“I don’t wanna do it, Twilight”
The alicorn's body trembled. It felt like her purple body was entirely a bruise.
Her blue, purple & pink mane shielded her devastatingly sad bubbly eyes, pink & puffy from crying. Twilight Sparkle raised her horn with a weak glimmer of magic. Her tearful eyes met glistening violet eyes not unlike her own.
“You can do it, Twilight"
The human Twilight looked back at her, with the bright & sharp determination the pony knew was inside of herself too.
“We got this!”
The Princess started full-on weeping. She was 29 years old, a full-time teacher, local royalty, a powerful & thus necessary magician, plus sustaining long term relationships with literally 5 other ponies & still made time to be good to her sidechicks. She's tired.
Human Twilight is 16 & a Genius & a Rockstar. She turns friendship into glitter. She turns bullies into besties. She turns everyone stomping their feet in the cafeteria to a pretty sick rock song honestly kinda Treats-era Sleigh Bells.
Her familiar purple eyes are sparkling so cutely & almost annoyingly. She wipes a tear from Twilight’s big horsey face and smiles. From the look on her face the tearful alicorn could tell that the pep talk was continuing.
“You’re not alone.”
The Princess sobbed. Even after 9 seasons & a movie, after years of fighting alongside treasured friends against world-wrecking monsters & mundane social mishaps with the same dutiful passion, the reminder that she's not alone still really hit. She was a loner before all that.
So her heart always still felt like a loner's heart.
Last time Twilight was in Human Twilight’s world, the dimensional rift between Equestria & Equestria High was opened by this fraught, ancient little portal based on an honestly shitty little spell from some problematic old source material Twilight had translated in her free time.
This time, the rift was created by a powerful monster. It whipped Twilight through time & space like a tornado. It crushed her with bad memories of her lonely past like tidal waves after tidal waves.
The purple pony knew she would end up here again. Starlight warned her- once you start messing around with spacetime, it's not in your control to stop. Twilight's timeline was an infinitely looped donut of reboots & reimaginings, & she had already been thru it a couple of times.
So the ache that vibrated in her bones was as deep as her magic. Inside this time rift Twilight’s power & Twilight's pain expanded infinitely. But even an infinitely magical alicorn princess feels weak sometimes. Especially when confronting what she was about to confront.
"Remember Twilight, we did it before!" The 16 year old human girl reminded the 29 year old immortal horse. Somewhere, a plastic facsimile of her likeness lie sparkling & undeteriorated atop a mountain of landfill. Alone, its molded doll body endured all it was meant to endure.
So while her child self as a magickless human wouldn’t have been her ideal pick to fight this Time Bastard that had just punishingly pummeled her solo thru spacetime, at least she knew her role in it this time. Which is why she was crying. Her role totally sucked.
Twilight Sparkle the horse looked into the eyes of Twilight Sparkle the human. Young, unburdened with infinity. Energized by friendship. Powered up by the tiny promise of a new love. Fulfilled by her extra curriculars & maintaining a perfect four point 0.
In that moment they both wished they could trade places with the other. Hoof in hand, they felt like one pony, one girl. Magic swelled out of the alicorn's horn & the kid felt real magic from her heart contributing to it.
A great shimmering bubble of rainbowy purple power grew around them. Little pony ears started to poke out from behind the Equestria Girl's streaked bangs. The Princess of Friendship cracked a smile thru her tears. "Guess she's not totally devoid of magic," she thought to herself.
The element of laughter lifted Twilight into the air. Human Twilight held on to her soft two front hooves with a trusting & loyal grip. She was the one crying now, knowing what was coming next. She could feel it too.
In the thrashing rift between Equestria & Equestria High, she wasn't just a human high schooler anymore. Maniacal snarls of the Time Bastard echoed thru the contracting cylindrical portal which writhed against the bubbly forcefield the two Twilights had conjured.
"Let go!”
The Time Bastard howled, wreaking havoc on a new universe every infinitesimal second that there remained two Twilights on the same plane of existence.
Back in Ponyville, frenzied pegasi pushed clouds together in an attempt to mend the gash in their sky revealing a twisted vortex of unknowable horror. Discord attempted to combat chaos with chaos by throwing bagels at it. "Oh Twilight!" The chimera bemoaned, "Where is Twilight?”
On Earth, a lifeless plastic Rainbow Dash boils in some repulsive biological ooze on top of a radiator. The tubed tentacles of the Time Bastard's portals destroy magic & friendship on an interdimensional scale nopony could have ever imagined. Twilight knew what she had to do.
"Let GO Twilight!"
The cosmic purple swirl of magic was massive now. This wasn't the kind of magic that happens when ponies work together. It was Absolute Twilight, coming from all directions from every single Twilight in every single Universe. It was terrifying.
The expanding bubble that surrounded the 2 Twilights continued to swell, tearing at the Bastard's portal like pantyhose. Even a ray of 100 degree sunlight bouncing off the Equestria Girl Doll defiantly unmelting in a landfill beamed in thru a pinhole in the portal as magic.
Time, as loose a concept as it was, was running out.
"You got this Twilight!!" The 16 year old rainbow rocker yelled, ears & tail in full effect.
"We got this!!" the princess yelled back bravely over the calamity of the deteriorating portal.
Then they both let go.
At the last possible second, the alicorn blasted a teleportation spell at her human counterpart, bouncing her back to Equestria High. Having no reality to hold on to, Twilight's absolute magic expanded, shredding the portal around it. The Time Bastard wailed.
The spell was so powerful that the tiny purple pony could no longer hold herself as the nucleus of it. This magic that could reset time was created by every Twilight, every Twilight's contradictions, across generations & reboots. Her insufferable loner heart, loved by so many.
Twilight became the spell, and the spell bloomed outwards infinitely into the vacuum of time & space. Twilight's infinite contradictory trueness sparkled over every timeline, allowing love & friendship to coexist among deep loneliness & pain.
The tear in the sky did not close. Earth's landfills did not biodegrade. Equestria High continued standardized testing. But there was enough love, just to keep going.
Human Twilight looked up at the tumultuous sky.
She saw the last visible glimmer of Princess Twilight Sparkle, a star existing & simultaneously not existing. It shined explosively with the unstoppable power of friendship- not just friendship with others, but friendship with yourself. Then it disappeared.