I stared at my doppelgänger, stupefied before I flared my horn, using a spell that Twilight and I had researched to identify Changelings. Despite Spike’s story that Chrysalis was dead, I didn’t want to risk it.
My dark reflection started to laugh again, the amulet dangling from her neck gleaming in the light. “Ah, Starlight,” she chuckled. “You should know that I’m not a Changeling.” Her horn flared red, echoed by her eyes. Moments later, I felt my joints locked up, and I saw Spike stiffen as well, and Discord wavered slightly, his image going ghostly with a look of surprise.
I strained against the mantic hold, feeling my magic scrabbling at my counterparts.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying to bury the panic I felt coiling in my belly.
My double smiled evilly.
“You.”
I was yanked forward and felt magic scraping across my body, focusing on my horn. “I have traipsed across countless dimensions,” Echo growled. “Acquiring power from however I could to defeat Twilight Sparkle. In my last trip, I discovered that you managed to perfect time travel. And all knowledge from my dimension was long since lost. So, I just need the knowledge in your mind. It will be over quick, but from the last few times I’ve siphoned knowledge from my other selves, it might not be a soothing feeling.”
“What do you mean?” Spike growled, managing to inch a little forward.
“Well,” Dark Starlight mused, tilting her head and shoving the dragon away. “One was left a gibbering madpony. But she was alive, at least.”
That panic in my belly started growing exponentially. “Why, though?” I whimpered. “Why do you want to fight Twilight still? She was right in our argument!”
She turned her red tinged eyes on me and scowled.
“My Twilight was not as benevolent as you may have experienced,” she growled, sliding the amulet to the side to reveal a small puckered scar, devoid of any hair despite it’s old appearance. “My Twilight left me this to remember her by after she recovered her cutie mark. I feel it every day, so don’t talk to me of how Twilight was right.”
She spun, stalking back and forth, her head swiveling around to keep me in her sights. “I have spent decades preparing,” she hissed. “And I have stepped through fifteen universes, stealing whatever I could, including this.” She touched the amulet. “And then I started hunting myself, and my power grew even further. I will not be swayed, and I need your memories before my victory can be perpetrated. But I had to separate you from those friends of yours, so I looked for an opportune moment and tied myself to you. I forced you into stasis during the fight with the Pony of Shadows. I hid in the background, waiting for you to awaken so I could get your mind while in it’s vulnerable state.”
I stared at her, my panic starting to turn to anger, an anger I had only felt after my flight from this village generations ago.
“You did this?” I whispered.
“Ah,” Dicord’s ghostly voice filtered in. “That explains the strand of chaos magic on you. She’s twisted the fabric of reality to ignore her. That’s also why there are those inconsistencies you mentioned.” He smiled toothily. “I like her.”
My anger started to build, a red cloud seeping from my horn. “My friends suffered for years,” I hissed. “Worried about me. Luna lost, Celestia in mourning, and Trixie heartbroken!” The grip on me wavered. “All for a pointless grab at power? You should look at yourself, you should be horrified.”
Starlight whirled on me, her face twisted in rage. “Horrified?” she sneered. “I have the ability to make my utopia a reality, all over Equestria! The Diarchs will bow before me and I shall be able to make a land where all ponies are equal!”
I closed my eyes and turned my head to look at Spike. I saw the sadness in his remaining eye, remembering the fight he and I had experienced. I knew what I had to do, but I wasn’t sure that I could do it.
“Hey, Spike?” I whispered. “Tell Twilight I’m sorry?”
He blinked, then surged against the magical bonds as he realized what I was doing. “No!”
I turned and slid my magic along the thread that held me, canceling out the hold by linking my magic into my dark reflections.
Mantic harmonics were unique by Unicorn, and apparently ours were close enough that the spell interpreted my will as hers and dispelled the grip. The second my hooves hit the floor, I dove forward and tackled her, teleporting us to the ruins where the fight against the Pony of Shadows had occurred. The broken stonework still lay where I remember it, but the whirling rip in the fabric of the world pulled at my mane. I wrapped my hooves around her neck, reaching for the clasp of the amulet.
“You fool!” she shouted, blasting me away, and I was sure at least one bone broke. I painfully climbed by to my hooves, remembering every spell I had used against Twilight a lifetime ago.
She rose before me, eyes flaring with dark magic. “You can’t hope to defeat me,” she snarled, horn glimmering with dark intent. “I’m more powerful than you, and I know how you think. You’re hoping that Spike will bring the Princess here and the two of you can redeem me. Pathetic!” she fired a blast at me that I dove under, galloping towards her.
“Wrong,” I said, teleporting past her and leaping towards the vortex.
“The world needs Twilight,” I said as I felt the pull grow stronger. “It needs Sunset.” I locked my telekinetic force on her, pulling her forwards.
“It doesn’t need us,” I whispered as we fell into the deathly cold of Limbo. I looked at her as my mint green magic started to flare.
“And I’ll show you a world where everypony is equal.”