//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10 
// Story: The Animation Bureau 
// by Chaotic Dreams 
//------------------------------//

Chapter 10
“MOTHER?!” the rest of the ponies all gasped in unison. “But you…she…Lauren…Celestia…?!”
Celestia simply continued to stare at Lauren with an awestruck, teary-eyed expression. The solar Princess walked slowly towards the new alicorn and stopped at what for Lauren was an uncomfortably close distance. Then, all at once, Celestia threw her forelegs around Lauren in a tight hug, tears flowing down her muzzle. 
“Oh, Mother!” Celestia wept. “I never thought I’d see you again! What happened?! After Discord struck, we all thought—”
“Whoa, whoa—” Lauren stammered, completely at a loss as to how to act in this situation. Tentatively returning the hug and patting Celestia on the back, Lauren tried to console the Princess with “Uh, there, there, it’s all right…”
Celestia at last released Lauren and wiped the tears from her eyes, looking up at the red-and-white alicorn like a small, confused child would. 
“Oh, Mother,” Celestia smiled despite her still-wet eyes. “It’s so good to finally see you again, to know you’re alright!”
“I’m alright,” Lauren agreed. “But, uh…I’m not really sure how to say this…”
“What is it, Mother?” Celestia questioned curiously, her eyes lighting up. “Are you ready to return to your position as Queen of Equestria? Luna and I would gladly hand it back over to you, we have refused the title ourselves all these years, ruling only as Princesses, as the Queen’s daughters, not as her replacements…”
“Queen?” Lauren echoed, more surprised now than ever. “Let’s not get carried away here—”
“Lauren, I thought you said you had never been to Equestria before you tracked Discord here from Earth!” Twilight wondered aloud, just as utterly confused as everyone else. “I also thought this was your first time as a pony—”
“It is,” Lauren hastily answered. Then, turning to Celestia, Lauren said “I’m sorry to say this, but you must have me mistaken for somepony else. I don’t know who you are apart from what Twilight and the others have told me about you.”
“You don’t…remember me?” Celestia’s lip quavered, her eyes moistening once again. “Or Luna? How could you forget, Mother? It must have been Discord—he must have done something to you to make you forget—but that doesn’t matter now! You’re back, and we can work this out! We can help you to remember! Oh, I’m so, SO happy you’ve finally returned, Mother!”
“I’m not…” Lauren tried to say, unsure if she should. “I think you’re confused. Maybe losing your student and her friends for so long has unsettled you. My name is Lauren; I’m from a planet called Earth in a parallel universe. This isn’t even my real form—my true species are called ‘humans’—I was just turned into what you see before you when we entered your world.”
“This is terrible!” Celestia wailed. “Discord has brainwashed you! Don’t worry, we’ll get the best medics in Equestria to help you, Mother—”
“I’m not your Mother!” Lauren stated firmly, stamping a hoof. 
Celestia stopped cold, and the look of utter, horrified sorrow on her face almost made Lauren’s heart stop equally cold. 
“I’m not even really a pony,” Lauren tried to explain. “And Discord didn’t do anything to me. Well, he did try to kill me once, but I defeated him, and now he’s in a maximum security prison in the most secure known building in all the explored worlds.”
Celestia lowered her head, tears falling slowly down her muzzle, silent. 
“…Princess Celestia?” Twilight ventured. “I’m sorry to say this, but I can vouch for Lauren. We’ve been with her all this time, and everything she says is true. She must only look like your mother—”
“No,” Celestia said, also firm, but almost too quietly to hear. “You call her ‘Lauren,’ but I call her Mother. Maybe ‘Lauren’ really is her real name, but I would know my Mother anywhere. It’s not just the way she looks—the fiery determination in her eyes, the fierce spirit that refuses to give up fighting for a righteous cause no matter how difficult or lost it may seem. I don’t know how, I don’t know why, but this is my Mother. Let me show you.”
Celestia’s horn glowed, and before any of the team could react, there was a flash. 
And then darkness.
Fluttershy squeaked in fear, but the dark space the ponies had been teleported en masse to was just as quickly illuminated with a spark from Celestia’s horn. Wherever Celestia had planned on taking them to try and prove her claim, though, this place was not what the team had expected. Unlike everything else Lauren had seen of the pleasant, peaceful, happy Equestria, this place was dark even with magical illumination, the shadows lingering at the corners of the light like the monsters of nightmares just barely kept at bay by the rays of dawn. The air was cold and somehow felt wet as well, and the sides of the small enclosure were grooved and slightly spiked with sharp rocks. A long tunnel led up and away behind the team, but an ornate, thick golden pair of doors faced them in the front.
“What I’m about to show you,” Celestia spoke gravely, that grim determination still in her voice. “Has never been seen by anypony’s eyes but those of my sister and I. In fact, we both vowed never to let anypony else see it, as a promise to our Mother as well as ourselves. In fact, Luna also deserves to know of this…”
Celestia’s horn glowed again, and in another bright flash of light, a midnight-blue alicorn with mane and tail flowing like the starry skies stood before them.
“…and that is why I want patrols doubled in Manehatten until my big sister’s student and her friends are found, and furthermore…” the dark alicorn spoke in a regal, formal tone until she suddenly realized that she wasn’t where she had been just a second ago. “What—big sister! What’s going on? Why have you summoned me? I was just in the middle of an important meeting with the Royal Guard, and—”
The alicorn pony who Lauren correctly surmised was Princess Luna stopped dead just as Celestia had when she saw Bugs, Twilight and her friends, and Lauren. Luna’s eyes went especially wide when they fell upon Lauren. 
“M…M…” the lunar Princess tried to say, before collapsing in a faint on the cold stone floor. 
Celestia smiled wanly, and then knelt down to touch her even more brightly lit horn to Luna’s forehead. The Princess of the night woke with a start, saw Lauren, and froze up again. Celestia proceeded to whisper something in Luna’s ear, the midnight blue alicorn listening intently. After a few uncomfortable moments while the others waited in silence, Luna nodded her head at what the team took to be the conclusion of Celestia’s explanation of what was going on…or at least, as much as the solar Princess knew and thought was going on.
Luna rose slowly after Celestia pulled her mouth away from her little sister’s ear, and moved up uncomfortably close to Lauren just as Celestia had done. But Luna did not break out into sobs or throw herself into embracing Lauren, simply looking on her with those big, dark eyes. 
Lauren tried to back up, but there was nothing but solid rock behind her.
“Is it…really you?” Luna inquired. 
“It is, though she herself doesn’t think so, just as I told you,” Celestia answered for Lauren. “Twilight and her friends have somehow found Mother, and I wish to hear all about where they found her and how they even found out about her in the first place, but before that we must remind Mother of who she is. Discord has done something to make her forget herself, and…us.”
“Forgive me if I am…uncertain of how to react…” Luna apologized to Lauren. “You see, I guess you remember no more than I do…but I was just a filly when you…were taken away. Celestia has told me so many stories about you. I look forward, so very, very much, to getting to know you as my big sister did…Mother.”
Lauren smiled uncertainly, not wanting to repeat that she was indeed no more Luna’s mother than she was Celestia’s. However, she was curious as to what Celestia wanted to show them. How in the worlds could Lauren be mistaken for the mother of two equine goddesses in a different universe? Whatever was going on, Lauren wanted to get to the bottom of it probably just as much as Twilight and the other ponies did. After all, if they were going to search for answers to the question of the First Ones, having the help of Equestria’s rulers would be very convenient, and it didn’t seem like they would receive that until this ‘Mother’ business had been sorted out.
Luna turned to Celestia, who nodded and spoke “Now I cannot stress enough how much Luna and I—how much all of Equestria—cannot allow for the information you all are about to see to get out. It could cause widespread panic, or worse. It is a riddle that has dumbfounded and inspired Luna and I for eons, and I couldn’t bear to think of the damage it would wreak on mortal minds if too many found out. I only allow you six and the…rabbit…in because I have known most of you well enough and long enough to entrust you with such a secret. I believe your minds will be able to handle it. However, Luna and I would not think any less of you should you decide not to enter with us, but I must insist that Mother sees what lies beyond this door we have kept hidden under the Canterlot palace all these many, long years.”
“Big sister?” Luna spoke up. “Maybe…maybe Twilight and her friends really should not be allowed to enter the Chamber at all. If not for the sake of the secret, for the sake of their mortal minds. I know you trust them and their ability to retain their sanity after all they’ve been through in defending our world, but perhaps even that might not prepare them for this.”
“…I see your wisdom, little sister,” Celestia agreed. “Perhaps it would be best if you and your friends waited for us out here, Twilight.”
“No,” Lauren spoke firmly, the team and the Princesses turning to her in surprise. Even Lauren herself was surprised to her herself speaking to two goddess rulers in such a commanding tone, but Lauren wasn’t about to forsake the company and support of her friends, even for a few moments. Celestia and Luna might not trust the ponies and Bugs, even if it was for their own  safety, but Lauren knew that the team had witnessed more in the past few days than even Celestia and Luna had witnessed in all their many millennia. They had seen other universes, witnessed the rift of nothingness, and been charged with saving all of reality itself. Lauren was confident that whatever secret the Princesses had in store couldn’t be any more daunting than what the team had already seen. She hoped.
Celestia seemed like she wanted to say something, but was silent and nodded. 
“As you wish, Mother,” Celestia bowed. Turning to the golden doors, Celestia inserted her glowing horn into the hole in the center of what looked like a large lock. With a click, the doors slid open and into the walls of the cave-like tunnel. Celestia led the group through into a large cavern the likes of which the team had never seen. It reminded Lauren much of the ancient caves of Earth that archaeologists got so excited about, as the large cavern was decorated from floor to ceiling with what looked to be extraordinarily old paintings.
“It looks just like the cave paintings at Mesopo-mane-ia,” Twilight breathed, noting what Lauren guessed was the Equestrian equivalent of the Earthly caves she had just thought of. “These must be hundreds of thousands upon hundreds of thousands of years old!”
“Oh, they’re a good deal older than that,” Luna smiled. “These are what you could call Celestia’s first hoof-paintings, back when she herself was just a filly. Some of these date to before I was even born.”
The other ponies looked awestruck by this, and Lauren could only imagine how long ago that must be in pony terms, let alone human ones.  
“But they are more than just paintings,” Celestia explained. “I infused within each one a magical recording, a sort of imprint of my memories so that I could relive and never forget the stories within them.”	
“What does this have to do with Lauren, though, yer majesty?” Applejack wondered.
“They’re all about Mother,” Celestia continued. “About the times we shared together, in the earliest days of Equestria, when the world didn’t even fully exist yet. These memories tell of the stories Mother told me, back in the beginning, of the times BEFORE the beginning. What you are all about to see is not only the dawn of Equestria, but what came before.”
“But that’s impossible!” Lauren blurted. “Nopony’s ever been able to witness the birth of  world, no matter how hard we’ve searched to find such an event. All the worlds the Animation Bureau ever discovered had already existed long before we ever got there!”
Celestia and Luna looked confused for a moment, unsure of what this ‘Animation Bureau’ was. But, chalking it up to another of whatever strange memories had been shoved into their ‘Mother’s’ head in place of her ‘real’ memories, the two Princesses walked towards the largest painting on the cave wall and touched it with their glowing horns.
“Brace yourselves,” Celestia warned. “Experiencing the stories Mother told us so long ago is not something that has ever been done by mortals. This may be…shocking.”
Twilight and the others gulped, though Bugs didn’t look all that nervous. Lauren guessed that as an inter-world businessman, there probably wasn’t a lot that Bugs hadn’t seen. Nevertheless, he did look quite curious as to how Lauren was tied up in this undiscovered world. 
The painting Celestia and Luna were facing was the largest in the room, and was nothing more than a spiral with all the colors of the rainbow swirling out from its bright white center. In fact, if Lauren looked closer, she could see... 
“…Is that…me?” Lauren inquired, squinting her eyes at the tiny white seven-pointed white star at the center of the rainbow explosion. Indeed, upon closer inspection, the team could see four legs, two wings, a singular-horned head, and a wild scarlet mane and tail as if the tiny image was leaping up for joy. 
“It is indeed, Mother,” Celestia smiled. “I drew that the day after you told me the story of Equestria’s beginning. I never thought I would one day be the one to tell you the story. Hopefully, this will make things clearer.”
“Hopefully,” Lauren agreed. Even if Lauren didn’t agree with Celestia’s conviction, she did want to get to the bottom of this.
Celestia and Luna’s horns glowed brighter as the two sisters trotted forward towards the picture, leaned down to touch it in the central image of Lauren, and then stepped back. The picture began to glow with a light of its own, the rainbow colors pulsating with vibrancy as the image of Lauren grew in luminosity to an almost blinding white shine. Suddenly wind began to emanate from the picture as well, starting as a gentle warm breeze and rising to a roaring hurricane-like blast. The team tried to hold their ground as the lights and winds whirled around them, but the force was almost like being in the void all over again. Lauren and the rest shielded their eyes, until a last burst of light and the roaring wind shook them all. 
“…Mommy?”
Lauren opened her eyes. The voice that had spoken was unmistakably Celestia’s, though it was younger, somehow. It had seen so little of the world, and was scared of it. Lauren looked around for the source of the noise—she appeared to be in a small forest clearing, and assumed that the others were somewhere nearby—and stepped through the nearby bushes to find a much younger Celestia looking up hopefully at a spitting image of Lauren. Lauren couldn’t believe it—even the virtual reality training simulators at the Bureau hadn’t been able to capture this level of detail, especially when it came to the mirror images of oneself that were sometimes encountered in the programs. What surprised Lauren even more, though, was the fact that she was here at all.
“Mommy, will you tell me a bedtime story?” the filly Celestia asked, nuzzling up against the larger alicorn. 
“Certainly, Celestia,” the other Lauren smiled. It was quite disconcerting to hear one’s voice saying something that one never remembered saying. “What would you like to hear? Another one of your father’s adventures?”
Father?
“Can I hear about something you did?” the filly inquired.
“Something I did,” the other Lauren mused, thinking. “I’ve got it! How about how Equestria was made?”
“Ooh, that sounds good!” the little Celestia lit up.
“Okay, then,” the other Lauren smiled, leaning down to touch her horn to Celestia’s. There was another blinding flash, and suddenly, there was the void. Not darkness, but nothingness, just like when the team had crossed the worlds unaided by a portal. Lauren looked around frantically, but calmed when she realized that there was no immediate danger—on top of this being nothing more than virtual reality, this was supposedly set long before the black hole anyway, so there was no danger of being sucked into it and ceasing to exist. The other Lauren’s voice could be heard, echoing through the void despite the fact that there was neither a medium for the sound to travel through nor anything for it to echo off of. “In the beginning, there was nothing.”
“Nothing?” little Celestia’s voice came through, in the same echoing way the other Lauren’s had. “Like the sky at nighttime?”
“No, little one,” the other Lauren explained. “The night is something; it is the call of the owl, the whisper of the wind, the twinkling of the stars. Nothingness is the absence of all these things and of all things in general. It was in this nothingness that the world was born. 
“In the beginning,” the other Lauren went on. “There was nothing. Then into this nothing came a weary traveler, lost and alone.”
A speck of white light came shining through the nothingness, and as it drew closer Lauren could see that it was herself, still in alicorn pony form. But unlike the first Lauren was now, slightly worried and utterly confused, this other Lauren looked as if she had lost everything. Her eyes were red with crying that had left them dry of tears. 
“This traveler had failed to save those she loved, had watched them all die in front of her eyes,” the other Lauren’s voice went on. “There was a time when other worlds existed outside of Equestria—and though they lived lonely existences unaware of each other, the time when they became connected heralded their end. A twisted, evil monster threw the Crux of Reality into a black hole of nothingness and, try as they might, the traveler and her friends had been unable to stop his scheme from coming to fruition. Though they traversed the worlds for the First Ones to try and stop this monster, all they found of the only entities capable of closing the black hole before Reality could be destroyed was a  group of beings who, with all their power, refused to help them and in fact welcomed the end.”
Lauren’s heart stopped just as cold as Celestia’s had when Lauren declared herself to not be the solar Princess’ Mother. She had…failed? They had all failed? They had all ceased to exist, except for her?! No, this couldn’t be—how could Celestia have known all this if it wasn’t somehow…true?
“With the erasure of the Crux of Reality, all the worlds everywhere disappeared, as if they had never even existed,” the other Lauren’s voice continued. “The traveler should have ceased to exist as well, but for some reason, she did not. The traveler, fatigued from flying through the endless nothingness for what could have been moments and could have been eons, was about to find out why she had been spared when all else never was.”
The first Lauren watched intently, desperate for answers, as the form of the other Lauren looked around, hoping to see something in this expanse of naught, though knowing that she never would, not ever again. 
But there!
Both Laurens turned their attentions to a sudden spark of light, bearing all the colors of the rainbow in a swirling explosion of brilliance. The other Lauren rushed to it, the first Lauren (who considered and hoped herself to be the real Lauren) continuing to watch from afar. 
Out from the rainbow came thick dark lines that twined and formed themselves into the outlines of geometric shapes, becoming more complex as they joined together until they formed a solid platform. The other Lauren gratefully landed on the first piece of solid matter she had likely seen in ages.
“Who…what are you?” the other Lauren asked the glowing rainbow. “And how do you still exist? How do I still exist, for that matter?”
“I am the force behind the Crux of Reality,” the rainbow spoke, colors churning in and out of themselves in a neon dance. “I am beyond space, time, and conventional existence. I was, am, and shall be the force behind every creation. 
“I am Imagination.”
“Imagination?” the other Lauren echoed.
“Indeed,” the phosphorescent sphere agreed. “I am dreams, I am the idea behind dreams, and I am the force behind the idea. Even you, Lauren Faust, are an idea of mine.”
“If you’re Imagination and the force behind existence, then why didn’t you save reality?” the other Lauren wondered, looking suspicious. “Why did you let everypony die?”
“They have not died,” Imagination explained. “Few things are as they seem, and even your own past and future are easily confused. Though all seems lost, Reality is far from dead, if only you can find the means to erase the eraser.”
“How can I stop someone who died long before reality went the same direction?” the other Lauren inquired angrily. “Look around you! There’s nowhere I can go from here!”
“That is where you are wrong,” Imagination replied. “Anything can be dreamt. It takes true will to bring dreams into reality. And when there is nothing left, there is nowhere to go but up. Consider this a second chance, Lauren Faust. I will grant you the resources of a single world to work with, and may you use them well to unravel my riddle. Erase the eraser and all of reality never having been will never have been itself. I have faith in you, Lauren Faust. After all, I always imagined you with determination and as refusal to give up, and what I imagine is law.”
“If you can create a world for me to use, then why can’t you just create them all again, just the way they were?” the other Lauren inquired.
“Because,” Imagination answered. “If you succeed, then all of Reality will have never ceased to exist. And the worlds will be better because of this struggle that, if you succeed, never happened. All things happen for a reason, Lauren Faust, including those that never did. If you save Reality from never existing now, you will save it from something far worse far down the road. You will save Reality from itself.”
Both Laurens looked like they couldn’t conceive how something could be worse than Reality ceasing to exist, but their current choices were obviously limited, and not doing as Imagination asked (even if they didn’t understand what it was asking) would probably result in Lauren flying through the void for all eternity. 
“Use this world well, Lauren Faust,” Imagination commanded. 
Imagination began to unwind itself, the curls of color lashing out into the void. Where the tentacles of luminescence touched, the nothingness was compressed and shaped and forced to become the opposite of what it was. From the nothing was made new Reality, the prima materia of a new existence. 
Both Laurens, the one watching from up close and the one watching from afar, looked on in awe as the impossible was wrought—but then again, nothing was impossible for the imagination, and Imagination itself was a hearty laugh at all that was impossible. The new pieces of Reality were woven together, increasing in size exponentially as they shot out in every direction, circling in and around each other. Large spheres of matter became clumped together to form rocks that grew into mountains, droplets of water exploded into rivers feeding giant oceans, and the barren lands between the two became covered in green grass and towering trees. The nothingness overhead became a mixture of blue and black studded with far off stars, night and day not yet separated but intertwined. 
Imagination set the platform the other Lauren was standing on down on the newly formed ground. The other alicorn stepped off of it in awe as beasts and birds came out of the woods springing up all around her, song filling the air as fish leapt out of the streams. A crackling, crunching sound caused the other Lauren to turn around and see the stone platform she had so far been standing on growing as well, sprouting spires and windows and walls and becoming a crenellated fortress.
“Consider this your new home, until you decipher the riddle,” Imagination said. “And do not bewail the loss of your friends. They shall come again, and will have never left at all, should you succeed. And I have faith that succeed you will, Lauren Faust.” 
“Thank you,” the other Lauren told Imagination. “Thank you for this chance, but…”
“But you will be lonely?” Imagination finished for her. “Fear not. There are sentient creatures being born of the nothingness all throughout the land. You will recognize them from what you consider to be your past, but in actuality is both your past and future. And though I know the one you love was lost in the end of Reality, he shall never truly leave you. Three times your love shall visit you in dreams, and three times you shall conceive a child by this dream, though I regret to say you will never be able to tell until you solve the riddle whether or not the lover in your dreams is real.
“While you solve the riddle and raise your young, you shall also rule over the sentient creatures of this land,” Imagination finished. “Guide them well, Lauren Faust. Teach them to be the opposite of everything you disliked in humanity.”
“So this is it then?” the other Lauren asked. “There’s no other way?”
“There is no better way,” Imagination replied. “All other ways, though I know you could not imagine them as being so, are far, far worse.”
And with that, a flash of light lit up the original Lauren’s vision, and it was over. The first Lauren was back in the clearing, watching the filly Celestia with dropping eyelids as she yawned, falling asleep beside the other Lauren.
“So you came from another world, Mommy?” the filly Celestia asked, fighting to stay awake.
“I did indeed, Celestia,” the other Lauren answered, nuzzling her child. “Maybe I’ll to you about it someday. But for now, sleep. More stories will come soon.”
The filly Celestia complied, and another flash of light obscured the original Lauren’s vision.
Lauren was back in the cave. Bugs and the ponies were wiping spots from their eyes and shaking their heads as if they had just awoken from along sleep. Celestia and Luna were smiling hopefully at Lauren.
“Do you remember now, Mother?” Celestia asked. 
Lauren’s eyes simply filled with tears. 
“She does remember!” Luna exclaimed happily, mistaking Lauren’s emotions.
“No, I do not remember,” Lauren cut the Princesses’ hopes to pieces. “But I have a feeling that I will in the future. Everything we just saw describes in the past tense what we were planning on doing in the near future. When we crashed in Equestria, we were looking for the First Ones so that we could get them to save Reality—even as we speak, there is a black hole caused by the monster from that story that threatens to eat the Crux of Reality and erase all worlds everywhere from existence. From the sounds of this story, we failed. And all of my friends…”
Lauren couldn’t bring herself to say that her friends would all be erased from existence because of her failure. 
“You mean…everything in that ancient story hasn’t come to pass yet?” Celestia inquired. “How? You must tell me everything!”
Twilight stepped forward to explain everything that had happened to them so far. Celestia and Luna listened with rapt attention as Lauren thought desperately to make sense of things. The new alicorn trotted around the cave as she did so, looking up at the other paintings, hoping to find some meaning there.
After Twilight had finished explaining, Celestia notices Lauren looking at some of her other artworks and said “Those were all painted after this story. I was never told about anything before that. The rest of these paintings tell tales of the adventures of Father, who Luna and I were told only visited in dreams as he was so very far away, and the earliest exploits of the world before Luna and I were born.”
“How did I leave Equestria?” Lauren asked. “Or…how WILL I leave Equestria?”
“Lauren, you can’t think these things are set in stone!” Twilight spoke up. “You can’t think that we’ll fail and…cease to be…just because the cave-painting of a three-year-old filly said so! No offense, Princess Celestia.”
“None taken, Twilight Sparkle,” Celestia assured. “From what you have all told me, I hope that I am indeed wrong about the past…er, coming?...events. Though I must admit that I am not sure how the timeline is as you say it to be—how can the past speak of what you say will be the future?”
“That’s what I’m wondering too,” Lauren answered. “So how did I leave Equestria, in your memory?”
“I mean, there has to be a way to change the future—or past—right?” Celestia insisted, though all present could see she was trying to assure herself most of all. “You can save Reality and still be our Mother, can’t you?”
“Celestia!” Lauren growled. The solar Princess shrank back in fear. Lauren, softening, said “Stop avoiding the question. How do you remember me leaving Equestria?”
“It was…Discord,” Celestia answered, though it was clear that to do so she had to bring up painful memories. “He came to Equestria a long time ago, from somewhere else. We don’t know where, or how, what with all the other worlds being destroyed in the cataclysm you told us about, Mother. Discord tried to foster in ponies the qualities that you, Mother, tried to eliminate with love and kindness. Discord brought about and loved disharmony and chaos, self-preservation and the exploitation of others. The day Discord came you flew out to confront him, Mother, and he, well, he…Discord killed you.”
Everyone present, except Lauren, who had been expecting such a thing, gasped. 
“With your dying breath, Mother, you told us that Imagination had sent you a vision of this long ago, and that it was time for you to leave,” Celestia went on. “I guess that vision was what you just witnessed. But you also said that we would see you again someday…I surmise that this is what you meant by that, that we would not see you in our future, but in your past.”
“But how could Discord kill Lauren?”  Twilight asked. “She’s immortal just like you are! And how could you defeat Discord when she couldn’t?!”
“We weren’t sure of that ourselves,” Celestia answered. “You see, there was no body left behind—Mother, beaten and bruised, simply faded away as we watched. With her final words, Mother told us of the Elements of Harmony, which she said Imagination was even then creating to help us defeat Discord as the new rulers of Equestria. Imagination had hidden the Elements throughout the land lest they fall into Discord’s claws, and so Luna and I searched for them while Discord ruled the world with chaos. At last we found them and turned Discord to stone, but we never heard from Mother again…until now.”
“So that’s it, then?” Lauren spat to no one in particular. “We all fail and die? Reality is never saved?”
“That can’t be, Lauren!” Twilight urged. “If we failed, then how did Equestria come to exist in the past with all these other worlds if it was supposed to have been created after they all vanished?”
“You’re right…” Lauren realized. “That doesn’t fit in with the rest of the story. Something’s wrong here." 
“Maybe the future really isn’t set in stone,” Celestia hypothesized. “Maybe you can all change it for the better—maybe you can get the First Ones to save Reality and stop everypony’s deaths after all.”
“Yeah,” Lauren agreed. “We can’t give up now, after all we’ve gone through! We’ve seen impossible things happen before, there’s nothing to say we can’t pull a few new ones off again!”
The rest of the ponies and Bugs agreed with a unanimous hearty yell of approval. 
“Just one more thing,” Lauren said, turning to the team. “After we do find out about these First Ones in the Canterlot Archives like Twilight suggested, how do we leave this world to search for them without any portals? This is an undiscovered world, and the only portal leading away from it is to the Animation Bureau on Earth—and that portal was fried when the Bureau’s central system went down. We don’t just have to find out about these First Ones—we have to find out about how to escape this universe!”
. . .