Chapter 1: The experiment

“Don’t leave me! I don’t know how to live without you!”

“Twilight, you have ruined everything. Stop trying to be our friend. We don’t like you, we never did!”

Why did they say that? Twilight was not only perplexed, but completely unable to do anything. They didn’t mean it, they couldn’t mean it. How was she supposed to react? Should she deny it, should she confront them, should she just do nothing? Instead of leaving her the decision, however, they started to surround her. What was this all supposed to be? Twilight felt fear slowly rising in her stomach. Her breathing stopped for a moment, when Rainbow Dash actually thrusted towards her, throwing her down to her side. Her heart was beating faster and faster, while her stomach started to rumble. It almost felt as if her organs were fighting against each other.

Applejack bucked her while she was lying on the ground, but she was unable to defend herself. What had she done to them? She felt the pain, but there was no clarity coming to her thoughts. Her mind was trying to grasp something, but the thought was always fading behind the massive wall of pain. She was coming back to that thought. What was it? It had the weight of importance on it, almost as if it would decide her life. There was a sizzling sound, far in the distance, but clearly hearable through the insults of her friends.

Twilight opened her eyes. The world she had believed to be in just had faded from second to second. Where was she actually? A wooden ceiling, books, and a comfortable bed. The thoughts only slowly returned. A distant call from something she had wanted to do entered her mind. What had it been? Oh no! Not the cauldron. Another sizzling sound was verifying her idea. This was bad. No, this was terrible. She had supposed to stay away. She ran down the stairs, her body still craving for sleep but her mind fully awake.
Nononono. Not again! She had wanted to watch the cauldron! The particular potion Twilight had wanted to create was nothing less than a potion to decrease the stimulus threshold for the electromagnetic receptors in the horn of an unicorn. That would theoretically decrease the amount of concentration required for keeping up a certain amount of magic, thus increasing the overall possible power of every unicorn.
Let us just call it “doing science that is beneficial for unicorn magic”.

However, now that she had been asleep, this whole experiment had gone to waste. She should just stop it all - Okay. Another try, another time. Although... The sizzling sound had been a good indicator for a reaction of the carbonate ions with the surrounding fluorescent substance. You could call it science. Only if that lamp on the ceiling would keep on shining, the reaction would actually have a chance to continue. It was a special light. Although clearly emitting heat and consuming her magic stored in her batteries, it didn't shine brightly like any other source of light. It was some strange invisible light she had discovered. That light would transport the required energy into the substance as long as it didn’t run out of energy after all. How could she have slept on such an important part?

She would just check the machines for their energy levels. For five long months now, she had tried to finish the potion, and this was the critical stage. She has had some good tries already, which had always failed at this stage - either to wrong calculations or wrong theory.

There had been one potion, which had just caused her horn to become one giant bruise, which had hurt incredibly. For days, every spell she had cast had caused a noise that had sounded like farting. Out of shame, she had not come out for days. Twilight Fartle. That is how she would have been called. Poor Spike had had to do all shopping for her, while she had kept the household. In that week however, she really had experienced how hard Spike’s work really was.
The next one had destroyed her home in a rather strange way: Over night, right in the middle of the house, a giant beanstalk had grown through the ceiling up into the clouds. It took almost a week to remove it from her home. Meanwhile everypony had guessed, what was on top of that beanstalk. Pinkie Pie had guessed it would be a giant castle. How ridiculous. Applejack had guessed it would just be giant beans, it was a beanstalk after all. Twilight had to agree on that point, taking her low gardener skills into consideration. In the end, Rainbow Dash had been too impatient to guess and had flown up there. Although there had been nothing special up there, it had been a fun time guessing.

This experiment however was ruined due to being too lazy to stay awake. How could she have allowed herself to be lazy? Lazy ponies were those who never succeeded in anything. Now she had become a lazy pony. She could almost hear Celestia faulting her and sending her back to... Not now, Twilight. Now was the time to check the machines.

Most of the displays were still shining green, but the indicator was already at 160 mu. The lamp was almost out of energy, as she had already expected. She reloaded the battery with her magic, causing her to be a bit more tired than she already was, but more importantly causing the indicator to turn to 240 mu again. Calculating the average loss of 10 mu per hour over the last days, this would be the last time she had to refill the battery.

The brew started sizzling again, almost as if it had waited eagerly for her to finally refill the battery... Or maybe she was just still really tired. She decided to drop into her soft, comfy bed once again, and once again vowed to herself to not drop into sleep again. As if it had been destined, she broke that vow once again.

When she woke up again, it was morning already. It took her less than a heartbeat to grasp the situation. The potion! She flashed through the room as there was no chance, she would be lazy again. As she had already thought, the indicator on the top right corner of the massive instrument paneling had already turned red. She threw the massive lamp away, which had been her only concern for days now. She knew, that she had overslept at the critical point. Twilight scolded herself. It would be impossible for her to make great discoveries if she would fall asleep each and every time.
Should she still try to finish this potion, or should she abort? Well... she could not really abort now. Not after so much effort put into it. She started to fill a bit of the brew into a test tube, which she capped of by a small cork. Now she put the test tube into that huge apparatus, which would finish the whole process. It was actually just a giant box with some buttons and an insert chamber, in which the potion would be imbued with her own magic, calibrating it for her own body. It was almost works like a vaccination, only a bit more complicated:

Inside the machine was a fluid containing the exact opposite of her magic aura. She had used King Sombra's crystals to create it, so it was extremely hard to come by. She didn't want to spend hours again, trying to get her magic to be sucked up by what remained of the crystals. Furthermore, it was still dangerous to imbue the enemy's weapons with her own magic. What if there was anything left of King Sombra? Twilight shook her head. She did not even want to finish that thought.

This exact opposite of her magic would react with the potion, causing it to create something very similar to antibodies. Those antibodies would be close enough to her own immune system, hopefully causing the whole potion not to fight her. If it all worked, the potion would be able to spread throughout her whole body, also reaching into the horn, where it would hopefully have the desired effect. The whole process was incredibly difficult, but if there would be an easier way to get the antibodies, the potion would be able to apply to all unicorns in Equestria. Imagine if everypony had the power to do good, to help each other, to fight even the biggest creatures, to finally have a weapon of their own against such foes as Discord or Queen Chrysalis. Most unicorn’s magic wasn’t even strong enough to create a decent shield. With the help of her potion, Ponykind would be forever safe.

The machine took longer than usual, which already made her wonder if there was something wrong. As the dark-green blistering potion came out, shining in a red light, she knew that something was different. She could not decide if it either was fully messed up or, maybe finally perfect. In theory, this was exactly what it was supposed to look like. Nevertheless, in practice this was looking pretty badly. Should she just go ahead and drink it? She remembered the pain in her horn due to her last fail, the destroyed home. She shrugged - There was only one way to find out, if it would all fail again: She downed the whole potion without further hesitation. It was just utterly disgusting and left an aftertaste of mildew. She almost choked on it, but she had to get it all down. The taste was nothing that you couldn't fix with a tablespoon of sugar next time... or maybe better, four tablespoons!

It was time to put it all to the test. Every second, every day, every month could have been wasted on this very failure. This time, she swore to herself, she wouldn't fail. Twilight had already prepared one of the rooms for the testing. Instead of being filled with books about all sorts of topics, this room was filled with lots and lots of pillows. Why? There had been minor problems with her magic throwing everything loose around, including herself. She didn’t want her face to be literally stuck in a book again.
However, it would definitely not go wrong, would it? She just had to stay focussed and do her best. She closed the heavy metal door- also covered in pillows of course - behind her, sealing her inside the small chamber. There was just one spell mighty enough to actually use as much magic to trigger the initial effects. By now the liquid should have spread throughout her whole body, but it not hurting right now did not mean, it couldn't hurt later. She could not actually feel anything at all. Was that the potion? Had she been numbed? She poked herself with her horn. Ouch! She definitely still felt something. So, did the potion work or not?
She had to try to travel through time to really verify the effects of this potion. Only that one spell would be strong enough to do it. Of course not into the past, which was rather easy, but instead into the future. Something, that already required all of her strength, when she wanted to go seconds into the future. With this potion, she hoped to at least have a minute or so. She took a deep breath in. Concentrate Twilight, concentrate! She was the pony! It wasn’t just coincidence she had become an Alicorn. She could do this! Without wasting more time on boosting confidence, she had started to channel this one spell, which would determine the practicability of this whole project.

No matter how good the potion had been, she would not have been able to see it coming. Through the door burst a mare all in long black robes. Her face was veiled by some kind of mask. Without giving any reason, she just jumped Twilight down, holding her to the ground. Not now! In all of the darn moments that mare could have selected, why this one? She needed to finish this spell and this mare would not stop her.

"Your time is up, Twilight!"

As if the whole situation had not been ridiculous enough, another mare jumped through the opening. This time, Twilight was able to identify the other pony. It was herself. Not herself herself of course, but future herself. What the actual horse apple was going on here? First some random mare bursting into her room and now future Twilight. It was still a strange feeling to see her though. Her mane was messy and jumbled. Her face told stories of worrisome hours in the future. There was something else, though: pure determination to do whatever she was about to do. She leaped through the room, jumping the other mare down.

"No! Yours is up!"

Future Twilight just teleported herself and the mysterious mare out of the room. Although she was unsure, if future Twilight would even need her help, Twilight ran after them, trying to find them somewhere outside. As she finally stepped outside, the battle already seemed to be decided. The future Twilight was holding the mare down, who had some bruises. Usually magic fights are not supposed to be dangerous, but sometimes ponies do not follow the rules set by Celestia. Breaking those rules is sentenced with banishment, so usually only the ponies who would be imprisoned anyway do it. Neither of both seemed to care though. Upon seeing her leaving the house, the mysterious mare slipped from future Twilight’s grip. In a matter of moments, the mare teleported behind Twilight and took out something shiny. Her heart was stopping for a moment. Would it end like this? No! She tried to evade the hit, but what seemed like a blade still managed to cut a shallow wound.

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

However, she did not get any further with that sentence, as future Twilight had already teleported next to her, ramming the masked mare to the ground with her shoulders. Then, future Twilight used some magical chains to keep her to the ground. Future Twilight didn’t stop there however and faced towards the defeated mare. An evil grin rose on that face, fully distorting it. She lowered her head and rammed her horn into… nothing? In the last second, the mysterious mare had saved herself.
Had this just happened? She could never harm anypony. So who was that pony she had thought to be future Twilight? Was it really her? Twilight was utterly confused. She shot her twin a look of accusation and disgust.

"I don't understand. What have you done?!”

"I tried to kill her. She had almost killed me, when I had been in the same situation! The future Twilight, that had saved me at that moment had also tried to kill her. I don't know, what would have happened to you, if I would have not..."

Twilight was furious. Her stomach which had just calmed down again started rumbling again. How could she ever become such a disgusting monster? You should never kill a pony, no matter what the cost of it is. Always try to stop the other pony from fighting, but never kill them! It was the basic rule of Ponyhood not to kill each other. Every foal in Equestria knew that. Even the thought of ponies fighting was already disgusting her. She could not even imagine herself to become so... insane. Her stomach was definitely having a fight with her intestines.

As the future Twilight was about to say something, she disappeared into a purple orb, taking her back to her time. Well, if there was nothing to stop her anymore, it was time to finally test out her potion. Thinking about that future Twilight, if it even had been a future version of her, would have to wait. Maybe it had been an imposter. Why would an imposter help her against the mare though? She would most definitely search Celestia’s advice later, but she could not ask for advice without presenting her results, could she? There was still a potion to be tested.

Chapter 2: The future

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It was time to finally take the leap into the future. Twilight prepared the fluffy room again. This time, there was no interference with her plans. This time, she would finally do it. Her body vibrated in anticipation. She channeled the mighty spell, which could possibly bring her into the future. It would be enough magic to finally test that potion. With this, she could not only prove herself to be a worthy student, but also help every single pony in all of Equestria.

The idea behind time-travelling is really simple. You traverse the plane of time and space almost like teleporting, but instead of only being bound to space, you move freely in time as well. However, time is much more difficult to control. Teleporting through space is rather easy, though time is a life-time effort to master. She felt the magic slowly and steadily assembling in her horn, until it would finally be released in the end. When enough magic had assembled, she used it all and tried to move her physical body through time.

Her body was being pulled into a blinding light, and for a couple of seconds, she just felt nothing, not even gravity. It felt so weird, she almost had to throw up. There was no up and down anymore. There was nothing anymore, she was just floating in eternal nothingness, until she finally returned to the same room. The door to the room, however, was opened. Not only that, but the whole room was restored to its original layout. Had she traveled into the past by accident? Was it a reverse potion? Oh well, only one way to find out.

She needed a couple of minutes to fully recover again, it had taken an incredible amount of magic. She still did not know when she actually had arrived. There should be a big clock outside telling her the time. However, everything looked different. The machine was gone, as was almost every other possession of hers. The whole house in fact, was completely empty. What had happened? Had the potion misfired and put her into a different dimension? Had it disintegrated everything that had been in contact with her magic? Or had it been some result of the time spell?

This place did not feel like her home anymore. It was weird. Thoroughly weird, to see all of her personal items to be removed from the house. Was this before she had moved in? It must have been, mustn’t it? It was strange, how it all mattered less to her than she had expected. She didn’t feel like this was her place. Her place was somewhere in the future. However, out there would be a whole past world to explore. She had traveled into the false direction, but that didn’t mean she could not at least enjoy it. However, as she put her first hoof out, she was already jumped down by somepony. Totally surprised, she managed to get a glimpse on her attacker.

"Pinkie Pie? What are you doing here?"

Pinkie Pie was almost as confused as Twilight was.

"Are you a ghost? Twilight? How? But we thought... Do you know what this means? We have to throw a giant welcomebacktwilightpartybecauseyouareobviouslynotdead!"

Did she just mishear that? Pinkie was hard to understand at times, but still, 'Not dead'? What in all of Equestria had happened? Why would past Pinkie Pie think, she was dead? There was only one solution to Pinkie already knowing her: This was the future, not the past. However, something must have gone terribly wrong for Pinkie to think she was dead. Before Twilight had even been able to ask anything, Pinkie Pie flashed away, probably to give a party or something like that. Twilight however was just thoroughly confused. Had she died in the future and now was in a posthum future? Or was this a different universe with a different future? Or was this really the past, but one in a different universe? She shook her head to pull herself out of these thoughts. There was still a whole world to explain and many answers to find.

There was most definitely something wrong here and she would find it all out. First of all, she would have to be really sure, when she actually had arrived. She still did not know the exact date, so that was at least something to find out. Either it was the future or the past. With enough determination, she was sure to find it out. There was no stopping her! She trotted off into the direction of the Carousel Boutique, where maybe… no, most definitely she could find the answers. Although the bakery was a lot closer, she decided not to try it. Pinkie Pie had seemed quite overly excited there.

When she finally arrived at the boutique, everypony was already waiting for her. As it seemed, Pinkie Pie had indeed assembled everypony to greet her with a party. It was a strange experience to be so excitedly greeted only after being gone for a couple of seconds. How was she supposed to react to this? She couldn’t just act as if much time had went by or not went by. She groaned in anger: Why does time travel have to be so complicated? Obviously, in those couple of seconds after her journey quite a lot had changed.

"Twilight? Is that really you? Oh, I have missed you gal."

Applejack was completely surprised about her being here, which confused Twilight even more. Obviously it had not only been Pinkie Pie having some crazy idea. The fact that everypony was assembled here was an indicator for something truly terrible to have happened. She feared a bit what she could find out. What if she didn’t like what she would learn?

"Twilight? We thought you were... dead."

Why would Rainbow Dash say something like that? What had actually happened? Rainbow Dash was the element of Loyalty after all. Why would Rainbow Dash lie to her? Well, loyalty is not really honesty, is it? Twilight! How can you even think that?

Before she could even ask one question about the date, all her friends came to hug her and comfort her. Although she was not really in the mood for hugging, she didn't refuse. They must have really missed her after those two years. Incredible, what implications this all can have. She felt a bit awkward, but you have to do what you have to do, don’t you? After they were done with hugging, Twilight finally came to ask the question:

"Girls. Can you tell me the time and date, please?"

"Oh no! Twilight has become a mindless zombie that cannot remember the time! We are all doomed!"
Pinkie started hyperventilating, but Applejack put a hoof around her, shaking her head.
"Oh! Has she got amnesia because she fell down from a magical stair she had built for years to reach the books on top of her shelf?”
This time, Applejack just put her hoof to her face, but Pinkie Pie gave it another try.
“Hmm… Then Twilight has traveled through time exactly 2 years and 1 day and 25 seconds into the future and doesn’t know, it is the future!”
Pinkie switched back to her ever-happy manner as Twilight stared at her open-mouthed. Rainbow Dash took that as a yes and answered Twilight’s question.

"It is about two years now, since you were gone. Is Pinkie really right? She can’t be right.”

The spell had actually catapulted her way too far into the future, about two years, or two years one day and twenty-five seconds into the future, if she could trust Pinkie with that. In those two years, she had just been gone from the face of the world. That still did not explain what had happened to everything in her home, but she could find that out later. Now she should better explain it all, because the others were already doubting her sanity.

"Okay… This is hard to convey, but... When I disappeared two years ago, I did not actually die. As you know, I was trying to research a potion that could amplify the magical power of every unicorn."
She decided not to mention the fact, that there had actually been some mysterious mare trying to kill her and her own future self trying to save her.
"When I then cast a spell, that would have just transported me a couple of seconds into the future, I must have been catapulted through time until arriving here. Two years? That is actually incredible. That recipe must be the solution to all problems."

"Wow, that really hurts my mind, that egghead stuff. So, are you two years older now?"
Actually quite an interesting question. As she had traveled two years into the future, her body had not grown two years older. However, she had missed two birthdays now, which should be...

"We are going to do a double-birthday party!"

Of course, Pinkie Pie had to bring that up. There was just one questions still torturing her mind.

"So, where are all the machines? The translucinator and the chemical abstractor and the magic-transverser?"

Even though Applejack made a confused face, she was able to guess, what Twilight had actually wanted to know. There had been some huge machines in that chamber, so maybe that was what Twilight was goin’ for.

"I think it was all brought to Canterlot castle after we searched everywhere for you. We didn't give up easily. However, we couldn't search forever. When it became apparent that we would not be able to find you..."
Applejack paused for a moment, thinking about how she could continue the sentence. After realizing, there was really no considerate way to end it, she decided to just begin another one.
“We decided to have your things stored somewhere else, so the library would be publicly accessible again. It is all stored in the Canterlot castle. We can go there, if ya want."

"We need to parteeey first!!"

Although Twilight did not really want to party, - It had been just some seconds for her - she knew, that having one of her friends missing for two years would have been absolutely devastating for her. She did her best to make the others feel comfortable again, but this meeting had inevitably tears of joys and a lot of hugging in it. The party right afterwards was something that was quite enjoyable, although there had been a party two days ago - or one day and two years ago, depending on the point of view.

After the party was over, it was finally time to get her stuff back. It felt bad to think so inconsiderate, but she just had to find out what had happened. Her curiosity would kill her if she didn’t. As it had been stored in Canterlot, she would have to order spike to send a letter... Where was spike? Was he gone?

"Err... girls? Where is spike?"

This time, it was Rainbow Dash answering her question. Rainbow Dash had most easily coped with the loss, or she didn’t show it anymore.

"Spike didn't want to let go. He is still with all of your egghead machinery in the Canterlot castle. I'm sure that he missed you as much as we did. If you are going there, though, we are coming with you. We won’t let you dash away once again."

That was a deciding fact. If spike was really still with her things, she would have to prioritize to get to the castle. However, the question remained how she could actually get there. She would probably have to take a normal train. If the trains would still run like two years ago, there should be one in just about an hour, considering the sun almost being at its peak right now. Of course, that would give her friends the time to get their bags together.

The train ride to Canterlot was boring and exciting at the same time. Of course, it bored Twilight to drive over the same train-tracks again and again for the last years, but this time it was different. She was quite excited about what would await her in Canterlot. The poor Spike must have had a really hard time in those two years without her. How much had changed? Two years is quite a long time. Would everything still be there? Somehow, it still filled her with pride, the whole situation. Of course, the spell was misfired, but her potion had worked over all expectations. 2 whole years... The power given to everypony would be so intense. This would be the greatest discovery since the discovery of the fire! It would change the world! Every unicorn in Equestria would be able to work together for a better Equestria!

They arrived in Canterlot a bit after noon. It was a beautiful summer's day in Canterlot, everypony smiling and having a good time. It felt so normal, so usual, that she had to actually remind her of the fact that two whole years had passed by. This was a different Canterlot now, and she was about to see a different Celestia and a different Spike. They slowly trotted towards the entrance of the castle, the city being still as impressive as in the first days. The tops of the towers were flying in some unreal distance and down here just above the ground was a zoo of ponies, in which everypony had to do something, streaming through the streets like busy ants.

The royal guards at the entrance immediately recognized her and some of them already ran inside to spread the news of the Princess having returned. After they had already entered the castle, getting as far as into the floor, Celestia, Luna and spike were already coming their way. It was impressive how fast they had been. Celestia spoke first, although Spike had already opened his mouth:

"Twilight Sparkle, you have returned. I am so grateful to see you again. Please, tell us, what has happened?"

She had not expected Princess Celestia to be so worried about her. Celesita's face told of worrisome hours without sleep and of incredible relief after seeing her again. Twilight found a very similar expression on Luna's face, although Luna seemed to hold it back much less. Spike however, was completely overwhelmed. He cried and laughed and hugged her, unable to really bring out any words. As Celestia realized that Twilight would need some more time to calm Spike down, she made a clear decision:

"As soon as you are ready, come to my chambers. There might be something important, I have to tell you."

Might be? How in Equestria could Celestia not know, if something was important to tell or not? Then again, she had no idea how exactly Twilight had disappeared. Twilight decided to just find it out afterwards. For now, she was just happy to calm down Spike, who had become a stronger dragon in those two years. It was so strange to be gone for a couple of seconds, but still be treated like a dead pony coming back from its grave.

After all the tears had fallen and all the joy had been exchanged, Twilight decided to finally visit the chambers of Celestia.

Chapter 3: Time is a loop

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"I am glad you have finally arrived."

Celestia was standing in front of a small painting, apparently the valley under Canterlot in the light of the moon. You could almost feel the cold breeze coming out of that painting, refreshing and calm. It was a completely still image, there was no indication of movement inside. Still, the stars seemed to sprinkle as if you were really standing outside seeing it. The painting had a certain feeling of calm, that was incredibly relaxing.

"Now that you have seen it, you will have to vow to me not to spoil the birthday present for Princess Luna. Let me just finish..."

She quickly made one or two strokes with her paintbrush, causing a little bit of motion to finally appear in the painting. That lead Twilight to notice a detail that she had not noticed before: There was actually a Princess Luna inside that painting, small but incredibly beautiful. It was an impressively painted work of pure art. The two strokes make the still image of Luna seem to fly through the air. She had never seen Celestia painting before, and she regretted not visiting Celestia more often. The art was incredible and Twilight was surprised, although she maybe should not have been. Celestia had had thousands of years after all.

"Now, I have wanted to speak with you. You have to tell me exactly what spells you have used."

Celestia suddenly seemed incredibly serious. Twilight decided, it would be better to tell her every single detail. Not often did Celestia seem so curious and furious at the same time. Maybe there was something that Twilight had not thought about. Maybe the spell going wrong was not the only thing to worry about. Maybe Celestia had realized something that she had ignored? Twilight took a deep breath as she thought about how to tell her story. Celestia would want to know every detail, but not an overly excessive story. As she finally decided for a possible version, Celestia already looked annoyed. Twilight took a deep breath once again and started to explain:

"As you know, I spent many days trying to create a potion that could help every unicorn in Equestria to be able to cast much more powerful magic. However, there was a slight turbulence: Some mysterious mare tried to stop me. I still don't know, who that was. Before that mare could do much, though, future Twilight traveled back through time to save me. Afterwards, I used the potion... but the spell misfired. Instead of traveling a couple of seconds into the future, I got here."

Twilight had a bad feeling about it all, and it only got worse when Princess Celestia frowned upon hearing what she had just said. Celestia had had her suspicions, but this was worse than she had expected. She looked her student in the eyes, but Twilight could not stand the stare for more than a couple of seconds. Twilight quickly looked down on the ground, examining the exact structure of the wooden flooring. As Twilight looked back up again, Celestia's face told of bitter knowledge.
Had Twilight just verified something horrible? Celestia sure looked like that. A really bad feeling slowly crept up her body, causing her intestines to turn against her. Princess Celestia let her gaze wander through the room once again, obviously to think about how she could tell the most horrific news to Twilight. Twilight shook her head. Maybe Celestia didn’t have horrible suspicions and she was just overreacting.
Celestia knew, that what she was about to say wasn't something to just easily let over your lips. She had learned in all those thousand years, that really nothing should really be said easily. She was about to make her faithful student do something very dangerous. Was she sure, it had to be done? Most certainly.

"Twilight Sparkle, you will have to journey into the past again. When it really has been your future self saving you, you have to go back and save yourself. If you do not go back and save yourself, nopony will have saved you, thus there will be undesired consequences, resulting in you never coming into the future. I should have forbidden it. I could have known, you were too strong."

Celestia was actually close to tears. It had all been her fault. If she had just done it… Now, the entire world would suffer from the consequences. Each and every subject of hers would have to suffer because she had not forbidden the most obvious of things. Twilight was completely confused. Celestia had wanted to forbid what? Celestia seemed so worried that the growing fear slowly numbed her whole body.

"Time travel - it was impossible for everypony in Equestria. Now, that you have done it, we have to find a way to solve this grandpony paradox. It is my fault and you will have to live with it. The biggest problem about this unfortunate turn of events is, that it is completely unpredictable. I have never traveled through time myself, and there are only theories about what happens. I still advise you to go back. We cannot know, what would happen otherwise. We cannot risk the unpredictable consequences."

So now she was supposed to just go back in time? She had just arrived. Why would she leave again? However, if she would really cease to exist, when she wouldn't travel back into time, maybe it would be better to do it. Then again, how should she know from which time future Twilight traveled back, though? Does that even matter? If she travels back right now or in twenty years, she would still arrive in the same time, wouldn't she? Then again, future Twilight had not really been 20 years older than herself. Wasn't there a way to test it all out? Her head was starting to hurt. This was nothing like logic in her math lessons. What if she would just come back to this moment, let's say two days from now. Or maybe...

"...just from tomorrow."

Another future version of Twilight appeared through a purple hole. Twilight spun around to face future Twilight. Celestia doing the same, looked utterly horrified. Had Twilight really done that?

"This is so crazy."

"That is funny, because I have said the exact same thing... And you will probably say exactly this."

Then, Celestia interrupted both with her royal voice. She was furious about the arrival of future Twilight. The anger almost erupted from her body.

"Twilight Sparkle! This is no fun matter! You have no idea what you are playing with! We have no idea, what the consequences are!"

Twilight, however, did not give up her plan. "There is no other way to find out the consequences!"

"Twilight Sparkle. You may be a princess now, but do not try to play with the fundamental laws!" While Celestia was speaking the 'not', the whole tower began vibrating from the volume of her voice. Even the window of her chambers was shattered. Much more quiet, Celestia added some words which would forever be burnt into Twilight's mind: "It may already be too late."

Never before, she had seen Celestia so enraged and at the same time mournful. "It may already too late."

Celestia looked down, now deeply involved in her own thoughts, thinking about the consequences. Maybe she had gone too far. Twilight was not sure whether she should still travel back. She decided to just not travel back, which should solve this problem, shouldn't it? When she did not travel back, she could not cause herself and Celestia so much pain. Then again, she would cause herself never to travel back, would she? This was indeed, confusing - Or confuzzling, as Pinkie Pie would have called it. She decided to at least sleep on it for a night. Maybe tomorrow the whole situation would be less... confuzzling.

Twilight went straight towards her own chambers, it was late evening anyway. Sleeping a couple of hours earlier wasn't such a bad thing, especially after exhausting yourself like that. It was so strange, how everypony else missed her, even though for her it had just been a day time, that she had been gone.

Twilight’s mind was filled with questions which were all asking to be solved. Twilight tossed herself around and turned under the covers, trying to fall asleep. However, her thoughts were not allowing her any calm. If she could not come to sleep, she would have to use a sleeping potion. How should she get one, though?

She looked up to the ceiling, but the ceiling was gone. There was only darkness above her. She stood up and the bed was gone. She looked around: Only darkness. Then, there was somepony else. That pony had such a dark coat, Twilight almost couldn’t make her out. The pony’s eyes however shined through the darkness.

The dark mare slowly trotted towards her, growing in size as she came closer. Then she looked down at Twilight, and whispered something in a deep and demonic tone.

"Twilight, it is too late."

Twilight attempted to escape that mare, but she was held down by magic. Her pulse exceeded every limit and the pounding of her heart was louder than she had ever expected to be possible. She was panting as the air resisted to enter her mouth. She only brought out the one word:

“Who?”

The dark mare laughed and the whole dark world vibrated. The demonic laugh echoed through the darkness.

“I am you.”
Twilight burst awake, panting for air. The nightmare was gone, but it almost felt as if the dark mare was still hiding inside of the shadows. The sky outside was still pitch black, filled with twinkling stars. She looked out across Canterlot, breathing in the cool night air. A few ponies were still up at this hour, taking care of late night affairs. Everything was perfectly still and calm. It was comforting just looking out into the city.

After she had calmed down, she laid down under the sweaty sheets again. Her body was still tired, but her mind feared sleeping again. This would be a long night, but she just couldn’t sleep. She remembered the dark mare.
“I am you.”

Mornings are always stressful. The pain of getting up is one of the worst possible things. The dim light of the red morning sun shown through the open window. Although her window was still open, the air in her room had somehow managed to become muggy. The room was just another guest's room in the Canterlot castle, as there had not really ever been a special room designed for her. Her own house in Ponyville had always sufficed. She stood up and opened the door. A fresh breeze through the window caused it to fall shut. Twilight stepped outside her room, trying to let her eyes become used to the dark corridor. It was still quite early in the morning as indicated through the red light of the sun, shining through one or two windows of empty chambers, whose doors were still open. It had not really been a long sleep and she seemed more exhausted than before. She had just arrived at the corner of the corridor, when suddenly she stood right in front of her own chamber again, about 100 hooves away from the corner. Had she just day-dreamed all of that? Was she really that exhausted?

She started trotting again, this time concentrated on any little movement. Maybe there was somepony trying to have a little bit of fun with her. As she got around the corner of the corridor, there was nothing except a cold breeze rushing through the corridor. Where had she actually wanted to go? Ah, yes, she had wanted to talk to Celestia. Most corridors were empty, as most ponies were still sleeping. However, as was her duty, Celestia would already be awake and making the sun rise above the horizon, waking up everypony for their own daily duties.

Twilight knocked at the door, but again, something happened. Suddenly, she found herself trotting up some stairs, without memory of how she could have possibly gotten there. Completely confused, she decided to turn around again and walk to Celestia's chambers. It almost felt like a strange déjà vu. A chill ran down her spine. What if this was what Celestia had talked about, it already being too late? This time, not only confusion, but also fear crept up her mind. The fear was numbing her. What in Equestria was going on? Maybe this had been some big coincidence. She knocked on the door again, this time without getting teleported somewhere else.

"Come in!"

Celestia did not seem a bit tired, although she had been awake for a couple of more hours. Her faithful student and now Princess Twilight Sparkle entered the room, having a worried look on her face. Celestia already knew what had happened to her. All her theories were true. The plane of space and time was really unchangeable. She would need to help her student, but how could she do it, without making a contradiction herself?

"Celestia, you have to help..."

She knew, that her student would try to find her help. She could not allow her positive feelings towards Twilight to lead her to inaccurate decisions.

"I know, Twilight. I cannot help you, though. You will have to find your own way..."
'...until I find a solution' she added in her mind.

Twilight was furious, but she knew well enough not to question Celestia. Celestia had been on this world for thousands of years, while she did not even get up to a mere hundred. Celestia hopefully knew what she was doing. For now, Twilight had to find a way to stop this from...

She didn't continue that thought, as she was again teleported somewhere else. The fear she had tried holding back, was slowly making it impossible for her to think straight. This was impossible. This wasn’t real. It is all just a nightmare.

"Come in!"

The realization was sudden, but nonetheless painful. She was not being teleported somewhere else, she randomly was traveling back through time. This was obviously an effect of the misuse of her power. How should she have known it though? Celestia had known it and not warned her of the danger.

"Twilight, you can come in now!"

Celestia shouted again. Twilight slowly opened the door and trotted in. This time, she was just silent. Would it even matter, what she would say, if she got flung back to the past anyway?

"Twilight, I cannot help you with this. I can see what is happening to you, but you will have to do it on your own."

Why didn't Celestia help her? If she was such a wise leader, as she had always been praised, why couldn't she help her? Twilight knew that these accusations were unfair and stupid, but what else was she suppose... Again, she was just catapulted back in time, this time to the edge of the corridor again. Which then again meant, that it was staggering. Maybe she soon would not have time to react anymore, as she would be catapulted back to before she had invented it all. Or maybe even further: Before she had met her friends... Maybe even worse: To magic kindergarten! Or maybe even into never existing. She took two deep breaths and assembled her magic energy. If she would not get back now, maybe she would not ever get back. She released the time travel spell, only hoping to arrive at the right time.

Chapter 4: Back and forth

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It was impossible... There was just no way! Again, almost for the twentieth time, Twilight tried to travel back in time just a day. She arrived in the same dreaded location, in which she arrived every time. Right over there was the past Twilight, just arguing with Celestia.

"...unpredictable consequences."

Celestia had just finished the ever-same sentence she was speaking every single time. Then, past Twilight was drifting into the same damned thought-process every time. Twilight tried to move, to cast a spell, to do something, but instead of it happening, she got catapulted back into the same future. She was just in front of the edge of the same dreaded corridor that she had been walking through at least twenty times now. Why was this impossible? What was she doing wrong? There had to be some solution to this disastrous situation. There had always been a solution, so there was probably one here, too. Just trying again was obviously not solving it. She tried to remember... What exactly had happened yesterday? She had thought about the possibility to just travel back in time later, and future Twilight had appeared behind her.

What exactly had she said? Something, that has to do with tomorrow: 'Come from tomorrow' , 'Tomorrow will come', 'not tomorrow' or maybe... 'just from tomorrow'. The last one seemed quite plausible compared to the others. Damn all of this! She should have paid more attention to detail, but she could not have known what was about to happen. Furthermore, she had paid attention to Celestia's ranting, only just not to damn future Twilight. Why had future Twilight come to that time anyway? Had it been funny or something to... Or maybe, just maybe, future Twilight had been in exactly the same situation. There was a certain idea developing in Twilight's brain right now:

If she would do exactly what future Twilight had done, maybe she could stop this constant resetting, which was slowly causing her to become insane. Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to change had stressed her out. Even though it was only the twentieth time, it already scratched her sanity. There were no friends to help her right now. This was a hurdle to take on her own. She tried to stay calm, but the nervousness was getting through to her more and more. If she could not resolve this whole issue, what would she actually do? Her heart started to hammer against her chest, as if it tried to escape. Her guts were also trying to escape, but they seemed to try to flee upwards.

She would try the 'just from tomorrow.' There was no failure anyway: The worst thing, that could happen, would be arriving in this moment again. Twilight groaned. The worst thing would be being stuck here forever. No! She couldn’t allow herself to even think about that possibility.

She jumped through the orb again and arrived in the same situation: Celestia was finishing the same sentence once again, while past Twilight was sunk into her thoughts. The scene was so strangely unfamiliar, maybe because she was rather somepony watching it than contributing to it.

"...unpredictable consequences."

She waited a couple of seconds, until past Twilight should have almost finished that one thought.

"...just from tomorrow."

Back again. In the same freaking corridor and no idea, why it had failed once again. She was afraid of what would happen, if she kept coming back here

“Damn this time mathematical paradoxon. Damn the constancy of the speed of light. Damn Albert Hoofenstein.”

No! He had nothing to do with her time paradox business. Luckily, she also was a smart pony who had encountered enough failures to know how to not fail again. Just analyse the whole situation once again and this time more thoroughly: She had said the right words, most likely at least. She had waited for the right moment. What has gone wrong? There. The image flashed through her mind once again. She had turned around and seen the future Twilight come out of a glowing purple orb. If however, she arrived already before that, she must have created the effect of the orb all by her own, which would then again mean, that the future Twilight had had the same problem! Which in return meant, that she could not possibly fail, could she? If future Twilight had succeeded, she could not fail, when she was doing exactly the same as she did. Confuzzling time paradoxes!

"...unpredictable consequences."

The same bucking situation, the same past Twilight and another chance to finally succeed in this impossible task. This time, however, she would do everything perfectly synchronized. She concentrated on past Twilight. She studied her every move. Was she finally moving her weight from the left hoof to the right one? Now! As past Twilight started to turn around, she spoke the one sentence:

"...just from tomorrow."

She tried to exactly seem like future Twilight, even creating the purple orb in front of her, through which she jumped to make it seem as if she had just come out of it.

"This is so crazy."

Twilight tried to not burst out in joy, as she had succeeded... for now at least. Wait, what had future Twilight said?

"That's funny, because I have said the exact same thing... And you will probably say exactly this."

How true, how true. She had already said the 'this is so crazy' and this past Twilight is going to say these exact words, because otherwise she would be also reset into the same corridor. She thought about how that future Twilight had already known the problem and told her, but she had not been able to make anything out of it. It was confusing. Wasn't she the future Twilight right now giving herself a hint, that she knew she could never understand, because she didn't already? Yes, this was most definitely confuzzling. She wondered, what happened in the normal time where - or rather when - nothing was screwed up? She should have not done this whole experimenting.

"Twilight Sparkle. You may be a princess now, but do not try to play with the fundamental laws."

She should have really listened to Celestia. However, she didn't. There was no way to possibly undo all of it. She had to live with it now. Celestia added that one horrific sentence, that did not leave Twilight's head at any time:

"It may already be too late."

It was already too late. The only hope to get back into her life was to successfully do everything, that future Twilight had done. She would have loved to just scream out in anger, but she had to control herself. After a couple of seconds, she felt the pull back into the future. Had she done everything right, had she done everything in the exact same way that future Twilight had done it in? After Celestia had said these words, she had drifted into her thoughts, not further noticing future Twilight. She could not possibly know what future Twilight had done during that time. There was not much time to think about what had happened, as she was once again standing in the corridor.

She already thought that she had missed something, but then she realized, that it had actually worked. How? Well, there was a certain difference: She actually felt exhausted. Not just a little bit exhausted, but quite much exhausted. YES! Yes yes yes. This was most definitely a step forward. However, maybe the resetting had just changed instead. There was one simple way to test out if it had worked: If she had really not succeeded, she would be sent back to this moment as soon as she would be let into Celestia's chambers and ask her for help. She slowly started trotting towards that one door, which could either tell of victory or tell of failure. She knocked two times, until she heard that same phrase:

"Come in!"

Celestia had a worried look on her face as she noticed the exhausted Twilight. It was most definitely different, but different enough to stop the whole messy being-teleported-back thing?

"Twilight, what is wrong with... It is the time travel, isn't it?"

Twilight began to wonder: How could Celestia know that? Probably just a guess. There were not many things anymore, that could really exhaust her. Time traveling was one of those things.

"I hope it stopped."

She took a deep breath. Any second now, she would be teleported back. She closed her eyes, began to count down. Any second now. Nothing. Maybe it just lagged behind... Still nothing. With every second, her insecurity declined for a bit and her happiness grew. She did not get teleported back. At least, right now. Considering that it had been different time-spans until she had been brought back, it was only reasonable to not exclude the possibility of failure right now. However, with every second, the chance for failure declined. Maybe she had really done it. Slowly a big smile crept onto her face. It worked!

"What has stopped, Twilight? I may be an Alicorn Princess, but that doesn't mean that I am all-knowing. There are errors, that nopony can predict. Especially time-travel, it is an undiscovered principle. I can only guess what the consequences are. Even Albert Hoofenstein has not explained everything."
Celestia looked worried, but also just plain confused. Maybe she should explain everything. But then again, would it even matter to tell her? Wouldn't it all just get reset, including her memory? Maybe she could...

Knock, knock.

"Come in!"

There we go. The same situation. She had been thrown back again, right before entering the room. It was time to get back into the past again, and try another strategy. However, this is where things got strange.

She assembled her magical energy as she had done so often and released the spell. The spell started to unravel, trying to create the well known glowing orb that would suck her into the future. She could go on for hours how the created singularity poked a hole through the continuum of time and the tunneling was stronger if it would rotate around an axis parallel to the magnetic field in Equestria and the matter was transported through no space at all, which meant that it didn’t take energy to actually transport her and only took energy to open the whole thing, which collapsed because of the finity of the magical power to be consumed. However, even though she knew so incredibly much, probably more than anypony else, she could not resolve the paradox.
At first the glowing started in the usual white light, but within a heartbeat it turned red and the whole singularity vanished. That was not supposed to happen. She tried again. Same result. Then she tried again, using more magic. Same result! She tried it with a different technique, trying to create a stabilizing spell first. That is how she had first trained it all, the safest method. Same result. She even tried to create a pre-singularity, which should channel her magic to create an even stronger one. Same damn result. It turned red and collapsed within a heartbeat.

She was obviously not let into the past again by whatever strange force was controlling this all. Maybe it was time itself, which was trying to stop abuse? Maybe it was the fundamental magic that flowed through every being in Equestria?

"Hello? You can come in now!"

Then she realized, that she just had been stupid, so incredibly stupid. Of course, it was not the situation just a day ago, it was all about future Twilight saving her yesterday - well, 2 years ago. This time paradox was really becoming increasingly complex. Twilight had to take a second to think about all of it. How could she get those two years into the past? There was just one possible way: Using the potion, she had created. The whole machinery should be in the storage area. If she could just find a way to imbue...
The heavy door opened in front of her and pulled her out of her thoughts.

"Twilight?! What are you doing?"

She would probably have more time, if she would start as soon as she had knocked, running to the storage room, getting her machine ready and using the potion and finally traveling into the past. All that in this short time span, until she would get teleported back in front of this door.

"Twilight, is something wrong?"

Considering the way to gallop and the required time for that, it could all be possible, if the machine was not too hidden inside the storage room. What if she couldn't reach it in time? Oh, Twilight, you are one stupid pony. Of course, it was possible for her to reach it. As she maybe couldn't travel back into the past, she could certainly teleport just right into the storage room. She only had to make the machine work somehow and do everything just correctly. This could take several tries, but then again, she really had an infinite amount of time to do it. It was strange to realize, in what stress future Twilight has been every single time, just before traveling into her time.
This all was weird, to say the least. The worst thing, however, was being forced to do it without the help of her friends. She thought about them, their laughter. It was pain to her heart. A tear tried to escape her eyes, but she forced them shut, trapping the tear between her lids. Would she hear them ever again? Twilight! Twilight Sparkle! You have to stop these thoughts. There is still a way to turn it all around. Just concentrate now and you will be fine.

"Twilight? Are you oka-a-a-a-a..."

Almost like a broken vinyl plate, Celestia’s voice was repeated for a couple of seconds, until she was teleported right to the point when she knocked on the door. Without wasting time on waiting for an answer of Celestia, she took her hoof down and activated her magic. Almost instantaneously she teleported down in front of the storage room. She didn't want to risk teleporting into the room as she did not know exactly where the machine was. She couldn't risk teleporting right into it. You don't even want to know what happens if ponies teleport into solid things. The door hammered open under the pressure of her magic, almost ripping it apart. The machine was just right there, out in the open. To her great, incomparable pleasure, there was still potion inside the machine as she turned it on with her magic. What would she have done if there had not been any potion in there? She would have probably turned insane. She stopped herself from thinking about it, as it was definitely not good for her composure.

The whole process of imbuing the potion with her magic took longe than she wanted it to. Every second waiting here was another wasted second. It was strange to see the dust on the machine, as she had just seen it two days ago... Which were now two years. The potion finished rambling and almost a bit too hasty, Twilight pulled out the test tube, in which last bits of her potion were contained. She drank it as soon as possible and waited, until the feeling of power streamed throughout her body.

She used her magic to create the spiraling, glowing orb of light that would take her into the past. She added stabilisation components and enlarged the whole thing. Within seconds, she started to feel the distant pull. Her field of vision started to get distorted and was getting filled with the glowing white. Within less than a heartbeat, the whole transportation was done and her field of vision returned to normal. This was past Canterlot, at least it should be.

Celestia's words struck Twilight once more. She wanted to deny it, but the feeling was growing stronger and stronger. She started to believe that Celestia had actually been right...
"Maybe it is already too late."

Chapter 5: The clock is ticking, Twilight

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It was disproportionately easy to travel back through time and space. It had always been so hard to just get a week or two, but with the potion, it felt like trying to lift a feather. Twilight could have almost traveled back another two years, just to enjoy the feeling again. For now though, she had to concentrate on her surroundings. She was outside of the tree library, while the door was already shattered. She stormed through the open door, just fast enough to catch a glimpse of that mysteriously veiled pony trying to attack past Twilight.

At this point, she couldn't even be sure that the mare had wanted to do something bad. She had thought that future Twilight would have had a valid reason to save her. Now however, she knew, that the only reason for her coming back to that time has been the idea of stopping constant torture through being thrown back again and again.

"Your time is up, Twilight!"

Now it was time to strike. She leaped through the door, trying to pull the mysterious mare down. Her heart was beating so fast and loudly, she almost expected past Twilight to hear it from inside.

"No! Yours is up!"

As she tried to teleport herself and the mare out of the room, the whole situation completely collapsed. There it was again, the door of Celestia’s chambers.

Knock, knock

"Come in!"

It took Twilight a second to realize that she was not actually in the past anymore, but instead two years into the future again. The confuzzlution - which would be the proper noun, wouldn’t it - exceeded any limit. What had she done wrong? Had there even been something wrong? It all felt like trying to swim through a sea of jelly. (Yes, she knew how that felt due to an incident with an idea of Pinkie Pie… That however, is a story to tell another day.) She was actually advancing, but being set back again and again was just one huge annoyance.

She had been teleported back at the exact moment, when she had tried to teleport herself and the mare out of the room.. Although there may have been just something she was missing, she decided to try to just leave the teleporting out. There were not many other things she could think of. Damn confuzzling time paradoxes. She really liked the word as it was really matching.

She teleported back into the storage room, this time directly into the room. She now knew where she could teleport and where not. Then, after creating the same potion once again and drinking it, she traveled back the same two years. This second try would work for sure! Of course, she couldn’t keep that thought very long as doubts already pushed it aside. What if she would not succeed? She couldn’t live without her friends. No! It is not the time to think about it Twilight.

The front door was open already, broken in by the mysterious mare. The mare was just breaking through the thick metal door to find that past Twilight. That mysterious mare was most certainly a strong unicorn. How had she known where to find past Twilight, though? That was a question that she could not bother to think about right now, as that mysterious mare with the black robes already spoke that one sentence:

"Your time is up, Twilight!"

So, she leaped through the room again, trying to jump the mare down and managed exactly that.

"No! Yours is up!"

This time however, she did not teleport anywhere. For almost a heartbeat nothing happened. However, then the mysterious mare teleported them both away. She really began to wonder, what this was all about. Why would the mysterious mare have teleported the future Twilight away and not the other way around? Wow. This was exceeding any previous confuzzlingness. Her head was already starting to swirl.

"Don't mess this up for me!"

The mysterious mare had been quiet, almost impossible to hear. It was impressive to find out, that something had happened in the past, that she had not been aware of. That moment soon ended as she heard past Twilight stepping out. She jumped down the mysterious mare, causing two bruises where each of her hooves had hit. As it had happened once already, the mare teleported herself behind past Twilight and tried to stab her. Again, past Twilight was able to evade the critical hit.

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

Twilight teleported right next to past Twilight, ramming the mare away as future Twilight had done it in the past already. However, then there was this realization: She could not continue. She could not bucking continue. To continue, she would have to try to kill that innocent mare. Why in Equestria should she ever do something like that? There had to be another way. She… she could not do it.

Knock, knock.

"Come in!"

There was no way she was going to kill an innocent pony just to be free. Inside of her, two parties were fighting. On the one side she had her needs, like friendship and the need to live a normal life. On the other side however, she had her morals. She could not overstep boundaries to fulfill her own selfish needs, could she? No! The very thought disgusted her. How could she even consider it?

How had anypony come to that idea? Had there been a first future Twilight deciding to do it and causing every following Twilight to be forced to do the same? Or was the reason the inevitable consequence of itself? Paradox was really the right name for this all. It wasn't going to make more sense the more she thought about it. How could future Twilight have been so cruel and thus forced herself to do the same cruel thing? Bucking future Twilight. She had messed up everything.

"Hello? You can come in now!"

She had to search a way. Maybe, if she could use the potion and travel into another time? No, she neither wanted to try to time travel again nor could she possibly escape the continuous resetting of the time. What could she do to actually succeed in this all? Was there even a possibility for success? Twilight! What was she even thinking? There had always been a way to success, so there would be one here. She missed her friends. They could have helped in this situation. At least at consoling her. She missed them so badly, but there was no way to solve this darn paradox. The tears she had tried to hold back, finally started flowing. She really really missed them. It felt like a dagger piercing into her heart. What if she would never see them again? No! Don’t think about it, Twilight. You will be just fine! You will have to be...

Then it hit her. Actually, there was a way. She started giggling. She would just have to kill the mysterious mare without actually killing her. There was a way! There was a way! She would not have to kill the mare, as the mare would escape. Future Twilight had know that, trying to kill the mare of course, but knowing she could not succeed. Future Twilight had not been a monster, only looking like one, and she had not been able to tell her, because of this time paradox! So, back into the past.

"Twilight?! What are you doing?"

She decided to answer Celestia’s question, even though the reset was about to happen. It didn’t matter if she said it or didn’ say it.
"Oh. I am sorry, I didn't hear you opening the door.”

There would just be a couple of seconds, until she would be thrown back to the moment when she knocked at that door.

"Okay? Is something wrong, Twilight? You seem quite exhausted."

"It's fine. It's time travel. You won't even remember a word of what I said. It's actually quite ridiculous: I could tell you anything I wanted right now. For example, that I have never liked your lessons. Although that would be just a lie."

It was actually quite funny to see the disbelief and confusion on Celestia’s face. She giggled. Maybe because it was a funny face, but more likely because she had to somehow push these sad thoughts aside.

Knock, knock.

"Come in!"

Time to travel back! She didn't lose any second to hesitation. Immediately, she teleported right into the storage room, powered up the engine and drank the potion. If this actually worked, maybe, just maybe, she would finally be free again. Then, she would definitely meet up with her friends again. She really missed them. She really missed them. She passed a mental image of each of her friends through her head: Fluttershy, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash. For them she would succeed. She drank the whole potion in just one go.

The potion had the same awful taste, the same awful time to finally start working, the same awful spell to be cast. She arrived in the past again to do exactly what she had done before, and what her past self was going to do afterwards. Maybe it was not too late.

The same situation, the opened front door, the mare just bursting into past Twilight's room, the same sentence:

"Your time is up, Twilight!"

She leaped through the room once again, leaping through the room onto the mysterious mare, throwing her down with her own weight, knowing how useless that was, since that mare was about to teleport away anyway.

"No! Yours is up!"

The mare teleported both away again and spoke the same sentence:

"Don't mess this up for me!"

What had the mare actually meant? Don't mess this up for her? Well, she had no other choice than messing it up. Why wouldn't she mess it up? The mare had tried to... Well, maybe kill Twilight, maybe not. There was no certainty in that statement anymore, as there was no possible way to know what had never happened. She jumped down the mare once again, this time outside of the library, and thus caused the two bruises. Again, the mare teleported behind past Twilight without her intervening, - even though knowing, it would happen - and again, past Twilight was able to evade the critical hit.

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

This time, she put all her effort into ramming the mare down and trying to finish her off. As she had expected, the mare just teleported away. Had she actually just risked a life of an innocent pony to save her own sanity? She noticed the well known anger and disgust in past Twilight's face, as she had felt them herself already. She anticipated the coming sentence as if it had been a sentence over life or death.

"I don't understand. Why... Why did you...?"

Yeah, why did she actually do it? Why did she...

" ...try to kill her? She had almost killed me, when I had been in the same situation. The future Twilight, that had saved me at that moment had also tried to kill her. I don't know, what would have happened to you, if I would have not..." ...said these exact words.

She was already being pulled through the orb back into the future again, never revealing these last crucial words, which could have changed everything. She had not been supposed to be able to say these words.

Everything was so wrong, so scripted. If she had said anything else, that would have caused her to be reset in time again. She could only speak what she knew she had to speak. There was no way to escape the necessity of these words. They had been spoken and they would be spoken again, because otherwise, she would lose her sanity. It felt wrong to just speak these scripted words, but there was no other way. There was nopony to help her out this time. A deep sadness was slowly building up inside of her. A sadness she could not hold back. A sadness that was somewhere in the back of her mind, waiting to erupt.

She remembered her own thoughts: She could have not even imagined herself to become so... insane. Yet, her insane actions were the only way to keep her sanity. Not only confuzzling, but also ironic. Damn paradoxon! Hopefully, she would be free again.

When Twilight was being pulled back to the future, she arrived in the storage room. Though... not in the storage room, she had expected to be in...

Chapter 6: What happened?

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Twilight tried to hold it back with all of her force, but it just came out. She coughed a couple of times; Everything in here was so incredibly dusty. The storage room was filled with boxes and crates, all as old as time itself. It was really an unpleasant feeling to be cornered in by so much old stuff. The machine however, was just missing. Where, or better when, had she actually arrived? It didn’t seem like the time before her first time travel nor the time before her last one. Maybe there were still unpredictable consequences after all, like arriving at a completely random time. How should she make a plausible plan if the time travel was so unpredictable?
Ughh… Twilight clenched her teeth as she tried to not think about it all. It only hurt to think about it. In her thoughts she always went back to her friends, even though she tried not to. It only brought her pain. Would she see them again? Now she squinted her eyes as the tears tried rolling again. Not now Twilight, you have to concentrate on the task at hand. She stood straight up, breathing in a deep breath. She could do this. Twilight made her way out, pushing aside box after box, and finally arriving at the door. The door itself was already brittle, almost as if it had not been used for a decade or so. She decided to try to open it, however, it just broke apart as she was using bits of her magic. There was something most definitely wrong here.

She stepped past the broken pieces of the moldy door outside, through a muddy, old corridor. It almost seemed as if Canterlot castle had been left... Maybe even completely abandoned? It was strange to walk through the same corridors, now completely different. The questions kept coming. Why was this place deserted? Where was everypony? What had happened? It took her almost a minute to get through the castle and out of the huge front door, while treading through thick dust and mud on the ground, and while being surrounded by crumbling walls and sometimes even holes in the ceiling. This had to be decades after when she had wanted to arrive.

"Hello?! Is somepony in here?"

No answer. Twilight was really confused as to why the Canterlot castle should ever be left like this. They would have at least cleaned the storage room, wouldn’t they? They w… Then, she heard a noise. Not really as loud as to echo through this empty place, but still loud enough for her to recognize it through the noise of the wind; It had been a door shutting. Either it had been through the wind or maybe it had been the result of somepony actually being inside the castle. Either way, it would be worth it to find out.

She turned around and went back into the castle, straight into the direction of where she had heard the sound come from. Obviously, that had been just inside, up the stairs, through the left hall into the big celebration hall. There was only one door that had that distinct sound. It was the sound of the door out to the garden. Although the guards gave their most to oil that old loo, it almost always squeaked when anypony tried to open it. It was especially annoying if you are working on your papers. That door was actually quite hard to open, so shutting through the wind was improbable.

As she got closer and closer to that destination, the sounds amassed. A window breaking, a door opening, hooves hushing over the wooden ground. The further she advanced, the more she felt as if somepony was around her. Maybe she was leading her? Or maybe even luring her? Nah, that would be ridiculous. She crossed through doors, through halls and over the wooden flooring.

"We have got you now!"

Something heavy was pulling her down from behind. Argh! What…? She tried to turn around, but somepony was preventing her. She lunged out trying to hit the attacker, but she didn’t quite hit. The attacker tried to pull her and she decided to use her magic. She teleported just a couple of hooves forward to escape the grasp. She didn’t want to hurt her attacker as she didn’t know who it was. Maybe it all was only a misunderstanding. The other pony fell down as the ‘victim’ had just escaped her grasp. Twilight turned around and...

"Twilight?!"

Right before her hooves laid the attacker. She clearly did not know that pony, however the pony seemed to know her. Twilight just stared at that strange pony. Why had she attacked? What were her intentions? Was she still dangerous? The attacker must have read her mind:

"It's me, Apple Bloom."

This was seriously crazy. This was not Apple Bloom, this was some old mare. However, every second she spent looking at this pony made her recognize Apple Bloom a bit more. It really must have been about two decades. Two days, two years and now two whole decades? This was impossible?! This was crazy! This was nonsense! Twilight! You have lost consciousness and this is all just a dream. Snap out of it!

"Then, why did you attack me?!”

Almost as if Twilight had said something wrong, a worried look on Apple Bloom's face returned. She was not a filly anymore, she was most definitely a grown mare. Apple Bloom mustered her with a strangely serious look. It almost looked like she was thinking about this strange meeting. Twilight began to shiver slightly. This was all real!

"Twenty-three years. It has been a long time and a lot of things have happened. There is something we have to tell you. Just follow along."

Twilight was utterly confused and shocked. Her brain tried to process it all, but it wasn’t ready yet. Is this all real? Not only did Apple Bloom make this whole meeting at least twice as mysterious, but there was also the question about what had happened here. Apple Bloom was now a grown mare - Twilight just couldn’t get used to that thought. Further, Apple Bloom seemed to be evading her question.

"You know, we have missed you! 23 years is a long time! Nopony expected you to come back."

There was a certain bitterness in Apple Bloom's voice. Twilight understood that having somepony missing for twenty years was really a different thing to just having a short pause of contact. Apple Bloom has grown up without her, how strange was that? More than twenty years? She had to fix this! She had to fix this fast! However, she would still be able to fix it all. As long as time did not reset again, she had time to find out about this strange future and then reverse it all. She had to reverse it! She almost burst out in tears, but not here, not now. Apple Bloom was still here.

They finally arrived in front of the big hall, the Canterlot royal garden, where she was introduced to what Apple Bloom had implied with 'we'. 'We' was actually a bunch of ponies she actually knew, but they were hiding inside the garden for some reason. Yes in the garden. In the garden? Why in the garden? She had most definitely not misheard that, had she? A familiar voice interrupted her thoughts.

"Apple Bloom, are you completely out of your mind? You have brought an un... Wait. Twilight?"

Twilight did her best to bring out an unsure smile, although it was almost impossible considering, what she saw and thought right now. There were Applejack and Fluttershy, both clearly weathered by age. It was indescribably strange to see your best friends as elderly. Applejack had been the one yelling at Apple Bloom. Although she noticed the incredible joy of meeting her again in their eyes, there was a certain fear in their eyes, too. She would have to fix this all...

“Hey… Applejack."

Applejack looked at Twilight as if she had just said something weird. An awkward silence ensued. What was going on? Her mind was tortured with these thoughts. 20 years? She had to fix this. Her mind was trying to process it all, but like a broken plate it kept stumbling about the same questions without actually answering any. She looked around, noticing other ponies in between the bushes and on the trees. An old version of scootaloo, some old versions of ponies she had met in Ponyville, but mostly ponies she didn’t know.

"Twilight. Do you really not know it? So much has happened. I don't even know where to start."

The pain and bitterness in Applejack's voice was unbelievable. It made Twilight ever more curious about what had happened. This all did not make much sense as of yet. The empty castle, the ponies hiding in this Canterlot garden... What was going on here? This future was neither when, or what she had expected.

"Do you remember that machine you built?"

"Yes, of course. I used it just a couple of minutes ago."

There was this certain fear in her eyes again, but as she continued speaking, that fear in her voice was gone… or hidden.

"That machine, no matter how good it had supposed to be, has ruined Equestria.

It all started when Celestia pulled the darn thin’ out, about fifteen years ago. Somehow, they must have succeeded. Soon all of Equestria was filled with those darn potions. Ther must have been somethin’ wrong with them, terribly wrong. As more and more unicorns started to use the potion, it turn’d out to work like a drug. They came back again and again and again. They became addicted to it, even Rarity. She wasn’ able to get her hooves off that potion. She had us’d it to make dresses as it help’d her be creative. Then, she used it more and more.

There was somethin’ wrong with the potions, as they chang’d whoever used them. They became... different. Rarity started to refuse our help, even refused meeting with us. All the unicorn who had taken the potion start’d to behave differently. They started to... forget who their friends were..."

Applejack almost burst out in tears as she remembered what had happened. She didn’t have to tell Twilight every single detail. What had happened, had changed the face of Equestria, had changed the ponies she had thought to know. She hated to remember how Rarity had looked at her before. The anger, the disgust...

"They started grouping up. We didn't really mind, although we felt our friends missin’. Then, they started to exclude us all. It started getting worse and worse. They started segregatin’, as they based arrogance on the difference to us. Most unicorns started to... go different ways, livin’ their lives absent of the magic of friendship. They abused their power, they broke the harmony! The potion made them forget who they were...

Soon, it started to go wrong. They start’d to make rules for us, causing disadvantages for other ponies. They started to do unbelievable things. When the last bit of harmony was gone, t’was all over. They hunted us, they tried to imprison us... You cannot believe how hard the last years had been... This machine... Twilight, we needed you..."

Applejack had to stop there, as it became impossible to speak any more words. What had to be said was said. Thinking about it would only make it worse. Her words faded into tears, but the tears did not seem to fade. Twilight, on the other side, was completely shocked, scared and angered, unsure and disgusted of what Applejack had just told her. In twenty years, it seemed as if the world she knew had turned into the opposite. How could something like that be a result of her doing? How could such a noble goal become the deepest immorality? The machine that had been constructed to help unicorns give the world peace, had led them to abandon others? Maybe there had been a reason for the natural limit being balance and harmony. Twilight had found a way to step over that limit. A tear slowly ran down her face, as she was unable to hold it back. It was all too much, all too much. How was she supposed to bear all of this?

It didn't feel real. It felt like some other world. This was not the world she loved and lived in. This was different, something she had not expected to find. Where had she arrived? This was not Equestria anymore, not as she knew it. Somehow, she couldn't make the connection. The machine in that dusty cellar was supposed to be the reason for this much disharmony? Had she become a villain herself? No! She had not done anything wrong. This was... impossible to fully understand. She had not done anything, and yet it seemed she had condemned pegasi and earth ponies to live a terrible fate. She could not believe it and thus it didn't feel real. It was two days ago now. The world had not changed, it was all just a dream... Right?

She was not even here to fix anything, she had just arrived here because of a certain almost unsolvable problem with time. Now, she was here in a most unlikely future, where unicorns had turned against the other tribes. Had she done this? Was this real? It hurt her only thinking about that possibility. Her breath was heavy and her teeth clenched.

Everything was incredibly dusty. Suddenly, she found herself in the storage room again. The whole world had just disappeared within a second without any notice. It had all been replaced by those damn boxes. The machine was still gone, the room was still dusty, the door was still brittle. Had she just dreamed all of that? It would have been nice to know, that it all had been a terrible nightmare. It was too much for anypony to handle. Her brain still scratched back and forth like a broken vinyl plate. Was this all real? She stepped outside to the muggy corridor, where the same noise echoed through as at the first time…
She came to a conclusion, not sure how she should feel about it. Of course, she should feel scared and angry, but her brain was not reacting anymore, not responding to anything that happened. Her conclusion was simple, but incredibly hard to fully grasp.
Maybe she would lose her sanity here.
She remembered the sentence that would haunt her for her entire life:

It may already be too late.

Chapter 7: Creeping insanity

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Number 306. What a beautiful number! The prime factorization returns 2, 3, 3 and 17. The square root is 17.4928556845. The sum of all digits is 9. It is pi to the power of 5 rounded to the nearest tenth. The geometric middle of the prime factors is 4.182446, while the arithmetic middle is 6.25 and the harmonic middle is 0.816. The median being 3, of course, which is exactly the square root of the sum of all digits. If you add the geometric and harmonic middle of the prime factors, you get 5, which is about the power, pi was taken to, to get to that number.

Why was she thinking about 306? It was the three-hundred and sixth time that she had been teleported back to the past now. It had become a routine to thoroughly analyse that number before continuing. Why? Because it helped her keep her sanity. Numbers were really the only thing she could really rely on right now. They never change. Never in the entire being of the whole universe was the square root of 306 not about 17.5. Everything else was a mixture of a world that could never happen, and a world that should never happen.

She had seen it all by now, through her journeys. She had used the first hundred times just to find out every detail. It seemed as if the unicorns had become mad from power. She still could not believe that it all had supposedly been initiated by her own potion. After Celestia had been overthrown through mindless rage, the new generation of unicorns had overtaken Equestria. Ponies tell stories that Celestia actually never defended herself from the attackers, as the decision to overthrow her had always been in her subject's choice. She was their elected Princess, not a ruthless ruler. They had imprisoned Celestia, but Twilight had not managed to find her, yet. To be completely honest, she had not searched for very long, since there were other things to think about; For example, how to undo this catastrophe.

The new reign had forced the exclusion of every non-unicorn from social circles of the unicorns and had sentenced those, who did not comply to death. It was bad, that she had made this disaster possible, but it was even worse, that it was impossible to undo it. She could only operate in a very limited window of time, in which it was impossible to do anything more than speaking to a couple of ponies. She could not really change the world around her, as it was being reset every time. She had counted the seconds: 2494, which was about 41.56666667 minutes. Calculating that with having been reset 305 times already, it would calculate up to 211.297 hours or 8.8 days. Plus, of course, the time she had spent earlier.

She had not actually slept for about 9 days now. Every time, the world was being moved to the initial position, - or state 0, how she called it - she also had been reset in some way. Not only her physical position, but also her magical power and remaining stamina. She guessed, that would also apply to age and pretty much everything else, except for her memories. The memories were the only things, that stayed with her for the whole time. The memories, how her potion had destroyed the world in less than three decades. Of course, leaderships often fall in years, but it had been herself causing this. She was not sure if she could ever forgive herself.

While in the first hundred resets to state 0 she had searched for the lore of this lost world, she tried to spend the rest of the time finding out how to solve this mess. She had made this following compromise. Every time she was being reset to state 0, she would travel back in time to find the situation where future Twilight had done something without her direct influence. However, every sixth time, it was time to relax. You might have guessed it, 306 is a multiple of six. It was the 51st pause for her right now, a pause she really deserved. She had just visited her past for the 254th time before the last reset and there had been no evidence of a future Twilight. Of course, she had to be extremely absurdly careful to never ever give away her position to past Twilight. That would only cause another time paradox to solve.
She had developed her ability to magically see through landscape, through thick walls and even through ponies. A mysterious form of radiation seemed to pass through objects differently, depending on their thickness and their density. It was easier for that radiation to pass through a meter of air than it was to pass through a meter of solid stone. She used that concept to see through things. She just had to catch the radiation with her magic, and convert the amounts of radiation into colors depending on their strength. With time, she had developed a Twi-Ray vision, if you want to call it that way. It helped her to stay away from her target, the past Twilight, and still being able to watch the surroundings carefully.

She had learned many things about the world and the magic inside of it, since there was enough time to practice. She didn't have to attend any meetings, go on any adventures, she was completely left alone with her studying. This fact, while it would have made her the luckiest pony just some years ago, now it made her sick. It made her sick to not see her friends, to not have adventures with them, to not live her life with the magic of friendship. That was what had caused her to stop practicing this 306th reset. Usually, in the pauses of time travel, she would have practiced her magic, trying to become better at just everything. However, some kind of disease had caught her. The disease of not being able to be together with her friends.

Of course, she could just meet Fluttershy and Applejack in the Canterlot garden, Rainbow Dash patrolling up in the clouds, trying to look out for attacking unicorns, Pinkie Pie somewhere between Ponyville and Canterlot, as she had marched there to get new party goods, as the old ones had been destroyed in a tragic accident, and Rarity somewhere at the council of unicorns in Manehatten, or unicity, how it was renamed recently. It was funny, how that 'uni' was actually standing for unity and uniformity, not for the reign of unicorns. However, only unicorns were allowed in that united city. It was all just not the same. They were all older now, all different. They had diverged from another, losing their friendship over the course of many years. The pony that had seemed the most normal was Pinkie Pie, as she could still tell anecdotes about what had happened to the old party stuff and how she was going to throw the biggest party ever. However, even Pinkie Pie let shine through, that her friendship for Rarity was hard to sustain as Rarity had lost the mood for partying with them.

She would have given almost everything to just live her normal life with her friends again. She had cried for more than two resets, she had screamed, tried to deny it, tried to do anything. It was a bitter, unchangeable dead end. That fact was slowly causing her to lose whatever was left of herself. Only math sufficed to still pierce through the thick layer of grief, anger and disgust for this world. Math was the only thing that was keeping her sane and alive at this moment.

307 already. The dusty storage room had the same smell on it, that disgusted her for so long now. Still, she breathed the air in as if it would be the last time she would ever breath. The disgusting stench reminded her that she was still able to feel… Even though it was only disgust she felt. As she tried to analyse her feelings, she decided there was more than just the disgust. It was anger and a deep deep sadness. She was not crying anymore, not lamenting. She had accepted it, but it was slowly eating her up.
How could she live without her friends? She couldn’t. And yet, she would have to find a way to do it. She felt an inner rage, turning against the world. However, she decided never to let that anger burst out. Not even Celestia would know what would happen then. It felt so strange to stand in this room and think about her own feelings. It reminded her of how cold she had become, unable to still feel... as feeling only brought pain.
She stopped herself from thinking further and teleported outside, just to have some fresh air. She would need some fresh air to calm herself down. The anger was trying to rip its cage apart once again, trying to burst out and destroy this whole unfair world. Twilight would not allow that. Her friends still lived in this world, although divided and… different. She had to bring herself to other thoughts; 307... Not the most beautiful number to be honest. A prime number, thus the only prime factor was 307, not really something you can calculate the median or middle of. Not even a power of pi or e. The square root of the number was 17.521454679. There was no inner connection in this number.

Without losing more time on that pathetic number, Twilight traveled back in time once again. She watched herself just arriving in Ponyville: Pinkie Pie overreacting upon seeing her, the catering of Applejack and Rainbow Dash's speed with cleaning up the clouds. Why was she so far into the past already? Hadn't it only been 8.8 days? Of course, her math was correct. She had decided to have a superficial search at first, then she would slowly increase the depth of her search. Translating that into math would be:
A search layer over the interval of t, in which she would approach 0 with the delta t by a certain percentage, thus resulting in a multi-layered search raster, which she would use to create trust intervals on sigma-basis, trying to find the Gaussian distribution of the probability of her own future Twilight being right in that time.
That should mathematically work very well.

However, this was probably the moment she had least anticipated. It was cruel to watch herself unite with her friends, to watch herself find these ponies, who were her life by now. She didn't want to go back in time. She just wanted to go back to live with her friends again. It was a cruel reminder of this world being unfair and evil and corrupt and impure and immoral and degenerate and despicable and … She let the breath out she had just been holding up. The anger was trying to erupt and she would not allow it. She had to stay calm, she had to suppress her feelings. From now on, she would just feel nothing.

Could she trust her eyes? Was that really there?

No! This can’t be true! No!

Are you serious?

Right there! Right there in front of her was something that she had never expected to see.

Right there, in front of her, was something that would change this all.

Could it really be there, could it really exist? Was this all just a dream?

How big was the probability of finding this here?

She had found it inside of the bush she was sitting inside right now. As she had just re-calibrated her magic for her Twi-vision when past Twilight had moved behind a wall. There had been a short moment, in which she had actually paid attention to her surroundings. There it was, the black mask. Her mind began to rumble, as she was slowly realizing the effects of that mask lying there.

The black mask. It took her just a minute or two to find the corresponding black robes, but it took her a lot longer to really grasp what she had just found. It was a mixture of shock and disbelief. Twilight gasped more than one time, trotting in circles, unsure if this was all real. Her mind was overflowing with possibilities and things to do, things to try, thoughts about her friends, thoughts about reuniting, thoughts about finding happiness again. Her body began to shake as she found the robes, too.

307. It seemed as if the worst number had the most success. It went up in rank, from pathetic number, to her new favorite. She was free! Well, not yet of course, but she would be very very soon. Freedom! She laughed, she screamed, she yelled, not even caring if past Twilight would hear her. Freedom! She had done it. All that anger and all that pain were finally feelings of the past now. She was free! She could return to her friends and finally, FINALLY have time together with them again. This was the best moment ever! She had done it! Nothing in this entire world could have made her happier. She was finally free to live with her friends again.
She had to snap herself out again. Second 2300 already, not enough time to celebrate. She had to go back right now. She finally had found a way. YES! She still could barely believe it. It was all done, finally. She had been there for more than eight days. Eight long days in sorrow and pain and now she was free! Tears of joy started running down her face as she could not be any happier. She felt this moment! She had almost thought she had stopped feeling, but she could really feel this moment, the happiness, her laughter, her satisfaction, her delight, her cheerfulness, her joy, just everything combining.

She stopped herself once again. Second 2420. There was not much time left.

She tried to remember every detail of the mysterious mare that had tried to stop her. This mask... It was exactly the same. The consequences of this discovery were deeper than she could ever imagine. The mare had actually tried to stop herself from creating the potion, so past Twilight wouldn’t have to go through all of this. It had not been a mysterious terrorist pony. It had been her future self, trying to prevent the inevitable disaster. Maybe, after solving this last paradox, she would become free again. That would be more than any expectation could ever deliver. Future Twilight must have known that she could never succeed, shouldn't she? Maybe, or rather most probably, future Twilight had been in this exact situation. The 307th setback, maybe even exactly these thoughts.

It was time to travel back in time and solve a paradox.

Maybe, it was not too late.

Chapter 8: It stands for unity

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She was finally free and she had found her goal! With the black mask she had just found in this past, she could travel back through time as the mysterious mare and solve the paradox.
There was just one problem here: How could she travel back into the past these 25 years, that she had accidentally traveled into the future? She was a strong Alicorn, of course, but not that strong. She would have to find a way to reach the potion once again. However, the machine was obviously not in this storage room. It was reset 308. However, it was not time to think about the number 308, it was time to think about traveling back with the mask and robes. So, the capital of the unicorns, unicity, was actually quite far away. The new reign of unicorns would have probably transported the machine right into their capital. Until now, Twilight had refused to travel into the unicorn capital, as she did not want to see with her eyes, what had happened to unicorns. Of course, she had met Rarity already, but it had been a rather short visit. She had wanted her to stay, and that was something she could have never done, even if there would not have been constant resets to state 0. Now, however, she would meet up with the heart of unicity, trying to find out where the machine was. Luckily, she had all the time of the world.

It took quite a lot of her magical reserves to teleport so far away. She had really underestimated that distance.

As the magical light of the teleportation faded, a city slowly arose behind it. Towers as high as you could never imagine. Higher than in Canterlot, higher than everything she had ever seen.. It almost looked like they were scraping the sky. Every street was filled with unicorns, trying to squeeze themselves through the masses. It was almost like watching a river of unicorns flowing through the streets. The clopping of the hooves and the sound of all those carts made the impression of an overflowing city even more vivid. This city was not as calm as Ponyville or Canterlot. This city was flowing, doing, living. Manehatten, also known as Unicity.
She could not make out a single earth pony or pegasus, though. It was so incredibly strange to see this disharmony reigning in Equestria. From time to time, she even saw posters claiming: Stop the earth pony harvesting. Our crops belong to us! Unicorns unite! We are going to build a new weather machine. Unicorns are naturally superior to other races. Vote for the new empire! Help us bring forth new generations. #Unipride. Without unicorns, the world would be dark. Let us unite for a brighter world. What have they done for us? Why should we help them?

It was indescribable how disgusted she felt. This was not the world that she had learned to love. Everything had gone wrong! She would have to undo what had been done and fix this mess. For that she would need the machine. Where could it be? She guessed that the machine was most likely in a safe government area. However, she did not really know her way around in this unicity. She decided to just ask the next unicorn. She turned her attention back to the streets, where something had already changed. A couple of unicorns were following her, while others were running around and spreading the news of her arrival. A shudder ran down her spine. These unicorns were fanatics.

She arrived within the confinement of the government district, where the buildings were all comparatively flat, but still amphibious. Gigantic complexes, which spread almost ten-thousand hooves along. It was as impressive as scary. This was not the world she had learned to know anymore. 23 years was a longer time than she had expected it to be. She was still only 9 days here. How would she feel about it, when she would have lived a whole month here or anything similar? Her mind jumped back to her friends, thinking of their laughter, of their voices, of the happiness. She remembered, how her last conversation with Pinkie had been. Pinkie had wanted to… Suddenly she noticed a guard approaching her. He didn’t wear the armor of Canterlot guards, but instead a new one which she didn’t know. Another sign of the clear segregation. The armor seemed a lot heavier, but that would probably also provide more protection. The guard had a deep, but harsh voice.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle. It is a pleasure to meet you. Please, follow along."

She followed, although unsure why that royal guard had sounded so... ironic. Maybe times had changed even more than she had ever been able to expect. The royal guard lead her to the senate, where she would be asked questions. At least, that was what the guard had told her. Meanwhile, more and more guards came and escorted her. A chill ran down her spine, as she looked back to the amassing crowd of unicorns behind her. Something was most definitely wrong here. She felt uneasy with this much attention.
The masses of unicorns were soon held back by even more guards. This made her feel even more uneasy as the guards obviously were a lot more threatening as a crowd of unicorns. They all seemed to look down on her. She couldn’t decide if that was real or just her imagination. Soon enough, they dropped her in front of the senate, where only two guards continued leading her. They were, as their rank showed, both captains of the royal guard. The ranks seemed to still be the same as before. Maybe old traditions were hard to get rid off. The other guards were creating a wall to hold back the unicorns trying to catch a glimpse of her.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle! We have always wondered when this day was going to come. You look no day older than when we last met you. To make this clear: In this trial, it will be decided what is going to be done with you. There is no way out of this city other than our allowance."
At first she was just confused by that statement, but soon enough she processed it. Anger and disbelief both mixed into her confusion. She bristled with anger: Were they really trying to threaten her? Were they really so foolish as to threaten the element of magic? It had been about 9 whole days, but this was above everything else she had experienced. She felt the rage growing, the rage she had been holding back for 9 days. How could they even dare?

"Princess Celestia and Princess Luna both have declined our offer, and it had been necessary to keep them... well guarded. We fear, that if you choose to decline as well, the same fate will be yours. We hope that you choose well."

They were really doing this! Twilight almost burst out in anger, about to destroy whatever this was supposed to be. Her hatred for this world was only growing. Without her, but through her invention, the world had become this place. It was not only the anger about her unfortunate state, but also disgust for what those unicorns had created here. Her breathing became slower but a lot harder. Her muscles tensed up, but she still tried to contain the anger. These were fallen unicorns, but they were still ponies.

"Princess Twilight Sparkle, we are going to ask you the following question just once, so please think through your answer."

From a council high above, an older mare began speaking. She had a blue coat and… Trixie? Was this really Trixie? Twilight looked closer, it was, in fact, Trixie! The disgust came up once again. Of course Trixie would have gotten a place way up in a society of disharmony. She seemed to be the head of the senate as her robes were mostly decorated unlike any other pony in here.
There was an overall colored distribution of ponies, similar to the one at the winter wrap up, just much more extreme. The lower tier unicorns all had a red robe, and were sitting down under the fewer blue-robed unicorns, which seemed to be the middle class. An upper class of unicorns sat in comfortable thrones and was wearing green robes. The head of the senate however, was wearing a white robe, that shone with the power of the sun.
It felt so weird to see Trixie as the head of this senate. Twilight still tried to contain her anger and disgust, but it got harder and harder. Especially the way Trixie was speaking to her made her want to beat her. It was that nasty arrogant tone that nopony liked. Twilight started to clench her teeth as she didn’t want to burst out in anger… yet.

"To be a part of the community of unicorns, all half-breeds will have to agree to following terms..."

This was it. This was just the last straw. This was unspeakable. They could not do that! Did they really just call her…? During that sentence Twilight had held her breath and now she released it with her royal canterlot voice:

"What did you just call me? What did you just call me?"

The roaring of her royal voice vibrated through the room, smashing each and every window. The royal voice was something she had learned from Luna. It was quite useful to give announcements to masses of ponies, or for something like this. If she had not had the same love to each and every pony in Equestria, she would have ripped this whole future apart already. Only the last bits of her moral were holding her back. She had to remind herself again and again, that those were still ponies. Her anger however wasn’t satisfied with that. She could almost see herself bursting out. She had to stay calm or she would destroy them all.

"Oh, be careful. The half-unicorn half-pegasus has spoken. What is she going to do? Slap us with her wings?"

Oh, if she had ever felt rage, that had been nothing compared to this. Her body began to shiver, as she felt the ever-growing need to destroy everything in this future. The red-robed unicorn that had said these words earned applause and celebration instead of denial and rejection. If this future had come to this, there was just one thing she could do. Only her love to these fallen ponies was holding her back.

"Do you see her weakness? She is weak, because she has wings. The pegasi have envenomed her, spreading the disease of their weakness. I wouldn't wonder, if she also had a bit of earth pony inside of her."

It didn't matter anymore. This united city, unicity, had fallen below everything she held dearly. These unicorns have become the cruel monsters she had always tried to fight. Celestia loved them too much to hurt them, but she had been an Alicorn for much longer. Even Cadence and Luna had not done a damned thing. This, however, was far too much. This was not unity. This was discrimination beyond everything that ponyhood stood for. Ponyhood was unity in the face of difference. This was an abomination. Her anger and disbelief and disgust and sorrow and grief finally united and bursted out. The blood was rushing through her veins and she knew, she would destroy this whole town. The fact didn’t dissuade her from doing it, instead, it felt like the right thing to do. She had to give it a voice now, all these emotions had to flow out.

"Silence! You have turned away from unity and you have become monsters, each and every one of you. The other races are a part of you, even if you hate to acknowledge it."

"What are you going to do? We are thousands of unicorns, you are one half-breed monstrosity."
It had been the red-hooded unicorn speaking once again. She smiled as she knew that this monster would die first. She took a moment of silence to assemble her deepest magic. Usually she would not have done this, but this was extraordinary. These ponies had done the unspeakable, and the unforgivable. Twilight would just pass the judgement of her emotions over this town.

Anger - The town would have to burn in flames. Disgust - Afterwards there would only be a field of death. Disbelief - Nopony would ever forget what they would see after she was finished here. Sorrow - Even the worst enemies of this city will cry when they gaze upon the death that this city has inflicted upon itself. Grief - The feeling that would stay in this city even after every of its citizens was gone.

The room filled with her magical aura, the purple vibrations shattered through the walls. The whole room darkened as she slowly arose from her position. It felt good to release all that anger. Those who she had once loved had turned against her. She could see fear in their faces, a well deserved fear. The walls shattered and the ceiling just disintegrated. The ground below them started to vibrate uncontrollably. They started to shoot beams of magic at her, but her shield was deflecting each and every hit. She was channeling all of her anger into this one spell and the anger turned her magic black. She used her royal canterlot voice once again to ask the question, that would follow these monsters into their graves:

"Why have you fallen, my subjects?"

The wave of magic burst through the landscape, pushing everything aside and consuming it afterwards. Every wall, every house, every tower, every monster, every poster of their arrogance, every remaining bit of their existence vanished upon colliding with her magic. In the distance, she could hear the sky scraping buildings collapsing under their weight, being consumed by her magic, vanishing in explosions of pure energy. She could hear ponies screaming in fear, that fear that others had endured in these terrible times. Why had they fallen so deeply?

Twilight sent out a last wave of power that crushed everything. The huge explosion carved through stone as if it was butter, and left nothing. The only remains of what had been a city of ignorance was a big crater around her. The stone was molten and bits of her magic were still eating into the world around her. She slowly descended from her position up in the air, down into the crater.

Her anger had destroyed everything, but had she found peace? Most definitely not. Anger had never been a solution to anything. It had felt just so good to let it all out. She knew, that the sorrow and grief would come back, but for now she felt empty. It had taken her last energy, but it was second 2485 already, so just 9 seconds to go. The next time she would come here, she would have to find the machine alone.

For now, however, she had done what these fallen ponies had deserved.

309. It was a nice number. Only 3 and 103 as prime factors. The square root was 17.58, while the sum of all digits equated to 12. The arithmetic middle of the prime factors was exactly 50, the geometric middle being 17.58, exactly being the square root and the harmonic middle being 5.83. Math was a good way to ease the pain of what she had done, of what had happened. If she would stay much longer in this future, she would most definitely become insane. She had let her anger destroy lives. There was no forgiveness for that, even in knowing the city would be there once again as her actions were without consequences in this paradox.

She assembled her magic again to teleport outside. This time, she teleported right to the bush, where she had been yester... more than 25 years ago, when she had watched herself meeting her friends. The mask and the robe were still here, however both were much much older and having holes all over them. The bush had also grown much bigger by now, almost tripling her height.

Maybe, if she would disguise herself, it wouldn't become so obvious that she was indeed an Alicorn... Something she had never wanted to be forced to veil. It was a big city and ponies would not have the time to muster her thoroughly and discover that bump where her wings were. Maybe the future Twilight had not only used the robes, because her future Twilight had used them, but maybe also because it had been necessary to travel back through time. Twilight began wondering, if there could have been a first Twilight who had made all these decisions. It seemed as if every decision of future Twilight had been a decision she would have made, if not knowing what consequences it would have. From teleporting into the past just one day over the words she had spoken, up to this masking. Maybe, there was a solution somewhere. Then, there were these horrible, terrible words returning to her mind...

It may already be too late.

Chapter 9: Searching

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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

Chapter 10: WHY?

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Twilight's breath was slow and rhythmic. Her head was swinging forwards and backwards again and again, never stopping for a moment. It made her feel better, it was comforting. It almost reminded her of the comfort of a crib, that swings from side to side. The motion was so repetitive. There was nothing new she had to face, nothing undesired. There was nothing that could disturb her right now. The slow wind rushed through the leaves in the trees, causing the same rustling noise as for the last hours. It felt so good not having to do a thing in the world, just swinging forwards and backwards. A tear was running down from her left eye. She didn't want to think of a reason for that tear. It was all okay now that she could comfortably swing back and forth.

She had given up long ago. There was no way to succeed, nopony to help her through. How was she supposed to survive this? She broke out in sobbing again. Why? Why? Why? That question would never leave her mind nor would the images. No, don't think about it, Twilight! She intensified to swinging, causing slight nausea. It was still better than remembering. A cold breeze ran over her long hair that was cluttered and filled with specks of dirt and dust. How long had she been sitting here? It didn't matter. Back and forth. Such a calming motion. Her teeth clenched together as the memories tried to regain the control over her body. She forced her eyes shut, trying to forget it all. Just back and forth, back and forth.

Back and fourth, back and fourth.

Another tear ran down her eyes, even though she had already thought there were no tears anymore. Her mouth was dry and her belly was empty, but did that even matter? Maybe death would give her answers for the questions she searched to forget. There were no answers to be found. There were no answers for those questions at all. Why? She would have cried if she would have had the strength to do it. She was done with the world and the world was done with her. Why?

She forced herself to look up again, although the water in her eyes made it hard to see. She looked down again. She could not stand it. Tears fell from her eyes as if she had not cried enough already. She began panting for air again as so often before.

"WHY?!"

She screamed and yet no pony heard. No pony was there to hear. Her body fell to the side but there was no impact, no pain. Only this loneliness. This anger. This sadness. This different type of pain. Her sobbing turned into crying again. Why? The memories were flooding her brain again like the dam holding them back had broken apart. She was too weak to hold them back. The Canterlot Castle, in ruins. The lifeless bodies. Why? The slow walk through this infinite field filled with death. The whole world had died, the stars had stopped twinkling, the darkness filled the world. Why? She had found them, not long after.

Stop it Twilight! You can't! You can't think about it! Just forget it all! Just... The pain would kill her. Why? There is nothing in this world even closely related to losing who we loved. She had not only lost one, but all. This world was not a place to live in anymore. She forced herself up, trying to contain the tears but they just kept coming. Right before her were the graves, all six of them. Behind them, six more graves. She decided to speak last words to everypony before the inevitable would happen.

She had tried to go back, of course. There had been no way. The slightest idea of traveling back to a better time already threw her back into the ruins, into the field of death. With each and every try to go back, she had been forced back into the field of death. She had not given up. She was strong and yet so weak. It had been reset 777 when she had given up. There was only death in this world. Only death. Why?

She stopped again, being reminded of every single face. Every single empty expression screaming the same question at her:

"Why? Why, Twilight? Why have you done this?"

Every single pony had screamed at her, their eyes ripping her very soul apart. Why? She was too weak to continue thinking about it. She had lost track of time after the thousandth reset. It had been more than a month and she had given it all up. There was no way out of this insanity. Why?

The first grave she arrived at was Fluttershy's. Her grave was filled with Narcissusi. She had found it matching to give her this flower of beauty and sleep. Fluttershy had always been a Narcissus.

"Goodbye, Fluttershy! It... It... You..."

She could not do this. She hated herself for that inability to speak up, but she just couldn't do it. It was hurting her. She cringed with every step, but she couldn't do it. She stumbled over her own legs, falling down again. "Why Twilight? Why did you leave us?" Why?

It had been nothing but her own fault. All along, it had been her own fault.

She tried to scream, but nothing came out. She could not do this. How was she supposed to do this? She was just a pony. Why? She couldn't answer that question. That one action, that one single mistake had taken her life. She hated herself for the inability to do anything. She hated herself for what she had done. She hated herself for everything. This was her own fault.

Why? It may already be too late.

This wasn't her own fault… Yes, yes! This was... This was somepony's fault, but not her own. No no. She giggled. Her breathing was fast and discontinuous. This was the answer to all her problems: It was all PAST Twilight's fault. That foolish pony had ruined everything. Yes yes. That foolish pony had to be stopped. She would stop that foolish pony and everything would be just fine. She would stop past Twilight and everything would be fine, yes yes. She turned around again.

“Fluttershy!”

Another breeze of wind hushed over the surface of the grave, blowing away the narcissi. Twilight felt cold, but she would…

“What are you saying Fluttershy?”

She was sure, she had heard her. Fluttershy had just spoken to her. If Fluttershy had only been a little bit louder...

"Come on Fluttershy, speak up!"

Silence. Only shadows of the clouds above her running over the ground. A breeze of wind and rustling of leaves. Why wasn’t Fluttershy answering?

“Answer Fluttershy! Please!”

Oh, Fluttershy wants to go the hard way. Then she will show her the hard way! Yes yes, the hard way. With a single swipe of her magic, the grave was taken apart. The dirt sprayed into the air, revealing her hideous friend. She was alone here with Fluttershy. The whole world around them didn’t matter anymore.
“You have lost your hair, Fluttershy. I still think you are beautiful. Yes yes. Very beautiful.”

Fluttershy refrained to answer. Why was she not answering?!
“Fluttershy, talk to me!”
Oh, you are not going to answer? Twilight will make you answer. Everything would be normal. Yes yes, Fluttershy will answer. Twilight chuckled as she thought about it. This time, the skeleton answered, but the answer wasn’t something she wanted to hear. No no. It wasn’t her fault.

“It wasn’t my fault! Do you hear me?! IT WASN’T MY FAULT!”
Her heart started beating faster and faster and what was left of Fluttershy was staring at her. No no, into her soul. Fluttershy was judging her. She wouldn’t allow Fluttershy to judge her, no no. With a flash of her magic, the skeleton evaporated into thin air. Her eyes were blinded for a moment, but it had been worth it. Yes yes, Fluttershy would no longer judge her. Yes yes.

The leaves of the tree started rustling again and the grass was blowing softly in the autumn breeze. They had seen her do it. The tree had seen her. And the tree would tell Celestia. And the grass would tell Celestia. Yes yes, they would rat on her. Would she allow it? No no, she wouldn’t. The grass and the tree would have to die. And the others too. No pony would squeal on her. NOPONY!

After having done the necessary, she traveled back through time. She had done that thousands and thousands of times before, always without success. Today, however, she was a different pony. One that could do anything, yes yes. Anything. It was Ponyville, yes yes. However, she couldn't show her self. No no. There was past Twilight, but she couldn't show herself. No no, she couldn't. She made her way up to that place.
There was one mare who could help her. The mare in the moon. Yes yes, That place. The moon. Yes yes. Here she would find her. Yes yes. The mare would do what she was not able to. Yes yes. The mare would kill that nasty pony. She was no murderer! It wasn’t her fault! It wouldn’t be her fault in the future! The mare would do it. It will be the mare’s fault, not hers. The mare would kill past Twilight; yes yes.

"Who hath come to our lair? Thou art doomed upon coming here. Eternal night shall reign once again!”
A deep laughter echoed through the empty space.

"No, no. I am here to aid in your escape. Yes, yes. The stars have sent me to aid in your escape. Yes, yes."

"Who art thou, foolish mare? For Nightmare Moon is who you have awoken."

"I don't have a name. No no."

She giggled. She once has had a name, but that name had lost all of it's meaning. Yes yes. She used her magic to free this bitter mare. Nightmare Moon would kill her.

"Foolish mare. Thou hath freed me once and for all. The time for my reign hath cometh."

A deep laughter howled through the empty space. And she giggled. Yes yes. She liked giggling, yes yes.

No no. It has not worked, no no. Nightmare Moon has failed. The dragon, whose original home she had destroyed, has given up. The parasprites, who she had driven into the Everfreeforest, have been captured by that pesky pink pony. Yes yes, pesky. Even the hydra who she had angered and beaten for days had not had a chance against past Twilight. She almost spit out that 'T'. Yes yes, spit. There had been others, trying the same... A cockatrice, diamond dogs, buffaloes. Things she had not planned but also had failed to stop those six. They were hard to stop, yes yes. Nonetheless, she would stop them anyway; yes yes. She giggled.
A thought slowly crawled up into her brain, the memories of what had once been her… It was time to bring forth other creatures, creatures like Discord. Creatures that would have a chance at defeating them. Yes yes. It was the third day already, on which she was just cowering there, waiting for somepony to approach that statue. Instead of it being somepony useless, as so many times before, this time there were perfect targets. Yes yes: Three little fillies arguing about the definition of Discord. She used her magic, quietly and with determination. Slowly, she weakened the spell containing Discord inside of this stone shell. Discord would be free. Yes yes, free. They would not know what hit them. Past Twilight would finally have to give up. Yes yes, give up. She giggled again.

“Ahh! What a wonderful day to spread chaos once again!”

"Yes yes, it is. Yes yes. Spread your chaos, Discord. Spread your chaos and destroy that pony! Yes yes, chaos."

"Oh, and who are you, my insane subject? Insanity is such a wonderful thing, isn’t it?"

He burst out in streamers and balloons and she giggled. Yes yes. He was a master of chaos.

"I have no name. No no."

"Oh, isn't that a wonderful coincidence? I have no name either!"

She giggled. Yes yes. This one would make everything just fine.

It was time! Yes yes, it was time. He had failed. It had been going so well. Yes yes, so well. She had almost done it if there had not been that damn dragon. Yes yes, that dragon. Pesky little thing. There had to be pesky little things all the way ruining the possibility for success. Yes yes. She couldn't let that continue. No no, she couldn't.

"What are you doing in my lair? Get her, my children."

"No no. I am not here to fight with you. No no, not fighting."

The shield she had created was holding the changelings off her as long as it was necessary. It had been a long search, but she finally found a suitable replacement for Discord. She would not only send one, but two problems for past Twilight to deal with. Yes yes. She would send two. Yes yes, two were better than one.

"What do you want, then?"

"I want to give you the Crystal Empire, the love of their citizens. A whole empire to feed upon. Yes yes, an empire. I want you to kill her for me. Yes yes."

"The whole empire? Who do you think, I am? I am not a fool! I am the Queen of the Changelings."

"Yes yes, you are. Yes yes. I know who you are. You are Chrysalis. You don't seem to know who I am. No no, you don't."

"Indeed. That is a dilemma. So what is your name? I would like to know it, so I can tell who I destroyed."

"No no. I don't have a name, no no."

She giggled. This queen was stubborn, but she would get her to do what she wanted. Yes yes, she would.

"Pah!"

She started channeling her magic, but Twilight knew, what she had to do.

"Silence!"

It was her royal Canterlot voice. Yes yes. She had learned that from that pony. Yes yes, she had learned it.

"The Crystal Empire will be free for your entry and only yours at the dawn of the next day. Be there and have the possibility to feed your children or starve together with them. It is your decision. Yes yes, it is your decision."

It wasn't her decision. No no. The children would starve. Yes yes, starve. The queen would have no choice but coming. Yes yes, no choice. She had already prepared it all. Queen Chrysalis would have an easy game. Yes yes, easy. And Twilight would try and fail. Yes yes. She giggled.

It made her insane. Yes yes, insane. How could everypony fail at her command? It was an easy command: Getting rid of Twilight Sparkle. Yes yes, so easy. The queen has been beaten by the power of love that she had been eating up all along. Yes yes, how ironic. It would have still worked, if this stubborn King would have awoken faster. Yes yes, stubborn little thing. The ice had been thicker than she had expected. The magic had been stronger. Yes yes, strong magic. It were four days without eating or drinking or sleeping. No no, no eating. It had been four long days of an exhausting use of magic. Yes yes, exhausting. Now it was time. The deep laughter coming from below was the first sign of his awakening. Yes yes. He was finally awake. Yes yes.

"The time for vengeance has come!"

The King erupted through the ground without her being able to say anything. No no, not able. That being was filled with hatred. Yes yes, pure hatred. It would most definitely destroy past Twilight. Yes yes. This would be the final blow. Yes yes, finally. She thought about it for a moment and giggled. That pony had been right:

It is already too late.

And she liked it.

Chapter 11: Twists and turns

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Past Twilight was gone, gone into the future. She had not managed to stop her before doing it. She would find her vengeance, yes yes. Her success had always been just a couple of hooves away, yet too far for her to achieve. It was mocking her, yes yes. The success was mocking her. Her ear twitched and she giggled. It felt funny when her ear twitched. Yes yes, it felt funny. It had been the two years. Twilight has left and returned and left again. Yes yes, Twilight had traveled through time very much. She had not managed to stop Twilight, no no. She had tried of course, but she never succeeded. It had been mocking her. Yes yes, Twilight had been mocking her. Pesky past Twilight.

The time had come. She had changed. She had changed her life, her way of thinking, her whole existence. She had become a different pony. She was not that pathetic filly anymore. She didn't have to hate herself anymore as she had now changed. Finally, she had found peace with herself. Neither had she to agree anymore nor did she have to deny any of her statements. The insanity had left her body, replaced by something far more mighty. All of these changes had made something very radical necessary: She had to change her name. That unspeakable name didn't fit her anymore. She had changed, she had evolved, she had become something completely different.

She was Nightfall's Radiance.

Not only her mind had changed but also her body. She had grown, her coat had turned darker and darker, until it had almost turned black. Her horn had grown and as had her training of magic. Her wings had grown and as had her ability to fly. She was a lovely sight now, especially in the dark. No remains of that foolish filly. She was a mare, grown with anger, grown with fear, grown with death in her heart. Her heart was cold now, her mind was clear. She laughed a deep, vibrating laughter. Her old self had died, had been exterminated, was nothing but a pure shadow of the past. Now she was here, a beautiful and majestic queen, here to rule them all.

The kingdom fell as easy as she had expected. Those fools were no match for her power and never have been. Celestia had grown old and fat. Nightfall's Radiance laughed once again as she remembered that face filled with fear and in 36comprehension.

"Who are...? Twilight Sparkle? What has happened to you?"

"That is the name of a pony that has died a long time ago. I am Nightfall's Radiance, the true Queen of Hatred, and it will be my pleasure to be your doom."

She laughed again. She had developed such a beautiful and cruel laughter. Celestia's face turned into a grimace as she heard it. Celestia slowly backed off, trying to find a corner. Her student has become a monstrosity. However, that was not the problem bothering her. Much worse was the question of whether she had created this monster herself. Was this her fault?

"What has happened to you?"

Celestia was almost numb in fear. Who was that pony standing before her? She remembered the filly Twilight Sparkle, that enthusiasm when she had freed Spike of his egg and was accepted into her tutoring. The lessons she had sent her with every week, the lessons she had learnt. How could such a loving, caring, wonderful Alicorn turn into this? Had it been wrong giving her such powers? Had she created this? That last question would bother her for all eternity. Then Luna descended from above and stopped her grim thoughts.

"Sister of mine?!" She turned around to Nightfall's Radiance "Who art thou foul monster? No harm to my sister shall be done as long as we forbid it!"

"Don't you remember me, Luna?"

There was an idea slowly developing in Nightfall's Radiance. Maybe she could turn this pathetic Princess into a real nightmare again. Maybe she could turn Luna into Nightmare Moon once again as already in the old times. As her loyal servant, Nightmare Moon could come in handy when dealing with their subjects.

"Or should I speak to your real self, Nightmare Moon? Purge yourself of your chains and join me in the destruction of Canterlot."

"Twilight? I... I didn't want to believe... For a monster is what thou hath become. And as a monster thou shall be judged."

"Oh Nightmare Moon. Don't be foolish or I shall destroy you both."

That had not been an empty threat. However, the two Princesses had already made their decision. They attacked both at the same time, in perfect union. Nightfall didn't have time for this childish play. With a single burst of magic, she disrupted both attacks at once, throwing them into two opposite corners. Together they were strong, but alone their weakness grows. She teleported all three of them into a distant place; the void. It was dark, but darkness was her ally. Through the years she had developed the darkness in her heart. The darkness in her heart had developed into a darkness throughout her body. Her eyes had changed, allowing her to see in her darkest moment. The one sister, Luna, would have the same advantage, whilst the other one would be without orientation. That would separate them both, giving her a clear advantage.

She attacked Luna first, because she knew Celestia could not help her sister. Luna evaded the first bolt of dark energy, but the second one already struck the shield Luna had created mere seconds before impact. The shield crumbled, but it didn't fall. Luna was strong, but never as strong as Nightfall. She would crush that princess, and it would only take her minutes. However, instead of attacking her directly, Luna teleported through her over to Celestia. It was the one thing that could still save them both. Together, they were too strong. She had to separate them further or the loss was inevitable.

"Your love makes you weak."

"It is your lack of love that dooms you to fail."

She laughed once again. Celestia really thought love could rescue them. There was no possibility for failure anymore. She had already failed. She had already died inside. Days didn't matter. What was time anyway? Only a way for her to achieve her goal. She would have an eternity to overthrow Celestia and Luna. They would fall eventually. It would just be a lot easier if they would fall now. She should not underestimate them both, but she should not easily give up either. It had cost her time to come to this point. Too much time to just stupidly waste. Nightfall had trained for this moment: Days, Months, Years. She had been the essence of ambition, never stopping her training once through sickness or sleep. Sleeping was something weak ponies could allow themselves to do, but she didn't need the sleep anymore. She was the sleep, she was the nightmare, she was the hatred itself. She had no mortal needs anymore. She had become something bigger, something better, something stronger. She had become the immortal Queen of Hatred.

Celestia and Luna worked together. Celestia was struck with blindness, but Luna helped her see. A spell, draining her strength, but helping Celestia fight. Together, they were strong and she knew that. She knew that the love towards her sister would overcome any hatred in this world. This being - clearly not Twilight anymore - was something horrific. The glowing eyes were shining throughout the void where they were fighting. How could a pony change so much around? The bitterness and hate would have had to grow so much. She didn't believe that Twilight had encountered the same problems as she had. To change her so fast, she must have experienced pure sorrow and grief.

Again and again, Nightfall had to divide them to stop their struggle. The magic shields of both were slowly crumbling, but they were still holding on. However, her own shield was fading much faster and she realized she would not win this fight, no matter how much she would try. Those ponies took their might from an eternal source. A source that she had once known before she had transformed. She hated herself for what she was about to do. Another failure was unacceptable, was a disgrace. But she had to do it if she didn’t want to die. Giving up would only fuel the fire of hatred inside of her, not relieve it by one bit.

She stopped the fight, creating a blinding light in the dark void. It blinded both of them as they had not expected it, but they were already regaining their vision. She used the short moment of distraction to teleport out of the vast nothingness of the void space and onto the face of the world again. The world which was going to feel her hatred. If she could not fight them both head on, she would have to envenom the world with her grief and anger.

She had found the perfect possibility. She had searched for days, but there had been no chance to strike again. There had been no way to attack the diarchy. The two Princesses had remained strong and focused, and even more alerted than before. Now, however, there was an opportunity, a small chance, but her only logical choice. Twilight would be beaten by what she had created. She would be beaten by her own potion. Nightfall laughed again.

"Your soul shall be mine, Twilight."

It had been a matter of weeks. Pathetic unicorns. They had been foolish enough to trust her. She had an easy game, infecting them with her own hatred.The potions were an easy medium. Ponies starved for the ability to become mightier, to gain the strength to do wonderful things. In the end, they all fell to the power of her hatred. It were just small amounts of her magic in each potion, too small to get witnessed by foolish mares, but enough to reap their souls and turn them into images of her.

The first one had been a blue coated mare with a pale light-blue mane. She had searched for power, for something to enhance her magic so she could compete with Twilight. Even after her visit, that mare had become her most frequent visitor. She was her right hand, willing to do whatever she would say, as long as that would harm Twilight. That mare went around in the world and sold the potion to foolish unicorns. Even the wisest and most loyal of them fell in their dark hours, fell to the starvation for power. Unicorns bought the potion over night, just trying it out. They became infected by her hatred and soon enough addicted to the power. Those unicorns, her daughters and sons, created their own empire. An own city, own regiment, their own rules. She was the founder of that city and she would watch it until the end of all days. Her empire expanded, day after day. Soon, all of Equestria would be consumed by her anger.

Her daughters and sons had already caught Celestia and Luna for her. It had been a day of delight, slowly trotting towards their imprisonment, seeing both lying in their cells and laughing at their failure to evade the inevitable. Nightfall had created something she could be very proud of. She had created her own society, no, her own world of hatred. Day after day, that hatred would spread and intensify.

The anger swept through the landscape as a terrible scream emerged from her throat. The windows of her palace of shadow shattered and her bitterness had no end.

"Twilight Sparkle!"

Her hatred burst out in a magical explosion that completely obliterated the whole palace. The debris slowly rained down from the dark night's sky. Another burst shattered through the calm silence of the night. Twilight had run away. Her fate had been so inevitable. She had seen Twilight dying already, she had seen it. Twilight had run away.

Another burst of magic erupted, turning the very ground below her into thin, molten air. Another scream came out of her mouth and it didn't even sound like a pony's scream anymore. The anger was bursting out in waves as she could not accept that fate. She screamed again and her scream howled through the night all through Equestria, spreading the fear. Her guards had been foolish enough to let that pony through to the machines. She has had only one chance to catch her and they had let Twilight escape into the past with her very own potion. When Twilight would come back, a world of hatred would wait for her. She screamed once again, but her anger did not flow out. It just kept on amassing, until it was too much to bear. Nightfall's Radiance slowly stood up from what had been a throne once. Her long wings carried her through the night as she would finally let her hatred reign freely. She had always tried to contain it. There had always been something holding her back. Now that something was gone. Deep inside, she had realized that she could not change it. She could not change anything.

For that, the world had to suffer. The world, which had betrayed her, which had stolen her soul, stolen her mind and stolen her last memories of love. This world was nothing but an abomination, an illusion of love and friendship was the only thing that was holding this together. Now she would end that false illusion once and for all. She would crush everything. Her deep scream of pain and anger swept through the night again. All would have to suffer. Every little reminder of what had been called love had to be purged off this world.

She landed in the center. From here, she would begin. Slowly and steadily, she increased the amount of magic. The magic was feeding on her hatred and the hatred was growing with each and every second. The sky around her turned into darkness, the clouds started to spit thunder and lightning as they tried to escape the grasp of her magic. It all had to go. Every single memory of the past world had to be purged of her new world. A new world without the illusion of love or friendship, without memories. A new world without a future. She laughed again. A new world...

A new world without a past.

Chapter 12: It ends, where it had to

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Another deafening crash of thunder echoed through the valley before her. A last scream of the dark cloud which was trying to escape the grasp of her spell, eventually failing and being sucked up. The whole sky seemed to rush towards that one glowing center, circling around it faster and faster until finally vanishing in the glowing purplish center of her spell. The whole sky had become a dark spiral down into the center of her spell. She could not even tell whether it was day or night, since the sun could never shine through the thick cycling clouds. Once she would release the spell, it would release all the power assembled through the last days. The world itself would be purged. Nightfall's Radiance was standing right here, in the midst of the storm she had created herself. It was a beautiful sight from the Canterlot tower down into the valley. The reoccurring lightning created a shadow play from time to time.

Luckily, she paid enough attention to those shadows that she actually noticed the difference. There were some ponies hushing through the landscape, although not careful enough. Who would come to delay her? Who would even dare to step up those dusty stairs and fight her? She slowly turned around and stepped inside the Canterlot tower, without releasing the spell for a moment. The relentless rain drummed on the surface of the Tower and inside, the echo of it intensified the whole effect. She trotted down the stairs, step after step, slowly and steadily. Her preferred place to fight would be the throne room. The only room majestic enough to outclass her beauty.

The door of the throne room was slammed open by magic and inside trotted ponies with a dragon behind them. Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy and Spike. And then Twilight Sparkle entered the room. That is impossible! She had never beaten a queen of hatred in her entire past. So how could past Twilight be here to beat her. She investigated them further. They were older, much older. It had been about twenty-five years after all, hadn't it? However, she could still not really believe those six ponies coming into this throne room. How was a Twilight Sparkle here? Had she lost her memory? And how was that Rarity here? The potion should have forced her into hatred. How could she have united with the others again?

"Twilight Sparkle? What has lead you here?"

"You cannot continue beyond this point. You have to be destroyed... no matter the consequences."

There was something very distinct in her voice. Almost as if she knew something that Nightfall didn't. Nightfall's Radiance ignored that thought as it could only distract her from fighting. These ponies had not come here to have some fun, they wanted to fight. She would deliver a fight, those six ponies and the dragon would never forget.

"And Rarity. You should have stayed in unicty, being fed with my hatred. You cannot survive without it anymore."

"Liar! You have done too much damage in this world. Your own hatred shall be your downfall."

She laughed once again, deeply and vibrating. The whole throne room started to shake.

"My hatred is an eternal source of power. You have nothing!"

Then, however, she stopped laughing as Twilight Sparkle pulled out the Elements of Harmony. Nightfall twitched, with these they could possibly defeat her. However, she would not allow them to succeed uniting. Anger rose once again as she realized her mistake. Anger to fuel her magic. With one magical burst in the midst of her enemies, she split them apart. Fluttershy and Rarity were thrown against the wall, while Applejack and Rainbow Dash were too fast in their reactions. Twilight Sparkle and Pinkie Pie tried to evade the burst, but had mediocre success. Rainbow Dash flew towards her in blind bravery. With one swipe of her metal-armored hooves, she stopped that foolish maneuver.

Meanwhile, the others had recovered with the help of Applejack. She just had to separate them from each other and the victory would be hers. She remembered trying to use the same strategy with Luna and Celestia and failing horribly. Again, she had to control her memories. It was not time to think about failure, it was time to achieve success. She used her magic to single Rainbow Dash further out, preventing her from doing anything with a mighty shield. She wouldn't have to worry about the elements of harmony as long as she had Rainbow Dash imprisoned.

"Give up. I already have you now."

"And I have already won and lost. This will be inevitable."

What was she speaking about? She was implying something, but... A bolt of fire came down onto her shield from above, not really harming her but startling her nevertheless. She reacted without hesitation, creating a nova of fire swiping through the entire room. Twilight's shield held it all back, but she sustained clear damage. Nightfall's Radiance sent down another strike. This time however, she used invisible pressure to crush at a certain point of the shield. Of course the extreme pressure on that small surface caused the air to burst out in fire, but that sign came too late for Twilight. The shield crumbled at that point, collapsing within seconds. It had been too easy. They were trying to lure her to do something.

Twilight further verified that idea by splitting up from the main group. She wanted the attention, but she would not get it. Nightfall prepared for another attack. She used a wave of condensed energy, which crushed the shield that Twilight had just built up. Not only that, but it also crushed every window in the throne room. Her next attack cooled the whole throne room down below the freezing point, after which she shot the raindrops at Twilight's shield. Still, Twilight had surrounded herself and the whole group. However, Nightfall's Radiance could see her getting weaker with every second. She used her surroundings to the fullest effect. Within seconds, she crushed the ceiling above the five ponies and caused Twilight to be forced to constantly push back tons of debris, while she had done nothing more but furthering a small crack.

She threw two magical bursts at Twilight, both spiraling around each other. The attack burst Twilight out of the window. So much about their plan of distracting her. Now, she could pay her full attention towards the remaining four ponies. However, Rarity did something confusing. Instead of actually creating a shield for the other three, she teleported behind Nightfall. She decided to throw a final attack at them and turned around without waiting for the impact. Maybe Rarity had... Something hit the back of her shield with immense power. She had just turned around towards Rarity, and with an annoyed grunt, she expanded the turn to full 360 degrees. The dragon had been the object of the matter. He had beaten down upon her shield, without success of course. With a single swipe of her metal hoof, she created a deep wound in the dragons face, holding that creature down with a force field of magic. The creature tried to escape her grip, but she couldn't let it go. A quick strike with her horn stopped the revolting.

For just a second she had not paid attention to her enemies and the result was fatal: The elements of harmony had reunited behind her back, however they had done it. Now, the fight would be a lot more difficult. She tried to spread them apart again, but this time Twilight's shield was a lot stronger. Slowly, they ascended into the height, up above her and a beam of pure, colorful magic erupted from Twilight's crown. It crushed through the ceiling, turning everything into debris around it. Then, just a heartbeat of complete silence later, it crushed down on her. She had expected pain, agony or even death. This however, was completely different to any expectation she could have had. She could actually feel once again, what she had lost. The laughter, the love, the friendship. It was a different kind of pain: It was the pain of realizing what you have done wrong. One of the worst pains ponies can experience. A tear dropped down from her eyes as the magical spell she had kept feeding was released.

"It is already too late."

The world began to shatter as a deep crushing noise howled through the dark night. It was only a scout for the masses of destruction following it. There was no light, no explosion. Just a deep noise and death. Everything just shattered moments after the noise arrived. The spell ripped mountains apart, cleared entire cities and burnt the surface of Equestria. Walls collapsed, ponies screamed and the inevitable followed. For a day, neither the sun nor the moon had shown anymore. Some say, the sun and moon had not wanted to look upon such devastation. Some say, both had cried for the losses. Some say, it had been a day of silence for those who had given their lives to win. She knew that the sun and moon were now lifted and lowered by her instead of those who she had betrayed: Princess Luna and Princess Celestia.

For some reason however, all sides were right. She had cried for the all losses, as she had been the one causing them. She had not wanted to look upon the devastation and she had hid in the castle, not realizing, that the moon and sun had to be lifted. She had made it a day of silence for her friends, who had fallen in bravery to save the world, to save Equestria, and to save her from her own doings. She had been blind. Blind in sorrow, blind in grief, blind in hatred.

It was in the middle of the second day after the catastrophy, that it happened again. She was being thrown back to the moment when she had just woken up, seeing the death she had caused right in front of her. The time had been reset to state 0 once again. Did it really matter? No.

She had lost everything. She had lost her friends at first, lost her courage soon after, lost her hopes. She had lost her sanity, one thing that she had always kept even in darkest situations - well, most of them. She had lost her heart and had become a monster. She had lost her will to live after realizing that she had indeed created all of this by herself. If she had not wasted her life on that research and had just had fun with her friends... If she had not tested fate through time traveling... If she had not lost her hopes when times were grim... If she had not lost her sanity when seeing the world collapsing... If she had not let her hatred grow...

If she had not tried to evade the inevitable, her friends would still be alive.

You cannot evade the inevitable. That is why it is called inevitable, not some stupid coincidence. Inevadable. Her struggle to escape her own fate had let her down darker paths than she could have ever expected. The need to try to evade her losses, the senseless struggle to avoid unavoidable things, had become her doom. She had spent all of her time - no, she had wasted all of her time trying to be something that she couldn't. She had wasted her time trying to grasp for stars which were out of reach. She had tried to do the impossible. Failure had been the inevitable consequence and yet she had always denied that to herself. Why had her friends died for her senseless struggles? There was no answer to that question.

So often she had tried to find an answer to that one question: "Why?" The truth is, there is no answer. She had been ignorant for neglecting it. Causality is a stupid illusion in this world. Some things are just inexplicable. Sometimes the unbelievable happen and suddenly we are alone in our grief. And yet, giving in to that grief only makes the situation worse. Trying to find answers to inexplicable questions makes the situation worse. Grasping after long-gone illusions makes the situation worse. It eats you up, it feasts upon your heart. A senseless struggle. The struggle to evade death, destruction and loss destroys one eventually.

Even through the realization of the inevitability, the impossibility and the inexplicably of events, we continue on senseless struggles. In the end however, those struggles will consume our very essense and destroy all happiness in our lifes. Maybe, just maybe, at some point we will stop trying and finally give in to the good times in our lives. There is too much greatness and beauty to be seen, to much awesomeness and adventure to be experienced, too much frienship and love to be had. Too much life to be lived to run after impossibilities.

Twilight had finally understood that, only at a cost she would have never been willing to pay.

Author's Notes:

For all of you, dear readers. May it be an advice, that you learn earlier than me.

May it be an advice, you take into your heart and a piece of knowledge, you come back to.

Our time on this earth is truly limited, but only you decide how you spend it.

I will spend my time, trying to send out the message of love, friendship, happiness. I will try to teach others what life truly has.
For I am the desperate soul, that clings to life and cannot let go. For I am the one, trying to reach the impossible, trying to explain the inexplicable and trying to avoid the unavoidable.

There is so much in this world to be had, do not do the same mistake as I still do.

Live, laugh, love! Make your life into a jewel that everyone praises you for. Bring happiness to the world.

Do not waste a single second in depression.

Your time is up, dear reader!

Just make it count.

Epilogue

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Sometimes ponies get lost in the streams of time, never returning. Sometimes the consequences of their actions are infinitely small. Sometimes however, the whole world changes as a consequence of their actions.
Equestria had dark ages, but none had been as dark as these. It had always been some force of evil trying to bring Equestria down, always somepony to blame, always a clear definition of an enemy. What had caused our downfall after all? There is no clear answer here, just a lot of arguing.

It may have been Twilight herself, it may have been the paradox of time, it may have been the hatred.
Twilight's studiousness caused her to invent the potion in the first place. Of course she only wanted to help us, to create something that would forever unite us and not divide us. The paradox of time forced Twilight to do what she has done already. However, the hatred of Nightfall's Radiance was what destroyed her friends and caused Twilight to transform.
Looking at it from the distance, we can finally see the interconnections we couldn't see before. All had been inevitable, impossible to happen in any other way. Every single detail was mapped out from the start.

It creates a certain feeling of sadness, seeing how she had been chained to the rules. Loosing the free will is something I can hardly even imagine.

This was her story and I hope you have learned well. I will continue raising the sun and Luna will continue raising the moon. Life is going to continue as if it had never happened. Maybe not from today on, maybe it will take hundreds of years, but at some day it will be forgotten. This is the reason why I write it down here in these very words. May the lesson be learned and never repeated.

Celestia looked up. She had written so long, it made her sad seeing that she had finished. Could she just let go of it? She hovered the pages over to her desk, where pieces of yarn were already waiting to be bound with the pages. She remembered. All those memories, all those thousands of years, a whole eternity of lessons to be learnt. Another book in her library, another chapter of her life and yet there was no end, no success, no goal. The yarns flew through the beautifully ornamented holes in the royal paper. Could this all just be another chapter? Could she really put it all back into her shelf? She had loved her. She had loved Twilight as her child and she could still not believe that she had become Nightfall's Radiance. She could still not believe that Twilight would be gone for the rest of her life, she would be gone forever. Could she really put it all back into the shelf? Could she just end the chapter, which has been her love and her life, maybe the closest to a daughter she would ever have? Trying to put that story into her library was killing a part of herself. It would be impossible to ever forget.

Luna slowly trotted by her side. She didn't say anything, word had lost their necessity so long ago. Luna slowly hovered the book into the air, slowly turning the pages until she reached the end. There was a deep sadness inside of her voice, a sadness that reminded Celestia of her own:

"It is a nice story isn't it? A story speaking to you and yet you will continue living on while the story will have ended. Maybe you will continue your life like nothing had happened. Maybe you will start to think what can happen if you try evade the inevitable. Maybe you will see that we all have our secrets and we are not all the same, no matter how similar we seem. Maybe you will see that we are not so different, no matter how alone we feel. There are thousands of stories with thousands of lessons and thousands of unfortunate writers.
Every story has a writer after all. Somepony has written this story only for you to read these very words. And even after they are dead, their story may continue to be told. It is a nice thought, isn't it, sister of mine?"

"I just wished it had been just a bit longer, a bit more of happiness and a bit less tragedy to be told. Every second longer with her would have been worth the thousands of years to come."

A single tear dripped of her chin, falling to the wooden ground of the library. She had mourned for days and yet she couldn't find her piece even after writing a story that would live on forever, just like her.

"Let us lower the sun together today, shall we?"

Time is up, Twilight

by Dream Whisper

Chapter 1: The experiment

Chapter 2: The future

Chapter 3: Time is a loop

Chapter 4: Back and forth

Chapter 5: The clock is ticking, Twilight

Chapter 6: What happened?

Chapter 7: Creeping insanity

Chapter 8: It stands for unity

Chapter 9: Searching

Chapter 10: WHY?

Chapter 11: Twists and turns

Chapter 12: It ends, where it had to

Epilogue