Time is up, Twilight

by Dream Whisper

Chapter 9: Searching

Twilight took a deep breath and let it out again. It was the technique Princess Cadence had taught here. These unicity unicorns were taking apart her belief in Ponyhood step by step. With every detail she learned about this assemblance of hatred, her disgust and anger grew a bit more. They wouldn’t break out again - Twilight was painfully reminded of what she had done, most definitely not her best reset. No, her anger and disgust both equally grew in the back of her brain as the grief and sorrow did. Again, she went back to her friends, to their laughter. She vividly imagined Pinkie Pie bursting out in streamers, while Applejack … NO! Not now! Not here! A tear slowly made its way down her chin. Not here...

Twilight had never had such an stressful search. Not that Twilight was really bothered by having to be masked all along. Instead, it was the mentality of the unicorns here that really brought her down. More than one time she overheard somepony hating on pegasi or earth ponies. Pegasi seemed generally to be less accepted, as there had been some kind of rebellion. These unicorns all had a deep hatred as some of them had lost their dearest friends to that rebellion. Twilight still could not accept the fact that friends had actually split up for that stupid reason.
How could a friendship possibly be destroyed through that potion? She remembered Rarities face, how it had changed. How the addiction had become a part of her, a part that was keeping her from meeting her friends. It had destroyed Rarity, at least what she had learned to love about Rarity. She could still not accept the idea that she had caused it herself. Did she? No. The massive misuse was none of her fault...

So, this was reset number 365 already. Exactly the amount of days in a year, while the prime factors were 5 and 73. The square root of that is about 19.1, so is the geometric middle. The arithmetic middle being 39 and the harmonic middle being 9.35. Math, you have to love it. However, this game was slowly getting boring and exhausting. There was just no goal. She could do this game until the end of time. There were infinite numbers after all.

"Did you see that pegasus trial yesterday? It was insane. They literally had cut her head off like butter. I don't know if anypony deserves something like that."

"Really? How can you say that? I had a pegasus friend once and he tried to get rid of my potion."

"Holy! What?! Really? Oh man, maybe they do deserve their fates."

These ponies were all fallen. Twilight had no sympathy left for them. Each and every time she had visited unicity, there had been situations like this. These unicorns were not really ponies anymore. They had become monsters. All of that because of that one machine she now had to find to get back.

In the latest resets, she had finally found out the supposed position of the machine. For that, she had done... things she was not proud of. She had forced ponies into answering. With some she used a bit more aggressive methods. She did not want to think about these details right now. The only way she had been able to do it had been through justifying it. Those unicorns were no ponies, they were monsters. She would never have hurt ponies, but hurting monsters was a necessity. Furthermore, the pain and wounds were getting reset each time anyway. She remembered broken legs and fatal wounds. These images would follow her along, no matter how hard she would try to forget them. Only the love to her friends kept her going on.

The machine was supposed to be in some sort of dungeon under the central district three, which was another government area. There were four big government districts in unicity, all created after the city had been renamed. It would have been easy enough to teleport down there, if she had known the layout of the dungeons. The unicorn she had tort... The monster of which she had acquired the information, had not really known that much herself. It seemed to be a big secret where the potion actually came from. She reached the district already as she had teleported quite close to it.

She noticed the well known guards standing right in front of the massive entrance. The one to the right would sneeze in just a few seconds and then the one to the left would scold him for being distracted at duty. And the one to the right would start an argument about how sneezing was inevitable and thus had to be considered a part of his duty. The one the left would be the first pony to attack, while they both would leave their positions. It had happened before and before. No, you might think it would give her the opportunity… You would be wrong! Although the two guards guarding the front of the entrance would be distracted soon en - ashheee! The guard started sneezing already. There was still a problem with getting in: The door would not open.
Twilight was not really sure how the unicorns had done this - she would most definitely find it out at some day. The door seemed to react differently to different types of magic. The exchange particles of magic are always the same as the basic principle of the great theory of magic stated. However, there seemed to be an identity conveyed with the spell the unicorns used to open the door. Either it was the way the spell was channeled or something about the spell itself. There are almost infinite possibilities to put information into magic. Trying all of the possibilities would take her not only a couple of retries, but probably longer than she had ever intended to life. Maybe thousands of years.
The magic of the door was of protective nature, but how many spells were there with protective nature after all? About 203940, which was about a bit too much to test out. And those were only the registered ones… and the past ones. There could have been a new technique invented, that would completely ruin every further trying. To find the spell by luck or by testing would be virtually impossible. And even the close study of the magic surrounding the door had not helped her further yet. The two guards were still fighting as Twilight was slowly coming closer to the door, investigating once again. How should she open that door to finally sneak in? There had to be a way, there always had been a way.
There was no way to open the door… and yet she would have to get in. THATS IT! Twilight almost exploded in joy. Her mind would never stop surprising herself. That idea was so impeccable! She felt so stupid for neglecting it at first. It isn’t something you would think of in usual circumstances. However, it was still another step further to her goal. Slowly, but most definitely steadily, she would win this race against her own insanity.

She felt a bit of excitement, but overall more nervous. It would not affect her in any way if she would get caught, but it was still not really a good idea. It would just waste another reset. There was just one possible way to get through here without risking her own death: Teleporting right behind the door. It was obvious that there would never be anything right behind the door.

The hall was dark and she almost thought the spell had backfired. Then a light was turned on in front of her. The whole hall was filled with stallions of the royal gua... of the united guard. All of them looked at her not realizing what had happened for just a heartbeat. After that, everything went wild. The first guards were creating a protective shield, while the others were already taken formation to attack her. The shock still deep down her throat, Twilight reacted out of reflex more than sense. She teleported right behind the enemy as that had been a solid strategy for so many years. The guards, however, were already prepared for that case. Three fireballs were stopped right in front of her through a shield she had constructed in the last second. It would take a leap of faith to get through here. She teleported again, not even sure where it would leave her. The guards had the clear advantage of knowing this place.

She found a couple of stairs and ran down without hesitation. Her heart was pumping so fast, she wondered why it wouldn't burst already. The blood rushed along her ears and she began to feel sick. This was no game, this was her life after all. A turn to the left, a turn to the right. Two guards there. She turned around and the way was already blocked. She decided to skip through the corner, hopefully arriving somewhere.

Incredible pain. Unbearable pain. Her mind wanted to quit already, but her body was still alarmed. She could not die here not now. She looked at her leg which was where the pain was coming from. A shiver ran down her back. Her eyes were almost closing, unable to bear all of this. A tear of pain dropped from her mouth and she screamed as loud as she could. She was panting for air but all air seemed to have left the room. Her leg was stuck half way in the wall. The wall had been thicker than she had expected. That is why you never ... She screamed again, unable to withstand that pain for much longer. That is why you never teleport to unknown locations. She teleported again, just a couple of hooves forward, but the damage was already done. Her heart was making it hard to breath and the air was still refusing to enter her body. Another tear dropped from her nose and her brain was going wild. PAIN! She tried to keep her head calm and think about a solution, but it was impossible to defeat the feeling of pure suffering.

The guards had already arrived, surrounding her, firing all kinds of spells at her shield. She couldn't bear this, not the pain. She screamed again and this time she teleported forward again. Just forward. There had to be another room, there just had to be. This could have been her end. However, she found herself in midair. The feeling of falling overrode the pain for just a moment.

Krk! The sound of her bones breaking apart was not pleasant. However, the pain could not really rise any further. She screamed and coughed as there was nothing else she could do right now. She had lost. The air was still refusing to flow inside. She screamed again, the pain was unbearable. Slowly, her vision faded as only the sound of her own sobbing and screaming was heard. She didn't even know if those were her own screams anymore. The only thing she knew was pain and darkness.

Light.

The pain was gone...

Was this reality? Was this her mind having hallucinations? No. She realized the truth. It was the storage room in dim light. The same stinky air, the same brittle door. The pain was gone but just to be sure, she swung her leg around. It was still there! Another chill ran down her spine as she remembered the intense pain. The entire reset had not been wasted. The pain had had a reason. Now she finally knew where to teleport. Without even bothering to acquire the mask and robes, she teleported right into the dungeons. It was a huge teleport and she could not allow herself to miss again. It was incredibly difficult, but luckily state 0 had refreshed her magic reserves. Still, after the teleport, she didn't have much magic left. Maybe she should have done the whole things in two tries. This time she fell again, but not from that high. She looked around. A giant hall filled with all sorts of machines. She inspected them further: Those were her own machines, but altered... Instead of the combination of three machines she had used, this room was filled with hundreds, all creating the potion. How did they calibrate it though?

She searched for any sign of calibration. The machine blocks were huge and towering up beside her left and right. However, with every second of searching she gathered more and more evidence for that one theory: In this giant amphibious hall, there was not one machine to calibrate the potion. The machines just kept repeating themselves, all those amplifiers and redistributors and imbuing machines and even capacity emulators, which seemed to be powered by easy accumulators. Not a single calibration machine though. These ponies did not calibrate the potion! This was madness! She remembered Rarity's addiction, the anger of the unicorns, the disharmony. Without the calibration, this potion was turning unicorns into monsters.

There would be no time to calibrate anything though, as she was already hearing hooves slowly trotting over the metal ground, holding up and opening the door in the upper corner of the room. Somewhere on a distant platform she could make out two patrolling unicorns. She had to take the potion now or she would be discovered. Come on! She broke the machine right in front of her while trying to get that damn bottle out of it. The machine started making loud rumbling noises which resulted in her detection.

"We have somepony stealing the potion again. I repeat: We have somepony stealing potion again. Secure the perimeters."

Now or never. She drank the potion, waiting and waiting endless for heartbeats, until she finally felt an effect. She could just hope this would work. The first fireballs had already been fired, but the door to the past was faster. It was the same bush. The mask and the robes were here, as fresh as they could be. When had they been left here? She would never know. It was time to end the loop once and for all. No more resets, no more 366, just no more. She could not have born it any longer. She started running, not knowing if it was the right time or not. She couldn't risk being too late. She burst the doors open, wondering about her own power of will. 366 resets, 912804 seconds, 15213.4 minutes, 253.56 hours, 10 and a half days. There was no time for failure.

"Your time is up Twilight!"

How wonderful could it have been if there had not been future Twilight saving herself from... future future Twilight which she now was herself. Confuzzling, to express it in Pinkie Pie's style. How would it be to reunite with her friends after all of this torture? She felt the future Twilight jumping her down, her robes softening the fall. Future Twilight was quite determined, but so had she been.

"No! Yours is up!"

It felt like acting a movie. Every little detail was planned ahead. She had no other choice than following. She teleported herself and future Twilight out of the room as future Twilight just started to use her magic to create the glowing orb effect that symbolized the teleportation. Really just like in an acted movie.

"Don't mess this up for me!"

It was almost unbearable to watch herself speak these words as if they had any meaning. Maybe they have had a meaning once. Maybe there had been a first Twilight, living through all of this, making all these decisions. It always felt like she was acting as a future version of Twilight who didn't know about any consequences, or was just learning them. She could have cried out loud. All of this was wrong. She had to stay strong though. Just until this was over. She arrived behind Twilight just in time and acted like stabbing her. She didn't have a blade or even the intention to hurt anypony but it still had seemed like that. However, she remembered the past: There had been something in future Twilight’s hooves. Thus, she had to create at least the illusions of some blade. She used magic to her advantage once again. As long as past Twilight believed her illusion, it would be just as good as a real blade.

"You don't understand. If you do this, then..."

The future Twilight teleported right next to her, ramming her away before she could finish that sentence. It all didn't matter. It all was scripted. There was no goal, there was just toleration of the inevitable. Future Twilight just took her horn and tried to finish her as she just teleported away. Had she done it? The distant pull was growing stronger, and soon enough, the future had her back.

"No! No, no, no, no, no, NO! Just no! Argh! No! Why? Arghhh"

Twilight almost exploded. Why? Why? Why? For Celesita's sake, WHY?

The storage room. No machine, no boxes, not even a ceiling. Debris spread all over the room, even some under her hooves.

Why?

She stepped out. A fallen castle. Burned ground.

Why...

Slowly, the words of Celestia returned to her. These words, which were consuming her every thought. These words, which were burning her sanity as a fuel for her depression. These words which were undying and would never leave her mind again. These words which would annihilate her at some point.

It may already be too late