The wind was biting as I watched my double look around in confusion.
“Where are we?” she growled as she turned back to me.
Talk about deja vu, I thought, a small smile creeping across my face.
“This is what you want,” I said sweetly, then glowering. “A world where everypony is equal.”
“This is a trick,” Dark Starlight said, a touch of fear tainting her face. Her horn still held a slight tinge of red as did her eyes, but the influence of the Alicorn Amulet was beginning to fade. “This can’t be what you say it is. I’ve never seen a world like this!”
“Because this is a future timeline,” I said. Something prickled in the back of my mind and I turned and walked over to a hill. Maybe a couple of hundred lengths away, I saw a familiar scene play out as my past self shouted at Twilight and pulled her into a vortex. “One created by my tampering with fate. Time magic is something that should never be taken lightly. I learned it the hard way.”
“But I'm stronger than you,” my twin growled, horn beginning to glow with a red-tinged mint glow. “You may have your tricks, but you lack the will to do what is needed to win!”
I felt the pendent around my neck pulsing, feeding mana to me slowly. My blood was starting to run hot, and even the chill wind wasn’t enough to cool me. Her ensuing attack splashed weakly across my conjured shield.
“What is needed,” I repeated, contemplative. “Torturing other versions of yourself? Killing ponies that could have led full and happy lives?” I stalked forward, my own horn flickering to life. “Destroying my own timeline just to grab a spell or two?”
She flinched, so swiftly that I almost didn’t catch it. I caught it suddenly, the reason why she had taken a while to reveal herself.
“You didn’t mean for it to take so long, did you?” I whispered. “I stayed under your stasis too long because you’ve never used the spell before. You had been playing at being Echo for so long you actually believed that would be your life, didn’t you?”
She turned away, a flash of pain on her face.
“You liked the life you had,” I continued. “One where you were happy.” I gave her a sad smile. “Why didn’t you just end the spell?”
“I still had my revenge to enact,” she spat, but I could hear the hesitation in her voice.
“Did you mingle with society, I wonder?” I asked. “Have friends, maybe a special somepony?”
I had a flash image, of Echo watching everypony special slowly fading while she remained the same. The images came on so fast that I felt a moment of nausea. I could feel my cracked rib again, the pain slowly starting to filter back into my awareness. I latched onto it, using it to keep me grounded.
“Just like everypony did,” she whispered, more to herself than me. Although, she was me, after a fashion, just one that hadn’t had the same options.
“You can end this,” I told her. “The amulet corrupted you, made you continue in your path. You said yourself that you never ripped information from your other selves until after you found it.”
The pendant I wore was pulsing faster now, almost vibrating against my breast. The other me stumbled, the red fading away and fear shot through her face.
“Shut up,” she rasped. “You don’t know what I’ve seen! What I’ve done!” She lowered her head. “What I remember.”
I saw the puckered scar on her throat and sighed. “And I can only imagine,” I whispered. “But it’s never too late to turn a new leaf.” I saw her shuffle slightly.
“Not for me.” She straightened slightly and turned to face me, the age showing in her face. “And not for you.”
She fired a beam of magic at me, and I countered with my own beam. The two clashed together and flared, neither of us gaining any ground. The confluence of our magic grew, until it spiraled out and took us both in its brilliance.
And that’s when I saw them all. As we both drifted, a thin stream of white light connecting our horns, I saw her, hooves clasped over her ears and eyes squeezed closed. And all around her were ghostly images, all staring at her accusingly.
All were alternate versions of me. Some younger, some older. There was even one stallion. The were all clamoring in voices I couldn’t hear, and I saw tears leaking out from her eyelids.
The pendant Luna had given me began to shine, and I felt my horn light again, my magic flowing forth and grasping my alternate self and drawing her in towards me with dark blue light. I took her into my forelegs and held her as she shied away from the contact.
I looked at the ghostly forms, feeling sorry for them.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I know it wasn’t me, but I’m so sorry. I wish I knew how to release you all.”
“You can’t.”
I looked down at my other self. She wasn’t looking at me, but off into the distance. “You can’t release them, not as you are now. It would require you to be something you’re not.”
She looked at me and the look in her eyes showed me that the residual influence of the amulet was gone. The wind of the wasteland blew through again as the magic around us faded.
“You’d have to kill me.”
“No, I wouldn’t,” I said. “You’ve learned now. You know better. You know how to travel between realities, you can go and change things.”
She shook her head. “I burned a lot of bridges in my paths.”
I set her down, stepping back. “I thought that too, once upon a time.” I turned and looked at the map table in the near distance. Wondering if I could use it to help somehow.
That was when a searing pain hit me, flinging me down the far side of the hill. I used my momentum to roll back to my hooves, the burn on my side threatening to make me pass out. My other side stood above me, her horn blazing with light.
“Fool,” she snarled, anger on her face amidst her tears. “Your feelings have made you weak.”
She fired again, and I hopped to the side, firing back as I did.
Her blast gouged a furrow in the ground where I had been standing.
Mine took her in the horn, shearing it off near the base.
And the world imploded.