Chapter 4
On a dimensional plane far away from the standard lives of Equestria, a creature of great confusion arose sick and faint. He churned over and over. Everything seemed to be bleeding, though when he looked directly at the walls, the stairs, the table, the leprechaun, the lion, the bat, the pans, the apples, the games they all seemed normal. But they weren’t. Discord felt uncomfortable. More than that, he felt something imbalanced. A magical Imbalance. A shivering wobble shook him to his core and he went into convulsions.
After a few seconds they stopped. He was back to a mediated state, but everything was still wrong. He worried for Fluttershy. He thought for a split second. He snapped his fingers and teleported to the same spot he was standing.
“Weird, I should have been taken to Fluttershy.” He clicked his fingers again, the same happened.
“What about Celestia then.” He clicked.... Nothing. He couldn’t feel their souls in the space, magic, time mesh that was a chaotic enigma to most.
“What about Twilight, she’ll know what’s going on.” He clicked one more time.
Everything went blood red, and he sensed that something weird was about to happen, and that was to his standards. His standards of chaos made him satisfied. Unsatisfied, Discord got out of bed, he churned over and over. He was sick and faint. Everything seemed to be bleeding though when he looked directly at the walls, the stairs, the table, the leprechaun, the lion, the bat, the pans, the apples, the games they all seemed normal. But they weren’t, Discord felt uncomfortable.
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Celestia felt nothing, she called and said nothing there was nothing she thought nothing she tried casting a spell of nothing she tried to dream and nothing. All connection had been lost. She saw white nothing, tasted nothing.
She tried to look at herself, nothing.
Nothing.
nothing
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Flurry Heart and Sunburst reached the roof of the Crystal Empire Castle... finally.
“Now you stay here Flurry while I secure the perimeter.” Sunburst put Flurry down gently and circled her in a protection spell. Then he set to work, he walked to the edge of the red tower. The floor was cracked and a few dark black shards of crystal seemed to be forming on the edges of the platform. He looked over the empire and felt a great sadness.
Frozen grey pony bodies littered the black streets that had once seemed so glamourous only an hour beforehand. The sun was setting, casting what would have been a majestic orange glow over the mountains of the north, had the air not been a metallic tasting green colour.
He set to work casting a ward around the edges of the tower, taking careful step after careful step. If the ward wasn’t perfectly circular it could create chinks in the spell. But he had always been one for detail. When he wasn’t around his parents anyway, so he enjoyed the meticulous nature of casting this spell.
“Filled with a loving protection you might say.” He said to himself. “You okay Flurry?” He called across the roof to the baby alicorn in a childish voice. Flurry giggled back and he dispelled the orange protective bubble that surrounded her. Flurry immediately tried to fly over the edge of the tower, laughing as she did so. Bouncing off the invisible wall was a good game.
'Of course you would', Sunburst chuckled to himself. The ward was as much for keeping Flurry in as others out. He grabbed her with magic.
“Come on,” He coaxed her, “how about we play a silly game, what about...” he covered his face with his hooves, then revealed himself again “FACES!”
His features were contorted in a silly, clownish expression, one corner of his mouth up, the other down, his eyes facing different directions. Flurry giggled. Sunburst continued the game for her, suppressing all signs that he knew something was terribly, terribly wrong.
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Ponyville was heavy, still and silent.
Twilight solemnly dumped herself on the floor of her throne room. There was a chair. This was not the time for chairs. Where to sit wasn’t important. She looked at the sun. It hadn’t moved. She looked back at Starlight and Flash. Everyone was in the same thought processes... 'what do we do next?' Her gaze drifted up to the higher windows again and then down the walls, crossing the roots of her old tree-house-library to the red map.
A thought struck her as she took a second glance at the map. “Starlight, do you remember the second time we met?” she said in a hushed reminiscent tone.
“What you mean in my village? I dunno... I guess when you came to mine.....”
“No, I mean when you rearranged Starswirl's spell.”
“Oh, right...” Starlight observed Twilight with the bad memories running through her head. Twilight knew she wouldn’t like talking about this. “Yes, how would I forget that.” She muttered sarcastically. She looked at Twilight concerned. There was a mode of anticipation about Twilight. “No Twilight.., no, no, no, there is no way, we can’t use time travel to solve every problem there must be another way around....”
Twilight had realised where Starlight was going and made sure to reassure her.
“Oh no! I didn’t mean that. No I meant. The first time you sent me back to the future – after you stopped the rainboom I mean. I visited a world where Equestria was at war with the Crystal Empire...” Things had started to bleakly connect now, “For some reason me and my friends hadn’t been there to stop Sombra and help Cadence take the empire back.”
“Aaaaaandd...” Starlight tried to incite an answer from Twilight but Twilight was in thinking and planning mode talking to herself.
Flash stood like a royal Guard should, at the door to the room trying to take it in, but he was less accustomed to Twilight’s thought processes than Starlight was. He did hope he could interject with a useful comment at some point, but he figured it was best to stay on duty until he could give useful input to the conversation. Anyway the princess knew what she was doing.
Twilight studied the map more intently than she had before. It had recently started expanding to uncover many undiscovered regions of the world outside of Equestria, other areas that she and her friends had spread the magic of friendship. Her attention for the moment was focused on the northern boarder. The red glow of the crystal empire was prominent – first of all it shouldn’t be red. Sharp jagged red crystal shards were spread along the sides of the mountains and into the frozen north – second note, they hadn’t been there before.
She took in the whole of the map now and looked specifically at the colour change away from the Crystal Empire. The map's aura was actually gradiented. Blood red around the Crystal empire but as it reached Equestria's southernmost boarders the map was more of a turquoise colour – third note, the map was normally just a straight blue.
Fourth note - Twilight had been muttering to herself throughout her observations at extremely high pace. Starlight walked over and observed the map also, then observed the erratic studying Twilight, then the map again. When she believed her ex-mentor had started checking her observations for a third time, she pecked in a comment.
“Twilight what happened with the Crystal Empire?” It took one look at Twilight. Horror shrouded the purple alicorn's face as she looked up from the map. A hoof came up to move her mane out of her face but it made no difference to her fear. Starlight felt sick.
“What happened before has happened again,” Flash was listening intently by the door his heart beat starting to rush in anticipation, he stood calm as he had been trained but inside he was destabilised and terrified, scared of the possibility of... “Sombra returned before, and lead the Empire across Equestria into war. The Empire expanded like that...” she pointed a hoof to the gems that now lay across the mountains, “leaving a trail of its magic wherever Sombra’s influence spread.”
Starlight was fearful but still reaching for an understanding of the situation, “How does that link to when you time travelled and the map looked like this. We rectified the past, I’m sure we did.”
“Yes I believe so.”
“So what are you saying Twilight?”
“I’m saying, that if the past is still correct but the map now looks as it did when me and my friends didn't help Cadence retrieve the Crystal Empire.” The was a momentary pause. Twilight had to take one last consideration on the matter before she put her verdict out to the room. She was sure there was no other explanation.
“Sombra must have found a way to return again.”