Twilight gingerly walked through the streets of town, but her destination wasn't home. As she walked she thought back on the last year of her life. Everything changed since that very night. Some for the better, some right down for the worst. It was nice being able to de-mutate the victims of the beast program, and many consider her a hero for it. She instantly rose to fame as the creator of the cure to the chimera disease, despite being a college student. Her professors at Canterlot gave her leeway so she could progress on the cure. Only now the question was, what to do with her life now. She originally dedicated her life to making the cure and now she had achieved that. So what was the point of continuing Canterlot College if she already met her goals? She was given plenty of options by top scientists and labs to have her finish her studies while working as a top scientist or professor herself.
But she turned them down knowing full well she wouldn't have time for those things, due to her increase of work as an agent of chaos vill. But was Chaos Vill really a future for her? For that matter, another question she had on her mind was if there would be a future at all. Did she stop Discord, or was the fact that Discord died the issue entirely? What causes the apocalyptic state she saw in the old future video? Who were those time travelers, and what was the mission they received from her future self? Having no idea anything she only knew she could do one thing. And that was work on the time machine. The only question was would she ever actually be able to make the time machine work? Just because one future shelf might have doesn't mean this version of her would be able to pull off such an incredible feet.
Either way, as she wondered about this she finally met her final destination. In front of her was the remnants of a building, once said to be home to her oldest brother. Besides it, she bought the next building and began her own work and studies on the time machine. She sighed at the very thought of him. She could never get away from it. Strange, at one time she was determined to end him for what he did to her family. But her mother's words from that night a long time ago ranged in her ears.
“In the end, I just can't find myself to hate him despite all of that, I'm not saying forgive, I'm saying to look past it and move on."
“And what if I can't,” Twilight told her mother at the time.
“Then you'll end up just like Luna.” Her mother told her.
As much as she didn't want to admit it, she had ended up like Luna… and possibly because of that, she couldn't stop Discord from saving them. If that was what she was supposed to do. The questions remained endlessly and it haunted her. Even more, knowing that he entrusted her to be the leader of Chaos Vill, and she just could not accept that role.
She walked into her lab and turned on the lights showing her work. All over the walls were whiteboards full of equations and time travel theories. On the shelf were stacks of blueprints, both real and some drawn by her as a child. Then sitting in the center of the room was her time machine. However, she bypassed it and turned to the odd bowling ball-sized sphere sitting right by it. On it were a few clocks switches and gauges built into its surface. This was the new model of the time machine.
Unlike the first one which had almost a steampunk eas exterior and was large and clunky, this one was smooth and sphere-like. While it still was quite heavy it was much easier to pick up than the original version. She now considered her first project the prototype. This was the 2nd, however, she couldn't take full credit for it.
On top of the sphere was a handle. With a twist of it, she was able to remove a tube chamber that stretched all the way to the other side of the sphere. She was then able to twist off the top of the tube. She then examined the inside of it to make sure the chamber was liquid-tight. Hmmm, the fuel chamber seems to be in order, she told herself happily. She placed it down and then examined her blueprints for a moment. Then pulled out a file from a dware labeled experimental fuel sources.
There were several for nuclear power. Her assistant was very pro-nuclear for this project. However nuclear was dangerous, and Twilight didn't like the idea of using it. She moved to the next page. This one was to recycle nuclear waste instead. An option that was less dangerous but still was far too dangerous. She then looked at the third page—her research.
The title of the page was Chimera Blood. Twilight remembered that through her research to find a cure for the chimera disease, she found that the substance was forever mutating until it came in contact with another's DNA, and solidified into gold. As long as the substance never comes in contact with another form of DNA, it can forever mutate, giving off a strange source of electromagnetic energy, one far more powerful in a drop of chimera blood. “Well pure chimera blood anyway,” she whispered to herself slightly exhausted. “I and others like were mutated, but discord was born a chimera. His blood gave off such energy, that a pint was as powerful as what a nuclear source could give. It could have been the key to fueling the time machine. But,...” she sighed knowing full well that without him this source was likely completely gone. It seemed her future self used the same type of fuel source, however, the question was how. Did in that timeline a source of pure chimera blood still exist? And if it didn't, what source did she use? At this time does that source even exist? Will she never find it until then? Until it was too late to do anything to stop whatever caused that apocalyptic state in the world. These questions raged on Twilight's mind, only to be interrupted by the sound of the door opening. She looked up to see her assistant walking in.
“Hey, Mrs. Sparkle. What are you doing here, so late?” Smiled starlight. She was a few years younger than her mentor. Starlight Glimmer was still actually in high school, being only sixteen. Twilight once gave a speech at her school, being invited due to her work on the cure for the chimera disease. While there she got to talk to Starlight Glimmer, and found she had a lot in common with her. She wanted to make a time machine much like Twilight herself. And meeting her and finding their common interest the two quickly became friends. Yet despite this, she had no idea Twilight was a mutant, only that she and her friend had discovered a cure. Not knowing her friend was her brother discord.
“Oh, nothing I just had a lot on my mind, and well, working on this helps me clear my head,” Twilight said with a hint of sadness in her voice. Starlight knew this friend of Twilight had died, but she often wondered who he was. She never outright spoke about him and Starlight's determination was peeked. “Umm is this about your friend again?”
Twilight sighed, “That obvious huh?”
“Yeah, you must have really cared for him,” Starlight spoke sincerely. Then a thought occurred to her that hadn't before. In a bit of a nervous voice, she asked, “Did you have a thing for this guy?”
Twilight's face turned bright red, and a little of her even wanted to vomit. “No no, it wasn't like that, he was uh,” she sighed. “He was sort of a brother to me. He was my half-brother.”
Embarrassed she could even come to that conclusion starlight quickly replied, “Oh oh oh I see, you two must have been very close then huh?”
Twilight didn't say anything at first she only turned her head away from her assistant. “No actually, in fact, I wish I knew him better.” She said solemnly.
A moment of silence spread between them before Starlight said “I'm sorry.”
“Doesn't matter anyway, he’s dead. I was going over the possible fuel sources for the time machine. By the way, I must admit, I'm really impressed with your hard work.”
“Thank you, your model was amazing but the materials you used to construct it were far too heavy. By using a thin piece of lightweight steel for the body and robust plastic materials I 3D printed, it cut down two-thirds of the weight. By making it spherical it also eliminates unnecessary material and is easier to hold in the hoof. Oh uh sorry, you know how I get, when I'm excited, I just blabber on like an idiot sometimes,” she nervously laughed.
“No, it'd be fine, actually, I haven't gotten to go through all your advancements on the new model yet,” Twilight told her.
“Well, in that case, you should be aware that when activated it will even be lighter, once it's pressurized with helium.”
“Why helium?” Twilight asked.
“Because it's non-flammable and will lighten some of the other heavy components of the device. That way, if anything gets in contact with the fuel source it most likely won't explode, speaking of which I found someone willing to give us access to the nuclear waste we need.”
Twilight grew nervous at this. “Ummm.”
Starlight sighed annoyed. “Really why are you so against this? It's not like there's another source of energy that can break the physics of space. “
“I'm working on that,” Twilight replied.
“I read your paper on chimera blood. Do you really think it can be sourced?”
Twilight sighed in frustration. “If I gather enough of it, I can mostly extract its impurities and form pure chimera blood from it. It’s just gonna take time, that’s all.”
“Well, I have a power source, I can start experimenting with, right now. Once I get the time machine air-tight I want to proceed. May I?”
Twilight looked nervously away.
Starlight groaned. “Really, you're not even gonna give me a chance.”
Twilight giggled a bit at her young assistant's enthusiasm. She was still young and had much to learn, despite being incredibly smart. “I'll think about it. Until then, continue making it airtight for now, and I'll let you know soon enough.”
Starlight, disappointed in Twilight's decision, grumbles, "Fine," as if she was a grumpy teenager dealing with her mother.