//------------------------------//
// Chapter 12: It ends, where it had to 
// Story: Time is up, Twilight 
// by Dream Whisper 
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Another deafening crash of thunder echoed through the valley before her. A last scream of the dark cloud which was trying to escape the grasp of her spell, eventually failing and being sucked up. The whole sky seemed to rush towards that one glowing center, circling around it faster and faster until finally vanishing in the glowing purplish center of her spell. The whole sky had become a dark spiral down into the center of her spell. She could not even tell whether it was day or night, since the sun could never shine through the thick cycling clouds. Once she would release the spell, it would release all the power assembled through the last days. The world itself would be purged. Nightfall's Radiance was standing right here, in the midst of the storm she had created herself. It was a beautiful sight from the Canterlot tower down into the valley. The reoccurring lightning created a shadow play from time to time.

Luckily, she paid enough attention to those shadows that she actually noticed the difference. There were some ponies hushing through the landscape, although not careful enough. Who would come to delay her? Who would even dare to step up those dusty stairs and fight her? She slowly turned around and stepped inside the Canterlot tower, without releasing the spell for a moment. The relentless rain drummed on the surface of the Tower and inside, the echo of it intensified the whole effect. She trotted down the stairs, step after step, slowly and steadily. Her preferred place to fight would be the throne room. The only room majestic enough to outclass her beauty.

The door of the throne room was slammed open by magic and inside trotted ponies with a dragon behind them. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Spike. And then Twilight Sparkle entered the room. That is impossible! She had never beaten a queen of hatred in her entire past. So how could past Twilight be here to beat her. She investigated them further. They were older, much older. It had been about twenty-five years after all, hadn't it? However, she could still not really believe those six ponies coming into this throne room. How was a Twilight Sparkle here? Had she lost her memory? And how was that Rarity here? The potion should have forced her into hatred. How could she have united with the others again?

"Twilight Sparkle? What has lead you here?"

"You cannot continue beyond this point. You have to be destroyed... no matter the consequences."

There was something very distinct in her voice. Almost as if she knew something that Nightfall didn't. Nightfall's Radiance ignored that thought as it could only distract her from fighting. These ponies had not come here to have some fun, they wanted to fight. She would deliver a fight, those six ponies and the dragon would never forget.

"And Rarity. You should have stayed in unicty, being fed with my hatred. You cannot survive without it anymore."

"Liar! You have done too much damage in this world. Your own hatred shall be your downfall."

She laughed once again, deeply and vibrating. The whole throne room started to shake.

"My hatred is an eternal source of power. You have nothing!"

Then, however, she stopped laughing as Twilight Sparkle pulled out the Elements of Harmony. Nightfall twitched, with these they could possibly defeat her. However, she would not allow them to succeed uniting. Anger rose once again as she realized her mistake. Anger to fuel her magic. With one magical burst in the midst of her enemies, she split them apart. Fluttershy and Rarity were thrown against the wall, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash were too fast in their reactions. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie tried to evade the burst, but had mediocre success. Rainbow Dash flew towards her in blind bravery. With one swipe of her metal-armored hooves, she stopped that foolish maneuver.

Meanwhile, the others had recovered with the help of Applejack. She just had to separate them from each other and the victory would be hers. She remembered trying to use the same strategy with Luna and Celestia and failing horribly. Again, she had to control her memories. It was not time to think about failure, it was time to achieve success. She used her magic to single Rainbow Dash further out, preventing her from doing anything with a mighty shield. She wouldn't have to worry about the elements of harmony as long as she had Rainbow Dash imprisoned.

"Give up. I already have you now."

"And I have already won and lost. This will be inevitable."

What was she speaking about? She was implying something, but... A bolt of fire came down onto her shield from above, not really harming her but startling her nevertheless. She reacted without hesitation, creating a nova of fire swiping through the entire room. Twilight's shield held it all back, but she sustained clear damage. Nightfall's Radiance sent down another strike. This time however, she used invisible pressure to crush at a certain point of the shield. Of course the extreme pressure on that small surface caused the air to burst out in fire, but that sign came too late for Twilight. The shield crumbled at that point, collapsing within seconds. It had been too easy. They were trying to lure her to do something.

Twilight further verified that idea by splitting up from the main group. She wanted the attention, but she would not get it. Nightfall prepared for another attack. She used a wave of condensed energy, which crushed the shield that Twilight had just built up. Not only that, but it also crushed every window in the throne room. Her next attack cooled the whole throne room down below the freezing point, after which she shot the raindrops at Twilight's shield. Still, Twilight had surrounded herself and the whole group. However, Nightfall's Radiance could see her getting weaker with every second. She used her surroundings to the fullest effect. Within seconds, she crushed the ceiling above the five ponies and caused Twilight to be forced to constantly push back tons of debris, while she had done nothing more but furthering a small crack.

She threw two magical bursts at Twilight, both spiraling around each other. The attack burst Twilight out of the window. So much about their plan of distracting her. Now, she could pay her full attention towards the remaining four ponies. However, Rarity did something confusing. Instead of actually creating a shield for the other three, she teleported behind Nightfall. She decided to throw a final attack at them and turned around without waiting for the impact. Maybe Rarity had... Something hit the back of her shield with immense power. She had just turned around towards Rarity, and with an annoyed grunt, she expanded the turn to full 360 degrees. The dragon had been the object of the matter. He had beaten down upon her shield, without success of course. With a single swipe of her metal hoof, she created a deep wound in the dragons face, holding that creature down with a force field of magic. The creature tried to escape her grip, but she couldn't let it go. A quick strike with her horn stopped the revolting.

For just a second she had not paid attention to her enemies and the result was fatal: The elements of harmony had reunited behind her back, however they had done it. Now, the fight would be a lot more difficult. She tried to spread them apart again, but this time Twilight's shield was a lot stronger. Slowly, they ascended into the height, up above her and a beam of pure, colorful magic erupted from Twilight's crown. It crushed through the ceiling, turning everything into debris around it. Then, just a heartbeat of complete silence later, it crushed down on her. She had expected pain, agony or even death. This however, was completely different to any expectation she could have had. She could actually feel once again, what she had lost. The laughter, the love, the friendship. It was a different kind of pain: It was the pain of realizing what you have done wrong. One of the worst pains ponies can experience. A tear dropped down from her eyes as the magical spell she had kept feeding was released.

"It is already too late."

The world began to shatter as a deep crushing noise howled through the dark night. It was only a scout for the masses of destruction following it. There was no light, no explosion. Just a deep noise and death. Everything just shattered moments after the noise arrived. The spell ripped mountains apart, cleared entire cities and burnt the surface of Equestria. Walls collapsed, ponies screamed and the inevitable followed. For a day, neither the sun nor the moon had shown anymore. Some say, the sun and moon had not wanted to look upon such devastation. Some say, both had cried for the losses. Some say, it had been a day of silence for those who had given their lives to win. She knew that the sun and moon were now lifted and lowered by her instead of those who she had betrayed: Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.

For some reason however, all sides were right. She had cried for the all losses, as she had been the one causing them. She had not wanted to look upon the devastation and she had hid in the castle, not realizing, that the moon and sun had to be lifted. She had made it a day of silence for her friends, who had fallen in bravery to save the world, to save Equestria, and to save her from her own doings. She had been blind. Blind in sorrow, blind in grief, blind in hatred.

It was in the middle of the second day after the catastrophy, that it happened again. She was being thrown back to the moment when she had just woken up, seeing the death she had caused right in front of her. The time had been reset to state 0 once again. Did it really matter? No.

She had lost everything. She had lost her friends at first, lost her courage soon after, lost her hopes. She had lost her sanity, one thing that she had always kept even in darkest situations - well, most of them. She had lost her heart and had become a monster. She had lost her will to live after realizing that she had indeed created all of this by herself. If she had not wasted her life on that research and had just had fun with her friends... If she had not tested fate through time traveling... If she had not lost her hopes when times were grim... If she had not lost her sanity when seeing the world collapsing... If she had not let her hatred grow...

If she had not tried to evade the inevitable, her friends would still be alive.

You cannot evade the inevitable. That is why it is called inevitable, not some stupid coincidence. Inevadable. Her struggle to escape her own fate had let her down darker paths than she could have ever expected. The need to try to evade her losses, the senseless struggle to avoid unavoidable things, had become her doom. She had spent all of her time - no, she had wasted all of her time trying to be something that she couldn't. She had wasted her time trying to grasp for stars which were out of reach. She had tried to do the impossible. Failure had been the inevitable consequence and yet she had always denied that to herself. Why had her friends died for her senseless struggles? There was no answer to that question.

So often she had tried to find an answer to that one question: "Why?" The truth is, there is no answer. She had been ignorant for neglecting it. Causality is a stupid illusion in this world. Some things are just inexplicable. Sometimes the unbelievable happen and suddenly we are alone in our grief. And yet, giving in to that grief only makes the situation worse. Trying to find answers to inexplicable questions makes the situation worse. Grasping after long-gone illusions makes the situation worse. It eats you up, it feasts upon your heart. A senseless struggle. The struggle to evade death, destruction and loss destroys one eventually.

Even through the realization of the inevitability, the impossibility and the inexplicably of events, we continue on senseless struggles. In the end however, those struggles will consume our very essense and destroy all happiness in our lifes. Maybe, just maybe, at some point we will stop trying and finally give in to the good times in our lives. There is too much greatness and beauty to be seen, to much awesomeness and adventure to be experienced, too much frienship and love to be had. Too much life to be lived to run after impossibilities.

Twilight had finally understood that, only at a cost she would have never been willing to pay.