The Mane Six watched intently from the crowd as Xlestia was giving her grand speech, calling her ponies to action to save humanity. "Even now, the Barrier continues to advance across Earth, driving the humans back further and further, until there will be nowhere left for them to go. We shall not let that come to pass!"
The crowd of ponies roared in agreement.
"The Barrier cannot be slowed or stopped, but there is a way it can be survived: we must convert the humans into a form the Barrier leaves alone. We must save the humans in the only form they can be saved: as ponies!"
The crowd, who had been expecting something different, came alive with frantic whispers. Twilight herself didn't know what to think. Sure, it was better than letting them die; but if somepony had told her that pony-pox had become so lethal the only hope of survival was to become a dragon, she would hardly be impressed. Was this really the best option? The Princess wouldn't have picked this course unless she was sure, but -
Twilight Woke Up.
To someone unfamiliar with the process, that might sound strange, but to a Looper it was a fact of life. An untold number of iterations of life in Ponyville - most the same, some different - dumped their memories into Twilight's head in the space between one instant and the next.
Ughh... that never feels normal, no matter how many times I do it. Now lets see, Loop memories, this is -
"Oh Birch." Twilight cursed out loud. "It's another sapping Bureau Loop."
"Twi?" Applejack asked, concerned at her friends outburst. "That s'posed ta mean some'n ta us?"
Twilight looked up into the concerned faces of her friends - nope, none of them were Awake. "Just a moment, girls."
With a thought, Twilight summoned the Element of Magic to her - ("What the hay? Since when could you do that?!") - and focused her magic though it, Ascending to Alicorn on the spot - ("Twilight...?") - and flew out of the crowd and into the surprised face of her princess, tackling her back through the balcony and into the royal bedroom. All the doors in and out of the room were quickly locked and barred with magic.
"Twilight - " Whatever the Sun Princess was going to say was interrupted as Twilight magic'd a strip of purple duct tape over her mouth.
"Shut up." Twilight growled. Frantic noises came from behind the improved gag, but Twilight ignored them as she conjured magical restraints over the white alicorn.
Having restrained her to the point where escape was impossible, Twilight stared 'Celestia' in the eye. "You listen to me. I am Twilight Sparkle - the original Twilight Sparkle. Student of the original Princess Celestia. And I know that my teacher is a kind, wise pony who could never tear somebody's life away from them."
"Mmmm!"
"When I look at you - when I have to deal with these impossible situations - it disgusts me. How could you even think of taking her name for yourself?"
"Mm - mmm!"
"So now I have to fix this whole thing, and try to forget that it was a version of my idol that is responsible."
"Mm m m!"
"What!?" Twilight roared in anger, allowing the gag to vanish.
"I'm Awake." Princess Celestia calmly told her ex-student.
Utter silence filled the room. Twilight's mouth went slack - first from shock, then mortification as she hurriedly undid the binds on the sun princess before opening all the doors. Free, Celestia filled her horn with magic, making the distant Barrier vanish with a quiet 'pop'.
"Celestia, I'm so so-" The Princess of Friendship stopped talking when a gold-clad fore-hoof gently placed itself over her lips.
"I'm flattered you think of me so highly, Twilight. But next time, make sure you know who you're talking to first, okay?"
Twilight nodded nervously.
Celestia stared politely at her student for several uncomfortable moments.
"Wanna go to Disneyland?" The sun princess suggested.
Twilight closed her mouth, thought it over, then nodded.
"So... um. This is really confusing." Xlestia sighed.
"No, it's actually quite simple!" Twilight Sparkle 3 enthused. "You see, there's one version of Equestria that invaded Earth One, led by Queen Celestia." She gestured to her chalkboard diagram while Xlestia's Sparkle took rushed notes.
"But meanwhile, Earth Two was being invaded by the second version of Equestria, or Equestria 2."
"Right..." Xlestia followed so far.
"Then Earth One managed to contact what to them was a second version of Equestria, or my Equestria, Equestria 3. As Equestria 1 was, quite frankly, a bunch of evil... wordsIcan'tsayinpolitecompany; Celestia 3 and all the other version 3 rulers allied with Earth One to wage war on Equestria 1."
Xlestia nodded. Really, she couldn't fault Celestia 3 for that. From what she had heard, Celestia 1 made her look like Celestia 3. Sure, she was planning to trick humanity into ponification, but her plan had never involved actual combat - just option denial. Celestias 1 and 2 both used false flag operations, potion bombing, mind control... it was like they'd gone though a book of war crimes looking for ideas. One only had to speak with them to see how far off the deep end they had gone.
Twilight 3 continued on. "Then Earth One and Two got linked together - " She tapped her diagram again. " - and now you arrived in Earth Two. Good thing to, the Barrier-inside-Barrier is helping massively against Celestia 2."
"Glad to be of help." Xlestia lied. Needless to say, tricking humanity into Conversion was never going to happen now; but to be honest, Xlestia had kind of gone off the whole thing having seen the new-foals of Earth One. The idea was to leave them happy, not borderline catatonic!
She was very glad she had made her Barrier 'keep anything not my people out', not 'keep the forces of Earth out'. What kind of alternate self attacks your kingdom just because it's there? "I need the resources more than you" her hoof. Of course, that meant that this meeting had to be carried out in Equestria 3, but such was life.
"So..." Xlestia's Twilight (A.K.A. Twilight 4) "Our Barrier is currently resting inside Barrier 2. Apart from keeping version 2 forces out, can we do anything with that? Maybe use it to reverse the effects of Barrier 2?"
Xlestia groaned. It was getting harder than ever to keep up the charade of 'I didn't make that Barrier' when everypony kept asking her to alter it. Not that the humans had really believed her to begin with. "The Barrier is a giant wave of magical transmutation. It doesn't have an 'undo' setting."
Twilight 4 looked distinctly like she'd been punched in the gut. Xlestia sighed. "But I guess if we work on it, we could set it to 'make it like Earth' rather than 'make it like Equestria'."
While Twilight 4's expression pulled a 540 degree turn, the sole human in the room stood, muttered "You do just that." in a vaguely threatening tone, and left the room. Everypony watched him leave with varying degrees of awkwardness.
"Please don't be hard on them." Twilight 3 begged. "They've been through so much - "
"I get it." Xlestia waved off. This wasn't what she had come to do, but she could hardly seed happiness and rainbows over the corpses of a battlefield. Stop the wars first, come up with new plan after. She rubbed her muzzle with her fore-hoof. "I guess we're in this for the long haul."
"Just as long as no more versions of Equestria show up." Twilight 4 observed from her notes.
"Don't jinx it!" Twilight 3 cried.