While Rarity and Fluttershy recovered Rainbow Dash had covered Nightmare Moon’s body with a still burnt tapestry.
Twilight, for her part, was staring at some shards of crystal on the ground, her horn still ached from the abundance of Celestial Mana in the air, but something about these shards kept her attention.
There was another magic here.
Twilight’s eyes went from the shards, to what looked like a fancy stone receptacle. The fact that it survived the angry alicorn's rampage spoke to its durability.
She looked at Dash’s new wing, remembered the poker game with Applejack and the cliff, even Fluttershy helping out a warped manticore.
A spark flashed in her chest.
“We need to heal her.”
Everypony looked at her as they spoke in unison. “What?!”
Rainbow bristled: “Have you seen the damage she’s caused? She nearly killed us! Three times!”
Fluttershy spoke softly. “The animals she hurt in the Everfree…”
Rarity was looking at the tapestry covering Nightmare’s body.
“She’s right.”
It looked like others wanted to say more but Twilight stood her ground, the spark growing stronger.
“Rainbow, you risked your life for ponies you barely knew.”
The blue pegasus kicked a random rock. “Any guard would’ve done the same.”
“Applejack, you refused to lie, even a great threat to us.” Applejack pulled her hat from her head to hide her face, a bit of red in her cheeks.
“Fluttershy, you helped so many animals today, showing kindness to the most savage of beasts.”
The yellow pegasus eeped and hid behind Rainbow Dash.
“And Rarity, you gave so much of yourself, leaving Sweetie Belle behind to stop somepony doing something bad.”
Twilight lifted the tapestry from Nightmare Moons' body.
“Look at her. She’s not recovering like an alicorn should. Something is wrong.”
Twilight looked up at the moon, its light far paler than when the night began.
“She’s dying.”
One by one, everypony felt the pull, shifting and standing behind Twilight. They didn’t know what led them to do so, but they all began to feel the magic, stronger and stronger.
Their belief in Twilight, in their shared journey, flashed into their mind.
The crystal shards started to glow and circle around them, coalescing into amulets wrapped around their necks.
Twilight felt something settle on her head but paid it no mind, She started channeling her magic into her horn, overcharging a healing spell. One she discovered to cure the Chaos Plague.
Suddenly she was floating, her magic shifting into a new form, a rainbow of light blasting from something behind her horn and into the mangled heap of Nightmare Moon.
Slowly her body started to recover, her limbs straightening, a horn growing back. A new set of wings sprouted from her back, light blue instead of black.
Broken teeth reformed into neat straight rows, no hint of the fangs she had before.
Her eyes reformed, showing regular pony eyes.
With a blinding flash of light, she was made whole once again.
Standing before Twilight was a small blue alicorn filly.
When Luna opened her eyes she saw Twilight’s face, images of Time flashed in her mind and she reflexively fired a shard of ice at her.
Only for Celestia to appear in a burst of light and redirect the small frozen blade with a wing.
Before anyone could act Celestia had already tackled the blue filly to the ground. “LUNA!”
The filly struggled a bit but resigned herself to the hug, her eyes tearing up a bit as her memories slowly returned to her.
“I’m so sorry.”
“I know, I missed you more than you can ever imagine.”
While the alicorns had their tearful reunion Twilight had removed the heavy thing from her head.
It was a tiara, emblazoned with her cutie mark. Looking around she noticed the others looking at their own necklaces.
“The elements of harmony…we actually found them.”
Celestia had recovered, and her usual serene smile was on her face. No, that wasn’t quite right, some ponies couldn’t tell the difference, but this was the most genuine smile she’d seen on Celestia’s face in a long, long time.
Twilight bounded toward her and nuzzled Celestia’s neck, the warmth of her coat helping to melt away all the fear she’d been through.
They took some detours, but Twilight felt things were finally getting back on track.
~~~~~
“I’ve never seen her like this. She was always so…unflappable. So sure in herself.”
Clover the clever was looking down at a small basin of water, An image of a flaming Alicorn mercilessly hunting What looked like giant eels in a canyon.
The destruction she wrought in her anger was leaving a scar on Equestria.
Discord sighed next to her, placing a hand on her back. “All alicorns have a problem, the worlds they inhabit are too… fragile. Nightmare Moon wasn’t joking about destroying Equestria, the planet, not the country. Here we see Little Time having a tantrum.”
His eyes narrow.
“She must feel she’s in a world made of cardboard. Personally, I see it as a house of cards, you never quite know when someone will bump the table.”
Discord waved his hand and the image in the water changed, showing a green hive full of ponies made of black chitin.
Over the Millenia Chrysalis seemed to have mastered the use of Hatred. She never went far from the Grimoire, always keeping it with her.
None of the Changelings seemed to notice the black mass above them, a cloud of darkness that seemed to be growing stronger by feeding on their hate.
“It seems Hatred is almost here. And the Changelings timetable has increased quite a lot.” Discord moved a small chess piece on a nearby chessboard. Clover had never quite understood what game he was playing, as the chessboard seemed to work in more than three dimensions.
She was still suspicious but she had to admit he was the best solution.
“Check, your move Time.”
The image of Time’s rampage reappeared in the pool of water. She was panting heavily in a crater as her coat slowly returned to its normal lavender hue.
Discord’s expression was one of infinite loneliness for a brief moment, gone so fast Clover wasn’t sure it was there to begin with.
“Almost my other half, you’re almost there.”
He smiled as his claw crushed a queen chess piece.
“I’ve waited this long, what’s a few more years.”
Even Clover knew he didn’t believe that for a moment.
~~~~~
Time’s breathing had calmed down, the fire that was her mane slowly regained its usual two-toned hue.
Taking one deep breath she heaved a long sigh. “I can’t do that again, I nearly killed her.”
A pulse of Harmony magic hit her a moment later, giving her some relief that she didn’t screw things up too badly.
At least it was cathartic. A lot of her frustration was gone.
No, that’s wrong, it was worse than before, simmering just beneath the surface.
It still felt good.
Her face twisted into a grimace. “Chaos.” She spat out the word as if it were the most vile insult she could think of.
Not for the first time she truly wondered if Chaos was necessary, all he did was get in her way, running her tests time and time again.
She never did find out what happened to that version of her. What could have caused her to betray herself?
After her last meeting with ‘herself,’ she went through the archives, every fragment of herself was accounted for.
All except for one. A small experiment, to catalog an ant hill as it progressed, the hope being that it would give her some insight into how changelings worked.
Her last note was ‘Experiment Ruined. Chaos made an appearance. Starting new experiment. He says he has something ‘I’d find more interesting.’”
Woah, she just felt another flare, a nearby bush was on fire. She took her time quashing the flame, imagining it was chaos’ face she was smothering.
Time lit up her horn, pulling an old scroll from her personal storage.
Without access to her tower, she’s left with what she brought with her.
Her eyes settled on the title.
Potential ways to remove Chaos.
No, not yet. She’s not lost yet.
A determined expression settled on her face.
“Bring it.”
She could’ve sworn she heard Chaos’s laughter in the wind.
~~~~~
More Deities had gathered around the scrying pool. Clover was doing a remarkable job avoiding looking at Life.
As they watched Time vanish each one was thinking about the scroll they just saw.
Clover had problems with the word ‘remove’.
It was too dispassionate, hiding what it really meant.
To Kill Chaos.
Life and Death both looked worried, their gaze was on Chaos.
Love had already left, she couldn’t bear to see Time this way. She said she was going to ‘snuggle Twily till the sun went down.’
For chaos, he just sighed.
“We’re in the endgame now. It’s almost time to move an immovable object.”