Starlight ran quickly through the city towards the castle of friendship, when she passed through the city market a mare saw her from her carrot stand.
"Good morning Starlight!"Carrot Top shouted happily
"I don't have time, bye!" Shouted the fuchsia and purple spot, disappearing in a blink.
Starlight braked, panting in front of the castle door, gave about nine blows with force and breathed nervously waiting for an answer, she heard how from the other side some pony approached the door with a calm step, the door was surrounded by purple magic and it opened slowly.
"Twilight!" the mare yelled with a mixture of joy and nervousness "I'm so sorry, Trixie couldn't find her hat, and I had to help her look for it, and then I had to teleport a book to Sunburst that I had to give back! And then ..."
The lavender mare covered Starlight's mouth gently with her hoof, showing her a slight smile.
"You don't have to worry Starlight" said Twilight letting her pass "come have some lemonade, then we can work"
"Uh? Twilight, are you okay?" Starlight followed Twilight into the dining room.
"of course I'm fine!" she said cheerfully "why wouldn't I be?"
The two of them sat in the dining room where a pitcher of lemonade and some dandelion sandwiches awaited them .
"Well ..., I don't mean to be rude but you are usually very strict with our schedules, our investigations, and the schedule of our investigations" Starlight said taking a good bite of her sandwich.
Twilight took a sip of her lemonade and took a long sigh "I know I can get really crazy about schedules and investigations, but we defeated three of the biggest enemies that Equestria faced a few months ago, the princesses made me co-ruler and The magic of friendship has spread everywhere, everything has gone so well that I think I can relax and let something as simple as your being late, now, since we finished with the snack, let's go to work! science does not do itself! "
Starlight smiled, took the last sip of her lemonade and followed Twilight heading to the cutie map room "so ... what do you want us to do today?"
Twilight looked at Starlight with a smile on her face "well, I wanted to study time travel spells, I wanted to improve the modified Starswirl spell you created to destroy us, and mix it with Zecora's potion and time loop magic. in which Sunset was trapped to make a more stable and manipulable spell which can detect and avoid those annoying paradoxes, loops and alterations to the timeline, thanks to Zecora's potion, anything you affect in the past does not change, because it seems like you didn't alter anything, what do you think? "
"Wow, did you think all that? ... well it sounds possible, but we would have to do all the calculations and find out how we could combine Zecora's potion with the spell, you know that zebra magic is very different from ours Besides, we don't know how the magic of the loops affects the spell, we don't want to end up repeating the same day, or stop time, or tear the fabric of reality- "Twilight interrupted Starlight showing her two bottles with a bright white liquid and a parchment with the spell.
"Ready!" she shouted excitedly "and the protections too, and I also have two backpacks with things that we will need in case we get trapped somewhere in the past!"
"But how did you do the spell? And when?" Starlight said confused.
"Well the idea of the spell came to me on Tuesday night and I got down to work, it took me like 6 or 7 hours to complete it, and i decided that you will help me prove it" Twilight put a bottle of the liquid on each side of the table and checked the parchment one last time.
"So why did you call me?" Starlight said with a mixture of confusion and annoyance.
"The spell needs two unicorns to be used and it is generally better to have another point of view in my research, plus we are both the only two ponies in equestria with experience in time travel" Twilight checked the parchment for the fourth or fifth time.
"Okay, what do you want me to do?" Excited Starlight approached her bottle.
Twilight looked at Starlight and smiled at her "well, we both took the potion, then I cast the spell and you take care of the protection spells and if a paradox or loop warning pops up, you inform me" Twilight drank her bottle and Starlight did the same "ready?"
Starlight took a deep breath and closed her eyes "I'm ready ..."
"Alright, then let's get started" Twillight closed his eyes and guided the magic energy through the air, the energy fluttering through the air slowly, like a gala dance, each movement was coldly calculated, the air was invaded by a sound of gears and hundreds of clocks, finally the magic entered her horn, and Twilight opened her eyes which were bright white, lightning was shot from her horn and a vortex opened in the ceiling "It worked!" Twilight shouted excitedly"is everything okay Starlight?" Twilight didn't hide her smile as she spoke.
"Eeyup, the spell seems stable, I'll let you know if something changes" Starlight constantly checked the shields despite being excited, she couldn't help but be nervous.
"Perfect! I'm going to do some scans to the vortex to register it in the log" Twilight threw a magic wave to the vortex which bounced from side to side inside, then returned to Twilight's horn, she was thoughtful for a minute "hmm ..., it seems that the temperature inside the vortex is cold, very cold, I do not think it is safe to enter, it seems that the magic energy is in constant movement through time, but I feel something ... strange I do not know how to describe it but it seems that there are anomalous objects inside the vortex, small objects, but also something bigger, but it's too far to know what it is, I'm going to increase the range of the spell "the spell was repeated the same as the first time, but this time it took longer to return, as soon as Twilight processed the information, she turned pale, her pupils became little dots and her jaw opened in terror "oh my Celestia!" she screamed terrified by the words that were going to come out of her mouth "Starlight ... there is a pony alive in there..."
Starlight looked at Twilight "WHAT ?! Are you sure?" Starlight was afraid to know the answer.
"Starlight ... I know the difference between a pony and a very large object, ... there is a pony there ..." Twilight was still dumbfounded.
"T-Twilight I just detected a loop approaching, if we don't close the vortex it will trap us, we have to close it now" Starlight checked the shields and reinforced them.
"We can't leave it there, we have to get it out" Twilight showed pure concern on his face.
"I...I..." Starlight saw the concern in Twilight, took a deep breath "okay, I'll try to keep the vortex open, but if something changes I'll close it!"
"Alright Starlight, I'll do it quickly" Twilight conjured a tractor beam with her horn and pulled hard, something began to approach inside the vortex, but suddenly rays of blue energy shot out of the vortex and the lightest objects in the room began to float.
"Twilight! The vortex is collapsing! I-I gotta shut it down!" Starlight was getting more stressed each minute.
"NO! Starlight we can't abandon him ... I-I can't abandon him" Twilight pulled the tractor beam harder and the pony began to fall towards the exit of the vortex.
Starlight saw the pony, then Twilight, then the pony again, bit her lip and closed her eyes "I'm sorry!" The vortex began to close, but in the last second the pony went through it and fell on the floor on the other side of the table.
The two of them were silent for a minute looking at each other, they began to circle the table slowly, the first thing they saw was a book, small, decorated with leather and gold, it looked old but very well preserved, then they saw her.
"What in tartarus are you?..."said Starlight, as Twilight approached slowly.
On the floor lay unconscious the strangest creature they had ever seen, it had the shape of a mare, but it had scales, dragon claws on its hooves, a long tail with a pointed end and some red membranes at the beginning and the middle of the tail, near At the end there were some red hair like her mane, she had two wings like an alicorn, the interior feathers were black like the rest of her scaly body, and the exterior feathers were red, the area of her back and abdomen was like the abdomen of a changeling, only that it also had scales of a pale red color that became more intense at the joints, its body was covered with black dots and finally its horn was gray and smooth, twisted and with a hole like the horn of a changeling.
"Twilight ... be careful, we don't know what it is" Starlight looked at the "mare" with disgust, terror and bewilderment in equal measure.
Twilight approached without paying attention and saw how a pool of blood accumulated staining the mare's mane. "By Celestia! Starlight! Bring the first aid kit, she's bleeding!"
Starlight trotted with all her strength and disappeared down one of the corridors, Twilight saw the mare on the ground and picked her up "calm, everything will be fine, welcome home".