• Published 13th Aug 2018
  • 8,972 Views, 432 Comments

Twilight's Time Traveling Troubles - LordBrony2040



After failing to locate Starlight Glimmer during her last trip to Cloudsdale, Twilight appears in a time that seems too good to be true, yet much too different to be possible.

  • ...
118
 432
 8,972

Prologue: A Glimmer of Rage

Starlight Glimmer flew through chrono space, intent on her mission. After taking Twilight Sparkle back to her home village and showing her a recreation of the horrible past where she lost her best friend because of his own stupidity, Starlight Glimmer understood what she had to do. She had to show Twilight something that would break her spirit, take away her will to fight and just leave her a mess of a mare that wouldn't ever be able to focus on casting magic again. She had to be shown the death of her best friend.

Or, one of them, at least.

Once she had been brought forward from her home village to the proper time and place, Starlight Glimmer quickly wrapped herself in her magic before gravity could assert itself over her and darted into a nearby cloud to wait for her target. With as many times as she had done this dance, the lilac pony had no need to look around. She knew exactly where the foal that was the focal pin to Twilight Sparkle’s perfect life was going to fly into view.

Just thinking of that stupid royal pony made Starlight grit her teeth in anger. Some high and mighty princess had the nerve to tell her what to do? So what if she had a stupid crown? She didn’t have the right to boss Starlight Glimmer around! Horrible future my flank! That idiot Twilight just took her to the middle of nowhere to try and trick Starlight into giving up because she was too weak to make her! It was the very definition of pathetic!

Once she got Rainbow Dash in her magic and killed her, preferably in front of Twilight right before the princess was sent back to where she started, Starlight knew she wouldn’t stop there. The act would finally break the princess from traveling into the past, she would sink into despair and Starlight could get started on the second stage of her plan when she was recalled back into the chrono space. She would go to her starting point and reform her village without any meddling princesses to RUIN EVERYTHING!

Then, she would track down Double Diamond, Party Favor, and all those other traitors, and teach them the error of their ways! Their beaten and bloody bodies would hang outside her village to show all the other ponies what happened when they disobeyed her!

There would be daily lessons in OBEDIENCE!

The pony she judged less than PERFECTLY EQUAL would be BEATEN IN FRONT OF EVERYPONY!

And Twilight Sparkle...she...she would…

Starlight Glimmer’s eyes widened as she thought of the perfect way to make Twilight pay for what she did!

A smile graced Starlight’s lips. “After, after I’m done with Rainbow, I’ll find you, I’ll find you Twilight Sparkle,” she told the pony she HATED. “And then, I’ll make you pay! I’ll make you scream! Every day. Every night. For the rest of your life, Twilight. After I kill Rainbow, after I kill this stupid little...um...” Starlight frowned as the sky she was looking at remained empty of Rainbow Dash.

Empty of Rainbow Dash for much too long.

“Where are you?” she asked before looking around a bit. “Where are you? Where are you, Rainbow Dash? Come here so I can kill you already!”

“Yeah, that’s not happening. Ever,” a authoritative voice from behind the unicorn said.

A bolt of fear ran down Starlight’s back before she spun herself around to see a pair of pink legs standing on a cloud just a bit above her. Pink legs wearing clear crystal horseshoes that covered the whole hoof and left Starlight wondering who they belonged to.

“What do you want?” Starlight demanded as she looked up and became even more confused. Because, she recognized the pony in question. At least, she thought she did. “Princess...Cadance?”

“Since Auntie Tia’s been riding my ass about it lately, I’m giving you one chance,” she said with a frown. “Surrender, now. Submit to a horn restraint, and we can go to Canterlot so you can answer all my questions, truthfully. I won’t be giving you this offer again.”

Starlight blinked as her brain tried to process what her eyes were seeing. Like everypony in Equestria, she knew about Princess Cadance. She had seen picture after picture of her in the newspapers over the years, and even got a good look at her after traveling to the Crystal Empire to spread the message of Equality in the hopes of attracting some of the crystal ponies.

The Cadance that Starlight had seen stood as tall as a stallion. While she didn’t have the same flowing mane as Celestia, the pink princess’s hair nearly reached her hooves before it curled up at the end. Otherwise, she was...normal. The only thing that stood about about her was how pretty she was. Prettier than anypony had a right to be. Sickeningly pretty, even.

That Cadance looked very different than the one that stood in front of Starlight now.

The Cadance in front of Starlight had her mane done up in a braid that barely came down past her shoulders, with a crystal heart decoration on its end. She wore a gold tiara inlaid with gems that dipped under her horn to cover her forehead instead of a crown. A pair of large earrings dangled from her ears an inch and a half, and her chest was covered by a stunning necklace that was a web of silver containing different colored crystals taking up the space between. While she was just as tall as the pony Starlight remembered, her physique had undergone a major change. Every inch of her body was toned to the level that only Wonderbolts could hope to approach, while still retaining the slender frame that pegasi were known for.

Starlight stared at the princess for several seconds. What was she supposed to do? Candace wasn’t supposed to be in Cloudsdale! SHE WAS GOING TO RUIN EVERYTHING!

Except...Twilight hadn’t been able to stop Starlight.

So, it stood to reason that Cadance wouldn’t be able to either!

“Shut up!” Starlight told the stupid princess as she concentrated on how much she hated being told what to do. About how much she hated those stupid princesses, the height of inequality! “I beat Twilight, and I’ll beat you too!” ABOUT HOW MUCH SHE HATED TWILIGHT SPARKLE!

Starlight let all of her emotions build up in her horn and unleashed her hated towards the princess standing in front of her. It would blow her stupid head off! And then-!

Cadance forcefully turned her head to the left, throwing her braid into the path of Starlight’s force beam. The magic connected with the heart-shaped bobble at the end of her braid and Starlight watched as her attack was absorbed by the pink pony’s lovely jewelry.

Without missing a single beat, and while Starlight’s magic was still being sucked into the crystal heart, Cadance pointed her horn at Starlight. “Bad move little girl,” she said as her horn fired a pink ray that struck Starlight in the chest. A crystal rock materialized around her, encasing everything beneath Starlight’s chin.

The unicorn’s magical field was absorbed by the crystal, and Starlight found herself falling from Cloudsdale. “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

Cadance was matching her trajectory a moment later. “Now, let me tell you how this is going to work,” she said evenly. “Either you tell me everything I want to know, or I watch you hit the ground.”

“SHUT UP!” Starlight screamed at the stupid princess. Since breaking free by shattering the prison would take far too much magic, she quickly came up with the most brilliant of plans. The light purple pony sucked in a breath and teleported the minimum distance possible, less than a millimeter. She disappeared and reappeared at nearly the exact same spot...half a second after the crystal boulder had fallen down below.

Before gravity could kick in, Starlight wrapped herself in her levitation spell again and gave Princess Cadance a triumphantly evil smile. “Ha! Now I’m going to-”

Cadance didn’t bother replying before she threw her wings out as wide as they would go and lit her horn up again. Starlight saw a dozen little lights sparkle as tiny crystals that had been hidden among the pink princess feathers flared to life. Cadance zoomed out of the unicorn’s field of vision so fast that Starlight was left following a trail of pink, yellow, and purple that circled around to her right and-Starlight felt a sharp tug on her left foreleg an instant before that entire side of her body exploded in pain.

The concentration Starlight needed to maintain her levitation vanished, and she was dimly aware of Cadance blasting her again when a pink energy ray impacted her head to blind Starlight for several seconds before another beam hit her in the chest. Then, she found herself on the back of a floating slab of an amber-colored crystal, her hooves encased and held down, but her legs were mostly free.

“Okay, let’s try this again,” Cadance said she she floated around to hover over Starlight in an upright position, the magic of the crystals hidden in her feathers making it so she didn’t even need to flap her wings to stay aloft, she just held them in an extended position as she crossed her forelegs.

Starlight struggled for a second, then let out a cry of pain as her side reminded her how damaged it was.

When the pain subsided enough so that Starlight was aware of her surroundings again, Cadance let out a snort. “My horseshoes have a level five force amplification spell matrix built into them,” she explained as Starlight lay still on her floating crystal slab. “In other words, I just tore your left foreleg out of its socket, and shattered every rib on that side of your body. Oh, I’d also advise not-”

Starlight didn’t bother listening. She was going to make that stupid pink pony PAY FOR WHAT SHE HAD DONE!

The angry unicorn magic into her horn and glared at Princess Cadance before she threw everything she could quickly dredge up from within her, willing the pony in front of her to die! There was a pressure that built up around the horn that quickly turned to a scalding heat. Starlight cried out in pain before she looked up at her horn to see what was wrong and gasped. Her horn, her perfectly beautiful horn that could put even a princess in her place was covered in a sickeningly pink patch of crystal that was absorbed her magic and releasing it as a shower of harmless sparks.

“I wouldn’t recommend trying to overpower my crystal siphon. The only pony I’ve seen able to force her way out of it is my wife. And since you’re not nearly as hard headed as her, if that crystal does explode, most of the shards will be going into your eyes and brain,” Cadance told her without much emotion in her voice. “At best, you’ll spend the rest of your life as a blind vegetable.”

Starlight moved again, prompting her body to cry out in pain. “NO!” she cried out to the sky as the reality of the situation . “It’s not fair! It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s not faaaaaaaaaaaair!"

Another beam shot from Cadance’s horn, this time at Starlight’s crystal restraints. She felt the mineral creep up her legs once again encasing her body until only her face was let to the open air. “Now, let’s get you away from the kids before one of them decides to do a low-atmo flight and spots us,” Cadance said before she carried Starlight through the air away from Cloudsdale at her magically enhanced speed.

Once the cloud city looked like just another white splotch on the horizon, Cadance took them down the ground to set Starlight down. She reached up and taped on of her earrings, creating a resounding chime in the air as crystal horseshoe struck it. “Mirror,” the princess ordered before a green ray of light came forth from the green gem in her gold tiara to conjure a full-body mirror in the middle of the field. “Connect me to Princess Sunset in Canterlot.”

The reflection on the mirror was replaced by a swirling mass of colors, and and Cadance tapped her hoof for several seconds. “Come on, answer already,” she said before the colors formed into the giant face of a pony with a yellowish coat that Starlight didn’t recognize. “Finally! Listen-”

“Cadance?” the unknown pony asked. “Where the buck are you?”

The pink princess gave the other pony a frown. “Are you on your compact again? I’m in Cloudsdale. Fluttershy’s letters said she and Rainbow were being bullied, remember? I had a word with the counselors yesterday to see what was going on, and today I was going to hide until I caught the ponies doing it in the act, but-”

“You’re missing Twilight’s entrance exam!” Amber exclaimed.

The comment got a frown from Starlight. They couldn’t be talking about Twilight Sparkle, could they?

Cadance’s eyes went wide. “Wait, what? I thought that was tomorrow!”

“No, it was tomorrow when you left, which was yesterday, making the exam today!” Amber stressed.

The announcement made Cadance wince. “Oh, buck!” she said before getting panicky. “You’re recording it, right? Let me talk to her. Let me wish her good luck! No wait, freeze Canterlot’s time! I’ll drop my prisoner off fly over, and we can all support her, together.”

“You know such a thing isn’t possible,” a new voice, one much more mature and regal, sounded from the mirror. The image changed as another pony’s face came into view and Starlight sucked in a sharp breath upon seeing Princess Celestia’s face.

It only made Starlight more angry. Of course, stupid Princess Twilight and her privileged life knew Princess bucking Celestia since she was a filly! The big pony had probably changed Twilight’s diapers and...done...other filly things.

“We can’t show favoritism, even to Twilight. The only reason Sunset is even being allowed to watch is because she agreed to stand behind a privacy spell.”

Cadance glared at the bigger princess’s image. “So she’s all by herself? Sunset...do something!”

“Look,”the alicorn Starlight didn’t know said. “It’s just the noble test. It’s nice and easy and-” Sunset looked up with a frown. “And she’s panicking, and...oh, jeez, now she’s waving her hooves around like they were hands. Okay, maybe she does need-”

BOOM!

Starlight’s eyes widened as the sky became a rainbow of color. “Noooo!” she cried out in horror upon seeing her failure.

“What the hell was that?” the amber alicorn cried out from the other side of the mirror while Cadance spun around to stare at the magical phenomenon as it spread throughout all of Equestria. “Cadance? You there, can you hear me? Can-what? Oh, shit. Cadance...uh, we’ll be right back, Twilight just turned the judges into plants. That counts as a pass, right Mom?”

After both of the other princess disappeared from view, Cadance dematerialized the mirror before she looked back to Starlight. “Well, looks like your interrogation can wait,” she said before her horn lit up.

Starlight’s eyes widened in fear as she felt the crystal begin to creep up her body. “What? No! You can’t do this to me! I’m supposed to-” was all she managed to say before the crystal covered her mouth, but stopped at the end of her nose and didn’t touch her eyes or horn. She found herself able to breathe and hear, but unable to move at all.

“I’ll be back for you in a bit. Don’t go anywhere now,” Cadance told the trapped unicorn before she zoomed off at speeds Starlight had seen from from that stupid pegasus friend of Twilight Sparkle.

Minutes passed…

Which made Starlight become very worried. Like Twilight, she had an automatic recall to her spell that would engage an hour after she arrived, just in case something went wrong. If Cadance didn’t come back before then, she would be sucked back up into the space outside of time.

Trapped in the crystal as she was, Starlight didn’t want to know what would happen to her.

Would she starve to death?

And what if Twilight decided that whatever future she had gone back to wasn’t good enough?

If that happened...Starlight’s eyes widened in horror.

Since having to pinpoint the place Twilight ended up might be problematic if she fell asleep or became distracted, Starlight had programed the spell to drop her off at a point ten minutes before Twilight arrived. If Twilight traveled back to Cloudsdale again, with Starlight trapped as she was and unable to levitate herself…

I’ll drop...like a stone, she thought as a bead of sweat traveled down her brow.

Starlight looked up at the crystals encasing her horn with worry. Princess Cadance had said that the blowback from freeing herself would be lethal, but...what other choice did she have? The rainboom had happened, which meant that Twilight Sparkle’s stupid, perfect little world was back. And if she did cast her magic again, it would be even worse!

It was strange what a pony’s mind thought up when they couldn’t move.

And really needed to pee.

Oooooh, I wish I hadn’t thought of that, Starlight told herself.

“Cadance, are you sure she’s around here?”

Starlight blinked at the voice of the amber alicorn she had seen on the mirror reached her ears, followed by the sound of hooves on grass.

The voice of Princess Cadance reached her a moment later, coming from the same direction. “Yes, I’m sure, Sunset. I forgot to drop the marker until I was halfway back to Cloudsdale, but I remember these rocks. She’s just...around here somewhere”

“Somepony might have come and broken her out.”

Cadance snorted. “After she broke out the first time, I put her in amber restraints.”

“...is that all you did to her?” Sunset asked after a second.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Cadance asked evenly.

“Well, you got this loud, angry, apparently very powerful, unicorn that you’re tying up with the same spell you made to hold me down,” Sunset asked. “I’m just wondering if you’ve found a new pony to get all lovey-dovey with is all. Want to relive your lost youth, before we had kids and responsibilities tying us down.”

Cadance was silent for several seconds as Starlight heard the crunch of grass coming from behind her. “Don’t even joke about that,” she said in a tone that dared Sunset to continue. Then, Starlight caught sight of the glow coming from Cadance’s horn as she rounded the boulder standing behind Glimmer. She looked back behind her. “And I found her.”

There was more grass being crushed before the other alicorn appeared. “Okay, sorry, Cadance, I…” Sunset stopped for a moment when she came into Starlight’s view, making Starlight suck in a breath. Princess Sunset Shimmer was absolutely massive. Easily topping the life-sized statues Starlight had seen of Princess Celestia by a head or more, the giant alicorn was big enough to step on Starlight, with thick hooves that could have covered up the entire lilac unicorn’s head.

The big alicorn tilted her head to the side, her eyes giving Starlight a quick once over before she spoke. “Glimmy?”

“Eh?” Cadance said, mirroring what Starlight wanted to say herself. “You...know this pony?”

Sunset bent down to look at Starlight eye to eye, then went lower to examine her cutie mark for a moment before picking herself back up and looking over to Cadance. “I...think so,” the giant alicorn said. “She looks like one of the at-risk foals I’m giving special lessons to. Starlight Glimmer, I was even thinking about making her Twily’s mentor at the school. Don't tell me you idiots were messing with age magic again.”

Once again, Cadance seemed to take the words right out of Starlight’s mouth. “Say what?”

“Well, her mane was more of a wavy style, but-”

“Not that! You’re planning to put our little filly in the hooves of an at-risk pony?” Cadance demanded evenly.

Sunset gave the smaller alicorn a little frown. “Well, maybe if I had been shown a little faith and given some responsibility when I was younger, I wouldn’t have ended up like I did.”

Cadance’s expression turned to a half-lidded stare. “You mean a giant alicorn goddess with enough magic to match every pony in Equestria combined?” she asked. “Oh, what a cruel fate.”

“You know what I mean,” Sunset replied.

The pink alicorn sighed. “Yeah, I know what you’re really saying, and I trust you, I do...it’s just...this is Twily were talking about here, Sunset. If you want to give her to one of your special cases, then what about...Trixie! Oh, or maybe that Sunburst colt! He’s smart, right? I’m pretty sure you said he’s smart.”

The conversation faded from Starlight’s attention at the mention of Sunburst’s name, and the impossibility of its existence. From Starlight’s knowledge of when she lost her best friend to his cutie mark, she had traveled a good eight months into the future. Which meant Sunburst had been killed the previous school year for acting too stupid and getting Starlight mad.

But, the ponies in front of Starlight were talking like he was very much alive.

Amidst the confusion, Starlight felt something...stir inside of her. The world started to become blurry, and…

“Uh, Cadance, is she...crying?” Sunset asked.

The other pony looked over with wide eyes. “Oh! Oh buck, her injuries. I totally forgot about the bones I broke,” the pink princess exclaimed.

“WHAT?” Sunset shouted before she stepped in front of the pink pony that was starting to panic.

“Well, there was the Rainboom, and then I saw Dashie’s cutie mark, and we had to go find Fluttershy, and she had her cutie mark, and then I flew back to Canterlot and Twily had hers and-look, I’m sorry if I forgot about some stupid assassin I’m pretty sure I heard was gloating about killing Rainbow Dash!” Cadance exclaimed. “I thought she was sent by Nightmare Moon or something!”

Starlight felt her bones mend on their own, despite being trapped in a magic-sucking prison. The orange crystal around her just...melted, leaving Starlight sprawled out on the ground. Despite being freed and no longer in pain, her mind went back to her memories of a golden colt.

“You know she’s not that stupid!” Sunset exclaimed. before looking down at Starlight. “Hey, Glimmy. Glimmy! Come on, snap out of it. You there? Can you hear me? Please tell me you’re not in shock or something.”

“Sunburst...he’s...alive?” she asked, barely able to form words through all the confusing emotions she felt.

Sunset raised an eyebrow. “Uh...yeah? Why wouldn’t he be? Uh, are you okay?” she asked before her horn lit up and an intense diagnostic spell began to look Starlight over.

Starlight found herself feeling glad at the news, of all things. It didn’t make sense. Sunburst had abandoned Starlight for that Trixie filly, but...Glimmer found herself wanting to know more. “Are he and I...friends?”

“Uh...yeah,” Sunset told her cautiously. “Starlight, why’re you asking me this? Did something happen between the two of you?”

“But...our cutie marks are different,” the mare on the ground said as she grabbed ahold of the reason for all of her pain and suffering since she was a foal.

Sunset blinked at Starlight, then gave her a half-lidded stare. “You’re not seriously giving that stupid argument again, are you?”

As Starlight looked at the alicorn that she had no knowledge of, something occurred to her. In that brief moment when they had gone back to her home village, something must have changed. Something had changed to the point that Starlight hadn’t killed her friend when they were foals.

My...friend, Starlight repeated in her mind.

To think of Sunburst in such a way again, realizing that somehow, he was still alive...it made Starlight smile. A weight that had been on her back for so long that she didn’t even know it was there anymore felt like it had been lifted and...she couldn’t help but smile.

And...maybe giggle, a little. “Eh hehe, hahahaha.”

“Uh...is she okay?” Cadance asked.

And then, a lot. “heheHE! Ah-HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Sunset tensed. “I’m guessing no. Insane cackling is usually not a good sign.”

“No...no, don’t you see?” Starlight said as she looked up at the sky. The beautiful blue sky that promised Starlight a wonderful future. “I...I can...fix it. This time, I...I can be friends with Sunburst. I can-I don’t have to be alone anymore!”

It might be a little weird, living with her younger self at first, but little Starlight was a tough filly, she would learn to deal with it. And Sunburst! She could teach Sunburst about magic, and watch the younger her and him grow up together, and who knew what else? It would be like being her own big sister. “I always wanted a big sister,” Starlight whispered to herself.

Both of the alicorns gave each other an uneasy look.

This time?” Sunset mumbled before she looked over to the smaller alicorn. “Cadance, how exactly did you find this mare, again?”

The pink pony pointed to her left earing. “I detected the presence of high-level unicorn magic in Cloudsdale and went to check it out.”

Sunset’s face became serious. “What color was your earing glowing when it detected the surge of magic?”

“Uh...pink,” Cadance replied. “Why? What’s that got to do with anything?”

And because the rainboom happened, I don’t have to worry about Twilight going back again and overwriting any-Above Starlight, a temporal bubble bloomed into existence above her. She quickly channeled her magic to dispel it and….blinked when only sparks came out of the crystal covering her horn. “No...”

“No-nononononono!” Starlight screamed in horror. “I DON’T WANNA GO BACK!”

Sunset’s eyes widened at the magic above them before looking over to the pink pony. She leaped towards Starlight, but missed grabbing the little unicorn as she was sucked up into the sky. “Cadance! Conjure an anti-magic spear! Pop that bubble, NOW!”

“What?” Cadance asked in confusion. “Sunset, what’s going on? What is that thing?”

“I WANNA BE WITH SUNBURST!” Starlight cried out as she was sucked back up into the spell before being pulled out of the timeline.

And then, she found herself floating alone in the timeless void.

"But...I...want to be with Sunburst," she whimpered as tears began to roll down her face.