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// That Awkward Feeling When You Say Hi To An Old Friend But They Don't Even Remember You 
// Story: The Day The Show Reset 
// by JazzyWaffles 
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As day broke over Canterlot, there was one unicorn whose morning was not as cheerful and relaxing as the rest. On the upper floors of a book-filled tower, a frazzled Twilight Sparkle paced back and forth across the floor, lost in thought. Something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

"Good morning, Twilight." Spike yawned as he entered the room, rubbing the sleep from his eyes when he finally noticed Twilight's appearance. Twilight wasn't looking very good. In the mere hour or so that Twilight had been up, her mane and tail had grown unkempt and her right eye, bloodshot, kept twitching every so often. "Is... is everything okay?"

Twilight's ears swiveled towards the dragon moments before her head snapped to attention. "SPIKE!" She was in his face before he could even blink. "Of course everything isn't okay! How could you say that? Haven't you noticed?"

Spike stared back at her incredulously. "You... learned to teleport?"

"Augh! No!" Twilight grabbed Spike between her hooves and shook him. "Our wings! Our home! Everything just... reset!"

Spike began to get worried. Had Twilight completely lost it? "We... don't have any wings."

"Exactly! Don't you find that weird!?"

"Twilight... we've never had wings." Spike backed up a few steps. "Are... are you okay?"

Twilight stared at her assistant blankly for a few moments before tears started to form in her eyes. "B-but... the castle! The school! Our wings! Our friends! You have to remember... you can't have just... I can't be the only one who remembers..." Her voice was as shaky as her legs were wobbly. She looked like she was ready to collapse on the spot.

Spike took a few steps towards her with a worried expression. "T-Twilight? Please, d-don't scare me like this. Why are you saying all this stuff? I don't..." Before Spike could finish, Twilight rushed past Spike and down the stairs. "Twilight, wait!" Spike could hear the door slam as his big sister ran out into the streets of Canterlot. Seconds felt like hours as Spike tried to absorb and comprehend what had just happened. After what felt like an eternity, he turned and walked over to Twilight's fresh stack of blank parchment, taking an inked quill in-claw. Celestia would need to know that Twilight had lost it.





Twilight walked briskly through the streets of Canterlot, walking past hundreds of ponies going about their daily business. In her catatonic state, she barely even noticed the outside world. What could this all mean? Why had things reset like this? It had been... six, maybe seven years since she had lived here in Canterlot as a unicorn? Twilight didn't understand...

With a thump and a tumble, Twilight ran right into somepony. "Who? What? Huh?" Looking around, she saw Lemon Hearts helping Twinkle Shine off the ground, as Minuette held her hoof out to Twilight. "Minuette...?"

"Wow, you must have hit your head pretty hard if you're having trouble remembering me." Minuette giggled as she pulled Twilight off the ground. "You okay? I mean, you've been really oblivious to the world around you before, but you usually never run into ponies like that!"

"I... n-no, I'm fine." Twilight dusted herself off.

"That's good." Minuette smiled. "Oh, before I forget, Moondancer is having a little get-together in the castle courtyard later today. Wanna come?"

Twilight stared back in disbelief. Today was the day of Moondancer's party. The one she never attended because she was too focused on stopping Nightmare Moon. The day she was sent to Ponyville and met her friends.

"I..." How should Twilight even answer? She wanted to go, to make things right with Moondancer this time, but... her friends... and Nightmare Moon... "I'm... I'm sorry. I won't be able to attend. I'm being sent to Ponyville here soon."

Then, a thought occurred to her. A brilliant thought. A thought that maybe, just maybe, could fix everything before anything even went wrong.

"Actually, do you know where she is right now? I don't want her to think I'm skipping out on her."

Twinkle Shine, Lemon Hearts, and Minuette just stared at Twilight like she had grown a second head. "Um..." Lemon Hearts was the first to speak up. "Y-yeah. She should be in the castle courtyard setting up the party right now."

"Thanks! See you gals later!" Twilight dashed off, leaving three very confused ponies looking at each other in confusion.

Twinkle Shine chuckled half-heartedly. "Who is she and what did she do with Twilight Sparkle?"

If only she was fully committed to the idea that it was a joke.





"Aaah!"

Moondancer was understandably startled when Twilight teleported in front of her and nearly caused a two-pony pileup. Plates, party hats, and other bits of party paraphernalia flew in all directions before quickly being caught in Twilight's aura and placed gently on a nearby table. "Whoops! Hehe... Sorry, Moondancer." She held her hoof out to pull Moondancer up off the grass.

"Twilight! I... wasn't expecting anypony yet." She grabbed onto Twilight's hoof and was pulled up. "Er... you can teleport now?"

"Yeah, I can." Twilight looked around at the party she never attended with some amount of guilt. "Actually... I really hate to say this, but I don't think I can attend."

The effect on Moondancer was almost immediate. Her ears drooped, her demeanor dropped to an all-time low, and she had to look away to keep from crying. "Oh."

"Please, don't take this the wrong way. I'd like nothing more than to be here for you. But... here soon, I'm going to Ponyville on Celestia's orders." Twilight brought a surprised Moondancer into a hug. "But please... don't let it ruin your party. All of your other friends will still be here for you, and they all care a lot about you. And hey," Twilight pulled back a bit and looked into Moondancer's eyes, "I'll definitely attend your next party. Pinkie promise."

Moondancer just stared back at Twilight for several seconds, stuck somewhere between wanting to cry, wanting to smile, and being completely confused. Had Twilight ever acted like this before? Why had she suddenly changed? Regardless, the floodgates were too weak to wait for her decision to be made in a timely manner, and she found herself sobbing into Twilight's chest, where the two sat for several minutes before Moondancer was finally done.

Twilight smiled down at her. "You good?" A small nod and the two finally parted.

"You... do you really mean it? You'll be at my next party?"

Twilight nodded.

"...thank you," Moondancer said, smiling as she awkwardly wiped her eyes with a hoof.

"Hey," said Twilight, "if you ever decide to visit Ponyville while I'm there, you're welcome to come and hang out! I'll be sure to open up some of my schedule just in case you drop by, okay?"

Moondancer nodded. "Yeah... I'd like that."





Twilight smiled to herself as she trotted back towards her old tower. Maybe this reset wasn't so bad after all. She had a chance to fix her mistakes, ones she once had to live with. Perhaps she could even speed things along in some places?

As Twilight approached her tower, she couldn't help but notice that there were two guards and Celestia's royal chariot outside. Trotting up to her front door, she glanced at the two stoic, unmoving guards as she entered the abode. "H-hello? Celestia?" This hadn't happened last time. Celestia didn't pay her a visit today. What was going on?

On cue, Celestia trotted down the stairs, Spike trailing behind her. As she reached the bottom, she nodded at Twilight. "Twilight. I am here because Spike alerted me to your... unusual distress this morning. May I ask what exactly you meant by the things you said today? About missing castles and vanishing wings?"

Twilight froze. Should she tell Celestia? What if she spoiled the future? "I..." Twilight had trouble forming the right words. "I'm not really sure how much I should tell you..."

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "And what on earth could you possibly tell me that I shouldn't know about?"

Twilight took a step back. "N-no, I don't mean it like that, I just... I know things that are going to happen in the future."

Celestia scrunched up her face. "Thing such as?"

Twilight paused for a few moments, avoiding Celestia's gaze. Was there anything she could say? Yes... she could say what was about to happen over the next two days.

"Today you're going to send me to Ponyville to make friends with a very special group of five ponies. In the morning, Nightmare Moon will return after her thousand-year banishment. My five friends and I will venture into the Everfree Forest to retrieve the Elements of Harmony, and will use their power to defeat Nightmare Moon..." She looked up into Celestia's eyes. "...and turn her back into Luna." She looked away again. "You've been planning on sending me to Ponyville for a while now... but you're afraid that if I make friends, I won't need you anymore."

Celestia stood there for what felt like eons, mouth agape and eyes wide.

"Twilight... we need to talk."





Twilight sat awkwardly across from her mentor and former fellow princess. Or would that be her future fellow princess? Regardless, even in such a calm setting as the Canterlot Gardens, sipping tea with the Princess, she couldn't help but feel awkward as the Princess looked over her with confusion and a bit of fear.

"So..." Celestia finally set her teacup down. "The future. What can you tell me?"

Twilight took a deep breath. She had tried to compile everything on the way over here, so hopefully, she hadn't left any spoilers in. "Well... I told you about Luna already." Celestia nodded, and Twilight continued. "A few months after we become the new bearers, Discord breaks out of his stone prison. We defeat him, though..." Twilight turned and stared in the direction of Discord's statue, some hundred yards or more away from where they sat. "After Discord, in no particular order, we defeat the Changeling Queen, a couple ancient demons, a powerful unicorn or two out for revenge, an ancient threat or two sealed away by Starswirl and the Pillars, and some particularly evil plants... oh, and King Sombra." Celestia's mouth dropped open at that last one, and she nearly dropped the tea she was about to take a sip of.

Twilight paused and took a sip of her own tea. "At some point, you send me Star Swirl's journal, with the unfinished spell." Celestia's eyes grew wide and she just decided to set the tea aside until Twilight is finished, lest she have no tea at all. "I become an alicorn, we give the elements back to the Tree of Harmony, and I end up with a castle and an apprentice of my own."

Twilight sighed. "But now... everything reset for some reason. I'm back to square one."

A silence passed between the two as Celestia digested what she just heard. There are simply too many details Twilight had said, such as the bit about Ponyville and her fears, or the bit about Sombra and Star Swirl's journal, that she shouldn't know.

"...I believe you." Celestia finally said. "And... if what you say is true, then I suppose it's high time I sent you and Spike to Ponyville to make some friends."

Twilight nodded, smiling. "I couldn't agree more, Princess."