Without Twilight

by Ephraim Blue

Chapter 8 - Lost and Forgotten

Chapter 8 - Lost and Forgotten

Upstairs Ponyville Library September 14th 1002

"What do you mean she can't recover her memories?" Rainbow asked in a fury. "We're doing all this to help her regain her memories, and you just come up and say she can't regain them?!"

"Rainbow, I never said that she can't regain her memories, weren't you listening? I said she can't recover her memories."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really! If you would let me explain it-"

"Then start explaining bub!" Rainbow interrupted.

Blue sighed. "Rainbow, 'regain' and 'recover' are two different things. Recover is retrieving something that is lost, or healing from an injury. Regain is just retrieving what is lost. When I used the word 'recover', I meant 'heal'. He memories can't be healed."

"And why not?"

"Because you can't heal what isn't there!" Blue snapped, making Rainbow flinch. "If this was a normal case of amnesia, then she could recover her memories, as in heal. Since her memories weren't lost, but stolen, they cannot be healed. Only retrieved, regained, ect."

Rainbow, who was still shocked by Blue's sudden shouting, spoke up. "But what about-"

"There's nothing more about it, Rainbow," Blue interrupted. "With her memories stolen, the only thing we can do is hope we find them. And there are four problems we face while doing that."

"And... those are...?"

"One, we need to find the memories. That wouldn't be so hard, because we can find them with a tracking spell. Two, we need to find out who took her memories. That one can be difficult or easy, depending on who took them. Three, this pony that took her memories is experienced in memory spells, allowing them to take another's memories. This suggests that they are a unicorn who is very skilled in magic."

Rainbow was listening carefully. "But what about the fourth reason?"

"That's the one I'm afraid of," Blue stated. "You have to remember, the Twilight in your library downstairs is from another dimension. This means that the pony who did this is either from another dimension, and somehow pushed Twilight into this dimension, or they are from this dimension nada pulled her in. Either way, that is dimension hopping. There are currently only two ponies I know who can do that. One of them is me, and the other is a good friend of mine. Neither of us would do this to Twilight, so we are out if suspects for any type of reason I can think of."

Rainbow sighed and looked back at the door. "So if we don't have any idea who did this, how they did it, or anything... What do we do?"

Blue walked over to the bedroom door. "I don't know," he said. "And there are more things that I'm afraid of then just who took her memories and how her memories were taken."

"What then?"

Blue glanced back at her. "I'm worried of what they plan to do with them."

Downstairs

Twilight could hear them yelling upstairs, yelling about her. Blue was saying something about 'regain' and 'recover', but neither of those words made any sense to her.

She trotted around the room. "This sucks," she said. "I can't do anything."

But you can.

Twilight perked her ears up. "W- Who said that? Who are you?" She looked around, but saw none to answer her question.

Please, listen to me!

"Why should I listen to you?"

Because I'm the only one who can help you get your memories back!

Twilight quietly gasped, and her eyes widened. "Who are you?"

My name is ________. The voice paused. M- My name is ________.

"What?" Twilight pressed on. "What is your name?"

I... I can't say... But that's not important! We don't have much time to talk!

"Why? What's the matter?"

I don't have time to explain!

"Why don't you?"

RRGHH! Look... Just hear me out, okay?

"Okay."

Good. Now, I need you to come into the- URK!

"Huh? Come into the 'irk'?"

No response.

"Hello? Little voice in my head, are you there?"

"You talking to someone Twilight?" Spike spoke up from beside her, making her jump. She turned to the purple dragon, small fear in her eyes.

She calmed down after a second. "No," she lied. "I wasn't talking to anyone."

???

"URK!" the voice went suddenly. Though there was no visible neck, it felt like something was choking on one, and it caused that sound to come from the voice.

"Now now..." another voice spoke. This one sounded calm, but sinister at the same time. "We can't have you ruining our surprise."

The first voice gasped for air when the choking stopped. "You... you're a monster."

"I'm a monster?" the second voice asked. "I- I'm a monster? You don't get it, do you? Your life was perfect. Better than perfect, even!"

"Get what?"

"Ah... There you go, admitting that you don't know, even though I've told you many times before."

"You never once said this! You said that you're life was perfectly planned out; that you were happy with the way you were living!"

The second voice laughed at the first's statement. "No... I was happy with the way you were living. And that goes to say, that I was happy with the way I was living. We are, after all-"

"I would never consider you anything close to that!"

"But why deny it, my dear? It's the truth, isn't it? And didn't one of your friends tell the truth even when you didn't believe it?"

"I... I- How do you know that? I never told you anything about that time!"

The second voice laughed once again. "Oh, even you know the answer to that. You think that being the state of somepony's mind just protects you from all the dangers of the world around you? I've seen what you are... I've seen everything about you. You can ask me any question about yourself, and I will be able to answer without a second's delay."

The first voice remained quiet for some time. "What is my name?"

The second voice didn't answer. "Congratulations. You've found the one question that cannot be answered to you."

"Why?! What is my name?! Tell me! Why is that the only thing I cannot remember?"

The second voice laughed once again, more menacing and longer this time. "And why should I tell you? You're no threat to me. The only one who could stop me now has nearly no memories of her past! She wouldn't be able to stop me now if she tried."

"You really are a monster..."

"Oh, I would highly doubt that. You see everypony out there? They're the monsters, not me. They took everything I would have had, and changed it all around! I was just as impressive as that rainbow-maned pegasus all those years ago! She reason I've been living in a heap o for over fifteen years!" The second voice seemed to spit words, but almost immediately calmed down.

"And then you found me."

The first voice remained silent.

"You and that curious mind of yours got the better of you. I should really thank you for you've done. You haven't just improved my life. You've changed it entirely. Thanks to you, I finally know how I can get the life I was meant to have back. The life you practically earned."

"Don't do this..." the first voice spoke again. "Please, there's another way to go about this. Let me help you."

"There is nothing anypony like yourself can do to help me!" the second voice spat once more. "This Equestria had me bow down to it for far too long! But now, it will bow down to me... like it once did to you."

Author's Note:

Wow... A long update and a short chapter. I'm sorry about both.

I meant to have this chapels normal length, but I've been fairly busy with other stories, and I haven't had too much time to work on this story. I also couldn't come up with anything else to add, and that had me stop the chapter where it is.

Well, anyway, I hope you all enjoyed the new update! I also hope to see you all next chapter!

Comments

[BronyPonyMan]

wow. current dimension twilight's a crazy fucked up bitch.

[Xaldon Ajide]

5026025 It sounded more like Trixie.

[BronyPonyMan]

5026232 it did sound like trixie, but the way she kept saying that Twilight was living the life she would have lived, if it hadn't been for rainbow, made me think that current dimensions twilight seems to have become the new trixie.

[Xaldon Ajide]

5026240 Possibly, however normally I would think that Twilight would or at least her non famous counter part, would become a researcher at an institute or a professor at the Canterlot school for gifted unicorns, while learning as much magic as she could without Celestia's help.

[BronyPonyMan]

5026400 it's obvious that she did that second part. maybe even did the first part as well. i mean, they haven't even thought of CD twilight as a potential suspect. and this kind of thing takes a lot of planning, so she would have been smart enough to realize that a good cover job would benefit her in the long run. especially if it was a prestigious one, like a university professor, or something. and let's face it; twiilight is not the most stable pony in the world. if she worked her ass off in order to get to be the princesses personal protege, and then has it all ripped away from her by a pegasus, she might resent said pony for the rest of her life. and then she finds another version of 'herself' living the life she feeling she deserved in another dimension? well, that just might send her over the edge into the mad scientist realm.

[Xaldon Ajide]

5026436 The question is, was she Celestia's student and had her accomplishments taken by Rainbow Dash? the second question is how? Also was it her memories that were taken or did her future get stolen? I mean seriously, if she didn't know what kind of future she would have had she wouldn't worry about it, however if somehow her life had been erased with Rainbow taking her place, how would that have happened, especially with Twilight remembering the circumstances of the event?

[Sycamore]

This chapter was a little bit confusing, but maybe that was on purpose due to the confusion that Twilight is feeling.

A third dimensional traveler that has a vendetta against Twilight...
Sunset Shimmer?

[NightmareTRXY32]

cant wait to see more of this.

[Ephraim Blue]

8071912 Its not that I'm looking for them, its more or less that I've run out of ideas where I wanted the story to go in later chapters, and I haven't gotten back to it. Plus, If anything, I should probably just rewrite some chapters and/or fix some stuff. I kinda made a turn that wasn't that good halfway through the story and I kinda screwed myself over with it.

Plus, I've gotten a lot better at writing since last I worked on this story. I just don't have any thoughts on continuing it anytime soon, if at all.