//------------------------------// // Chapter 1 (edited) // Story: Ancient Twilight // by demonbaker //------------------------------// This battle had gone on for far too long. It was taking all her magic to destroy it. It all began so simply, too: destroy all the planets as they form at the beginning of time, and find out if life can still evolve.Turned out it could. Dodging a tentacle the size of a planet, Time channeled magic into her horn, severing the limb as it moved past her with a brilliant purple beam. This was taking too long—how many years had she been fighting this thing? Must have been a few millenia at least. At first, it was just a collection of cells, but soon enough it had begun to realize that someone was manipulating the time stream. Raising a hoof, a brilliant copper beam shot forth, severing one of the many tentacles that were trying to grab hold of her. She sighed in vexation, floating among space with a brilliant copper aura around her. She went on the attack; searching deep inside her, she made a decision. Several hundred duplicates slipped into existence, and each fire a beam of magic into the morass. She burned it. With a lot of fire. When it was over, she took a few decades to stabilize the timeline, absorbing all her fragmented selves. She needed a vacation. It was time to go back to Equestria. Sighing grimly, Time channeled her magic once more, rewinding the universe back to the beginning. A process she’d done countless times before. Now was the small matter of waiting a few billion years for Celestia and Luna to create the planet she’d grown up on, so many years ago. Back when she’d been known as Twilight Sparkle. Not long at all, really. The thing about deities is that they are fickle. And when they make mistakes, they make BIG ones.Time had just made one of those aforementioned mistakes. Chaos smiled as he felt Time’s magic flare as she destroyed his little pet project; it had worked far better than he had hoped. Few if any other deities were aware of her constant experimentation with the timeline, but Chaos knew. And the moment she created those books, he wanted one. A very specific one. Problem was, Time kept the books in her tower. The tower that existed outside of time. The other small hurdle is that the books can only be removed by Time herself. That is…unless she were forced to use most of her magic to destroy a horror of her own creation. “Silly God…You should know better than to tamper with life. Life is chaotic and random. Not at all what a deity of order should be messing with.” Chaos walked among the countless shelves that lined the inside of Time’s tower. Books on dark magic...books on ice magic...books on every type of magic, really. Except these were no ordinary books. They were written by Time herself. A normal being would write a book and you’d understand what the author understood. But what happens when the author understands everything about the subject? The answer is a Grimoire—a tome of complete understanding. Chaos sauntered past tomes of madness that jibbered insanely to anyone who would listen, much to the annoyance of the other tomes nearby. He finally stopped before a shelf full of black-bound books, some made out of the skin of ponies themselves. “Such a naughty Deity you’ve been. For each act of supreme kindness you’ve performed, you’ve done the opposite, an act of unparalleled evil. Gods of neutrality sure are crazy. Not that you’re actually neutral.” Chaos patently ignored the fact that he, himself, was quite insane. As soon as he felt Time’s magic fade from the Tomes momentarily, he grabbed one from the shelf, vanishing back into the timestream once again. Things were going to be interesting in Equestria. The focal point of all the gods. With the book tucked safely in a single claw, Chaos waits for Equestria to be formed once again Not long at all, really. Watching planets form was rarely very interesting. Watching two gods MAKE a planet out of nearby material, on the other hoof, was. Time silently watched as Celestia and Luna used magic more powerful than she’d ever witnessed them use when she was a student, collapsing rocks into a circular shape, cooling it down, adding the oceans and raising the continents. She was, of course, taking notes—this was only the three hundredth time she'd seen it done, and there were things she’d missed the first few hundred times, apparently. Luna, taking a break to rest, moved over to time, observing her as she wrote everything down on a scroll that never seemed to run out. "Are you going to simply write and not assist us? With you helping we could have finished centuries ago!" Time ceased writing and looked up at Luna, confused, summoning her notes of the previous times this conversation had happened. Sure enough, Luna's words were different. That only happened when someone interfered...and Time was the only one who interfered. What was going on? It clearly stated that Luna said "Going to help or just observe as usual, Time?" Not one to take being ignored, Luna spoke again. "Alicorn to Alicorn, are you home?" Luna was waving a blue hoof in front of Times face rather annoyingly. Banishing her previous notes, Time looked back at Luna. She was supposed to be on vacation; mysteries could wait. "It would defeat the purpose if I assisted, wouldn't it? All of us agreed on the planet—this is your world, not mine. Besides…" Waving a hoof in a circle in front of herself, a circular viewing portal appeared between the two. Inside, a view of a planet being made appeared, with lots of asteroids being gathered together and formed into a perfectly spherical shape, and perfectly round continents slowly rising out of the ocean. "My worlds are too...perfect. I keep everything in precise ratios." Sure enough, the ocean was exactly 70% of the surface, the continents the exact same size and evenly spaced around the globe. It looked more like a toy ball than a beautiful world. Unless one finds mathematical perfection on large scales beautiful. Nobody else ever did. Luna nodded, her horn glowing as she absently examined Time's magic. As usual, she can detect nothing out of the ordinary. "One of these days, Time, you must tell me how you create pockets of isolated time like that." Time simply shook her head. "No, I won't bother explaining the problems with more than one being creating bubbles of time. I already get enough people trapped in infinite time loops—I don't need more things impeding the timestream." Luna sighed and returned to her task, conversing with her sister as they put the finishing touches on Equus. Odd; it had taken them three fewer years to complete than last time she’d watched. Shaking her head, she banished her scroll to her tower. "No, bad Deity. Vacation means no experimentation; just observe, speak with friends, and relax." Doing the ancient breathing exercises Cadence had taught her long, long ago, she prepared for the first ponies to walk Equestria.