Chapter 1

Twilight Sparkle was, for the first time in over eight months, sleeping restfully. No nightmares encroached upon her dreamscape, and her night wasn’t punctuated by constant tossing and turning. Her dreams were instead filled with vibrant colors and unbridled joy as she was flying over the world’s most beautiful sunset.

She could smell the salt from the ocean below, and feel the lingering electric charge from a recently passed thunderstorm as it tingled her fur. Her senses were alive with the feeling of the dream, and it only caused her enjoyment to soar even higher. Twilight knew very well that she was asleep, and revelled in every moment of it.

Her dreams had not been this peaceful in so long. Where once there stood terrors of the past, made ethereal by her mind, there was now a beautiful rainbow arching across the sky and filling her crippling loneliness with a nearly forgotten sense of hope. Here, the past had no hold on her. Here, she could just let it go. Soaring into the never-ending sunset, Twilight fell into a state of absolute bliss.

However, all dreams eventually come to an end, good and bad alike. A sharp knocking on her door caused her ears to twitch, both in real life and in the dream. She turned around, expecting to see more of the endless ocean beneath her, only to see Princess Luna flying over towards her.

Luna? What is she doing here…? Twilight thought as her mind reoriented itself.

Twilight blinked her eyes once, and Luna was suddenly no longer flying towards her through an endless sky, but was instead walking through Twilight’s open bedroom door. Twilight was sitting up in her bed, blinking her eyes a few more times as she tried to get the last remnants of sleep from her mind.

“Luna…? What is it?” Twilight asked, stifling a yawn.

“I apologize for waking you, Twilight, but your friends have all just arrived.” Luna let a small smile flit across her face before she walked over towards one of the windows in Twilight’s room.

“Oh, well that’s wonderful! But… why didn’t my Seneschal come to inform me?” Twilight raised an eyebrow as she watched Luna magically draw open the curtains on the window in front of her.

“Well, I suppose… she could have been the one to inform you,” Luna said softly, looking out the now open window momentarily before turning to look at Twilight.

“But?” Twilight encouraged, attempting to coerce Luna into explaining. She lightly hopped off her bed and levitated a brush over from her vanity mirror.

Luna, however, did not immediately continue. She shuffled back and forth on her front hooves for a moment before coughing slightly. “Well, erm… I just personally wanted to make sure you were doing okay.”

With a start, Twilight accidentally yanked too hard on her brush, eliciting a pained yelp. Luna’s eyes widened before Twilight turned and offered her a sheepish smile. Coughing awkwardly, she began to speak.

“Oh Luna, I’m sorry... I realize that I haven’t been the most communicative this past while, but I-”

“Please, Twilight, there’s no need to apologize,” Luna said soothingly, holding a hoof up to silence her friend before she could begin. “We all understand what you’ve been going through… It hasn’t been easy on anypony, we all know that, and no one blames you. I am just so happy to see you finally arrange a meet with your friends again.”

“Yes, I… I should probably go see them right away.” Twilight quickly finished preparing herself for her day and then donned what few royal garments she did wear. Luna quietly waited by the window, watching Twilight rush to get ready.

Once she was finished, the two left her room behind, nodding to the two royal guards who were stationed in front of the door. They walked in silence through the halls for a while, Twilight both excited and anxious to see her friends again. She had been so busy the past few months that she had not once taken the time to see them at all. Her tasks had dominated her mind, as she was wont to do in times of grief.

However, she had finally finished what she was working on. After months of living in a personal hell, and devoting all of her efforts to correcting the cards that fate had dealt her, she had finally succeeded. She had then spent a whole week preparing for today. In the excitement of her success, she sent out letters summoning all of her friends to meet with her, explaining that she had something important to discuss with them.

After all the pain and inner turmoil she had experienced, this last week had felt extremely cathartic. It was no wonder that Luna and Celestia had noticed and become worried; Twilight had spent the last many months shut up in her laboratory deep in Canterlot Castle, hardly speaking a word to anypony. Then, out of the blue, she emerges and is absolutely ecstatic, suddenly summoning the friends she hadn’t communicated with in months? Of course the other Princesses would be concerned.

Twilight surreptitiously glanced at Luna again, confirming what she had realized was true. Luna, who normally was very reserved and held her emotions inside a deep sheath, was seemingly walking on air. Twilight thought about it and was reminded that she had been Luna’s first friend after she returned from her thousand year banishment. While all her friends were probably worried about her, Luna might have been absolutely beside herself with fear. Suddenly, it made sense why Luna had wanted to be the one to wake her.

Before she knew it, she was standing in front of the door leading to the Princesses’ personal dining hall where her friends were waiting for her. She saw Luna look towards her one last time and silently gasped. She hadn’t seen the Princess of the Night look so happy in… well, a long time.

“I shall leave you here for now, Twilight. Please, enjoy your time with your friends. I hope you have a pleasant morning with them. I will come by to see you again later tonight.” Luna smiled once again before she turned and walked down a different corridor, presumably to go and rest after her long night.

I think she should smile more. Twilight let her mind wander. That look really suits her… Oh, listen to me! I haven’t been this happy in so long. Not since…

Twilight shook her head sharply, causing her neck to pop. She took a deep breath, held it in for a few moments, and then let it out.

No! Absolutely no more thoughts about that. Today is the last day that my life will be like this. Today is the day… that I fix everything!

She activated her magic and then opened the doors, preparing herself for whatever was about to come next.

Rarity once again looked at the letter that had arrived for her the previous day. She had read it many times, and each time found that she couldn’t believe it was actually real. Describing the missive that she held in her magic would certainly involve the word brevity. The message that had been written by her friend Twilight Sparkle was simply a summon for her and their friends to come to Canterlot, without any insight of its purpose. Each one of them had received their own copy of the letter.

Her tired eyes glanced up to look at Applejack, who was positioned opposite her at the same round table she herself was sitting at. To Rarity’s immediate right sat Pinkie Pie, followed by Fluttershy, leaving two empty seats to Rarity’s left.

The four of them had arrived at the Palace that very morning, per the missive's instruction to set off from Ponyville as soon as possible. Twilight had included tickets to the Canterlot train which left Ponyville at ten that night, giving them less than a single day to put their lives in order for an unexpected visit to the royal city.

All of them had been surprised by the summons when it arrived the previous morning by mail. Over the past six months or so, each one of them had tried many times, quite unsuccessfully, to get Twilight to come out of the palace. On some occasions they would arrive to find that she was simply nowhere to be found within the castle grounds. The guards, and indeed her own Seneschal, had not even been informed of her departure on such occasions.

Other times, Twilight was just so wrapped up in what she was doing that her own attention did not even branch out to her friends. They would be there, openly trying to communicate with her, and she would continue with what she was doing while seemingly unaware that they were even there.

None of them were upset with her, however. They knew perfectly well what had happened, and the resulting fracture in Twilight’s psyche was to be expected. That being said, they never stopped trying to help her. They all desperately wanted her to move on like they all had. It certainly hadn’t been easy for anypony, but time had helped them. They were able to accept the past and acknowledge the present, allowing them to hope for the future. Twilight, however, seemed to be unable to do any of that.

None of them knew what it was she had been working on for the half-a-year she’d spent in the Palace, researching and studying. If it hadn’t been for the consistent ministrations from the two souls she did communicate with, everypony, the other Princesses included, feared what might have happened to her. However, Spike and her Seneschal, the only living beings she still acknowledged as being present, never left her side for more than a few moments.

Rarity closed her eyes and briefly rubbed her right temple, trying to stem the thoughts flitting through her mind. A little over eight months worth of worry and despondence had all coalesced into this single meet. Here she was, sitting in a waiting room in Canterlot Castle, surrounded by her friends, waiting for Twilight to enter the room and tell them her ‘big news’.

The silence was almost stifling, and it had been ever since they’d arrived. The whole train ride had been abuzz with the sharing of concerns and theories regarding Twilight and her mysterious research. Now, all they had to do was wait and then everything that had been wrong for the past while would finally be out in the air for all to understand.

The tension they all felt was so palpable that Pinkie Pie could have cut it with a knife and spread it on a cupcake.

Their patience was to be rewarded, however. The double door which led into the room swung open, revealing a very fresh looking Twilight Sparkle. The four ponies at the table all turned their heads to look at their royal friend, some with looks of having been startled, others with a deep curiosity.

She looks… serene… Rarity thought, her meticulous mind immediately picking out all the minor details about Twilight’s current condition.

She noticed immediately that Twilight was wearing her crown, which she thought was odd, as Twilight rarely ever wore it. In addition, she saw that Twilight had her royal shoes on which had been freshly polished, and the smile on her face seemed genuine. Even the bags under her eyes have disappeared… I wonder…

Twilight walked through the doorway and then closed it behind her with her magic. She moved so that she was positioned behind the empty seat next to Rarity, and then, with a glowing smile on her face, took turns looking each of them in the eyes.

All of the them anxiously wanted Twilight to begin speaking, for none of them were willing to be the pony who broke the silence.

Rarity glanced briefly at the rest of her friends, if only to see how they were reacting to this. Applejack and Fluttershy looked fairly surprised, while Pinkie Pie just sat there staring at Twilight with a small smile on her face. Rarity turned to look back at Twilight, only to double take back at Pinkie.

She’s smiling… She hasn’t smiled since-

Rarity’s thought process was cut off as Twilight cleared her throat. She was about to explain everything, things were finally going to make sense. Rarity could already picture the scene in her head; Twilight would start off by apologizing for how she had been for the past few months, Rarity and her friends would then say it was alright, and that they were just concerned. This would then be followed by Twilight finally opening up to them in regards to her grief!

Except, that isn’t what happened at all.

Twilight closed her eyes for two seconds. When they reopened, they were a solid white without any irises or pupils. Rarity let out a surprised gasp and subconsciously pushed herself backwards a bit, a defensive mechanism as she was unsure of what was happening. The rest of her friends did relatively the same, though she was too focused on Twilight to see what exactly they had done.

Twilight then activated her horn, her magic glowing with its normal soft, purple light. However, multiple brilliant white coronas were glowing just beyond it, stretching out in ever increasing tiers. Rarity put a hoof in front of her face and squeezed one of her eyes shut, keeping the other open to see what was happening.

Twilight then let out what sounded like a pained grunt, and the magic increased. A deep thrumming noise was felt, echoing through both the air and the floor. Rarity could feel the intensity of the spell as it vibrated its way through her body. She was about to cry out to Twilight to “Stop!” when suddenly the brilliant glow of the magic just… disappeared. Similarly, the intense vibration ceased as well, and Rarity could see that Twilight was exhausted.

The magic appeared to have taken quite a toll on her, as she was now resting with one of her hooves on the chair in front of her. All four of her legs were shaking slightly, and her breathing sounded ragged and weak. The colorless aura of her eyes had dissipated, leaving her half lidded gaze in it’s normal state. As she shook, attempting to push herself back up to her full height, Rarity noticed that the star in her crown was pulsating, a rich aura emanating out from it every few seconds.

Applejack was the first to recover, pushing herself out of her chair so hard that one of it's back legs broke clean off. She didn’t even stop to apologize and immediately went to Twilight’s side, resting a hoof over her shoulders and assisting her in standing up.

“Twi, I don’t know what the heck you just did, but we’ve gotta talk,” she said, sounding both admonishing and concerned at the same time.

“I’m sorry Applejack. I think I’ll be fine now,” Twilight confirmed as she stepped backwards out of her friend’s hooves. She wasn’t kidding, as her legs had ceased their shaking and the smile on her face had returned.

“Twilight, dear, what is going on?” Rarity asked as she got up from her chair. A similar scraping noise was heard as Pinkie and Fluttershy’s chairs also scooched backwards.

“We’re all here to help you, Twilight,” Fluttershy stated, her timid voice sounding louder than her normal squeak. Rarity recalled that Fluttershy had been able to get past some of her shyness the more she focused on helping her friends, and indeed, they all came here knowing full well that Twilight needed them now more than ever.

“I appreciate that very much, truly. But I’m fine now.” Twilight’s smile stretched just a little bit bigger. “I realize what you all must be thinking. You all came here expecting me to finally open up about what happened and allow myself to grieve properly. I know you have all been coming here every now and then to help me, and I do apologize for never explaining anything, but…” Twilight trailed off, her smile shrinking just a tad.

“But isn’t that why you asked us here? You, us, together, finally moving past the… well, the past?” Applejack asked, an eyebrow raised.

Twilight looked at Applejack and shook her head. “Nope.”

Rarity was flabbergasted, opening and closing her mouth in an attempt to say something, anything. What was Twilight meaning? This was absolutely ridiculous! They were here to help her heal, to recover from her loss! She had spent over six months in a broken state, locking herself away where nopony could assist her, yet here she was, finally talking to them, and was saying she didn’t need their help!?

“Now hold on just a moment!” Rarity exclaimed, her coiled patience for Twilight’s shenanigans beginning to unravel. “I do not believe that for one second, Twilight! You took what happened harder than the rest of us combined! Don’t forget, we were there for those first few weeks. Forgive me for saying it, but… you were an absolute wreck, dear. We all knew it; we all saw it!”

“Twilight, she’s right. We all knew what you were going through…” Fluttershy added, tentatively stepping around the table closer to her purple friend. “I don’t think… I don’t think what you’re saying is possible. If you are fully past it then that’s good, but… I’m sorry, I’ve never seen a pony recover from anything as traumatic as death in such a way.”

“Well Fluttershy, that’s because I don’t need to move past it,” Twilight said with a smile, as if it was the simplest thing in the world.

“... Beg yer pardon?” Applejack asked, incredulity spread across her facial features.

“I don’t need to move past it.”

“... Of course you do!” Pinkie Pie’s words startled all of them, even causing Rarity to jump slightly. The pink pony had been silent the entire time, and even on the train ride to Canterlot she had rarely included herself in conversations.

“No, I don’t.”

Applejack’s eyebrows knit together as she began trying to process what Twilight was saying. After a moment it appeared she had failed, because she threw her front hooves into the air in exasperation. “What do ya mean ‘ya don’t’!?”

“I knew you would all have trouble with this, which is why I cast that spell a minute ago. I’m going to show you why I don’t need to move past it,” Twilight stated, her voice taking on an edge of finality.

“Oh brother…” Applejack groused.

Rarity’s eyes went from Twilight to Applejack, then back again. Twilight, however, had turned around and opened the doors. She called out “Guard!” and summoned one of the castle’s brightly adorned soldiers into the room.

“Yes, Princess?” he asked, standing firm after he entered.

Twilight once again closed the doors before turning to respond to his query. “Sir, please lend me your short blade.”

The pegasus guard’s eyes widened ever so slightly before they quickly returned to their normal gaze. He did as he was told unquestioningly, hoofing over his blade in it’s sheath after removing the belt it was attached to from his barrel.

Twilight’s friends were not so calm in their reactions. Applejack let out a shout of “Now what’s this about!?” while Fluttershy cowered behind her. Pinkie Pie’s smile had faded entirely and Rarity had taken a step back, holding a hoof in front of her subconsciously.

Twilight glanced over towards her friends and raised an eyebrow at their reactions. She appeared to be thinking it over for a few moments while she looked between them, the short blade gripped in her magic.

“Oh. OH! You all think I’m going to… No, of course not! I wouldn’t use this on any of YOU! You’re my friends,” Twilight said, chuckling slightly at the sheer absurdity of the thought.

“Uhh, Twilight, I’m more worried yer... gonna use it on yerself,” Applejack reasoned, trying to calm down Fluttershy while not taking her eyes off the sword wielding Princess.

“What!? Why would I ever do that!?” Twilight cried out, a tinge of fear coloring her words. “Do you know something I don’t!?”

Everypony was silent in the room, not daring to move a muscle or say a word. Even the guard seemed nervous, as Rarity could have sworn she saw him gulp. Slowly, she put her hoof back on the ground.

“Twilight… Why did you take that guard’s weapon?” Rarity asked finally, deciding that the tension was more dangerous if left unhandled.

“Well, I… Urm… Just… Let me show you,” Twilight stuttered, nervous from the reactions of her friends.

Somewhere in there she must still be stuck in the past… Rarity thought to herself. Only a grieving mind would not have considered what she just…! I mean, did she really think that taking his blade would be just a casual thing?

Rarity didn’t have any time to further think on the matter however, as Twilight immediately levitated the sword out to be right above the center of the table, removing it from it's sheath in the process. She then adjusted it so that the blade was pointing directly down. All eyes were on the blade, even the guard’s, who was no longer able to just stand idle. Twilight then tilted her horn sharply and sent the blade sailing straight down.

Thunk!

It embedded itself deep into the wood, the blade sinking half of it’s entire length into the table. Twilight let the action sink in and glanced around at the faces of her friends, seeing a range of responses from shock to curiosity to blatant confusion.

She then repeated the stabbing, a few inches to the right. Then again to the left. Again and again she stabbed the table, viciously tearing into it’s wooden anatomy with the blade. She knew she was probably dulling the weapon, but she didn’t care. Both the blade and the table would forgive her in the end.

“Twilight, that’s… that’s enough,” Applejack said, her face now covered in worry. She stopped watching the weapon’s movement and instead turned her attention to the pony who was wielding it. “Twilight… it’s okay.”

“Hmm? Oh, okay.” The blade stabbed one last time into the table before Twilight let go of her hold on it, leaving it quivering in the table like a butter knife stabbed into a block of cheese. “Well, it’s all for demonstrating my point anyways. This is why I don’t have to mourn.”

It was evident that none of them believed her. Her actions were insofar entirely irrational, and seemingly had nothing to do with anything they had been discussing up to this point.

“Twilight…” Rarity began, before being silence by a raised purple hoof.

“I implore you to listen. Everything will make sense in just a minute.” She then turned her attention to the guard and asked him to return to his post outside the room. He obeyed immediately, and only after he had closed the doors behind him did she turn back to her friends.

She quickly removed her crown and placed it on the table so that it was facing her. Rarity wasn’t sure when it had happened, but she now realized that the gem in the crown had stopped pulsating. It was back to it’s normal appearance. Well, almost normal. It began to glow in a purple light as Twilight started to cast a spell on it.

The magic flowing around the crown then burst off into five different chunks and each settled a small distance away from where they had originated. They then grew and got brighter, becoming more opaque to the point where it was impossible to see the table through them. Twenty seconds went past, the five blobs of magic shaping themselves and solidifying until, at last, they stopped glowing. In their places sat the remaining five Elements of Harmony; Honesty, Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, and Loyalty.

All eyes looked upon the Elements, which were now resting casually upon the table as if they had always been there. Twilight smiled, a slight smugness crossing her features, before she then looked at each of her friends one last time. They all looked back, genuinely curious about what was going to happen and what this could possibly have to do with the defiled table.

“Once I cast this next spell, everything will make sense. You will all understand why I ruined this table; you will all understand what I’ve been working on for so long. But… more importantly...” Twilight swallowed, a sudden look of longing stretching across her face. “You will all understand why there’s no reason for me to mourn.”

Rarity followed Twilight’s gaze and saw that she had been looking directly at the Element of Loyalty the entire time she had been speaking.

Oh, Twilight…

Twilight dug deep into her soul, activating all the magic that she had available to use. She knew that at this point her eyes were once again glowing, bright and colorless, but it didn't really matter as she was not seeing with them anyways. No, her senses had long since dropped from her range of perceptics.

Instead, she was feeling her surroundings. Her magical presence had filled the entire room and she could tell just by observing the area at a glance that her friends were incredibly nervous. It was understandable though, as this was something that they had never seen before.

She stretched her magic out further and found what she was looking for; there before her was the six Elements of Harmony.

It was hard for Twilight to describe just what she was seeing as she observed the Elements. She wasn’t looking at things with her eyes per se, but rather looking at their magical nature. When she put her attention on a pony or an item, she was looking at it’s power, it’s life force, it’s state of being. In this way, the world tended to cast a dark blue hue on itself in areas that were lacking in magical energy. Ponies and other living beings, on the other hoof, offered a wide array of colors and impressions, varying in brightness and intensity.

The Elements of Harmony were, when considered in this fashion, equivalent to an entire ocean. The light radiating from them was pure white, like a beam of sunlight before being distilled into a rainbow. Again, Twilight wasn’t looking at them with her normal eyesight, but she still felt the desire to squint just from glancing near them.

Gently, she reached out with her spell and touched all six of the Elements. She immediately was assaulted by their power, each one attempting to exert all of its weight and energy. This wasn’t unexpected, as Twilight had already known they would attempt to overwhelm her. She physically grit her teeth in response to their effort and spread all four of her legs into a more stable position. Her mind began running back through her notes and data about the Elements so that she could begin the next step.

The last month or so of her research had been devoted entirely to the Elements themselves. Nopony had ever been able to properly identify their power or their nature, so they were an unquantifiable resource. Equestria had called upon them more than once to handle a threat, and each time they went above and beyond the call of duty in their output. With a single thrust of their will, they had banished a demonic alicorn to a celestial body. A god of all things chaos had been entombed in stone by the Elements merely flexing in his direction, while they simultaneously repaired the damage he had done to the entire world.

It was an undeniable datum; the Elements of Harmony were quite possibly the most powerful thing in existence, and the pony who understood them better than any other was Twilight Sparkle, the bearer of the Element of Magic. She didn’t understand them nearly as well as she’d have liked to, and in truth, she was well aware that she had barely even scratched the surface of the knowledge she could gain from them. That being said, she was the only pony who knew even a bit of what they were capable of, but that was all she needed for what she was going to do.

Her extensive study of the Elements had taught her a few things, but the most important of which was that they had some inherent defensive magics installed inside of them. The Elements were powerful, yes, but only if they were all together. They intrinsically knew this and had, as a natural part of themselves, countermeasures for any scenario where something bad might have happened to one or more of them. It was this bit of magic inside the Elements that Twilight was needing more than anything else.

With her goal clear in her mind, she dug deep inside of the power that the Elements were exerting upon her. She knew that she couldn’t use the Elements as they were right now, because there were only five bearers. She could feel that the Elements themselves were also aware of that fact, and that they were trying to fix it themselves. However, there wasn’t anything they could do about it without Twilight’s help.

Deeper and deeper she dug, like a drill going to the core of their magic. Finally, she found what she was looking for: a thin band of magic that signified the energy they reserved for defensive measures. She grasped hold of it and then, with all of her strength, tugged.

It felt like she was trying to lift a massive boulder from the bottom of a lake. Slowly it bent in her direction as she, through sheer force of will, pulled it out of the core of the Element’s magic. As soon as she had it near the surface, she gave it one last powerful yank and felt the defensive magic break free of everything else.

A few things happened. First, the magic Twilight was wielding and bending into spells became so strong that she was unable to even quantify it’s max capability. Second, she became aware that only about ten seconds had passed since she had begun. Third, the Elements had stopped forcing their will against hers, returning to the peaceful state that they used to be in at all times.

Twilight took note of how she felt at this moment. She felt like she was separated from the world, in more ways than one. She felt like life itself was a simple creation, and that she was able to observe it start and end all in the same moment. Glancing one way showed her what could happen, and what might be. Glancing the other way showed her what had happened, and what could have been.

Her senses settled on a moment that was very bright, sometime in her recent past. It was filled with a magic she could use, unlike the rest of the world. She softly touched it and felt it begin to pull on her soul, coaxing her to enter inside of it. Before it sucked her in fully, she threw her gaze back to where she had been and saw her four friends still stuck there.

With a quick burst of her energy, she filled the room that all four of them were in with her magic and pulled their very essences with her, just before she lost sight of them. She had never done this spell before and hadn’t realized just how quickly it would work. Next time, she’d be sure to grab the ponies she was taking with her before she activated the final step of the spell. At least it had all worked out in the end regardless.

Her world suddenly filled with light and she felt herself slipping out of her state of heightened awareness. Gradually she began to step back to her normal consciousness, her body feeling as if a fresh wave of water had just cascaded around her. She took a deep breath and it felt fresh and crisp in her lungs.

Opening her eyes, she found herself standing once again in the very same room she and her friends had been in before. However, things were slightly different. She looked around at the others and saw that each one was looking a little disoriented. Rarity had even fallen to the floor and was busy separating her face from the cold marble.

One by one, each of them stood up, stretching their bodies and looking around. Twilight could tell they were trying to figure out what had happened, and she wanted to wait for them to realize it for themselves.

A gasp filled the room as Applejack’s eyes looked at the table. They then darted to Twilight, seeing her beaming smile before they looked back down.

“W-What the…” she stuttered, unable to articulate her thoughts into words.

Fluttershy and Pinkie had settled at just looking profoundly shocked, their eyes locked on Twilight. Rarity, it seemed, was having a hard time figuring out what had occured.

“Twilight, what… what happened?! I don’t… I don’t feel so good…” Rarity said, one hoof pressed against her stomach.

“Rarity, look.”

“Look at what, Applejack?”

“The table.”

“The… table?” Rarity’s eyes glanced at it for a moment, and her eyebrows knit in confusion. “Why, what about it? It looks perfectly fi-”

Rarity gasped as what she was currently seeing finally sunk in. Her eyes widened and she fumbled backwards ‘till her rump bumped into the wall. She began darting her eyes around the room, looking at everything.

Twilight merely turned and opened the doors to the room, once again summoning the guard who she had gotten the sword from earlier. The guard trotted into the room, his blade back in it’s sheath and once again strapped around his barrel.

“Yes, Princess?” he asked immediately after entering.

“This is going to sound strange, but did I ask you for your weapon a few minutes ago?” Twilight asked, a mischievous smile dancing around her lips.

All eyes in the room darted to the guard, waiting for his response. Everypony somehow knew exactly what he was going to say. There was a slight intake of breath as the tension in the room grew. The guard, which gave his Princess a momentary look of confusion, shook his head.

“No, Princess. You did not.”

“Thank you. You may return to your post.”

He nodded and once again stepped back into the hallway, Twilight closing the doors behind him before she turned to face her friends. Her eyes first glanced over the rest of the room, seeing all the physical proof of what she had accomplished.

The chair which Applejack had broken was now fixed, and the table had even been entirely mended. The Elements of Harmony, which previously had been upon the table, were now missing. The Element of Magic was once again on Twilight’s head, and the rest of them were simply nowhere to be found.

“Twilight, you…” Fluttershy began, but was unable to keep going.

“You just…” Rarity continued, but she too couldn’t finish the sentence.

Applejack merely gulped, pulling her hat off of her head. All eyes then turned to Pinkie Pie as she said the words none of them seemed to be able to force out.

“You sent us back in time…”

Twilight simply smiled back at her before speaking. “Now I think you should all realize why it is I don’t have to mourn. You see, I’m not going to move past Rainbow’s death. No… I’m going to bring her back.”

Chapter 2

“Twilight, it doesn’t make any sense…” Applejack repeated. Twilight was beginning to lose count of how many times that phrase had been used. “Everything you’ve said goes against what we all know about your… magic. Now, granted, I may not be a fancy shmancy unicorn, but even I know that time travel don’t work that way.”

“Yes, she is right, darling. We all remember your first brush with time travel. You learned way back then what was possible and what wasn’t in regards to such things,” Rarity added, nodding her head in agreement with Applejack.

“Yes, you’re both correct. But, like I said, this is different,” Twilight replied, not even looking at either of her friends while they were walking down one of the many hallways within the palace. “I may have traveled through time in the past, but it is not the same mechanic as what I accomplished today.”

At this, Pinkie spoke up, her normally cheerful demeanor finally beginning to return. “Yeah, that’s right! I remember when you did that spell. You said you were in your library with yourself. Time travel put new you back in time with old you, and you were both talking to the other you. That isn’t happening here, because if it did, there’d be another me hopping around somewhere nearby!”

“Pinkie, there has been multiple yous bouncing around in the same area before, but… that’s beside the point. You’re right, when I cast that original time spell, it physically put me in the past, standing with my old self,” Twilight explained, glancing back towards her friends briefly before she looked forwards once more. “Instead of taking each of us and putting the five of us physically in the past, my spell merely took us out of our bodies and then pushed us into our earlier ones.”

“So wait, what you’re saying is, you took my soul out of my body... and then you put it right back in, but… in the past?” Applejack said, hazarding an attempt at understanding Twilight's explanation.

“Well, I don’t know anything about your soul, but that is essentially what happened, yes.”

“That’s not possible, Twi. I can remember those minutes between when you first walked in that room and when you started your… time travel spell. Those happened. We went through them. Now, it’s like they didn’t happen, but we still remember them. I mean, gosh darn it Twilight, you were stabbing a table which is now… unstabbed!” Applejack’s voice was on the verge of yelling, her words slightly echoing back to the five ponies as they walked through the empty hallway.

Twilight’s eyes tracked a stained glass window as they passed it before she responded, the mural in the window representing some great deed that Celestia had accomplished many years before. “You’re not looking at this fourth dimensionally, Applejack. The table has now never been stabbed.”

“No, it was. I saw you do it, I remember it. Don’t tell me it didn’t happen.” Applejack glared at the back of Twilight’s head, her jaw set determinedly in her frustration.

Twilight quietly sighed before she stopped walking. Turning around, she fixed her eyes directly on her friends, taking stock of how each was taking the news. Surprisingly, the pony who had been the most somber before was now the one giving a small, genuine smile: Pinkie Pie. The rest of them were mixed between incredible skepticism and, in Applejack’s case, flat out vexation.

“I realize this is hard to accept, Applejack. Time travel is-”

“Dammit Twilight! It’s not about the time travel!” Applejack yelled, rubbing her face with her hooves.

Twilight was a bit taken aback, though she recovered quickly. “But you were saying that it’s not possible…”

Applejack flared her nostrils momentarily, letting out a loud snort. “It’s not. Or, it shouldn’t be. You’re right, the table was stabbed, yet it also wasn’t. That guard didn’t remember it. But Twilight, just because that table is now in a world where it hasn’t been stabbed, that don’t mean it never was.”

Twilight looked down, her eyebrows knit in confusion. “I don’t know what you mean. The table has now not been stabbed, it-”

“The table is just a buckin’ metaphor! Rainbow Dash is dead Twilight! You can’t undo that! All the magic in the world can’t change the fact that she died, and we all know it!”

Ahh, that’s why she’s upset, Twilight realized. I understand how she feels, but…

“Applejack, let me change the wording. I didn’t unstab the table so much as I reset it,” Twilight said softly, hoping to help calm her hurting friend.

“It don’t matter what you call it, Twilight. Rainbow Dash died,” Applejack spat, her voice quivering. “Don’t try and cheapen it by thinking you can just fix it. Ain’t nopony can bring back the dead. We all suffered after her passing, we mourned. We went through it, dammit, and now you’re making it hurt again! We can’t bring her back, so stop saying you can!”

Applejack gritted her teeth and began shaking her head, eyes squeezing shut to try and keep herself from sobbing. Twilight knew this was hard, she had expected this to be a difficult acceptance for her friends, but she had never intended for them to have to grieve again. She quickly stepped forwards and, in an embrace that she realized was probably months overdue, wrapped Applejack in a tight hug. The earth pony gasped, her eyes shooting open in surprise as she and Twilight both softly fell to their haunches.

“Applejack, I’m sorry…” Twilight began, her own voice revealing a tremor of sorrow that she, despite her confidence, couldn’t squash completely. “I know how it feels. Believe me. I want her back, and that’s why I will succeed. You see, I…”

Twilight’s voice stuck in her throat due to it having gone very dry. She wanted to tell Applejack the truth about what had happened, about the past, but she couldn’t. She tried again but once more found herself too afraid to say the words.

Why can’t I say it…? Why can’t I tell her the truth? She deserves to know… They all do. I just need to say it.

Twilight squeezed Applejack tighter, fighting desperately against her own voice to try and force the words out. Eventually, her own teeth began to grit together. The words, written plain as day across her heart, just wouldn’t come. Painfully, she resigned herself to the hug, thinking what she should have said long ago: it was my fault.

Somewhere deep down, Twilight realized that it probably didn’t matter regardless. Had she been able to say it, Applejack would have merely taken it as Twilight trying to take the weight of everything on her shoulders. She wouldn’t have understood the implications of Twilight’s statement, just how much the words rang true. Twilight had never managed to tell anypony the truth about that day, and even in the final records there remained a half truth in regards to Rainbow’s death.

She knew, the same now as she did then, that had she claimed responsibility for the disaster, nopony would have listened. Nopony would have believed her. But it was her fault. She knew that, and nothing she ever could do would wipe the blood from her hooves. Mourning would not have worked, for it never would have healed the wound in her heart that she herself had put there.

Twilight started as she felt two hooves wrap around her, lightly pinning her wings to her back. She leaned her head against Applejack’s, realizing just how much she had missed being held by a close friend.

“Twilight, I’m sorry… I know you must have blamed yourself… I never meant to imply that you didn’t care. It’s just… we all hurt, together. And you weren’t there. We wanted to help you move on, but at the same time, we needed you as well.” Applejack’s voice had shifted to a soft, soothing tone which flowed through Twilight, causing her to relax in her friend’s hooves.

“Applejack…” Twilight’s voice felt weak, so she stopped talking and took a deep breath, silently willing strength into her tired mind. “Applejack, I can do this. Rainbow Dash died, you’re right, but I can fix it. This will work, I promise.”

“... How do you know for sure…?” Applejack’s voice shook slightly as she lightly pushed away from Twilight. She kept her hooves on the alicorn’s shoulders and looked right into her eyes.

Twilight looked back, pleased to see her friend was showing the signs of a small smile about to appear. She took a moment to marshal her thoughts before she responded, her voice soft, yet strong and full of an authority that made Applejack gasp softly.

“Because I refuse to live in a world without her.”

Twilight looked away from Applejack for a moment, looking at each of her other friends who had remained fairly quiet. Each one of them had apparently been listening intently, and Twilight saw that they all had smiles on their faces. Apparently they had believed her, because while they had each shown doubts before, now there was a fire burning in their souls that Twilight had not seen since before Rainbow Dash had perished.

“Girls,” Twilight began as she stood up and stepped backwards a little bit. “I will be activating my spell to travel into the past an hour after the sun has set tonight. You are all welcome to come with me, but know that it will be a one way trip, and while we will be gaining one of our friends back, we will have to relive the last few years of our lives.

“I realize this is a very difficult decision, but I have already made up my mind. You’re all free to choose, but know this; whether you go or not, I will be. I can no longer remain in a world where Rainbow Dash is not. I know this is fairly sudden, and you may feel a desire to say goodbye to ponies, but in truth, you don’t need to. They will be there when we go to the past, just like they were when it was not the past, but the present. To them there will have been no change, and life will feel the same as it did before.

“So... I guess I will ask now. Will the four of you accompany me on one more adventure? This one… to save our friend, Rainbow Dash?” Twilight fidgeted slightly on her hooves as she finished, her mouth once again feeling very dry. She tensed the muscles in her legs to help her from falling as she felt her anxiety building. How many of her friends would say no?

Rarity and Fluttershy shared a glance, and each one seemed to have already decided. They each looked back at Twilight and then simultaneously gave her a firm nod. Pinkie Pie trotted up to Twilight and pulled her into a tight hug but said nothing, letting the embrace speak more words than she ever could have.

Gingerly, Twilight hugged her back with one hoof and turned her head towards her last friend who was still sitting on the ground and had not yet looked up. A few moments passed as Applejack seemed to be thinking to herself, her brow knit in deep concentration. After what felt like a while, but in actuality had only been about fifteen seconds, Applejack rubbed her temple, slightly pushing her stetson a bit further up her head. She stood up and dusted herself off before she turned and fixed Twilight with a strong stare.

“... Rainbow Dash is worth it. While I may not think it’s… the best solution… it certainly seems to be possible. And besides, you’re not the only one who blames herself. I’d give anything to have her back, and well… Here you are, telling me there’s something I can give to achieve just that. That phrase ‘I’d give anything’ always seemed silly if’n you actually wouldn’t follow through with it when given the chance.”

Twilight couldn’t believe it. Her eyes watered slightly as she looked deep into Applejack’s own, seeing nothing but solid determination within. Applejack’s face had been set in a strong smirk and her body was tensed, almost as if she expected to have to fight somepony to get Dash back. Twilight’s lips turned up in a tentative smile and she felt her heart flutter suddenly with joy.

She glanced at Pinkie, seeing an equally happy smile on her friend’s face. Suddenly, this two pony hug felt very empty. Twilight’s face split into a wide grin as she activated her magic. Some surprised yelps were all that signified her friends suddenly being pulled within her magical grasp, all moving straight to her.

She had misjudged her levitation spell, and when they collided with her and Pinkie, they were all knocked into a big pony pile on the floor. However, none of them were upset. Instead, they all began to laugh with strong, genuine mirth, which caused Twilight’s chest to burn with joy the likes of which she hadn’t felt in a long time.

Her whole body twisted as she rolled around in her laughter, her voice mixing with her friend’s own and creating a wild cacophony of joy and exhilaration which felt incredibly infectious. Her mind was clearing and her heart was beating, all the while her problems slowly melted into a single ball which suddenly felt very insignificant. With some effort, she pushed herself up onto her hooves and breathed deeply a few times, slowing the rate of her raucous laughter.

A deep smile on her face, she looked at each of her friends in turn and found them all reflecting the same expression right back at her. Her heart felt stronger and she knew without a doubt that she never should have let her friendships falter. With these four ponies behind her, she felt powerful, strong enough to take on any challenge.

With her friendships renewed, Twilight realized that despite the sheer audacity of what they were going to do that night, it was all going to work.

Twilight watched as the clock struck a few minutes past nine, signifying that one hour had passed from when the sun had finished it’s descent. She sucked in a breath and turned to look at her friends who had all gathered in the middle of her science lab. Tables were filling the room, as well as many different apparatuses which all served to assist Twilight in her research. Every table had piles of notes and books placed haphazardly upon them, and indeed in some places the chaos had even fallen to the floor.

There were no windows in the laboratory, so the only source of light came from some dull glowing lanterns which had been magically enchanted to float near the corners of the ceiling, casting flickering lights which cascaded about the area. The whole room itself was amidst some of the basement floors in Canterlot Castle, gifting it with a feeling of strangeness that did not extend to the more-travelled upper levels.

Twilight walked away from the clock she had been watching and went to stand before her friends. When she had positioned herself so that she could see all four of them at the same time, she began to speak.

“It’s time. I am going to begin my spell, but first I just want to double check. Do any of you-”

“No way, Twi. We’re all doin’ this,” Applejack said, cutting Twilight off before she could even begin to ask her question. “I can safely speak for all of us when I say that we all ain’t changin’ our minds.”

Twilight smiled, happy that her friends were still willing to help her, but she laughed softly in amusement as well. “I appreciate it, truly, but that’s not what I was going to ask.”

Applejack lost some of her confident smirk for a moment as she began to rub her cheeks with a hoof, slightly embarassed. “I-I see, uh, right. Well then, uh, get on with it, what were you gonna say?” She coughed slightly into her hoof as Twilight let out one last small laugh.

“Well, I was going to ask if there were any last questions you wanted to ask?”

Her question garnered a “No” from Applejack, Fluttershy, and Pinkie Pie, but Rarity nodded her head.

“How does it work?”

Twilight blinked at the surprising simplicity of the question. She had been expecting something a bit more… substantial, considering it was coming from Rarity. Not exactly sure what Rarity meant due to the vague nature of the question, she asked, “How does what work?”

“The spell. I may not be as talented with magic as you are, but I do understand basic magical theory. Per the rules that all unicorns learn, a spell such as this just… shouldn’t be possible.”

“Oh, alright then. Let me try to explain. Basically, this spell is an expansion of the principles behind a standard teleport,” Twilight said, slipping quite easily into her teaching voice. With a slight shiver, she realized that she had missed the idea of teaching other ponies about subjects. She’d have to get back to doing that once this whole mess was fixed.

“Teleportation?” Rarity asked with a confused expression. “But that would require a target destination. How can you make a moment in time fit that role?”

“The spell I cast when I first entered the dining hall is the answer. It is the key to how this spell works.” Twilight could tell that each of her friends, not just Rarity, was thinking back to that moment and trying to recall everything about what had happened. “That spell was not made with normal unicorn magic, nor was it alicorn magic. That was a spell which I cast using the Element of Magic itself, kind of like an implement.”

Everypony’s eyes turned to look at Twilight’s crown which currently was resting with the other elements on a cushion in the direct center of the room, just a few hoof lengths away from where Twilight was standing.

Fluttershy was the first to look back to Twilight and respond. “It was an… implement?”

Twilight nodded. “Kind of. I cast that spell through the Element itself. I’m going to simplify the details, but basically I forced the Element to record the exact state of being that our world was in at the time.”

“How is that possible?” Applejack said, her jaw having dropped slightly in shock. “The Elements recorded the whole world?”

“It’s a spell that only I will ever be able to cast, and it’s only because I am the Bearer of Magic. It probably also helps that I have access to alicorn magic, but that’s fairly inconsequential when you hold it against what the Elements of Harmony are capable of. I merely activated the magic within the Element and guided it to record what it did. I did not control it directly, nor would I ever be able to, not without all six Bearers using the Elements simultaneously.

“The recording was then kept inside the Element itself, which allowed me to be able to access it when I needed it. The second spell is where this gets a lot more difficult.”

“More difficult than recording the entire world?” Rarity stated, obvious doubt etched into her facial features.

“Oh yes,” Twilight responded, once again looking in Rarity’s direction. “You see, the second spell was alicorn magic. It just requires more magic than any alicorn will ever have. Neither Celestia or Luna could cast that spell as they are now. Not even combined would the three of us have enough to form that spell. I needed to harness something else in order to do so.”

Each of her friends stood there thinking for a moment before Pinkie Pie spoke up. “The Elements?” The rest of them all looked at her and then glanced to Twilight to see if Pinkie had been correct.

“Yes. I used the power of the Elements, all six of them.”

“But Twilight, you told us that was dangerous!” Applejack said, looking at Twilight with an appraising eye. “The Elements of Harmony are too powerful for one pony to handle. Even Celestia was barely able to use them to seal Nightmare Moon a thousand years ago! How could you possibly do it yourself?”

“Well, I didn’t use the Elements' full power. Within them is some natural defensive magics, ready to be employed when the Elements themselves are in danger. Right now, one of the Bearers is dead, so the defensive magic of the Elements is accessible, even by a single pony. I used that instead, which is a fraction of what the Elements are capable of when all six Bearers are present. It was still more than enough for me to cast the spell that allowed me to access time through the Elements themselves.”

“Okay, so this spell uses a targeting that is accessed via magic that must be done in advance…” Rarity stated, sorting through the data in her head. “How does the original time travel spell work?”

Twilight cocked her head to the side. “You mean the one Starswirl came up with?”

At a nod from Rarity, Twilight turned around and walked to one of the tables in the room, levitating a few of her notes from the table as she did so. Once she was able to look at them, she continued.

“Starswirl’s time travel is different because it works with a target that’s predetermined. It always takes the caster to their home, despite wherever he or she might have been before. It also goes back exactly one week. I know because… I used it again.” Twilight’s voice caught in her throat towards the end of her explanation, and she did her best to hide it. However, she was unable to prevent her tone from sinking into a lower state.

Each of her four friends looked at one another, instinctively knowing what the sudden somberness in Twilight’s voice implied.

“Twilight, I’m noticing a problem with your plan,” Applejack said quickly, anxious to get Twilight back into her ‘lecture’ mode. Whatever history Twilight seemed to have with Starswirl’s spell, it seemed to her that it’d just be best to move past it, considering everything they were about to do that night.

“Oh?” Twilight replied, turning around as she put her notes back on the table. “What’s that?”

“Well, it seems you need this first spell to ‘record the world’ or some such, right? I’m pretty sure you never cast that spell before Dash… died. How do you intend to go to the past without a... ‘recording’ of the past you want to go to?”

“Oh, that’s the easy part,” Twilight stated, briefly shuffling her wings. “You see, only the Elements of Harmony are strong enough to do something as powerful as recording the entire world. On top of this, they have done it before.”

“Before?” Fluttershy asked, tilting her head slightly as she posed her question.

“Yes, before. In my studies of the Elements, I discovered some new facts and datums about them that nopony knew before. This recording mechanism is one of them, and it apparently happens every time the Elements are bonded to a new set of Bearers.” Twilight did not even try to hold back the smile that crossed her face as she brought this new knowledge to light.

“So… you mean when we confronted Nightmare Moon and you discovered that we were representin’ the Elements or some such?” Applejack hazarded, taking a stab at sorting through Twilight’s response.

“Precisely! From what I learned, the Elements recorded the world as soon as we were bonded to them. If I cast my new and Element-aided time travel spell, all I should have to do is look back far enough to find that moment recorded within the Elements. Then, I just drag us into it, and… we get Rainbow back.”

“This is gonna work!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed, her hair returning to it’s poofy shape that it used to be in. She began bouncing in place, her excitement oozing off of her body and threatening to infect the others; not to say they weren’t excited, but comparing their energy to Pinkie Pie’s is like holding a piano next to the grand pipe organ within the Canterlot Cathedral.

“Yes, it… I don’t believe it Twi. This is… actually gonna work, ain’t it?” Applejack said, her own smile beginning to grow as mirth began shaking it’s way through her body.

“We’re really going to get Rainbow Dash back…” Fluttershy’s shyness, for the moment, was nowhere to be found, as only pure joy was revealing itself upon her features. “This is amazing… Not even in my dreams did I ever think this would be possible. ”

“This must be too good to be true, Twilight. I mean, how could an alicorn spell do something as paramount as reset the entire world?” Rarity questioned, still unconvinced that this really was about to happen.

“Well, it’s not actually that hard to believe. Remember, all the alicorn’s spell is doing is taking me and whoever I bring along and placing us into the Elements recording. The Elements then do all the hard work. Remember, they already recorded everything.”

“Yes, and that too…! What purpose would they have in recording the moment we bonded to them?”

“Well… I can’t say for sure as their recordings have never needed to be used before, but… I think it’s for this very reason.” Twilight looked away from Rarity and glanced towards her own hooves, shuffling around on them for a brief moment.

“... Come again?” Rarity said, nonplussed.

Twilight bit her lip before responding. “Well… the way I see it… what other purpose would there ever be in a recording of the world? The Elements of Harmony are there to defend us, to protect us from powerful foes that we can’t handle alone. They know this, and in response to this they created defensive energies inside of themselves that could be used in case something were to happen to them…

“Like I said earlier, right now we’re down one Bearer… The Elements won’t work anymore; it’s simply not possible. What if they recorded everything, us included, so that in this very situation somepony could use them to go back and change history? Prevent a Bearer from dying, or a great evil from rising? I mean, the magic for me to even cast this spell came from one of their own stores of defensively designated magic.”

Rarity looked away and glanced at the Elements. “... I think I get it, Twilight… It’s just so…”

“Unbelievable?” Applejack said softly.

“Yes…”

Twilight looked at each of her friends one last time, seeing that they were all now ready to continue. She let out a cough, signalling for everypony’s attention once more.

“Well, I think that’s about it. You’re all up to speed so… I think it’s time.”

Applejack looked at Twilight and grinned, somehow revealing all of her teeth in the process with an expression that said ‘Let’s do this!’

Fluttershy nodded at Twilight with a small smile on her face before turning to joyfully watch Pinkie Pie bounce in place.

The pink pony herself was letting out small whoops of laughter and happiness each time she reached the tallest height of her jumps, not loud enough to distract everypony, but with enough volume to display just how happy she really was.

Rarity activated her horn and gently moved the cushion with the six Elements on it to be placed in front of Twilight. After she had finished, she gave Twilight a look which told the alicorn that she trusted her completely.

Thank you girls… Thank you… Twilight thought to herself, slight trickles of tears beginning to slide down her cheeks. I really hope you all know that I would go through all of this to save each of you as well. As much as I miss Rainbow Dash, I… never would have been able to do any of this alone. Had you all said no, I... I don't know what I'd have done,

Wiping her eyes dry with her right hoof, she began to cast her spell for the second time that day. She dug deep into the Elements again and quite easily located their defensive energies this time. With a pull that was just as difficult as she remembered it being, she retrieved the magic and put it straight into her own.

Once again, her senses dropped out right as the Elements magic mixed with hers. She could have sworn that she had heard something right as it happened, but it didn’t matter. In this state, the five senses in present time were pointless. She had the entirety of time to look at and concern herself with.

She filled the room she knew her present time body was located in with her magic and grabbed everypony she found within it. Curiously, she discovered she could also feel the Elements themselves in her grasp this time. Had she felt that before when she had done the spell as a demonstration? She couldn’t recall.

Well, it didn’t matter. The result would be the same in the end anyways, right? With a mere glance to the left, she threw her attention to the entirety of the past, seeing thousands of years stretch out before her. It was almost enough to cause her pause; she was seeing multiple times when the Elements had recorded history. Had there possibly been previous bearers throughout the entirety of time?

For the smallest of moments, Twilight briefly entertained the notion of going to the one that was the farthest back. However, her mind instantly reminded her that she hadn’t been born yet, and if she reset that far then she would stop existing.

Wait, how would that even work…?

Oh well. It would be something to research later. She attempted to focus back on her original task, marveling at how easy it was to get sidetracked in this state.

With a mere glance downwards, she found it. The only time the Elements performed a recording within the last four hundred and thirty years. She wasn’t able to look at it too easily, so she couldn’t see for herself that it was when she and her friends were taking on Nightmare Moon, but simple logic determined that it had to be. There was no other recordings in the recent past for her to use, not counting the one she herself had forced the Elements to make. With a simple thought, she pulled on herself and everything that her magic had grabbed, causing them all to flow through into the previous memory.

The time stream filtered away as Twilight’s state of being returned to normal. With a slight hesitation, she opened her eyes, hoping that when she did, her vision would be filled with the one pony she longed to see more than any other.

Chapter 3

Twilight was really confused. She had been preparing herself for what she would find when the Elements of Harmony had completed her spell, but what was now before her was beyond anything she had even remotely expected.

All of the studies and research that she had accomplished had pointed to the theory she had told her friends; the Elements recorded the world when they had bonded themselves to the new bearers. She was positive of her findings. She had double and triple checked her conclusions so many times that what was currently before her seemed… fairly impossible. Yet here she was, facing the evidence that she had apparently been wrong about at least one part of the equation.

Twilight had figured that she and her friends would find themselves standing in the ruins of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, facing off against Nightmare Moon. That was when she had first felt the ‘spark’ of friendship and activated the magic of the Elements with the aid of her friends. That was when she had bonded to the Element of Magic… wasn’t it?

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The words were not angry, and instead held a strong warmth which gently coaxed Twilight out of her mental racetrack and out into the open. She realized she had been tensing her entire body and felt incredibly rigid. However, she looked up into the eyes of the pony who had said her name and, despite the confusion she was currently experiencing, felt that things might be okay.

After all, it was Princess Celestia herself standing before her.

“Princess, what happened? Why am I here?” Twilight was surprised by how much different her voice sounded. She put a hoof to her throat and coughed slightly. I’m not sick… What happened to my voice? …And why is Celestia so much taller now?

“What do you mean, my little pony? Can you not recall why you came here?” Princess Celestia asked, her regal poise not breaking in the slightest. Twilight, however, had been around the princess long enough to know she was unnerved by something.

“No, I should be in your old castle, facing off against Nightmare Moon. Rainbow Dash is supposed to be there. Why did my spell drop me here?” Twilight’s eyes widened slightly as something dawned on her. “Oh no! My spell didn’t drop me off with my friends! They must all be there facing Nightmare Moon right now!”

Celestia’s calm facade broke, if only for a second, at the mention of Nightmare Moon. She stared at Twilight for a moment – who had begun to panic – before she turned and spoke to somepony else in the room, somepony that Twilight had not realized was present until now.

“I must speak with Twilight and her parents alone. Please attend to your other duties for the rest of the day.”

Twilight turned to look at who Celestia was talking to and noticed four ponies sitting in the top row of a small set of wooden bleachers built into the room she was in. Each of the four ponies wore a look of similar shock and were incredibly slow in following out their Princess’ order. Once they had vacated the room though, the rest of Celestia’s order sank in.

My parents!?

She turned around quickly, scanning the room for anypony else that was inside, and found that near one of the doors stood her mom, Twilight Velvet, and her dad, Night Light.

“P-Princess… What happened?” Velvet asked, taking a tentative step towards her daughter. She briefly looked at Celestia only to immediately glue her eyes back on Twilight.

“I can only speculate… We must ask your daughter herself.”

Twilight meanwhile was mentally connecting the dots. Somewhere in the deep recesses of her mind, it bloomed on her why this room felt so incredibly familiar. Yes, her spell had worked, she was in the past, but something had changed. Somehow, instead of landing during her confrontation with Princess Luna’s altered-self…

This is when I had my entrance exam to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns…!

She gasped as she spun around, looking for a nearby window. If her spell had somehow dumped her at this point in time, then luckily she already knew where Rainbow Dash should be.

She galloped over to the nearest window as soon as she spotted it and eagerly looked out into the distance. Her heart soared at what she saw: the remnants of a sonic rainboom were spreading throughout the sky, tinting everything in their path a vibrant hue that reflected the very happiness she felt.

So what if this wasn’t the moment when she was supposed to arrive? Rainbow Dash was alive, and that had been her only true goal! Her friend was there, just on the horizon, waiting for Twilight to come over and-!

Something was wrong. Twilight remembered from Rainbow Dash’s own retelling of her cutie mark story that after pulling off the sonic rainboom, she did a skyward lap around all of Cloudsdale.

That was not what Twilight was looking at right now. She was looking at a half rainbow that went straight up and began it’s curve over the floating city, but then it… stopped. It fizzled out into nothing near the zenith of it’s flight path. Dread filled her gut, shoving out all the happiness that had swelled inside of her.

“Oh no…”

She turned to run for the door, deciding that she had to get to Cloudsdale, now. However, she didn’t even make it two steps before a strong set of hooves – which Twilight idly noted were bigger than she remembered them being – caught her and held her in place.

“It’s okay Twilight, daddy’s here…” Night Light cooed, attempting to calm his daughter.

“What? No, I need to go! Rainbow needs-” Twilight began before being cut off by Princess Celestia, who had walked over to stand beside her.

“Twilight, please be calm. Everything is okay. We just need to figure out what happened.”

“No, everything is not okay! I didn’t come all this way just so that you can stop me from going to Rainbow!” Twilight squirmed in her father’s hooves, attempting to get free. Surprisingly, she was having absolutely no luck. Instinctively, she flexed out her wings and-

Wait. I still have my wings?

Twilight stopped struggling and relaxed in her father’s grip while simultaneously turning her head around to look at her back. There, sticking straight up as if in mid flight, were her two purple alicorn wings.

The room was silent for a moment as Twilight sat thinking. Nopony else spoke either. Both her parents stood gaping at Twilight, confusion flickering over their features, while Celestia merely exuded contemplative concern.

Twilight’s eyes turned from her wings and looked right at Celestia, whose countenance was once again stoic and nigh unreadable. She swallowed briefly as she noticed her mouth had gone dry. She looked back to her own body before she spoke aloud the question that was burning inside her mind more than any other.

“Why am I still an alicorn?”

Instinctively, she knew neither her parents nor Celestia could answer that question. Twilight was aware they were past versions of themselves, ones who had not yet experienced the next fifteen years in which Twilight had become an alicorn. From their perspective it would appear that she had only become an alicorn just now, and that the word ‘still’ should not have been in her question.

Twilight was mostly asking herself, for she was the only pony in the room who knew about the time travel spell she had just cast. Regardless, no matter how much she mentally reviewed her theories and data, she could not explain why her wings were a part of her now. None of the data in regards to what she had learned pointed to this being even remotely possible.

Celestia was the first to respond. “Twilight, you seem to know more about what is going on. Please, share with us what you are thinking.”

What I’m thinking…? No, this doesn’t matter right now. Twilight looked up from her back and once more saw her true destination through the window. If I am still an alicorn, then that means some of what I was in the previous present-time must have made it here into the new one. I wonder…

She began concentrating really hard, focusing on bringing magic into her horn. It ended up being just as easy as it used to be. So I still have all my magic from before! This is… perfect!

“Twilight, please…” her mother said, worry etched upon her face. “What happened to you? Please, just tell us.”

Twilight looked at her mom and could practically feel her pain. The look her mother had was that of fear, as though she was worried she was losing her little filly. Though I suppose that right now, I am a filly again… This will take some getting used to.

"I’m sorry Mom. I have to go,” Twilight said, quickly looking away. She couldn’t bear to see the shock and anguish she knew would be in her mother’s eyes. For all her parents knew, she was their little filly who had suddenly sprouted wings after a magical explosion. They were confused and scared for their daughter, and Twilight couldn’t bring herself to meet their gazes.

“Twilight, please, just-” Night Light chimed in before Twilight suddenly released her magic and teleported quite easily out of his grip. Normally he would have been able to stop her without much trouble due to her much smaller body. However, he hadn’t counted on her having access to such complicated magics.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said after she reappeared next to the exit furthest away from them all. “I will explain later, don’t worry, I will come back… But right now, I need to find Rainbow Dash. She’s the reason I did all this, and I won’t let anything happen to her this time!”

Twilight could have sworn she heard Celestia and her parents begin to reply but did not hang around to listen. By the time they had even uttered a single syllable, she was already out the door and teleporting as far as she possibly could.

“Hey!” That was it, the last straw! No more going easy! Rainbow Dash decided right then and there that anypony willing to cheat didn’t deserve to win. After all, she never would have knocked him off the track like that!

She began to fly as fast as she could, putting all of her strength into her wings which was only made easier due to the near vertical descent she was attempting. There was only one more hurdle for her to make it through and after that… straight to the finish line!

Before this final hurdle, she hadn’t been able to put all her strength into flying. There were curves and pin-point turns that she had to make, causing her to slow down and be more precise. Amusingly enough, one of her two fellow racers had crashed near the beginning by plowing right into a cloud column. The other one, however…

Rainbow Dash easily passed him, already going faster than she’d ever flown before. The interesting part was, she knew she could still push herself further; she hadn’t reached the edge of her limits yet! Sparing not even a second to watch the jerk get blown off course by her slipstream, she barreled ahead ever faster, daring herself to find that sweet spot, the point where she could not accelerate any further.

The wind was blowing her mane into a chaotic stream of color, and her lips were being pulled back painfully. Still, she had only one thought on her mind, and that thought was winning! She began to see a cone of energy appearing around her hooves, and it only expanded and grew bigger when she yet again increased her speed. She could feel it pressing against her, like some sort of weight. In some ways, it felt almost like she was flying into a wall, albeit a wall that bent around her.

Is this it? Can I not get any faster? She began to think that she had reached her limit, that this was the max speed she could possibly attain, when suddenly the pressure of the mach cone tore away from her body. Or, more accurately… she tore through it, dissipating it and shredding it into oblivion.

A massive boom resonated from her right as she tore through the cone, so loud she was sure it could be heard in distant cities around Equestria. Accompanying the sound was a vibrant display of color, spreading out in a gigantic horizontal ring from where she had been. The ring spread for miles, stretching so far in every direction that it could be seen from many neighboring cities and regions.

With the mach cone gone, Rainbow Dash found herself flying twice as fast as she had been going when she hit it in the first place. It seemed that the cone had been acting as a physical deterrent, for she had to push herself incredibly hard to break through it. Once she had done so, all her strength was pushed to the edge, and her speed and agility instantly doubled.

The explosion tore apart the final hurdle as she rocketed through it, where she then instantly changed her direction and began heading for the sky. She glanced behind her to see the results of what she had done.

That’s… That’s a sonic rainboom… That’s a sonic rainboom! I pulled off a sonic rainboom!

She snapped her head forwards, the world’s biggest grin ever spreading across her face. She could feel her life falling into place. This was her dream. Visions of her future began racing into her mind, showing her the road that this one event would lead her down.

Wait a minute… Rainbow thought, immediately concerned. Visions of her future were genuinely racing into her mind. She was suddenly finding herself confronted with memories of a future that she had not yet lived, and it hurt.

Her mind tried to sort through it all, but couldn’t. She wasn’t able to absorb these memories for some reason, and she couldn’t look through them easily either for they were all appearing at once. Her head started pounding, feeling as if somepony was hitting it with a hammer, repeatedly.

She cried out in pain, her mind locking up instinctively. She lost track of her thoughts and just let the memories flood in. She couldn’t handle them, but she also couldn’t get rid of them. Her flying also locked up as she suddenly found herself in so much pain that she couldn’t even flap her wings.

She began to free fall, just as she was nearing the top of her curve over Cloudsdale. The sheer momentum from her post-sonic rainboom continued to carry her however, causing her to fall forwards almost faster than she was falling down.

Scared, she tumbled over and over, the sky mingling with the earth as memories flooded her sight. Up and down became confused with past and future and she had no idea where she was anymore. Her mind… had seemingly shattered.

All of a sudden the memories stopped flowing, and she was forced to look at the most recent one. It’s presence caused her to mentally tremble, and she found her mind slipping away from it. Her breathing slowed and darkness slowly overcame her vision. She knew she was blacking out, but she still couldn’t help but think one last thought before the comfort of unconsciousness took her.

I… died…?

It had taken around three hours for Twilight to arrive at Cloudsdale, and they were some of the most stressful hours of her entire life. The first thirty minutes alone had been spent simply trying to relearn how to fly with her filly-sized wings. It wasn’t easy, but it also wasn’t as difficult as the first time she had learned to fly.

In half an hour she had mastered the mechanics of flight once again, doing so while she was already traveling towards Cloudsdale. At first she was using her magic to help keep herself aloft while she relearned the basic necessities of flight, but once she was comfortable with her wings, her magic became a boost. She used it to increase her speed and travel further in a shorter period of time.

Overall, three hours was still pretty impressive for a flight from Canterlot to Cloudsdale, particularly for a filly. Rainbow would be proud of me…

During the flight, her mind had wandered around her new situation, beginning to truly take in the truth about what her time travel spell had done. At the worst of times, it merely felt surreal to her, as if she had somehow wound up in a dream rather than her past. However, dream or not – and she was certain it wasn’t – it still felt weird to be a filly again, particularly with wings and the magical know-how of an adult.

She had wondered about her friends whom she had brought with her to the past as well. She knew all their stories about how they had received their respective cutie marks, so she knew where they were at this very moment, but it didn’t make their absence any less worrisome. On top of that, she was still having trouble disassociating the adult friends in her memories from the ones that she would no doubt be meeting in this new timeline. After all, she had never known her friends when they were fillies; this would all be fairly new for her.

Such thoughts were forced from Twilight’s mind as she set hoof in Cloudsdale. She had much more important things to handle. Like, the whereabouts of the very pony she had time traveled to find, for instance.

She began her search by finding the side of the city that Rainbow Dash’s flight trail had broken off. While she couldn’t explain why it had happened, she could tell that it looked as if Rainbow had suddenly lost her momentum and begun to fall. This would then put her trajectory for crash landing somewhere south west of the center of the city, though how far away Twilight couldn't be certain.

Twilight flew as fast as she could go, ignoring the looks from the assorted pegasi who lived in Cloudsdale. They couldn’t believe their eyes when they witnessed a filly alicorn flying through their streets. She realized what a commotion her very presence could be causing, but at that moment she could have cared less. The political status of alicorns was the furthest thing from her mind as she scanned the streets, looking for any signs of where a filly pegasus might have crash landed.

If she had fallen somewhere around here, you’d think there’d be a crowd… At the speed she’d have been falling, she would have left quite a crater, she thought to herself as she continuously scanned the streets and buildings around her.

Her search seemed to be in vain as she was finding no signs of anything out of the ordinary. On top of this, if any ponies had been discussing the sonic rainboom which had just happened around their city, they weren’t now. Every alicorn in existence was royalty, and here was one that nopony had ever seen before, a filly no less, flying around at high speed. As soon as she entered an area, all the nearby ponies stopped discussing whatever their idle chatter had been and started eyeballing her like she might explode at any second.

Her attempts to ask the ponies around her about the sonic rainboom yielded even less results. Whenever she went up to a pony in specific, he or she would get wide eyed and incredibly anxious. Some of them tried to bow off of the assumption that they didn’t know for sure if she was royalty or not, so it’d be better to cover all their bases, and others just stared at her like she was insane.

Twilight was getting more and more worried with each passing second that went by without her learning anything about her friends condition. Frantic, her mind started going on autopilot. Can a pony even leave a crater in a cloud? Might she have just broken through and crashed into the ground!? I just need somepony who saw something to tell me about it!

Beyond frustrated to the point where her feathers were ruffling uncomfortably, Twilight had had enough. She stood in the center of a large bustling street and yelled at the top of her lungs, “Somepony tell me where the Governess of Cloudsdale is!”

At first no ponies responded to her query, though she had the attention of everypony on the street. It was the first time in her life that Twilight had ever witnessed a massive crowd go completely silent. It was fairly unnerving.

“... Governess?” one pony timidly asked, stepping forwards from the ring that the onlookers had naturally formed at a safe distance.

“Yes, thank you! Where is the office of the Governess? I need to speak with her!” Twilight responded, a strained smile beginning to cross her face.

“... We don’t have a Governess…” the pony stated, confusion spread upon her features. Her legs were shaking slightly, and her wings were twitching as if she was preparing to hop away.

Twilight’s smile died on her lips. Her mind came to a stand still as she tried to figure out what she had just heard. “Th-thats preposterous! Of course you do! Cloudsdale has had an autonomous position of office which has presided over their parliament since the late fifth century!”

“What? No, we… We have a Governor…”

“... Oh.” The gears in Twilight’s mind ground to a halt. “... Where is the Governor’s office then?”

“It’s located in the Cloud District… at Third and Pine.”

“Thank you… um… for the directions.”

Twilight felt incredibly embarrassed. Her eyes felt like wherever she looked could not escape the humiliation she felt, so instead she closed them and charged up her magic. With a soft popping noise, she teleported away and reappeared high in the sky away from the confused faces and silently judging eyes.

Okay, she admitted that maybe they weren’t judging her... but she still felt embarrassed! In the past the Governor of Cloudsdale had been a female.

Or was that in the future...? Ugh, whatever.

Using her wings to hover at her high vantage point, she scanned the city until she located the streets that the pony had mentioned. She gently tilted herself forwards and down, causing her to glide towards the ground.

Wait, this is a cloud city, so would the term ‘ground’ still apply? Twilight thought to herself. Her mind was up and running again, and she knew full well that it was in high gear. She didn’t want to stop it though, because whether she admitted it to herself or not, her gut was churning and threatening to throw up.

Twilight’s heartbeat had begun to beat erratically, and not from the exertion of her flight. Her body was tired, but her ears had slicked back in nervousness. She was beginning to feel stressed that her search through the city had unveiled nothing. Sure, it’s a large city and finding a single pony inside it would be difficult without assistance, but this was no ordinary situation. A sonic rainboom had gone off below the city, followed shortly by a massive rainbow that only half way made it through the sky before it petered out. The whole Celestia-forsaken city should be buzzing about it!

She landed softly in front of the building which she now knew contained the Weather Parliament, the autonomous democracy which was responsible for Cloudsdale. She galloped up to the front door and, using her magic like a blast wave, slammed it open a moment before she would have run into it.

Ponies shouted in surprise and a few apparently had fallen over out of shock. When everypony in the room had finally turned to take stock of the arrival that dared to make such an entrance, the room went silent.

Twilight ran right up to the front counter which was a whole hoof taller than she was. Curse my shortness…

“I’m here to speak with your Governor,” she said after she teleported up on top of the counter. “I am not expected, but I refuse to wait. Your Governor will see me immediately.” She knew it was incredibly rude, and also a little underhanded to use her political anonymity as an alicorn in such a way, but she had no choice. Rainbow Dash might be in trouble and could need her help.

Technically, there are no laws in existence which state that alicorns are automatically royalty. Honestly, it’s a bit of a grey area for Equestria’s legal system seeing as the amount of alicorns in existence – before Twilight of course – was three, and each one was already royalty. Twilight knew this and decided that it would be best to just use it to her advantage for the time being. As long as these ponies weren’t sure if she was royalty or not, they would have to treat her as if she was just off the possibility that she might not be.

The secretary who worked the counter Twilight was sitting upon adjusted her glasses and let out a few squeaks which sounded oddly like a field mouse. Her eyes were blinking quickly as her jaw opened and closed repeatedly.

“O-of course. Whom should I say is requesting his presence?”

“Who,” Twilight said.

“... I-I’m sorry?”

“You said ‘whom’, but that was not the proper word. It’s ‘who’. Don’t worry, a lot of ponies get them confused, so it’s okay,” Twilight said. The secretary stared at her, just that much more flustered than she was before.

“... His office is through that hall, third door on the left,” she said, before she pointedly set herself to ignoring the filly on her desk. Twilight smiled again before giving her thanks, and then flew right over the mare’s head. The secretary, for her part, continued paying her no mind and merely set about reorganizing her desk and straightening the papers that Twilight’s teleportation had sent flying.

Twilight went straight to the door and opened it without preamble. Inside the office it was incredibly lavish; art, awards, and fancy furniture were tucked into every space possible. Despite this, the office still felt fairly open and did not create a feeling of claustrophobia as Twilight had at first expected.

Behind the ornate desk sat the Governor of Cloudsdale, a decent sized pony with a tan coat and white mane which had several greyish streaks running through it. His wide blue eyes stared unblinkingly at Twilight as she crossed the threshold and positioned herself before his desk. She did not sit down in either of the two red cushions which were for the ponies who were meeting with him to sit upon and instead chose to stand.

To his credit, he quickly covered the minimal surprise which had showed itself on his facial features. He regained his posture and looked to the pony who had barged into his office, though his friendly demeanor showed that he did not care much about that. Twilight briefly wondered if it was due to her being a filly or her being an alicorn.

“So what can I do for you today, young miss…?” the Governor prompted, attempting to coerce Twilight into stating her name.

“My name is Twilight Sparkle. Your city–”

“Twilight Sparkle, a wonderful name! And where are your parents, Twilight?”

Twilight’s left eye twitched ever so slightly. “My parents are in Canterlot. Now, tell me, your ci-”

“Canterlot? Oh dear, did you get left here? I’m terribly sorry Twilight, let me just– urp!” Twilight’s magic had forced his jaw closed in an effort to stem his incessant adult chattering.

“I may be a filly, but I am here for a reason!” Twilight released her magic on the Governor’s jaw. “Your city recently had a sonic rainboom go off beneath it! Where is the pony that caused it?”

“T-the sonic rainboom?” He blinked. “Yes, we have a few search and rescue teams out looking for her. The flight academy reported it was a trainee by the name of Rainbow Dash. She has not been found as of yet.”

Twilight’s pupils had shrunk to pinpricks when she heard him say the words ‘search and rescue’. She knew immediately what that implied. “... Where are they looking?”

“Well… We had some of our best fliers inspect the rainbow trail and the slipstream that young Ms. Dash left behind her, and from several eye witnesses we know she was going too fast to land in the city. Her free fall carried her far past the edge of Cloudsdale and…”

“She fell to the ground below!?” Twilight’s worst fear came true. And if she fell far enough to be carried over the edge of the city, heading South West, then that could only mean…

“Yes. Our search and rescue pegasi are searching the entire area from directly below the city to as far as fifty miles south west. They can’t determine how far she fell based off what little data they have. We did send a message to Canterlot requesting unicorn assistance. With magic it’ll be much easier to find her… if she’s still–”

“Don’t you dare finish that sentence!” Twilight shouted, cutting him off with a furious glare. “She’s alive! I know it! I didn’t come all this way just for her to die again!”

“Die… again?” The Governor rubbed his temple briefly in thought. “Uhm, Ms. Sparkle, what do you–”

“Do you have a map of Equestria in this office?” Twilight asked as she spread her wings and flew up on top of the desk. She quickly activated her magic and, in a quick flash, all of the items on the desk disappeared and reappeared on the floor, tucked away in a spot where invading hooves would not trample them.

“Uh… yes, in that cabinet,” he responded, pushing himself backwards a bit, causing his rolling chair to move a ways away from his desk.

With a quick flare of magic, Twilight had brought the map out of the cabinet and spread it over the entirety of the desk. She scanned over it, doing quick calculations. The Governor watched her as she muttered to herself about flight, wind factor, and some numerical values that he did not understand.

After about twenty seconds, Twilight abruptly stood up and her horn flared to life once again. With a quick spell, the map was back in the cabinet and she was back on the ground. The Governor’s desk even had all it’s arranged items upon it once more. Without even glancing backwards, she galloped for the door which she magically opened.

“Wait, where are you–”

Twilight could not hear the rest of the Governor’s sentence as she had already made it back out into the lobby. She had no time to chat and no time to waste. Dash was alive, of this she knew. She wasn’t sure how, but she could just tell. But there was one thing else that was certain.

Rainbow might not be for much longer.

She landed in the Flame Geyser Swamp!

Author's Notes:

For those of you who might have forgotten, or have not seen season 4 yet, the Flame Geyser Swamp is in:

Season 4 Episode 17: Somepony to Watch Over Me

Chapter 4

“Come on wings, don’t fail me now!” Twilight Sparkle shouted, encouraging her body to continue its exhaustive flight. Her wings were beating frantically, their tendons burning and growing weary. “We have to keep going, you can do this! I can do this!”

Twilight’s flight from Cloudsdale had brought her several miles south west of the floating city, putting her right above the entrance to the Flame Geyser Swamp. The swamp stretched well over one hundred miles from the northern end to the southern, and she was entering from the north eastern corner. If her calculations were correct – which they always were – then Rainbow Dash should have landed within the first ten miles of the swamp’s perimeter. With a glint of hope in her determined stare, she would only have to search a small part of the swamp itself.

Wasting no time at all, Twilight immediately activated her magic. Bending and weaving the intricate threads, she formed her magic into a spell that was relatively new to her. She had never actually cast it before and had only read about it during her previous years as an adult. Despite this, the thought that she might not be able to do it was entirely laughable. Magic was natural for her, and she still had all her talent from before the time travel spell. Besides, there was no way she’d fail now; her magic needed to work in order for her to find Rainbow.

With a soft yet audible whoosh, the magic dispersed from her horn all around her, spreading in all directions. She could feel the magic as it had tethered itself to her mind, feeding her information about everything in the area; from the smallest bug to the tallest tree, nothing was missed within the spell’s range. The magic itself was spread out in an enormous diameter, her head acting as the center. Everything present within her magic’s reach was made known to her.

With a soft bit of concentration, she lowered the data of the magic, forcing it to stop telling her about the trees, the water, and the insects. She only needed this spell to inform her of life forms the size of a filly or larger, plants excluded. As amazing as it was for her to know that there was exactly forty seven ants crawling on that particular tree root, it was a distraction from her real goal.

Slightly disappointed, she let out a quiet sigh as the information feed diminished to zilch, signifying that there were no ponies, Rainbow Dash or otherwise, within her magic’s reach. She had been hoping that her spell might find Rainbow immediately, but that was apparently not the case.

Time to get to work…

Twilight pushed with her wings, working hard to ignore the trace amounts of fatigue that were slowly worming their way through her body. Flying all the way to Cloudsdale had been tiring enough, coupled as it was with a quick search of the city. At the time she hadn’t noticed her body’s complaints; she had been pretty preoccupied in her search for Rainbow Dash. Now though, after flying all the way to the Flame Geyser Swamp, she was going to spend Celestia-knows-how-long searching it, all the while with a magic spell slowly draining on her energy. Despite her best efforts, Twilight could feel that she couldn’t keep this up for much longer.

She didn’t have to fly for long though. After just about ten minutes, her life-detection spell informed her that it had spotted a small cluster of ponies to her left.

Adjusting the angle of her wings, she immediately altered her course to fly straight towards them. She had a pretty good idea who it was; after all, she had heard the Governor of Cloudsdale mention the Search and Rescue teams that had been sent out. Still, she needed to know for sure.

Twilight’s eyes widened in shock after a whole minute of flight had passed and she had still not arrived at the group of ponies. Just what is the range of this spell…? She had expected them to be little more than a few hundred yards away, but the seconds ticked by and there was still no sight of anypony. If she had to wager how far, she guessed now that the life-detection magic had probably spread out a quarter of a mile. Possibly even further.

At last, as she passed over the top of yet another gloomy birch tree, she spotted a small group of pegasi that were resting in a clearing without any of the swamp’s geysers nearby. There were five of them and they were each wearing the standard attire of a Cloudsdale guard. On their bodies was a strong, yet light armor that pegasi would wear in dangerous environments; it provided them with a decent amount of protection but it didn’t hamper their flight. Each pegasus also carried a weapon, though they were all still sheathed.

With a relieved sigh, Twilight lowered herself to the ground. She couldn’t help but hope they might have news on Rainbow Dash’s whereabouts. With a soft squelch, her hooves set down on the ground a little ways away from the pegasi. She plodded her way over to them quickly, her body easing out the soreness from within its muscles. Her wings relaxed and her joints all enjoyed the slight reprieve of being on the ground.

One of the pegasi, a stallion, spotted her before she got up to them. He jumped up from his sitting position, where he had been enjoying a nice sandwich for lunch, and looked at her apprehensively.

“Who are you? You’re not the filly we were sent out to find.” His eyes flicked up to her horn momentarily before then looking back at her wings. His mouth stretched open in shock as his eyes widened, realization dawning on his face.

His fellow Search and Rescue members, which consisted of three mares and one stallion, all noticed her as well by now. After a few stuttering mumbles, they all stared at her with similar expressions.

Twilight didn’t have time for this. “Do you have any data on the whereabouts of Rainbow Dash yet?” Her voice, despite having the softness of a filly, resounded with a resolute determination. The pegasi briefly looked at one another upon hearing her question. They obviously didn’t know what to make of this tiny alicorn who was suddenly questioning them. Without any better courses of action to take, one of them, a mare with a white coat and light blue mane, spoke up.

“No, not yet…” she said, attempting to keep her voice steady and composed. Upon seeing the small grimace that crossed Twilight’s face when she gave her statement, she quickly continued. “But that doesn’t mean she hasn’t been found! There are multiple patrols sweeping through the swamp. It’s possible somepony else might have found her.”

Twilight lifted her eyes and met the gaze of the rescue pegasus. A small smile softened Twilight’s features. Upon seeing her expression, the mare started towards Twilight.

“Look, you shouldn’t be out here,” said one of the stallions who had yet to speak up. “This swamp is dangerous, and–”

Twilight cut him off by turning around and immediately flying away. She heard one of them call after her, but she didn’t care. Whether they were right or not about the danger was unimportant. She may look like a filly, and she might have begun to feel like one again, but she had actually been an adult. She knew she could take care of herself. Besides, Rainbow Dash needed her and if those ponies hadn’t found her yet, then Twilight simply needed to keep looking.

Angling herself to continue flying deeper into the swamp once more, she put her attention back on her magic. After a little while she could feel the presence of the pegasi disappear from her mental radar, leaving her with the slightly stifling sensation of being alone again.

However, the loneliness didn’t last for long. Less than ten minutes had passed when her magic once again flared up to inform her of a small group of ponies directly ahead of her. Pleasantly surprised, and even a little hopeful, she began to fly even faster.

The tops of multiple trees passed underneath her over the course of her continued flight. Twilight was once again astounded by just how far the life-detection spell worked. It even felt like it was possibly a little bit bigger now than it was in the beginning, though Twilight dismissed the thought instantly. Such notions were simply not possible; she must just be imagining it.

At last she spotted the small group of ponies that she had felt. Just as she suspected, it was another group of Search and Rescue pegasi. They were thoroughly searching the area around them, some of them up in the air flying between the trees and checking within their branches, the others on the ground. All of them were working hard and had determined looks on their faces.

Twilight sighed as she began to glide to the ground, preparing to let her wings and lungs take a breather. However, she didn’t get the opportunity to rest. Before she had even been able to descend below the tops of the trees, a resounding splash echoed forth from an area of the swamp that was mostly water and muck. The five pegasi quickly turned to see what had caused it, as did Twilight, and together they all stared in shock.

There, sticking up from the murky waters of the swamp, was a massive, flaming tentacle. It went straight up into the air about thirty or so hooves and was made entirely of what Twilight determined to be bone. The flames, which covered the massive appendage, were burning brightly and were setting fire to the tops of some of the trees that were nearby amidst its flailing.

Twilight looked on in horror, her eyes widening from fear. She couldn’t figure out how her magic had failed to inform her that this monster was there! The spell was supposed to inform her of all living beings per the parameters that she had set! How had this beast managed to get passed her spell and surprise her!?

The Search and Rescue unit scattered in different directions as the flaming tentacle suddenly whipped down towards the ground. Four of them were able to evade it; one of them was not so lucky. With a sickening crack, one of the stallions on the ground got caught by the flaming strike. The whip wasted no time and immediately wrapped itself around its victim, the flames burning away at the stallions barrel as it dragged him along the ground towards the water.

Twilight grit her teeth as she watched the stallion scream out in pain. She wanted to do something, anything to help him, but something in the back of her mind was stopping her, forcing her to hold her position. His voice called out, a pleading wail that was begging for help. Twilight couldn’t hear it however, as her ears filled with a sharp ringing that seemed to bounce about her skull.

Her breathing sped up as her pupils shrank, for deep within the noise in her ears, she could have sworn that she heard the powerful tones of a gargantuan bell.

… Bong…

… Bong…

… Bong…

Twilight subconsciously began backing away from the scene, still hovering near the tree tops. The screams and shouts of the ponies below were drowned out by the cacophony of sound within her ears. She looked on, paralyzed by fear, as they struggled to save their friend. She desperately wanted to help them, but… What was it that was holding her back?

She watched as the other pegasi quickly jumped into action. One of them, wielding wing-blades, flew at high speed directly over the flaming tentacle. Rolling his body upside down at the right moment, his blades sliced clean through the appendage, causing it to fall to the ground as it loosened its grip on their comrade. The other half of the tentacle quickly sucked itself back into the swamp, disappearing beneath the murky waters.

One of the ponies, a black coated mare, rushed over to the stallion who had been attacked. The tentacle around him continued to burn despite being removed from the rest of its body. Twilight saw sweat matting the mare’s coat as she used her spear to unravel it from around him. She then lifted him up from the flaming appendage and carried him away to treat his wounds.

The ringing in Twilight’s ears stopped and she found she could move her body again. She let out a few shaky breaths before she closed her eyes and attempted to steady her nerves. I’m alright. It was just a surprise battle... That stallion can recover.

Opening her eyes, she expected to see the scene below her resolving and everypony beginning to recover. Twilight had never been more wrong.

The water where the tentacle had disappeared was now roiling and bubbling. A few seconds later, a beast that Twilight had hoped she’d never encounter came crawling out of the muck, slowly trudging its way through the water and onto solid ground.

Its body was a mismatched skeleton, held together by sinewy flesh at every joint. Twilight counted several bones from several creatures, but together they formed a crude equine shape. The monstrosity, aflame much like the tentacle, lumbered forwards, towering over the rescue ponies. The flames licked at everything they touched, leaving a scorched trail in its wake. On the skull where two eyes should have sat were instead a pair of solid black flames.

Twilight gasped in shock, unable to believe what she was seeing. “That’s a… Flame Monarch!”

The pegasi were seemingly just as shocked as she was, but didn’t have the luxury to just stand around and gawk. With one of them injured and another busy trying to save his life, there were only three members of the Search and Rescue team available to fight against the hulking monster. They wasted no time in doing so.

Two of them flew up to the front of the Flame Monarch, hoping that together they could steal the monster’s attention away from their fallen ally. One of them was the pony who had cut the tentacle in half, and the other was using a large spear which he held with his teeth. Together the two of them were keeping the Monarch distracted, though it was taking all of their skill in flying to do so.

Twilight watched, her eyes widening in surprise as she witnessed the pegasi holding their own against the Monarch. All the books she had read which discussed the various Monarchs talked about how dangerous they were, the Flame and Ice Monarchs being the most lethal. She had never read a single treatise which did not mention running away as the best course of action.

Her eyes followed the two ponies as their flight patterns kept them bobbing and weaving around the Flame Monarch, just barely keeping out of range of its attacks. They weren’t able to do any real damage to it as the monster’s flames kept the ponies well at bay. However, they were keeping it busy, as it kept flailing its hooves after them and thus it was not going after the rest of their team.

Again and again they dodged its attacks, forcing it to stagger around the landscape in its attempts to strike them. Twilight watched, amazed by the movements until she saw out of the corner of her eye something which connected it all together. The last pegasus, a blue coated mare with her sword still in its sheath, had positioned herself behind a nearby tree and was preparing to buck against it with all her might.

The mare pulled one of her hind legs back and rocketed it straight out, a solid blow against the tree which proved resilient. Twilight could tell that given enough time and energy, the mare could possibly kick that tree over. After all, she was well aware that Applejack had been strong enough to kick a tree over with a single blow. Still, this mare wasn’t Applejack and was not nearly as strong as she was.

Twilight turned back towards the Flame Monarch and gasped in shock; the monster had ceased its physical assault and had now opened its jaw. Inside, Twilight could see a ball of what appeared to be liquid fire being formed, and she suddenly remembered the reason why the Flame and Ice Monarchs were among the most lethal of their species.

The ground shook as the Monarch launched the ball of fire, aiming it right at one of the ponies that had been attacking it. The poor stallion never saw it coming. A scream tore past his lips as the ball of flame collided with his chest, the sheer force of the impact more than enough to send the pony flying. The sphere continued its ballistic trajectory, pushing against him with the strength of a landslide until at last they crashed into the ground a few hundred yards away. His body continued to tumble like a ragdoll, the ball of fire wedged into his chest.

… Bong…

… Bong…

… Bong…

Twilight forced herself to look down where she saw the Flame Monarch preparing another ball of fire, about to launch it at the second of the two pegasi. It was there, in that moment, that something inside her shifted. To Twilight, it felt as though a whole piece of her mind had suddenly twisted and locked itself in place as her mind cleared up and the ringing in her ears vanished. Before she even knew what she was doing, she had activated her magic and was flying straight towards the ground, relying purely on instinctive reaction.

The world felt strangely surreal as Twilight became aware of two important changes. First, her magic had taken hold of the Flame Monarch’s head and wrenched it to the side just as it had launched its attack. It had been just enough for the Monarch to miss its intended target by mere inches.

Second, she watched as her magic then enveloped the ball of fire, yet it did nothing to slow it down. Instead, with careful precision that surprised her, she teleported it in a way that allowed the ball to keep its momentum. It then reappeared a few hooves away from the tree that the mare had been attempting to buck over. The fireball sailed with unerring accuracy and crashed right into the tree. A loud crack rippled through the stifling air as the tree was forced over with the strength of a cannon blast before falling directly on the unaware monstrosity. The Monarch let out a roar of pain as the tree hit it with a sickening crunch, crushing it entirely.

It was all over before Twilight had even touched the ground. The Flame Monarch lay dead beneath a toppled cypress tree, its bones shattered and scattered about the area. The pegasi retrieved their ally who had been sent flying and were bringing him back to where the black coated mare had been performing emergency first aid on the other wounded pony. Neither one of them looked to be in a stable condition.

Twilight walked on over to the pegasi and watched them work. They knew she was there and occasionally gave her furtive glances while they tended to their injured friends, but otherwise they left her alone. That was alright though… She didn’t really feel like talking.

Twilight's frantically beating heart was finally beginning to slow and the ringing in her ears had stopped. She could now hear the gasps, grunts, and sobs of the ponies as they tried to save their friends. Physically and emotionally drained, Twilight fell to her haunches. Sniffling, she buried her head in her hooves and found that her cheeks were streaked with tears.

This is all my fault... If I hadn't changed the past, these ponies... They wouldn't have... She couldn’t say the word, let alone think it, but she knew it was true. After all, her life detection spell was still active...

Twilight rubbed her eyes roughly. All she wanted to do was save Rainbow Dash. She didn't want anypony to get hurt because of her. Shaking her head, Twilight struggled weakly to her hooves; Rainbow Dash was still out there and still needed to be found.

She tried to put on a brave face; to grit her teeth and narrow her eyes in a stern determination, but at the sight of the rescue ponies, a choked sob forced its way out. Tears welled up in her eyes as Twilight collapsed back into the muck. Her face found its way back into her forehooves as she whimpered and sobbed quietly. Tears poured from her eyes and mixed with the swamp beneath her.

The ponies paid her no mind, and Twilight didn't blame them. Through hiccoughing sobs, a single question burned at the forefront of her mind: Why can't I get this right?

“Uuuugh…” Rainbow Dash’s head hurt, a lot. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but her whole body felt as if it had been trampled. Through the grogginess of her mind, she tried to think about where she was. Her legs felt like lead and her head as if it were stuffed with cotton.

She attempted to open her eyes and found it incredibly difficult to do so. Slowly and with great effort, her right eyelid lifted just a crack, revealing the environment around her. She couldn’t make anything out through her blurred vision though. With a groan, she attempted to lift her head.

A sharp pain spasmed through her neck as she forced her muscles to awaken. Gritting her teeth, she worked through it and forced her head up off the ground. She opened her eye further and took a glance at her body. What she saw wasn’t pretty.

Her back left leg appeared to be broken somewhere along its cannon, while her other legs were all covered in bruises and some minor scratches. Her barrel, however, was a different story. While it was also bruised and hurting, there was a jagged cut that stretched from her right flank all the way to her shoulder. It had seemingly bled a lot as the fur around it was crusty and matted.

She tried to flex her wings only to be met with another jolt of pain. With a shuddering whimper, Rainbow found a little hope in the situation as her wings twitched feebly behind her. At least they’re not broken.

She tried to open her left eye so that she could further look around only to find that she couldn’t. She delicately lifted her front right hoof, which caused her sore muscles to screech their objections, and tentatively felt the fur around her left eye. The best she could determine, it was at the very least bruised and swollen, but she could still move her eye inside the socket which led her to believe that the eye itself was intact.

She lay her head and hoof back on the ground, choosing to just let her body lie for a minute. While she lay, she swiveled her right eye about, inspecting the area around her as best she could.

Trees stretched out as far as she could see in every direction. As best as Rainbow could tell from between treetops, the sun was beginning to make its descent. Most of the trees had no branches on them and were mostly just tall, thin sticks with the occasional large trunked behemoth, and just about all of them came out of a massive pool of reddish brown muck. Very few of them connected to solid ground.

Am I… in a swamp…? Rainbow thought to herself.

As if to confirm her thoughts, she heard a strong gurgling noise as some of the muck about twenty hooves away began to bubble. With a mighty roar, a massive flame bellowed straight out of it, at least twice as tall as an average adult pony. Rainbow’s working eye widened in surprise as she felt panic course through her battered body.

Adrenaline began pumping as her breathing quickened. The pain in her legs, while still harsh and sharp, was pushed aside as terror took hold. Through gritted teeth, Rainbow pushed herself onto her three good legs. Through the slick and suction of the muck below her, she managed to shakily hold her ground.

Through heaving breaths, she limped as quickly as she could away from where the flames had risen. After moving only about five small steps, she again heard the same sound of whooshing air. Only a few paces in front of her another flame erupted from the swampish mud, so close to her that her face felt the heat. Instinctively, she opened her wings wide and began flapping with them to push her backwards faster than her hooves could move.

She only succeeded in making two light flaps which lifted her barely a hoof off the ground before she landed roughly, her wings too sore to go further. A scream tore its way past her lips as she forcibly landed on her broken leg. Hissing in pain, Rainbow fell to her haunches, clutching her broken leg with her hooves. As quickly as she dared Rainbow stood back up, careful to avoid putting any weight on her injured limb.

“Oh, it’s awake!”

Rainbow’s heart nearly stopped. Somewhere amidst the trees, a figure began to step towards her. She couldn’t quite see them, but she could hear their plodding as their paws stepped through the muck.

“You’re right, sister… It’s about time too. We were sssstarting to get hungry.”

Rainbow let out a small whimper and backed up a few steps, careful to not touch down with her back left hoof. Her ears flattened against her skull as she took in several quick breaths. Her head twisted back and forth, frantically searching for the owners of the voices. Her heart skipped a beat when she found them. From between the trees, a monstrous figure prowled towards her.

The voices belonged to one being. Rainbow gaped as it leered closer. The monster, with the body of a lion, had three heads that bobbed as it lumbered forwards. First was a lion’s head, snarling and growling as it licked its lips. The second head – a goat’s – nickered victoriously. The third head, a snake on the end of the creature’s tail, hissed as it approached. Rainbow stared helplessly into the three pairs of eyes, each glinting with predatory glee.

Rainbow gulped, not sure what to do. Her legs trembled, threatening to drop her back into the muck.

“Remind me why we didn’t eat her earlier when we found her?” the lion asked as it continued licking its chops.

“You don’t remember?” the goat head replied, a slight amount of annoyance evident in its voice. “When fillies go missing, others come searching. Had this one been found, we would have had more to eat.”

“Oh right! Well, at least we can eat this filly filet before it gets away.”

Shaky breaths were hammering in and and out of Rainbow’s lungs as tears began to fall from her eyes. She watched helplessly as the monster advanced closer and closer upon her, all the while baring it’s three sets of fangs. She wanted to say something, to beg the creature to not eat her, but no words came out. Her chest was shaking too much and no matter what she tried, she couldn’t get any breath to form words in her throat.

The beast lunged at her, determined to cover the last few steps with a fatal pounce. Rainbow Dash squeezed her eyes shut... and cried.

“Oh Princess Celestia, thank goodness… She hasn’t come out of her room and she won’t let me in.”

“I see… Thank you for bringing this to my attention, Lady Dublin. I will take care of everything from here.”

“Thank you, please, just… make sure she’s okay.”

“I am sorry, but I must be honest… I sincerely doubt that she is okay.”

Twilight Sparkle could hear their muffled voices through her bedroom door. She didn’t care though. She lay there in her blankets, her forehooves clutching tight against a pillow that had long since lost it’s fluff. It lay limp against her legs, crushed and lifeless, and it offered her no comfort in her sorrow.

The door to her bedroom opened and a ray of light cut its way through the darkness, cast from the torches in the hallway beyond. The light was then momentarily blocked as a pony walked in front of it, making entrance into the darkened room.

“Twilight, it’s me, Celestia.”

Twilight did not respond. She continued staring off the side of her bed, her legs tucked to her chest with the dead pillow crushed between them.

“Please Twilight, you can talk to me. I understand what you’re feeling.” Celestia’s voice spoke with a comfort and a tenderness that Twilight had not heard from the Princess before. Her eyes flicked towards a different spot on the far wall, but she did not otherwise respond to Celestia’s statement. Celestia, undeterred, tried again.

“I know very well the suffering that you’re going through. I have experienced it many times myself. Please, you must trust me when I say that it helps to speak of it with loved ones.” A pleading undertone had creapt into her voice. Twilight’s ears flicked a bit in response, but again, she stayed silent.

Celestia then walked across the room and moved around the bed so that she could stand before Twilight. Kneeling down in front of her, she reached out a hoof and gently pushed it beneath Twilight’s chin. Twilight raised her eyes to finally acknowledge Celestia’s presence, and gasped when she did.

Celestia’s head had turned into a massive mirror which stood atop her shoulders. In the reflection of the mirror, Twilight could see herself, but in the mirror she was not on her bed. She was instead in a massive and luxurious bathroom. Twilight spun around and found that her blankets and mattress were gone. Instead, she heard the click of her hooves against bathroom tiles.

“Princess, what–” she began, but her voice died when she looked back to find that Celestia too had vanished. Where her body had stood beneath the mirror, now there was just a sink and a few cabinets. Twilight looked back up into the mirror, and stopped in her tracks.

She took in the sight before her, a morbid sense of satisfaction building up in her mind. “How fitting it is,” Twilight mumbled, “that I should be covered in her blood…” She raised a hoof to her reflection, shivering as her hoof met the cold glass. She watched as her reflection, its coat covered in spattered blood and stained a deep red, mirrored her actions. She stared into her own eyes and remarked at how empty they seemed. It was as if there was no soul behind them.

“Twilight, please, just talk to me!” a male voice called out from behind her.

“Spike, just leave me alone!” Twilight cried, her voice cracking as tears ran down her face. She spun around to find the baby dragon standing right behind her, a look of dejection evident on his face.

“Twilight, you know it wasn’t your fault! Please, just accept that! You couldn’t have done any–”

“No! It was my fault! Rainbow died because of me!” Twilight fell to the cold stone floor, sobs shaking her whole body as her world crashed down around her.

“Twilight, it wasn’t your fault I died.”

Twilight’s eyes snapped open. “Rainbow Dash!?” She threw her head up and jumped to her hooves. There, standing directly before her, was the cyan pegasus herself.

“Yeah, it’s me. And don’t worry, it wasn’t your fault I died.” Rainbow flashed her signature grin, causing Twilight’s heart to miss a few beats. Twilight wanted to say something, to respond, but couldn’t form the words in her throat. Instead she just took in Rainbow’s features, marveling at how clear and pristine she appeared.

Rainbow turned her head to the side, letting a more comfortable grin settle onto her face. “Man, these gardens sure are beautiful, aren’t they?”

Twilight blinked. “Gardens…?” She turned and looked as well. She was standing in the Royal Gardens of Canterlot Castle, overlooking the rest of Equestria. The sun was shining far in the sky to the west, a few minutes away from beginning its descent beyond the horizon.

“I’m… I’m glad I came out to see you today,” Rainbow said, her voice going soft and taking on a sensitive side that she only ever showed to Twilight.

“I am too. This Princess Summit has been… stressful. A lot of political problems that are just very taxing to deal with.”

“Well, I’m glad I could help you relax away from it all…”

Rainbow looked at Twilight and smiled, causing Twilight’s heart to flutter in her chest. Suddenly, she realized where she really was. “No, wait, this is it! What am I doing? Rainbow, don’t look at me! This is when–”

“Twilight, look out!”

“Rainbow Dash!” Twilight screamed, jolting awake. She was gasping for air and could feel her heart as it was pounding against her chest. Her eyes widened as she looked around, trying to figure out where she was.

“Hey, calm down! It’s alright!” The frantic voice belonged to one of the pegasi whom she had saved. Specifically it was coming from the black coated mare that Twilight had seen earlier. She was currently resting on the mare’s back and could see the swamp rushing past far beneath them as they flew.

After a few moments of confusion, Twilight figured out just what was happening. Apparently she had fallen asleep, and the remaining members of the search and rescue team hadn’t wanted to wake her. Not knowing what to do, they must have decided to just take her back with them to Cloudsdale.

A slight moment of guilt flashed across Twilight’s features as her eyes glanced at the other two remaining pegasi. Each one of them was carrying one of their fallen allies and wore a grim expression on their face. Neither even bothered looking over at Twilight or the pegasus who was carrying her.

“Wait a minute…” Twilight thought back. There had been a reason she woke up… All of a sudden, feeling like she had just taken a brick to the face, Twilight realized just what it was.

My life-detection spell is still active, and it found Rainbow while I was sleeping!

Without any hesitation, she quickly activated her magic and teleported away from the pegasus that had been carrying her. She reappeared at the same altitude, but twenty yards behind where she had started. Wasting no time, she began pumping her wings as hard as she could heading back the way they had come from. Behind her she could hear the sounds of the pegasus mare calling after her, but she didn’t care.

Within less than a minute, she felt it. Twilight experienced a wave of happiness wash over her as her spell flared to life and informed her that there was a pony somewhere far to her left. At first she was slightly confused because in the past few hours her life detection spell had only been telling her the size and race of the creatures it had found. This time though, it was flat out telling her ‘This life we’re sensing here? Yeah, this is the pony you were looking for.’

She angled her wings sharply to the left and began channeling a second spell. She hardly even registered it though as the magic took hold of her wings and her speed nearly doubled. There was something more important that she had just discovered.

There’s a second life form with Dash, and… it’s a chimera!

She pushed herself to the breaking point, forcing her body to work harder than she had ever done in the past. The agony and wailing of her muscles was lost to Twilight’s mind, however. Her eyes had hardened and her jaw had set.

All those months… Almost an entire year of agony and hell…! You won’t steal Rainbow away from me again! I will protect her!

With just a few more powerful flaps of her wings, Twilight burst past the last set of trees. Her eyes flew downwards and spotted that which she had worked so hard to find. There, just thirty hooves away, sat a filly named Rainbow Dash. Twilight’s heart soared at the sight, but it was short-lived. Rainbow was crumpled upon the ground, her back littered with jagged cuts and scratches. Twilight’s mouth went dry as she spotted one of Rainbow’s hind legs twisted at an odd angle. As if all that wasn’t bad enough though, she then spotted the real problem.

There, just beginning to leap towards the scared little pony, was the massive chimera Twilight had detected earlier. The beast had all three of its heads extending forwards, eagerly awaiting the moment when its fangs would sink into Rainbow Dash. It never got the chance.

With a quick burst of her magic Twilight created and released two separate spells, the first of which teleported her directly between Rainbow Dash and the chimera. Her second spell then threw up an arcane bubble around herself so big that it encompassed Rainbow as well. It was too late for the chimera who had already began its pounce. It collided with Twilight’s bubble, which immediately burst, causing an arcane blast that sent the chimera spiraling away through the air.

After watching the chimera collide with a tree, Twilight spun around. Rainbow Dash stood there, swaying unsteadily on her three healthy legs. Her body was covered with cuts, scrapes and bruises, and her wings looked rough and ragged. Twilight nearly cried, both from relief and worry, as Rainbow raised her head, revealing to Twilight her swollen and purple left eye.

Twilight watched as Rainbow slowly cracked open her good eye, seemingly confused as to why she hadn’t been eaten yet. Upon seeing Twilight, her eye flew open and she gasped in shock. Twilight smiled and let out a shaky breath, her eyes taking in everything that they could. This was really Rainbow Dash! She was really standing right here!

Unable to contain it, Twilight let out a joyful cry as her mouth split into the widest grin she could manage. She rushed forwards and embraced the filly in front of her.

“It’s you! It’s really, really you! Rainbow Dash, I’ve missed you so much!”

“Ow ow ow!” Rainbow cried out as Twilight overzealously hugged her. She managed to keep her back leg from touching the ground, but the rest of her body couldn’t take the pressure. Snapping her eyes open, Twilight backpedaled, releasing Rainbow from her grip.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Twilight yelped, her smile unwavering as she stared at Rainbow Dash for a moment. Her cheeks ached as she tentatively stretched out a forehoof. “C’mon, we’ve gotta get you out of here!”

Rainbow just looked at her dumbfounded, her one eye flicking between both of Twilight’s, before a sound from a little ways away caught their attention.

“Haha, you were right ssssister! Another pony did come looking for her. And” – the tail snake smiled devilishly – “it’ssss a filly as well!”

The chimera had returned, relatively unhurt from its unexpected collision.

“Ah yes,” the goat head spoke, failing to contain its laughter. “We will eat so well tonight!”

Twilight turned back around and set her legs apart, leveling her horn towards the chimera threateningly. “Sorry Rainbow, but I’m going to have to handle this first. Once I’m done, we’re going straight to a hospital.”

With a bit of a wild glint in her eye, she prepared to fight against the beast that dared to threaten Rainbow Dash.

I’ll make sure it never threatens her ever again!

Chapter 5

“Ugh…” Rainbow Dash groaned. With eyelids like lead weights, she slowly opened her eyes. Blurry shapes swam in an out of focus causing her to feel slightly seasick. Her head pounded as her mind struggled to catch up with her. Hadn’t she just been in the middle of a swamp?

She tried to tilt her head to look around which caused a stiffness to swell up in her neck. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she resigned herself to her position and just focused on her vision. If she could just get it to clear up… What was that thing directly above her? Where was she, and why was it just so bright?

After a few moments of focusing her eyes, a voice drifted past her. She couldn’t understand it for some reason, the tone sounding incredibly muffled… Or maybe it was just her ears? Were they all fuzzy like her vision? Wait, sound couldn’t get fuzzy…

Okay, enough’s enough.

With waning strength, Rainbow used her forelegs to try and lift her upper body. As she did, she found that the ground was surprisingly soft and comfortable, tempting her to give up and fall back asleep. Gritting her teeth, she pushed herself into a sitting position, the task leaving her breathless and tired. Just as she could feel her muscles preparing to give out, a sudden push against her back assisted her in sitting up the rest of the way.

“What-” was all she could manage to say before a wave of exhaustion hit her. She weakly glanced to her side and saw a purple blob next to her. It had extended a leg and was helping her to sit up, though it became even harder to see as darkness started ebbing through her vision once more. Though maybe this was just her eyes going to sleep? They did feel… tired…

A mechanical beeping was the first thing Rainbow Dash heard, the gentle tones giving her a slow return to consciousness. The first thing she noticed was that her body didn’t feel as stiff as before. She was even able to gently roll her head around on top of whatever it was lying on. She let herself lay there for a minute, just enjoying the comfort and soaking it all in. It was completely different from when she had woken up last time…

But wait, where was here, anyways?

“Huh…?” was all she could say as she opened her eyes and stared upwards into darkness. Her voice was scratchy and rough, and talking made her want to cough. She blinked a few times and screwed up her eyes to try and make out anything in the darkness.

After a few moments and more than a few huffs of annoyance, her eyes adjusted and she began to see shapes above her. Tiles. She was staring at ceiling tiles stretched out in all directions until they each reached their own smooth wall. She tilted her head and looked about the sides, seeing some machinery, a window, and a door. It didn’t take long for her to realize where she was.

How did I get in a hospital…?

Right as the realization hit her, her gaze fell on a shape that she had mistaken for a pillow next to the window. It was a pony, around her age, curled up in a little ball and snoring softly. She watched the tiny pony sleep for a moment, listening to the rhythmic beeping of the nearby heart monitor mingle with the quiet snores of her sleeping roommate.

She blinked, wondering briefly who the pony was, before she looked away. She had decided it was time to find out just what condition her body was really in… After all, she couldn’t remember much, but she could recall the pain she was in when she woke up in that swamp.

Slowly and carefully, she lifted her right foreleg and inspected the bandages that covered it. Her leg seemed to be okay and the bandages looked fresh. Using her now freed hoof, she gently stripped her body of the blanket which covered her lower half and stared down at her barrel.

Her back left leg, the one which had been broken, was now in a splint and a cast, bandages crisscrossing their way up before meeting with her pelvis. Likewise, her entire barrel and chest were bandaged up as well, and she recalled that she had a pretty massive gash somewhere around there. That explains why the bandage looks darker and slightly wet…

She gently rolled herself onto her right side, propping her torso up with her right elbow, and inspected her back and her wings. The bandages from the frontside went all the way around, and were similarly stained in spots, seemingly needing to be changed. She tried to move her wings and found them responsive, yet stiff. She sighed, happy to have at least that bit of good news.

She lay back down and pulled the covers up over her body, knowing now that she was somewhere safe. She could relax, she could rest, there was no more danger… There was no more…

Wait… Her head turned to the side again as she looked towards her snoozing roommate. She could see the moon through the window, it’s soft light stretching in and illuminating half of the sleeping pony. She looks familiar…

Rainbow frowned, trying to remember where she had seen this filly before. She was sure she had seen her somewhere recently... The swamp? Rainbow gasped and looked back to the snoozing filly. She was at the swamp! She... she saved me from that monster!

Her mouth had dropped open as she stared at the sleeping figure. Indeed, the longer she looked over this pony’s body, the more obvious it became. She had wings and a horn, just like the pony who rescued her, and she was even hurt herself; bruises and cuts trailed up and down her body. Unlike Rainbow's, this filly's looked untreated and rather painful.

Wait… What happened next…? Rainbow frowned again and furrowed her brow. She couldn’t remember anything after the filly had jumped to her defense. She could see in her mind’s eye the monster getting up and stalking forwards, and this… alicorn filly turning around to fight back. But then it went blank…

Before Rainbow could think about it much further, some movement from the corner of her eye caught her attention. She rolled her head to the right, away from the sleeping filly, and looked at the door. Sure enough, some shadows of a pony standing on the other side were seeping under the crack. The hallway beyond was well lit, and somepony on the other side was trying to get in.

The pony rapped a hoof on the door, awaking the formerly sleeping filly with a snort. The next thing Rainbow Dash knew, a bright light had filled the room momentarily, causing her to blink and cover her eyes with a hoof. Once she was able to see again, she discovered that the pony was now next to the door, instantaneously, though her horn had a sharp glow about it that was illuminating her half of the room.

For the first time, Rainbow was able to see the color of the pony’s fur. Her coat was a rich purple, accented by the dark violet of her mane and tail, though both had some streaks of pinkish hues in the middle.

“I told you already! I’m not letting you in!” the filly cried out in a harsh whisper, probably assuming that Rainbow was still asleep. “I can take care of her myself! Nopony is going to take her away from me!”

Rainbow’s eyebrows rose in surprise as a flurry of questions bounced around in her head. Who was this mystery pony? Why did she care so much about Rainbow? What made her so important that this random pony would risk her life in the swamp to save her? Rainbow shook her head as it throbbed with the beginnings of a headache.

The purple filly let her magic die out as she continued to glare at the door, as if she was daring it to open. After a few tense moments of silence, the shadow on the other side moved away. The filly’s eyes softened and a look of sheer exhaustion broke through her tough act. Her wings slumped to the floor and her whole body sagged. She looked like she hadn’t slept well in days…

Slowly, she began to trudge back towards her spot next to the window, not even once glancing in Rainbow’s direction. She simply looked too tired to do anything else.

“Twilight Sparkle.”

The filly’s eyes opened wide and her head snapped up. The voice had come from the other side of the door where there now stood another pony, one who had shown up without Rainbow even noticing. A soothing comfort flowed through Rainbow upon hearing the disembodied voice, it’s dulcet tones relaxing her stressed body. She had never heard the voice before, of that she was certain, but somehow… it instinctively felt safe.

“Princess Celestia…?” the filly said, whom Rainbow now assumed to be named Twilight. “What… Why are you here?” She had turned around and was facing the door, but she didn’t dare move.

Rainbow gaped at Twilight and then at the door. Wh-what? P-princess… Celestia!? Here!?

A soft golden glow lit up the room as it enveloped the hinges of the hospital door. After a few moments, a sharp click emanated from them at the same time as a purple hue dissipated from within the door frame. The pony named Twilight grimaced, her cheeks lit up with a soft blush.

A moment later the door was open and sure enough, standing on the other side, was none other than Princess Celestia herself. The light of the hallway beamed in from behind her, spilling into the room. It almost felt as though Celestia herself was merely a painting, the light beyond her backdrop and the door frame her portrait.

“I am here at the behest of the Ponyville Hospital staff,” Princess Celestia said calmly, her countenance kind and comforting. As she spoke she began to enter the room. “They had informed Canterlot that a tiny, purple princess had locked herself in one of their rooms with a wounded pony and was refusing assistance.”

Twilight looked away, her ears wilting. She looked more tired than ever. “They wanted to take me away from her…”

“I spoke with the doctors, Twilight, and they only wanted to remove you from the room so that they could tend to your injuries as well as hers. They are doctors, it is their duty to help the injured.”

Twilight stared at the floor below Princess Celestia’s hooves. Guilt flashed across her face before she firmly set her jaw. “I don’t care. After everything that’s happened I am not leaving this room without Rainbow Dash. I can take care of both of us, so the doctors aren’t needed.”

Celestia merely looked at Twilight, her eyes soft and caring. “I understand. I had hoped that you would explain to me exactly what made you flee Canterlot so suddenly, but it appears that will have to wait for the moment.”

Twilight tilted her head upwards in confusion, looking into the Princess’ eyes. Celestia merely smiled back, her ethereal mane flowing behind her. Without saying a word, she nodded her head towards Rainbow Dash with a slight glint in her eyes. Twilight’s eyebrows knit together in thought as she connected the dots. After a moment, she let out a soft gasp of realization.

Rainbow Dash could only watch as Twilight slowly turned towards her, her eyes widening and her lips curling into a wide smile. Rainbow felt strange, as though a spotlight had suddenly been thrown onto her. For the last few minutes, she had merely been a silent observer, witnessing the strangest event ever. How often did a pony get to meet a princess, let alone two?

Yet here she was, the center of attention from some ponies that she didn’t know how to react to. Deciding that something would be better than nothing, she put on a smile which she knew was weak and attempted to wave. “Uh… Sup?”

That had apparently been enough. Twilight immediately let out a sob, her cheerfulness being stained by tears as they leaked from her eyes. “Rainbow Dash!” she cried out as she pounced onto the bed, landing just above Rainbow’s barrel, her hooves to each side of Rainbow’s body.

“Whoa!” was all Rainbow could say, her eyes staring up into Twilight’s with a mixture of shock and confusion as the bed shook from Twilight’s landing.

“I can’t believe you’re okay! I thought I’d lost you again!” Twilight started sobbing and hiccoughing in between her words. “You were so hurt… I just –” she sniffled and rubbed a hoof over her eyes “– I can’t believe I’m really seeing you again…”

Bewildered, Rainbow looked from the sobbing filly to Princess Celestia and back again.

“Uhh… Why’re you crying?”

Twilight looked her in the eyes, a hint of laughter coming through her sobs. “Because… It’s really you…”

At that, Twilight carefully stepped over Rainbow’s body so as not to aggravate her injuries and positioned herself nearby Rainbow’s left shoulder. A soft flump shook the bed one more time as Twilight fell to her chest, her muzzle nestled against the side of Rainbow’s head. Rainbow could feel the warmth of Twilight’s breathing as it flowed over her neck.

Rainbow twisted her body so she could look at Twilight a bit more directly. “Um… Please don’t take this the wrong way or nothin’, but… do we know each other?”

An expression flashed across Twilight’s face so fast that Rainbow couldn’t quite catch it. She did notice that Princess Celestia seemed to be paying a lot more attention now and had her eyes firmly locked on the two of them.

“You… O-of course, you don’t remember me… You haven’t met me until now…” Regret bogged down Twilight’s facial features, her body seeming to sag into itself as she slowly pulled her muzzle away from Rainbow’s head. She screwed up her eyes and bit her lip to try and hold in her crying.

“N-no, please… Don’t cry, it’s okay!” Rainbow felt terrible. She raked her mind, trying desperately to remember anything about this filly. As far as she knew the two of them had never met before, yet that concept only seemed to make Twilight feel even sadder.

“No, you’re right… We haven’t met before. Not really, anyways.” Twilight opened her eyes and looked back into Rainbow’s. All Rainbow could see in those purple eyes was a pain so buried, it felt like she was interacting directly with Twilight’s soul itself.

“I don’t understand… You were acting like you knew me a minute ago, a-and you even found me in the swamp. How did you…? I mean, who are you? And really, why are you crying? Maybe I don’t remember you or something, but… if that’s the case, we could always just become friends again!”

Twilight stayed silent for a few moments, just looking into Rainbow’s eyes and letting her tears leak out. Just as the silence had stretched on long enough that Rainbow warily glanced at Princess Celestia for help, Twilight finally smiled and sniffled one last time before drying her eyes.

“Oh, Rainbow Dash… I would love nothing more than to get to know you again…”

Rainbow, glad to see that Twilight had stopped crying, relaxed a bit. Finally, she thought, this is a conversation I can handle. “Of course, I’m totally awesome. Every filly wants to know me.” She grinned for a moment before remembering who else was in the room and sheepishly glancing back to the foot of the bed where Princess Celestia was standing.

“Do not worry about me,” she said, her eyes shining happily despite the only light source coming from the open door somewhere to her back left. “Twilight, I’m going to return to Canterlot. I trust you will let the doctors into the room now?”

“Okay, but I swear… If any of them try to make me leave this spot, they’re going to wake up tomorrow as a potted cactus!”

Celestia merely smiled as she turned and walked out of the room, the door closing softly behind her. Rainbow briefly wondered whether that had been some inside joke between the two of them.

The room descended into darkness once more as the door clicked shut, leaving the light from the moon to once again crawl it’s way along the floor. Rainbow laid down on her back causing her to have to roll her head in order to look at Twilight. She frowned upon seeing the small alicorn sitting there with a pained grimace on her face. Twilight had her head on her hooves and her eyes locked on the far wall.

I guess we’re alone now… Should I say something…?

“I’m sorry, Rainbow…” Twilight whispered, her voice despondent.

“Huh?”

Twilight shifted her eyes to the window briefly before standing up and lightly hopping off the bed. Rainbow pushed herself up into a sitting position, grunting a bit as her sore muscles complained from the exertion, and watched as Twilight trotted over to the window. Rainbow’s shoulders slumped as Twilight laid back down on the floor, once more half in the moonlight and half in the shadow.

Rainbow bit her lip, not sure what to say. There was something going on here with this other pony, of that she was certain, but she didn’t know what. Idly smoothing the blanket up around her hind legs, she thought hard about her situation… She wasn’t sure why, but she wanted to cheer Twilight up. She didn’t want her to have to sit there on the cold floor, alone.

But more than that… I also don’t want to be alone… She sucked in a breath and made her decision. There was something hanging in the air here, she could feel it, but it didn’t matter. Whatever was wrong could wait until morning. However, until then…

“So… Your name is Twilight Sparkle, right? I heard the Princess call you that.”

Twilight almost looked startled as she lifted her head from her hooves and looked Rainbow in the eyes. “Uh, yes…”

“Okay, w-well… Twilight Sparkle…” Rainbow Dash didn’t want to keep tripping over her words, so she huffed and set her jaw before continuing. “You look pretty cold down there, and, uh… I mean, this bed is easily big enough for an adult pony, so… Well, the thing is, you and I could both fit in here and you wouldn’t have to be so cold… uh, down there…”

When she had finished speaking, she had been resolutely looking at the blanket on her bed which her hooves were idly playing with. A small burning sensation had built up a bit in her cheeks, and really, she wasn’t stupid; she knew why she felt embarrassed about it. However, this wasn’t a normal situation, and right now… she really wanted to have a friend nearby.

And it looks like Twilight needs one too.

After a few moments of staring, Twilight lowered her head back to her hooves, her eyes looking at a spot on the floor in front of her. “No, it’s okay… You should get some sleep, Rainbow. You have a long recovery ahead of you.”

“Wow, just wow. You’re gonna do that to me?”

Twilight looked shocked, her eyes widening instantaneously in response to Rainbow’s accusing tone. “W-what…?”

“You just said I got a long recovery ahead of me, and you’re gonna make me spend it on the floor with you instead of this perfectly comfortable bed?”

Twilight lifted her head up, her mouth opening and closing as she tried to form words. “But… Wha-”

“Yeah, that’s right. Get up here with me or I’m coming down there with you.” Rainbow crossed her forelegs over her chest, keeping her face straight despite the slight discomfort the position put her through. Her eyes had narrowed, though not threateningly, and her mouth was thin.

For a few moments Twilight’s eyes looked between the floor and Rainbow’s face. She looked conflicted, unsure of herself, and did not seem to be close to making a decision. Not one for waiting, Rainbow figured she’d just push a little more and force Twilight into deciding.

“Alright then, I’m coming down there… But at least let me bring the blanket.” With that, she started to stand up, carefully avoiding putting any stress on her broken leg.

Twilight stood up as though a fire had been set beneath her tush. In less than a second, she had winged her way up to Rainbow’s side and began gently lowering her back to the comfort of the bed. She said nothing, not even once Rainbow was again laying down beneath the blanket. She just stood there next to her, looking awkward and unsure of herself.

“Well, are you gonna sleep standing up?” Rainbow asked, causing Twilight to look her in the eyes.

Something in Twilight’s eyes gave Rainbow pause for a moment, almost as if there was something deeper there that she was supposed to be seeing… She wasn’t quite sure what it was, but the more she thought about it, the more her mind itched. Or no, was that an itch? It felt weird, almost as though she-

Her thoughts were interrupted by something warm and fuzzy; in her moment of distraction, Twilight had apparently made her decision and got in under the blanket on Rainbow’s left side. She carefully positioned her hind legs so that they wouldn’t risk touching Rainbow’s broken one. With her head on the pillow, Twilight looked over at Rainbow Dash who had likewise twisted around.

“... Thank you…”

It had been soft and quiet, but in the stillness of the hospital room, there was no way Rainbow could have missed it. “Anything for a friend,” she replied, a genuine smile touching her lips.

Sure, this whole scenario was confusing and she certainly did have a lot of questions, but… Twilight was kind. Rainbow could just tell. Even if she hadn’t known that this filly was responsible for saving her in the swamp, her actions insofar proved that she was a good pony. Rainbow had no problem with her realization that Twilight was a good friend.

“Good night, Rainbow…”

“Good night, Twilight…”

The last thing Rainbow noticed as her mind slowly phased into a comfortable sleep was the warmth from two hooves pressed tight around her body. She returned the gesture and squeezed tight, happy just to be alive and able to hold somepony else in her hooves.

Two reunited fillies were not the only thing the moonlight touched upon that night. Far away from the hospital, in a remote locale hidden deep within a forest, four more friends found themselves climbing the steps of an ancient, weathered castle. Their hooves clacked against the cracked cobbled halls and steps, echoes emanating out to rebound amongst the broken roofs and walls.

“We’re here, at last…” Rarity cried out, her voice higher pitched and squeakier due to her filly body. She led their small group up the steps, sweat matting her mane and white coat.

“I had kinda hoped Twilight would be here, to be honest,” Applejack said from her position in the back of their group. Like Rarity, she was a filly again, an unfortunate result of Twilight’s spell having taken them too far into the past. Her eyes roved over the rest of their group; Fluttershy, as well as Pinkie Pie, had accompanied her and Rarity to this dangerous place.

“It’s like I said before,” Rarity replied without turning around. She kept moving forwards, deeper into the ancient remains. “The first place she probably went was to find Rainbow Dash.”

At this, Fluttershy piped in, her voice quiet and soft as she spoke. “It’s also possible she doesn’t know… Don’t you remember? She didn’t hear us when we were calling out to her.”

Rarity scoffed. “Calling out? Please, Fluttershy, we were screaming for her and she didn’t hear us. The four of us are the only ponies who know.”

“But you can’t blame her,” Pinkie Pie added, her voice even more high pitched than it had been in the past. Her wild mane somehow seemed even more chaotic when it was put on her tiny body. “If she didn’t know, then it wasn’t like she meant for it to happen.”

Applejack shook her head as she sidled up beside Pinkie. “That’s true, but it changes nothin’. The fact is that right now, she’s up there, trapped, and she likely doesn’t even know what the heck happened.”

“Aha, we’re here!” Rarity said, as they at last entered the final room of the castle.

All of them looked upwards and saw the statue before them, towering over them in their small bodies. Applejack instinctively reached up to push on the brim of her stetson, only to remember that she wasn’t big enough yet to wear it and had to leave it at her home.

The contraption before them was just as they recalled it from the first time they had come here, when Nightmare Moon had threatened Equestria and Twilight had led them to this location. A central pillar rose up out of the ground with five stone arms extending out from it in different directions. On each of the arms rested a perfectly round stone; the Elements of Harmony.

Rarity glanced upwards through the broken roof, seeing the moon hanging in the sky directly above the statue holding the Elements. It’s light cascaded down upon them and covered their presence in a twilit glow.

“Come girls. There’s no time to waste.”