Time is a funny thing. There's nothing humorous about it, but it is funny, as in odd, nonetheless. It is both inherently objective and subjective at the same time.
For the mare known as Sparkle the Necromancer, time flew incredibly quickly. Before she knew it, spring had sprung and summer was nearly upon her. As her pregnancy had progressed, her belly had swollen dramatically. That, plus her bad leg, had kept her indoors progressively more often. It also was, in some ways, a blessing. Sparkle had been able to focus more on her personal projects, which had progressed by leaps and bounds.
Cobalt had similarly progressed significantly. Driven by the compulsions his geasa inflicted upon him, Cobalt had continued to learn at a furious pace. That wasn't to say that he didn't do other things in his free time. Oh no, any time that wasn't dedicated to killing, learning dark magic, or perfecting his own original spell, he spent it showering his friend (who was a mare) with platonic gifts and platonic affection.
Sparkle, of course, became flustered with his affection and commanded him to treat her as just a friend, to which he reluctantly complied. Occasionally though, she would still find random gifts from the stallion. Sometimes, those gifts were in the form of ponies, or parts thereof.
Cobalt's behavior reminded Sparkle of a cat. A big, creepy cat, but a cat nonetheless.
For Sparkle, the biggest thing that had happened within that time was Shining Armor's twenty sixth birthday, where, after getting her brother's permission, she performed her upgrades to his body.
He thought that it was just a long, boring set of spells that he slept through, when in actuality, Sparkle had magically sedated him, cut open his legs and chest, and carved runes directly into his bones before sealing him up again. It was so quick and clean that Shining Armor didn't even notice the faint scars where she had cut him.
When he woke that morning with no pain, Sparkle had sighed in relief. The chances of her brother being killed or compromised in action had now fallen significantly. It was one less thing that she had to worry about.
All in all, the four and a quarter months since Hearth's Warming had been some of the most relaxing months Sparkle could remember. And with nothing save for her brother's wedding planned late next month and Savior's birth a month after to look forward to, it was looking like it was going to stay that way for a while still.
Of course, Sparkle, like every avid reader, knew of Marephy's law. And this time, its enforcer came in the form of two bald, gray ponies in gray fedoras and gray suits, who were standing outside Sparkle's apartment building. The source of Sparkle's misfortune lay in a briefcase that was carried by the stallion on the left.
The stallion on the right said to his partner, "July, this is the source of the paradox. It must be eliminated."
The stallion on the left - July - nodded and set the briefcase down, unfastened the clasp, and opened it, revealing unimaginably complex circuitry within. The machine was far more advanced than anything else in the world and, if you wanted to be specific, more complex than should have been physically possible. But, despite the impossibility of the contents of the case, it was all controlled by a single red button, a button that July swiftly pressed.
At the same moment, in two other locations, two other pairs of stallions were doing the same thing. One pair stood next to the library-house of Beatrix Lulamoon, while the other pair stood in another timeline but at the same location, the residence of Twilight the White Mage.
Why?
Because May fourth was the day that Twilight Sparkle, in a timeline where she had kept her feminine magic and her whole name, and had never been a paladin or a necromancer, had gone back in time to using Star Swirl the Bearded's imperfect time travel spell. And, in a timeline that had been split, it was Beatrix Lulamoon that went back in time instead.
But she didn't go back to her past; she went to Twilight's past, in another timeline. In doing so, Trixie unintentionally started a recursive loop involving herself and both Twilight and Sparkle, a recursive loop which had no stable solution.
It would have meant the end of the universe, had those stallions not been there. But they were there, and they did have their high-tech reset buttons that forced the timelines to reject the paradox. For every other living thing, everything was alright now, but for those three mares...
When your actions are rejected by time, you suffer from an effect known as time travel sickness, the primary symptoms of which is unconsciousness and sporadic seizures for the duration of the afflicted time.
May fourth was a Friday that year. Beatrix came back from the following Tuesday morning.
As July and two of his colleagues pressed their buttons, Sparkle, Twilight, and Trixie all simultaneously suffered their first grand mal seizures.
Shining Armor looked up from his comatose sister as the Doctor walked into the room. He stood, though he moved no further from his sister's side. "Doc, what's going on with her?" Around the room, Thorn, Cobalt, and Cadance, the sum total of all of Sparkle's friends and family, also listened closely to what the medic had to say.
"I have good news, bad news, and more bad news. The good news is that, aside from the obvious, she's rather healthy. We've ruled out a hundred things that it's not, and all her results come back well within normal ranges, which leads me to the first bit of bad news: we still don't know what this is."
"Aren't there any other tests you can do?" Shining asked the doctor.
"More invasive test, yes, but at this point, with Sparkle in the condition that she's in, I would hesitate to administer them. I frankly don't think that they will be of any help," the doctor replied.
Shining Armor just rubbed his temple in frustration.
Cadance spoke up, "You said that there was more bad news?"
"Yes, I did. The constant seizures are putting tremendous stress on her body. Furthermore, her unconscious state is not true sleep, so what rest she is getting is highly inefficient. I'm worried that if this continues much longer, we will have to sedate her to keep her from exhaustion, and regardless of what we do, her child is at risk," the Doctor explained. "It's a catch twenty two. Shining, I remind you that, as her next of kin, you have the final say in anything we do. For now, we can wait and monitor the situation, but you might need to make a tough decision on the future."
Shining Armor nodded grimly. "I understand, Doctor."
The doctor nodded back. Then, addressing the comatose mare, the doctor said, "Sparkle, if you can hear me, your family is waiting for you. Come back to us, ok?"
For a fraction of a second, the doctor could have sworn that Sparkle had nodded, but then decided that it was just a trick of the light.
In two different Ponyvilles, two different mares laid in their beds, as comatose as their companion in Canterlot. But, because of the location of the Ponyville hospital, neither of them, nor the mares around them, could have noticed Cerberus bound into town. And none of them could have predicted how much of a change this would bring about.
In the original timeline, the original Fluttershy would have calmed Cerberus down in seconds, allowing the original Twilight Sparkle to bring the guardian of Tartarus back to his post. At 12:46 p.m., Twilight Sparkle would have returned Cerberus; Tirek, who had just escaped, would see them approaching and would flee south. He would eventually run into the Everfree Forest, where he would be wounded. While recovering, Tirek would then slowly move northeast, towards Canterlot.
In Twilight's timeline, Fluttershy was busy tending to her unconscious friend. It would then fall to Bon Bon, otherwise known as Sweetie Drops, to return Cerberus. At 12:49 p.m., Tirek would see them approaching and, because he was further along, would flee northwest, in the direction of Vanhoover.
In Sparkle's timeline, Bon Bon was otherwise occupied due to the divergences caused by Sparkle and Twilight's varying actions. Instead, Time Turner would be the one to return Cerberus. At 1:13 p.m., Tirek would instead flee northeast. Of the three versions of the decrepit centaur, this one would make it to civilization far sooner than the other two.
Time is a funny thing. Less than half an hour was enough time to radically change the fate of one of the most influential entities in Equestria. But, that wouldn't be the only change the press of a red button changed.
It was Tuesday morning, though the sun had yet to rise. In a timeline that never was, Twilight Sparkle would be bracing for a disaster that would never come, or so she thought.
Instead, it would be a disaster of her own making that only affected her, or, more specifically, Sparkle. For as the time travel sickness progressed, and its victim moved closer in time to the origin point in time - Tuesday, just after sunrise - the disease grew worse and worse.
Ten minutes before the spell would have been cast, Sparkle was struck with the biggest and, thankfully, last seizure. For a solid ten minutes, she would writhe and buck, struggling against the well-padded restraints the doctors had placed on her to keep her from wounding herself. And then, just as the nurses were arriving to help, another complication arose.
Her water broke.
The combined stress of all the magic she had used on her body, plus the stress of the seizures, sent Sparkle into labor almost two months early. And, as the final blow of time travel sickness faded and the exhausted mare regained consciousness, she found herself surrounded by ponies trying to save her surrogate child.
She couldn’t think clearly, though. She was too tired. However, she could see Thorn. Confused and in pain, she called out his name.
The dragon’s eyes snapped down and met her open eyes. In that moment, the link between the two of them burst open, causing Thorn to nearly double over in pain. However, he could think more clearly than his mother and, using her own magic, Thorn numbed their pain. Sparkle may have been part dragon in soul, but Thorn was part unicorn.
“Life...” Sparkle murmured. With no context, the ponies in the room were left clueless as to her intent, but Thorn understood immediately. In a second, he had twisted his magic and vanished into the shadows.
He reappeared an instant later in a forest near the base of Canterlot mountain. He opened his mouth wide, and inhaled the life of the forest, channeling it to Sparkle through the link.
In the hospital room, the horn-bearing ponies could feel the sudden and unexplained influx of energy, and could see the healthy glow returning to Sparkle’s face. The same, however, could not be said of the premature colt emerging from her womb.
Sparkle picked her head up and looked at her son, who the doctors were now drying off. To the doctor’s eyes, they could see nothing wrong, but to Sparkle’s eyes, it was a different story entirely.
Every soul had the equivalent of organs: parts for the memory, parts for the personality, parts for the magic, and parts to allow it to interface with the body, all of which were distinct to the discerning eye. It was the interface of the soul that allowed the otherwise ethereal object to bind to solid matter, as well as control the body and perceive with its senses.
Sparkle had used the reincarnation spell to bind Savior’s soul to a new embryo in her body, but in doing so, she had made a mistake. Using the spell for yourself is a simple matter, as your own magic helps solidify the bonds. However, for another, the caster had to use her magic to coax the target’s magic into binding itself to the body; instead, Sparkle had directly used her own magic for the binding. While Savior was in her womb, there was no problem.
Savior was not in her womb anymore.
In the absence of her magic, the stitching holding his soul to his body began to unravel very rapidly. Sparkle could only watch in horror as Savior’s soul slipped from the newborn pegasus body and slipped into the afterlife. She knew he was dead before the doctors did.
“No. No no. Nonononononono! Buck you, Savior!” she shouted. “You don’t get to die on me! Not after everything I went through for you! I fought for you! I bled for you! YOU DON’T HAVE THE RIGHT TO DIE ON ME!”
A orange magical glow surrounded her and pressed her into the bed, while another glow - green this time - encased her horn, disrupting the magic building within. “Ms. Sparkle, please, you must calm down!”
“AHHHH!” Screaming in rage was all Sparkle could do at this point. Grief and anger constricted her chest, forcing out that roar of pure emotion. And as she bellowed and roared, something in her mind ticked over, like a switch being flipped.
She was a necromancer; it was high-time she lived up to the full extent of that title.