Chapter 19 – The Aftermath
Shining Armor wasn’t sure what to feel as he stood at the top of the hill, gazing at the distant Crystal Empire. It had been home for so long now, and seeing it in its current state was hard to accept. Fires were still visible here and there, and many of the buildings were severely damaged. A few minutes ago the palace had finally given way and collapsed to the ground, and the lack of a focal point in the centre of the city made the entire empire look smaller somehow.
But of course, the strangest and worst part was the thick mist that was now swarming through the streets. They had managed to efficiently evacuate everypony once it became obvious they had no other option, but Shining had already been asked a few times when they would be able to return and he had no answer. When would they be able to return? They had no clue what could get rid of the Infection, and while it was there the empire was lost to them. So much for their successful battle.
He ducked back into the nearest tent and examined the battered pink alicorn sprawled on the bed inside. It was just as painful a sight. Almost her entire skin was bruised and there were many deep gashes, some of which had been ridiculously close to severing major arteries. Shining shuddered to think how close he must have been to losing his wife on multiple occasions in the last few hours, and there would have been nothing he could do about it. He should never have let her out of his sight.
“Is it really that bad?” croaked Cadance as she wearily opened her eyes.
“You should get more sleep,” Shining instructed as sternly as he could, but after noticing the determination in her expression he already knew it was a lost cause.
“Later,” she replied, and shifted her hooves around to step out of bed.
Shining Armor instinctively lunged forward to catch her, but Cadance did not even stumble.
“Alicorns heal fast,” she commented, as much to herself as to her husband. She then turned to him with sadness in her eyes. “So we’ve really lost it? The empire?”
He nodded and gestured towards the flaps at the entrance of the tent. The two of them stepped into the sunlight, which was a lot dimmer now and more indicative of the actual time of day, and gazed at the distant buildings in silence for a few minutes.
“And the heart?” Cadance prompted. “Is it really…” She trailed off, as if avoiding speaking the words could reverse what had happened.
“It’s gone,” Shining muttered dully. “After evacuating I went back to look for fragments, but even they had vanished.”
“And our ponies?”
“Look for yourself,” Shining said, gesturing to some of the other hills nearby.
As the city had been evacuated, the hundreds of crystal ponies had gathered in groups and were now milling around aimlessly. Tents had been set up to tend to the wounded, but everypony else, civilian and guardspony alike, were doing nothing. Very few were even speaking to each other, and some looked so dazed that Shining got the impression they would need to be reminded that they still needed to eat and drink.
“They all look so… so lifeless,” Cadance sobbed, and Shining nuzzled up against her. She was right, not just because of how absently the crystal ponies were acting, but also because of their appearance. Before, a crystal pony could be identified by its multi-faceted body, and its shiny colouration compared to other ponies. Now they were amongst the dullest coloured ponies he had ever seen.
He noticed then that all of the non-crystal ponies who had been in the empire, including some of the guardsponies, were in a separate group off to one side. He didn’t blame them. Having interacted with some of the crystal ponies himself, he knew it was slightly unnerving.
“They’re not as bad as they look,” he assured his wife. “I’ve talked to some of them, and some have talked to me, and they seem okay. Their personalities are still there, and I even managed to make a few laugh. I think they’re in shock, and they’ve just lost a sense of purpose.”
“They’ve lost their home.”
Shining Armor sighed and nuzzled his wife again. “We all have.”
“Where’s Celestia?” Cadance asked abruptly.
Shining shrugged. “She left. I think she returned to Canterlot. She didn’t say a word.”
“Figures.” Cadance glanced up at the sun. “And Twilight?”
“She and her friends are just over there.” He pointed to a solitary tree nearby, under which three mares were stood, looking just as lifeless as the crystal ponies. “I thought I’d leave them to themselves for a while, but there’re things that need to be discussed and now that you’re awake I think this might be a good time.”
Cadance nodded, and the two slowly walked towards the tree. Only when they were within spitting distance did Twilight’s ears perk up and she looked over and noticed their approach. She stepped towards them and opened her mouth as if to speak, but Shining interrupted her by wrapping her in hug. After a few moments he could feel his sister’s body shaking, and a dampness started to spread across his shoulder. He didn’t let go.
“I just… I just can’t believe she’s gone…” Twilight sobbed into his shoulder. “Just… just like that.”
Shining had no idea what to say, so he just stroked his sister’s back as comfortingly as he could. If he wasn’t careful his own eyes were going to well up, and he didn’t want that. Not while he had to be strong and in charge.
Over Twilight’s shoulder Shining could hear Cadance speaking with the other two mares, and didn’t pay attention to the words until he heard her ask about the fillies who had arrived on the battlefield. Only then did he and Twilight break apart, although she remained pressed up to his side.
“They’re sleeping in that tent there,” Pinkie mumbled, although her voice was so hollow Shining did not immediately realise it was her that had spoken. The energy he would usually associate with the pink mare was gone from both her voice and appearance, and even her hair was falling limply on either side of her face.
“How have they all taken it?” Cadance asked.
“Since Sweetie Belle regained consciousness she’s been acting almost normal,” Pinkie relayed dully. “I don’t know if that’s good or not. I eventually persuaded Scootaloo that it was okay to show her emotions and we had a good cry. She went to sleep pretty quickly after that. Spike curled up and pretended to be asleep for a long time, but I think he’s actually asleep now. And Apple Bloom has just been keeping to herself. I tried talking to her but I don’t think she listened. We left her in the hope that she’d get some sleep too.”
“She wouldn’t even respond to me!” Applejack grunted, smacking her hoof against the trunk of the tree and causing it to rattle wildly. “Ah don’t know what to do to help her.”
“I am glad to hear that they’re all getting rest, at any rate,” Cadance said calmly. Shining recognised the tone of her voice however, and knew she was forcing herself to hold back emotions of her own. He would have gone over to her, but Twilight was still pressed up against him for comfort, and he didn’t want to leave her alone just yet.
A fluttering sound from beside them heralded the arrival of Spitfire as she flew over and landed on the other side of Shining Armor. She was still wearing the remnants of her Wonderbolt flight-suit, although it was so charred and tattered as to be unrecognisable. Shining absently wondered how often she had to replace it.
Spitfire nodded to the two princesses and then addressed Shining Armor. “A word?” she muttered, gesturing away from the group.
Realising what was needed, Twilight extracted herself from her brother’s side and walked over to stand with Cadance instead. Shining then followed Spitfire down the hill a little, so that they would be able to speak without the others overhearing. As soon as they stopped, Spitfire rounded on him.
“How much have I not been told?” she hissed, fury in her eyes as her mane started to glow dangerously. “In the middle of that battle I saw two Applejacks. Two.” She pointed towards the orange mare in question, as if Shining Armor would not understand otherwise. “One of them was definitely older than the other,” she continued, “so that confirms to me that there’s something time travel related going on. I should have been one of the first to know about this.”
Shining raised a hoof in an attempt to placate the Wonderbolts captain. “In all honesty, I don’t fully understand the situation either. I do know that Twilight didn’t think it was necessary for the details to be widespread though.”
“Maybe not, but at the very least it would have been helpful to know that there was a chance Princess Celestia would come screaming in like a derailed train.”
“I’m sorry,” Shining replied, with genuine feeling. “And I definitely think we need to have a meeting about this whole situation. But not here, and not now. We should congregate in Canterlot this evening, after everypony has rested.”
Spitfire nodded, pacified for now. Shining knew her well enough to know that she was difficult to calm down once she was riled up, and after an intense battle it was no surprise that her adrenaline was pumping, but she would be back to her usual composed self after a good sleep. They all would. And she and the Wonderbolts would be a huge help in any future conflicts.
As the two of them stepped back towards the other four mares, another pegasus flew down from the sky, this one a sky blue colour with a wispy white mane. She landed in the centre of the group and bowed almost immediately.
“Your majesties,” she said, and then turned to Spitfire and saluted. “Ma’am.”
Spitfire rolled her eyes at the formality. “What is it, Fleetfoot?”
Fleetfoot stood to attention. “I have bad news I’m afraid,” she announced, loud enough that everypony could hear her. “Rainbow Dash is dead.”
The stunned silence that followed was broken only by a hollow “What?” from the Wonderbolts captain.
“I witnessed her being attacked by Shards and overwhelmed,” Fleetfoot explained. “They left only a pile of fragments. She’s gone.”
Twilight collapsed to the ground, and a loud crack echoed across the hills as an orange hoof broke straight through the bark of the tree and embedded itself into the trunk, not that Applejack seemed to care. Pinkie just stood with wide eyes, lip wobbling.
“I’m sorry,” Fleetfoot muttered, spreading her wings. “Excuse me.” She then lifted off and disappeared into the distance. As she left, Spitfire turned back to Shining Armor with fury in her eyes again.
“We need that meeting,” she hissed. “This is war.”
Shining merely nodded.
---
A pale yellow pegasus opened her eyes. A large white blur was visible a distance above her. That must be a ceiling. At either edge of her field of view were white walls and strange grey square shapes in front of them, with the occasional flashing light. She couldn’t understand what they might be. At the bottom of her vision there was another white blur covering her body, presumably a sheet, and she realised she was lying on some sort of raised surface. Perhaps a bed?
At the end of the possible bed were three further shapes: one a stony grey, one a bright pink, and one a dull white. The pegasus squinted to try and identify further details, but that only caused the scene to blur further. She then attempted to move, but her body lay limp, resolutely ignoring her. The effort knocked all energy from her and her vision almost faded completely.
“She’s awake,” said the stony grey shape. The pegasus heard the sounds, but the words were meaningless to her. Was she supposed to understand?
“She doesn’t look very awake,” said the dull white shape. “Can you hear me Floaty?”
The yellow pegasus let the sounds wash over her. The noises were at once familiar and foreign.
“She can hear you,” said Stony Grey. “I think so anyway. I don’t know if she can understand though.”
“What!? You said you could save her!” accused Dull White.
“I have.”
“Really? Because that looks like a coma to me.”
“Will she live?” asked Bright Pink quietly.
“Yes.”
“Then you have saved her. Thank you Maud.”
“Yeah… I suppose so,” muttered Dull White. “But is she going to get better?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know?”
“No. Her Infection is different from the others. I’ve been able to stop its spread, but I can’t reverse it. And I don’t know what’s actually wrong with her. I will do all I can, but she may never fully recover.”
A sob came from the direction of Bright Pink. The pale yellow pegasus may not have understood the words being spoken, but that sound meant something. It made her… sad.
There was a creak and some stepping sounds and another shape came into view, this one a warm orange.
“How is she?” the new shape choked.
“Not good.”
Silence.
“Ah… Ah hear you saved her from gettin’ fully infected,” said the warm orange shape as it moved towards the dull white one. “Th… Thank you,” Warm Orange sniffed. “Thank you so much.”
“It wasn’t enough to save her completely,” grunted Dull White. “I could have been with her from the beginning.”
“It weren’t your fault.”
“I know,” the dull white shape muttered, moving in and out of the pegasus’ field of vision. “It was her own fault! So stupid, what was she thinking…”
“Whoa now. Sometimes these things happen.”
“Well they shouldn’t!” snapped Dull White.
There were a few moments of tense silence, and then the warm orange shape moved over to between the stony grey and bright pink shapes.
“Everypony’s meetin’ now,” said Warm Orange. “Celestia’s here too. We should join them.”
“I’ll watch her while you’re gone,” Dull White said quickly.
“…fine. We’ll be upstairs if anythin’ happens.”
The pegasus watched as the colourful shapes slowly faded away until only the dull white shape remained. Then the shape moved closer and closer until something brushed against her cheek.
“Stay with me, Fluttershy.”
A shock seemed to run through the pegasus’ body as a word finally registered with her: Fluttershy. Fluttershy.
She felt as though that should mean something.
---
The ‘Crisis Room’ in Canterlot Castle was outdoing itself. With the arrival of Applejack, Pinkie and Maud, there were now eleven ponies gathered around the central table, which had been magically elongated to account for all of them. Celestia was unsurprisingly seated at the head of the table, directly opposite from Twilight, but she was acting unusually reserved and was still giving off an intimidating vibe, so nopony was sat near her, giving the impression that the white alicorn was toxic. She had already been seated when Twilight had arrived, and had not said a word the whole time.
Nearest to Celestia on her left was Prince Blueblood, who had an unreadable expression. Twilight had to admit that she did not know the prince very well, other than through potentially biased stories from… from Rarity… and she wasn’t sure what to make of him. He had equally not said a word, but he had nodded enthusiastically on occasion. She cynically wondered if he was barely paying attention. Next to him was the only pony at the table Twilight had not met before, or at least, she did not recognise him. He was a black coated unicorn named Falchion with a crossed pen and sword for a cutie-mark, and he was apparently the current captain of the Canterlot Royal Guard. Ever since the discussions had started, he had been diligently jotting down notes in an extensive notepad that he appeared to carry at all times.
The others at the table were Spitfire, Cadance, Shining Armor, and Jade Softhoof, who was the only crystal pony present. Twilight still found it unsettling to look at the aftereffects of the crystal heart’s destruction. She didn’t think she would ever get used to the dull colouring every crystal pony now had, which was such a horrendous contrast to their attractive coats before. Fortunately, Jade otherwise seemed unaffected, and was looking as determined as ever, if not more so.
Twilight was already making theories. Unlike many other crystal ponies, Jade had a purpose, a focus. Perhaps it was that which was enabling her to avoid the lifelessness of most of the rest of her kind. It was a shame that the only books that would give Twilight more details on the nature of the crystal ponies and the crystal heart were now lost in the run-down and Infection-swamped Crystal Empire. It wasn’t a topic that anypony was discussing out loud either, at least not while Celestia was in earshot. Nopony wanted to sound like they blamed her for it, although Twilight felt that secretly everypony probably did.
“And do we think that all of these future-ponies have come and gone now?” Spitfire asked.
The Wonderbolts captain had been the most vocal pony at the table by far, which had initially been a surprise to Twilight. She had asked many useful (and some not-so-useful) questions, and was generally proving to be a very useful pony to have there, if only because nopony was actually leading the meeting otherwise. If Twilight had been in the right frame of mind she might have found the discussions stimulating, but despite the importance of this meeting, she kept getting distracted onto thinking about other topics, such as the effects of the crystal heart. Anything to avoid her thinking about those she had so recently lost.
“Princess Twilight?” Spitfire prompted, causing Twilight to jump in her seat. Of course, she would be the only one who could answer Spitfire’s most recent question.
“Oh, err, will there be more future-ponies? Um… Possibly,” she responded weakly. “I have a spell that can detect the signature of the time magic that is being used to send them back, and so I can identify when any will arrive. Currently I can’t locate any disturbances, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be more later, arriving weeks or months after the others. As I said before, I still have no idea what sort of spell could be sending them back in time in the first place.”
“So does this mean that we have effectively learned all we can from them?”
“I suppose so.”
Spitfire rubbed her forehead. “So let me get this straight. We had the unprecedented benefit of advance warning of some of the events that were going to occur, and with that knowledge we’ve succeeded in, if you’ll excuse my bluntness, losing one princess, giving up the entire Crystal Empire, and decimating the Elements of Harmony?”
“Actually,” interjected Falchion in a rather nasally voice, “decimate means ‘to reduce by one tenth’. You doubtless meant ‘tertiate’.”
“What I meant,” Spitfire said with a scowl, “is that two of them are dead and a third is in a coma.”
“Don’t talk about them like that!” Pinkie shouted, springing to her hooves.
“Like what?” Spitfire snapped impatiently.
“Like they were just tools. They were ponies. Real ponies. Really amazing ponies.”
Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as she saw Spitfire’s mane starting to flicker in frustration, but then a movement from Shining Armor next to the fiery pegasus seemed to bring her back to her senses and she calmed down almost instantly.
“I know. Believe me I know.” Spitfire sighed. “They weren’t the only casualties though. I lost plenty of friends last night, but I know I can’t get hung up on that now. As heartless as it may seem, you need to accept that Rainbow Dash and Rarity are gone and get past it, at least for the moment. We can mourn them later.”
“But that’s the other thing,” Pinkie continued adamantly. “I don’t believe Rainbow Dash is dead.”
“Now come on Pinkie,” Applejack urged, trying to wrap a comforting leg around the pink mare, but she jumped out of the way.
“Nu-uh. I don’t believe it.”
“Are you accusing Fleetfoot of lying to me?” Spitfire asked indignantly. “Because I trust my Wonderbolts.”
“I don’t know, maybe she was confused. But Rainbow Dash isn’t dead! I would know if she was. I would have sensed it.”
There was silence in the room for a few moments, and then Spitfire turned to Twilight in disbelief.
”Is she serious?” she asked, sounding exasperated.
Twilight groaned. “Pinkie, I thought we decided that your Pinkie Sense was broken.”
“No, I figured it out, it’s still working, and I-”
“Pinkie Pie.”
Pinkie immediately stopped talking and turned to her sister, who was looking at her with warning in her eyes.
“Not now.”
Pinkie Pie nodded obediently, and then slunk back into her seat with a morose expression. “I still think I’m right though,” she grunted under her breath.
“Actually, I’d be quite interested to hear about this so-called ‘Pinkie Sense’,” Falchion said keenly, pen ready.
“No you wouldn’t,” Twilight and Applejack said together.
Before anypony else could speak up, a chair suddenly appeared in the air above the table and floated its way over to the empty gap at Celestia’s right. It then transformed into an ornate throne with draconequus busts at the end of each arm, at which point Twilight heard a gentle groan from Applejack beside her.
When Discord did then appear with a pop, about half of the ponies at the table jumped to their hooves instinctively, clearly ready for some sort of confrontation. One word from Celestia however, the first she had spoken throughout their entire meeting, sent everypony back to their seats.
“Sit.”
Discord also obeyed, settling in the throne he had just created and wrapping an arm around the white alicorn. With a yelp he quickly withdrew it, as if contact with Celestia’s skin had seared him.
“Ouch. Looks like somepony got out of the wrong side of bed this morning. Or should I say, rose the sun on the wrong side of Equestria, hmm? That made a nice change. I’m so proud of you, my sweet Celestia, I didn’t think you had it in you to do something so unconventional!”
“What in blazes are you doin’ here?” Applejack asked grumpily.
“Frankly I’m insulted I wasn’t invited,” he muttered, inspecting the back of his paw. “A gathering of the finest minds in Equestria and you didn’t think of me?”
“That’s because we don’t trust you,” Applejack stated simply, to nods from many ponies around the table, including Prince Blueblood who Twilight noticed had shifted back from the table to get as far away from Discord as he could.
“Whyever not? I have to be the most trustworthy draconequus you know, surely. And if you cut me in half,” he began, grabbing his waist and pulling so that he split himself in two, “you’ll see that I have the word ‘trustworthy’ right through the middle.” He then rotated the top half of his body so that they would be staring at his severed organs. Only they weren’t, because he appeared to be made out of candy, and there were indeed the letters of the word ‘trustworthy’ running around his core.
“You brought mah sister into a BATTLEFIELD,” Applejack shouted, slamming a hoof against the table. “And not just her! ‘Cause of you Sweetie Belle had to see her own sister bein’…” Applejack choked. “Bein’ killed. Her own sister! I can’t think of a worse thing to happen to a growin’ filly.”
Discord’s usually relaxed attitude had gone, and he snapped back together with a frown. “Rarity is… dead?” He clicked his fingers and nothing happened, at which point he slumped in his seat.
“Not just Rarity,” Applejack continued, her eyes now red. “Rainbow Dash too, and-”
“Where’s Fluttershy?” Discord interrupted, looking around wildly.
“Downstairs,” Maud said simply.
With a pop Discord vanished. After a few moments Twilight had just opened her mouth to speak when there was another pop and she found herself slammed against the wall behind her, a claw around her neck.
“You said she’d be safe,” Discord hissed into her ear. “You promised.”
Twilight could hear shocked shouts from the table and the scraping of chairs, but Discord was completely blocking her view.
“What do you mean?” she grunted, as the grip around her neck tightened. “I would have helped her if I could, but I never prom-”
A final pop and Twilight was sprawled on the ground, with Discord gone. The other ponies in the room all looked at her in concern as she sat there gasping for breath, but after Twilight determined that she hadn’t been actually injured, she got up and sat back down at the table as though nothing had happened. She had no idea where Discord might have gone, but it wasn’t as if they could stop him from doing what he wanted anyway. Better to continue regardless.
“As Spitfire was saying,” she began, which was enough to draw the other ponies back to the matter at hoof, “we have suffered a lot due to the Infection and the Shards already, and with very little to show for it. I will be the first to admit that we, and particularly I, could perhaps have done better, but our biggest problem was that we did not understand our threat.”
“We did at least kill Black Fractal,” Jade pointed out. “Or, well,” she turned nervously to Princess Celestia and bowed her head. “You did, your majesty.” Celestia locked eyes with Jade but did not otherwise react.
Twilight grimaced, but it was Cadance that spoke up first.
“Actually, we’re not sure that’s true. Every other Shard has been able to replicate itself indefinitely, as far as we can tell, and although there was something special about Black Fractal, possibly due to her being an alicorn, there’s no way of guaranteeing that the Infection won’t be able to recreate her too. There might be another one out there already.”
Jade groaned and slumped her head to the table. “So we really have achieved nothing?”
“Not nothing,” Spitfire said, eyes ablaze. “We have proved that we can fight, and we have learned what we’re up against. Next time we will be ready. And there will be a next time.” She turned to Shining Armor who was seated next to her. “Shining and I were talking earlier, and we think there should be an army created for the sole purpose of taking on the Shards. We know better than ever how to attack them now, and it would be short-sighted to rely on only guardsponies in the future.”
Shining cleared his throat. “The word ‘army’ was yours, Spitfire, not mine. I think it should be a defensive force more than anything else.”
“Well you would think that…” Spitfire muttered under her breath.
“Yes, I would,” Shining responded, unrepentant. “The way I see it, we know that the Infection is spreading, and we still have no way of eliminating it. We cannot afford to leave any city undefended, not even those in the south of Equestria. Who knows? Perhaps some Shards will be able to find their way to Las Pegasus somehow. The important thing is that we have ponies all across Equestria ready to defend their cities in case Shards come attacking.”
Twilight didn’t say anything, instead turning to share a glance with Applejack. They had never actually discussed all of the details they had learned about the future with Shining Armor, certainly never mentioning the EDF to him as far as Twilight could remember, and yet it appeared as if he was concluding that exactly the same force was necessary now as he had in that future too.
“Any idea what you might call this military?” Applejack asked innocently.
“The Equestrian Defence Force maybe?” Shining suggested with a shrug. “It doesn’t really matter. I did have an idea though,” he added, shifting in his seat somewhat awkwardly, “that its sigil could be a shield with a crescent moon inscribed in it. You know, in memory of Luna.”
As Cadance nuzzled up to her husband, Twilight couldn’t help but shake her head.
“I don’t believe this,” she muttered. “You’re suggesting exactly the same defence force as existed in the future that those ponies came back from.”
“Really?”
“Yes, name and everything. The EDF was a force with regiments in each city, each with their own captain, whose main role was to defend each region from the threat of Shards.”
Shining and Spitfire glanced at each other thoughtfully.
“A regiment in every city with a captain each is a nice idea,” Spitfire said appreciatively, nodding her head.
“No!” Twilight groaned. “The whole point is we need to change that future, not do things the same way!”
“Well it is a good idea,” Shining repeated. “We’ll just have to do it better this time.”
“Actually Twi,” Applejack said cautiously, “speakin’ of changing the future, there was somethin’ my future self said that might be real important.”
“Oh?”
Applejack hesitated. “See, she said she knew she’d be comin’ back into the battle and meeting me, ‘cause she remembered it from when she was me. Now I may not be smart at these things, but don’t that mean that I’ll become her?”
Everypony in the room was looking between Twilight and Applejack now, although to what level they each understood the discussion Twilight was not sure.
“And also,” Applejack continued. “Back when I was talkin’ to Blue Viper, amidst all his jabbering he mentioned that the Shards were led by an alicorn Shard leader. But Black Fractal only exists because a pony who came back in time infected Luna. It’s like the future created itself…”
Twilight closed her eyes as this new information sunk in. She could hear Jade say: “What does that mean? I don’t follow.” But the silence from everypony else was more telling. They were all smart ponies here; were they all working it out too? Twilight opened her eyes and scanned around the table as she thought back to everything she had learned about the ‘bad’ future.
In the future the Crystal Empire had been attacked by a Shard army and had to be abandoned. That had now happened. In the future the crystal ponies had been forced to relocate to other cities. That would undoubtedly also happen. In the future a defence force had been set up to counter the Shards. Listening to Spitfire and her brother talking, it sounded like that would happen too.
In the future, Luna had been dead and there had been an alicorn Shard. That had happened. In the future there had been a Princess Pie. That had not yet happened, but looking around the table it was not hard to guess how it might. One of the future-ponies had even mentioned ‘royal sisters’ in the future, which until now she had assumed must refer to Celestia and Luna, but what were she and Cadance if not also royal sisters?
In fact, even the deaths of Rarity and Rainbow Dash fitted with everything she knew about that future. Hadn’t Trixie even hinted that Rarity was dead? Twilight hadn’t noticed at the time, but in hindsight it all seemed so obvious.
Unable to help herself, Twilight started laughing. There was no humour in it.
“We haven’t been able to change the future,” she explained, “because we can’t. Everything we do is only making the future happen. It is inevitable.”
“No.”
Twilight turned in surprise to Celestia, who was staring back at her intensely.
“No,” Celestia repeated. “I will not believe that Equestria is doomed. I will not believe that nothing can be changed.” Her eyes filled with flames. “I will not believe that all those ponies sent back in time are destined to die in exactly the same way. I will not believe that my sister died for nothing.” The sun princess’ mane was beginning to flare around her head, rippling with power as she continued to speak. “I will NOT believe it!” Her voice dropped to a growl. “I cannot.”
Twilight was feeling hysterical at this point. “Well I’m sorry Celestia, but it’s true no matter what you believe. Didn’t you say I was the most qualified to determine what could be done?” She got to her hooves and stared down her one-time mentor. “Well it’s over. I’ve worked it out. We can do nothing.”
“No.”
“Ha! What do you mean, ‘no’? Maybe once I believed you were powerful enough to change the world by speaking, but it’s time for you to face the facts. Every word I’ve heard from the ponies from the future, ever since I met Trixie in the streets of this city a couple of weeks ago, has shown that the future is unavoidable, and that it cannot be changed.”
Celestia stared without speaking for a moment, and then got to her own hooves to mirror Twilight, leaving the two alicorns standing facing each other at either end of the long table. The other ponies glanced between the two with nervous expressions, clearly not sure whether they should interfere.
“Who was that pony you just mentioned?” Celestia asked quietly. “The one who, according to you, is destined to one day be sent back in time and meet you here in Canterlot?”
“Trixie,” Twilight answered, somewhat taken aback by the change of topic. “You remember her? That showmare I told you about who used the Alicorn Amulet to take over Ponyville that one time. Why?”
Celestia didn’t answer, instead ducking her head and charging magic into her horn. Whatever the spell was, it was clearly taking a lot of power, and after a few moments there was a bright flash and an azure unicorn appeared in the air above the centre of the table, falling onto her face with a crunch.
“What is the meaning of this?” The new arrival bellowed, pulling herself stiffly to her hooves. “The Great and Powerful Trixie is not to be summoned like a- oh!” She looked around in horror as she realised where she had just appeared, spotting the abundance of Equestrian royalty around her, and slumped back to the table, as if unsure which direction to bow first.
“Your majesties,” she gasped. “Trixie is sorry for her rudeness. She would never have dreamed that one day she might be deemed worthy of an audience with you all! Or, well, she had dreamed, but she never expected to-”
Her rambling was cut off as a golden glow appeared around her and she was lifted off the table. The confused ponies in the room stared transfixed as Trixie wriggled in the air, but it was only when small wisps of smoke started to rise from her body that Twilight’s brain started to click again and she realised what was about to happen.
Before Twilight was able to react, a blinding white light burst from the end of Celestia’s horn and at the same instant a giant white flame enveloped Trixie completely. There was barely time for a screech of pain, and within seconds the flame burnt out and a pile of charred flesh and bones fell to the table.
As one, the gathered ponies pushed their chairs back in horror. Twilight could hear Pinkie retching beside her, and out of the corner of her eye she saw Prince Blueblood throwing up at the edge of the room. Pulling her gaze away from the horrifying burnt corpse, Twilight stared into Celestia’s eyes to see them blazing and filled with triumph.
“What do you say to that, Twilight Sparkle?” she hooted. “Have I not just changed the future? Have I not just proved you wrong?”
Twilight opened and closed her mouth a few times, but no words came out. She could not believe what had just happened.
As Celestia continued to stare at her one-time student, her expression of triumph slowly faded. The fire in her eyes vanished, and her pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks. She then slowly looked down at what she had done, as her mouth hung open blankly.
“I… I can’t…”
She closed her eyes and swallowed, and then opened them with a resigned expression.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
There was silence in the room as Celestia looked out of a nearby window, and then she turned back to the gathered ponies.
“I’m sorry,” Celestia whispered. She looked between the two other alicorns in the room. “Princess Cadance. Princess Twilight. You will rule Equestria well.”
Without warning a huge beam of sunlight then shone through the window, landing on Celestia and causing her skin to glow. Before their eyes a flare surrounded the white alicorn, and with a gasp of pain her body dissipated into the light. The sunlight then faded, leaving an empty seat at the head of the table.
Nopony spoke for a long time.