//------------------------------// // 23 - Jumbled // Story: Reflections // by RQK //------------------------------// Ponyville enjoyed a nice and sunny day, but Twilight didn’t pay it any mind. She trailed right behind Crystal Faire as they made their way through the streets. She scanned every corner of every street, spotting a few things that looked out of place like garden beds that had not been there before and stalls that were located in different positions from their usual (as had been the case in the market). She looked into the distance. The northern tip of Ponyville should have contained a large, crystalline castle, but here there was none. There wasn’t even a hint that such a structure even existed. Twilight nodded to herself. That was just the way things were. She continued to scan the surroundings as they went. A few passersby waved at her and she, in turn, put on a smile and waved back. It was the friendly thing to do, after all. After a bit more, she shook her head and trotted up alongside Crystal. “Do you see anything?” “Nothing of interest,” Crystal replied. Twilight ground her teeth together but said nothing. They came on another street which offered them a good view of a tree-shaped house where the Golden Oak Library used to be. The house was decisively wooden and more in line with Ponyville’s more generic architecture, but the shape was visible. The two of them could see a few figures standing in front of the entrance. There was this timeline’s Twilight and this timeline’s versions of her friends. This timeline’s Spike, on the other hoof, stood opposite them alongside a figure who was taller than the entire house. The dragonesses’ purple scales and pink spines glistened in the sunlight. She had her claws folded together and wore a meek smile. Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Wow.” “Don’t worry, Celia there is an ally. We need not bother them,” Crystal said. The two continued into another street, and they eventually found a bench. Stopping to take a seat, they turned their eyes down a nearby street. “Whatever is causing this timeline to crystallize, it’s going at the same speed as I usually do,” Crystal said. Twilight giggled. “Well, obviously, because you’re in it.” Crystal giggled. “Well, that too. But it was doing so before, as well.” “Let me see if I have this right,” Twilight said as she shifted in her seat to face Crystal. “The way that this timeline was crystallizing before we got here isn’t any different than it is now.” “That’s right. It looks like whatever is causing this is operating under my rules.” Twilight scratched her muzzle. “Or the both of you are operating under a consistent set of rules. I think that’s the more likely option.” Crystal chuckled. “Perhaps you’re right.” Twilight giggled. “It’s a good thing we spent so much time probing on what those rules are, huh?” Crystal hummed and continued stroking her muzzle in thought. Finally, she too turned to face Twilight. “So, actually, I’ve been watching something just now.” “Hmmm?” “A few minutes ago, as we were passing your new house, another timeline collided with this one,” Crystal said. Twilight’s stomach twisted together within seconds and all manner of breath left her. She couldn’t help but glance around. Images of a Ponyville on fire and in pieces flashed through her mind. “And the collision ended just a few seconds ago,” Crystal added, glancing around as well. That didn’t seem right. “But… what happened?” Twilight wheezed. “This looks… normal. It… it didn’t happen at this point in time, did it?” Crystal shook her head. “Evidently, the parts of this timeline that came into contact were in the future. Remember how, when I’m in a timeline, everything beyond this point is in some quasi-crystallized state?” Twilight nodded and glanced over as a few mares trotted up to them. Starlight Glimmer and Sunset Shimmer each carried some muffins in their magic. Another mare, with a pale blue mane and a brilliant azure coat, wearing a purple magician’s hat and an equally purple cape, floated a brown bag right beside her. Starlight offered one of the spare muffins to Crystal. Crystal promptly chomped down on it and hummed in delight. Twilight similarly took a muffin from Sunset and then turned back to Crystal. “I do. Are you saying that quasi-crystallization is enough to prevent a collision?” Crystal shook her head. “I am afraid not. It prevented damage to this timeline, but… it still gained some momentum in the process.” “Did I hear that right?” Trixie Lulamoon asked as she set the bag down beside them. “This timeline is moving?” “Yes, Chrysalis,” Crystal replied with a grave look on her face. “So this one might turn around and collide with something else later on.” Trixie shuddered and shrank a little. Her eyes turned toward a spot on her thighs. “I would very much not like to see that again, thanks.” Starlight lay a hoof on Trixie’s withers but said nothing. Crystal shifted. Reality folded into a single point for a few moments and then folded back out. When it did, the five of them landed on a large rock. Trees surrounded the rock formation on every side. A few birds, immediately overhead, let out several frightened chirps and, looking like a black cloud, moved en masse away from them. Crystal took another bite from her muffin in silence. “There has to be a common thread between all of this,” Twilight said. “That’s the only way it makes sense.” “Whatever it is, I can’t tell what it is yet,” Crystal replied. Trixie glanced around and then let a burst of green flame overtake her; Chrysalis then emerged from the embers. She opened the brown bag and fished a muffin out, eying it closely. Sunset frowned. “You can see this entire reality, can’t you?” “My optics are good, but in this case… it’s like finding a needle in a haystack… where I don’t know what I’m looking for in a needle,” Crystal replied. “That would be a problem.” “It could be anywhere in this reality. It could be outside Equestria’s light cone. It could be in a parallel reality like the human world. I just don’t know.” Twilight shook her head. “We have to keep looking.” “The way I see it,” Sunset began, “if it’s anything like what we’re doing with entangled particles… like having a spell across several timelines, I think that whatever this is should be existing across several timelines as well.” “See,” Twilight replied, “that was my initial thought. I mean, we don’t have anything that can prove it, especially since we don’t know what it is.” Starlight, who had a biteful of muffin in her mouth, swallowed. “Well, it’s gotta be something that can be in more than one place at once, right?” “Or it’s connected to more than one place,” Sunset added. “But what could possibly do that?” Twilight asked. “And how could it exist in multiple timelines?” Sunset asked. “How did it even find the other timelines?” Chrysalis took a bite from the muffin in her magical grasp. She chewed slowly. She grimaced once, twice, and then her eyes rolled into the back of her head as she let out a long, hearty moan. Starlight snickered and, with a smirk, looked up at Chrysalis. “Pinkie Pie’s baking is good, isn’t it?” Chrysalis blushed and immediately put the muffin down. “N-no, of course not! It tastes awful.” “You like Pinkie Pie’s muffins, don’t you, Chrysalis?” Starlight said, her smirk growing wider. Chrysalis grimaced. “Well… they aren’t bad… per say…” * * * Crystal watched the timelines closely as she munched on her third muffin. A few crumbs fell off her lip as she chewed in silence. What could all these crystallizing timelines have in common? She turned her attention toward some in particular. She ran her eyes downward where the crystallized section of timeline met with the semi-crystallized section below it. Whatever it is… here is the earliest moment that it existed in this timeline… If I made an analogy to myself, it would be as if I was appearing in that timeline at that moment. It would be as if I traveled there. But what’s traveling there? Is there something that suddenly popped up? She scanned one timeline in particular. She ran her mental eyes over the rolling plains and the tall mountains. To Crystal’s eyes, everything and everypony was frozen in that moment. She could see birds in the air and fish in the water. She could see ponies in the middle of tossing balls between each other. Nothing looked out of place so far. She looked at the griffon kingdom and then toward the dragon lands. She found nothing out of place there either. Crystal scratched her head. This isn’t good… She pulled her mental vision back and sighed. She took another bite from her muffin and idly watched a timeline moving about while she chewed. She frowned and guessed at its eventual fate. At every point, she could see infinitely many timelines branching off it, and they too moved just as it did. One of them would probably hit something. She saw Equestria and the probabilities therein. And then the entire bottom half of the timeline turned shiny and stopped moving. The parts above it continued swaying like before. Crystal choked on the last bits of muffin in her mouth and then quickly dislodged and subsequently swallowed it. She looked at the timeline closely and saw the tiniest sliver of a crystallized bit and how said bit was crystallizing forward in time. It’s just appeared there… she thought. She looked more closely. Most everything looked the same. But, on closer inspection, the probabilities around Canterlot had changed and were still changing. Crystal gasped. It just appeared there! She then shot to her hooves. “Girls, I think I may have just spotted a lead.” Twilight also shot to her hooves, completely disregarding the muffin in front of her. “Then wherever it is, we should go there right away! Take us there right now!” Crystal dusted herself off and nodded. She mentally reached out toward the timeline in question and slid her touch down it. The moment that touch reached the top of those portions which were crystallized, the world folded together and then back out again. They arrived in a sunlit hall. There were towering white pillars on either side bearing swirling patterns, equally tall windows that took up the spaces between pillars, and intricately woven rugs that spanned the length of the hallway. Crystal started walking in one direction but, meanwhile, she put her mind’s eye to work on examining the city. Come on, she thought, where are you…? Chrysalis, who followed behind, considered Canterlot Castle’s architecture and shuddered before letting a green flame overtake her. The flames quickly faded, and Trixie stood in her place once more. They rounded a corner and encountered a pair of maids walking in their direction from the opposite end of the hall. The maids were engaged in a very hush-toned conversation, but as the five of them neared, they turned to look up and let out sharp gasps and reeled toward either side of the hallway. The five of them passed by, each noticing that both maids were staring Twilight down with horrorstruck expressions. Twilight hummed to herself but nonetheless continued on. Starlight shook her head and looked up at Crystal. “Do you see anything?” Crystal shook her head. “Not yet. And…” She pulled her vision back for a moment and examined the timeline and its surroundings. She looked at its trajectory. Her mental plot of its motion took it into an adjacent timeline. And then her frown deepened. “And if I don’t see anything in the next few minutes, I’m going to pull us out. It appears that this timeline’s about to suffer a collision at this point in time.” Trixie gasped. “What!? Are you serious?” The others, similarly grim-faced, exchanged glances. Twilight frowned. “Then we have to be quick.” Crystal nodded and turned her mind’s eye through the streets immediately around the castle where at least a few thousand ponies had gathered about. She scanned each of them, trying to find something out of place. She worked her gaze around the city, and when she found nothing out of the ordinary, she turned it to the plaza directly in front of the castle where a few hundred more ponies sat in uniform rows, all facing a little altar at the head of the plaza. The five rounded another corner and saw a large and ornate door at the end of the hallway. Two royal guardsponies stood directly in front of it, barring the way. The guardsponies shuddered on their approach and froze in place. Their eyes bore holes into Twilight, and despite how still they tried to remain, the color that drained from them was noticeable. Twilight’s frown deepened but, as Crystal lit her horn and gently slid the guards out of the way of the door before opening it herself, she kept silent. The five of them trotted into the room with Trixie closing the door behind her. An unlit fireplace and a sprawling velvet bed met them. A tapestry depicting a shooting star hung on the night sky-patterned walls. A clock on the wall counted each passing second with a pronounced ticking noise. Twilight let out a breath and asked, “Why were they looking at me like that?” “Yeah, they look like they’ve seen a ghost,” Sunset added. Crystal frowned. Perhaps I should not tell her, she thought. She trotted toward the balcony instead and pushed the glass doorway open. “So this is Celestia’s room…” Trixie cooed. Crystal nodded. She approached a lone telescope that stood on the edge of the balcony and put an eyeball against it. There, she pointed it down toward the crown in the plaza below. As she used her physical eyes to scan the crowd, she used her mental eyes to scan the same spot. She centered on one stallion, in particular, who sat in the back of the crowd. He, unlike everypony around him, looked slightly translucent. “There you are,” she said aloud. The other four approached and looked over the railing to see the ceremonies down below. “Yeah?” Sunset asked. Crystal did some tracking back in time and found the stallion at the moment the timeline started to turn crystal. It was at that moment that the stallion had appeared with a loud bang. “Somepony entered this timeline. Evidently, he made his way into the crowd below. Look at the back corner there,” she said, pointing. “I see him down there,” Starlight said, now pointing as well. She ran her eyes over his yellow coat and his orange, mohawk-like mane. “Actually… he’s familiar. Is that Sunburst’s dad?” “How much time do we have?” Twilight asked. “Not long,” Crystal replied. Twilight nodded and clapped her hooves together. “Then let’s get him and get out of here,” she said as she spread her wings and hopped over the railing. Crystal extended a hoof in a futile attempt to keep Twilight from going but she had already disappeared over the edge. “...And I didn’t want her to go down there.” She immediately scanned the room behind them and then tore some of the curtains down and floated them over to herself. She turned to the others. “Stay here. Okay?” Starlight gravitated toward Trixie while nodding. Crystal lit her horn and teleported down below with the torn curtains in tow. She immediately turned and tossed the curtains over the object sitting across the altar behind her. Said object was a glass casket, in which a second Twilight Sparkle, fully dressed in a princess-like gown, lay in a peaceful pose. The curtain completely obscured the occupant inside. With that done, Crystal turned to face the crowd. She spotted many familiar faces. In a way, it almost looked like a very similar occasion she had once attended herself eons ago; those most familiar to her were dressed from mane to tail in black with some even wearing veils covering their faces. Their expressions, at her appearance, were mixtures of open-mouthed shock, contorted expression of fury, or eyebrow-raised confusion. All of that, however, melted into various gasps and cries as Twilight Sparkle landed right beside Crystal and many, subsequently, shot to their hooves. Twilight looked at the curtain-covered coffin with a concerned frown, even shooting Crystal a glance in the process, and then shook her head and turned to face the crowd. She blushed and waved to them. “Hello, everypony. Don’t mind us.” Crystal made eye contact with the faded stallion in the back. She then jabbed Twilight in the side and pointed him out to her. Said stallion’s expression actually darkened at that but, nonetheless, he started to step toward the aisle. All eyes turned in his direction. A few others also started making their way toward the aisle. Crystal could see, in her mind’s eye, Sunset peering down from Celestia’s balcony. She could also see the timeline closing in on its neighbor. Crystal started making her way down the aisle. Twilight, who followed closely behind, sheepishly waved at her parents and her friends as she went (they, on the other hoof, failed to wave back, opting to stare at her in shock instead; Twilight’s mother and Rarity both promptly fainted). Several ponies reached the aisle and started to stalk in their direction. Their fiery eyes were fixed on the two. In fact, they all wore the exact same expression. “Why are they all coming this way…?” Crystal muttered under her breath. She turned her attention to the timeline itself and the infinitely many futures that branched off it. She watched their movements throughout several possibilities but noticed a few things that they all had in common: laser blasts, attempted tackles, and lots of flying hooves. She narrowed her eyes and lit her horn. “Twilight... I think we may be looking at a fight,” she warned. A few ponies sitting in the audience immediately around them shot a few horrified gasps between each other. A little bit of color disappeared from Twilight’s face and she raised an eyebrow. “What!? Why?” “I don’t—” Crystal cut off her own voice to focus instead of looking back in time. She traced each of the ponies’ actions before they had arrived. She saw all of them arriving together, and then she saw them meeting for the first time. Every so often, she would see one pony start to glow and then, a few seconds later, some tendrils made of energy would reach out and envelope the other pony. Said pony would then do the same later on to another. She traced all of that back until, finally, she saw the faded pony in question. The faded pony did the same glowing and enveloping with energy tendrils as all the others. Crystal traced his actions back until, finally, he popped into existence. And her heart just about stopped. “Oh my goodness,” she wheezed. “What?” Twilight asked. “Twilight…” Crystal said, her tone low and foreboding, “you aren’t going to believe this… It’s—” Crystal was unable to finish her sentence as one of the unicorns toward the front of the oncoming pack threw a laser blast at her. It bounced off a quick shield and sailed into the sky. Crystal didn’t even stop to discern how the entire crowd seemed to collectively cry out and shy away from the display as she teleported to his other side and placed a laser blast into his backside, launching him up the aisle. Twilight broke into a gallop but not before noticing the dark, blob-like particles that flew off the downed stallion. Said particles quickly disintegrated by the time she even reached him. “What…?” Crystal flipped over a pegasus mare trying to tackle her and then, before she touched the ground, she shot a blast of her own which nailed the pegasus as she arced upward. A few more blob-like particles flew off the pegasus before she hurdled toward the front of the plaza and landed with a thud. Twilight watched those particles with wide-eyed shock and her entire body turned pale. “N… no… those aren’t… this isn’t…” Crystal threw up a barrier to parry all other incoming attacks (which included an earth pony mare charging headlong right into it) and she whirled to face Twilight. “It’s Miasmus, Twilight!” Crystal exclaimed. “He’s here!” Twilight let out a pointed exclamation and lifted into the air. She scanned the grounds, trying to differentiate between which ponies were running and which ones were fighting. Most of the crowd was scattering in all directions at this point. A few, chiefly the princesses, Twilight’s friends, and her family, remained silently standing at the front. And it can’t be the same one, can it!? Crystal thought. “You’re kidding me!” Twilight screamed. “You have got to be kidding me!” Crystal ground her teeth together and whirled around just in time to see the faded stallion, still at the back, now lashing out at several nearby ponies with tendrils made of energy. Said tendrils wrapped around their targets prompting them to convulse and collapse. After a few seconds, the targets stood up again and, with malicious snarls, turned toward the fray. Not good! Crystal thought. She noticed a mare on the opposite side of the plaza performing the exact same process. He’s taking more and more hosts! Crystal exploded her barrier which knocked many combatants off their hooves. She herself took to the air and let out several consecutive blasts with each hitting their marks. With each hit, blob-like particles sprayed off, and the targets collapsed unconscious. Twilight, who found an opening, also volleyed a few shots into the plaza below but all save one missed their marks. A few unicorns came up and shot at Twilight from below. Most attacks came within a meter of her, and one would have hit dead on if not for the barrier that she formed around herself. A few pegasi slammed into the barrier, cracking it. Darn it! What do I do here!? Crystal thought. Her mind’s eye could see the timelines getting dangerously close. I have to figure something out, and fast! I can’t leave without grilling him on what he knows, but Starlight and Chrysalis are still— Crystal couldn’t complete her thought as a pegasus stallion tackled her from behind. The two of them tumbled through the air and it took Crystal a few moments to recapture her bearings and subsequently throw him off her. Twilight’s barrier shattered in the same instant and she had no recourse but to dodge the ensuing shots. A pegasus tried to pounce on Twilight from her front but suddenly had an amber mare land right on top of him. The force of the collision sent the pegasus sailing toward the ground. The amber mare floated herself down the rest of the way with magic and landed on all fours. “Sunset!” Twilight called down. “They’re being possessed! You have to hit them with magic to get that out of them!” “I got it!” Sunset yelled from down below. She whirled around to face the princesses and the rest of Twilight’s friends. “Hey! We need your help over here!” The ponies at the head of the plaza hesitated. And then Princess Luna let out a loud growl and shot a beam of her own down range. It missed one of the targets but Luna followed it up with another shot that did hit somepony, prompting a spray of blob-like particles. Twilight whirled in the air. “Crystal! You need to grab Starlight and Chrysalis!” she yelled. “We need to get out of here!” Crystal groaned as she shot her previous assailant out of the air. She looked down with disdain as the outlying ponies hit others with their tendrils, thus possessing them too. “But Miasmus—” she began. “The timeline, Crystal!” Twilight exclaimed. Crystal paused to examine the timeline again, but said pause was just enough for a pegasus carrying an earth pony to barrel into her. Her two foes wrapped their hooves around her and the three of them hurdled toward the ground. By the time Crystal found the capacity to light her horn and teleport away, they had already hit. Twilight cried out and fired a laser at them but it, unfortunately, hit air. Crystal reappeared a few meters away, whirled around, and fired a single laser blast that rammed into both targets. Twilight continued to fire lasers from above and Sunset continued to fire lasers from the ground. Off to the side, Twilight’s friends threw off their blackened dresses and let out assorted battle cries before charging into the fray. Princess Luna took to the air. Celestia, meanwhile, remained with Twilight’s family. Crystal put up a barrier around herself and examined the timeline again. She watched it close in and close in. And then, finally, the timelines connected. Buck! No sooner did she look up did Celestia’s balcony, where Starlight and Trixie were still at, vanish from existence. In addition to that, several other bits of castle spontaneously disappeared. Hemispherical depressions suddenly were present in the plaza ground. A few of their foes suddenly vanished as well. Crystal cried out and shot into the sky amidst a cacophony of screams and cries. She ran her eyes along the tower and spotted, partly to relief, Starlight and Trixie falling down its side. She lit her horn, teleported right underneath them, and threw up a bubble around herself and them that arrested all their downward momentum. And a laser blast from below immediately careened into her barrier. “What the hay!?” Starlight cried. Trixie let out a pointed cry as she surveyed the sudden damage around them. There was a loud rumbling from overhead as a crack ran around the middle of the castle’s tallest tower where Celestia’s room was. Brick pancaked onto brick as the whole thing wobbled and then toppled over. Sunset whirled around, saw the devastation, swore, and whipped back around to blast another pony at point-blank range. The faded pony who had once been at the back started to make a break for the edge of the plaza where a ramp descended into the city beyond. Twilight lit her horn and teleported to the other side, thus blocking his way. Before he could react, she let off a wind spell which blew him back the way he came. He went sailing across the plaza, bowling into several other combatants as he went. An earth pony mare attempted to jump on Sunset but found a lasso secure itself around her waist before she could pounce. She landed on the ground with an audible thud which drew Sunset’s attention. Sunset immediately blasted her. She looked up and saluted. “Thanks, Applejack!” The tower, still falling, suddenly exploded into a million pieces. At the same time, several explosions rocked the city. The ground roared and shook with such intensity that it threw everypony off their hooves. The mountain above the city also exploded like a volcano, shooting chunks of rock and dust in every direction. Within the same few instants, pieces of debris spontaneously appeared within the plaza. Princess Luna cried out and suddenly keeled over. She kicked her legs about and otherwise flailed wildly. Her screams filled the area and the ponies immediately around her cried out and rushed to her side. Crystal couldn’t react as one such spontaneous appearance appeared within her own barrier and showered her with debris. The blast sent Crystal flying through her own barrier which promptly disintegrated. Starlight wrapped magic around herself and Trixie. A flame overtook Trixie and Chrysalis emerged a few seconds later. She, nonetheless, hung limply in Starlight’s magic, shivering too much to act on her own. Crystal flipped over and, once again, had to get her bearings. Her mind flicked between trying to process Luna’s screams, the battle sounds all around, the bedlam here and within the city, and trying to watch the timeline. A piece of debris from the mountain arced toward Twilight and she, in turn, had to fly out of the way, and she did the same for the pieces that immediately followed. Sunset, still ground-bound, opted to just shoot them. And then suddenly, more pieces of debris disappeared into thin air. Once again, bits and pieces of scenery disappeared. Further into the grounds, an entire wing of the castle suddenly disappeared without a hint that it had ever been there. And, so too, had Sunset. Crystal let out a pointed cry and, without a second thought, touched the adjacent timeline with her mind’s eye. Her world folded together and back out again and Crystal flipped over. This plaza, however, had much more debris in it along with many splotches of red scattered about. The castle was practically in shambles and Canterlot itself was in flames. Sunset tumbled through the plaza below as three foes tried to jump on her at once. Sunset blasted the first with magic and then teleported out of the way of the other two. Crystal dove down and blasted the remaining two with her magic. Blobby particles left them and they fell unconscious. Crystal swooped in. “Are you okay?” she asked as she skidded to a halt next to Sunset. Sunset turned. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Where the hell is this? Is this the other timeline?” Crystal nodded. She quickly surveyed the actual area one more time, determined that, at present, they were the only living beings still there, and then turned her mind’s eye to the timeline that she had just left. She could now see the timelines starting to part ways. With that, Crystal let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, well, thanks for coming to get me. Can you send me back, please?” Sunset asked. “Certainly. I…” Crystal shuddered and took a moment to catch her breath. “I need to get my bearings, so I’ll be along shortly,” Crystal replied. With that, Crystal wrapped her essence around Sunset and then touched the timeline in question while redirecting her power. Sunset disappeared, leaving Crystal all by herself. Crystal took a moment to stand up straight and compose herself. She kept her mental eye on the other timeline, watching it continuing to crystallize as the battle continued without her. I need to end this quickly, she thought. She took another deep breath. She took another. Relax. Refocus. This battle is on your terms now. Let’s go to work. Crystal examined the timeline one more time, let the energy flow through her horn and the rest of her body, and then touched the timeline with her mind’s eye. Her world folded into itself. As soon as it folded back out and Crystal arrived back in the plaza, she let her shot off which careened into the foe right in front of her. Time seemed to stand still for her as Crystal teleported to another target and blasted him as well. She spotted a pegasus seemingly frozen in the air and she teleported close to him and let off another blast. She zipped over to where Starlight and Chrysalis were flying toward the ground, almost outrunning some debris chasing after them, and she gave each piece of debris a solid kick. Finally, she zipped to where the faded stallion was reared and ready to let off another blast and drove a hoof into his chest. Not even a fraction of a second had passed. Crystal stood up and watched the results. The shots hit their marks, with every foe save the one in front of her crying out as blobby particles shot out of them. The debris trailing Starlight and Chrysalis exploded into dust and threatened them no more. Twilight went tumbling into the air just long enough for her to recapture her bearings and glide down. And the faded stallion went tumbling backward, skidding to a halt a ways away. Crystal whirled around and watched as Twilight touched down right next to her. “Are you okay?” Twilight let out a long sigh but eventually nodded. “Yes, I’m alright.” Sunset came trotting up at that moment, panting for breath. The castle, while it still had some parts standing, was in shambles. There were clouds of smoke billowing from the city and the skies overhead were clouded where they hadn’t been before. There were still distant shouts here and there from within the city. Much closer by, many had gathered around Luna who was still clutching her sides in agony. The glass-covered casket that had once been behind them was in pieces with not all of them even present anymore. “This looks awful…” Twilight croaked. Sunset, after a brief coughing fit, nodded. “You can say that again. It’s not as bad as that one we saw a while ago, but…” “Us being here must have retarded the impact,” Crystal said. “Still…” Another laser blast, this time green in color, careened into Crystal’s side. Crystal stumbled as the attack hit her but she remained standing. Twilight and Sunset gasped and whirled around to find Chrysalis standing a short distance away with smoke coming off her horn. The ponies tending to Princess Luna shot to their hooves in alarm. Crystal grunted and felt at her side and then turned to face her assailant. The very first thing she noticed was the way in which Chrysalis gasped for breath and the way she shook all over. “You mongrel!” Chrysalis seethed. “Y-you cur! I did not need to see any of this again!” Crystal winced and then shook her head. “I didn’t mean for you to!” Chrysalis shuddered and raised a shaky hoof and pointed it at Crystal. “D-don’t y-y-you give me that!” Starlight also thundered up to Crystal and stuck her face right up against Crystal’s muzzle. “What the buck was that!? You said that you were going to be quick!” Crystal went red and sputtered out, “T-that was before we were ambushed!” “And just how did you get ambushed!?” Chrysalis yelled as she too approached. “I-I didn’t see it coming either,” Twilight shakily replied. “I didn’t know what I was supposed to do,” Crystal added. “I’m sorry!” “For Celestia’s sake, Crystal Faire! We could have died just now!” Starlight exclaimed. “I know!” “I know too!” Twilight piped up. She then grabbed at her mane and fell to her haunches as it seemingly hit her. “Oh my goodness, we could have actually died there…” “Gosh, I was so focused on the fighting that I didn’t even really think about it…” Sunset frowned and glanced over at Starlight and Chrysalis and asked, “You’re okay, right?” Starlight frowned. “I’m fine. Chrysalis?” Chrysalis grimaced and shook her head. “I don’t know…?” “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m sorry. I-I’ll just have to be a little more careful next time…” Crystal stammered. “There had better not be a next time,” Chrysalis growled in response. At the other end of the plaza, the faded stallion groaned and rolled over. The five, in response, glanced in his direction. Sunset narrowed her eyes and raised her hoof into the air. “Whatever. Forget about it. I want answers.” Starlight bared her teeth and lit her horn. Her magic wrapped around the faded stallion and levitated him over before unceremoniously dropping him in the middle of them. “You! Start talking!” The stallion looked between them. The snarl on his face grew with each face he passed. “Yes, Sunspot, start talking,” Crystal murmured. She leaned into the stallion’s face and added, “Or perhaps you would prefer your real name, Miasmus?” Sunspot narrowed his eyes at Crystal. “How dare you… How dare you embarrass me a second time.” Crystal’s features twitched. “So, it is you. You are the Miasmus that I defeated in Ponyville.” The color drained from Twilight’s face. “You’re from back home… You’re… the Miasmus from my timeline.” Sunspot snorted. “How very perceptive of you, Twilight Sparkle.” “It looks like you’ve been busy, Miasmus, since we last saw you,” Crystal said. “You’ve worked on your aim, at least. I hope your hoofwriting’s also improved?” Sunspot raised an eyebrow. “You’ve been out there,” Crystal continued. “And now you’re here. Where else are you?” Sunspot snorted. Chrysalis bared teeth. “Answer the question, you putrid creature,” she said with venom in her voice. Sunspot turned his gaze to her, and after a moment, he chuckled and climbed to his hooves. “Oh, and this is the cutest thing of them all. It’s Queen Chrysalis herself. Oh, I’m sorry, former Queen Chrysalis.” “Why you—” He looked at her down his nose and snorted. “Some queen you turned out to be. Got kicked out of Canterlot, and then got kicked out of your own hive. Everything you did was useless and your hive knew it. Why, I don’t think there’s a single one of them left that even liked you.” He came up close to her and added, “What a failure that you are. So weak, and so pathetic. It’s a wonder you even bother to continue living.” Chrysalis ground her teeth together so hard that she was in danger of shattering them. With the way she stared daggers at him, and the way she trembled with rage, she looked like she was ready to wring his neck. Twilight stamped her hooves. “Stop it!” she bellowed. “I won’t have you talking about my friend like that!” “That’s right, Miasmus!” Starlight seconded. “You mess with her, you mess with us!” Chrysalis made a voiceless gasp as she looked between the two of them. Sunset nodded in agreement before turning and flashing Chrysalis a smile. Crystal grabbed Sunspot with her magic and lifted him into the air in front of her. “Let’s get back to the topic at hoof. I believe I asked you a question.” Sunspot glared at Chrysalis for a moment longer before he snarled and turned his attention to Crystal. “I know you did, swine.” “I want an answer.” After a moment of silence, Crystal narrowed her eyes. “Well then, if you don’t want to give me an answer, then I will go ahead and guess. This isn’t the first timeline you’ve broken into.” There was no reaction from him. But, as Crystal checked other crystallizing timelines where she found ponies who had already appeared out of nowhere, she found that, at that moment, they had stopped as well. She smirked and said, “It looks like I got it right, didn’t I? I can see them, you know.” Sunspot shuddered and, for the first time, looked flustered. “You… what?” “And I can tell just by looking at you that your main body is not in this one,” she said as she motioned all over Sunspot. “I don’t know where that is, per say, but I have my ways of finding out.” Sunspot continued to stare. “Now, I will make this quite plain to you, Miasmus. Your compliance on this matter is required.” Crystal leaned forward and asked, with a sinister tone, “Do you yet comprehend that your breaking into those many timelines has endangered the existence of the multiverse?” At this, Sunspot raised an eyebrow. “Oh…? Is that so?” Crystal nodded. “Yes. It is. And, you see, there is a problem with the multiverse that can’t be fixed until you get out of those timelines.” She narrowed her eyes and added, “Thankfully, now that I know that you’re in them, that makes this all very simple.” She lowered him to the ground and waited until Sunspot had his footing before she continued. “Now, I know enough about you to know that you can’t uncouple from a host in isolation. But I am sure that you know of the ponies you originally used to break into each timeline. You find them, you decouple to them and to them alone. Those ponies will fade out on their own, just like this one is right now,” she said, motioning to Sunspot again. “Do that, and we will be able to save all of existence, and prevent this—” Crystal pointed to the remains of Canterlot Castle, “—from happening ever again. So, the question that I have for you is… will you comply?” Sunspot’s expression remained unchanged for long moments. He stared at Starlight, at Sunset, at Chrysalis, and then at Twilight. There was an explosion from within the city followed by several more cries. The ponies still at end of the plaza, all huddled close together, watched in silence. Even Princess Luna, with many drops of sweat swimming down their brow, held her breath. Sunspot held his head toward the heavens. And then he smirked. And then he broke into a full, from-the-belly laugh. His laugh echoed through the entire plaza. It echoed into eternity. His laugh was full of malice and, through it all, it seemed like he was laughing at them. “You evidently don’t know me at all!” Sunspot screamed before falling into more laughter. He wiped some tears from his eyes and he stared up at Crystal again, a confident smirk on his muzzle. “You think that I would ever care about these inferior beings. Existence… no existence… it won’t make a difference, because, as I’ve learned, I can still survive out there. And that’s good enough for me. “And it’s just funny that you’re the one that’s asking me this. You honestly think that I would ever want to help you after what you did to me?” Crystal’s expression darkened but she said nothing. “So, to answer your question,” he said, a smirk spreading across his muzzle, “no, I will not comply. These pitiful realities can fall apart and rot for all I care.” There was a long and pregnant pause as all stared at him. The air was stiff and, for all anypony knew, there wasn’t anything else beyond the circle. All attention was focused solely on the entity now wearing a smug grin on his muzzle. He chuckled and drew a circle on his chest. “I know that you want to blast me and dislodge me from this body. So why don’t you just go ahead and get it over with?” His smirk grew wider as he added, “I know that you want to.” Crystal pursed her lips and finally nodded. “I suppose that I should…” Sunspot was silent. Crystal sighed and looked him dead in the eyes. “But, before I do… I will go ahead and tell you this: since you have decided to oppose me, my course of action is clear. I…” She paused to look at the four mares that stood with her. The four of them nodded at her in return. Crystal Faire turned back to him and smirked in return. She stood up to her full height, towering over him, and then coursed energy through her horn and said, with a full voice, “…We will hunt you down, Miasmus. And we will snuff you out. As you have so chosen.”