It was impossible... There was just no way! Again, almost for the twentieth time, Twilight tried to travel back in time just a day. She arrived in the same dreaded location, in which she arrived every time. Right over there was the past Twilight, just arguing with Celestia.
"...unpredictable consequences."
Celestia had just finished the ever-same sentence she was speaking every single time. Then, past Twilight was drifting into the same damned thought-process every time. Twilight tried to move, to cast a spell, to do something, but instead of it happening, she got catapulted back into the same future. She was just in front of the edge of the same dreaded corridor that she had been walking through at least twenty times now. Why was this impossible? What was she doing wrong? There had to be some solution to this disastrous situation. There had always been a solution, so there was probably one here, too. Just trying again was obviously not solving it. She tried to remember... What exactly had happened yesterday? She had thought about the possibility to just travel back in time later, and future Twilight had appeared behind her.
What exactly had she said? Something, that has to do with tomorrow: 'Come from tomorrow' , 'Tomorrow will come', 'not tomorrow' or maybe... 'just from tomorrow'. The last one seemed quite plausible compared to the others. Damn all of this! She should have paid more attention to detail, but she could not have known what was about to happen. Furthermore, she had paid attention to Celestia's ranting, only just not to damn future Twilight. Why had future Twilight come to that time anyway? Had it been funny or something to... Or maybe, just maybe, future Twilight had been in exactly the same situation. There was a certain idea developing in Twilight's brain right now:
If she would do exactly what future Twilight had done, maybe she could stop this constant resetting, which was slowly causing her to become insane. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change had stressed her out. Even though it was only the twentieth time, it already scratched her sanity. There were no friends to help her right now. This was a hurdle to take on her own. She tried to stay calm, but the nervousness was getting through to her more and more. If she could not resolve this whole issue, what would she actually do? Her heart started to hammer against her chest, as if it tried to escape. Her guts were also trying to escape, but they seemed to try to flee upwards.
She would try the 'just from tomorrow.' There was no failure anyway: The worst thing, that could happen, would be arriving in this moment again. Twilight groaned. The worst thing would be being stuck here forever. No! She couldn’t allow herself to even think about that possibility.
She jumped through the orb again and arrived in the same situation: Celestia was finishing the same sentence once again, while past Twilight was sunk into her thoughts. The scene was so strangely unfamiliar, maybe because she was rather somepony watching it than contributing to it.
"...unpredictable consequences."
She waited a couple of seconds, until past Twilight should have almost finished that one thought.
"...just from tomorrow."
Back again. In the same freaking corridor and no idea, why it had failed once again. She was afraid of what would happen, if she kept coming back here
“Damn this time mathematical paradoxon. Damn the constancy of the speed of light. Damn Albert Hoofenstein.”
No! He had nothing to do with her time paradox business. Luckily, she also was a smart pony who had encountered enough failures to know how to not fail again. Just analyse the whole situation once again and this time more thoroughly: She had said the right words, most likely at least. She had waited for the right moment. What has gone wrong? There. The image flashed through her mind once again. She had turned around and seen the future Twilight come out of a glowing purple orb. If however, she arrived already before that, she must have created the effect of the orb all by her own, which would then again mean, that the future Twilight had had the same problem! Which in return meant, that she could not possibly fail, could she? If future Twilight had succeeded, she could not fail, when she was doing exactly the same as she did. Confuzzling time paradoxes!
"...unpredictable consequences."
The same bucking situation, the same past Twilight and another chance to finally succeed in this impossible task. This time, however, she would do everything perfectly synchronized. She concentrated on past Twilight. She studied her every move. Was she finally moving her weight from the left hoof to the right one? Now! As past Twilight started to turn around, she spoke the one sentence:
"...just from tomorrow."
She tried to exactly seem like future Twilight, even creating the purple orb in front of her, through which she jumped to make it seem as if she had just come out of it.
"This is so crazy."
Twilight tried to not burst out in joy, as she had succeeded... for now at least. Wait, what had future Twilight said?
"That's funny, because I have said the exact same thing... And you will probably say exactly this."
How true, how true. She had already said the 'this is so crazy' and this past Twilight is going to say these exact words, because otherwise she would be also reset into the same corridor. She thought about how that future Twilight had already known the problem and told her, but she had not been able to make anything out of it. It was confusing. Wasn't she the future Twilight right now giving herself a hint, that she knew she could never understand, because she didn't already? Yes, this was most definitely confuzzling. She wondered, what happened in the normal time where - or rather when - nothing was screwed up? She should have not done this whole experimenting.
"Twilight Sparkle. You may be a princess now, but do not try to play with the fundamental laws."
She should have really listened to Celestia. However, she didn't. There was no way to possibly undo all of it. She had to live with it now. Celestia added that one horrific sentence, that did not leave Twilight's head at any time:
"It may already be too late."
It was already too late. The only hope to get back into her life was to successfully do everything, that future Twilight had done. She would have loved to just scream out in anger, but she had to control herself. After a couple of seconds, she felt the pull back into the future. Had she done everything right, had she done everything in the exact same way that future Twilight had done it in? After Celestia had said these words, she had drifted into her thoughts, not further noticing future Twilight. She could not possibly know what future Twilight had done during that time. There was not much time to think about what had happened, as she was once again standing in the corridor.
She already thought that she had missed something, but then she realized, that it had actually worked. How? Well, there was a certain difference: She actually felt exhausted. Not just a little bit exhausted, but quite much exhausted. YES! Yes yes yes. This was most definitely a step forward. However, maybe the resetting had just changed instead. There was one simple way to test out if it had worked: If she had really not succeeded, she would be sent back to this moment as soon as she would be let into Celestia's chambers and ask her for help. She slowly started trotting towards that one door, which could either tell of victory or tell of failure. She knocked two times, until she heard that same phrase:
"Come in!"
Celestia had a worried look on her face as she noticed the exhausted Twilight. It was most definitely different, but different enough to stop the whole messy being-teleported-back thing?
"Twilight, what is wrong with... It is the time travel, isn't it?"
Twilight began to wonder: How could Celestia know that? Probably just a guess. There were not many things anymore, that could really exhaust her. Time traveling was one of those things.
"I hope it stopped."
She took a deep breath. Any second now, she would be teleported back. She closed her eyes, began to count down. Any second now. Nothing. Maybe it just lagged behind... Still nothing. With every second, her insecurity declined for a bit and her happiness grew. She did not get teleported back. At least, right now. Considering that it had been different time-spans until she had been brought back, it was only reasonable to not exclude the possibility of failure right now. However, with every second, the chance for failure declined. Maybe she had really done it. Slowly a big smile crept onto her face. It worked!
"What has stopped, Twilight? I may be an Alicorn Princess, but that doesn't mean that I am all-knowing. There are errors, that nopony can predict. Especially time-travel, it is an undiscovered principle. I can only guess what the consequences are. Even Albert Hoofenstein has not explained everything."
Celestia looked worried, but also just plain confused. Maybe she should explain everything. But then again, would it even matter to tell her? Wouldn't it all just get reset, including her memory? Maybe she could...
Knock, knock.
"Come in!"
There we go. The same situation. She had been thrown back again, right before entering the room. It was time to get back into the past again, and try another strategy. However, this is where things got strange.
She assembled her magical energy as she had done so often and released the spell. The spell started to unravel, trying to create the well known glowing orb that would suck her into the future. She could go on for hours how the created singularity poked a hole through the continuum of time and the tunneling was stronger if it would rotate around an axis parallel to the magnetic field in Equestria and the matter was transported through no space at all, which meant that it didn’t take energy to actually transport her and only took energy to open the whole thing, which collapsed because of the finity of the magical power to be consumed. However, even though she knew so incredibly much, probably more than anypony else, she could not resolve the paradox.
At first the glowing started in the usual white light, but within a heartbeat it turned red and the whole singularity vanished. That was not supposed to happen. She tried again. Same result. Then she tried again, using more magic. Same result! She tried it with a different technique, trying to create a stabilizing spell first. That is how she had first trained it all, the safest method. Same result. She even tried to create a pre-singularity, which should channel her magic to create an even stronger one. Same damn result. It turned red and collapsed within a heartbeat.
She was obviously not let into the past again by whatever strange force was controlling this all. Maybe it was time itself, which was trying to stop abuse? Maybe it was the fundamental magic that flowed through every being in Equestria?
"Hello? You can come in now!"
Then she realized, that she just had been stupid, so incredibly stupid. Of course, it was not the situation just a day ago, it was all about future Twilight saving her yesterday - well, 2 years ago. This time paradox was really becoming increasingly complex. Twilight had to take a second to think about all of it. How could she get those two years into the past? There was just one possible way: Using the potion, she had created. The whole machinery should be in the storage area. If she could just find a way to imbue...
The heavy door opened in front of her and pulled her out of her thoughts.
"Twilight?! What are you doing?"
She would probably have more time, if she would start as soon as she had knocked, running to the storage room, getting her machine ready and using the potion and finally traveling into the past. All that in this short time span, until she would get teleported back in front of this door.
"Twilight, is something wrong?"
Considering the way to gallop and the required time for that, it could all be possible, if the machine was not too hidden inside the storage room. What if she couldn't reach it in time? Oh, Twilight, you are one stupid pony. Of course, it was possible for her to reach it. As she maybe couldn't travel back into the past, she could certainly teleport just right into the storage room. She only had to make the machine work somehow and do everything just correctly. This could take several tries, but then again, she really had an infinite amount of time to do it. It was strange to realize, in what stress future Twilight has been every single time, just before traveling into her time.
This all was weird, to say the least. The worst thing, however, was being forced to do it without the help of her friends. She thought about them, their laughter. It was pain to her heart. A tear tried to escape her eyes, but she forced them shut, trapping the tear between her lids. Would she hear them ever again? Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! You have to stop these thoughts. There is still a way to turn it all around. Just concentrate now and you will be fine.
"Twilight? Are you oka-a-a-a-a..."
Almost like a broken vinyl plate, Celestia’s voice was repeated for a couple of seconds, until she was teleported right to the point when she knocked on the door. Without wasting time on waiting for an answer of Celestia, she took her hoof down and activated her magic. Almost instantaneously she teleported down in front of the storage room. She didn't want to risk teleporting into the room as she did not know exactly where the machine was. She couldn't risk teleporting right into it. You don't even want to know what happens if ponies teleport into solid things. The door hammered open under the pressure of her magic, almost ripping it apart. The machine was just right there, out in the open. To her great, incomparable pleasure, there was still potion inside the machine as she turned it on with her magic. What would she have done if there had not been any potion in there? She would have probably turned insane. She stopped herself from thinking about it, as it was definitely not good for her composure.
The whole process of imbuing the potion with her magic took longe than she wanted it to. Every second waiting here was another wasted second. It was strange to see the dust on the machine, as she had just seen it two days ago... Which were now two years. The potion finished rambling and almost a bit too hasty, Twilight pulled out the test tube, in which last bits of her potion were contained. She drank it as soon as possible and waited, until the feeling of power streamed throughout her body.
She used her magic to create the spiraling, glowing orb of light that would take her into the past. She added stabilisation components and enlarged the whole thing. Within seconds, she started to feel the distant pull. Her field of vision started to get distorted and was getting filled with the glowing white. Within less than a heartbeat, the whole transportation was done and her field of vision returned to normal. This was past Canterlot, at least it should be.
Celestia's words struck Twilight once more. She wanted to deny it, but the feeling was growing stronger and stronger. She started to believe that Celestia had actually been right...
"Maybe it is already too late."