Friendship Day

by Crescent Pulsar

Chapter 2: Thrown for a Loop

Twilight Sparkle didn't know when she fell asleep, but when she woke up it was sudden and accompanied by an unusual sharpness to her faculties. If she hadn't known any better, she would have thought that she had been awake all along, but she was pretty sure that she had just finished a rather unique and taxing day before going to bed.

That is, until she focused on what she was looking at and it occurred to her that she wasn't inside a bedroom, let alone a building, and noticed that her upside down view of the world outside was eerily familiar. After rolling onto her hooves and standing up, she looked about herself and saw a scene that she recognized: Spike and a number of ponies who had very recently been blinded by a bright flash of light.

Before she could get too far into figuring out what was going on, she saw a familiar pony approaching her, just like they had "before." When said pony stopped a few paces away, she decided to see how she would react to her query. "Hello—"

The pony that she knew as Pinkie Pie, as far as her "memory" was aware, leapt into the air and gasped quite dramatically before she could finish speaking, and seeing her do that again was enough of a distraction that she almost failed to duck her head in time, when the mare shot toward her while still in the air.

While she watched her run into the distance, she heard Spike ask, "What was that?"

Twilight Sparkle was too distracted by her racing thoughts to answer, as she tried to comprehend and reason out what she thought she was experiencing. She was fairly confident that "yesterday" couldn't have been a dream: her memory of it was too long and easy to recall, the many events connected seamlessly, and all of her senses had been far too keen. She'd also never shown any capability of being clairvoyant, not that she had ever heard of anyone who could foresee so much at once and with such detail, and there were slight yet noticeable differences when comparing what she had "seen" and what she had just experienced.

Considering how the event had been directly preceded by an unexpected magic surge in both instances, on top of everything else, there was one possible — even if she had once thought it to be restricted to the pages of fiction — explanation that she could think of: a time loop. If that turned out to be the case, then spending some time to check and confirm it as a reality wouldn't be a problem. However, that would also mean that she'd have something else to worry about if it were real, aside from what Princess Celestia had tasked her with, despite how exciting it would be to discover that time travel was possible. If she was wrong about what was going on and ended up wasting time, or the time loop didn't repeat itself, though...

She had trouble coming to a decision until she realized that she could perform her duty as overseer and investigate at the same time. The last thing that she wanted to do was to fall short of Princess Celestia's expectations, so it came as a great relief. Between that, and not wanting to assume that she was crazy right off the bat, she resolved to see if she had somehow magicked herself into a time loop by accident.

With that in mind, she went over to Spike and levitated him onto her back. "Spike, we have a mystery to solve."

"We do?" Came the confused reply.

---

"Let me get this straight," Spike began, his tone and cocked brow expressing his skepticism after Twilight Sparkle had related her theory to him, "you think your magic surge created a time loop, and you want to confirm it?"

"I know how it sounds," Twilight Sparkle replied, as she determinedly traveled the road that led to Sweet Apple Acres, "but I can't think of anything else that's more probable, even though I've been of the opinion that time travel is impossible."

To that, Spike knowingly commented, "Well, it's like Shamrock Hooves says: 'when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.'"

Twilight Sparkle rolled her eyes. "He could only say that because he's a fictional character with enough luck to find all of the relevant clues and details to his investigation, effectively making him omniscient."

"Anyway," she went on, causing Spike to pause with his mouth open, who had been about to ask what "omniscient" meant, "since we're almost at our first destination, let me tell you what I expect to happen after we get there."

She told Spike about her initial meeting with Applejack, followed by the introductions and invitation to brunch, and she included as many details as she could remember about them — such as Applejack's hoofshake, all the food piled up on the table, and how they had ended up staying for brunch. The only part she omitted was how she had eaten too much, which she planned to avoid.

Spike was impressed by her accuracy after they checked the banquet preparations, thoroughly convinced about the time loop theory, but Twilight Sparkle needed to see more to convince herself that it wasn't mere coincidence. After all, it was within reason — she believed — to conceive such a scenario at Sweet Apple Acres and imagining how it might play out, and it wasn't a stretch to give an "Apple family" names that were associated with apples. She needed an event that could only happen by sheer chance, and thus would be very unlikely to anticipate without some indication that it would happen.

Fortunately, the next thing to check as overseer would provide the evidence that she was looking for. However, she really didn't want to go through the same experience with Rainbow Dash again, which would also influence how her encounter with Rarity would go, so she told Spike what had originally happened and that she planned to avoid the part where Rainbow Dash crashed into her, confident that Rainbow Dash would still end up in a puddle of mud.

So, she found a corner of a house for them to hide behind, one with a clear view of the mud puddle in question, and waited. Sure enough, Rainbow Dash made a spectacular landing in the mud before her momentum carried her out of it. The landing seemed a lot rougher than before, probably because she hadn't been there to soften it, so she made sure the pegasus was alright before picking the "script" back up and getting her to clear all of the clouds in ten seconds flat.

Once Rainbow Dash was gone, Spike looked over at Twilight Sparkle and prodded, "Well?"

Twilight Sparkle worried her bottom lip, excited by the discovery of time travel being possible and concerned about the dangers of that very discovery. "I don't know if the time loop will last more than once, so I guess I'll carry on with my responsibilities and see if I find myself starting the day over again."

Shortly after they began their trek to the town hall, to check on the decorations, Spike sighed before remarking, "Man, I wish I was in a time loop."

With an incredulous expression on her face, Twilight Sparkle looked at him from over her shoulder and asked, "Why in the world would you want to be in a time loop?"

Spike stared back as if the answer should have been obvious. "Then I wouldn't miss anything, of course! Especially when we have a festival with a bunch of games and events going on at the same time. I could always go back and enjoy the things I missed before, either because of the timing or from running out of money."

Until then, Twilight Sparkle hadn't considered that there could be an advantage to being in a time loop, and the notion made itself comfortable in the back of her mind for the rest of the day, at times becoming a distraction. By the time she found herself lying on her back and staring down at the morning sky for the third time, she vaguely remembered that she had been wishing for more time when she'd had her magic surge.

She smiled as an idea began to form.

Comments

[Yoshifan30]

Shortly after they began their trek to the town hall, to check on the decorations, Spike sighed before remarking, "Man, I wish I was in a time loop."

Spike you probably don't want that because it's a nightmare 😰

[Yoshifan30]

Ohh so so basically this is kind of a like a story of Groundhog's Day situation that Twilight is going through a loop on the same day okay once again this is a pretty good starts