Chapter Six: You Did WHAT?!
They trekked for hours, making sure to put enough distance between Canterlot and themselves. Starlight insisted they wait to get away before speaking, eventually slumping over beside a tree stump. "Alright, this will be enough.. Sit, and listen to everything before asking any questions."
Silently, Twilight obliges, resting on the floor.
"Okay, now.. My name is Starlight Glimmer. I was a student under Celestia, just like you."
"I wasn't a student of Celestia!" Twilight blurts out.
"What did I just tell you?? No questions until I'm finished!"
"But that wasn't a question-!"
"QUIET!" Starlight tenses up, quickly rubbing her head after from feeling a sharp pang.
Twilight flinches, not wanting to set the possibly insane pony off again. "Okay, I'll be quiet, promise.. You did help me escape, after all.."
"Where was I..." Star shakes her head clear. "Yes.. You were a student of Celestia. Not in this world, but another that's the same, it's all very confusing really." She stares Twilight down, seeing how eager to interject she appears. "In this other world, you were taught how to be a powerful unicorn, like me, by the princess. Years later, you made five friends, and with them used the Elements of Harmony. You also had a pet dragon or whatever, he was short. Anyways, you learned things about "true friendship" and what it meant, and reported to Celestia."
"-Then one day, you passed a test, and Celestia turned you into a princess yourself. The Princess of Friendship, a tacky title, I know. Somewhere along the way you got your own castle and your brother married Princess Cadance and something about you saving another dimension? It got a little blurry there, from what I could find out. But all these villains, taking over the world now? You and your friends stopped them. All of them."
"-And I was one of those villains. Your arch nemesis; the only one who even came close. I created a town that made every pony equal, by removing their cutie marks so that nopony could be better than another. And you and your annoying friends swooped in and ruined it all! Giving them back-" Starlight catches herself monologuing again, coughing into her hoof.
"I mean to say, you returned the cutie marks to the ponies, and I fled. I spent the better part of a few months researching you and your friends, learning what I could to plot my revenge. Using a map in your castle tied to the six of you, and a time spell I learned in the Canterlot Archives, I had enough power to jump back and change the one thing that made the six of you become what you did. But in the end, it didn't even matter that I bested you, because I was stuck in the past! Then the world started falling apart at the seems, and that's when I really learned how key you were to keeping the balance."
Slooooowly, Twilight nods. "That.. Is a lot to take in. A /lot/. In fact, it's too much, so I'm just going to assume you're telling the truth and that you aren't completely out of your mind. I'm guessing from all that you said... You came to me to see if I knew a way to stop all this?"
"Yes. And thank you for your faith in me, it really gets me right there in my heart."
"Well.. I have read up a lot about paradoxes.." The book mare, glances at the ground in thinking. "If you came into contact with yourself from this timeline, in theory it could disrupt the flow of everything and move it back to the other path..."
"Great, knew you could do it, let's go." Springing up, Starlight wastes no time, trotting in the direction of her town. Twilight follows, knowing that even if she is off her rocker, she's no worse than how things will get if she's wrong.
Flash Sentry bows before the throne, practically trembling. "Our scouts have discovered that Cerberus has escaped Tartarus, do you wish us to capture him..?"
Discord sneers, his eyes stone cold, dead serious with the purplish mist protruding from them. "Go to Tartarus. Make sure Tirek does not escape. This is not a story about him, just as it is not about Smooze, or Grogar."
Flash salutes, leaving fast as to not displease him. Discord looks at his paw, deep in thought. Everything was going as he wanted, and yet he did not like what he had. He needed to do more. Chaos was always the only way, after all.