//------------------------------//
// The Divine Power of Checklists 
// Story: Split Second: An Eternity Divided 
// by wille179 
//------------------------------//

	“You know what we need now?” Twilight asked her sister.
Sparkle replied, “Let me guess: a checklist.”
“You know me so well,” Twilight said. Using the dreamlike properties of the afterlife, the light goddess conjured up a scroll and perpetually-inked quill. “Now, what do we need to do?”
“The identity ritual for you; that’s a must,” Sparkle declared.
From nearby, where he was currently lounging, Thorn yelled, “Watch out for explosions!”
Twilight looked over her shoulder. Thorn was casually lounging on a skull-and-jewel themed throne, his six limbs splayed everywhere. For whatever reason, the combination of his last sentence and current position served to confuse Twilight greatly. “Bwuh?”
“We’ll be careful,” Sparkle yelled back.
“I’m sorry, what?”
The dark goddess looked back towards her sister. “The identity ritual’s rune circle exploded when I did it. It didn’t hurt, and the ritual worked, but it was odd nonetheless.”
“That’s odd,” Twilight remarked in agreement. “Do you think it will explode for me as well?”
The ritual circle appeared under Twilight. Sparkle grinned, showing off her razor sharp teeth as she charged up her magic. “Let’s find out.”
A bolt of dark magic shot out of her horn and struck the ritual circle before Twilight could even cry out in protest or alarm. The magic surged upwards, flowing into Twilight where it pierced the magic around her soul like a needle through skin. Twilight’s eyes turned solid black as the spell took hold.
A second later, the ritual circle exploded, tossing Twilight harmlessly into the air. She landed on the ground, which had softened itself for her. Yet, by the time she had picked herself up, the ground was just as hard as it had been and bore no trace of the explosion.
“A little warning would have been nice,” the light goddess said as she reoriented herself. 
Sparkle snickered. “But where would the fun be in that? I knew you wouldn’t have been hurt.”
Twilight massaged her forehead. “Please don’t tell me that this is going to become a reoccurring thing for you, Sparks.”
“Twi, I have a sinking suspicion that I’ve intentionally been the butt of my own secret jokes. What makes you think I’m going to spare you, if I don’t even spare myself?”
She was silent for a second, but then she groaned. Rolling her eyes, Twilight overdramatically announced, “It’s all so clear to me know. You’re a sadistic monster. Oh great and annoying Death, spare me from your madness.”
“Never,” Sparkle hissed. She then blinked in surprise. “Oh...” Clearing her throat, she said, “So that’s how I do that voice. That feels weird in my throat. Hmmm... what about... HoW dOeS tHiS sOuNd?”
Twilight shuddered. “You never mentioned that. Dear Celestia, that’s horrible sounding. Please don’t do that again.”
“SuRe. WhOops, sorry.” Sparkle laughed, thankfully in her normal voice. “I think we’re getting a bit off track. Did the ritual help you much?”
Twilight nodded. “It sure did. That was enlightening. It feels weird, knowing the very reason for my existence so clearly. Hey, did you know that the whole afterlife is acting as a processor, extracting soul material for me to make new souls from the souls of the dead?” 
Sparkle nodded, indicating that she did, in fact, know that. Most of the souls that had died before the construction of the afterlife had already been processed. Those that hadn’t were somewhere within the afterlife now.
“Oh, and I’ve got something for you.” Twilight’s horn lit up, basking the two of them in golden light. A glass jar appeared before the life goddess and floated up to her horn. A bead of a strange, black liquid formed on the tip of Twilight’s horn and trickled into the jar. One drop turned into two, and then a steady stream. When the jar was full, Twilight capped it and passed it to Sparkle. “My abstract half always filtered the soul material before turning it into new souls, and it gave it to death to dispose of. This is a jar of pure, concentrated evil, plus every other contaminante of the soul.”
The black goop inside seemed to fit that definition to a tee. It thrashed around in the jar of its own accord, seemingly desperate to escape from its confines. Even the jar itself, sealed as it was, radiated a malignant presence. Every instinct in both Twilight and Sparkle screamed that it was extremely dangerous.
So, naturally, Sparkle uncapped the lid and chugged the contents of the jar in one go. “Delicious!”
“SPARKLE! What did you do?! Spit that out!”
Sparkle merely belched proudly. “Oh, that was just as good as I remembered it.” She chuckled. “Relax, sis. I’m just doing what I’ve always done.”
Twilight looked at Sparkle contemplatively. “That explains so much, and yet raises so many new questions. Gah! This whole ‘two entities as one’ thing is going to be so confusing.”
“Agreed. Anyway, the identity ritual for you, that’s the first thing on the list done,” Sparkle commented, marking things off even as she mentally created the checklist. “Let’s see, soul filtration... we just did that, so check. I need to locate and round up all the dead in here, I need to sort them, which also means that I need some sort of sorting method, and I need to finish constructing the spells for the afterlife. I am so glad I built this place with expansion in mind.”
“And I need to make sure that the flow of soul material from the afterlife to my tree is functioning correctly,” Twilight added. “Other than that, I think I’m good here. That just leaves dealing with the vines we get back and then dealing with... all this.” She gestured to her own body, and then Sparkle’s in turn.
Sparkle blew a strand of her black mane out of her eyes. Over the last hour, it had grown more and more buoyant, taking on the same smoke-like characteristics as Sombra’s mane, and now it was practically moving on its own. Blowing it out of her eyes only kept it that way for about a second. “I’m actually really mad about that. I already invested so much in my Rhodium disguise, and now all that’s down the drain. I suppose I could keep up some illusions so that I have some smidge of a normal life. Hey, do you think there’s any chance that we could cash in on the “Lady” titles and live like nobles? Or even as princesses? You might actually be able to get that title, all things considered.”
“Me, a princess? No way. I couldn’t do that,” Twilight replied. “I’d probably mess everything up. I’m a paladin! Not a politician! I’d probably just be stuck smiling and waving!”
“Bwahaha! The All-Mother as a figurehead? That’s a riot!” Sparkle exclaimed. “What’s next? A tea party with Lady Death and the bearers of the Elements of Harmony?” The smile vanished off of Sparkle’s face in an instant, and the warm aura of her subconsciously radiated magic went icy cold. “Twilight...”
“Sparkle?”
“If I were to kill your friends' doubles in their sleep so that they couldn’t blast me with the elements, how mad would you be with me?”
“Hmmm... Mad enough that if I were you, I’d seriously reconsider that course of action. Of course, we are just talking hypotheticals, right?”
Sparkle slowly nodded. “Right, I understand.”
“Good!” Twilight exclaimed with an excessive amount of exuberance. The message was clear, however; don’t mess with my friends, or their clones. “Now, before you brought up that little hypothetical, I was going to say that I remembered you mentioning once that Luna was at the Gala in a true transformation. I wonder if she could teach that to us.”
“Oh. That works. I hope she’d be willing to teach me. I wonder what she’d want in exchange, though. I know that I wouldn’t teach someone like me something like that without a major incentive,” Sparkle said. From her tone, Twilight assumed that she was partially thinking aloud.
“All you can do is ask,” Twilight replied.
“True,” Sparkle replied. “Now, what’s next?”



A single, massive table stretched down the length of the implausibly long room. Chalk boards lined the edges of the room; each one was clean and had fresh chalk on the little shelf. Books were stacked high on the table in organized stacks. Collectively, they were the sum total of Sparkle’s literary collection. The Dread Necroptica series, having been purged of the information demon they contained by the crystal heart, sat discarded at the end of the table; they were irrelevant to the task at hand.
Sparkle drew a spell formula on one of the chalkboards, aided by the book levitating in her grasp. Over her shoulder, Twilight critiqued the growing array of numbers and symbols. It was an uncompressed spell formula that Sparkle was writing, meaning that it had none of the space or effort saving tricks applied to it yet, and was thus extremely cumbersome to write out in its entirety. They had no other option, though. They were developing this spell from scratch, and it was promising to be unimaginably complex.
During the review and the compression stages of development, Sparkle knew that she’d get her parents, Cobalt, and Thorn, involved, but for the early stages, she and Twilight knew that they’d have to do this alone.
“It should be sight based, likely compounding on the framework left by the soul-sight spell,” Twilight argued.
“That works. Building off of that pre-existing framework would give us a decent starting point,” Sparkle agreed.
Their goal was simple in theory, though quite complex in reality. The two goddesses were attempting to develop a spell that would enable Sparkle to quickly sort a soul to the appropriate portion of the afterlife. They had decided quickly that whatever system they used would assign a number to the soul, one which the enchantments of the afterlife could read and react to. With that in mind, they’d sent Cobalt and Thorn to lead the programming of the rest of the afterlife.
Both tasks would take lots of time. They knew that from the start. Still, they dove in. Knowing how long it would take, Sparkle further pushed the time dilation of the afterlife to its maximum setting. Now, at nearly two million times regular speed, they had nearly twenty four days for every second that passed in the real world. It was, quite frankly, a ludicrous speed.
But, knowing that the ongoing disaster of the vines invading their homes was presently a non-issue, the two goddesses settled down for the academic long-haul.



Thorn knocked on the door to the “study dungeon,” as he had taken to calling it. In his left claw, he balanced a tray of various homemade sweets that he’d made. The ingredients were all imaginary, but the process he’d used to make them was very much real.
The door opened. His nose was immediately assaulted by the scent of sweat, the kind of scent someone picks up after a long period of going without bathing, yet staying relatively clean in the meantime. He banished the scent with little more than a thought. ‘Buck, I’ll miss these powers when I back go to the real world,’ he thought to himself.
“I brought you cookies,” the dracolich-demigod announced. Contrary to what one would assume a dracolich-demigod would put into a batch of homemade cookies, these contained chocolate chips, peanuts, and no damned souls. Well, perhaps one; he did like to spoil himself, after all.
The scene inside looked like a library-warzone hybrid. Books and papers lay everywhere, and discarded scraps littered the ground. The two combatants, Twilight and Sparkle, were still working with the same zeal they had started with all that time ago. Thorn knew that they had lost their sense of time. Without a need for food, sleep, or any other bodily process, and without a sun or a clock to measure time by, they had just continued working without ever realizing just how long they had been going.
The cookies were celebratory in nature, though. His mom and aunt were finishing up and, having access to his mother’s senses, Thorn had timed the batch of cookies so that they’d be warm by the time the two goddesses were done. And lo and behold, Sparkle was making the final adjustments.
“Done!” She declared with no small amount of excitement. “Done done done!” she repeated.
“Congratulations,” Thorn said. “The two of you managed to convert the entirety of equine morality into a single, elegant, adaptable formula. Have a cookie; you deserve it.”
Sparkle and Twilight each grabbed a cookie and devoured it with gusto. Thorn offered them each another. “I really am impressed with you two. You did it in a little less than a minute.”
“It was longer than a minute, Thorn,” Sparkle remarked. “A few days at least...”
Thorn looked at his mother; his face was completely neutral. “You completely lost track of time in there, didn't you?”
“A bit, yes,” Twilight said, answering for her sister.
“You were in here for a minute... of real time,” Thorn replied.
Sparkle did the mental calculation. “Almost four years?”
Thorn shrugged. “Well, not quite that long. At least two years. Maybe three. You two were making such progress, we didn't want to stop you. And then there was that month you two took off to have sisterly bonding time, because being trapped in a room with somepony of the opposite spin for three years meant that that was bound to happen.”
“BuCk No. We DiD nOt SlEeP wItH eAcHoThEr.”
“I didn't say you did,” Thorn quipped.
“You thought it, and I can still read your mind,” Sparkle shot back.
Thorn at least had the decency to look away sheepishly. “Anyway, Cobalt and I took care of things. Scootaloo and Sombra have been moved to the real world, since we didn't think prolonged stasis was a good idea. All the souls are in soul-sleep, and won't awaken until you give them the order. Grandma, grandpa, Cobalt, and I finished up the enchanting as well, so as soon as you two are ready, we can get everypony sorted.”
“Oh... Thank you, Thorn. You’ve been really productive,” Sparkle said.
“You're welcome. Also, I should mention that Cobalt’s been going a little stir crazy lately. They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and Cobalt’s infatuation with you certainly hasn't diminished at all.” Thorn growled. “Buck him, use a libido killing curse on him, I don't care; just do something.”



Massage vouchers changed from hooves to claws. In a world where nothing physical had value, the promise of a massage or similar service had become the new currency between the afterlife’s awake citizens. Thorn smirked, knowing his grandmother owed him a massage, having lost their little bet. Of course, him winning meant that Cobalt and his mother still weren’t doing what they so obviously wanted to do. Even a kiss between them would have been nice, but Thorn had made his bet knowing that Sparkle wouldn’t actually sleep with Cobalt, even though they both wanted to.
Thorn led the group to the souls of the dead. For whatever reason, he had placed all the sleeping souls in front of Sparkle’s palace - both versions of it. As it turned out, the afterlife had grown a mirror image side, where everything was replicated, including most of the ponies. Those that died in Sparkle’s timeline appeared in the “upper” version of the afterlife, while those that died in Twilight’s timeline appeared in the “lower” version of the afterlife. Considering that gravity reversed when one traveled between the two otherwise disconnected sections, and that the buildings in one section were reflected perfectly into the other, those orientations were rather meaningless and arbitrary. Thus, Twilight proposed that the two henceforth be referred to as the “light” and “dark” afterlife, in reference to their respective, patron soul goddess. Sparkle accepted those names without hesitation.
Currently, Sparkle, Thorn, Cobalt, and Twilight were standing in the middle of a field. In the distance, Sparkle’s simultaneously real and imaginary castle stood tall, overlooking the meadow like a giant, stone monolith of impossible proportions. Closer to them stood hundreds of souls, now awakened. Many of them had been formerly devoured by Sparkle. They would have run, had it not been for Sparkle immobilizing and silencing them all. 
But now that a nervous Sparkle was standing before them, with their undivided attention upon her, she found that dangerously few words would come to her. “Um... Hi. I... really have no idea what I’m doing here. Sorry, I’m new at this. For those of you who don’t know... you’re dead, and Sleeper, Keeper, and I are, collectively, Death.
“I suppose some of you knew that already. Many of you, I took before your time. I am deeply sorry for that. I also know you were trapped inside of me. I know that you all saw what I saw. I am also deeply sorry for that. There is likely nothing that I could do that would ever make up for that.
“Still, I’d like to try. That is why when I release you, you’ll each find paper and a pencil. I would like you to write out your greatest wish, along with your name and race, and if it is within my power, I will do what I can to grant it.”
Here, Twilight spoke up. “I am the All-Mother, although some of you might know me as Lady Life. My sister’s crimes against you were terrible, I know, but she really does ask for your forgiveness. I ask of you that you find it within yourself to forgive her, as I have done. If it takes restoring you to life, or allowing you to return to the world of the living once more for her to earn that forgiveness, I am sure that she would be more than willing to accommodate you.”
Sparkle looked at her sister. She knew that matters regarding the living was now Twilight’s domain; if Twilight, both a paladin and Life, was willing to let the dead return just this once, then Sparkle would let the dead return if they asked.
Sparkle released the restraints binding the plethora of souls in place. The field erupted with noise as the dead screamed and hollered. Many of them ran forwards, intent on striking Sparkle, on getting vengeance with their own hooves and claws. Instead, Thorn roared and stepped forwards, growing in size as he did, with the intent of shielding his mother from the onslaught. “Back off!” he growled. “Act like civilized people. I’m the only monster here; if you try to hurt my mom, I won’t hesitate to eat you again!”
That got the mob to quiet down quickly. Sparkle scolded Thorn mentally, but had to admit he’d done a great job of quelling the mob’s immediate rage. “Now,” Thorn said, “write down your wish. Let’s get this done like the people we all are.”
Soon enough, the first ponies were done writing their wishes and were pushing their way up through the crowd. Almost every single one of them had a negative expression, ranging from a slight scowl to a downright murderous glare. And with each one, Sparkle felt like she was being cut deeper and deeper, and that soon there would be nothing left of her beyond mincemeat.
Yet, as the procession of the dead carried on, Sparkle started noticing more and more ponies with neutral, or even happy expressions. When a small filly came up to her, donning a broad smile, Sparkle had to ask, “Why are you so cheerful?”
“I remember you,” the filly said. “You were the purple pony that helped me when I was sick.”
“When you were sick?” Sparkle asked. She honestly could not remember such a filly, yet this filly could apparently remember her previous body and identify her anyway. Somepony who’d been eaten by her wouldn’t have had that problem, but she hadn’t eaten a filly’s soul - as far as she could remember.
“Yeah! I got so cold and hungry, and then my body started falling apart. You found me in that alley and whacked me in the head. It made me feel better. I thought we were playing a game. And then when you finally punched me out of my body, I felt so good. I could finally get to sleep. Then I woke up here, and you looked different, but you felt the same,” the filly explained. Strangely, her tail was wagging behind her body, as if she was really excited.
As for Sparkle, something in the filly’s story made if finally click where they’d met before. “You were that zombie filly that I found on the streets of Canterlot a couple years ago!”
“Yep!” the filly replied. “Can I have a wish too? I know you said it was for the ponies you hurt, but you only helped me...”
Sparkle smiled. “Of course,” she replied. “What is it that you wish?”
“Can I have ice cream? I’ve never had ice cream before! Daddy wouldn’t let me.”
Sparkle’s smile faded. The filly had become an undead because of her neglect; of course she wouldn’t have tasted something as simple as ice cream. That was readily fixed, as Sparkle conjured a large carton of peanut butter ice cream for her. “Here you go; peanut butter flavored, my favorite.”
The filly grabbed the carton. “Thanks!” And without another word, she dashed off.
Cobalt trotted up to Sparkle, a basket full of wishes in his magical grip. “That was sweet of you,” he remarked. His voice was still tinged with disappointment from his lack of earlier success with Sparkle.
“It was nothing,” Sparkle replied. “I didn’t even realize ponies like that were here.”
“Oh, they're here all right. I think you had a habit of collecting the ghosts of those who died near you,” Cobalt stated. Then, changing the subject somewhat, he said, “I’ve gotten a couple of requests and individuals that I think you should really take a look at. There's a couple of Death Cultists that are determined to appease you and want to help feed your insatiable hunger and/or lust. I think they might be planning a breakout to raid the living world for souls to feed you with. Then there’s also a Mr. Black Hammer who was asking about you, as in Sparkle, the lavender coated necromancer.”
Sparkle’s eyes went wide. “Black Hammer’s here? Where? I want to see him!”
Cobalt pointed over his left shoulder. “He’s back that way a bit. Careful of the cultists, though. They’re a bit antsy.”
“Thanks!” And with that, she galloped off. Navigating the crowd was easy enough, as she was taller than most, save for the occasional diamond dog or other non-pony, and everyone was eager to move out of her way. “Black Hammer!” she called out. “Where are you?”
“My Lady!” a pony that was definitely not Black Hammer called out. Sparkle took one look at him and immediately recognized the signs of vampirism on him. He ran up to her with all the speed his condition afforded him. As soon as he was in sight of her, he practically dove into the ground, bowing so deeply that his face was quite literally on the dirt.
“What?” Sparkle replied, not stopping at all. Her head continued to sweep back and forth as she looked for her old mentor in the crowd.
“My Lady,” he repeated, hoisting himself up so that he could follow. “My name is Ace O’ Hearts. It is such an honor to meet you, Lady Death. My fellows and I-”
“Let me stop you there,” Sparkle interrupted. “Are you one of those ponies that claim to be my devoted followers?”
His eyes went wide and he smiled, showing off his sharp fangs. “Yes! We are but your humble servants, willing to do your every bidding!”
“I don’t care.”
Ace’s expression shattered like glass. One would think that he’d just been stabbed, judging by the pained expression that had replaced the smile.
“You cultists have long since been an annoyance to me. I don’t have time to deal with you; I have somepony very important to find,” Sparkle said, still walking away. Honestly, she couldn’t get away from him fast enough; her first major encounter with a Death Cult had nearly ended with her being sacrificed to herself, and her second major encounter involved a war waged in her name. Even her lesser encounters had left a bitter taste in her mouth.
“You are looking for somepony?” Ace asked, trotting swiftly to keep up with the long-legged Sparkle. “Please, allow my companions and I to help you search; it is the least we can do.”
Death paused, if only for an instant. She shrugged and replied, “An old friend of mine, Black Hammer, is somewhere nearby. I wish to speak with him. He is an elderly unicorn stallion, and is likely searching for somepony himself.”
“I understand, my Lady! I will inform the others, and we will begin searching at once!” Sparkle nodded. Ace turned and galloped away, much to Sparkle’s relief. If they helped her find Black Hammer faster, she’d be grateful; if not, then they were at least otherwise occupied.
Eventually, she did manage to spot her late mentor’s soul, without having needed the cultist’s help. She trotted up to him. “Black Hammer.”
The elderly dark enchanter bowed his head. “Lady Death,” he replied.
“I heard from my Sleeper that you were searching for information on Sparkle,” she said. “I believe I have all the information you seek, and more.”
His eyes lit up. “Really? Please, I beg of you, what became of Sparkle?”
Sparkle simply offered one of her six hooves. “Let me show you.”
He took her hoof eagerly. Being already dead, her lethal touch had no effect on him. With little more than a thought, the two of them vanished into the shadows. Together, they reappeared inside Sparkle’s castle, specifically inside her bedroom. 
As she trotted over to her nightstand, she activated her soul-sorting spell for the first time. Her vision wavered momentarily, but then it fully took hold and latched onto her soul and soul-sight. Her eyes glanced back at her mentor, the pony she loved almost as much as her own immediate family. In that instant, his soul seemed to unfold before her. Every little mark and crease suddenly had a novel-length story in her eyes. His entire history, as seen through his own eyes, was bare before her, and in an instant, she understood it all.
Brought up by the spell, she knew in that instant where he stood on the balance of good and evil, measured on a numeric scale. The number eleven floated over his head. Sparkle smiled. He’d just barely made it into paradise, but that was better than purgatory. 
Still grinning from the confirmation that her mentor was a good pony, despite what the ponies of Canterlot had said, Sparkle opened up her drawer and pulled out two of her most prized possessions. Both of those items were very real and not conjured by the magic of the afterlife. It gave them a solidity that nothing conjured possessed.
She levitated the two objects to her mentor. “I’ve cherished these since the day they were made. One was a gift from my mentor, while the other was made by me to impress him. I believe you’ll recognize them.”
When Hammer saw them, his eyes went so wide that Sparkle wondered if they were going to fall out of his head. “These...”
On the left was a simple slide whistle, bearing a crudely made curse that affected blood flow. On the right was an extremely well-crafted and heavily cursed dagger, wrapped in decorative crimson cloth. Sparkle unwrapped the cloth and held the dagger aloft. “I was told that there was only one pony that this bloodthirsty dagger would never hurt.”
She plunged the blade at her heart with her full strength. As she had known it would, the blade pressed into her skin, but never punctured it - not by virtue of her divinity, but because the blade refused to harm its master. Had she been literally anypony else, the blade would have killed her had she even nicked herself.
“Sparks?”
She pulled her grandfather-figure into a bone-crushing hug. “Hey, Hammer. It’s good to see you again. I missed you so much.”



It was a veritable sea of souls that they had to wade through. Even with Thorn and Cobalt helping, as the Soul-Sorting spell had transferred to them as well, sorting through the plethora of the dead took time. And even with each sorting taking only seconds of hyper-accelerated time, they had been working for hours.
Finally, finally, they were done. All the souls of the dead had been sorted, and those that had been wronged by Sparkle had had their wishes listed and sorted as well. It was with no small amount of pleasure that Sparkle was able to finally declare the afterlife “open for business,” so to speak. She still had a massive list of things to do, and she knew that more things would be coming every day, but at least she was caught up for now.
The deathly trio then joined Twilight and the twins’ parents. “So, are we ready?” Sparkle asked.
Twilight nodded. “Yes. Everything is up and running for me. Soul production is at 100%, and the energy is flowing freely from the afterlife to the tree of souls. I’m ready.”
“You know,” Thorn said, “it feels odd going back to the real world after all this time. Even though this place is the dream, the real world seems distant and hazy...”
“And yet it feels like we were there just yesterday, all at the same time,” Sparkle finished.
“Well then, I suppose that I’ll see you soon?” Twilight asked.
“Hey, we don’t have to split up just yet,” Sparkle said. “You were having trouble with the vines on your side, and I was having trouble with them on my side. But now that we have a way to cross between the two-”
“We can fight them together!” Twilight cheered.
“We’re two halves of the same whole,” Sparkle said. “Why shouldn’t we fight together?” She paused. “And I think I just realized what I meant when I told myself that coin metaphor all those years ago.”
“What metaphor?” Twilight asked.
“A coin has two sides, and one is always the winner. Flip accordingly. If one of us can’t fix something, the other should be able to,” Sparkle answered.
“That makes sense. So, which world do we fix first?”
“Let’s start with you; weren’t you on the defensive when you left?” Sparkle asked.
Twilight nodded. “Yes.” Her horn illuminated with light magic. Before her, a portal to her home opened up.
Sparkle mirrored her with dark magic, opening a portal to her own world. Twilight looked at her inquisitively, until she saw that Sparkle was pulling Scootaloo and Sombra back through the portal. Sparkle explained that with their return to the real world, the time dilation would end, leaving the two ponies at the mercy of the vines, and that by bringing them back, she could protect them.
“What are you going to do with Sombra anyway?” the light goddess asked.
“Well, I was going to use him as a spare body, or as a magic teacher, but now... I was thinking of killing him for real and using him as a servant. It would be fitting, seeing as he enslaved his own people. Or we could always melt him down to use in the next generation of souls, after heavy filtration of course.”
“Just don’t be excessively cruel,” Twilight replied. “Don’t be cruel to anypony, if you can avoid it.”
“... I’ll try.”
“That’s all I ask,” Twilight replied. “Now, let’s go kick some vine butts.”



Approximately 48 seconds after the first pulse had raced through all of space-time, a second, stronger pulse burst forth in the “light” timeline. Those attuned to it, both light and dark mages, as well as the magically sensitive individuals across the world, all recognized that something had fundamentally changed.
The goddess Life had awoken, and had made her first appearance.
Thirteen figures immediately appeared around the portal from which she and her sister emerged. Twelve of those thirteen were gray stallions, lacking in manes, tails, and eyebrows. Each was dressed in an identical gray suit and wearing a gray fedora. The thirteenth was less of a person and more of a distortion in the very fabric of reality, invisible to all but the most powerful of beings, and even then was hard to see.
Sparkle’s soul-sorting and soul-sight abilities almost immediately went on the fritz, but in that single instant of sight, she caught a glimpse of something very alien in nature.
“Death,” the gathered stallions all said in unison. “We need to talk.”
“Who are you?” Sparkle demanded. “And what are you?”
“We are Time.” And then time froze. The air stopped. Sound stopped. Light stopped. Even their bodies stopped. Their awareness, however, didn’t stop.
And then, a meaningless amount of time later, time resumed. And the two goddesses saw the stallions for what they were. Thirteen fragments of a whole, they were at once one being and many. Unlike Sparkle and Thorn, they appeared to have been violently torn asunder, rather than having been carefully split.
“You have traveled into the past. You have met your past self, before your own ascension. You are a threat to the very integrity to this universe. Retrace your steps and create yourself, or the universe risks destruction. Do not try and cross us. We have erased your mistakes with time before; we will do it again if necessary. It will be even more painful the next time.”
The thirteen vanished, their warning having been delivered. Twilight and Sparkle were left standing in the forest they had appeared in, completely alone, and very confused. “What was that?” Twilight asked.
“You know just as much as I do,” Sparkle responded. “Come on, we can deal with this “Time” group later. They don’t seem so keen on sticking around right now. Let’s deal with the vines first.”
“Right.”



Purging out the vines was almost trivial, they realized quickly. It wasn’t even their nature as goddesses that helped them so much. Twilight had struggled because she was stuck on the defensive, and had no ability to counter. Sparkle had struggled because her lack of defense had cost her most of her offensive arsonal. 
Twilight cast the same magic-protecting light spell on Sparkle, which freed her from the disruptive influence of the vines and enabled her to cast a few highly malicious (and highly illegal) curses at the vines that were left, causing them to wither into ashes.
What actually ended up being the real challenge when they returned was the sudden onslaught of sensory information from their respective domains. Twilight could feel when every new soul was needed, and Sparkle could feel when and where every death was occurring. In the case of the latter, some of the deaths passed her by in the blink of an eye, or felt horribly drawn out. Some were loud, and Sparkle realized that those were ponies who knew they were dying, while others were quiet to her senses, meaning that the ponies were surprised or unaware of their deaths. And with a soul being born or dying every few seconds, the onslaught was almost constant for them.
Life and Death pushed it aside as much as they could, knowing that it would take time for them to get used to their abilities working in real time. Instead, they focused on the task at hoof, which was currently getting to Sparkle’s world so that they could end the remaining vines there as well.
The portal opened up before them, carrying them to the afterlife. Another opened up soon after. This time, Cobalt and Thorn crossed over with them, returning to their own timeline once more. Together, they set off to purge the last of the vines.



Again, a pulse rippled outwards from the moment they appeared. This time, however, it was the darker factions that took more notice, as Sparkle resonated more strongly with her own time.
In Ponyville, a mare by the name of Marionette clutched her head. The ex-Death cultist panicked. That wave of power could have only been from one source: Lady Death. 
Marionette knew she had a debt to pay. She had incurred Death’s wrath with her foolish plans, and she knew that Death would soon come to collect. However, in her fear, she had devised a plan to save herself - or at least, protect herself against eternal damnation. She knew that now it was time to act.
Her stuff was already packed. She’d been living out of a suitcase in her own home since Death’s visit a little over a year ago. Now it was time to flee.
Her route was already planned, and so was her destination. What she needed was a tiny, isolated town in which nothing ever happened, and in which she could bunker down in. Luckily, her second cousin, Starlight Glimmer, was the mayor of such a town, and was sure to welcome her with open hooves.