Counterclockwise

by AdrianJNovelle

Looper

"Well?" asked Dr. Zimmerare. "What have you uncovered? Anything that I don't know about you already?" He chuckled. "I highly doubt that." He then noticed my tears. "Something the matter?"

"I...I...I..."

"Yes?"

"I...I ruined everything!"

"Now, Ms. Sparkle, you could not possibly-"

"I'm gonna die at ninety-eight, and I won't even meet this Dawn guy until two hundred twenty!"

"Oh."

"How did you miss that!?"

"I didn't, I just-" Dr. Zimmermare put his hoof to his forehead. "Never mind."

"But, luckily, I'm a time-traveler. I can change the temporal prime directive, and thus the fate of Equestria after I die."

"What about the TMS? The minute you set hoof out there - no matter where you go - they are capable and will find you."

"To hell with the TMS! I am gonna set things right if it kills me!"

"And also, what about me?"

"I appreciate your hospitality-"

"I'm not talking about gratitude, Ms. Sparkle! I am referring to this timeline."

"How is that?"

"This is what life is like in the year 5,318,008 - assuming you die at age ninety-eight."

"You mean...this is an alternate timeline?"

"That is my implication, Ms. Sparkle."

"So you only exist if I die at age ninety-eight?"

"We know that for a fact: if you die at age ninety-eight, I will exist, even if that is to become permanent in the present time. However, you died a few million years before I even come into existence. It is likely that none of what you've experienced here will disappear or change should you change time."

"I am gonna change time, Doc- Luis! I cannot live knowing that I have prevented myself and my family so much happiness for so long. Twilight was right: she did barely tell me a thing! She's spent years in happiness! I can't take all that away from her! So I'm going back in time and setting things right. And I will then die at age eight hundred, seventy-six once again."

Dr. Zimmermare made no immediate reply.

"If it is what needs to be done," he said.

"I am curious: if I go back and fix time - since I am the only pony capable of doing so - will the TMS lay off?"

Dr. Zimmermare shrugged. "Hard to say. They are a ruthless bunch of unicorns."

"Wait!" Twilight gave a pondered look to Dr. Zimmermare. "How do I know how alternate this timeline of yours is, Luis?"

"What ever do you mean, Twilight?"

"My plaque...the plaque which reads the date of my death - it was in a flux with just a bunch of question marks, as if time itself could not determine when I die!"

"A flux of time? A temporal flux?" Dr. Zimmermare did the equivalent of snapping his fingers, if he had any. "That means that there is a fifty-fifty chance you'll live to either ninety-eight or eight hundred, seventy-six: depending on your next course of action."

"So, I have to go back in time: at least to determine a definite timeline?"

"If you stay here, you'll risk tearing the universe ascender. There is no telling what the TMS will do to you then."

"Probably execute me once for every timeline I visited. They'll start from the future and kill me off one by one, and make each execution public on a screen so I have to watch myself die again and again, year by year, until they reach the present time, where they will finally kill me."

"Hardly possible. If the universe is torn ascender, the TMS probably will not longer exist. Should they, though, that is a valid punishment for your...actions."

"You were gonna say crime, weren't you?"

Dr. Zimmermare sighed. "Yes."

Twilight grimaced.

"Look, there's a difference between traveling through time for the sake of knowledge and ripping apart the fabric of causality. And you can avoid such destruction by going back through time and stabilizing the space-time continuum. I don't take you for a criminal, Twilight. I've read that book I have about you a hundred times. I know you're a good pony. Now do what you need to do, and fix this mess before it gets any worse."

Twilight nodded once.

"I'll be seeing you, Luis."

"You too, Ms. Sparkle: in my books."

"Thanks for everything."

"You're quite welcome. It was an honor to be with you."

Twilight took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Her horn glowed, a bright beam of light bursting from its tip. In a flash, she was gone.

---

Twilight arrived at the scene of herself sitting at Princess Celestia's tombstone, mourning her loss. There was another pony there - who looked nothing like Twilight - and who calmly coaxed her about not using an age retardation spell.

She was too late.

A quick jump back a few minutes.

There was only Twilight.

She jumped into some bushes and hid herself in the shadows. She peered out a small gap she made with the application of her hoof.

"Okay," she mumbled to herself. "All I have to do now is wait until my other self arrives, jump out at her before she makes contact with that me, and, well, kill her." She gasped. "Wait - wouldn't that kill me?" She pondered. "Wait, no, it wouldn't, would it? Because that Twilight is the ninety-eight Twilight, and the real Twilight is the eight hundred, seventy-six Twilight. I'll just be erasing that alternate timeline - the one with Dr. Zimmermare." She dismissed her hoof from the bush. "Man, this time-travel stuff is confusing! And I bet it's gonna get a lot more confusing."

Just then, a spark of bright light grabbed Twilight's attention. She literally sprang into action, and knocked the disguised Twilight - the one in her ugly mane and coat - clean out of her path.

That Twilight was unaware of her counterpart's intentions, but she still bore the same level of intellect any Twilight from any timeline would bear. She figured out exactly what needed to be done, which was not too difficult to imagine since her attractive counterpart was hovering over her with a ravenous look of death on her face.

"Go ahead...kill me if that is what you want," she said.

"Oh, no - killing's too good for you."

"You don't have a choice. And I know you don't."

Ugly Twilight gave a menacing glare of victory.

"Go ahead - do it, you coward! Kill me! And live with being a murderer!"

Twilight charged up her horn, readying it to send Ugly Twilight into oblitheration.

Ugly Twilight chuckled. "Thought so."

"Oh, shut up!"

Twilight accidentally released her charge onto Ugly Twilight. The mare - now dead - suffered a severe blow to the head, and blood oozed from her cracked skull and detached horn. The gorey scene lasted only a moment, however. Having the timeline ultimately deleted, Ugly Twilight's body was complied into a bright sphere of energy, and then disappeared from the universe.

Did she do it? Was she actually successful?

There was only one way to find out.

A quick trip to the year 1,850,170 - just two years after her death - proved her victory.

Twilight Acorna Sparkle
1,849,251 - 1,850,168 (Age 876)
Loving wife and mother, who shall always be remembered

She breathed a sigh of relief. But when she turned around, she bumped into a large unicorn who wore a pair of shades over his eyes. He wore a black jacket and even had a scary-looking vandyke to boot.

"Not so fast, Twilight Sparkle."