//------------------------------//
// Part One 
// Story: Non-Linear Ball 
// by DaeCat 
//------------------------------//

“So, Twilight,” began the crystal mare standing in front of her, “Why did you decide to come to the ball?”
Twilight swirled the small umbrella in her drink and said, “Well, it’s a funny story actually. You know Doctor Whooves?”
“My darling, who doesn’t know of that dashing stallion?”
“Well, he’s a friend of mine, so once I knew he was going, I was sure it was trustworthy.”
The orange mare, whose body was comprised of conjoined fractals, laughed richly before taking a swig of her own champagne, aged over 800 years. Twilight merely grinned sheepishly. Around them both, electronic music played, reminding Twilight of Vinyl and her other friends back home. Some danced, while others talked with old friends and made new ones. The crystal pony, Lavish, had brought her stallionfriend, who was milling about with a number of the younger time travellers. Twilight herself had been drifting since the address, milling around for conversation.
There were many and varied ponies at the event. Doctor Whooves was chatting with a frizzy-haired mare with an archaeologist’s trowel as a cutie mark, while giant mechanical suits encased at least one guest. At various points during the night, Twilight was sure she had even seen the tantalising glimpse of Starswirl’s beard whisk behind another pony. Discord was there also, it seemed the Dragoneques had dabbled in a few time spells in his day.
Twilight eyed Discord in her peripherals, making sure she could see him at all times. There was no knowing what shenanigans a chaos-maker could achieve at a ball filled with time-travellers. At the moment he seemed fairly placid, enjoying scaring other ponies by transmuting himself into various guises before jumping out next to them.
Lavish moved on slowly, but Twilight didn’t mind. She was content to bask in the friendships being formed and ponies having a good time all over. 
Behind her, a large mechanical suit, with a pony inside, tapped her on the shoulder with a large, metal hoof. Twilight turned and looked up, to find that the mare was lifted up in her suit so that she was almost as high in the air as Twilight’s mane. The robotic suit that surrounded the white mare was more like the barest skeleton necessary to support the weight of her, and she was clearly visible through the pistons and wires. Twilight saw the electric blue tone to the cyborg-ponies hair, and wondered if the newcomer was any relation to Shining Armour.
"I'm White Iron, and we need to go."
"What's happening?" answered the princess, then added an afterthought, "And my name is Twilight Sparkle."
"I know," White Iron answered, "You told me five minutes ago."



Twilight was almost finished resorting the books, many floating above her head as she worked to reshuffle the entire library. She was so focussed on the task at hand, that it took Fluttershy a few attempts to garner her attention away from the prized books.
"Oh, hey Fluttershy," Twilight said, stopping her work, and carefully stacking the unsorted books with her magic, "How are you?"
"I'm well, thank you Twilight," Fluttershy said in a small voice, "You look busy, I'll come back later."
"No, no, no! This can be done anytime. Why did you want to see me?"
Twilight descended the ladder she had been perched on, and walked up close to Fluttershy. The yellow mare backed up a small step, then looked down at the crystalline floor of the castle and meekly said, "Well, Discord is... He's going to this ball, and, um, I was wondering if maybe you could, perhaps, go too and keep an eye on him? If it's not too much trouble, that is. In fact, don't worry, I'm sure it's fine."
Twilight rested a supportive hoof across Fluttershy's shoulders, and said, "Is this the time-travellers' ball? How did you know I got an invitation?"
"Um, well, Discord got one, and he said that, um, you had told him that you could also go."
That was strange, Twilight had no recollection of ever doing that. In any case, it was uncharacteristic that the Draqqonequus had done as he was asked, or socially expected. Twilight was glad that the Master of Chaos had acted normally for once, as it put her mind to rest that the Ball was not malicious, or else inviting Discord would be the ultimate undoing. At ease now, Twilight responded, "Sure, I'll look after him for you."
"Oh would you? That would be excellent Twilight, thank you so much!"
"Not a problem, I know what it's like to be concerned about someone close to you."
Fluttershy blushed and said nothing more for a short time. Then she spoke up quickly and reached behind herself.
"Take my saddlebags for the day, they're larger than yours."
"Are you sure, Fluttershy? I can bring my own."
Twilight knew that Fluttershy would feel terrible if she asked for a favour and gave nothing back as a kindness. She gratefully accepted the saddlebags, ensuring she too thanked Fluttershy profusely. The thanks were for the saddlebags, but also for soothing Twilight's anxieties. She could go and meet the famous magicians she desired to, and could rest in the knowledge that she was safe.



"I can't leave now," Twilight said, remembering her promise to Fluttershy. Even if the strange cyborg insisted that Twilight had performed an action she had no recollection of doing, and even if she had in actuality performed that very action, there was still no way she was abandoning her friends. White Iron remained unimpressed and steadfast.
"You have to go back - it has already happened. The Intertimepiece will make sure you return within moments of when you left."
Twilight was dubious, but certainly, if tonight had proven anything, it was that anything was possible if you just put your mind to it. All she had to do was tell this White Iron what she already had, and then she could return to her evening, perhaps even making a new friend with White Iron. The cyborg pony was pleased when Twilight reluctantly agreed, but didn't show it on her face; a thin line etched onto her jaw with hard graphite.
"What do I say to you?" 
"You said: 'Take off your Intertimepiece, and find me. We need to do this again.'"
Twilight nodded, "This will be a bit of fun, won't it?"
White Iron gimaced, trying to grin, but it seemed unresolved issues flitted across her vision, distorting the smile into a sneer. For the first time that night, Twilight pitied a time traveller. She wished she could reach out and pat the pony on the shoulder in support, but the thick metal cage that surrounded the mare prevented her from doing so. It was the right thing to do, so Twilight extended her magic instead, exerting it as a physical force on White Iron's shoulder, reassuring her. Immediately, her face changed, and a tear threatened to fall from her eye.
"No-one's been able to touch me for so long, Twilight. Thanks for reminding me I am still here."
Twilight's heart broke. Of course they hadn't. A mechanical prison surrounded her at all times, nopony could reach within the pistons and actuators to find the pony inside.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"Let's get this done first." The cyborg pony shook her head, not sadly, but with strength.



The Intertimepiece whipped her out of the timestream again. While floating in the endless, Twilight visualized herself standing back where she had left, only five minutes into the past. She saw herself standing there, except White Iron was across the room. She saw herself taking a step towards the cyborg pony...



She took a step towards the cyborg pony... and kept walking, careful to avoid anyone who may recognise or remember her. She constantly had to check and see if anyone was looking her way, and try to evade scoping eyes. White Iron was using her massive mechanical hoof to raise a decanter of red wine to her lips, eyes closed, letting the ancient liquid seep down her throat. She opened her eyes after slowly draining the entire glass, licking the dregs off her lips.
Twilight stepped out of the darkness, preparing to speak up and lose the loop, but before she could, Twilight stepped out of the darkness in front of White Iron. 
Twilight realised that another version of herself was present, and had beaten her to the punch. Why would she do that? There seemed to be no logical explanation for why she would deliberately stop herself from speaking. Just then, the second Twilight spoke quietly, and Twilight strained to hear her whispered words.
"Take off your Intertimepiece, and find me. We need to try this again. Pass it on to Twilight."
Amazed, Twilight watched as her double from the future dissipated in a pop of purple magic. She immediately grew anxious, she had to leave quickly before White Iron noticed. Still in shock and extraordinarily puzzled, Twilight activated her Intertimepiece and left the scene as swiftly as possible.



"Did it work?" asked White Iron the moment Twilight reappeared from the timestream. Twilight shook her head, then nodded.
"I have no idea," she admitted, "Before I could tell you, another me from the future arrived and said those words."
White Iron reflected Twilight's confusion on her own face. Even the bizarre instructions seemed illogical.
"What did I mean by 'take off the Intertimepiece'? It's not like they are removable."
White Iron controlled her suit to lift her hind hoof and remove the Intertimepiece from her saddlebag.
"Sure they are, it said so in the invitation."
"Mine had nothing like that."
White Iron took out her own invitation and showed it to Twilight, for which Twilight was grateful. In events that seems confounding, White Iron's invitation read somewhat differently to Twilight's.

 Dear Officer Iron
We, the Intertime Board of Magical Distortion, do formally invite you to the annual (mostly) Non-Linear Ball. Attached you will find your invitation, and Intertimepiece. Please arrive no sooner that the 8th hour, and 2 years in your past, at the Castle of the Two Sisters.
Housekeeping shall be conducted as follows, to save time:
- The second ticket is not for a guest of your choice, rather, you must send the letter to yourself, and the second invitation is merely the version we made, and then sent to you, so that you could send it to yourself. So that you could send it to yourself. 
- Should you misuse the Intertimepiece in any way, do be warned that the Board can, and will, erase you from existence entirely
- By concentration on the times provided, the Intertimepiece shall be activated. It can also be used to mask your presence from non-time travellers that you may encounter while at the Ball, and this is achieved by rotating the device left once for a quarter-turn.
- Amenities are provided
Cordially,
The Intertime Board of Magical Distortion 

The words that were jumbled on Twilight's letter were in perfect order here, casting new light onto her invitation and the possible hidden meanings. Clearly the message was false, evidenced by the fact that Twilight had not activated her Intertimepiece all night, and yet her presence had not been masked from the rest of the guests, in fact she had been enjoying conversations with them mere minutes ago. The Board of Magical Distortion had a lot of explaining to do, that was for sure.
Another particularly interesting emergence brought about by the new invitation was the discovery that White Iron was an Officer, presumably of some futuristic army. Where could Equestria be so far forward that they had resorted to war to solve their differences? White Iron was closed off when Twilight asked, so she was left to draw her own conclusions. The sturdy mechanical suit that encased White Iron did not conceal her body, it was more like a framework skeleton that gave added strength to her stride and electric boost to her movements. The pistons hugged her side, and raised her in the air as if she were wearing stilts, which seemed to indicate to Twilight that the battles fought were on uneven or sludgy terrain. But ponies were such friendly folk; who would seek enemies with them, and why would Equestria take up the mantle of battle?
A quiet silence descended. They had no idea of what to do, now that they had at least tried to close the loop. White Iron attempted conversation.
"I hear you are the Princess of Friendship from your time."
"Yes, I am. It is a great honour given to me by Celestia. Do you have any Princesses?"
"In my time, we have nine, but none are living. They are more like idols, or rolemodels."
"Who were they?"
"The names were scratched off the walls during an uprising fifty years ago, but everypony still remembers."
Twilight was drawn into the story, for the sake of it she forwent all distractions.
"There used to be Industry, Creativity, Ecology, Autonomy, Energy, and then the two Queen pairs, Amity and Intimacy, as well as Regality and Legality."
Was it possible that White Iron had come from another dimension? Those Princesses and Queens sounded nothing like Celestia, Luna or Cadance. It sounded more like the governing body of the future had selected the traits that were successful and decided to emulate them.
White Iron hadn't finished.
"Regality is who you earlier called Celestia."
Before even Twilight could comprehend that statement, she realised she didn't want to. She had read the papers, she knew the dangers of knowing your own future. She could even boast first-hand experience of those dangers.
"My time isn't at all like that," she merely stated, compromising by occupying her brain with a new line of conversation.
"Do tell," asked the inquisitive White Iron. The thought struck Twilight that White Iron would be just as curious about the past as Twilight was of the future.
"Well, I live in a town called Ponyville, with my five closest friends."
"Five? I only have one close friend."
"Well, my friends are the best you could ever ask for, I'm sure you would make instant friends with them all."
"Claus is the best anypony could ever ask for also."
"Really? Tell me a little about him."
"You first."
Twilight giggled at all the memories, and began recounting them to her new friend. Before long, they had exchanged quite the repertoire of secrets and tales. It turned out that Claus was a fellow Officer in White Iron's squad, and they shared many moments and memories. Twilight laughed at the latest tale.
"Out his nose?"
"Yes! All over the Commanding Officer! It was alright though, she was drinking a cider-spider at the time."
"Sounds like you two are quite the team. When do you see him again?"
White Iron grew still and quiet. All of Twilight's hard work drawing the recluse out of her shell were retracted within the span of a wingbeat.
"Soon. He's off rotation at the moment, because he was poisoned."
There was nothing more, so perhaps it was fortunate that at that exact moment the music ceased and swirling laser points zoomed through the abandoned castle. A sepia stallion with rose-white hair and a wicked scar down his side, reaching almost to his cutie mark of a falling red bouncy-ball began to ascend the stair that fronted the old castle chair. He held a small black cone with a mesh hemisphere on the end in his right hoof, as he lacked a right wing and any horn to speak of. He coughed, phlegm-like sounds reverberating throughout the makeshift amphitheater. It seemed as though he was intensely irritated. 
"Please activate your Intertimepieces by turning them left, now, if you haven't already done so."
Both Twilight and her companion reached for their own, before both recalling the events of earlier that night. They looked across at each other, and then surreptitiously secreted them to whence the devices had come. Then nothing seemed to change. There was merely silence.
Then the sepia stallion recommenced his speech, but this time there was no sound at all.
Dead silence. Twilight could hear even the faintest growl of White Iron's engine as the air stood still. Twilight took a cautious step towards the speaker, hearing the clack of her hoof echo a thousand times in the huge room. She took a few more, painfully aware of her noise, and the lack of any other. It was as though there was only her and White Iron in the room, and the other ponies were merely illusions created by a fractured mind. Tentatively reaching out a lone leg, Twilight tapped the air on it's shoulder. Lavish, whom she had been attempting to draw the attention of, continued listening with deaf ears to the mute speaker.
A shiver flew along Twilight's spine. There was no longer any feeling up to her knee, completely submerged in a bubble of magic so strong that it acted like a magnetic force. Pushing with all her weight against the magical repulsion, Twilight tried to take another step into the strange bubble that seemed to begin at Lavish and end at the end of all time.
She cast a spell, illuminating the magic in the room, displaying the swirling rainbow that swam across the surface of the huge magical bubble that Twilight stood halfway in. Never before had such a sight fell upon Twilight's hungry eyes. She ate it up, the hypnotic curling and swaying of the myriad colours mesmerising her. Lapping in the soothing sensation of the sweet sphere, her mind became blank and slow, as if there was no time for anything anymore. No time for anything except timelessness.
She retracted her hoof; there would be time for timelessness later. For the moment, she had to find out what exactly was going on. Twilight relayed what she had learned from her spell to the earth pony White Iron. 
"Should we try and enter the field?"
"To do that, all we really need is to activate the Intertimepieces," Twilight answered, "But I think me from the future didn't want us to."
"I'm not sitting on my butt for the rest of the night."
"Fair enough. Let's go speak to this stallion fellow on the stage."
Twilight indicated to the sepia pony, who was still speaking on stage. Standing to the side of him, was Doctor Whooves, who even as the pair watched, took a flying leap towards the speaker, knocking him off the podium entirely. As Doctor Whooves wrestled with the much larger, but crippled stallion, the crowd roared their indignation, but the sound never reached outside their own private bubble. White Iron stepped forward and reached out an arm.
Twilight pondered this for a moment, before the sepia pony, in a single swift movement, raised his front hooves and pushed Doctor Whooves off the stage. As he did so, a second mare on the floor of the amphitheater wrenched off the Doctor's Intertimepiece. He fell out of the bubble of magic, and White Iron, fully prepped for the catch, deftly grabbed him. She set the pony to the floor.
"What was that all about?"
Doctor Whooves shook his head, then said, "That was merely to save time." He then gave cheesy grin as though he were posing for a child's photo.
"Really?" he asked, "No-one?"
Twilight answered him, "What happened to time that we need to save it?"



"Look, Uncharted Map," White Iron said to the sepia stallion, reminding Twilight of her friend's decisiveness, "We aren't challenging your authority on this subject, but your time-bubble won't work."
The stallion who was missing his right wing spluttered indignation, "How dare you! Of course it will, but I suppose you and your alicorn friend have solved seven years worth of the most challenging time equations to prove me wrong?"
Twilight stepped in, "We haven't, but in our time, ponies are still being erased from the timestream. The singularity is expanding exponentially - your equations didn't solve for that."
"I think you will find that you are mistaken, alicorn. You insinuate you have read my notes, but there is no way you possibly could have."
"You were the one who handed out time-travel devices to all the guests."
"Those were supposed to be one use! You are ruining their efficiency, now none of you can be saved by the time bubble."
"Do you honestly think," began White Iron, "That your mediocre and under-planned solution could work under these conditions?"
"And exactly what would those conditions be, pray tell dear machine?"
"Time will tell," White Iron said, bristling from Uncharted Map's low jab. Uncharted Map frowned in disgust, giving Twilight the distinct impression that he had never been challenged in his life. She felt somewhat sorry that the brilliant stallion had been raised in such a way that even dire advice caused him to fly up in arms and become enraged.
"You have to trust us," she appealed to what would have been her nature two years ago, "We have read your notes, and they are brilliant, but it still won't work."
Uncharted Map's defense quavered, but only momentarily.
"Ha! You cannot have possibly read my notes."
White Iron sighed in frustration, and looked at Twilight with a hard look. Twilight nodded in response. Without warning, she plunged her head towards Uncharted Map, activating a spell as she did so. When their foreheads touched, a spark of magic filled the hall with a sharp clack, and then there was a swoosh as the scenery shifted.



They were in a huge, open to the air, lecture hall, empty save for a few visitors. Twilight took a seat on a bleacher, crusted with algae that had formed in the stagnant water pooling in the seats. She didn't seem to mind that she had just placed her flank into a sickly puddle. Uncharted Map stared at her with anger.
"Why have you taken me to my own lecture hall?"
With half of the roof missing, seemingly in an explosion of some degree, it was hard to define the building as a 'hall', but Twilight answered him regardless.
"I haven't moved you anywhere."
Uncharted Map smugly nodded, before looking down towards the lectern at the front. Behind it were three large blackboards, protected from the deluge the seats had faced by the straggling planks of a roof that edged the walls.
"This is a memory you have trapped me in."
Down the front were three ponies, and Twilight could barely make out what they were saying. Of course, she already knew, but she moved closer regardless, as Uncharted Map needed to hear what was being said. Unsurprisingly, it was Twilight herself down there, along with Doctor Whooves and White Iron. They were discussing the character of Uncharted Map. Before they could arrive at the junction in conversation where the Doctor explained the character of Uncharted Map, as the pair had indeed met before, Twilight accelerated the memory. She didn't exactly want to let her guest hear the rather unsavoury review Doctor Whooves gave.



Now they were a few paces lower on the steps that led to the front of the broken building. Twilight was explaining the complex algorithms that littered the rear three blackboards to the rest of the crew. Doctor Whooves was also contributing occasionally, giving his two bits on the equations.
"This describes some kind of time singularity," Twilight opened grimly with.
"Yes, like a black hole that is tearing apart time."
"And this one here predicts it's expansion. Woah, that's fast. Is that what he was saying at the address?"
"No, he didn't tell us anything about this, only that we would be activating our Intertimepieces so that we could experience a 'unique magical experience'."
"Pretty vague. Why'd you tackle him then?"
"I don't know if I'm supposed to say this, but I told me to."
"It figures. That's been happening to me this whole time. Some future version of me keeps setting up scenarios for me to deal with."
Doctor Whooves chuckled, mumbling that he'd had nearly the exact same experience many a time. They continued reading the script that was written all over the walls, while White Iron opened and closed the drawers of the desk sitting between the lectern and the blackboards.
"Hold on," said Twilight, "This algorithm here, come and look."
Both of her new friends clustered in to stare at the equation. Memory-Twilight turned as she saw Uncharted Map shake his head in the corner of her vision.
"My protection plan, the one you tell me won't work!"
"It won't, I'm telling you. Please listen to them - me - them, whatever!"
Down below, White Iron gasped as she too began to understand the algorithm. Twilight looked up in suprise as she said, "It's a time-force field calculation!"
In response to the shocked look of Doctor Whooves, and the intrigued one from Twilight, she added momentarily afterwards, "Even Cadets take top-level maths. When you're teaching fillies and colts to operate laser weapons, you need to make sure they know exactly how they work."
Memory-Twilight remembered her horror at this statement. She had thought about the implications of the statement, and what depths the future must have sunk to that it had gotten to the point where the government sent children to fight wars. But she supposed now, in hindsight, that she was not so very old herself, still technically in her studies under tutorship of Celestia, although that mostly just a formalised way of saying they often exchanged ideas over a coffee and donut at Donut Joe's.
"This would never work," declared Doctor Whooves, arriving at the conclusion that Twilight had been wanting to share with Uncharted Map, "The time singularity, as described here, would simply tear though this like a dragon's teeth through paper!"
"No it wouldn't, you stupid stallion," yelled Uncharted Map from up on the stairs, ignoring the fact that he could not directly interact with the remembered ponies. Twilight realised he had never so openly insulted them previously, instead opting to be passively aggressive over direct abuse. Much like Trixie, it seemed the stallion had not quite learned humility yet. And Twilight was about ready to set an Ursa Minor on him as well. She ended the memory abruptly instead.



"I still do not see your point. All you have done was thrown insults in my face, then ridiculed my life's work."
"I've had enough of this," interjected White Iron, stepping up like a batter to the plate, "Look here, we have done nothing of the sort. We have tried to be polite about it, but let me put it to you plainly. Your calculations predict that a massive tidal wave of destructive time energy is about to tear through every time period, systematically erasing anything that has caused a disruption in time - "
Uncharted Map blindly interrupted, "Yes, yes, that's why I organised this event. To save you all!"
"Let me finish! Everything that has ever disrupted time will be erased from it, and your method to save everypony from this destruction is to trap them all in a huge time-disrupting bubble. You fail to understand that your proposed solution only escalated and exacerbates the problem. And not only are you pig-headed enough to think that this will work, throughout us trying to save everypony here, you have insulted us the whole time."
There was no hiding White Iron's opinions, and Twilight was actually inclined to agree with her, though perhaps not in so bold tones. Uncharted Map just shook his head again, snarling in hatred. As Princess of Friendship, Twilight's heart went out to the poor soul trapped within Uncharted Map's cruel exterior.
Uncharted Map stomped up the stairs, took a few deep breaths to console himself, then with a voice full of phlegm that must have risen in tangent with his anger, "Please activate your Intertimepieces by turning them left, now, if you haven't already done so."
"Dang it."
Doctor Whooves whipped out his Intertimepiece, turned to the small group, and said, "I'd better go tell myself to tackle him. Allons-y!"
He activated the device, and walked confidently off to confront his past self. 
Twilight and White Iron stood for a moment, in the quiet. 
"We had probably get back to just after we left."
"Wanna wait?"
"Not really."
They both took out their Intertimepieces, and focused on when they wanted to be.



It was eerily quiet in the hall. Despite there being no less than a hundred ponies, and a Draquoneques, no noise left the sphere of magic. Twilight could see Discord still, he was standing near the centre of the group, and seemed to be fascinated by a small button on his tuxedo. The button kept turning into a flower whenever he looked away, and it would seem snapdragons get a bit snappy if you try and secure a tux with them.
What should we do now? Twilight questioned this. They had tried to solve the problem, but that hadn't worked, so they had to think of an alternate solution. Judging from the calculations on the blackboards, they did not have much time before the singularity tore through here.
The quiet was quite discomforting, never before had their been such stillness. Twilight wondered if White Iron had ever experienced true silence, or whether the sounds of non-stop warfare had followed her for the duration of her life. She asked the mare, who replied that she had, but only once in her youth, when a treaty was signed to halt warfare for just a day.
"It was supposed to be annual, for Hearth's Warming Eve," she said sadly, "But in the second year, both sides launched missiles at one another. And it was never tried again."
"That's horrible."
There was no response, but Twilight saw the effect bringing it up had had on the cyborg. She certainly didn't press the matter.
Turning her mind back to the problem at hand, Twilight could not see an immediately obvious way of stopping the singularity. The unstoppable nature of time made it impossible. Time continued moving forward no matter what, you could pause it for sure, but never halt it's inevitable progress forever. An individual could wade backwards against the tide, but eventually they would be swept down as well.
Then a noise broke through the silence, cutting through Twilight's thoughts and the stillness that had descended upon the old castle ruins. It was a loud scream, piercing and afraid. Terrified.

And now, all around, starting at the front of the room and slowly rolling to the back, the ponies inside the magical field of energy started moving.
Started dancing.
"We've gone too far back."