Time is up, Twilight

by Dream Whisper

Chapter 8: It stands for unity

She was finally free and she had found her goal! With the black mask she had just found in this past, she could travel back through time as the mysterious mare and solve the paradox.
There was just one problem here: How could she travel back into the past these 25 years, that she had accidentally traveled into the future? She was a strong Alicorn, of course, but not that strong. She would have to find a way to reach the potion once again. However, the machine was obviously not in this storage room. It was reset 308. However, it was not time to think about the number 308, it was time to think about traveling back with the mask and robes. So, the capital of the unicorns, unicity, was actually quite far away. The new reign of unicorns would have probably transported the machine right into their capital. Until now, Twilight had refused to travel into the unicorn capital, as she did not want to see with her eyes, what had happened to unicorns. Of course, she had met Rarity already, but it had been a rather short visit. She had wanted her to stay, and that was something she could have never done, even if there would not have been constant resets to state 0. Now, however, she would meet up with the heart of unicity, trying to find out where the machine was. Luckily, she had all the time of the world.

It took quite a lot of her magical reserves to teleport so far away. She had really underestimated that distance.

As the magical light of the teleportation faded, a city slowly arose behind it. Towers as high as you could never imagine. Higher than in Canterlot, higher than everything she had ever seen.. It almost looked like they were scraping the sky. Every street was filled with unicorns, trying to squeeze themselves through the masses. It was almost like watching a river of unicorns flowing through the streets. The clopping of the hooves and the sound of all those carts made the impression of an overflowing city even more vivid. This city was not as calm as Ponyville or Canterlot. This city was flowing, doing, living. Manehatten, also known as Unicity.
She could not make out a single earth pony or pegasus, though. It was so incredibly strange to see this disharmony reigning in Equestria. From time to time, she even saw posters claiming: Stop the earth pony harvesting. Our crops belong to us! Unicorns unite! We are going to build a new weather machine. Unicorns are naturally superior to other races. Vote for the new empire! Help us bring forth new generations. #Unipride. Without unicorns, the world would be dark. Let us unite for a brighter world. What have they done for us? Why should we help them?

It was indescribable how disgusted she felt. This was not the world that she had learned to love. Everything had gone wrong! She would have to undo what had been done and fix this mess. For that she would need the machine. Where could it be? She guessed that the machine was most likely in a safe government area. However, she did not really know her way around in this unicity. She decided to just ask the next unicorn. She turned her attention back to the streets, where something had already changed. A couple of unicorns were following her, while others were running around and spreading the news of her arrival. A shudder ran down her spine. These unicorns were fanatics.

She arrived within the confinement of the government district, where the buildings were all comparatively flat, but still amphibious. Gigantic complexes, which spread almost ten-thousand hooves along. It was as impressive as scary. This was not the world she had learned to know anymore. 23 years was a longer time than she had expected it to be. She was still only 9 days here. How would she feel about it, when she would have lived a whole month here or anything similar? Her mind jumped back to her friends, thinking of their laughter, of their voices, of the happiness. She remembered, how her last conversation with Pinkie had been. Pinkie had wanted to… Suddenly she noticed a guard approaching her. He didn’t wear the armor of Canterlot guards, but instead a new one which she didn’t know. Another sign of the clear segregation. The armor seemed a lot heavier, but that would probably also provide more protection. The guard had a deep, but harsh voice.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is a pleasure to meet you. Please, follow along."

She followed, although unsure why that royal guard had sounded so... ironic. Maybe times had changed even more than she had ever been able to expect. The royal guard lead her to the senate, where she would be asked questions. At least, that was what the guard had told her. Meanwhile, more and more guards came and escorted her. A chill ran down her spine, as she looked back to the amassing crowd of unicorns behind her. Something was most definitely wrong here. She felt uneasy with this much attention.
The masses of unicorns were soon held back by even more guards. This made her feel even more uneasy as the guards obviously were a lot more threatening as a crowd of unicorns. They all seemed to look down on her. She couldn’t decide if that was real or just her imagination. Soon enough, they dropped her in front of the senate, where only two guards continued leading her. They were, as their rank showed, both captains of the royal guard. The ranks seemed to still be the same as before. Maybe old traditions were hard to get rid off. The other guards were creating a wall to hold back the unicorns trying to catch a glimpse of her.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle! We have always wondered when this day was going to come. You look no day older than when we last met you. To make this clear: In this trial, it will be decided what is going to be done with you. There is no way out of this city other than our allowance."
At first she was just confused by that statement, but soon enough she processed it. Anger and disbelief both mixed into her confusion. She bristled with anger: Were they really trying to threaten her? Were they really so foolish as to threaten the element of magic? It had been about 9 whole days, but this was above everything else she had experienced. She felt the rage growing, the rage she had been holding back for 9 days. How could they even dare?

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna both have declined our offer, and it had been necessary to keep them... well guarded. We fear, that if you choose to decline as well, the same fate will be yours. We hope that you choose well."

They were really doing this! Twilight almost burst out in anger, about to destroy whatever this was supposed to be. Her hatred for this world was only growing. Without her, but through her invention, the world had become this place. It was not only the anger about her unfortunate state, but also disgust for what those unicorns had created here. Her breathing became slower but a lot harder. Her muscles tensed up, but she still tried to contain the anger. These were fallen unicorns, but they were still ponies.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, we are going to ask you the following question just once, so please think through your answer."

From a council high above, an older mare began speaking. She had a blue coat and… Trixie? Was this really Trixie? Twilight looked closer, it was, in fact, Trixie! The disgust came up once again. Of course Trixie would have gotten a place way up in a society of disharmony. She seemed to be the head of the senate as her robes were mostly decorated unlike any other pony in here.
There was an overall colored distribution of ponies, similar to the one at the winter wrap up, just much more extreme. The lower tier unicorns all had a red robe, and were sitting down under the fewer blue-robed unicorns, which seemed to be the middle class. An upper class of unicorns sat in comfortable thrones and was wearing green robes. The head of the senate however, was wearing a white robe, that shone with the power of the sun.
It felt so weird to see Trixie as the head of this senate. Twilight still tried to contain her anger and disgust, but it got harder and harder. Especially the way Trixie was speaking to her made her want to beat her. It was that nasty arrogant tone that nopony liked. Twilight started to clench her teeth as she didn’t want to burst out in anger… yet.

"To be a part of the community of unicorns, all half-breeds will have to agree to following terms..."

This was it. This was just the last straw. This was unspeakable. They could not do that! Did they really just call her…? During that sentence Twilight had held her breath and now she released it with her royal canterlot voice:

"What did you just call me? What did you just call me?"

The roaring of her royal voice vibrated through the room, smashing each and every window. The royal voice was something she had learned from Luna. It was quite useful to give announcements to masses of ponies, or for something like this. If she had not had the same love to each and every pony in Equestria, she would have ripped this whole future apart already. Only the last bits of her moral were holding her back. She had to remind herself again and again, that those were still ponies. Her anger however wasn’t satisfied with that. She could almost see herself bursting out. She had to stay calm or she would destroy them all.

"Oh, be careful. The half-unicorn half-pegasus has spoken. What is she going to do? Slap us with her wings?"

Oh, if she had ever felt rage, that had been nothing compared to this. Her body began to shiver, as she felt the ever-growing need to destroy everything in this future. The red-robed unicorn that had said these words earned applause and celebration instead of denial and rejection. If this future had come to this, there was just one thing she could do. Only her love to these fallen ponies was holding her back.

"Do you see her weakness? She is weak, because she has wings. The pegasi have envenomed her, spreading the disease of their weakness. I wouldn't wonder, if she also had a bit of earth pony inside of her."

It didn't matter anymore. This united city, unicity, had fallen below everything she held dearly. These unicorns have become the cruel monsters she had always tried to fight. Celestia loved them too much to hurt them, but she had been an Alicorn for much longer. Even Cadence and Luna had not done a damned thing. This, however, was far too much. This was not unity. This was discrimination beyond everything that ponyhood stood for. Ponyhood was unity in the face of difference. This was an abomination. Her anger and disbelief and disgust and sorrow and grief finally united and bursted out. The blood was rushing through her veins and she knew, she would destroy this whole town. The fact didn’t dissuade her from doing it, instead, it felt like the right thing to do. She had to give it a voice now, all these emotions had to flow out.

"Silence! You have turned away from unity and you have become monsters, each and every one of you. The other races are a part of you, even if you hate to acknowledge it."

"What are you going to do? We are thousands of unicorns, you are one half-breed monstrosity."
It had been the red-hooded unicorn speaking once again. She smiled as she knew that this monster would die first. She took a moment of silence to assemble her deepest magic. Usually she would not have done this, but this was extraordinary. These ponies had done the unspeakable, and the unforgivable. Twilight would just pass the judgement of her emotions over this town.

Anger - The town would have to burn in flames. Disgust - Afterwards there would only be a field of death. Disbelief - Nopony would ever forget what they would see after she was finished here. Sorrow - Even the worst enemies of this city will cry when they gaze upon the death that this city has inflicted upon itself. Grief - The feeling that would stay in this city even after every of its citizens was gone.

The room filled with her magical aura, the purple vibrations shattered through the walls. The whole room darkened as she slowly arose from her position. It felt good to release all that anger. Those who she had once loved had turned against her. She could see fear in their faces, a well deserved fear. The walls shattered and the ceiling just disintegrated. The ground below them started to vibrate uncontrollably. They started to shoot beams of magic at her, but her shield was deflecting each and every hit. She was channeling all of her anger into this one spell and the anger turned her magic black. She used her royal canterlot voice once again to ask the question, that would follow these monsters into their graves:

"Why have you fallen, my subjects?"

The wave of magic burst through the landscape, pushing everything aside and consuming it afterwards. Every wall, every house, every tower, every monster, every poster of their arrogance, every remaining bit of their existence vanished upon colliding with her magic. In the distance, she could hear the sky scraping buildings collapsing under their weight, being consumed by her magic, vanishing in explosions of pure energy. She could hear ponies screaming in fear, that fear that others had endured in these terrible times. Why had they fallen so deeply?

Twilight sent out a last wave of power that crushed everything. The huge explosion carved through stone as if it was butter, and left nothing. The only remains of what had been a city of ignorance was a big crater around her. The stone was molten and bits of her magic were still eating into the world around her. She slowly descended from her position up in the air, down into the crater.

Her anger had destroyed everything, but had she found peace? Most definitely not. Anger had never been a solution to anything. It had felt just so good to let it all out. She knew, that the sorrow and grief would come back, but for now she felt empty. It had taken her last energy, but it was second 2485 already, so just 9 seconds to go. The next time she would come here, she would have to find the machine alone.

For now, however, she had done what these fallen ponies had deserved.

---

309. It was a nice number. Only 3 and 103 as prime factors. The square root was 17.58, while the sum of all digits equated to 12. The arithmetic middle of the prime factors was exactly 50, the geometric middle being 17.58, exactly being the square root and the harmonic middle being 5.83. Math was a good way to ease the pain of what she had done, of what had happened. If she would stay much longer in this future, she would most definitely become insane. She had let her anger destroy lives. There was no forgiveness for that, even in knowing the city would be there once again as her actions were without consequences in this paradox.

She assembled her magic again to teleport outside. This time, she teleported right to the bush, where she had been yester... more than 25 years ago, when she had watched herself meeting her friends. The mask and the robe were still here, however both were much much older and having holes all over them. The bush had also grown much bigger by now, almost tripling her height.

Maybe, if she would disguise herself, it wouldn't become so obvious that she was indeed an Alicorn... Something she had never wanted to be forced to veil. It was a big city and ponies would not have the time to muster her thoroughly and discover that bump where her wings were. Maybe the future Twilight had not only used the robes, because her future Twilight had used them, but maybe also because it had been necessary to travel back through time. Twilight began wondering, if there could have been a first Twilight who had made all these decisions. It seemed as if every decision of future Twilight had been a decision she would have made, if not knowing what consequences it would have. From teleporting into the past just one day over the words she had spoken, up to this masking. Maybe, there was a solution somewhere. Then, there were these horrible, terrible words returning to her mind...

It may already be too late.

Author's Note:

Just as a quick notice: Thank you for reading, everypony. Each reader makes this story so much more worthy in my eyes. You are the ponies really writing the story.

Let me know in the comments, whether you liked me going more into the detail of that future, or if you would rather like the plot to continue faster :D

Thank you for your attention,
Dream Whisper

Comments

[Dream Whisper]

3335710

Somepony actually giving a criticism

It is incredibly difficult to find criticism these days, because everypony is too busy to read a good old story

Let me explain just one thing beforehand:
The story is really supposed to start off quite strange and with many holes. Over the chapters, these holes are slowly getting filled, step by step, revealing one bit after another. I know, that is quite a work to read, but I didn't want to give the reader directly the information, because where is the fun in reading then?

And now to that darn line:

Yes, it absolutely bugged not only you, but also me. Already when writing I thought about it quite a lot. The pillows everywhere part doesn't really appeal to me nor would it to the reader. I decided to leave it in as at that time, I didn't really know, if that was just me. Sometimes, I think a way of saying something is totally messed up, however, it often turns out, that it wasn't.
Seeing you also being annoyed by that formulation gave me the security to safely rewrite it, without feeling bad for it all

If you read more and more of the story, you might discover, that it is actually picking up pace, although it starts very slowly and - as I already mentioned - with many plot holes. That is most definitely a flaw of mine, as I can (maybe?) not make the story appealing enough without revealing too much for my liking. Maybe I should become more open minded to giving away information, or maybe I should give more action in the start, although that can sometimes really seem forced, especially in a story, that is - like this one - really reliant on plot, not action.

This is the rewritten part:
This time, she swore to herself, she wouldn't fail. Twilight had already prepared one of the rooms for the testing. Instead of being filled with books about all sorts of topics, this room was filled with lots and lots of pillows. Why? She had encountered undesired side-effects before, like losing her balance. The pillows were there to stop her fall, if something would go wrong, which - she reminded herself of that again - this time it would definitely not.

Hooooweeeeveeer, after all that egghead stuff
Let us get to partying my first criticism

By the way, I have been working on this, although there are some major flaws still to it right now: i39.tinypic.com/nmdfkw.png
Well, you can't be a good artist and a good writer, so some day, I will have to stop doodling around in Vektor-art, but until then, I will doodle all of it.
By the way: That image was my first try to draw somepony without any original to copy from. That is why the proportions feel out of order. The part from her bum to her shoulders being to flat for example, the face looking slightly out of orientation and the heart amulet being slightly off target. However, just tell me, what you think about it

Is it just your profile pic, or is that even your OC? I guessed, it would be your OC, but you can never be sure, without a scientific proof, that causes the Gaussian distribution to go over a certain sigma-level, can't you?

Have fun reading that uber-long comment. Except, when you are here, you have most likely already taken that hurdle. Congratulations, you have just read about 200-300 words in only one comment

With best and friendliest and awesomest regards, that are about 20% cooler, than everypony else's regards,

Dream Whisper

[Haremking001]

Why the heck would you grief these idiots after they clearly already turned against you even after knowing that you are the source of the potion?!