at least for a while. She got better.”

            “Eh…” said Rainbow Dash in mild disagreement.

            “My canonical rival was the Witchlord Sarkon Vortrenth,” said Twilight. “Our armies fought continuously for eight hundred and thirty seven years before I finally severed her head for the sixth and final time. I still have it, actually.” She paused. “And sixteen star systems were rendered uninhabitable…I assume that this ‘Trixie’ was similar, then?”

            Every one of the other ponies shook their heads vehemently.

            “Well,” said Twilight, clearing her throat. “Yes. The three of us, myself, Starlight, and this Trixie, we were attempting to perform the spell. What you saw was it failing.”

            “I remember that!” cried Rainbow Dash. “At the picnic yesterday! You were talking about it!” They all paused. “But…none of us did…”

            “I’m glad you didn’t. The failure was catastrophic,” said Twilight, harshly, although her aggression and hatred was not targeted toward the others. “The spell failed! It…it imploded.” She paused for a long moment, temporarily unwilling to face the memory of what had happened. “It would have been much worse…but Starlight…” Twilight took a breath. “She contained it…”

            “Well, that sounds about right for Starlight!” laughed Applejack.

            “…but no living pony could have withstood that much feedback. She…she didn’t make it.”

            There were collective gasps from the others as their eyes widened.

            “She…she didn’t…”

            “Twilight,” said Applejack, speaking firmly and stepping forward to put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “It wasn’t your fault.”

            “It was,” said Twilight, calmly. “It was. I should have been able to predict that we would lose containment. My math was wrong, the models didn’t account for the inherrant cascade amplification…” She looked Applejack in the eye. “It’s my fault. If I had done better…if I had been smarter, or faster, or more powerful…or a better friend…”

            “What kind of spell was it?”

            The others looked as Pinkie Pie jumped down from her perch. Her blue eyes stared at them, unblinking. She did not smile. As she came forward, she repeated herself. “What kind of spell, Twilight?”

            “It was supposed to be an oracle spell. The idea was to use the Map’s power to see the future. To anticipate friendship problems before they happened.”

            Pinkie Pie put both front hooves on Twilight’s shoulders. She smiled, almost leering, and a thing giggle escaped her lips. “That’s it! That’s it!”

            “What’s it?” said Applejack. “Because right now, you’re acting nuttier than a squirrel’s- -”

            “That’s racist,” whispered Fluttershy.

            “No! I’m right!” cried Pinkie. “I have to be! Because I’m certainly not left!” She giggled again, this time louder. She turned to Twilight. “That spell, it must have been what did this! What took us all here! The spell was meant to SEE the future, but it made us BE the future! It brought us here! Which means you can send us back! You can, can’t you Twilight? I know you can, you’re Twilight!  You can do anything magicish! You’re the BEST magicishigan!”

            “Pinkie!” cried Twilight, pushing her away. “Time spells are forbidden! Even if I remembered how, the effect of sending a pony back in time can be cataclysmic! The past CANNOT be changed!”

            “But you’re not changing it!” squealed Pinkie in desperation. “You’re fixing us! Putting us back where we belong, to when we left- -”

            “But you didn’t leave!” screamed Twilight. “That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” She looked around at all of them and took a step back. “None of you were even near that explosion! I woke up, and you were all there, around me and Trixie!”

            “But that’s not- -”

            “And you all lived out your lives! I watched, I was THERE! You all aged and grew old, and I didn’t! Pinkie, you had your sisters day and literally painted the town- -and Rarity- -red!”

            “Red!” cried Rarity. “Oh my! How garish!”

            “And you went on with your business! If I remember, there was a museum! My wedding dress was in it.”

            Rarity’s eyes widened. “Wedding dress? Oh my, Twilight, you didn’t- -”

            “I did,” said Twilight, darkly. “And I have. Several hundred times. Stallions, mares, nonponies, even a synth when they still existed. But my first husband was HER grandcolt!” She pointed at Applejack, who immediately looked as though she had been struck by something other than a gesture

            “M- -m- -me?!” she cried, “but I didn’t- -I never- -”

            “You had nine children, and over thirty grandchildren! You were at my wedding!”

            “Ooh! Ooh! What did I do?” cried Rainbow Dash, jumping with excitement. “I bet it was something awesome!”

            “I don’t know,” said Twilight. “You’re harder to remember. But I do know that you lived well into your seventies. And that you were the first mare other than Luna to reach the moon. And the only one to do so without a spacecraft.”

            “The moon! HA! I knew I was epic! What about Fluttershy?”

            Twilight turned to the yellow Pegasus. “She…owned a lot of cats?”

            Fluttershy gasped. “My dreams all came true,” she whispered.

            “But- -but that’s not right!” shrieked Pinkie Pie. “I didn’t- -I don’t remember any of that! My sisters, my family, they can’t- -I didn’t- -I’m here! And they’re…they’re all gone, Twilight!” Pinkie Pie was laughing though tears of sadness. “Maud, Marble, Limestone, my parents- -The Cakes! What about Pumpkin and Pound? I didn’t see them grow up, and- -and- -I didn’t get a chance to have any foals or buy a house or get a husband or get remarried or- -”

            “But you did! You all did! You all lived long, happy lives…” Twilight paused. “And I buried you all.”

            Pinkie Pie looked crushed, but the others did not look happy either. The room had fallen silent and grown far more somber than any of them had expected.

            “But…none of that happened,” said Applejack at last. “We don’t remember any of it.”

            “Just because you can’t remember it doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” said Twilight. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned today, that’s it. I don’t know how you are here, or why. But I can’t send you back, because there is nowhere to go. You’re already there. The oracle spell had absolutely no effect on any of you.”

            “Then why is it the last thing we all remember?”

            “I don’t know,” admitted Twilight. “I just don’t.”

            “But that…that means we’re stuck here,” said Pinkie Pie. “Everypony is…gone.” She looked as though she were about to collapse. “EveryTHING is gone. We have nothing left. We’re…all alone.”

            “You’re not alone,” said Rarity. She hugged Pinkie Pie, who immediately began to weep. “You still have us, darling.

            The others converged on the pair, joining them as well. Though they all felt it to different degrees, they understood at least some of the gravity of what Twilight had told them. That everything was gone, and there was no way to fix it. That all they really had was each other, a sentiment that made Twilight feel deeply jealous.

            She was the only one who did not join them. She stayed back, apart and away. She knew who they were, and that they had once been her friends, but now Twilight could not bring herself to touch them.   tl5m?�޽4