An Equidistant Equestria

by NorrisThePony

Chapters

• The Birth of A New Nightmare (Prologue)
• Hello, Again. (I)
• The Other Side (II)
• Reunion (III)
• To The Slaughter (IV)
• A Recurring Night (V)
• Ponyville (VI)
• Interlude
• The Lake (VII)
• Magic (VIII)
• Alone (IX)
• Spires of Ice (X)
• Reflections (XI)
• Beyond (Epilogue)

The Birth of A New Nightmare (Prologue)

The pony without a name looked up at the strange sky above her, inky black, without the slightest pinprick of a star to break up the monotony of nothingness. She knew it was not nighttime, rather, she was literally surrounded by nothing. And yet here she was, alone and aware, racking her mind for something, anything, that could help ease the panic building in her mind.

Should she call out for help? Could she? And would anypony listen?

"Hello, Twilight Sparkle." An icy voice whispered behind her, saving her the trouble.

Alone in the void of black, Twilight Sparkle whipped around frantically, trying in vain to see something to conflict the emptiness.

"Who...who are you?" She asked, scanning for signs of life. "WHAT are you?"

"An old friend." The voice simply said in response, its voice as cold and sharp as the blade of a knife. "And do not bother searching for the source of my voice in this void. For I have no form to discern amongst the black."

"Your voice is familiar..." Twilight Sparkle whispered, racking her convoluted and confused mind for the source of the malicious and soothing voice. "I know you, don't I..."

Suddenly, a small pinprick of light revealed itself in front of Twilight. As she gazed in wonder at this one speck contrasting the black void, she noticed it growing in both size and intensity, until a blinding orb of light forced her to turn away.

"My apologies." The voice sounded as if it were standing right in front of Twilight now, and she turned to face the source despite the blinding light. In time, it dimmed, revealing a tall, slender alicorn with an almost skeletal stature. She stepped from the orb of light, and in an instant it imploded, the black void again uninterrupted.

"Perhaps you recognize me now?" The dark blue alicorn said softly, her smile betraying any malicious intent towards the frail purple pony in front of her.

"Of course! You're Nightmare Moon!" In that instant, memories flooded Twilight Sparkle's mind. Memories of her place at the princesses side, ruling over the eternal night together, student and protegee.

"If it is convenient for you to think of me as 'Nightmare Moon,' then yes, I am. I do not, however, admit that that is the truth."

"Where am I, princess? I'm so confused..." Twilight Sparkle was shocked to feel tears welling down her face, and realized just how much she had missed her mentor.

"The answer is quite simple." Nightmare Moon replied bluntly, staring at Twilight Sparkle with a stoic expression that could be mistaken as boredom. "You are dead. Well, partially."

"WHAT? But...I'm here! I'm speaking with you right now! How can I be dead if we're here together?"

"Again, the answer is simple. Because I, too, am deceased." Nightmare Moon chuckled lightly, and Twilight was taken aback by the casual nature she said such a terrible thing. "Tell me, Twilight...do you remember the protegee of Princess Celestia? The one who refused you mercy, instead choosing to sentence you to your permanent fate here, in this gloomy wasteland?"

"I..I think so. She was me, right? The 'me' from the other side of the Mirror Pool?" The memories were clear in her mind now. The two of them, facing each other in the castle courtyard, their magic colliding. The protegee of Celestia was staring at her now, the light of her magic flooding everything around her with whiteness. And then, nothing. "She killed me, didn't she? And...and you, too?"

"Indeed. But all hope is not lost. For you see, I cannot truly be destroyed, at least not permanently. The greed and jealously in the heart of Princess Luna served as the perfect host for a vessel of evil like myself." Nightmare Moon closed her eyes, and turned away from Twilight. When she spoke again, it was with a fiery, infuriated tone.

"However, when Princess Luna was split from the darkness living inside of her, I was abandoned, left to my lonesome by the one whom I sacrificed everything to aid." Nightmare Moon beat the black ground with her hooves, and crags of light shattered underneath her violent impact. "And then I remembered you, and your 'death', cowardly homicide by a pony proclaiming herself as virtuous. That hatred, that desire for revenge...with it, I may be resurrected again. And, more importantly, YOU may be resurrected. You desire revenge, no?"

Revenge. Against the protegee of Celestia. Indeed she did. Even more tempting was the opportunity to be released from the wasteland surrounding her, the chance to rule once again. However, Twilight could not help but be slightly suspicious of the way her mentor was referring to her current state of existence; every time Nightmare Moon uttered the topic of her death, it was coated in a thin, barely visible layer of doubt, as if it were not entirely the truth. Nevertheless, Twilight decided it would be wiser to not think twice about it and simply obey her mentor as she had been taught to do. Especially if it offered her the possibility of another chance.

"Of course I do, Princess. What needs to be done?"

"Oh, it is quite simple. You simply must focus on one specific desire. Hatred is especially effective, and I know that you have no shortage of that. Once you have focused on that desire, then the gateway between our beings shall be opened wide, and together we shall return to the world of the living..."

"Hmm...will it be...painful?"

"Your psyche is being altered, your form twisted into one of nightmares as you take on an identity of true, refined evil. I would think so." When Nightmare Moon saw the doubt flood the small unicorns eyes, she attempted a soothing smile. "Pain is temporary, Twilight Sparkle. This realm of darkness, however, is eternal."

Twilight pondered this, and realized how foolish she was being. She was stronger than this pathetic fear consuming her.

"What next, then? We're going to wake up back in Equestria, right? And I'm going to be an all ruling, magically omnipotent alicorn like you were?"

Nightmare Moon's form shimmered slightly, before dissolving completely, reappearing as a regal, blue alicorn, with a kind smile and compassionate eyes. When she spoke, however, the voice was still of Nightmare Moon.

"This pony you see before you is the ruler of Equestria as you once knew it. Her name is Princess Luna. As you know, she was the pony who I lived within, manipulating and controlling her. However, my power was limited to what she possessed. When the Elements of Harmony were used against us--against me--we were split, once again two separate beings. She took all the power we once shared, and I was left as a disembodied spirit in the realm of the dead. Therefore, we shall possess as much power as you did the moment prior to your death...essentially, none."

"Then what do we do?" Twilight Sparkle said dejectedly, slumping on the ground and burying her head in her hooves. A hoof touched her mane gently to soothe her, and she looked up into the eyes of Nightmare Moon.

"Do not fret, my dear pony. Together we shall overcome any and every obstacle that stands in our way. Together we shall see the death of Princess Luna."

Hello, Again. (I)

Fluttershy squinted in the blinding light as she stumbled her way through the strange, foreign buildings, their hay roofs stretching upwards into the ocean of light above her. Ponies milled about all around her, some casting her confused and concerned glances as she tried to navigate through the market-place crowds without the aid of sight, stumbling over her own hooves like a filly just learning to walk. A few of the shopping ponies greeted her with a polite 'Good Morning,' however, for the most part they remained silent, choosing to regard her plight with mild sympathy or annoyance.

After some time, her eyes began to adjust and she realized with a start that Ponyville was lit rather ordinarily for a bright, sunny afternoon. Shivering slightly in the cold, Fluttershy stopped her bewildered pacing and did her best to orient herself around the now familiar town. When she finally felt comfortable with her bearings, she continued her trek in a more dignified stature.

The library was ahead of her now, its glistening perfection sending torrents of memories, both good and bad, of the pony who resided within. Mostly, Fluttershy felt fear, but also anger and sorrow, as she recalled the reasons why she was here in the first place. But she would not let those meaningless emotions distract her from what mattered. Besides, she knew better than to blame such a close friend for what had happened to her, to everypony. So much had happened in so little time, and yet here she was amongst so many ponies who were apparently completely oblivious to the horror she had seen.

Extending a shaking hoof to the wooden door, Fluttershy cast several paranoid glances behind her, every instinct in her telling her to run away from this town, from these ponies, and finally be free of the threat of being judged, condemned, pursued...

The door in front of her opened at the sound of her knocking, and an immense smile tore across Fluttershy's face as she beheld the pony within.

"Twilight!" She screamed loudly, her ordinarily quite demeanor all but forgotten in the rush of excitement. "Sweet Celestia, it's really you! It really worked!"

Blinking in confusion several times, Twilight Sparkle glanced around her friend to see if this was some sort of lazy, half-baked prank of Rainbow Dash or Pinkie Pie, but from the looks of things, Fluttershy was alone. To her immediate knowledge, there was absolutely no justification for Fluttershy's extreme excitement at seeing her.

"Umm, hello, Fluttershy. How are you?" She managed, before being violently embraced by her formerly shy friend.

"It's been what? Three months? Four months?" Fluttershy laughed between tears of joy.

"Two hours, actually...Fluttershy, are you sure you're alright?"

Fluttershy released her friend promptly and took a step back, grinning sheepishly at her bewildered friend.

"I missed you a lot Twilight. I thought me and you would never see each other again..." Receiving only muddled and concerned stuttering from Twilight, Fluttershy ceased her rambling and suddenly took on a more nervous expression, her ears bending back and her gaze drawn downwards towards her hooves.

"I...I guess...You don't remember me, do you? This me, I mean..."

"What in Equestria are you talking about, Fluttershy?"

"The...The Mirror Pool...You came to our Equestria, the different one...and you helped save us from Nightmare Moon..."

The Mirror Pool. Twilight Sparkle knew about the mirror pool all to well...or rather, she had known about it rather well. Granted, she still possessed more technical knowledge than the average Equestrian resident, but her actual experience with the magical Mirror Pool existed only in the forgotten recesses of her mind, something that she had long-since dismissed. While most of the citizens of Ponyville could successfully pinpoint the exact purpose of the Mirror Pool, Twilight Sparkle knew that it indeed housed a much more ominous and powerful magic. The magic to not only observe, but to access and travel freely between worlds, realities separate from the perfect utopia most had grown so familiar with. From the little knowledge she possessed, one of those worlds was a war-torn, lifeless, dystopian Equestria ruled by Princess Luna, who for whatever reason credited Twilight with saving her entire realm.

She knew she had spent a considerable time in the Alternate-Equestria it had apparently housed, but the entirety of her experiences there had been wiped completely from her memory.  

"Maybe..maybe you should come inside." Twilight said, opening her wooden door wider.

"This seems...familiar..." Twilight Sparkle muttered to herself as she set down two cups of chamomile tea on her kitchen table and sat down, facing her clearly over-worked friend. Fluttershy's mane was disheveled and filthy, and while her tail was of a similar length to what Twilight had remembered, her actual mane had been trimmed down significantly. The smell of smoke filled the air as Fluttershy sat herself down at Twilight's table. "Now then, Fluttershy, everything is going to be alright—"

"Please, don't treat me like a crazy pony, Twilight. And everything isn't alright." Somehow, Fluttershy took the act of drinking tea and transformed it into an act of urgency, bringing the tea cup down on the table with a resolute slam. "I wouldn't BE here if things were alright."

"OK, I'm sorry. But you must understand how impossible it is for me to believe any of this. The Mirror Pool was sealed forever. It's completely impossible for you to have traveled through it, and even MORE impossible for you to have constructed your own."

Fluttershy played with her teacup nervously, gazing at the swirling liquid within. "You think I'm crazy...the last time I saw you, you were saving all of Equestria, and now..."

"I do not think you're crazy, Fluttershy. Maybe you're just stressed. I don't know. Is there anything you want to talk to me about?"

"We need your help again, Twilight. In my Equestria. Something terrible has happened, and it isn't Nightmare Moon this time. That's why I'm here. Even if you think I'm making this whole 'Mirror Pool' thing up, is there really any harm in just following me there so I can show you myself?" Fluttershy's eyes widened and in them, Twilight Sparkle could see a certain caliber of pain and sorrow that she had never seen before in her friend...except...

Her time in the realm of the Mirror Pool was not completely forgotten, but when the memories came to surface, she almost always disregarded them as the remains of some strange dream she had long ago. The most vivid and recurring memory was of her and a dying Princess Celestia...who or what had killed her and why remained a mystery to her, but one thing Celestia had said still existed as an evocative quote from an enigmatic time.

"It is too late, my little pony." Celestia had managed through dying breaths. "If I cannot save this world in life, then let my blood bring forth hope for my subjects."

What had this meant? Twilight had pondered this statement time and time again, searching in vain for an answer and yet too terrified to ask any questions. Perhaps the Mirror Pool truly housed the answers to these questions. Twilight searched desperately for something, anything to connect with Fluttershy's appearance here, and her wild claims of being a visitor from the mysterious and dangerous Equestria that had stole a week of her life, when suddenly, Twilight Sparkle's limited memory sparked a certain detail which most certainly did not correlate with the pony sitting in front of her.

"But...wait..." Twilight said in realization, rising from her chair and glaring at Fluttershy quizzically. "You say you're from an 'Alternate Equestria.' I don't remember much from that place, but I do remember you and Luna in Ponyville. You didn't have wings, Fluttershy. You said it was better if I didn't understand, and you and everypony else kept the details of our adventures hidden from me. But I remember everything after that clearly. And I remember that you did NOT have wings."

Fluttershy looked to her sides in comprehension and unfurled her wings accordingly. It took the best of her resolve to not spit out her tea as Twilight beheld the strange, bat-like wings attached to her friends torso. They were a darker yellow than the rest of Fluttershy's body, a skin-like membrane stretched over protruding wing bones, where any normal pegasus would have feathers. They looked incredibly delicate.

"Princess Luna, gave me these not long after you left. She said it was a type of magic she was slightly unfamiliar with, and it looks like she made a bit of a mistake. Rainbow Dash seems to like them though. She wouldn't stop begging Luna to give her some, too."

"But...oh, sweet Celestia..." Twilight gasped.

"I'm sorry!" Fluttershy said frantically, quickly closing her grotesque wings. "They are a tad...unnerving, I guess. I didn't mean to frighten you!"

"Not frightened." Twilight replied, exhaling loudly and draining her tea. "Just a tad surprised. You certainly have my attention now, Fluttershy. Lead the way."

Fluttershy nodded, choosing to simply abandon her tea as she rose. Taking her time to take in the contents of the library, Fluttershy crossed the main room and pushed the door open timidly. Almost immediately after stepping out into the sunlight, she began to shiver almost uncontrollably, despite it being a mid-summer day without a cloud in the sky.

"Are you okay?" Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow. "You're shivering like crazy."

"Yeah, I guess it's quite a bit colder than in my Equestria."

"Hmm. Alright."  Twilight shrugged.

As the two mares crossed the town, it was with relief that Twilight noted that this Equestria's native Fluttershy had gone to Canterlot on personal business. While she had her doubts about any 'Alternate-Equestria's,' she did not consider the fact completely impossible. And an encounter between two versions of the shyest and most terrified ponies in all of Equestria could not possibly have ended well.

On the borders of the Everfree Forest, Fluttershy stopped, letting out a sudden exclamation of fear when she looked into the dark and foreboding forest.

"Can you..lead the way from here, Twilight?"

"Didn't you have to travel through here earlier if you came from the Mirror Pool?" Twilight questioned.

"No. I appeared right in the middle of Ponyville." Fluttershy turned to look back at where they had come from, as if contemplating for the first time the sudden displacement and what it represented. "You didn't see the huge flash?"

"Too engrossed in a book, I guess. Those Daring Do's are pretty captivating."

Without saying anything, Twilight could clearly see in Fluttershy's expression that she had no idea what 'Daring Do' was. Even the concept of reading a book for entertainment seemed to take her by surprise.

In time, the two ponies reached the cavern which housed the Mirror Pool, which to the extent of Twilight's knowledge was now just an ordinary pond. Despite its insignificance, the entrance to the cavern was guarded by an immense boulder, to prevent anypony from discovering the pool.

"I guess it's a good thing you didn't teleport onto the other side of the pool here." Twilight noted as she lifted the heavy boulder, grunting under the magical strain. Fluttershy was still shaking, and Twilight assumed the darkness of the Everfree Forest had not helped her condition. What she did not consider was the fact that it was fear, and not temperature, that was causing her friend's unease as she anticipated returning to whatever remained for them on the other side.

Light broke through the entrance, evidently emanating from the surface of the water. Fluttershy began trotting downwards through the lighted cavern, but stopped when she realized she was alone.

"Sorry!" Twilight gasped, mustering enough strength to run down after Fluttershy. "Amazing how straining lifting things with magic can be."

The two mares soon found themselves gazing into the shimmering, murky water, before turning to face each other, one in fear and the other in curiosity.

"So it wasn't closed forever. I guess its purpose wasn't fulfilled after all." Twilight murmured.

"I guess I should tell you now, Twilight, because the second we cross through there, we're most likely going to have to avoid...well, dying." Stepping backwards from the water, Fluttershy sat down a flat, elevated rock and motioned for Twilight to do the same. "You might already know this, but the Mirror Pool isn't just ordinary water. In fact, it isn't water at all. Its blood."

"Blood of the Princess." Twilight said, remembering the dying words of Princess Celestia in that one, recurring nightmare.

"Yeah. Well, not just Celestia. Alicorns in general. Well, the reason the Mirror Pool reopened is because..." Tears welled in Fluttershy's eyes, but she continued, fighting her hardest to hold them back. "It's because Princess Luna was killed..."

"WHAT?!" Twilight Sparkle gawked. "Killed by who? You expect ME to fight something that even Princess Luna couldn't?"

Crying now, Fluttershy turned away from Twilight and looked back into the water of the Mirror Pool.

"No. I'm not forcing you to help us. But I just want you to know that our Equestria is going to burn if somepony doesn't do something. We were so close to peace. We had the sun back, and a loving Princess who cared about us. It isn't fair."

The sound of hoofbeats was the only sound to interfere with the serenity of the sacred cavern as Fluttershy walked towards the pool, turning to face Twilight one last time.

"I should warn you, though. Your Equestria is in as much danger as ours."

With that, Fluttershy turned and gazed into the shimmering water, closing her eyes as she anticipated whatever lay beyond its magical surface.

"Wait!" Twilight cried, cantering to Fluttershy's side. "I'm coming."

Her eyes still closed, Fluttershy leaped into the Mirror Pool, the sound of her body splashing through the water met a few seconds more by another, as the two ponies were pulled into Equestria's neighboring reality.

The Other Side (II)

CHAPTER TWO

Surrounded by a dissonance of light and sound, Twilight found herself being thrown violently around some discernible area, with texture like water, and yet she was breathing fine. Breaking through the deafening sound of a thousand waterfalls was Fluttershy's panicked screaming and her own magical aura as she attempted in vain to do something, anything to free them from the limbo between realms.

"Do something!" Fluttershy screamed, her voice converging from everywhere. "Twilight, please do something!"

"I'm trying!" She cried out in reply, only to be confronted by the deafening sound of her voice echoing in a feedback loop.

She was quite positive that this had NOT happened the last time she had traveled through the Mirror Pool, in fact, from what she had experienced, the process was surprisingly smooth. Suddenly, she recalled the spell Princess Celestia had taught her that changed the water from its ordinarily still, lifeless state to the murky, rough surface they had seen when they first approached. It was a long shot, but it was all she had to go on. Focusing her magic on the spell, it took the best of her studious ability to concentrate on casting it as she was thrown in every direction and blinded by light.

Immediately after she cast the spell, the two ponies were thrown through space, actual, discernible space, crashing hard onto rocks. Without even a moment to react, an immense fireball narrowly missed where Twilight lay. Fluttershy was on her feet in a second and dashing away, and Twilight quickly followed her.

"What in EQUESTRIA is HAPPENING?" Twilight screamed as another fireball exploded where she had been. Mustering enough magical energy, she teleported herself and Fluttershy some distance ahead, and after some time of running, they came to a towering magical barrier. Not noticing the nearly invisible wall, Fluttershy slammed hard into it, bouncing back and tumbling onto the ground. Twilight skidded to a halt next to her, examining the barrier and attempting to ascertain its nature as swiftly as possible. She did not exactly have the time for this inconvenience, especially with the fires growing taller around her.

"We're teleporting." Twilight announced, and Fluttershy gulped expectantly. One quick flash, and the two ponies were once again sprinting away from the roaring fire, which continued burning through the barrier as if it was not even there.

After what seemed like an eternity of sprinting, Fluttershy came crashing to the ground in exhaustion, the fires some distance away from them.

"We...we should be far enough now..." She gasped, and Twilight sat next to her. Behind them lay the smoldering remains of a small town, bouts of flames shooting into the sky. Some distance from the town, a wall of fire stretched as far as the eye could see, and Twilight realized with shock that she was looking at the burning remains of Ponyville and the Everfree Forest. Even at their significant distance, the heat of the fire was almost enough to make her loose consciousness.

"Sweet Celestia, what happened here?" She asked, coughing violently from the billowing black smoke.

"I...I can't really explain it right now." Fluttershy said, rising from the ground and starting to walk away from Ponyville. "We need to regroup with Rainbow Dash and the others."

"No!" Twilight yelled suddenly, and Fluttershy yelped in surprise. "Don't do this again! I deserve to know what is going on!" A sudden burst of magic exploded from Twilight's horn, and the two ponies were surrounded in a protective sphere. "We aren't budging from this spot until I know exactly why Ponyville has been destroyed!"

Fluttershy exhaled loudly and returned to where she had been sitting.

"Fine. But I don't know everything either."

"Well, tell me as much as you can at least."

"Umm...well..." Suddenly, Fluttershy's ears perked up and she leaped to her feet. "Ah yes! I completely forgot! She can tell you! She knows what's going on better than anypony!"

"Who? Rainbow Dash?"

"No...no. Princess Luna." Fluttershy was pacing back and forth in excitement, the hints of a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "She's been waiting for AGES to talk to you!"

"Except she's dead. You already told me that." Twilight Sparkle rose from her uncomfortable seat on the rocky rubble and touched her magical barrier idly, marveling at the ripples enveloping the sphere of light.  

"Yeah, she is. But she can still talk to us sometimes. It's kind of complicated, but you need to fall asleep. She comes to us in our dreams if she wants to tell us something, or wants to know how Equestria is holding up."

"Hmm. That makes sense." Twilight muttered, closing her eyes. "Except I'm not even remotely tired. This could take awhile."

Twilight Sparkle found herself standing in her library, completely alone. Outside her windows lay Ponyville, dimly lit by the crepuscular sky above. Other than herself, the entire town seemed to be deserted, but the buildings looked rather ordinary.

"Hello?" Twilight called cautiously. "Anypony here? Spike, are you home?"

"I know of no 'Spike.'" The voice of Princess Luna said softly. "But I recognize you quite well, Twilight Sparkle."

"Princess Luna? What are you doing here?" Twilight Sparkle exclaimed, whipping around to face her. The Princess of the Night stood solemnly, her regal stance outlined by a brilliant magical aura.

Princess Luna rolled her eyes in annoyance, as the magical aura slowly died. "I do wish ponies could decipher dreams from reality more often. Explaining this every time is quite tiresome. You, Twilight Sparkle, are dreaming. I, Luna, being Princess of the Night, have joined you in your dream to converse with you."

"Right." Twilight said, remembering clearly now deliberately trying to fall asleep in the middle of the rocky ruins outside of Ponyville.

"Now then." Princess Luna's annoyed expression suddenly changed to one of complete joy. "Let me just say how incredible it is to see you again, Twilight Sparkle. Your presence in my realm was missed greatly. How have you been?"

"Umm...alright, I guess. And yourself?"

Princess Luna shrugged. "Being dead has its advantages."

"It does?" Twilight asked, shocked and embarrassed. She hadn't meant to insult Luna...it was surprisingly easy to loose track of whether or not somepony was alive or dead when they were speaking with you face to face.

"Oh yes. The most significant being the chance of reuniting with my dear sister."

"That's...nice..." Twilight managed, completely befuddled on how to reply to that, not to mention utterly shocked that BOTH of the Royal Sisters were dead, and Luna seemed rather indifferent about it.

"I have been teaching her the art of dream-walking for some time, and she has grown quite skilled. In fact, she might even be able to join us in this dream. Pardon me a moment."

Suddenly, Luna's form exploded in a brilliant flash of light, leaving Twilight once again alone in the library. In time, Luna reappeared as suddenly as she had disappeared, except this time she was joined by another flash of light.

"Twilight Sparkle, my older sister, Celestia." Luna introduced, grinning. At the sight of the regal Princess of the Sun, Twilight bowed immediately. Celestia was still coated in some excess light, her form rippling slightly in and out of view.

"Focus on HER consciousness, sister, not your own!" Luna called with the tone of a mildly annoyed school-teacher. Accordingly, Celestia reappeared, the excess light gone.

"Thank you, Luna." Celestia smiled, before noticing the bowing unicorn in front of her. "Twilight Sparkle, I presume."

"Yes, Princess."

Celestia cast a sideways glance at Luna, narrowing her eyes. "Even after death ponies still refer to us as royalty. I believe 'Celestia' and 'Luna' should suffice." Luna shrugged, obviously not fazed by the no-longer relevant title of 'princess.'

"I do not think Twilight remembers the events of her last journey in our realm, Celestia." Luna whispered, and Celestia's eyes grew wide.

"Ah yes, that's right! Shall we remedy this, then?"

"Indeed." Without any warning, two bursts of magic struck Twilight Sparkle, swirling around her and encompassing her in a magnificent stream of magic, looking as delicate as the gossamer thread of a spider web. Twilight was thrown backwards, smashing into the book shelf behind her.

"Oww!" She uttered irritably, before looking back up at the two alicorns. "A bit of warning would be nice, next time, Princes--" Twilight stopped suddenly, her eyes darting in surprise from one alicorn to the next, the relevance of their presence finally clicking in her mind as she remembered clearly the events of that one week so many months ago.

"She remembers." Luna whispered into her sisters ear, and Celestia nodded.

"Ooohh k..." Twilight Sparkle said drowsily, slumping back against the bookshelf. "This...this feels weird..."

"You are simply feeling disoriented by the sudden reacquisition of your memories. The feeling should pass momentarily." Luna explained. "You remember me, though, correct? And defeating Nightmare Moon with the alternate versions of your friends?"

"Y..yeah, I do. I sort of remembered it before, too, sometimes...but never clearly. I think I'm good now." Twilight felt her legs growing weary, and she allowed herself to fall back onto the library floor. "Fluttershy said you would be able to explain what happened to Equestria, and why you need my help."

Outside of the library, a light wind was growing, clouds slowly forming in the growing night sky. A few stray raindrops streaked down the windows. Luna, noticing this, quickly assumed a more sombre expression. Celestia, on the other hand, looked just as confused by her sister's urgency as Twilight did.

"Is something the matter, Luna?" Celestia questioned, following her sisters troubled gaze.

"I fear Twilight's slumber is being interrupted. Lightning storms are typically an early indication of a dream breaking apart. We must talk quickly." Luna began pacing back and forth across the library floor. "As you now recall, you and your friends were successful in freeing me from the force of evil know as 'Nightmare Moon,' returning me to the form you see in front of you. After you returned to your Equestria, things settled down quite nicely here. There was fear amongst many of my subjects, many were still wary of my intentions, but as the weeks turned to months, that fear and anxiety slowly dissipated. Indeed, it looked as if peace had finally reached Equestria after more than a thousand years. I..I suppose it was that peace that caused me to..."

"Luna!" Celestia scolded. "What happened was NOT your fault!"

"Oh, come now, Celestia! I was foolish to lower my guard so significantly." When Luna turned back to face Twilight, she saw not guilt, but what looked like an almost minor regret, as if what happened were a simple and insignificant annoyance. "Twilight Sparkle, do you remember your confrontation with your counterpart in this world?"

Now it was Twilight's turn to feel guilt. She quickly found herself unable to bring herself to admit to the truth while looking into the eyes of Princess Celestia, even if this realm's Celestia hardly even knew who she was beyond what Luna had told her. Instead, she turned to the window and looked out at what was now pouring rain

"I wish I didn't. I can't believe what I did to her. It was...it was murder."

To Twilight and Celestia's surprise, Luna scoffed loudly in anger.

"Don't do this, Twilight. Just don't."

Twilight was speechless for a moment, but managed to force out two words.

"Do what?"

"This whole guilt routine. I have lived thousands of years with a similar sense of guilt, and it is only upon dying and realizing that Celestia had never once blamed me for what happened, that it occurred to me how much I could have done to help my subjects, instead of wallowing in my own pathetic self-loathing. My world needs your help, and standing around blaming yourself for events out of your understanding is NOT helping it in anyway."

"I'm sorry, Luna. It's just...difficult, I guess."

"Do not be sorry. Guilt is a healthy emotion. It shows you have a conscience. However, healthy does not always guarantee efficiency. And you need to be very efficient if you hope to best the foe which has defeated even me."

Celestia, who had remained quiet for a long time, spoke up thoughtfully.

"Despite how powerful she might be, I haven't the slightest doubt you are capable of defeating the pony who has stolen Equestria from my dear sister."

Luna nodded in agreement, still pacing across the library floor. Outside, the rain was pouring in torrents, and lightning split across the night sky, followed closely by claps of thunder, growing in volume and frequency.

"We do not have long, so I shall swiftly inform you of just who you are up against. As I was saying earlier, the Twilight Sparkle of this realm had been...defeated, by none other than you. Similarly, Nightmare Moon was also defeated when you and your friends used the Element of Harmony against her. However, something unexpected seems to have happened. Nightmare Moon is less a pony and more of a...parasite, for lack of a better word. She lives within a pony with enough negative emotions to sustain her. She is also immortal, however, immortality is not necessarily synonymous with power. Despite being presumably destroyed by the Elements of Harmony, she seems to have found a pony without enough hatred and evil to allow her to dwell within."

"Twilight Sparkle." Celestia finished. "And in many ways, Twilight Sparkle possessed by such a malevolent spirit renders her much more dangerous than my sister. You see, while Luna was indeed driven to near-insanity by her rage and jealousy, she was never at any point truly evil. My death was completely unintentional, and the guilt such an act of fratricide would induce on a pony was enough to shake Nightmare Moon from any of her true evil intentions. She had no real control of Luna's actions, however, she could manipulate them through the uttering of lies or mocking threats. But due to the nature of Luna's consciousness, Nightmare Moon could never fulfill any of her true evil desires."

A sudden clap of thunder shook the library, causing all three ponies to jump in surprise. Even more shocking was the fact that the thunder did not stop, simply dying down to a low, ever present rumbling.

"It is unsafe to stay here much longer." Luna warned. "We must end this conversation soon."

Celestia lifted a hoof, and Luna fell silent, a smug frown forming. "Luna is correct, but before we depart, there is one last thing you need to know. As I have stated, Twilight Sparkle possessed by evil renders her much more dangerous than Princess Luna. She has no guilt. She has no mercy. The only thing motivating her intentions is hatred and the desire for revenge, and she will stop at nothing to see both our Equestrias destroyed. However, in the end, she is a simple unicorn. She has gained no real powers from Nightmare Moon. Her power is derived from—"

"That is enough!" Luna shouted, her horn bursting into a sudden blinding light. "I am ending this dream now! Twilight Sparkle, we shall speak again when it is safe to do so. Good luck!"

Without waiting for consent, Luna flooded the entire room in the brilliant light, and when it dissipated, Twilight could see she was completely alone in the library again. The claps of thunder and flashes of lighting outside were coming in at ridiculous speeds, the intensity of the thunderclaps completely deafening. Twilight forced her eyes shut as she felt the entire library torn apart by the sheer force of the surreal storm.

"Wake up, Twilight!" Fluttershy was screaming, nearby explosions shaking the ground around the two mares. Twilight blinked several times, and found herself looking up into the panicked face of her friend. "Get up, Twilight! Hurry!"

Leaping to her feet, Twilight immediately noticed that her magical shield had completely disappeared, but even more concerning was the wall of fire surrounding the two mares.

"What happened?" Twilight asked, searching for someplace to teleport to through the flames.

"One of those fireballs from Ponyville set fire to the grass around us. I wasn't really concerned until the magic barrier you set up started to fade. I was trying to wake you up, but nothing was working. S...sorry I kicked you..."  

"No, I'm the one who should be sorry. It was stupid of me to stop us here. You have wings, Fluttershy, so fly to safe ground."

"I'm not leaving you here, Twilight!" Fluttershy asserted, peering at the sky above, obscured by black smoke.

"I appreciate that. But I need to know where to teleport to, which is why I need to use your voice as a reference."

"Oh, right." Fluttershy said sheepishly. "Sorry!"

With that, she unfurled her unnatural wings and tore into the sky, her form quickly disappearing into the black smoke. All around Twilight, the flames were spreading, their fiery fingers extending skywards.

"Here, Twilight!" Internally, Twilight calculated just what distance she should shoot for by how far Fluttershy had sounded. A sudden explosion followed by a loud shriek promptly interrupted her, but thankfully, Fluttershy's voice came again. "Um, never mind! Not there. Give me a second...OK, now, Twilight! Hurry!"

Before another fireball destroyed any further chance of escape, Twilight teleported to the source of Fluttershy's voice, appearing right beside her. Behind them, a wall of fire was stretching across great distances, the flames covering every foot of tall grass.

"Run!" Twilight screamed, and the two mares dashed onwards, Twilight occasionally teleporting them further.

"We...we need to regroup with Rainbow Dash and the others." Fluttershy panted.

"Where would they be?" Twilight asked.

Fluttershy nearly lost her footing as she turned around to face the smoldering remains of Ponyville in the distance. "I don't know! They were in Ponyville last time I saw them. The fire had just started in the Everfree Forest at that time..."

"They wouldn't have gone far from Ponyville." Twilight assured. "I just hope everypony got out before the fire got there."

Ahead, a wide river cut through the burning field. Without missing a step, Twilight teleported herself and Fluttershy to the other side and the two continued onwards. Fluttershy was panting heavily, and Twilight realized just how much difficulty she was having. They had been sprinting for at least a solid fifteen minutes, without stopping or even slowing.

"The river should slow the fire." Twilight called out, slowing to a light trot, Fluttershy following suit. "So, you said this fire started in the Everfree Forest, right? Well, what caused it?"  

"Did Luna tell you who rules Equestria now?" Receiving a curt nod from Twilight, Fluttershy breathed a sigh of relief. "Well, she did. She threatened to destroy all of Equestria if we did not tell her the location of the Mirror Pool. Of course, we all refused. I guess we just assumed she was bluffing, but it looks like she wasn't. All of Equestria is covered in these fires."

Twilight looked up at the night sky, and then realized with horror that it most likely wasn't night at all. The Mirror Pool did not affect time. The sun and sky had been blotted out by the black smoke billowing from the violent flames.

"I would think she would have found the Mirror Pool by now though. I mean, it wasn't THAT well hidden."

"Oh, she did find it. But it was just plain water." Fluttershy reached to her battered saddle pack and withdrew a sparkling golden necklace. Located in the middle was a beautiful crystal butterfly. Twilight recognized this immediately as the Element of Kindness. "Twilight Sparkle had been searching for the Mirror Pool quietly then. We had no idea she had even returned until she destroyed Princess Luna's castle in the Everfree Forest. We all thought Luna would be able to stop her, but even her magic wasn't enough. After killing Luna, Twilight turned on us...I guess since we're the Element Bearers."

Fluttershy carefully clipped the golden necklace around her neck, the butterfly briefly flashing pink in approval of the pony wielding it.  Twilight cursed herself for not thinking to bring her own element, but Fluttershy surprised her further by withdrawing the golden crown from her saddle-pack and pushing it across the dirt towards Twilight Sparkle.

"Wear it all the time. As long as you're wearing it, Twilight Sparkle won't be able to hurt you."

Twilight nodded, placing the crown atop her head.

"So, if Luna was killed, I guess it was her blood that re-opened the Mirror Pool." Twilight began. "So if that's the case, Twilight Sparkle should have known that the Mirror Pool was once again active."

Fluttershy brought a hoof  to her chin thoughtfully. "I suppose so. Maybe Luna placed some sort of spell on it to prevent just anypony from using it. I guess that would explain what happened to us when we were coming through it today. It must mistaken you for her and tried to keep you out."

"That...is actually a rather good point." Twilight stipulated, surprised by Fluttershy's knowledge at a type of magic she had never actually experienced, that is, unless you counted being thrown around the empty, unconstructed void between two worlds as 'experience.' "I guess you didn't try using the Elements of Harmony against.." Blushing slightly at the odd act of mentioning her own name in such a fashion, Twilight concluded it would be wise to set up a bit of clarification regarding her doppelganger. "For convenience sake, we'll call her 'Nightmare Twilight."'

Giggling softly, Fluttershy shook her head. "No, we haven't. Luna told Rainbow in one of her dreams that we shouldn't try that without all the Element Bearers."

"Alright." Twilight doodled idly into the dirt with her hoof, five distinct symbols surrounding a shining star. "This seems simple enough. We meet up, find Twi—Nightmare Twilight—and use the Elements against her. We'll be done by supper."

The two ponies sat in silence for some time, listening to the crackling of the fire behind them and watching the smoke dancing across the sky, layer upon layers of the sickening byproduct of destruction. After nearly an hour of quiet meditation, Twilight rose to her feet, lighting the dark area with her horn.

"Well, we should get moving." Adjusting the crown atop her head, Twilight Sparkle extended a hoof towards Fluttershy, helping her to her feet. "Let's go find the others and end this thing."

Reunion (III)

CHAPTER THREE

Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy trekked through the dark and dreary fields, the sole ponies in an otherwise empty world. The fires of Ponyville burned through the day and into the night, turning what was once a thriving and newly free settlement into a sorrowful epicenter of destruction. While still burning intensely, it was with slight relief that Twilight noticed them diminishing as the hours dragged on. They had circled the wall of fire over and over, still seeing no signs of Rainbow Dash or any of the other Element Bearers.

"Hello?" Fluttershy called for what must have been the twentieth time. "Where could they be, Twi?"

"I haven't the faintest idea." Twilight admitted sadly. "But we've covered every foot of ground outside of Ponyville at this point."

The terrain around Ponyville was almost completely flat, the few surviving trees standing like monoliths against an otherwise endless plain seemingly stretching into infinity. The ground under their hooves was yellowing grass, occasionally interrupted by patches of dirt or rocks. While the fires had died down enough to reveal where Ponyville had stood, the actual town was all but gone, save for a few stone walls.

"We need to keep looking!" Fluttershy said, bounding forward with a new-found sense of urgency. "We can't give up yet!"

Twilight sighed and increased her own speed in an attempt to keep up with her friend, however, when Fluttershy suddenly unfurled her wings and tore skywards, she stopped in her tracks and craned her neck to watch as Fluttershy's body was slowly obscured by clouds.

"You see anything up there?" Twilight called, squinting in a feeble attempt to catch a glimpse of Fluttershy. She waited a few seconds, but Fluttershy did not reply...which wasn't too surprising, she was probably rather far from Twilight at this point, and the clouds seemed thick enough to muffle a ponies voice. Twilight tried again.

"Fluttershy? Do you see anypony from up there?"

No answer. The only sound other than her own breathing was the wind howling across the lonely plains. Panic slowly began to set in as Twilight waited for a reply, every second seeming like an eternity. She should at least have been able to catch a glimpse of Fluttershy's form in the swirling clouds, but she saw nothing. Twilight was preparing to shout out loudly when the sound of movement behind her made her whip around, her magic sparking to life in an instant.

Touching down onto the ground was Fluttershy, wearing an expression of sheer terror. Her wings were unfurled defensively, and her eyes darted from Twilight's own confused face to the sky above. Twilight took a step closer to her friend, who backed off in fright.

"Fluttershy...what's--"

"Shh!" Fluttershy hissed suddenly, staring at the sky in fear, every muscle in her body visibly tensing.

"What's going on?" Twilight said, as quietly as she could. "Did you see them?"

Fluttershy shook her head in a frenzy, her mane already becoming disheveled as she attempted to control herself. Darting around, Fluttershy took in every direction, internally weighing the consequences of fleeing in every one of them.

"Please tell me what's happening!" Twilight begged, accidentally raising her voice slightly, much to Fluttershy's dismay.

"He's coming!" Fluttershy whispered urgently. "He's coming for me!"

"Who?!" Twilight nearly screamed, before catching herself.

"D...dragon..." Fluttershy simply whispered in reply, pointing a trembling hoof at the clouds above. Twilight squinted her eyes, but saw nothing. But she was not about to doubt what Fluttershy had seen.  "Nightmare T...Twilight's dragon..."

"Perfect. She has a dragon. She's an ultimately powerful, hatred infused alicorn hell-bent on destroying BOTH Equestria's,  who has a dragon at her disposal for good measure. And it's minutes away." Twilight huffed, pacing back and forth. There were no trees around them, no vegetation to offer any cover, and provided they could somehow survive the fire, Ponyville was still a solid mile away. They would not possibly reach it before the dragon arrived.

"I...I'm scared, Twilight..." Fluttershy breathed.

"Yes, thank you! I gathered!" Twilight snapped, throwing her hooves in the air. "I am too!"  

Rising over the howling of the wind, the dragons wing-beats gradually grew in volume, starting as a light thumping, but crescendoing into a heavy, thunder-like crashing.  

"I've got it!" Twilight said excitedly, quickly activating her magic and casting it first on herself and then Fluttershy.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy moaned as the unicorn in front of her suddenly vanished, the clouds above them swirling wildly as the dragon approached. "Don't leave me! Where did you go?!"

"Don't worry, I'm right here." Twilight's voice rung out, but she was nowhere to be seen. "This might feel a bit weird. Look at your hooves and you'll understand what I mean."

Fluttershy obeyed without objection, but when she glanced at her hooves, she was shocked to see them replaced with empty air. Glancing behind her, she let out a quiet squeak when she realized her entire body was completely gone.

"Invisibility spell." Twilight's voice explained. "Not permanent, but it isn't going to last a lot longer than a few minutes, either."

"You did it!" Fluttershy said happily, her voice quavering slightly.

"Not yet I haven't." A line suddenly appeared in the dirt, being drawn by a hoof that was not there. Two more lines joined it, forming a crude arrow in the dirt. "You see this arrow? If the dragon stops near us, we'll run in this direction. But I don't think we should make any noise until we're sure he knows where we are."  

Fluttershy whispered a barely audibly "Okay," and looked on at the sky in fearful anticipation.

With a deafening roar, the clouds above suddenly burst open as the dragon came soaring through, lowering his altitude until he was soaring a mere twenty feet off of the ground. His immense body was covered in light purple scales, which sparkled in the newly exposed moonlight. His fearsome skull was lined with tall, sharp green spikes, which stretched on down his spine and onto his tail.

Even in this form, Twilight recognized who this dragon was all too well. Never in her life did she imagine her loyal assistant and close friend could ever be so terrifying, but here he was in all his fully grown entirety.

"Oh, Spike..." Twilight lamented internally, memories of his unstoppable determination to please everypony around him disappearing to make way for this twisted parody.

Spike soared through the air, his cold eyes scanning the ground underneath him for signs of life. At least twice they came to rest where Twilight and Fluttershy were standing, but he did not once regard the spot with any more interest.

Extending his rear legs, Spike flew over Ponyville, destroying the remainder of the town in one fell swoop, the ground churning underneath his razor sharp claws. Bits of dirt and stone flew into the air, one building still locked in the dragons talons as he gained altitude swiftly, recovering from his kamikaze. Anypony who somehow survived the fire was now most certainly dead.

The sound of his wing-beats grew dimmer, and Twilight allowed herself the luxury of air, realizing just then that she'd been holding her breath.

"Are you alright, Fluttershy?" She whispered, praying to Celestia that Fluttershy had not run off in fright.

"Yeah...did you see that? He just--"

Fluttershy's sentence was cut off by a loud explosion directly behind them, and both mares whipped around to face the sound. Dust swirled around a small crater in the ground, and as it cleared, it became recognizable as the building Spike had taken with him into the air. Twilight was quite surprised to see how undamaged the building ultimately was, with the exception of its straw-roof, which had been lost long ago to the flames. Its long, slender stone frame lay on its side, some portions visibly collapsed, while others looked almost untouched. The building looked like some sort of guard tower or cathedral spire...either way, it was something Twilight had never seen in either Equestria. It must have been constructed in the brief months of Princess Luna's reign.

"Umm...Twilight? I think we have a problem." Fluttershy said, obviously trying her hardest to keep the terror out of her voice.

"What's wrong?" Twilight asked, glancing behind her to see Fluttershy examining her hooves and instantly realizing. "The invisibility spell has worn off!"

"Yeah...on you, too."

"Spike could be coming back any minute now. We need to get to cover."

Fluttershy raised an eyebrow at Twilight and motioned upwards at the clouds. "You...named him?"

"Right. You don't know Spike. Never mind." With that, Twilight turned abruptly and started sprinting towards the stone tower, glancing backwards to make sure Fluttershy was following her. As the mares ran, Fluttershy perked one of her ears up as they picked up a familiar drumming sound. Listening as best as she could over the sound of her hoof-beats, Fluttershy lost her footing and came crashing to the ground as she tensed up in fear, the source of the noise instantly becoming perfectly clear.

"Oh for Celestia's sake...." Twilight muttered, skidding to a halt. "I hear him too, Fluttershy! We need to go!"

"I'm so scared, Twilight...I'm so, so scared."

"It's going to be fine, Fluttershy, I promise. As long as we get to the tower, everything is going to be fine."

Fluttershy scrambled to her feet, tears streaking down her face as she continued to run.

"Please, Celestia...Luna...anypony, please..." She continued to whisper, her panicked prayers reaching only the ears of the purple unicorn sprinting next to her.

The tower was only a few feet in front of them now, and Twilight noticed that what she assumed was darkness from a distance was actually the floor of the building, miraculously still fully in place. With a quick flash, the two ponies teleported through the stone and onto the wall-turned-floor within.

Panting and sobbing, Fluttershy collapsed to the ground, trying her best to keep the volume of her sorrowful crying as low as possible.

"It's alright..." Twilight offered gently, sitting down next to her. "I know how much you hate dragons. We'll be safe in here."

"Unless...he picks the tower up again..." Fluttershy managed between sobs.

"You can fly. You'll be fine."

"You won't be."

Twilight sighed and rose to her feet, using her magic to illuminate the dark interior of the fallen tower.

"Worry about yourself for a change, Fluttershy." Twilight said, grinning supportively. "All you've done so far is worry about me, and I appreciate it very much, but I'm not any more important than you."

"I'm the reason why you're here." Fluttershy replied, sniffling.

"Yeah?" Twilight countered. "Good! I'm glad I'm here to help. And stop talking like we're about to die, because I am NOT going to let that happen."

Fluttershy sniffled one final time and attempted a weak smile. "Thank you. I'm sorry I panicked like that."

"Don't be. Any sane pony would have done the same.''

Outside, the muffled sound of Spike's heavy wing-beats continued, as the dragon continuously scanned the earth for signs of life. After almost fifteen minutes, the wing-beats finally began to grow dimmer, until the tower was once again veiled by silence. As they lay listening, a light pattering joined the serenity, a few distant thunder rolls signalling an oncoming storm.

"I'm going to talk to Luna." Twilight stated, and Fluttershy nodded.

"That's a good idea. Maybe she knows where Dashie is."

"Exactly. If anything goes wrong, or if you need me for ANYTHING, wake me up immediately."

Fluttershy agreed quietly, not bothering to remind Twilight that she had attempted to do that exact thing in the past and failed.

"I won't be long..." Twilight said, closing her eyes and waiting for sleep to overtake her.

"How goes the night?" Princess Luna greeted as she faced the purple unicorn in front of her, once again in the comfort of the long-since destroyed Ponyville Library. Celestia stood beside her sister, wearing a solemn expression.

Twilight Sparkle blinked several times in confusion, before remembering exactly where she was and why she was here.

"..Dream, right?" Luna responded with a simple nod, and Twilight continued. "Well, I guess my night could have gone a bit better."

"Indeed, I would think the realm of reality would be quite unforgiving under its new...dictatorship."

Celestia flinched at that final word, but still said nothing.

"I would hardly call it that." Twilight replied. "She has no intention of ruling Equestria at all. She's destroying it. Where in Equestria did she get this much power?"

Luna projected three images into the air using her magic, three objects suspended in the air.  They were all tinted in a magical blue aura, but nevertheless Twilight could easily decipher the forms of a red and gold amulet, in the shape of some vicious avian monster, a dark brown book clothed in sharp spikes, and a sparkling blue crystal in the shape of a heart.

"The objects you see in front of you are some of the most dangerous magical artifacts known to ponykind. The Alicorn Amulet, the Tome of Manifestation, and the Crystal Heart. Perhaps you know of them?"

Twilight took a step forward, extending a hoof and taking one of the holograms from its hovering berth.

"You could say that, yeah." Twilight muttered,  turning the shining heart over and over in her hooves. "This one is familiar for sure...but I never thought it could be dangerous...isn't its role to defend the Crystal Empire?"

"Yes." Luna explained. "However, its defensive powers are not limited there. A unicorn with enough magical ability should be able to successfully alter this artifact so that it defends them from mortal assault. It appears as if Twilight Sparkle has done just that. Any unicorn's magic is completely useless against her."

"So what do we do?" Twilight asked, letting go of the heart and allowing it to float back into the air. Their purpose served, the magical artifacts simultaneously exploded into a cloud of blue smoke.

A long period of silence followed, with both Twilight and Celestia looking expectantly at Luna for her to say something. With a great sigh, Luna took a step forward, looking down at the small unicorn in front of her.

"I'm sorry, Twilight. I'm so, so sorry. I did not want for this to happen. Just when I thought I would not have to make such taxing choices, just when I thought I no longer had to choose between the life and death of my subjects..."

Celestia perked an ear at this, take a step forward herself.

"What do you mean, Luna?" She asked cautiously, glancing from her sister to Twilight Sparkle, finally breaking her silence.

"Celestia...you have forgiven me for a great deal of terrible misdeeds in my time. I owe it to you to at least be honest with my plans. My true reasons for bringing Twilight Sparkle here."

"T...true reasons?" Twilight said nervously.

"The evil Twilight Sparkle of this realm will stop at nothing to fulfill her desires, yes? We have already agreed on this?" Luna was facing Twilight directly now, almost refusing to allow her gaze to wander to her sister. "Do you know what her desires truly are?"

"To kill me...to get revenge on me for killing her, and Nightmare Moon."

"Yes." Luna simply stated. "She will not stop until you are dead. She will tear both our worlds apart until she sees this done. I did not want to make the choice I did, but in the end I saw no other option. Please understand...I was thinking about the greater good of both our worlds."

"This is wrong..." Celestia whispered.

Twilight looked at Celestia in confusion, still not quite understanding what she was supposed to do.  "What's wrong? Luna, what do you want me to do?"

"I'm sorry, Twilight." Luna said stoically. "Twilight Sparkle wishes for you to be dead...and by bringing you here, I intend to allow her to fulfill that wish."

Celestia stomped the ground fiercely, the entire library shaking. "So you have led her like a lamb to the slaughter! After all she has done to help this Equestria, you intend to sacrifice her like she is nothing! This is murder!"

Whipping around furiously, Celestia stomped to the other end of the library.

"Celestia...surely you under—"

"I have nothing more to say to you, Luna. Nothing." With that, Celestia vanished in a burst of light.  

"Please forgive me, Twilight Sparkle. Surely you realize that this is the only solution?"

"Except it isn't!" Twilight cried in frustration. "I don't have to die! The Elements of Harmony, remember? All we need to know is where Rainbow Dash, Pinkie Pie, Apple—"

"I can tell you." Luna interjected. "Although I can guarantee it is not an answer you would like to hear."

"Tell me." Twilight muttered, refusing to look at Luna and instead staring at her own hooves.

"They are...your friends are dead. They have been for some time." Luna's voice was sorrowful and apologetic, but Twilight found it infuriating all the same.

"Your lying! Fluttershy said they were in Ponyville, and they sent her to get me through the Mirror Pool!"

"I lied to Fluttershy, too. I told her that her friends were still alive and well so that she would not refuse to help me in her sorrow. She dwells beyond the town limits of Ponyville, and she escaped Nightmare Twilight's initial massacre."

"But...but, the Elements of Harmony! They would have protected them!"

"No. They wouldn't have. Not without all the bearers present."

Twilight Sparkle sank to the ground hopelessly.  "This can't be happening...this isn't happening...There's got to be another way."

"I'm open to suggestions." Luna said. "But I fear every second we waste brings us closer and closer to total destruction. It's a miracle we even have an Equestria still standing.

"My friends from the other side. I can go get them, we can use the Elements of Harmony on Nightmare Twilight!"

"If you seriously think you can make it past Nightmare Twilight and her dragon. You think she doesn't know you're here?" Luna asked, sitting next to Twilight in a feeble attempt to comfort her.  

"What about my friends...my other ones, I mean. They're never even going to know what happened to me..." Twilight sniffled several times, and Luna offered a comforting hoof, which Twilight promptly pushed away, rising to her feet and closing her eyes.

"I'm waking up now." She declared angrily. "Celestia was wrong about you earlier. You and Nightmare Moon really are the same pony, aren't you?"

With that, Twilight allowed the world around her to collapse as she returned to the realm of the living.

To The Slaughter (IV)

CHAPTER FOUR

When Luna finally found her sister, the moon was dipping over the underworld's night sky. Celestia stood gazing across the land from a marble balcony, the wind blowing her mane majestically behind her.

"I have been searching for you, Celestia..." Luna began nervously, stepping beside her sister.

"Perhaps not hard enough. I have not been hiding."

"You have been ignoring me...and I do not blame you. I am truly sorry for what must become of Twilight Sparkle."

Celestia continued to stare straight ahead, refusing to acknowledge Luna's guilty face.

"Those are words, Luna, with no actual merit to them, because words cannot possibly justify what you have done."

"I know." Luna murmured, wishing in vain that Celestia would at least look at her. It was times like these that the loving gaze of her sister was the only thing that could possibly help the former Princess of the Night through whatever trial she was going through. "I did what had to be done...or, at least...what I thought had to be done..."

"You thought wrong. What possibly possessed you to think that murder was the solution?"

Following Celestia's gaze, Luna stared at the setting moon, uncontrolled by alicorn magic and instead descending by itself, pulled by a magic even the Royal Sisters did not quite comprehend.

"Your rule over Equestria were the brightest, happiest days known to ponykind. Peace and tranquility ruled alongside you...."

Celestia scoffed loudly. "Alongside us."

"This peace is all you have know, Celestia. You have never had to reign over what I have."

"Whose fault is that?" Celestia said bitterly, looking down at her hooves. "I am shocked that you are still trying to justify what you have done."

"A single pony life is a small price to pay for the protection of two entire worlds." Luna replied steadily. "If only I'd have known she'd risen again, I could have prevented all this. What a lapse of ignorance on my part."

"Well, I at least can disagree with that." Celestia said. "By all means she should have stayed dead. It defies all logic."

"Bested by my former student." Luna mused. "My power has dropped considerably since my days as Nightmare Moon. While I'm thankful the Elements freed me from her grasp, the damage they have inflicted on me is most troublesome."

"The Elements of Harmony might be successful in restoring peace, but they bear no mercy to their targets. If only they answered to you and not its six new bearers, that pain might have been inflicted on a mare who deserved it." Celestia muttered in anger and a sort of bitter helplessness. Try as she might, nothing Luna had done had brought the Elements to her aid, instead they answered to an Element of Magic who had long returned to her own realm and thus was incapable of wielding them for good. Had they mistaken Nightmare Twilight for their old bearer, or was her pure evil energy enough to override their nature as they did with Luna a thousand years ago?

"I fear her malicious intentions may be driven by a greater form of insanity." Celestia eventually said.

"As do I." Luna admitted. "But what other choice did I have but to comply with her demands and hope to all that is sacred she kept to her terms?"

"A wild assumption."

"And without the Elements of Harmony, and every inch of Equestria burning, it's the only hope we have left."

Fluttershy jumped up in delight when she saw Twilight Sparkle's eyes slowly open, signalling the end of her communicative slumber.

"You're awake! Thank goodness!" Fluttershy blushed slightly, as Twilight rose slowly to her feet, allowing her eyes to adjust to the almost complete darkness within the tower. "I was...I was scared you wouldn't...like last time."

"Fluttershy..." Twilight mouthed, the words coming out at a much lower volume then she intended.

"Is something wrong, Twilight?" Instantly concerned, Fluttershy took a step forward, her eyes bright with care and compassion.

As Twilight contemplated that heartbreaking expression, she weighed the consequences of telling Fluttershy just what had really happened, and what she ultimately had to do. Her whole life, Fluttershy had known nothing but darkness and oppression, and yet she somehow got by based on the little hope ponies like Twilight Sparkle could offer. And now, she had to look into this poor ponies eyes and tell her that there was no hope anymore, that everypony who ever mattered to her was either dead or would have to die, and there was nothing left except whatever Nightmare Twilight decided for the world she cared not for.

"Fluttershy..." Twilight repeated, feeling her throat dry up, fighting desperately to force the words out. "I'm...I have to..."

"FLUTTERSHY OF PONYVILLE!" A voice suddenly roared from outside the tower, so alien and yet so familiar. Fluttershy jumped up immediately, as did Twilight, as she was confronted by a massively amplified, twisted version of her own voice.

"It's Nightmare Twilight!" Fluttershy whispered frantically, every muscle in her body shaking in fear.

"Of all the ponies in Equestria..." Nightmare Twilight continued. "I would NEVER have expected YOU to be the last light to go out."

Twilight Sparkle looked on helplessly as Fluttershy's eyes grew wide with shock. Outside, Nightmare Twilight continued her merciless vocal assault.

"It truly is poetic justice, I suppose, that Luna's little magical mistake is the last surviving pony of all the Elements of Harmony!" Nightmare Twilight cackled viciously, her laughs echoing across the empty fields for miles. "You shall serve as one last reminder of just how pathetic the reign of the royal Princesses truly was."

Fluttershy spread her wings, looking at them with guilt, seeing herself as the freak her friends had tried to convince her she wasn't.

"Fluttershy, I'm going to take care of this, alright? Everything is going to be fine...just..." Twilight Sparkle paused, making sure Nightmare Twilight could not see them within the tower. "You need to get to the Mirror Pool no matter what, alright? Don't worry about me."

Fluttershy's eyes grew wide, and she instinctively grabbed Twilight in a sorrowful final embrace.

"No! Don't go out there! She'll kill you!"

"Fluttershy!" Twilight begged. "Just listen to me, alright? I promise everything will be fine."

Twilight had never been a good liar, and she knew Fluttershy could see it. Crying as quietly as she possibly could, Fluttershy squeezed her last surviving friend harder.

"Please don't go.." She wept.

"I have to. I'm sorry...you need to make it to the Mirror Pool as soon as  you can. Goodbye."

Without giving Fluttershy any longer to object, Twilight teleported out of the tower and into the wide open field. Directly ahead of where she had teleported, Nightmare Twilight stood tall and proud, still laughing furiously, although she halted as soon as her feeble unicorn counterpart appeared in front of her. Nightmare Twilight's mane was a dark hue of purple and red, which sparkled like stardust and blew wildly, as if being guided by a hurricane wind affecting only her. Her wings were unfurled and jet-black like the rest of her slender body, and she easily dwarfed Twilight Sparkle in size.

"Well well well..." Nightmare Twilight began, successfully hiding the undignified surprise from her voice. "And here I was expecting a mere pegasus...I have quite literally torn this world apart looking for you, Twilight Sparkle."

"How disappointing, then, that I'm turning myself in. Looks like you wasted your time."  

"Your words suggest you do not fear death..." The third princess proclaimed. "And yet your tone leads me to believe you are utterly terrified."

"Think what you want. I'm not scared of you." Twilight gulped and narrowed her gaze, feeling all the hatred and anger flow from her heart and into her fiery glare. "Kill me and get it over with, if that's what you want."

To Twilight's surprise, Nightmare Twilight simply responded with more laughter.

"Correction!" She screamed, soaring into the air triumphantly. "That is what YOU want! To die as a hero! Because, by your 'Sweet Celestia,' that is what you see yourself as!"

Confused, but still infuriated, Twilight Sparkle simply watched, as her evil counterpart came back to earth, the ground beneath her trembling as she landed.

"Yes. You see yourself as a hero." The Third Princess continued. "And you choose to be blissfully unaware of what you truly are. A murderer. You see yourself dying honorably, in one final, loyal sacrifice to save this world. Am I not correct?"

Twilight refused to satisfy her with a response, but she knew that any denial on her part would be a lie.

"I know you quite well, Twilight Sparkle, even if this is only our second encounter. I know how much you rely on helping everypony, saving them from the forces you deem are evil. So then you must ask yourself; why would I grace you with the luxury of a heroic death? After all, killing you will NEVER bring back my Equestria...or my great and wise mentor. It would simply end your life quickly and painlessly." Nightmare Twilight formed a vicious smile, revealing sharp, fang like teeth. "No. You do not deserve that at all. You deserve much worse."

Nightmare Twilight began pacing towards her adversary, and it took the best of Twilight's courage to not back away. Soon, the two were facing each other, the tiny unicorn staring into the cold, merciless eyes of the alicorn towering above her.

"I intend to destroy this world, and kill everypony in it. That much was always a given. And you shall watch, you and your pathetic pegasus friend, staring on as all of Equestria burns...as every single pony life burns away with it." Nightmare Twilight's grin intensified, and she brought a hoof to Twilight's neck, before lifting the unicorn into the air. Twilight fought for breath, while trying her best to avoid Nightmare Twilight's icy glare of hatred. "You will not die as a hero, but as a worthless waste of life who failed to save so many others."

With a simple, careless swipe of her hoof, Twilight was sent flying, colliding hard against the cold stone tower. A sharp snapping sound followed, but it was with relief that she noticed it was not her back. As she tried to bring herself to her feet, she felt an intense pain in her right forehoof, and came crashing back to the ground.

"Goodbye, my little pony." Nightmare Twilight sneered, unfurling her wings and returning to the air, her horn glowing with magic.

"Please..." Twilight croaked, coughing up blood. "Nightmare Moon wouldn't want this. She loved her subjects"

Nightmare Twilight landed in front of her injured enemy, looking down at the fallen unicorn with an expression of complete satisfaction. She had waited a very long time for this moment to arrive, and she was amazed by how perfectly it had all turned out.

"You may have heard..." She cooed softly, her words distinctly familiar. "Nightmare Moon isn't around."

Satisfied with her victim's fate, Nightmare Twilight tore back into the sky, hovering miles above the earth. She raised both her forehooves into the air triumphantly, her horn glowing with magic of a murky, purplish hue. In an instant, all the stars in the sky had vanished, the sun and moon following. Still, Equestria was illuminated by sunlight, and Twilight remembered something Celestia had once told her, about how the sunlight she felt had taken several minutes just to reach her. The sky empty, Nightmare Twilight turned her magic on the world beneath her. The ground shifted, trees falling over and soil spreading upwards in a thick grey cloud. A brilliant flash exploded from Nightmare Twilight's horn, the purple light darting through the sky in both directions, illuminating all of Equestria for a brief second. Unbeknownst to Twilight Sparkle, a wave of literal nothingness tore across the land, starting from some point far in the distance and spreading away in both distances. Buildings, wildlife, and ponies alike were all consumed by the black wave, disappearing into oblivion.

Her work apparently completed, Nightmare Twilight ceased the flow of her magic, and began flying at a great speed away, before exploding into light herself. When the blinding light had dimmed, Twilight Sparkle saw that the alicorn was gone, leaving behind her thousands of years of history and millions of innocent pony lives, mothers and fathers comforting their fillies and colts while the black wave approached.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy cried out, landing in front of her friend and immediately assessing the damage. "Are you all right?"

"Broken hoof, and broken rib, I think." Twilight said, her voice a raspy gasp. "She did it...Equestria is ending...I failed..."

Fluttershy looked to the horizon, the tops of distant burning trees still visible. The wave had not yet reached their side of the world. "We..we need to get to the Mirror Pool then. We'll think of a way to fix this where we're safe."

"Go!" Twilight screamed, wincing in pain. "Look at me, Fluttershy. I'm not making it anywhere. Go while you can!"

"I'm not going, Twilight. Come on, get up...please, get up!" Fluttershy was knelling in front of Twilight Sparkle, helping her to stand, while trying her best to avoid touching her broken hoof.

Standing on three wobbling legs, Twilight Sparkle looked from the grim expression of the pegasus next to her, to the black wave now tearing over the trees of the Everfree Forest, consuming the Mirror Pool and by extension, any further hope for escape. Beyond the wave lay absolutely nothing, simply an ocean of black, with the world apparently dropping off into this void as if it had always been this way. The black wave was spreading towards them at great speeds, the end of the final two ponies less than a minute away.

A Recurring Night (V)

CHAPTER FIVE

Twilight watched helplessly as the end of Equestria came bounding towards her, engulfing everything in its all destructive wave. The pony who always had a plan, always thought things through, and would always do anything in her power to help those around her, simply watched through watering eyes as the world crumbled around her.

"O...okay, so, no Mirror Pool..." Fluttershy was saying, trying not to panic. "Now what, Twilight?"

"I don't know."

"You always know! You always get us out of situations like this!"

"Not this time." Twilight said bluntly, taking a few weak steps forward, facing the destruction ripping towards her, closing her eyes in anticipation for the wave that would overtake her in a minute's time."There's no way out of this one, Fluttershy. I'm sorry."

"But..." Fluttershy was stuttering, but somehow still not crying. Twilight hoped that she would never get the chance, it would be a shame for her final moments to be spent in sorrow. "What about Nightmare Twilight?"

"What do you mean?" Twilight said, bitterly. She could not exactly tell why, but in that moment, she wanted to yell at Fluttershy...to express her anger and guilt to the only pony around her. Every word that Fluttershy spoke only infuriated her more.

"I mean...she disappeared, right? Well, where did she go?" Fluttershy pointed in the distance to where Nightmare Twilight had flown off. "There HAS to be a way out."

Twilight sighed and looked where Fluttershy was pointed. At first glance, it was just an ordinary patch of starless sky, a point hanging above earth that would soon be gone. But the more she focused, the more she could swear there was something else there, an imperfection in the skin of the sky...a tiny lavender fissure in the lifeless sea of black.

"Oh, Celestia!" Twilight screamed, forgetting about her broken rib and wincing. "Fluttershy, you genius! Let's go!"

Twilight darted forward, running as swiftly as she could; a hideously uncoordinated, three legged limp. Fluttershy was beside her in an instant, offering to help her run. Behind them, the black wave was approaching, only a mile or two from Ponyville, and several from the stone tower they had left behind. Ahead, the fissure hung over the sky, but there was another black wave coming at them from that side as well.

"I can teleport further if its just me!" Twilight screamed, ignoring the pain in her chest. "You keep flying on ahead! This is our last chance!"  

Fluttershy obeyed without question, leaving Twilight behind and becoming airborne. She flapped her bat-wings furiously, and in a few seconds she had left Twilight behind. As she flew, she cast a quick glimpse backwards, and screamed frantically back at Twilight.

"Ponyville is gone! The wave is...its at least three miles away from us, and closing fast!"  

Twilight suddenly disappeared from her sight, and a loud bang in front of her alerted of Twilight's first teleportation. Twilight was limping with a pain-filled scowl, trying her best not to pass out and allow herself to be overtaken by the quickly approaching limbo. With surprise, she noted that the wave was making noise, a barely audible humming noise, like hooves on a wine glass. If it weren't the siren for incoming death, it would have sounded quite beautiful. The sound grew in intensity, in both volume and pitch, until Twilight was sure it was directly behind her. Teleporting again, she allowed herself a quick glance backwards and realized that it, in fact, was.

"We're almost there, Fluttershy!"  

And, indeed, they were, the fissure lay above them, easily within teleporting range, if she could only clear the gap to the spot directly beneath it. The wave was converging closely from both sides, the entirety of Equestria now consisting of a small space of less than two square miles.

"Now, Fluttershy! Here we go!"

Twilight charged her magic as she ran, trying not to be distracted by the drop off into nothing only a few feet behind her. As the world finally came to an end, Twilight teleported herself and Fluttershy upwards, directly through the fissure. In an instant, the fissure itself disappeared, and Equestria was nothing more than a distant memory that no pony lived to speak of.

Princess Celestia flung the large double doors in front of her open with her magic, satisfied by the loud slam that echoed through the ethereal castle. Luna sat slouched on her throne, spinning a globe idly with her magic. She did not bother to look up when she heard Celestia enter.

"There she is...the beloved Princess Luna!" Celestia bellowed, her furious voice finally earning a glance from the Princess of the Night. "How does it feel to know that you have brought about the destruction of an entire world?"

"I never would have imagined she would have gone to such lengths. What motivation could she possibly have for her actions?"

"I assume you mean Twilight Sparkle."

"Who else?" Luna threw her hooves up in the air, and the globe fell from her magical grasp and hit the ground with a resolute slam. "Why would she do this? My protegee as Nightmare Moon...I could have sworn I taught her better."

"Apparently not." Celestia irritably replied, turning away. "I suppose this is it then. We've failed to save Equestria."

"I wouldn't be so sure." Luna said, her voice neither one of defeat, nor optimism. "The Element of Kindness isn't here. Nor is Twilight Sparkle."

"They escaped?!" Celestia started, her eyes wide in surprise as she whipped back around. "How?"

Immediately after escaping the end of the world, Twilight Sparkle and Fluttershy were greeted to the sensation of falling. Her mind still buzzing furiously, it took Twilight a moment to realize that she was falling, from quite a significant height. Beneath her, the ground was approaching rapidly, the hard dirt speeding towards her looking far from welcoming. Moments before impact, Twilight felt a hoof grab her own, and she and Fluttershy both lay on the dirt softly. Fluttershy was breathing heavily, her wings drooping against her shaking body.

"I...I've never flown that fast before..." She muttered, exhausted. "Are you alright? I didn't hurt you?"

"Of course you didn't." Twilight replied, bringing herself into a more comfortable sitting position, cradling her left hoof as if it were a newborn filly. "Thank you for catching me. That could had been a lot worse."

"What was going on there, Twi?" Fluttershy panted.

"Umm...well, that was the end of the world."

"Oh...my."

"Yeah."

Fluttershy looked into the night sky, her eyes wide, looking utterly bewildered. "So, where are we now then?"

"Not sure...I think...maybe this is my Equestria?"  

It looked somewhat like Equestria, although it was much colder and there was significantly less life. The few trees were leafless, their spider-like branches stretching into a starry sky. Around them, the same desolate field stretched for miles, but unlike before, the field was dirt instead of grass, and the freezing night air directly contrasted the balmy heat of the flames. Suddenly, Fluttershy noticed something on the horizon and pointed, her voice an excited shrill.

"It's Ponyville! I know where we are!" Ponyville was sprawled at the tip of her hoof, divided from them by several miles and tall electric fence. Two guard towers were stationed on either side of the town, one facing the distant Canterlot mountains, and the other the dark woods of the Everfree Forest.

"I do, too..." Twilight said. "This is Nightmare Moon's time, right?"  

Fluttershy let out an overjoyed giggle. "I never would have thought I'd be happy to be back here!"

"I wouldn't get your hopes up yet..." Twilight warned. "This could just be a little reflection Nightmare Twilight left behind. Its probably not even an actual place, and more of a psychological echo."

Twilight laid down onto her back, taking care not to touch her broken hoof. Fluttershy was pacing back and forth, obviously still bursting with questions, but trying her best to avoid bombarding Twilight with them. Eventually, she lost the incentive to hold back.

"What Nightmare Twilight said back there, about me being the last of the Elements...what does that mean?"

Twilight winced, wishing in vain that Fluttershy could have asked any other question. She deserved to know the truth, even if Twilight knew she most likely could not handle it.

"Well, maybe you should sit down. Its...its quite a bit to take in."

"O...okay."

When she was seated comfortably across from her, Twilight sat up herself. Fluttershy's expression shifted from extreme confusion to bitter anticipation as she looked into the sorrowful face of her friend.

"She meant the Elements of Harmony...you, Rainbow, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack. And me, I guess." Twilight closed her eyes, not wanting to see Fluttershy's reaction to her next words. "They're dead, Fluttershy."

"No." Fluttershy denied, and Twilight opened her eyes to see her shaking her head. "No they aren't. Luna would have told me."

"She...she lied to you."

"She wouldn't do that!" Fluttershy said angrily, rising to her feet. "Why would she?"

"I'm so sorry. Nightmare Twilight killed them when she attacked Ponyville. Luna didn't want you to loose hope, so she lied."

"No." Fluttershy repeated, whispering the word again and again to herself.

"I know. I know how you feel. But if this really is Nightmare Moon's Equestria...we might just have a second chance. We might be able to change all this around." Twilight rose to her feet, doing her best to ignore the pain, and stepped beside Fluttershy. "We can't focus on what happened back there, alright? It won't help."

"You...you really think we went back in time?"

"I really hope we did."

"Why would Nightmare Twilight leave that crack open then?"

"She probably doesn't know she did. I guess she just assumed it would close by itself. Anyway, she couldn't have closed it. Look." Twilight pointed upwards where they had fallen, where the sky was empty of any perfection. "It's only on one side. Which means we can't go back. Not that there's anything to go back to."

Fluttershy nodded in somber agreement, shuddering as she recalled the hectic final dash away from the end of the world.

A dim light illuminated a small radius around the two ponies as Twilight began casting magic on herself. She grimaced as she felt the rib inside of her shifting, and Fluttershy looked on with pity. Within seconds, Twilight was breathing hard, resisting the urge to cry out in pain. Ponyville was some distance away, but she still did not wish to draw attention towards their presence. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed her good hoof into the ground hard. After nearly a minute of pain, Twilight gasped in relief as she felt the broken bone finally return to normal. She repeated the process with her hoof, and thankfully it took much less time to heal.

"That...that wasn't very fun..." Twilight admitted as she sat up. Fluttershy quickly rushed to her side, bringing a hoof to Twilight's broken one but hesitating.

"Go ahead." Twilight assured her. Fluttershy poked the hoof lightly, and smiled when Twilight did not wince in pain.

"You're really good with magic." She laughed, and Twilight blushed.

"Nah. It wasn't that bad. Basic healing magic."

Standing now, Twilight brought her formerly broken hoof back onto the ground, slowly adding more and more pressure to it, until she was standing normally. While it wasn't completely painless, it was certainly better than what it had been before. She walked back and forth a few times to make sure she would be able to run if they were in a dangerous situation, and then turned to face Ponyville in the distance. Fluttershy stood beside her, and the two mares stood staring at the town in the distance, flickering candle lights the only other source of luminance other than the majestic moon and stars above them.  As they stood staring, a sudden, loud shrieking split into the night, and they both jumped up in fright. Fluttershy seemed to recognize the noise immediately.

"The Ponyville sirens! Have they seen us?"

After watching for a long time, they failed to see anypony actually leave Ponyville, but it looked like there was quite the commotion within. Whatever the reason for the siren was, it was not them. With nothing else to go on, the two mares began trotting towards the town, both remembering the dangerous dystopian settlement that lied ahead.

Ponyville (VI)

CHAPTER SIX

The sprawl of Ponyville lay in front of the two nervous mares, both standing outside the town and casting each other nervous glances.

"I don't think we should get any closer until we have a plan." Twilight whispered, ushering towards a small, somehow still living shrub. The two ponies ducked underneath it, a weak hiding place, but one nonetheless.

"Now then." Twilight continued. "This should be really familiar to you, right Fluttershy?"

"Yeah. Well, I mean, its not a lot to get used to..."

"That...is sort of what I feared. So you have no idea what year this is? Month?"

"Every single day looks exactly the same here, Twilight. It all sort of blurs into one after awhile."

Twilight peaked out from behind the shrub, examining Ponyville. The town looked quite similar to the last time she had seen it...in fact, it looked exactly the same as when she had first wandered into it so long ago. The same ramshackle buildings and decrepit alleyways plagued the town, with a dangerous looking electric fence encasing it all like an exhibition at a zoo. The only building that looked like it wasn't about to collapse was the large brick building towering above everything else, but Twilight knew that within that building lay the hideously inhumane excuse for a prison that she had first met Fluttershy in. The thought of Fluttershy's malnourished and crippled form still sent shivers of disgust and anger down Twilight's spine. She would never have wished such a state of abuse on anypony, much less any of her friends.

"Okay...Forget knowing what year it is. Listen up." Twilight turned back to the nervous pegasus, narrowing her eyes to illustrate just how important her next instructions were. "We're time travelers now. Anything and everything we say and do is going to affect Equestria in the future. We're here to make sure it is affected in the good way, but this also means not interfering with things that are supposed to happen, alright?"

"I...I don't really follow..." Fluttershy said, scratching her head. "How do we know what is and isn't supposed to happen?"

"Well...we're just going to have to assume, I guess. Something tells me Nightmare Twilight doesn't care too much about covering her tracks. She's here for a reason, and its our job to make sure she does not fulfill it." Twilight cast a quick glance back where they had come, realizing how much of a miracle it was that they had not been sighted by the guards as they crossed the plains. "Speaking of Nightmare Twilight...she thinks we're both dead...but if she finds out we're both alive, she will NOT hesitate to kill us. She won't even think twice about it. Heck, I think even Nightmare Moon would kill us on sight...so we need to stay hidden no matter what."

"Nightmare...Moon?"

"Remember, we went back in time to when she ruled Equestria...she's going to be here, too. Also...there might be two of you here now, and...well, three of me; the mayor of Ponyville, Nightmare Twilight, and...myself, obviously."

"Oh...my..." Fluttershy looked completely lost, but nodded her head in an attempt to show she understood. "So...do we have a plan then?"

"I think so. The reason Nightmare Twilight even exists is because I..."

Fluttershy nodded to show she understood what she meant. Twilight smiled gratefully...it wasn't exactly easy to admit killing another pony.

"Yeah. But if we can somehow stop that from happening, then Nightmare Moon will not be able to resurrect her and turn her into a hate-infused alicorn. Without any evil or hatred to feed on, she'll never be able to harm anypony again."  Twilight Sparkle wasn't exactly sure if it would be that simple, since the chance of Equestria being completely free of hatred seemed quite unlikely, but Fluttershy seemed to be comforted significantly by her words, and she knew better than to discount them. After all, she had already removed any future hope for her, unless her desperate denial of her friends fates could be considered hope.

"Maybe...maybe we could warn Twilight..." Fluttershy offered hopefully, sounding slightly fearful about confronting this world's Twilight Sparkle.

"Even better...we can warn myself." Receiving another befuddled glare from Fluttershy, it became evident she would have to specify. "I mean, me from the past, who helped you escape Ponyville. We'll hide out somewhere in Equestria until we know I've traveled through the mirror pool...of course, that could be years...maybe even decades..."

"Umm...Twilight..." Fluttershy interjected. "Sorry for interrupting you...but you might want to see this."

Raising a trembling hoof, Fluttershy pointed at the town in the distance, a loud booming suddenly echoing across the land as a structure within Ponyville was destroyed. The town hall of Ponyville (a building as pathetic as the rest of them) crumbled and fell to the hard dirt as one of the two support beams was inexplicably destroyed. The building instantly crashed to the earth, the sound of panicked shouts quickly joining the loud crashing.

"Doesn't look like we'll have to wait long..." Fluttershy said with a light grin, while Twilight stood staring mouth-agape at the aftermath of the destruction her past-self had just caused.

"Of all the days in Equestrian history..." Twilight whispered to herself, although Fluttershy heard her quite clearly and widened her smile, misinterpreting her reaction as joy. "Of all the days she could have traveled to...and she chooses the exact day I ventured through the Mirror Pool..."

"Talk about a coincidence..." Fluttershy agreed, still smiling.

"Uh huh..." Twilight muttered in reply. "A coincidence."

She desperately hoped that Fluttershy was right, although every instinct in her knew that Nightmare Twilight had a very specific reason for choosing this particular day to change.

"We have a few hours before we escape Ponyville...it might be a good idea to get some rest while we can." Twilight finally said.

"You go ahead." Fluttershy replied, glancing at the guard towers. "I'll stay awake and keep an eye out."

"Are you sure? I can stay up if you want...you haven't slept in days."

"It's fine. Anyway, I couldn't fall asleep even if I tried." She motioned around at the landscape around her, the cold wind howling, as if it were engaged in an auditory battle for superiority over the wailing Ponyville sirens. "Plus...I'm sort of scared of Princess Luna..."

That much was certainly understandable to Twilight...after all, Fluttershy had lived under the reign of Nightmare Moon for long enough to see how low Luna's diplomacy could go. Even though she typically meant well, it seemed like Luna's actions and speech always suggested she was both displeased and importunate with whatever situation she was in. Even Luna's physical appearance was quite intimidating, her permanent glare and proud stature a great contrast to Celestia's welcoming attitude.

Twilight rose to her feet, shaking the dust off her back. "Well, if that's the case, we'll both stay awake. I don't really want to talk to Luna either."

"Did...did she do something wrong?" Fluttershy inquired, rising to her own feet.

"You could say that, yeah."

In Twilight's mind, 'doing something wrong' had to be the greatest understatement in Equestrian history. Allowing all the Elements of Harmony to be destroyed and leaving her world to die at the hands of an enemy she SHOULD have been looking out for to begin with definitely counted as more than 'doing something wrong.' As much as she respected Princess Luna and sympathized with her a great deal, it was quite evident that she was a fairly incompetent leader. Even Nightmare Moon had done a better job at keeping Equestria out of peril.

"Anyway, I think it would be best to head over to the library. Our past-counterparts should be ready to escape by time we get there, so we'd better hurry before we miss them." A sudden thought struck Twilight, a bolt of fear shooting through her. "This is a really delicate point to be messing around with...if we somehow interfere with our escape...if our actions somehow allow our past-selves to be captured..."

"They certainly wouldn't let them live." Fluttershy offered, instantly realizing what Twilight was suggesting. "Which means WE wouldn't!"

"Most likely. Although, I'm not 100% certain time works like that. Either way, I don't really want to find out."

By the time Twilight and Fluttershy reached the library, the town had quieted down significantly. The sound of the sirens was gone, but still the wind persisted, the same eerie and unrelenting howl, unchanging in both pitch and intensity and instead remaining static. Twilight was certain that wind like this wasn't natural, but even more disturbing was the fact that she did not remember it from her first visit. She hoped to Celestia she was simply noticing it for the first time.

The library was divided from the rest of Ponyville by a towering electric fence which traveled the perimeter of the tree, sealing it from both the residents of Ponyville and any outsiders wishing to breach it from beyond the town limits. Fluttershy and Twilight peered from behind a thick, spiky shrub that was most certainly not native to this part of Equestria, although Twilight was quite certain she had seen the plant in the Everfree Forest. The lights in the library were blazing, making it one of the few sources of light for miles. Any signs of life within the library were obscured by thick blinds on all the windows save for the back one, which was (quite inconveniently) the only unlit room.

Everything in Ponyville seemed to be functioning rather normally, the guards milling about the town, searching frantically for the escapee from the Ponyville Prison, unknowing of her true location within the library, most likely going over her escape with Twilight Sparkle.

"This is weird..." Fluttershy confessed, as she looked at the same conscious memories from a completely different perspective. "I can't believe there's two of me at the same time!"

"I can't believe there's FOUR of me." Twilight chuckled in reply. "So, what do you think? Should we teleport in?"

"Do you see Nightmare Moon? Didn't she go in the library to talk with you?"

"Yeah. She's gone by now though."

"How can you tell?"

"You hid on the roof of the library. And I can't see you now, which means I already told you it was safe to come back inside." Even if Nightmare Moon was not in the library, Twilight was already doubting her initial plan of simply teleporting inside...she could not imagine how her past-self would react, not to mention the fact that her magic would be easily visible by the guards. "Nah. It's too risky. We'll wait until after they escape, and then follow them after they're clear of Ponyville. I think I remember where we stopped tonight anyway. We'll meet up with them there, where it's safe."

Settling down into the far from comfortable bushes, Twilight watched the library through gaps in the foliage, trying in vain to catch a glimpse at the ponies within. The library remained silent for some time, and the guards continued searching Ponyville for what must have been hours after they first arrived. Fluttershy had dozed off, her face frozen in an expression of perpetual nervousness. Despite the discomfort, she was sleeping soundly, something Twilight was quite happy to see; she had been with Fluttershy for at least three days at this point and the poor pegasus had not rested for a single second.

Occasionally a shadow would pass one of the closed shutters as a pony within (most likely Twilight, since Fluttershy had spent the majority of her time in the library eating) paced inside. It wasn't until the back room of the library was suddenly flooded with light that Twilight sprung to life, instantly waking Fluttershy.

"It's about to happen!" She whispered excitedly to the groggy pegasus. Fluttershy blinked several times, before realizing exactly what Twilight meant. The sleep instantly vanished from her eyes and she sat up swiftly, staring at the lighted window eagerly. Twilight could see quick flashes of herself and Fluttershy, but they were for the most part well concealed under the window. In her mind, Twilight was internally running through her lecture to Fluttershy, in an attempt to predict exactly when she would teleport.

"Umm, Twi...I know it might be a bad time, but...Celestia really needs to speak with you. She said immediately." Twilight did not reply, still transfixed on the back window of the library. Fluttershy considered repeating Celestia's instructions, but decided against it when Twilight gave her a distracted nod.

Past-Twilight stepped back from the window and clearly into the line of sight of the two onlooking future versions of themselves, and the room slowly grew brighter and brighter, until a loud bang rung out like a bell into the night, shattering the library window and causing the nearby guards to whip around to face the noise. Twilight Sparkle disappeared as her form was momentarily destroyed and transported beyond the fence, where it would appear almost instantaneously. A sharp electric zapping sound followed the initial teleportation boom, followed by complete silence. Seconds passed, each one an era, and yet Twilight Sparkle did not appear.

Realizing with horror just what had just happened, Fluttershy let out a pleading shriek from within the library, as she watched the insignificant dust that was once Twilight Sparkle blow carelessly through the wind and disappear into the night. The guard ponies, who had previously been staring at the fence in confusion, began sprinting towards the library, easily breaking through the door and seizing the pony inside.

"This never happened!" Fluttershy's future counterpart hissed to her somehow still present friend. "I don't remember this happening!"

"It's because it didn't! I..I just died..." Every grain of reason suggested that she should NOT be around to even speak that, and yet here she was, alive and well after her past self had just died. "How can I be here?!" Twilight whipped around and grasped Fluttershy, staring at her for a long time with wild eyes. "You need to go. Just, away from here. To the mirror pool, I don't know. It's up to you now...I failed again, Fluttershy."

"Umm...well, Twilight, you're still here..."

"I shouldn't be!"

"Well, you are!" Fluttershy asserted with light traces of annoyance. "We need to go!"

"I shouldn't be here..." Twilight repeated softly, her voice a barely audible whisper. "And...any second now...you shouldn't be either."  

"Let's go!" Fluttershy hissed, dragging Twilight to her feet. "We're still alive, and so is Nightmare Twilight. We can't give up just because something doesn't make sense!"

Twilight wordlessly allowed herself to be helped up, still completely convinced that wherever she was, it was no longer Equestria. The Afterlife, perhaps?. As she sat pondering the complete impossibility of her present existence, Fluttershy began speaking, apparently trying to reassure her, but Twilight simply was not paying her any attention. Occasionally, a few words would seep through her own panicked mind, but for the most part Fluttershy's words fell on deaf ears. From within Ponyville, Fluttershy's pleading shrieks continued, but after some time even they stopped, quite abruptly, something that her future counterpart pretended not to notice. Instead, she continued speaking, casting the occasional sorrowful glance at Ponyville.

"...besides, Celestia said something like this might happen...she called it a worst-case-scenario...but still..."

"Wait...did you say Celestia? When did you speak to Celestia?!"

"When I fell asleep a few minutes ago. I didn't know she could dream-walk, too."

"She spoke to you?"

"Well, only for a while...and she said it would probably be better if she spoke to you, as soon as she could. She wasn't as scary as Luna...I wonder what Equestria was like when she was ruler."

"A lot better than when she wasn't." Twilight said, motioning around her. "Well, if that's the case, I need to talk to her as soon as possible." Twilight squeezed her eyes shut, trying in vain to ease her troubled mind.  "This isn't going to work...it just has to be sleep!"

Opening her eyes again, Twilight dove to the ground, coming back up with a heavy, baseball sized rock, handing it over to Fluttershy from shaking hooves.

"Here." Twilight said simply, bowing down in front of Fluttershy. "When you're ready."

"Ready...?" Fluttershy started to ask, and then realized what Twilight was suggesting. "Are...are you sure?"

"No. It's fine though. Pain is temporary."

"Twilight Sparkle!" Celestia nearly screamed as soon as the confused mare appeared in front of her. "Thank heavens...I was worried something had happened to you." Noticing the bewildered expression on Twilight's face, Celestia let out an annoyed sigh. "I can see why Luna finds repeating this obnoxious. I'm communicating to you through your dreams."

Twilight looked around her immediate area, the familiar library dream-world gone...she could have been anywhere, but a thick fog prevented any chance of seeing any familiar landmarks. Other than the dirt under her hooves, the Princess of the Sun was the only visible thing.

While Twilight knew most certainly that the pony in front of her was Celestia by her voice, Celestia herself was shrouded with a hazy mist, shimmering in and out of her direct line of sight. At best, she was a simple, featureless white silhouette of an alicorn, at the worst, she was an indecipherable mess of smoke and light, with two more clouds of colorful smoke unfurled behind her and waving like a flying flag. It took Twilight a few seconds to realize that this was Celestia's mane and tail.

"Yeah...that part makes sense to me...but what doesn't make sense is how."

"I see. You assume that since you have traveled backwards through time, I would not remember speaking to you, correct?" Celestia smiled, although nopony would have been able to decipher it from her vague form. "Well, the rules of time do not exactly apply in the realm of the dead."

"OK...but how am I even alive to talk to you?"

"My sister is to thank for that. You see, at this time which you have traveled to, Luna is still alive and well, and fully capable of her standard, powerful alicorn magic. However, at this time, she should be possessed by Nightmare Moon at least partially. Are you with me so far?"

"No. Possessed by Nightmare Moon 'at this time?' Hasn't she always been?"

"Please do not be bitter towards my sister. She has sacrificed more than you can possibly imagine, and she deserves more respect than what you have recently shown her."  While Celestia evidently meant well with her words, Twilight could easily tell she did not fully forgive Luna as much as she was currently suggesting. "As I was saying, Luna is currently alive, imprisoned in Nightmare Moon's warped imitation of her. To put it simply, the Princess Luna of our time...that is, the future of this time...has assumed control over her present-day form here."

"So wait. Luna is HERE? In this past Equestria?"

"Yes and no. Nightmare Moon is here, and Luna is currently channeling her in order to cast the magic that is currently keeping you and Fluttershy alive. She is essentially absorbing your deaths perpetually...and, in case you were curious, you died of electrocution and Fluttershy of hanging. Neither of which were completely painless, and right now, Luna is feeling ever ounce of it consistently just to keep you alive. And yet you sit here treating her like a monster."  

As Celestia chastised her, Twilight Sparkle had never felt as guilty about anything quite so much...but Celestia was far from finished.

"You may not realize this, but Luna has spoken volumes of you. She has spoken of your bravery and heroic, selfless acts to no end. And yet in the short time I have seen you, you have demonstrated none of either of those traits whatsoever...in fact, I must say, I am quite disappointed in the pony Luna made out to be so much greater. And while Luna herself refuses to admit it, instead blaming herself for Nightmare Twilight's actions, I can clearly see that you are the pony to blame. You were the pony who refused her mercy, and gave her the desire for revenge and the incentive to hate. For Luna's sake, I certainly hope you remedy what you have done."

Twilight was absolutely speech-less, as she let the words of the Princess fully sink in. Tears began to form in her eyes, and upon seeing them, Celestia's tone immediately changed.

"Please do not cry. Luna would not like to see it. I am here to help you, Twilight, but please know that what I am instructing you to do is entirely the product of Luna's own decisions. She is the pony who initially suggested this plan, and the pony who successfully exiled my doubts about you."  A sudden surge of magic from Celestia's horn cast back some of the fog, and Celestia herself grew much clearer. Slowly levitating in the air were the same familiar holographic artifacts Luna had cited as the source of Nightmare Twilight's power, but, like Celestia, they were continuously phasing in and out of form. "I must apologize. My magic in the realm of dreams is quite inept. However, you recognize these objects nonetheless, correct?"

"Of course. They're what Nightmare Twilight used to gain power."

"Exactly. Without these, she would be entirely powerless." One by one, the holograms vanished, leaving Twilight wondering whether or not this was intentionally done by Celestia. When Celestia sighed loudly and uttered a most-unprincess-like profanity, Twilight had her answer. "Now, assume somepony were to destroy these artifacts..."

"What would it matter?" Twilight asked, frowning. "She already destroyed Equestria and rose to power using them, why would destroying them change any of that?"

"Ah, you see, that is where the most vital part of our plan comes in place. You see, Nightmare Twilight collects these artifacts in secret during the months of peace after Nightmare Moon was defeated. If they were destroyed BEFORE then..."

"That...that is utterly brilliant!" Twilight screamed in delight. "Of course! Me and Fluttershy find the artifacts, destroy each of them, and then Twilight Sparkle will never be able to use them in the future! She'll just stay as a powerless unicorn and easily be destroyed by Luna!"

"Precisely. You catch on quite swiftly. I can see why you are my student in your Equestria." With another spark of magic, the artifacts were again swirling through the air, only slightly clearer. First, Celestia brought the Alicorn Amulet towards Twilight, allowing it to hover in front of her. "Luna took great care to hide these objects not long after she saw what the power of dark magic could do. She feared some mortal pony would use them to commit a crime as atrocious as she did, but she decided destroying them was a risky decision. This first artifact, the Alicorn Amulet, was cast under the roaring rapids of Canterlot River, where the great falls of Canterlot Mountain flow in a never-ending torrent."

"Not a river anymore." Twilight corrected, flashbacks of her narrow escape from a terrifying, insect-like aquatic beast shooting into her mind. "It's deep...but I should be able to cast an underwater breathing spell."

"Good." Celestia allowed the Alicorn Amulet to disappear, and brought the Crystal Heart down next. "This next object is located in the ruins of the Crystal Empire, sealed beyond a dark magic gate only the purest of hearts can penetrate. You may have a bit of trouble retrieving it."

Twilight did her best to not be offended by that last remark, and pointed upwards at the remaining artifact. "And this last one...the Tome of Manifestation?"

"The most troublesome of all the artifacts. You see, the Tome of Manifestation is by far the most powerful of all the artifacts...it is essentially the key to omnipotence. As a result, Luna took extra precaution in concealing it. It can be found on the surface of the moon."

"That should be fun." Twilight said bitterly, and Celestia nodded.

"I'm sure you'll think of something. Luna had faith in you, and right now, she is the last defender for any future hope in Equestria."

Celestia knelt down next to Twilight, only slightly intimidating was her complete lack of any features.

"I think that is pretty much everything. It is entirely up to you, now...but be warned...Luna cannot endure such magical strain for long, and as soon as she lets go, you and Fluttershy shall cease to exist. Please, for the love of all that is under the moon and sun, make haste, and destroy those artifacts as swiftly as you can, because with your death comes the death of ANY chance for a peaceful future. Good luck. Oh and Twilight?"

"Yes?"

"Do not EVER speak of my sister like that again."

Interlude

Nightmare Twilight soared high above the clouds, patches of Equestria exposing themselves like tears in the sprawling sheet of the sky. Every exposed portion revealed the same pathetic section of dying earth, offering no variety or interruption from the hideous reality that was this Equestria.

"If only..." Twilight whispered to herself sadly as she flew. "If only this world could survive without the sun. Without Luna, or Celestia...."

She hated Luna. The kindhearted, cowardly leader who had killed Nightmare Moon and stolen her Equestria. She had done nothing to deserve it, nothing short of murdering her own sister, and yet she received the love and admiration of every foal and filly in the sunlit world she reigned over.  

And yet a pony like Nightmare Moon, who had waged and won wars and crushed all resistance before her, who had sacrificed every waking moment into making sure everypony knew their place, was treated as the murderer. A pony who had only ever killed to maintain order in a dying world. A pony who would stop at nothing to make sure everypony was safe in her loving embrace, only to be shunned and resisted by the ones she had sworn to protect.

"Do not worry, Nightmare Moon..." Twilight lamented. "I shall see you soon, after I have completed what I have come here to do. Without the Elements of Harmony or that wretched excuse for a unicorn, you shall never be defeated. Your rule will be as immortal as your love and compassion, and my respect and adoration of you. I will stop at nothing to see Equestria returned to you."

For now though, she could not even risk speaking to Nightmare Moon. Even if she could, she would much prefer to get these matters out of the way as swiftly as possible. True, she had erased Twilight Sparkle's punishment; having died here, she would never live long enough to see Equestria end as she did before. However, the expression of desperation and fear and guilt on that despicable ponies face had been more than enough for her. She would never forget that expression for as long as she lived.

And that would be a very long time.

There was of course one more paradox that had to be resolved. Nightmare Moon had approached her within the realm of the dead, but now Celestia's Twilight would never live long enough to defeat her past self. But that was a problem easily resolved. Nightmare Twilight closed her eyes and shot a beam of magic to the west, watching as the dark purple light tore over the earth and into the distance. A loud explosion resounded in the distance as the entirety of the Changeling Empire was destroyed in the fraction of a second.

"It is done." Nightmare Twilight said without emotion as the memories of the destruction of the Changeling Empire joined the memories of her first death at the hands of Twilight Sparkle. It was quite an odd sensation, remembering ones own death twice, in two different fashions, while still being perfectly alive to think back on them.

Nothing else stood in her way now. All the Elements of Harmony were dead, with them dying any chance of her loving mentor ever being defeated.

And, most importantly, the Mirror Pool was now open for all eternity. Should Nightmare Moon ever need to invade it and pillage their resources, it would now always be possible. Indeed, there was no longer any resistance to any of Nightmare Moon's future plans.

Equestria was finally, once again safe, in the hands of its own rightful and true ruler, under the beautiful light of the moon.

The Lake (VII)

CHAPTER SEVEN

The two impossible mares trekked onwards, leaving the lights of Ponyville behind and the vast, dark unknown ahead. Canterlot Mountain jutted into the distant sky, the moon reflecting off the lake at its bottom, creating a beautiful beacon of silver light on the ground. As they walked, Twilight filled Fluttershy in on what Celestia had told her; how they were alive, how Luna was (sort of) present in this Equestria, and what they needed to do to defeat Nightmare Twilight. Fluttershy listened eagerly, occasionally asking questions but mostly remaining silent.

"...So, we're going to look for the Amulet of Alicorns first?" She asked, pointing towards the body of water in the distance.

"Alicorn Amulet." Twilight corrected. "And yeah. I think it'll be the easiest to find, and each artifact we destroy will make Nightmare Twilight weaker and weaker. When they're all gone, she'll be gone too."

"Good." Fluttershy said smugly, turning around to face Ponyville, which had long since disappeared over the horizon. "Because...what happened there..."

"That was sick." Twilight agreed. "That probably won't be the only thing she'll change, either."

"You...you think...my friends..."

Twilight stopped walking and turned to look at Fluttershy, staring the mare straight in the eyes, wearing a sombre expression.

"I guarantee it. I'm sorry, Fluttershy."

"But why? Why is she doing this? What did we ever do to her?"

"She doesn't care about that. All she cares about is making a timeline where it is absolutely impossible for the Mirror Pool to close. A timeline where Nightmare Moon is never defeated, where the Elements of Harmony are never reunited, and where the sun never shines again."

Silence fell between the two mares again, neither pony speaking for the duration of the walk. Cautiously, Twilight decided to bring up a question she had been dying to ask but had deemed too sensitive and irrelevant. Now, though, since they were simply walking and had plenty of time to talk, Twilight decided it was time.

"Do you have anypony waiting for you at home, Fluttershy?"

"Of course..."  Fluttershy mumbled. "There's Rarity, and Applejack--"

"I don't mean them. I mean...somepony closer."

"Yes." Fluttershy said, her voice still a barely audible whisper. "A filly."

"WHAT?" Twilight cried. "You have a coltfriend?"

"I didn't say that..." Fluttershy had stopped walking, and was blinking away tears forming in her blue eyes. "There were plenty of foals and fillies who lost their parents during...Nightmare Moon."

"You adopted....that is so sweet of you. What is her name?"

"Summer Sun. I named her after something I read in a book about Celestia. Apparently there used to be a whole SEASON devoted to sunshine! It's only been...I think a month, since I adopted her." Twilight could see from the way Fluttershy spoke of the solar princess that she greatly wanted to meet her...in person, not in the artificial sensation of a dream. "I...I left her at home...Luna told me she would be safe..."

"She will be. We're going to fix all of this."

"Twi..." Fluttershy asked, wiping her watering eyes dry. "How did you know I had somepony special? I...I didn't tell you..."

"You didn't have to. It isn't hard to see that you have something you're fighting for. But...why keep it a secret from me?"

"Ever since I've seen you, I feel like all I've done is plead and order you around. I...I've been selfish enough as it is."

"Are you kidding me?!" Twilight exclaimed. "Fluttershy, if it weren't for your quick thinking, we would have both died with the rest of Equestria! Stop degrading yourself like this!"

"I'm sorry..." Fluttershy said. "She...Summer Sun...she was so sweet...I wish you could have met her."

"Listen to me." Twilight clutched Fluttershy's shoulders, looking the mare straight in the eyes. "We're going to fix everything here. Every bad thing Nightmare Twilight did, we're going to fix it. I promise."

In a half hour's time, Twilight and Fluttershy were peering into the dark water, both weighing the costs of descending the terrifying depths. Canterlot Mountain jutted out, so close and yet so divided from them by the cold water. The mountain was bare, where there should have been a city, although the waterfalls were still present. If Twilight listened carefully, she could hear the steady rhythm of the water pounding onto the lake's surface. The moonlight shone on, bright beams uninterrupted by clouds, instead striking the falling water and casting a dim rainbow across the night sky.

"Oh my..." Fluttershy said, her eyes wide in amazement, pointing at the lunar rainbow.

"It's beautiful!" Twilight gasped, unclipping her saddle-pack and allowing it to fall onto the ground, and using her magic to remove her crown and set it down next to the pack. Fluttershy followed suit, removing her own saddle-pack and necklace and placing them in a neat pile next to Twilight's.

"I'm really hoping you learned to swim since our last time here..." Twilight began, dunking her forehoof into the nearly frozen water.

"Oh, of course!" Fluttershy replied. "I'm not the best swimmer, but I'm not terrible either."

Canterlot Lake was a huge body of unnaturally dark water, which stretched well onto where there should have been earth. The lake was incredibly deep, which seemed quite impossible considering how only its width had increased. Nightmare Moon must have created the lake artificially to contain all the water, since there was no sun to evaporate the majority of it, although centuries of erosion had since given the lake a quite natural look.

Waves crashed gently onto the dirt shore, the lake in a perpetual state of high tides. Twilight had seen the waves much bigger than what they were now...in fact, she had seen them as roaring torrents easily capable of drowning a pony...but that was a different story altogether.

"So you can swim then." Twilight exhaled heavily. "That brings us to the more...concerning of problems."

Fluttershy cocked an eyebrow. "But...you said you had a spell for underwater breathing..."

"Yeah. That's not the problem I meant. I was referring to the immense, pony-devouring underwater spider with the creepy red eyes."

"OH!" Fluttershy screamed excitedly. "You mean the Eastern Equestrian Aquatic Plecoptera!"

"Uhh...I guess so..."  To Twilight's surprise, Fluttershy did not look in the slightest bit frightened...in fact, she looked almost pleased. "I have the feeling we aren't thinking of the same insect."

"The Eastern Aquatic Plecoptera is the third largest insect in all of Equestria!" Fluttershy proclaimed as she grabbed her saddle-pack, bringing the burlap bag closer to her and withdrawing a small journal. The book was bound shut with twine, and was charred significantly. The scent of smoke hung heavy in the air as Fluttershy flipped through the pages urgently. "It's an incredibly fascinating creature! I'm pretty sure I have an entry for it in here."

Twilight crouched down, trying to get a glimpse at the cover of the book. The title was partially obscured by dirt, and much of the left corner had been lost to fire, but the title of the book was still eligible.

"An Illustrated Guide to Hazardous Equestrian Wildlife." Twilight read out loud, her eyes scanning the book and eventually locating the author, signed neatly near the bottom. "By...Professor Fluttershy?!"

Fluttershy instinctively tensed, slamming the book hard against the earth, concealing the title.

"I...I thought bestiary sounded too harsh..." Fluttershy blurted, blushing madly and doing her best to conceal the books contents.

"But..but...Professor?!" Twilight exclaimed, her voice a mixture of confusion and happiness. "That's amazing, Fluttershy!"

"It's complicated." Fluttershy said. "When everypony was liberated from Nightmare Moon and started expanding across Equestria, pretty much the day you left, they started encountering all kinds of intimidating animals. Most ponies thought animals like that should be banished from Equestria...or worse...so I went out to..."

Eventually, Twilight's curiosity got the best of her, and she instinctively pulled the book from Fluttershy's grasp and towards her. Initally, Fluttershy looked surprised, but made no actual move to stop her from looking through it.

"You documented all these animals?!" Twilight gasped in amazement. The book was covered in painstakingly drawn images of Equestrian beasts, their ferocious maws growling at her from beyond the graphite they were rendered in. On the opposite page of each illustration was a handwritten description of each animal, their diets, mating cycles, nocturnality or diurnality listed alongside brief but beautifully transcribed paragraphs about them.

"Fluttershy, this is unbelievable!"

"Most ponies said that when I first showed them it. Princess Luna herself named it the official...." Fluttershy cringed slightly. "...bestiary of Equestria, and had copies of it made and sent to schools all across Equestria. I'm not even finished writing it yet!" Fluttershy complained, staring at her hooves. Twilight simply looked on in shock; of all the books she had seen in her life (and she had seen no shortage of them) Fluttershy's bestiary was by far one of the most beautifully illustrated and intricately written...and yet the author herself remained completely humble to the literary marvel she had composed out of kindness alone. Strangely, this alternate version of her friend, whose profession was that of a zoologist and not an animal caretaker, seemed even more fitting to her love for so many different species of animals that any other pony would be terrified of.

Oddly enough, the bestiary was not alphabetically listed, but Twilight reasoned that this must have been because Fluttershy had documented all these animals as she had seen them, exploring Equestria with no specific goal in mind. Only about fifty animals were listed, most in the immediate area of Ponyville, Canterlot, and the Everfree Forest. Fluttershy most likely had not had enough time to cover anything more in her mere five months of freedom, and she certainly must have halted her travels when she decided to start a family, incidentally beginning one of the first families in the New Equestria.

Eventually Twilight handed the journal back to Fluttershy, the book open on an entry about manticores. Fluttershy idly flipped the pages, still looking for her entry on the lake monster, although it was quite evident when she spoke again that she did not need it.

"The Eastern Aquatic Plecoptera is an incredibly fascinating creature. It's one of the few animals in the world to both constrict and use venom to subdue its prey. In fact, its venom is potent enough to paralyze a medium size dragon!" Fluttershy recounted with textbook like efficiency. Noticing Twilight's horrified expression, Fluttershy laughed and pushed the book towards Twilight, the graphite rendition of the horrible insect all too familiar to Twilight. "Don't worry, it's really quite harmless to ponies. It preys on much bigger things. Although it is incredibly territorial. That's probably why it attacked us last time."

"Well, unfortunately for us, we're going to have to invade its territory. What do you think we should do?"

"Umm..." Fluttershy consulted her journal entry for the first time, pulling the book back towards her and scanning the page. "Ah yes! Well, it is almost completely blind. In fact, it can only see the color red. That's why its eyes cast red light all around it...that way, it can see what's around it."

"So its nocturnal, I assume?"

"Yeah. So, if we could simulate daylight..."

"We could." Twilight pondered. Light magic was incredibly easy, even creating lights bright enough to light the entirety of a lake. "But I don't think that would be a very good idea. Nightmare Twilight would definitely know something is up when she sees one big patch of daylight in the middle of her beloved eternal night."

"Oh. I'm sorry." Fluttershy tapped her hoof thoughtfully against the dirt. Suddenly, she leaped to her feet, sending the journal flying. Twilight caught it with her magic seconds before it plunged into the water, setting it back down on the ground carefully. "I'VE GOT IT!"

"What?!" Twilight nearly screamed in reply, instinctively rising as well.

"Well, like I said, the Plecoptera isn't that intimidating to ponies. I could keep him distracted while you search his cave for the Alicorn Amulet."

"And why would it be there?"

"That's the best part! Like I said, the Plecoptera can only see red. Reflective objects would be incredibly fascinating to it, since they would be almost completely red to it. If it's anywhere, I guarantee the Plecoptera has it in its nest. They are very curious."  

Twilight resisted the urge to point out that this was an insect they were talking about...the very idea of insects being curious, or territorial for that matter, seemed utterly ridiculous. Furthermore, from what she had seen, there was no way Fluttershy could simply distract that monster without being attacked herself. And unlike Twilight, Fluttershy had no way of teleporting out of danger should it come. Then again, from what the contents of Fluttershy's Bestiary suggested, she had been in situations with dangerous creatures before and yet seemed to have no negative experiences...her compassion towards animals was almost supernatural.

"If you're OK with getting close to that mons--uhh, Pleecopter, then sure..." Twilight desperately wanted to point out that the best solution would be to just exterminate the insect, but there was absolutely no way in Equestria Fluttershy would ever let that happen, even if every thing they changed in this alternate timeline would be erased assuming they were successful.

"Oh of course!" Fluttershy said gleefully, already pacing along the shore, looking into the dark water excitedly. "Although we still have the problem of breathing...and light..."

"Already on it." With two quick bursts of magic, two bright spheres of green light exploded from Twilight's horn, flapping around the two ponies on silvery butterfly wings. Fluttershy stared at them with wide eyes, a large grin on her face.

"They're beautiful! Are...are they alive?"

"No, they're just lanterns. One should follow me and the other should follow you, even underwater."

"Oh..." Fluttershy said, sounding quite disappointed. "How long will they last?"

"That is the best part!" Twilight replied, once again casting magic, although this time the result was completely invisible. "I just cast an underwater breathing spell on both of us. It should last exactly ten minutes...when we have five minutes of air left, the lights will turn yellow. When we have two minutes, they'll turn red. When you're down to the last thirty seconds, they'll start blinking, and they'll go out when you're completely dry. Although the water around you will instantly pressurize as soon as your air sphere is deflated, so I don't recommend going too deep if you're running low."

"Why?" Fluttershy asked, peering into the depths worriedly.

"Uhh...well, it's not exactly pleasant. Just believe me, you don't want it to happen."  

Twilight was in no mood to explain the concept of 'the bends' to Fluttershy, and she could guarantee there were no decompression chambers in this dystopian world anyway.  

Above them, the moon slipped behind the growing clouds above, but the lanterns lit the area quite well, so that two large circles of green light stretched onto the shore behind them and diffracted into the water ahead. With the time on her breathing spell slowly ticking down, Twilight wasted no time in stepping into the freezing water, instantly feeling her muscles tense up as she slowly walked deeper and deeper. Fluttershy, on the other hand, flew above the water and high into the sky, before folding her wings inwards and allowing the force of gravity to pull her headfirst through the lake's surface. Twilight dunked her head under, watching Fluttershy's green light slowly descend into the dark water depths. To her surprise, Fluttershy was churning the water with her bat wings, making her travel much quicker than Twilight's own wild dog paddles.

As Twilight dove deeper and deeper, she saw no signs of any life under the waves. The only thing other than herself was Fluttershy's distant green light bobbing around as the pegasus searched for the hideous lake monster. Occasionally the moon would poke through the clouds, but the sand slowly diluting the water obscured the majority of its light. Just as she was beginning to wonder how deep the lake could possibly be, the hard rock surface of the bottom of the lake jutted out suddenly, nearly blinding her as the green light was reflected straight back into her face. The sky and surface of the lake was completely lost to the billowing sand above, the underwater lantern now the only source of light. Even Fluttershy was nowhere to be seen, but Twilight could have sworn she saw two bright red lights close together and moving quickly to where she had last seen her friend.

She has it under control. Twilight reassured herself internally, easily concluding what the two red lights were. She's dealt with that beast before.

The rocky lake bottom occasionally and suddenly broke into large sections of sand, or thick forests of kelp, which Twilight did her best to avoid. Judging from where she had seen the monster ascending, its cave should be close by...she just hoped it wouldn't be too deep to swim to the bottom of.

Finally, the gaping mouth of the monster's cave revealed itself through the sand just as the lantern flickered slightly and turned yellow.

Five minutes remained.

"Hello..." Fluttershy said softly, shocked that her own voice was so clear underwater. "I'm not here to hurt you, I promise."

With a wave of her hoof, the fluttering yellow-light dimmed until it was a barely visible speck, and with it gone, the red light of the lake monster's flashbulb eyes fell over the treading pegasus. Slowly, cautiously, the monster swum towards her, its beady eyes popping out of its enormous head. The lake monster was huge, easily dwarfing Fluttershy, coming closer to the size of a small house. Thousands of fabric like tentacles wavered under the water, and its sharp earwig-like pincers clicked in and out curiously as it regarded the odd creature in front of it.

Fluttershy did her best to not be frightened as the creature extended some of its tentacles, wrapping them around her and bringing her closer to him. She knew very well that if the monster wanted to, it could tighten its grip and cut off her air, but at the moment it seemed content with simply examining her. Reluctantly, Fluttershy allowed herself to be drawn closer to the insect.

"I'm not food..." Fluttershy whispered nervously, as the insect continued to click its pincers open and closed, as if it were listening to her by feeling the vibrations of the water. She simply must add that to her entry. "You can understand me, right? Most animals can..."

Fluttershy squirmed slightly in the monsters grasp, trying to move her head to see if Twilight was nearby, in case something went wrong. But Twilight was no where to be seen. Upon detecting its potential prey moving, the monster tightened its grip and with a blink of its bulging eyes flooded the surrounding area with a brighter red light.

"Please let me go." Fluttershy ordered it gently, unsurprisingly receiving no response. "Ahem! I said...let me go, please!" Fluttershy commanded it firmly. "My friend and I are not going to hurt you and I expect you to do the same!"

Slowly, reluctantly, the lake monster loosened its grip on the pegasus, retracting its tentacles and allowing them to float idly above it, swirling like the long reeds far below them.

"Thank you." Fluttershy said, approaching the insect at her own free-will. Its eyes widened as it saw her approaching, tensing slightly. Somehow this creature felt intimidated by something a fraction of its size. Fluttershy would have found it incredibly strange, but then again, she had seen ponies rear away from tiny spiders in fright....and they called her the coward.

Suddenly, the Plecoptera's eyes grew wide and it let out a great roar, the sound distorted by the water. Fluttershy thrashed through the water in fright, trying to determine just what it was that had disturbed the creature.

Beside Fluttershy, a tiny pinprick of red light danced and fluttered around her, signalling the final two minutes of air. Hastily, Fluttershy beat the light back with her hoof, causing it to flicker and die out completely. Almost immediately after the light had disappeared, the insect calmed down, although it was significantly edgier, letting out another roar as Fluttershy moved to comfort it.

"Hurry up, Twilight..." Fluttershy said to herself, nervously glancing at the dark water below her. Another red light, probably Twilight's, was wavering in and out of view through the billowing sand the insect had upset. Fluttershy whispered a quiet prayer to Celestia that the Plecoptera wouldn't notice it, silently cursing Twilight for picking red of all colors. Fortunately, the insect was more focused on her...although when it began clicking its pincers maliciously and advancing towards her, she decided 'fortunately' was perhaps the wrong word.

"No!" Fluttershy commanded, but her words were ignored by the approaching insect. She had no choice but to flee, leaving the blinking red light that was Twilight Sparkle behind, and instead thrashing at the water with her wings and hooves. Overhead, the moonlight was a beacon distorted by the growing waves. Beneath her the Plecoptera was roaring furiously, pursuing its escaping prey at great speeds.

Breaking through the water and soaring into the cold night air, Fluttershy simply continued beating her wings, this time without any resistance. The insect leaped into the air after her, but she was already much too far into the sky. Twice more he surfaced, still determined to have his prey. On the third jump, the insect flung out its tentacles, wrapping them around the pegasi's legs.

Fluttershy did not even have time to scream as she was pulled back through the water, quickly realizing she could no longer breathe.

"Help!" She screamed, her words coming out as garbled gibberish. Even if she could still speak underwater, Twilight had either surfaced or drowned, and nopony was around to hear her pleas. Even her natural talent for soothing animals would be impossible without the ability to successfully communicate her desires.  

Miraculously, the insect had decided not to drag his prey into the darkling depths, although he did coil his tentacles around her more as she thrashed and kicked madly.

This is it... Fluttershy thought. At least Twilight is alright...she can do this alone.

The monster below her was watching her through unblinking eyes, waiting patiently for the pony at the end of its grasp to go limp, its mouth open in anticipation. She had never been so terrified of anything as much as she was terrified of what would be happening to her in mere seconds. Squeezing her eyes shut, Fluttershy did her best to think of all the ponies she loved who would be waiting for her on the other side, doing her best to not wallow selfishly in her own demise.

A bright flash suddenly jerked her eyes open again, and before she even knew what had happened, Fluttershy was back on the grassy shore, Twilight crying and screaming frantically.

"I'm so sorry, Fluttershy! That was too close!"

Fluttershy managed to stand up, before immediately falling back onto the ground, coughing and sputtering.

"You're alright!" Twilight gasped, at her side in an instant. "Oh, Fluttershy...that was so stupid of me!"

"The...the Amulet..." Fluttershy panted. "Did..."

Twilight quickly grabbed the golden red necklace, placing it on the ground in front of Fluttershy. The Alicorn Amulet glowed lightly, its red light casting a perforated sphere of magic around the two huddling mares.

"One down..." Twilight whispered, cautiously lifting the amulet and placing it inside her saddlepack, which laid some distance away. "Two more to go."

Fluttershy's reply was very suddenly interrupted as a loud explosion rung out through the night, followed by the sound of a huge mass splashing through the surface of the lake. Twilight and Fluttershy whipped around, and looked on in horror as Canterlot Mountain crumpled and was lost in the depths of the lake, rocks and straggly trees all slapping against the water and promptly sinking swiftly.

"NO!" Fluttershy screamed, remembering all the ponies who had set up their refuge within the Canterlot Cavern, now trapped inside a drowning mountain.

Twilight, on the other hand, reacted immediately and cast her invisibility spell which had fortunately had enough time to recharge since last time. Fluttershy looked at herself as her body disappeared, crying out in confusion.

"Shh!" Twilight whispered. "Nightmare Twilight is close..."

Magic (VIII)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Overhead, the shadow of an alicorn darted from the other side of the thin clouds, not bothering to look down at the destruction she had just caused. A few stray rocks splashed into the water but for the most part the devastation was complete.

"The Amulet..." Fluttershy whispered, and sure enough the Alicorn Amulet had begun blinking madly inside Twilight's saddle-pack as Nightmare Twilight disappeared into the distance. "We should smash it...right now!"

"No!" Twilight replied, and the Amulet was lifted by invisible hooves. "Then she'll know! She'll know we're hunting the artifacts and she'll keep the other two safe!"

For a brief moment, Fluttershy could have sworn she saw a quick flash of Twilight...but it lasted less than a second. Nevertheless, she jumped back in fright, the subliminal image of her friend instantly burned in her mind.

Twilight Sparkle had been huddling on the ground, cradling the Alicorn Amulet as if it were a newborn child. She had been staring directly at Fluttershy, but that should have been impossible, due to the invisibility spell. Nevertheless, it was quite clear that she could see her.

Most alarming, however, were her eyes. Twilight's eyes had been completely void of anything, empty like glass marbles. Except instead of the milky white one would expect, they were glowing a supernatural green, the light billowing around like smoke...or, more accurately, magic.  They were much wider than what they should have been, and Fluttershy felt as if they were staring into her soul.

"F...Fluttershy?" Twilight's voice rung out, not the voice of a possessed beast but of a concerned friend.

"Get away from me!" Fluttershy screamed frantically, turning to run and immediately crashing back onto the ground as she tripped over her own invisible hooves.

"What's wrong?" Twilight begged. "Fluttershy, don't run away! I can't even see you!"  

"Don't hurt me, please!" From the sound of Fluttershy's voice, Twilight knew she was very close by, frozen in fright.

"Fluttershy, what is the matter with you? Why would I hurt you?"

Deciding it was once again safe, Twilight deactivated the invisibility spell, revealing Fluttershy cowering on the grass with her wings spread over her defensively. When her extra appendages materialized in front of her, blocking her line of sight, she reluctantly lowered them and looked at Twilight in complete terror.  What she saw was not the terrifying, demon version of her friend but a pony as equally scared as she was, who evidently wanted to do no more than help her.

"Oh, Twilight..." She gasped, flinging herself upwards and embracing the confused unicorn. "I'm sorry I freaked out like that..."

"What happened? What did I do?"

"We all know quite well what you've done. And I shall make sure you pay for it!" A mare's malicious voice replied behind her. "So...we meet again, Twilight Sparkle."

Standing proud and tall, wearing a tattered wizard hat and a purple cape which fluttered majestically in the wind behind her, was the Great and Powerful...

"TRIXIE?" Twilight exclaimed. Fluttershy, on the other hand, looked utterly overjoyed. Trixie was dripping wet and staring at Twilight with a contempt and confident expression.

"Indeed. I suppose you thought you bested me at our last encounter."

"Uhh..." Twilight turned to Fluttershy for help, but she simply shrugged. "Listen, Trixie...I'm not who you think I am..."

"She's from another Equestria!" Fluttershy piped up. "Don't worry, Trixie, she's with me!"

Trixie scoffed in annoyance and removed her hat, holding it at her side and pointing at the few jagged rocks where Canterlot once stood.

"Then you have nothing to do with this bloodshed?" Trixie's laughs echoed loudly across the empty lake. "Trixie finds that quite difficult to believe!"

"Yeah, I can understand why." Twilight acknowledged. "The truth is going to sound ridiculous, but I assure you me and Fluttershy mean no harm...."

"Fluttershy and I." Trixie corrected smugly. "And by all means, Trixie will hear you out. She will then promptly slay you for your years of murder and betrayal."

Surprisingly, it was not Twilight who offered the explanation but Fluttershy, who had other wise remained impartial and secluded from the majority of the conversation.

"Me and...I mean, Twilight and I, are time travelers from the future, and we're here to save Equestria from being destroyed 5 months from today by an evil version of the Twilight Sparkle here, who is an omnipotent, unstoppable alicorn princess, also from the future."

"My, my..." Trixie chuckled. "That is certainly the tall tale, Miss Fluttershy...."

"It's the truth!" Fluttershy snapped indignantly.

"Did Trixie once say it was not?"

"R...really?" Twilight stammered, while clipping on her saddle-pack and placing the Element of Magic atop her head again.

"Sure! After all, it would explain the conversations of you two....of course, Trixie believes you!" Suddenly, Twilight found herself blasted backwards by a powerful burst of magic, before being pinned to the ground by Trixie's magic. "Yes! Simply give to me the Alicorn Amulet and you and our little pegasus traitor can be on your way!"

"That isn't happening..." Twilight spat in reply, grasping her saddle-pack in a tight bear-hug. Fluttershy, who had also been pinned beside her, cried out in protest at being called a traitor.

"Shut up, Fluttershy!" Trixie screamed, more magic lighting the area as the opposing unicorn charged another attack. "Trixie could kill you both right now if she wanted! How fortunate for you that she does NOT! Assuming, of course, that you give me what I want!"

"Look, Trixie..." Twilight reasoned, surprisingly cool and collected, making Trixie all the more furious. "I know you have good intentions with the Alicorn Amulet, but I really don't think it's a good idea for you to try to take it."

"Why? You think you can best the great and powerful Trixie?"

"Most certainly. Which is why I don't want to get into a fight with you." Without warning, Twilight countered Trixie's imprisonment spell with a sudden defensive burst of magic. In mere seconds, Twilight and Fluttershy stood divided from their foe by a dome shaped magical shield.

"How dare you!" Trixie shrilled, her offensive blasts continuously blasting off Twilight's much stronger barrier.

"Just relax, alright? No one is on the attack but you." Twilight affirmed calmly. "I realize our story is quite far-fetched sounding, but in my opinion, you aren't in any position to doubt it. All you have to do is walk away, Trixie."

"Yes! Walk away and pass up a chance to finally rid Equestria of your tyranny! You would like that!"

"That isn't going to work, Twi." Fluttershy whispered. "I think you're going to have to fight her."

Twilight sighed and walked to the edge of her defensive dome, staring daggers at the blue unicorn.

"Alright, Trixie. I gave you a chance to run and you didn't."

With that, Twilight teleported through the barrier, her horn alive with magic as soon as she appeared in front of Trixie. Without missing a beat, she blasted Trixie back with a powerful offensive blow. The unicorn magician landed hard onto the ground, her hat falling some ways away from her. Twilight Sparkle was beside her in a second, another blast of offensive magic already being unleashed. Trixie could do nothing more than struggle as her body was continuously assaulted by Twilight's relentless magic attacks.

"Twilight!" Fluttershy shrieked, running beside her. "Stop! You'll kill her!"  

"So?" Twilight whipped around, her eyes glowing green, her face contorted in a menacing scowl. "So what?"

"She's with us here! She's one of my friends!"

Trixie lay broken on the ground, her sides rising and falling rapidly as she attempted to force as much air into her failing lungs as possible.

"Get away from her, Fluttershy!" Twilight hissed in a tone Fluttershy had only heard from her own Equestria's native Twilight.

"What's the matter with you?" Fluttershy screamed, diving in between the two unicorns. "It's that amulet, isn't it? We need to destroy it, now!"

"Are you crazy?" Twilight's voice was much louder than an ordinary scream now...either she was using her magic to amplify it or whatever force currently possessed her was speaking in her voice. "We need it to defeat Nightmare Twilight! Don't be so selfish!"  

"I...I'm sorry..."

"Good. Then let's go. We'll spare this worthless unicorn if that's what you want." Twilight said, turning away and leaving Trixie behind her. Fluttershy could easily see that Trixie would not be alright if she wasn't helped immediately, but Twilight did not seem to care. Against every instinct of kindness, Fluttershy left Trixie and trotted after Twilight.  

The two mares walked in deathly silence, Twilight leading them to their destination without telling her companion where that destination was. To the best of Fluttershy's limited knowledge of Equestria's geography, they were heading North, presumably to the Ruins of the Crystal Empire. Twilight refused to speak to Fluttershy, instead choosing to ignore her presence entirely. When she felt Fluttershy was looking at her, she would look up at the sky or stomp the ground with her hooves, disguising the frustration as simple steps.

Through the silence, Fluttershy pondered what she had done to annoy Twilight so much...no, annoy was an understatement. If she had not intervened, Twilight Sparkle would most certainly have murdered Trixie in cold blood. With a chill, she recalled her cold, almost avian like eyes, glowing green. She had not seen Twilight's face since then, so she had no way of knowing whether or not Twilight still had them.

"Twilight..." Fluttershy whispered, drawing the one word out over the course of a few seconds. Twilight turned her head slightly at the mention of her name, but still Fluttershy could not see her eyes.

"Yeah?" Twilight asked, her voice quavering significantly.

"B...back there....with Trixie..."

"I know." Twilight murmured, staring at her hooves as she walked. "I don't know what came over me there...It was like...somepony else was telling me what to do and I was just...doing it. Without asking any questions or thinking about what was right. I think you're right about the Amulet. I can't believe what I did...Fluttershy, I'm a monster, aren't I? Just say it. I know you're thinking it."

"I'm not." Fluttershy assured. "I'm thinking we should destroy that Amulet before we go any further. Its...possessing you."

"Yeah, I know. But we can't destroy it yet. Believe me, I would have if I could have."

"Why can't we?"

"Well, we can, easily. But as soon as we do, Nightmare Twilight will know. She'll know the Alicorn Amulet was destroyed and she'll know we're hunting the artifacts, and we wouldn't stand a chance against her when she finds us."

Without warning, Fluttershy leaned over and plucked the glowing amulet from Twilight's saddle-pack, placing it in her own quickly. Twilight Sparkle looked at her, first in surprise, and then fury. Her eyes sparked with green magic and she bared sharp fangs that most certainly did not belong.

"I'll hold on to the Amulet..." Fluttershy stated, having not seen Twilight's twisted appearance as she continued walking. "I'm not a unicorn, so it won't be able to possess me like you...I'll just hold on to it until--"

Within seconds of the amulet being away from Twilight's neck, it was immediately pulled back on by some otherworldly force, as much a part of Twilight as her own horn.

"You little thief! I'll kill you!"

Within seconds of uttering her threat, Twilight broke into tears, catching Fluttershy in a tight hug.

"I...I didn't say that...that wasn't me!" To her shock, Fluttershy did not run away when she let her go. Instead, she continued staring ahead, not looking at the disturbed unicorn next to her.

"I know. Everything is going to be alright, Twilight."

Dark magic was a type of magic Twilight had did her best to avoid completely...and yet nonetheless it seemed to be creeping into her life more and more as of late. First in the Crystal Empire, followed by Trixie wielding the very same Amulet that was now affecting her. Except when Trixie was possessed, she was not nearly as malicious as what she had been. She had threatened her own friend with death...and if she wasn't Fluttershy's only companion in an otherwise unforgiving world, she could guarantee Fluttershy would have left her behind long ago.

The last time she had seen the Alicorn Amulet, she could not have imagined its impact would have been this powerful. Simply holding it had transformed her into a monster within hours. A monster that resembled Nightmare Twilight far too much for her to consider a coincidence. Was this how it happened? Twilight Sparkle had been malicious and evil in this Equestria, too, but that was a far cry from the alicorn she had watched destroy every living thing without the slightest bit of guilt. No regrets, no shame or pity or mercy, no other emotions other than pleasure... pleasure at seeing her last surviving foe perish with everything else. Most terrifying of all was that she felt exactly the same as she stood over Trixie, preparing to deliver the final blow. That magnitude of evil was almost impossible to come from a pony alone...

The only thing that could affect a pony that much was dark magic. It had happened with Sombra, Nightmare Moon, and now it was happening to her. And there was nothing she could do to stop it.

"I think I should go on alone, Fluttershy." Twilight bowed forwards, the Alicorn Amulet floating from her neck and landing into Fluttershy's saddlepack.

"W...what?"

"It's not your fault, I swear. You've been an amazing help to me and an even more valuable friend. But I can't keep doing this to you..."

"Doing what, Twilight?"

"Putting you in danger like this. And now, even I'm a danger to you. I don't want to hurt you, Fluttershy. You have a future here. You have a daughter. Don't risk losing her because I'm too weak to fight back dark magic." Twilight signaled to the glowing bulge of green light in Fluttershy's saddle-pack, even now tempted to snatch the amulet back and make the pony who tried to take it pay for separating her from it. Instead, she extended a hoof to Fluttershy, who stared at it blankly.

"You aren't dangerous...I know you wouldn't do those things you said you would..."

"Really?" Twilight scoffed. "What about Trixie? And that was just the beginning. The more time goes on, the more corrupted I'll become. Please, Fluttershy..."

Sniffling, Fluttershy extended her own hoof and shook Twilight's.

"This isn't goodbye." Twilight assured her, doing her best to keep her eyes fixated on the pegasus in front of her and not the saddle-pack at her side. "Go back to Canterlot Lake. Everything will be fine. Before you know it, this whole past will be nothing but a memory."

Nodding shakily, Fluttershy reached into her saddle-pack, withdrawing a glistening glass object, which she placed in Twilight's hoof.

"A Compass." She explained simply. "If you really are going in to the Equestrian Arctic, you'll need it."

Without another word, Fluttershy unfurled her wings and took off into the air, soaring forwards for some distance before making a long U-Turn, flying in the direction of the billowing cloud of dust still present after the fall of Canterlot.

Twilight watched as she rose into the clouds, disappearing from her sight completely. Even with the Alicorn Amulet disappearing with her, Twilight knew the corruption within her would still grow. There was only one way out of this now, only one way to save herself from the darkness possessing her. After all, she had no intention of becoming a murderous alicorn like the very foe she had set out to stop.

Ahead of her, the Crystal Empire was hiding far beyond the horizon line, although the hints of swirling snow storms were forming all around her. What remained of the Crystal Empire in this Equestria was a mystery that only time would solve; it could be anything from a thriving city separated from the dystopia surrounding it, to an empty wasteland of snow and ice.

Alone (IX)

CHAPTER NINE

Twilight Sparkle trudged through the snow for what surely must have been a day...it was impossible to have any sense of progress when there existed no means of measuring how long she had even been traveling. Even the moon, which would not have offered any help anyway, was lost in the thick clouds above her. The light was much brighter here than the rest of Equestria, although it was still not much more than a darkling crepuscular light. A growing twilight forever frozen in time, doomed to never fully be night or day.

It was snowing profusely, so much so that any distance further than a few yards was completely obscured. Twilight had heard horror stories from her brother about ponies who blindly wandered into the eternal blizzard, only to get lost in the disorienting blinds of snow. Even the most trained and competent members of his royal guard once had to spend three days waiting for rescue in the cold.

Nearly every thirty seconds, Twilight cast a backwards glance to make sure her tracks were straight, and not curving further from her destination. Even more useful for this purpose, however, was Fluttershy's compass. The shiny glass tool was nothing more than a red needle inside of a half-sphere filled with liquid, but despite its simplicity, Twilight felt she owed her life to the home-made contraption.

In time, the uppermost spires of the Crystal Empire slowly exposed themselves in between powerful gusts of snow. Still several miles away, Twilight couldn't exactly tell whether or not they were the tops of buildings that still stood tall, or the last surviving peaks to an otherwise destroyed city. She certainly hoped the former, but the idea of a city still standing tall in this Equestria seemed quite unlikely.

On and on Twilight trekked, alone through the wind and cold, the Crystal Empire laying in wait for her.

When Fluttershy finally touched down on the trodden earth where she and Twilight had stood only hours before, Trixie had already disappeared. The area of their confrontation was littered with patches of charred dirt, and a strange purple fabric which Fluttershy quickly realized was the tattered remains of Trixie's cape.

Trixie herself, however, was nowhere to be found.

Fluttershy was just about to flop on to the cold earth and rest for the first time since her brief nap in Ponyville, when she noticed something sparkling in the dirt. Curious, she approached the glistening object and prodded it with her right forehoof.

Blood. It was no object that was sparkling, but a small puddle of freshly spilled blood, reflecting the bright overhead moonlight. With horror, Fluttershy concluded that this must be Trixie's blood, undoubtedly spilled not long after she and Twilight left Trixie for dead. Guilt and pity swirled to Fluttershy's psyche, and a sudden spike of dizziness told her she was about to be sick.

Stumbling to the black mirror that was Canterlot Lake, she allowed the contents of her stomach to be hurled into the dark water. After spending the majority of her life starving, Fluttershy knew that it was probably a stupid decision, and as she splashed water onto her grimy face someways down the shore, she felt her stomach growl loudly, as if expressing its own disappointment at her impulsiveness.

"Stupid, stupid Fluttershy..." She scolded herself in a painful groan. "No wonder Twilight didn't want you around."

Over the course of several hours, she was thrown in and out of vivid nightmares as she lay exhausted on the wet grass shore, occasionally rising to exile more from her already empty stomach. In the moments when she was not tormented by her subconscious mind, she was tormented by her own consciousness as she thought back to Trixie, dying alone as she walked away, not even bothering to look back for fear of feeling guilty, as she was now.

Trixie's corpse should have been next to the blood, but it stood to reason that Nightmare Twilight had seen her body and disposed of it out of disgust. Nevertheless, curiosity eventually got the best of Fluttershy, and she rose from the earth, wincing as a sharp pain shot through her neck, which she just now realized she had been laying completely improperly on.

The pool of blood was a few feet in circumference, with a few smaller pools nearby. With a start, Fluttershy realized that she was not looking at smaller pools at all, but a trail...a trail of blood leading in the direction of Ponyville. Fueled by new found excitement, and the possibility of her guilt being unnecessary, Fluttershy took off into the sky, flying over exactly where she had seen the trail leading to.

A short way down the trail, a swiftly moving purple object caught her eye, and she tore down after it. Blowing in the wind carelessly like a tumbleweed was a pointed wizards hard, charred and torn, but unrecognizably Trixie's. Slowing to a hover, Fluttershy reached down and grabbed the hat, grasping it tightly in her hooves and continuing on the trail.

The unicorn magician, herself, she found stumbling across the earth some distance further. Lowering her altitude, Fluttershy tore directly over top Trixie, before swirling back around and landing in the dirt in front of her. Trixie was limping slightly, and her mane was disheveled and spiky, probably due to the lightning magic Twilight had attacked her with. A deep gash running down the side of her body was hastily bandaged with fabric torn from her cape, and through it blood dripped onto the earth.

"You're alive!" Fluttershy screamed, sprinting across the earth towards her.

"Not another step, traitor!" Trixie retorted, instinctively casting a defense shield. "Come to finish the job, have you?"

"J...job...?" Fluttershy asked, confused at first but startled when she realized just what 'job' Trixie was referring to. "No! Of course not! I'm just here to make sure you're alright!"

"I suppose you were the pony who intervened when that cold-blooded tyrant was about to finish me off. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe I owe you my life. Even if you are a back-stabbing renegade."

"I am NOT! And neither is Twilight! We're both on your side!"

"Tell me more, then, about this Alicorn Twilight from the Future. Trixie is really quite amused by that."

"You really wouldn't be, if you saw what she's like. Five months from today, all of Equestria will be destroyed by her, and Twilight and I will barely survive through a fissure in time. We're here to destroy three dark magic artifacts before Nightmare Twilight ever has a chance to use them to rise to power."

"Fascinating." Trixie said flatly, dissolving the magic barrier and taking a cautious step towards Fluttershy. "Then why are you alone...Trixie believes she already knows the answer to that one, though. Dark magic is certainly quite dangerous, especially to unicorns. What did she do to make you flee from her?"

"Nothing! But...she wasn't fully corrupted yet. I went away on my own terms, and she was perfectly okay with it."

Trixie took a few steps closer, and snatched her hat from Fluttershy's hooves. "Again, fascinating. Why did you leave her if she was becoming corrupted by dark magic?"  

"I have the Alicorn Amulet...which is what was making her evil...."

"Oh, naive Fluttershy." Trixie whispered, adjusting the hat atop her burnt and filthy mane. "Dark magic doesn't work like that. Distance isn't a variable at all. If it's chosen her as a host, then it must be destroyed to free her, unless she can fight it off herself. Which is why the help of a close friend would be more than satisfactory. However, Twilight Sparkle, as much as I hate to admit, is an extremely skilled unicorn. I think she should be fine...assuming she doesn't...."

Trailing off, Trixie looked as if she just noticed something and scoffed loudly.

"Oh, why is Trixie even still talking to you! She has much more important things to attend to!"  Finally admitting defeat with trying to straighten the dilapidated wizard hat, Trixie continued hobbling in the direction of Ponyville.

"Wait!" Fluttershy called, trotting after her. "I'm coming with you! I'll help with whatever you're doing!"

"Fluttershy, last time Rainbow Dash sent you to Ponyville, you disappeared for a month and we all formally pronounced you dead. Besides, I do not need your help."

"Okay...but let me come with you anyway. There's somepony I want to see in Ponyville. Somepony very close."

"Fine!" Trixie snapped, throwing her hooves in the air and wincing slightly at the resulting pain from the gash at her side. "You are the last surviving member of The Resistance other than myself, after all. Who is this pony you wish to meet?"

"My daughter. Her name is Summer Sun. She doesn't know me yet, but I need to make sure she's safe."

"My my, you were busy in Ponyville!" Trixie laughed cruelly. "A daughter in less than a month!"

"Obviously she isn't biological." Fluttershy blushed. "Since Nightmare Twilight is here, and if what you said about the dark magic corrupting Twilight is true, then I need to prepare for the chance of us failing. I need to make sure that at least she is safe."

"Trixie understands. Besides, how can I deny the presence of the pony who saved not only my life, but my beloved hat!" Trixie chuckled, tossing the hat into the air with her magic joyfully and allowing it to glide back onto her head.  

Fluttershy allowed herself to laugh, too, more out of relief than humor. Not only was Trixie surprisingly healthy considering how close to death she had been when they left her, but she was also willing to suspend any of her rational doubts and believe the ridiculous explanation Fluttershy had given her.

"Oh, and one more thing, Fluttershy..." Trixie said as they walked.

"Yes?"

"I love your new wings. Quite an interesting style you've given them. Do all pegasi in the future have wings like those?"

Twilight Sparkle gasped in amazement at the sight of the sun as she struggled through the knee deep snow. It was low, barely visible over the distant horizon of white, but nevertheless it was there, casting extremely dim rays of light which cast iridescent patterns across the icy crystals on the ground.

The sun remained in its inconspicuous position as Twilight looked up at the rising peaks of what were once glass buildings, so torn down by centuries of neglect and abuse at the hands of the winds that they were hardly recognizable as pony-built structures. In the occasional patch of exposed glass, the dim rays of the forever-setting sun exploded into a blinding display of orange light like the wick of a candle. While most of the buildings had been pushed down by the stronger of the winds over the course of a millennium, the occasional building jutted into the sky as straight as the day it was erected. Most incredible of all was the Crystal Castle, which stood as a monolith in the center of the frozen remains. One of the four supporting struts had given way over time, so that the castle leaned significantly. The tip of the pointed castle had broken away and lay alone, mostly buried by what must have been fifteen feet of snow. The other spires of the castle were all still attached save for one, which had been lost completely to the snow.

Despite its beauty, it was quite obvious to Twilight that the Crystal Empire was a ghost-town. No pony could possibly survive in the extreme temperatures of eternal twilight in the Equestrian Arctic, and if any other living creature had set up home here, it certainly did not show itself to the lone pony trekking towards the Crystal Castle.

"The Crystal Heart..." Twilight muttered gleefully. "I'm so close...only one more..."

To destroy. She told herself internally, only to shudder at the very thought of doing such a thing. Yes. I'm not going to use them. I'm destroying them.

"But why..." She continued to mutter, ignoring the fact that an alien tone of malice had crept into her voice. "Why so soon...you can use them to eliminate any opposition....then no pony can stand in your way!"

I don't need them to destroy Nightmare Twilight. Twilight asserted to the darkness within her. You've been uttering these things ever since Fluttershy left. I'm not evil and I don't want to become evil.

"How unfortunate for you." The Darkness replied in Twilight's own voice."Because it's already begun. There is no going back now, Twilight Sparkle. You're nothing more than a mental tumor on a changing brain. And soon even that morality will be gone."

It was with a frightening sense of familiarity that Fluttershy looked at Ponyville again. She had spent so much time around this town that it was becoming increasingly difficult to not call it her home...but the very idea of calling such a hellish prison home made her feel like she was going to be sick again.

Nevertheless, it was quite helpful that she knew the layout of Ponyville by heart, especially since Trixie had no idea about any of the customs of a town under Nightmare Moon's control. As the most talented unicorn in The Resistance, her duties had always been focused on keeping the stability of their renegade society, creating magical barriers and devising magical cures to combat the sometimes fatal sicknesses ponies contracted from a diet of Everfree foliage.

Trixie's initial plan had been to teleport into Ponyville, but she immediately reconsidered after hearing what had happened several days prior. Instead, she opted for Fluttershy to simply fly in and shut down the magical barrier, allowing the unlimited use of teleportation, something she repeatedly referred to as 'vital.'

Fluttershy had pestered Trixie for answers on what her 'important business' in Ponyville was, but received the same vague answer every time.

"Liberation, Fluttershy!" Trixie would shout, waving her hooves wildly through the air for emphasis.

Defeated, Fluttershy had simply chosen to accept this as a good enough explanation and go along with Trixie's plans, provided it meant seeing her daughter one more time before Nightmare Twilight finally found her and Twilight. She had pretty much come to think of this as an inevitability. There was only so many times a pony could escape death before it finally caught up, and Fluttershy was fairly certain she had escaped death more times than any average pony ever could. After a lifetime of ignoring the thread that separated her from the end, it was finally time to acknowledge the fact that any second it could be cut.

She didn't like this ideology, but it was too late to ignore it now. She had hoped for Luna or Celestia to save them from Nightmare Twilight, and when they were eliminated as candidates for liberty, her friends took on the duty of carrying the burden of hope. Now, they too were dead, and Twilight Sparkle herself was being devoured slowly by evil. There was a fine line between hope and delusion, and Fluttershy had decided she was done with being delusional, even if the reality was so painful to admit.

"Hey!" Trixie spoke suddenly, pulling Fluttershy back to earth. "You still with us, Fluttershy?"

"Oh, I'm sorry!"

"It's alright. Trixie was simply asking who this 'Nightmare Twilight' truly was, and what happened to Twilight Sparkle to make her betray you in the future."

"Well, um, its sort of complicated, but the short version is, the Twilight Sparkle that you saw with me was a different Twilight altogether. There's two of them, from two different Equestria's."

"I see." Trixie looked deep in thought, and was frowning slightly, as if weighing out the inconsistencies in what she had seen and what Fluttershy was telling her. "And what evidence do you have that this 'Nightmare Twilight' and your own friend are not one and the same?"

"Well...um, none..."

"It is incredibly likely that Nightmare Twilight is simply your own Twilight Sparkle corrupted beyond repair by the dark magic artifacts she initially set out to destroy. One nice, stable time loop. She collects all the artifacts to use against herself and ultimately becomes so corrupted by them that she transforms into the very pony who she sets out to stop, forgetting who she is in the process, of course. Maybe picking up the memories of this worlds Twilight Sparkle and mistaking them for her own. It would explain a great many of inconsistencies in your story; for example, how did Nightmare Twilight know where to find the artifacts in the first place, since Luna would most certainly not tell her where they were."

"That...that can't be true..." Fluttershy denied, shaking her head.

"It is just a theory, of course, but it seems much more likely to me then a pony coming back from the dead, something I know for a fact is impossible."

"Luna did it."

"Luna is an alicorn princess with much more magical power than Twilight Sparkle could ever even dream of having as a simple unicorn. Even at that, from what you've told me, Luna isn't even technically alive, she's only channeling her own previous form. I can say with utmost certainty that it is absolutely impossible for anypony to come back from the dead." Trixie removed her hat and did her best to straighten her mane.

"Okay. You see the guard at that tower?" Trixie asked, and Fluttershy nodded; she had been in this situation once before, crouching outside of Ponyville and waiting for the opportunity to fly into the town. However, the last time, she had been caught...which did not exactly aspire any confidence.

Trixie grinned slightly and pointed at the guard, assuming for some reason that Fluttershy had not seen him. Rising now, Trixie focused on the guard, yawning with his head down, as if waking from a nap. Suddenly, the guard keeled over and dropped to the ground and out of the line of sight of Fluttershy and Trixie.

"Did you just...!" Fluttershy gasped.

"Oh, don't be sentimental. He's only unconscious. As is the other guard." Trixie gave her horn a playful tap and shrugged. "All you have to do now is fly into the guard tower and shut down the magic barrier. Oh, and the proximity siren!"

"But wait..." Fluttershy said, scratching her head in confusion. "Won't I set off the proximity siren by going into Ponyville?"

"Oh, no, there's a delay. As long as you turn it off fast enough, you should be fine. I think...."

Not exactly brimming with confidence, Fluttershy flapped her wings enough to get her airborne, and looked back at Trixie with an expression of terror as she hovered a few feet off the ground. Trixie grinned and made an odd turning motion with one of her hooves, which Fluttershy assumed was to tell her to hurry.

"Go ahead!" Trixie encouraged. "And make sure you come right back here after you turn off the magic barrier so I know its safe."

Soaring as swiftly and silently as possible, Fluttershy cleared the short distance between her hiding place and the tall electric fence, and cringed as she flapped over it and crashed through the glass into the guard tower. Without missing a beat, Fluttershy took in the entirety of the guard tower, which was lit by a hovering magic lamp. Cables ran across the floor, connected to glowing instrument panels, their purpose completely impossible to ascertain. Some of the cables emerged from the back of the panels and hung suspended through the air, connected to the fence and hissing with electricity. Near the center of the panels were three large switches, all unlabeled. In a frenzy, Fluttershy leaped onto the panel and threw each switch. In a second, the humming of the machinery slowed and eventually stopped, and the magic lamp flickered out and fell to the ground, spraying even more broken glass into the room. A few stray sparks exploded from the instrument panels, but for the most part they were completely dead. The visible fluctuations in the wire fueling the electric fence had stopped, and the smell of electricity in the air had vanished.

For the first time in over fifty years, Ponyville was completely undefended.

From her vantage point high above the town of Ponyville, Fluttershy had a clear and unobstructed view of the Southern Guard Tower, and noticed that the lights there had also been turned off. One of the switches she had thrown must have turned of all the electricity to Ponyville, which fortunately included the electric fence.

"This is...too easy..." Fluttershy whispered to herself as she watched the guards near the town square, still blissfully unaware of the fact that an imposter was watching them from their very own battlement.

"So you think. Hello, my little pony." A familiar voice rung out. Fluttershy felt every muscle in her body go limp in terror as Nightmare Twilight stepped over the broken glass wearing a smug and satisfied grin. "You really are persistent, aren't you! You just won't die. I am honestly quite impressed you've managed to drag your pathetic self through so much."

Fluttershy continued to shiver in fright and stared at her hooves, refusing to meet Nightmare Twilight's gaze out of complete hatred and fear. Nightmare Twilight grinned and stepped closer to Fluttershy, extending a hoof and forcing Fluttershy's head upwards, meeting the terrified mares eyes and cackling loudly. Fluttershy tried to squirm away from the ice-cold hoof but found her entire body paralyzed by Nightmare Twilight's magic.

"Believe me, my dear, I don't really want to kill you. You have done me no harm and I really don't like killing ponies I don't have to. If you simply tell me where Twilight Sparkle is and what you two have planned, I might even spare your life."

Fluttershy remained silent, managing to fight Nightmare Twilight's magic enough to squeeze her eyes shut.

"SPEAK TO ME!" Nightmare Twilight screamed, and Fluttershy heard glass shatter. In surprise, she reopened her eyes and did her best to look at Nightmare Twilight directly.

"Please...before you kill me...I have a daughter...I just want her to be safe....please don't hurt her..."

"I won't. And I will let you see her again if you tell me where I can find Twilight Sparkle."

"I can't..." Fluttershy cried, fighting to keep her eyes opened as tears gushed from them. "I just can't. I don't care if you kill me..."

"Do you think I want to?!" Nightmare Twilight was screaming again. "Why do you protect her? She has done nothing for you! She has failed to save this Equestria and she has failed to save the other Elements of Harmony! I can torture you until you tell me her location! I can kill your precious daughter in front of your worthless eyes if you don't tell me what I want to know! Is that what you want? Because I know for a fact that it isn't what I want! So why do you continue to defend her from me when all I want is justice?"

"It's what friends do." Was Fluttershy's simple reply, and she cringed as Nightmare Twilight stepped back in frustration. The sound of magic filled the air and Fluttershy closed her eyes and waited for the end.

"You are a pathetic, bat-winged mistake! How dare you think your sentimentality is honorable? How DARE you think SHE deserves life while I deserve swift and merciless death, AGAIN? Do you know what it is like to wake up buried alive, Fluttershy? Do you know what it is like to fight your way through your own lazily constructed shallow grave, the power of a dead nightmare the only thing keeping you alive? I have slayed alicorns and monsters to rise to who I am now! I have bested death itself! You, on the other hand, will not be so lucky."

One final flash illuminated the remains of the guard tower roof, so bright that Fluttershy saw it clearly even through her closed eyes. When she opened them again, all she saw was light, blinding, white light, as if lightning were striking all around her. She heard rock and wood exploding, she heard glass clinking and shattering, and somewhere a young filly or colt was crying. An odd ringing sound followed suddenly, and quickly dominated all auditory sensation in Fluttershy's scrambled brain.

"Come on, Fluttershy! Get up!" Trixie's voice run out through the ringing. Fluttershy blinked several times, and thought she could make out blotches of darkness in her field of white. "For Celestia's sake, does Trixie have to do EVERYTHING?"

Eventually, Trixie was distinguishable, amongst other things; Ponyville was once again on fire, Nightmare Twilight was soaring into the air towards them. Trixie looked as if she was in the middle of casting magic, but her eyes glowed red and she was wielding a familiar golden amulet.

"Yes, I stole the Amulet from you!" Trixie snapped. "I also just used it to save your life. Sue me."

Nightmare Twilight was approaching swiftly, something Trixie noticed and laughed profoundly at.

"Do your worst, Twilight!" She screamed, and removed the Alicorn Amulet from her neck, shoving it into Fluttershy's hooves. "As for YOU, Trixie would brace herself. Long distance teleportation can be quite...volatile."

Before Fluttershy could even react, she was thrown back into the same blinding void, Trixie's insane laughter cutting off as suddenly as the world she existed in.

Spires of Ice (X)

CHAPTER TEN

Twilight Sparkle jumped back in surprise as an orb of light suddenly and inexplicably divided her from the entrance to the Crystal Castle a mere ten feet in front of her. The blinding orb sparked with electricity and magic, melting the snow underneath it and proceeding to melt into the solid ice below. As abruptly as it appeared, the orb suddenly vanished, leaving Twilight to gawk at the pony standing inside the crater in the ground.

"What in Tartarus..."

"Twilight!" Fluttershy screamed in relief. "Is that you?"

"Of course it's me! Are you alright, Fluttershy?"

"I can't see a thing. Everything is white..."

"Welcome to Equestria's Arctic North. Here, let me help you out."

Twilight contemplated simply teleporting Fluttershy out of the hole, but after what must have been a truly terrifying teleportation experience for her, she decided it was probably not the best of ideas. Instead, she lifted Fluttershy up carefully with her magic and levitated her onto the snow. Immediately after her hooves rested onto the cold ground, Fluttershy yelped in surprise.

"It's f-f-freezing here! Where are we?"

"The Crystal Empire, about two hundred miles north of Canterlot Mountain." Twilight replied, examining the pegasus for any signs of bodily harm that could have been caused by such a powerful teleportation spell. Despite her temporary blindness due to the brightness of the teleportation spectrum, Fluttershy seemed to be perfectly fine, if not a tad traumatized. "How did you get here, Fluttershy? Who teleported you?"

"T-T-Trixie...oh, Twilight, it was terrible. Nightmare Twilight knows I'm still alive. She's looking for you now! She's going to kill us both!"

"Wait...Nightmare Twilight SAW you? How could you let her SEE you?" Twilight exploded furiously, pacing back in forth in growing panic. "Argh, never mind that. Do you still have the Alicorn Amulet?"  

"In my saddle-pack. Twilight, can you please do something about my eyes?" Fluttershy pleaded, blindly clawing at her sides for the burlap bag.

"I think so. Give me the Alicorn Amulet first."

"I don't know if I should...the dark magic—"

"No!" Twilight snapped. "You don't know, period! Nightmare Twilight is going to destroy all of Equestria, again, because of you! So give me the Alicorn Amulet right now so I have something to fight back with!"

"But the plan wasn't to fight! The plan was too—"

"I know!" Twilight screamed. Fluttershy flinched in fear, she could not see Twilight, but she could hear a distinct difference in the way she had screamed those words. Fluttershy had no doubt that Twilight was looking at her through empty green eyes. However, when Twilight spoke again, her voice was much softer, almost apologetic.

"I know, Fluttershy. I'm sorry I shouted at you. But we need to change our plans now. We're still going to destroy the artifacts, but we need to get it done right now. Now that Nightmare Twilight knows we're both still alive, she's going to destroy this Equestria just like last time and go even further back in time. Except this time I can guarantee she won't let us follow her. It will be completely over. Just, trust me, Fluttershy, please. Just give me the Alicorn Amulet."

Reluctantly, Fluttershy found her saddle-pack and withdrew the Alicorn Amulet, holding it out blindly in front of her. An invisible force lifted the golden necklace form her shaking hooves, and in a sudden flash, her eyesight cleared of the white haze and she was met with even more whiteness as she looked around the swirling wasteland of snow. Directly in front of her was the most amazing building she had ever seen in her life; the crystalline tower rose higher than the clouds themselves, and for the first time, Fluttershy noticed the sun sparkling in the exposed ice crystals. It was dim and gave no warmth to combat the blistering cold, but it was a comforting sight none the less.

Equally as comforting a sight was Twilight Sparkle, who was in the process of placing the Alicorn Amulet around her neck. She smiled when she saw the amazed expression on Fluttershy's face, and turned to face the Crystal Tower as well.

"It's beautiful here, isn't it? Even after so much destruction and neglect, it's still beautiful. Everything is beautiful, when you really think about it...it's like you said back at the lake. Nothing is truly evil or dangerous. There's always something good in everything." Twilight turned around and looked at Fluttershy for a long time, before suddenly leaning forward and hugging her. "Listen to me, Fluttershy, because this is very important. When we defeat Nightmare Twilight, time is going to reset. There...there's no easy way for me to say this, but...when it resets, we...won't. We'll be distant residents of a time that never happened."

"So...there's no way we're surviving this, is there? Even if we win, we still won't survive..."

"I'm sorry. I'm not exactly sure what will happen, but it's entirely possible that we won't."

"Let's get this done then. One last adventure. Just, be careful, Twi. Don't let that amulet change who you are."

"I won't. It might be tough to hold it back, but I think I've got it under control...as long as I've got something to shoot for, I should be fine. Now listen carefully... Nightmare Twilight is going to destroy Equestria now, but if she can find me, she will probably change her mind. I'm going to call her to us, here. I'll hold her off with the Alicorn Amulet while you get to the top of that tower and get the Crystal Heart. The second you see it, smash it."

Twilight remembered what Princess Celestia had done in the realm of dreams...the holographic image of the Crystal Heart. She had never seen anypony use that magic before, but simple light magic was not difficult to do. With a little effort, Twilight created a hovering holographic Crystal Heart in front of Fluttershy.

"That's what it looks like. It'll be behind a large, sturdy looking door...a door that is designed to keep evil ponies out. This is the Crystal Empire before Sombra's reign...I'm not really sure how that chapter of Equestrian history unfolded for you guys here, but either way it look like that whole battle never happened at all. I guess the Celestia and Luna rift isn't the only thing different about this place."

"So then..." Fluttershy blinked, having lost Twilight's explanation at the mention of 'King Sombra.' "Where exactly is the Crystal Heart?"

"Right, sorry. It should be the highest room of the tower, which should be...that spire there." Twilight said, pointing a hoof at the slanted tower swimming in and out of view through the snow. "That's where its kept when there isn't a ceremony or anything, and I don't think they had any ceremonies after..."

"Celestia." Fluttershy finished sadly.

"Mmhmm. So are you good to go? You know what you're looking for, and where?"

Fluttershy nodded solemnly, and tried to unfurl her wings. With shock, she found them to be incredibly stiff and heavy, and a backwards glance told her the ice had already frozen the weak, unnatural muscles she used to operate them.

"I...I was really starting to like these wings..." Fluttershy said in a nervous laugh. "But I guess I won't be needing them after tonight anyway. I guess I'll have to use my feet like before." With effort, Fluttershy folded her wings against herself again and turned away from Twilight, running up the stairs and into the Crystal Castle. The hovering Crystal Heart hologram shifted and changed, transforming into a glowing lantern and flying after her.

Twilight waited until it disappeared into the darkness and turned to face the empty frozen field in front of her. It must have at one point been a courtyard, but now it was the ideal place for a large enough magic spell that would attract the attention of Nightmare Twilight. Bordering the courtyard were small houses or shops, long since buried by snow.

"Alright, let's see how strong you really are, Twilight Sparkle." She told the howling wind, adjusting the Alicorn Amulet around her neck. A satisfying surge of energy shot through her as the amulet glowed red, as if anticipating the battle to come.

Nightmare Twilight stepped over the bodies of ponies and broken bricks, searching the remains of Ponyville for the yellow pegasus who had twice evaded her.

She had her in the tower...she could very well have killed her right then and had one less problem to deal with. What had prevented her from doing it? Whatever it was, it was certainly something that she must eradicate.

Although the piles of corpses amongst the destroyed buildings suggested she already had.

Most had looked at her in confusion and horror as she sprayed death amongst the town. The one pony who dared oppose her lasted for a grand total of thirty seconds, before being completely disintegrated by one of her more lazily cast counterattacks. Nevertheless, she quite respected this blue unicorn, who most likely knew she would be no match against her but chose to die fighting anyway. Quite a shame that she had sided with the timid, yellow coated friend of her nemesis, she would have made a more than suitable protegee.

"Where are you, Twilight Sparkle?" Nightmare Twilight growled, stomping the ground in frustration. The ground shook underneath her mighty hoof, the hard packed dirt cracking in several directions for a few feet. "How many more ponies do I have to kill to find you?"

Suddenly, a bright beam of blue light shot into the sky from far to the North. Nightmare Twilight watched the beacon grow and ascend while listening to the sound of a few ponies wasting their final breaths of air to gasp in amazement. On the contrary, Nightmare Twilight simply regarded the magical phenomenon with an apathetic stare, before unfurling her long, slender wings and tearing off in its direction. Quickly accelerating to much faster than the average wingpower of a pegasus, Nightmare Twilight soon  was a blur of dark purple across the jet-black sky.

Fluttershy sprinted up seemingly endless flights of frozen stairs which ascended much further than the small sphere of light cast by her puny lantern. There was no light above, no sign of any conclusion to her eternal pilgrimage upwards, but she was not going to give up because of that foolish fear. Not when they were so close to the end.

The interior of the Crystal Castle was a beautiful palace of ice and crystal, which reflected the blue glow of her lantern. Even the stars had been constructed from crystal, but they were so coated with ice that it was difficult to tell the two apart. Occasionally she slipped on the smoother of the icy steps and tumbled hard onto them, and when this happened she silently cursed her clumsiness and kept on running. Her sides were covered in scratches from her numerous falls, as well as frost-bite, burn marks, and large clumps of missing fur. Her typically pink mane was stained grey with soot and smoke, and she hoped desperately that this stain was not permanent.

As Fluttershy continued tearing up the stairs and occasionally through sparkling corridors, a sudden explosion resounded outside, audible even through the thick walls of the castle. Skidding to a halt in the middle of what was perhaps once a ballroom, Fluttershy listened cautiously to whatever was outside, but there were no other sounds other than the howling wind of the early troposphere air. Nevertheless, she knew there would soon be much more destruction than what she had just heard, for the explosion outside could only mean one thing.

Nightmare Twilight had arrived.

Twilight Sparkle watched as her alicorn adversary came soaring through the clouds at an alarming velocity, landing hard enough onto the ground in front of her to create a deep crater the snowy ground.

"Twilight Sparkle." She said as she dusted snow off her back, greeting the unicorn as if she were an old friend. "Still alive and well, I see. You are quite persistent on surviving, aren't you?"

"Everypony is. We don't really like being murdered or ruled over like we're dirt."

"Neither do I. Perhaps you can explain then what you did to me, all those months ago. Perhaps you can tell me how that was not blatant murder?" Nightmare Twilight was already charging offensive magic, but from the looks of it she was taking her time, relishing every moment of her final assault.

"I...I can't. I'm sor—"

"You're sorry?" Nightmare Twilight screamed in disgust. "Are you really? You think an APOLOGY is enough to make me spare your life?"

"No." Twilight Sparkle replied. "Because I'm not running or begging anymore. For the first time since that day in the Everfree Castle Courtyard, I'm going to fight you."

"Indeed?" Nightmare Twilight sneered, allowing her magic to die off a little. "No more hiding behind the corpses of the innocent? This should be interesting. Let us see then, how Twilight Sparkle valiantly fights. Her final stand against 'true evil!'"

Immediately after finishing her sentence, Nightmare Twilight unleashed her charged magic; not her full potential but still undoubtedly lethal. Twilight hastily constructed a barrier and the beam was deflected into the sky above. Regardless of her defensive measures, Twilight Sparkle was thrown backwards by the sheer force of the blast, and crashed hard onto the ground behind her. If it weren't snow, she was quite certain it would have been enough to have broken her already weak forehoof and ribcage. Instead, it simply knocked the wind out of her and sent a wave of pain through her body.

In a daze, she almost missed another beam of magic which narrowly missed her and instead crashed a mere five feet from where she had landed, spewing flame and snow alike. Twilight Sparkle tried to force down her growing panic as she hurriedly teleported away from the barrage of lasers. Before long, she could already feel her magical energy draining and realized she had made a big mistake thinking she could hold off Nightmare Twilight for more than a few minutes.

Twilight almost laughed as she realized how foolish she had been. In her mind, she envisioned herself standing her ground valiantly, dueling her foe as if they were equals. In the ugly truth of reality, she knew she would be lucky if she lasted more than sixty seconds.

Mustering the last of her energy, Twilight flung several weak blasts of her own beams of magic at the hovering alicorn. Nightmare Twilight did not even attempt to avoid the incoming attacks, simply grinning in satisfaction as they bounced off an invisible sphere around her.

"The Crystal Heart..." Twilight muttered. "Dammit."

With one last, sparking flicker, Twilight felt the last of the magic drain from her horn and a rush of dizziness overtake her head. Nearly fainting, she managed to fight her body's wishes enough to keep herself conscious.

"Come on, come on..." She repeated, tapping the end of her horn in desperation as Nightmare Twilight continued charging a more than lethal bolt of magic. A sudden notion leaped to her mind and she clutched the Alicorn Amulet in both hooves, feeling a rush of new-found energy explode through her. Without even needing to prepare a counterattack, Twilight cast her own magic just as her foes opposing blaze tore towards her.  

Pain exploded in Twilight's horn as she struggled to hold back Nightmare Twilight's attack, feeling her magic wavering significantly. Any slip up now would be her last, and she was not about to risk her life in a fruitless standoff. Instead, she teleported far beyond Nightmare Twilight into the cover of a mass of snow which she hoped was once a building.

The interior was absolutely pitch black, but in the brief second of light cast by the teleportation spell, Twilight could see that she was indeed in some sort of blacksmith shop. Outside, Nightmare Twilight's attack hit the ground and the whole earth vibrated, some ancient building crumbling to the ground outside. Nightmare Twilight roared in frustration when she realized her target had disappeared, and the sound of her wingbeats accompanied the echo of the explosion in the distance.

"You coward!" She screamed, as she flew overhead. Knowing full well she could not hide forever, Twilight teleported back into the open air and ducked in the shadow the tall snowbank as Nightmare Twilight flew overhead, most likely not seeing her. Dashing through the snow, Twilight ran in the opposite direction of her flightpath, casting panicked glances backwards to make sure Nightmare Twilight had not spotted her.  

"So be it, Twilight Sparkle! I have no qualms about ending this world, too!"  

"Yeah, right." Twilight said sarcastically, skidding to a halt and turning around to fire a beam of magic at Nightmare Twilight. It bounced harmlessly off the invisible shield, but served its purpose of attracting the attention of the alicorn. Nightmare Twilight whipped around to face the source of the blast and laughed madly when she saw Twilight standing her ground in the middle of the frozen street. As she bore down upon her target, Nightmare Twilight returned fire, but missed due to the relative distance and swift movement. As soon as she was within range, Twilight Sparkle had once again disappeared, firing another useless laser at her back.

Nightmare Twilight once again roared in fury, trying in vain to land a single shot on the rapidly teleporting unicorn. Despite being a mere mortal unicorn, Twilight Sparkle had far surpassed what she previously thought was physically possible for a simple pony.

And then she recognized the amulet around her neck.

"My Alicorn Amulet!" Nightmare Twilight bellowed, ceasing fire. "How did you...that's impossible!"

And indeed, it defied any explanation. She herself had been calling on the Amulet's power to hunt down Twilight Sparkle, although its power was weak compared to that of the Tome of Manifestation. How was it that her foe had the same magical artifact?

"Time travel!" Twilight screamed triumphantly. "Might want to think twice before you start altering history!"

"I've seen enough. I'm ending this pointless battle once and for all." Nightmare Twilight scowled furiously, and Twilight recognized her next magical spell as the same one which had previously destroyed all of Equestria. In mere seconds, the same horror would occur again.

Twilight considered firing at the alicorn above, but knew there was no point. All her fighting had truly been in vain.

Suddenly, Nightmare Twilight let out a horrible shriek of pain as the sound of shattering glass was heard at ridiculous volume. What looked like blue shards of crystal exploded from around Nightmare Twilight in a spherical pattern, and Twilight realized what had just happened.

Without wasting a second, Twilight barraged the stunned alicorn with burst upon burst of offensive magic, and with no Crystal Heart to shield her, Nightmare Twilight was completely unprepared to defend herself.

"Yes!" Twilight howled in delight. "Fluttershy, you did it!"

Twilight continued her assault, every resounding impact sending immense satisfaction down her spine. For the first time, she was actually causing damage to Nightmare Twilight. Her advantage, however, was temporary, and Nightmare Twilight finally cast a defensive shield around herself, which despite its hasty construction looked quite durable.

"ENOUGH!" Nightmare Twilight's voice echoed across the empty plains, silencing even the wind. A bright burst of light exploded from her horn and Twilight gawked in surprise as Fluttershy appeared in front of Nightmare Twilight, inexplicably floating in the air, most likely under Nightmare Twilight's magic. Twilight expected her pegasus friend to look terrified, but instead, she was surprised to see Fluttershy simply staring at the snow beneath with a crushing look of defeat.

"Heroic Twilight Sparkle!" Nightmare Twilight mocked. "A more than competent warrior, I must admit. Truly the first real threat I've faced thus far. To be honest, I am almost glad that our final confrontation was so...exhilarating. Sadly, all good things must come to an end. But I'm a kind mare. I shall give you one last chance to sacrifice yourself and save everypony in this world. Or, you can once again watch helplessly as I kill them all. The next move is entirely yours, Twilight."

"What makes you think I can even trust you? After all you've done—"

"Trust me!" Nightmare Twilight chuckled. "Well, of course you cannot trust me! What makes you think you have any other alternative? Make your choice, Twilight Sparkle, I'm growing impatient."

Some twisted part of Twilight's consciousness was half tempted to obey with the ludicrous offer, and to remove tshe Amulet from her neck and throw the golden crown that was the Element of Magic onto the ground. She probably would have, if Nightmare Twilight wouldn't have once again spoken to her.

"Maybe I'll start with you, Fluttershy. What do you think, Twilight Sparkle? I could pluck off her wings, or simply let her drop to her death..."

"Stop doing this!" Twilight screamed furiously, feeling the Alicorn Amulet feeding her more and more energy as it reacted to her hatred. Nightmare Twilight only laughed in response. "She hasn't done anything to you! This is between you and me, so leave her alone!"

"Good heavens, you're pathetic!" Nightmare Twilight managed between bouts of insane cackling. "Both of you, really, but mostly you, Twilight Sparkle. All that dribble of 'friendship' and you can't even save one measly pegasus life."

Suspended above the snow, Fluttershy was still staring down with the same defeated expression as before. It was as if she had simply given up, accepting the fact that she was about to die with little to no resistance. Seeing that look only served to further infuriate Twilight, until she could feel the Alicorn Amulet sparking and sputtering magical energy. A ghostly calm fell over her as she prepared to embrace the darkness within the Amulet once and for all, and to finally rid this world of Nightmare Twilight.

Twilight... A familiar voice spoke without volume, heard only by Twilight Sparkle. Don't give in yet! Not when you're so close! She still has the Tome! Attacking her like this is never going to work!

"L...Luna?" Twilight said aloud, as she opened her eyes, only to be blinded suddenly by an inexplicable light reflecting into her vision. Squinting, she realized the light of the moon had exposed itself through the dark clouds that had grown since Nightmare Twilight had arrived. The moon was directly behind Nightmare Twilight, half obscuring the alicorn and rendering her as a dim silhouette. The bright light had most likely bounced off one of the ice spires and into her eyes.  

"Well?" Nightmare Twilight asked, raising an eyebrow in confusion. "Have you made up your mind? Will you finally end this pointless delay of the inevitable?"

"No." Twilight said softly, quiet enough that it was droned by the wind.

"Pardon me?"

"NO!" She screamed louder, and felt another surge of magic shooting through her body, this time fueled by something else. Something...warmer. It wasn't hatred behind this energy, but...determination. Whether she wanted to or not, she knew that this next burst would drain the remaining energy in the Alicorn Amulet, leaving her entirely powerless. She simply could not miss.

Nightmare Twilight cocked an eyebrow in surprise as a bolt of extremely powerful energy shot towards her, with the destructive potential to rival even an attack of her own. It was approaching her at an alarming velocity, and without the aid of the Crystal Heart, it could very well end her life.

Instead of risking it, Nightmare Twilight simply teleported to the side and watched as the bolt flew past her, raising an ear at the sound of it rushing past a few seconds later.

"Wow..." She said, sounding genuinely disappointed, watching as the bolt disappeared from sight and soon from Equestria's atmosphere altogether. The orb imprisoning Fluttershy vanished and Nightmare Twilight casually watched the flightless pegasus fall helplessly, before smiling at Twilight just as the sound of cracking bones cut through the silence. "Quite unfortunate. Although I don't think that fall was quite enough to kill her. I'll take care of that in a moment."

Flapping her wings gently, Nightmare Twilight lowered her altitude before touching down on the ground and pacing towards Twilight Sparkle, who was trying in vain to cast magic. The Alicorn Amulet had stopped glowing completely, not even sparking despite her best efforts.

"I believe you've destroyed it." Nightmare Twilight pointed out matter-of-factually. "How sad."

Without any warning, Nightmare Twilight lifted a hoof towards Twilight Sparkle while simultaneously enveloping her in magic. Twilight tried to fight her magic hold, but it was simply too strong. Even with the Alicorn Amulet also gone, the Tome of Manifestation still gave her more than enough power. Nightmare Twilight said nothing as she intensified her magic, watching the purple unicorn writhe as she was suddenly assaulted by electricity.

A million thoughts darted to Twilight's mind as she felt her last few moments slipping away, although most prominent was the recurring frustration that Nightmare Twilight had picked such an ironic way for her to die. How many times could a pony die of electrocution? Twilight felt her heart beating rapidly in her chest until she was certain the organ would burst. The deafening sound of blood pumping dominated her ears, and her rapidly convulsing eyes were slowly but surely growing dim. Through it all, Nightmare Twilight did nothing but watch, looking as if she was mildly satisfied at the scene unfolding in front of her, but ultimately uncaring. Without any direct source for the electricity to flow to, Twilight assumed it would take some time for her to die. Perhaps she was in luck.

"Any last words, Twilight? Care to justify your horrible attempt at striking me with your final ounce of energy? My, you missed your target quite miserably, it's actually quite humorous."

"You weren't my target..." Twilight croaked in reply, and managed a satisfied grin which completely bewildered the previously overconfident alicorn. Nightmare Twilight looked as if she were about to say something, but a brilliant flash caused her to whip around. She had just enough time to take in the sight of the moon exploding before she was once again caught in the crossfire of time rewriting itself to accommodate the destruction of her precious magical artifacts.

Losing her grasp on Twilight completely, Nightmare Twilight tried desperately to fight the imminent result of the death of the Tome of Manifestation through the ribbon of light wrapping around her body. Twilight herself was still shuddering in pain as the occasional jolt of lingering electricity sent shocks through her, but even through the chaos she found the Alicorn Amulet in the dirt and smashed the red crystal with her hoof, destroying it once and for all.

Nightmare Twilight was thrown into another bout of pain before having a chance to recover from the shock caused by the destruction of the moon, but this time the white ribbon of light was joined by seven more, each a brilliantly colorful strand contributing to a full rainbow which swirled and wrapped itself around the screaming alicorn princess.

Twilight tried to stand but upon rising fell back to the ground as her exhausted legs gave way. Fluttershy was laying in the snow some ways in front of her, her eyes closed. Beneath her, the snow was slowly turning red.

"Oh, sweet Celestia..." Twilight gasped, once again trying to rise and making it a few feet towards Fluttershy before falling back down again. She looked forward hopelessly, noticing with horror that Fluttershy's sides were beating up and down rapidly, as if she were drawing her last breaths.

"Do not fret, Twilight." A kind voice spoke as a shadow fell across the exhausted mare. "You two have both done incredibly. I will not let her die."

"N...Nightmare Moon..." Twilight coughed, her eyes widening in surprise and her horn sparking slightly as she tried and failed to cast a defensive shield.

"In appearance, alone, I assure you." Was Princess Luna's soft reply. "Please do not fear me."

Luna extended a slender black hoof towards Twilight, helping her to her feet and allowing her to lean against the black alicorn's skeletal body. Luna walked slowly towards Fluttershy, closing her eyes and humming some odd incantation Twilight had never heard before. In seconds, Fluttershy was blinking her tear soaked eyes and trying to rise just as Twilight had.

"No, Fluttershy..." Twilight said, sitting down beside her. "It's alright. We did it. We won."

"I...we...Twilight..."

"It is over." Luna said solemnly, looking at the broken body of the other Twilight Sparkle, who was still breathing but evidently dying. Her wings were gone and her appearance was, simply put, horrifying. She looked as if she had just crept from the grave after her body had enough time to decay, which Luna knew was actually the exact truth. It was rotting in some parts, and she was missing her left ear entirely. She was slouching against a hoof which was most likely broken, given its angle relative to the rest of her body. Nevertheless, she continued to watch the reunion through cold, featureless, unblinking eyes. Twice she tried to speak, but no sound escaped from her mouth.

Luna glared at her in disgust, not of her physical appearance but of the knowledge of what this pony had done. She considered putting the grotesque...thing, out of its misery, but decided it would be too cruel to do with her two young heroes watching. Besides, she knew it was already going to die no matter what happened...the stars could reline themselves, the poles of Equestria could suddenly shift, Celestia herself could return to the realm of the living; anything could happen at that moment, but one thing remained certain. Twilight Sparkle would finally die here.

"Speak, thou unholy beast." Luna called, unintentionally readopting her archaic vocabulary as she often did when she was flustered.

"Twilight..." The decaying pony managed, the rest of her sentence completely inaudible. "Not...not finished, yet..."

"Oh yes you are." Luna snapped. "What else could you possibly have? Look at yourself! You cannot speak, let alone counter the magical might of me and my two..." Luna whipped around to face the two huddling mares, trying to think of the most appropriate word to describe them. "...friends..."

"Not....done..." Twilight Sparkle's voice sounded like a harsh wind blowing through a forest of dead trees, but her next sentence rung out with startling clarity. "For...for hate's sake...I spit my last breath at thee..."

Across the clearing, Celestia's Twilight looked up in surprise at the familiar phrase. A pony did not live in a library and not recognize those words, after all. The deformed Twilight Sparkle took a few staggering steps forward, twisting her broken teeth into a demented smile as six colorful stones manifested themselves around her.

Twilight rose from the earth, Fluttershy trying and failing to keep her seated. Luna looked on in shock as the Elements of Harmony began swirling around the hideous unicorn, while Twilight herself faced her doppelganger  directly, the distance between them shrinking as they both walked slowly towards each other.

"Twilight, you fool!" Luna screamed. "Those are the Elements of Harmony she is wielding!"

"I'm aware." Twilight said with a backwards smile, and faced her foe as the Elements exploded to life, surrounding their host in a vibrant magical glow. The sphere intensified until she was completely engulfed in the magic, and just as it finally began imploding back in on itself, Twilight Sparkle teleported straight into the orb in pursuit of her decaying double.

Reflections (XI)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The pony without a name looked up at the strange sky above her, inky black, without the slightest pinprick of a star to break up the monotony of nothingness. She knew it was not nighttime, rather, she was literally surrounded by nothing. And yet here she was, alone and aware, racking her mind for something, anything, that could help ease the panic building in her mind.

Should she call out for help? Could she? And would anypony listen?

"Hello, Twilight Sparkle." A ponies nervous voice spoke behind her. Whipping around, Twilight came face to face with a startling reflection of herself.

"You..." She spat at the pony who had twice now bested her. "Come to gloat, I suppose, before banishing me to an eternity in Tartarus? Go ahead. I suppose I deserve it."

"What? Of course not!" Celestia's protegee said defensively, taking a nervous step backwards. "I'm just here to talk...please, I promise that's all I want to do."

"What makes you think I wish to speak with you?"

"I know. You probably don't." Celestia's Twilight muttered dejectedly. "I can leave you if you want..."

"NO!" Twilight suddenly screamed, finally looking straight into her clone's eyes. "You are probably the last pony I will see for a long while. Do not be mistaken, I despise you with every fiber of my being, but I don't want my final encounter with ponykind to be so...humiliating."

Celestia's Twilight nodded in understanding, sitting down on the black, invisible ground beneath her.

"This place is familiar...but it's also different from last time I saw it...."

"And where is 'this place?'"

"Oh, that's right! Well, you see, when you tried to use the Elements of Harmony against me, they rejected you and backfired, banishing you here."

"And you knew all this would happen? You knew the Elements of Harmony would never work against you?" Twilight was somewhat doubtful of that...after all, if this Twilight was really telling the truth, these very same Elements had rejected her and sent her to this same plain of emptiness.

"Well...no, I didn't know for sure. But I have a pretty good idea of why the Elements of Harmony backfired on me last time. I had evil in my heart, but good, too. I was...conflicted, internally, about what I thought was right and wrong. It's different when Luna used them against Celestia...she didn't mean to do what she did at all." Celestia's Twilight sighed and lied down on her back, staring up at the black sky above. "When I saw you watching us...me and Luna and Fluttershy, and I thought about why you had come back in time in the first place, something Fluttershy said came back to me. She told me that no one was really 'evil,' and that everypony had good in their hearts somewhere. I didn't know for sure if you did, but I know now."

"Please, spare me this pointless sentimental nonsense. I suppose it was the strength of 'friendship' which motivated you to take such a risk?" Twilight laughed, more to herself, and without the intention of insulting her doppelganger. She simply did not have the motivation to attack this unicorn any more.

"Actually, yeah, it was. It's how I knew you still had something honorable in you. Someone who you wanted desperately to protect."

Twilight laughed again, although this time even she could hear the uncertainty in the echoing chuckle. She began pacing away from Celestia's seated protegee, not trying to evade her but simply trying to distract herself from the onslaught of information this Twilight was barraging her with.

"And who might that be? You are seriously suggesting I had any 'friends?'"

"Of course I am. And you know you do, too. You traveled through time itself, you rewrote history just to save her from me. She is your mentor, yes, but she's also the closest thing you've ever had to a friend. I know because Celestia is the same with me."

Twilight sighed and stopped her pacing, burying her face in her hooves and sinking to the ground herself.

"Fine, I'll admit it. Why, I do not know. Yes, I have formed a bond with Nightmare Moon which could be called 'friendship.' She was not only the first pony to show me the ways of magic, but she raised me since I was a small filly. Of course I feel obligated to protect her. And look where it has gotten me. You see...I've been here too. This is where Nightmare Moon resurrected me."

"Wait..." Celestia's Twilight said, startled. "This...this has happened before? You've been here before?"

"This exact location. And I know what you are thinking. A time loop. The Elements of Harmony split me from the darkness that manifested itself for me here. That same darkness finds me here, at which point I will have become an amnesiac, frees me from this void, and sends me out into Equestria again. An Equestria which will have reset since you have prevented it from ever changing, hence the amnesia. In other words, you and I are locked in an eternal, never-ending battle, which will stretch on longer than time itself."

Celestia's Twilight rose and sat down beside her. Twilight should have felt utterly disgusted and infuriated at this expression of comfort, and even more insulted by the comforting hoof her enemy placed on her shoulder. However, instead of responding in anger, she simply blew the hair out of her eyes in an irritated sigh.

"It doesn't have to." The other Twilight said, with a voice that she assumed was supposed to sound kind. "We can end this right here, right now. No more fighting, no more hatred, no more revenge..."

"And why do you think I would comply? You may not remember, but I completely despise you. You murdered me, you murdered my mentor, and you pried Equestria from her cold hooves after you had. Then you fled to your perfect little world, sealing the Mirror Pool behind you."

"I'm sorry..." The other Twilight whispered, her voice barely audible, but the words themselves the most powerful Twilight Sparkle had ever spoken. "I know that doesn't mean anything to you...I know you think its just a pointless phrase, but I mean it. I really, truly do. If I could change time like you, if I could somehow go back, I would change it all. I wouldn't do what I did then. I'm sorry about what happened to you, and I'm sorry you'll never see Nightmare Moon again."

Twilight Sparkle felt every one of her doppelgangers words strike her with a force much stronger than the brute force of the magic blasts this same pony had assaulted her with after the Crystal Heart had failed. She wanted to scream at her in response, she wanted to break down and cry, she wanted to hug this pony beside her and tell her she was the one who should be sorry. She was the one who had killed millions, destroyed too much and gone too far.

Instead, Twilight Sparkle remained silent.

"But...there is a way you can see Nightmare Moon again." Celestia's Twilight mumbled, sorrow in her voice as well. "I can't change the past, but I've found I'm quite skilled at shaping the future. And right now, our future doesn't look very good, does it? An eternity of suffering and pain and war...It's not what either of our mentors would want. I was weak, back in the Everfree Forest. I thought killing you would be the easiest way to rid Equestria of you altogether. But I see now that refusing you mercy only caused more pain and suffering. This is all my fault, and I know you feel no obligation to clean any of the mess I made, but the future of Equestria lies solely on where you choose to go from here..."

"And what are my two destinations?" Twilight Sparkle asked, scratching her head to give the illusion of confusion, when in fact she knew quite well what choice she was being presented with.

"Life, here, within the Elements, or coming with me to the outside. To finally face death. To be at peace."

Twilight Sparkle turned to face Celestia's Protegee, but from the looks of it, she was refusing to meet her eyes, instead staring at her own hooves in genuine guilt. She really could go with this pony, away from this empty void. The time loop would be broken, and Equestria would carry on as if she had never once been resurrected, which technically she never would be. She might never know how she had originally bested death itself, but that had very little relevance. What mattered was whether or not she wanted to continue evading it. It seemed like eons since Nightmare Moon had approached her in this very same void, but she now knew that that had not been Nightmare Moon at all, merely a being using her image. If she remembered correctly, the being had even told her this. In truth, she knew there was only one place she could see her long lost mentor again.

"I have made my choice, Twilight Sparkle. I am ready to end this pointless struggle. I am ready to die."

Twilight and Luna stood together in the dark of the Everfree Forest, just outside the cavern which housed the Mirror Pool which would, in mere hours, be finally taking Twilight home. Twilight was somewhat nervous about leaving this world behind, considering how unsure she was about whether or not she had technically succeeded. Indeed, this world's Twilight Sparkle had ultimately freed herself from the monster known as Nightmare Twilight, and in the end, had given up the ghost all on her own with what seemed almost like contempt. Twilight would never know for sure whether or not this world's Twilight would carry any hatred towards her for what she and Fluttershy had done to her, but some hopeful part of her told her she would not.

"Here we are again..." Luna said, looking at Twilight with pride, and casting a backwards smile at Fluttershy, who was watching them with a gentle smile of her own. "Although this time, you shall retain all your memories of what has transpired in my world. You are comfortable with that?"

"I made peace with somepony I truly wronged in the end...I made somepony as blinded by justified hatred as Twilight Sparkle forgive me for something I truly regret doing. Princess Luna...I should feel better, but I...I..."

"But you don't. Everything is in it's right place, and you should be happy, but still you feel guilt." Luna unfurled one of her skeletal black wings and rested in on Twilight's back. "Believe me, Twilight Sparkle, I know how that feels."

"I'm so sorry!" Twilight instantly felt bad for even complaining to Luna about these sort of things when it was obvious that the Princess of the Night had endured much worse and had much more to live with than her own puny burden of guilt.

"Why? You have no reason to be sorry with me. Twilight, there is something I failed to mention to you about the night you and her fought in my castle's courtyard. You see, when I came out to see the aftermath of your duel, I was startled to see that Twilight Sparkle...was still alive."

"Wh...what?!"

"Exactly that. She was most certainly dying, and it was easy to see that her physical form had taken quite the hit from your magic. Her horn had been blown off by the blast and many of the wounds to her body seemed irreparable. But nevertheless, when I found her in the courtyard, she was still breathing. She did not speak to me, but from the way her eyes lighted up, I could tell she could see me. I knew that her dying would probably be for the best, considering all the pain and suffering I watched her inflict on the residents of Ponyville, but I simply couldn't leave her like that. I...I'm the reason Nightmare Moon was able to access her consciousness and bring her to power."

"But...how? How did you save her if her wounds were that severe?"

"I knew I did not have enough time to heal her physical form, so I did the only other thing I could think of. I severed her consciousness from her body and sealed it within the Elements of Harmony. She must have ended up in a different plain than you did when you failed to wield them later on, but either way Nightmare Moon must have gotten to her much sooner than that anyways."

Twilight cocked an eyebrow and took a few steps forwards, feeling Luna's wing slip off her back and fall back to her side.

"Then she must have been preparing to fail beforehand, setting up a fail-safe in case she couldn't defeat me and my friends in Ponyville."

"No. The Nightmare Moon I knew went to her death humbly and loyally. I saw it with my own eyes, and I believe that she did so based on her word alone. She once told me that when the Elements split us from each other, she would forget everything she knew and revert to being a merciless monster. That is what happened," Luna sighed with regret and continued, "Separating Twilight Sparkle's mental and physical forms was entirely my decision, and I did that completely out of preservation, with no intent of using her as means to escape death."

Again, Twilight was flooded with confusion, as she pondered something she had desperately wanted to ask Luna but ultimately deemed it would be too offensive to ask of a mare still so infected by grief. As much as she was tempted to ask Luna for clafification on the topic, she ultimately decided against her. However, to her surprise, Luna brought the issue up herself as she stepped forwards, motioning towards the dark forest ahead, and started leading the way into the thick trees, wishing for privacy for the things she was about to confess to.

"Nightmare Moon was plenty of things during those years after my sister passed. She was a parasite, a frightening figure of greed and loathing, but...most prominently, Nightmare Moon was my friend. After what happened to Celestia, I did nothing but blame her for the events, but I knew deep down that what happened was entirely my fault. But I denied it, simply concluding that she had been controlling my mind at that time, which, to be fair, was partly true. Throughout all those years, Nightmare Moon and I were two separate entities, one a greedy, malevolent mare who wanted power but had no means of obtaining it, and myself, a guilt-stricken, near-suicidal wreck of a pony whose own desire for power had allowed the former to be created."

"Then how could you call her a friend?" Twilight asked, Luna's description of Nightmare Moon feeling entirely familiar with what she herself had witnessed. She was most certainly not the sympathetic figure Luna was suggesting.

"I don't quite know. For one, I was alone. Everypony seemed to despise me except her. She constantly whispered in my mind, assuring me things would be alright, giving me advice on how to proceed with things. Over time, she changed. Started understanding ponies, showing compassion, expressing gratitude and friendship. Of course, sometimes she would grow upset with me, and command me sternly on what I was supposed to be doing"

"This only happened rarely, and whenever it did, I realize that she was morally correct each time. Maybe it was all lies for self-preservation's sake, but I felt as if she truly cared not only about me, but about our subjects. I'll never know what she really felt about me or anypony else, but I remember believing her when she called herself my friend."

"What was it like, being controlled by her like that?"

"I was never once controlled by her. And she was never controlled by me. As I said, we were simply two mares in one ponies body. In reality I realize that it was her evil power that kept my own at bay, but that did nothing to deter me from eventually coming to think of her as the closest thing to a friend that I had. And it did nothing to give her any actual authority over my actions. She was probably more reliant on me than I ever was on her."

Twilight said nothing, too shocked and too scared to speak. She did not exactly know what she thought of Luna at that moment. Was it pride that she had seen the good side of a being as terrible as Nightmare Moon? Or was it fear that such a naive pony was now in exclusive control of the entire nation of Equestria?

Luna, noticing Twilight's wariness, formed a tiny, sorrowful grin and motioned back towards where the Mirror Pool was, its gently rippling waves anticipating the return of the unicorn from another Equestria altogether.

After a full two minutes of contemplating Luna's views on Nightmare Moon, Twilight decided that, if anything, she should feel relief that both Nightmare Moon and Twilight Sparkle were at rest, instead of in the swirling depths of hatred she had left them in last. That, at least, was finally a given.

"I...I suppose this is goodbye..." Twilight whispered, staring into the sparkling waters of the Mirror Pool in front of her. Luna stood stoically, still looking like the black alicorn who every filly and colt expected to see on Nightmare Night. Fluttershy was using her grey-stained tail to wipe tears from her eyes as she said her final farewells to her friend. "I'm going to miss you, Fluttershy, but I don't belong here. Once I'm gone, everything will be back to normal."

"I won't remember you..." Fluttershy cried through suppressed sniffles.

"You shall remember her slightly..." Luna assured her, breaking her statue like stance and staring at Fluttershy's reflection in the pool below. "But all these horrible memories of pain and death will exist as nothing more than a bad dream at the back of your mind. Yes, you will mostly forget this second reunion, but you will never forget it completely."

"Everything will be fine, Fluttershy. As soon as I leave, you'll wake up right back where you should be. Back at home, with your family. And your future. Nopony will remember Nightmare Twilight, or the destruction she caused. And, unfortunately, they won't ever know that it was her decision which finally ended this for all of us. She really did die as a hero in the end."

Luna said nothing, but from her expression, Twilight could tell she did not entirely agree. She wondered if Luna would ever forget the pony who she had once (partially) viewed as a child, raising her and teaching her from her earliest days as a filly. It was possible even Celestia herself would never fully understand the sacrifice Twilight had seen this pony make.

With a mighty sigh, Twilight broke her gaze with Luna and Fluttershy and resumed examining herself in the water below, at her own reflection which was at last her own. There was no hatred in this ones eyes, no sorrow or pain or regret. And into her reflected face she smiled, before turning to direct this smile at Luna and Fluttershy one last time.

"Goodbye, Twilight Sparkle." Princess Luna bowed, and Fluttershy followed suit, managing a weak smile while wiping away the last of her tears. "And...thank you."

Deciding it would be too painful to prolong this farewell any longer, Twilight stuttered a thank you of her own, before closing her eyes and leaping into the Mirror Pool one final time.

Beyond (Epilogue)

It was still night when Twilight Sparkle stepped from the Mirror Pool cavern and into the cold air. Immediately upon glancing around the empty forest, she was alarmed to see a large lack of foliage on the Everfree Forest trees...it was as if the seasons had suddenly changed in her absence.

Which, she later found out as she entered her library in the dwindling hours of the morning, they had. She had returned to her Equestria five months earlier than when she had left, courtesy of Nightmare Twilight.

Spike had been quite upset when she entered, but Twilight could tell he was genuinely relieved to see she was alright. Fortunately for her, it was still dark when she entered the library, and he did not seem to notice the patches of black burn marks on her mane and her horribly scratched sides. In only two days, her past self would also return from their Equestria's neighboring reality, and she knew it would be vital she was gone by then. She would have to find someplace peaceful to wait out the five months until she was back to the present. Hopefully her friends would not notice the fact that she had aged an alarming five months in mere hours.

Slipping out of the library like a ghost after Spike had returned to sleep, Twilight Sparkle quietly fled from her own town, nodding a respectful farewell as she temporarily left her life behind.

At precisely the same moment, five months later, Fluttershy jolted awake from her peaceful slumber and stumbled into her pristine kitchen. In the other room, Summer Sun was snoring loudly, and Fluttershy smiled at the sound, feeling some of the horror of her nightmare seep away as she listened to the familiar, comforting noise.

What a dream she had just waken from.

Pouring herself a tall glass of water, Fluttershy grabbed the cup in her left wing, making a mental note of the feathers that fell as she did so. Perhaps it was once again time to preen her wings.

Carrying the cup with her, Fluttershy silently opened her cottage door and set it down on the picnic table outside, the freshly painted wooden structure already looking completely at home on the newly growing grass. The sky above was a brilliantly shimmering celestial sheet of stars, the moon having already descended underneath the horizon closer to midnight.

Fluttershy thought about her strange, fantastical dream as she listened to the soothing sound of crickets in the cool night air. Twilight Sparkle had been there, and she distinctly remembered speaking to Celestia, too. Could Celestia dreamwalk now, too? Princess Luna would be more than happy to know that.  

There was more too her dream, too. To the best of Fluttershy's knowledge, it was absolutely impossible, but it seemed as if she had gained almost a month of new memories in the span of one night's dream. Although they were not necessarily memories Fluttershy would like to have had. She remembered fleeing a burning Equestria, battling ferocious alicorns, and saying a sorrowful goodbye to the friend she had left behind half a year ago.

In the end, however, Fluttershy decided it was all simply a wild, incredibly vivid fantasy undoubtedly caused by too much cider or too little chamomille tea. Nothing more than a particularly exciting dream.

Nevertheless, she knew even then she would never forget that dream for as long as she lived.

It was slightly uncustomary for the Princess of the Night to sleep during her own half of the day, but for Princess Luna, a nocturnal lifestyle occasionally needed a bit of readjustment. Especially when her services were needed both under the sun and moon, since she had exclusive reign over Equestria.

However, the second Luna felt the softness of her pillow as she lied down in her makeshift bedroom in one of the few completed spires of Canterlot City, she simply let her worries fade away and her mind to drift to sleep, knowing full well the dawn was mere hours away.

Normally the dreams of the Princess of the Night were a simple, ghost-town version of Equestria which Luna found quite disturbing and void of life. The dreams of other ponies were much more interesting.

However, upon reaching the realm of dreams, Luna was utterly shocked to find a visitor in her subconscious.

"Hi, Luna." Celestia said casually, sitting on a wooden chair in the corner of Luna's mirrored dream version of her bedroom.

"I...you...WHAT?" Luna screamed in surprise upon seeing her sister for the first time in more than a thousand years. "Sister! Is it really you?!"

"Of course it is, Luna. Why would it not be me?"

"How?!" Luna exploded, pacing back and forth in confusion.

"You taught me...?" Celestia said, as if it were a perfectly reasonable explanation. "Oh my! You don't remember, do you?"

Luna simply blinked in bewilderment, stepping forward and poking her sister with a trembling hoof. Celestia shimmered and lost her form temporarily, which Luna knew only ever happened to external visitors of a dream. Projections of the subconscious were never this imperfect. The only possible explanation was the one that made no sense: that Celestia really was sharing a dream with her.

"Well, I'll tell you all about it, sometime. For now, I must inquire...how fares Equestria?"

"It...it's fine..." Luna stuttered. The state of Equestria had done nothing but improve ever since the sun had first risen. The morale of her subjects had skyrocketed, plants and animals repopulated and began once again spreading across Equestria's surface, and Luna herself had grown increasingly comfortable with raising and lowering both the sun and moon that it was practically second nature to her.

"That is good..." Celestia said with a smile. "Everything on my end is quite good, too. I have even made a new friend in a certain magically talented purple unicorn. She is slightly insolent, and ever so cross with you, but I feel she has great potential, as well. You probably know her as 'Twilight Sparkle.'"

"You're really here..." Luna muttered, Celestia's words flying completely over her. Luna's whispered words came as a flurry of disbelief and unparalleled joy, as she continued gawking at her long lost sister.

"Yes." Celestia chuckled kindheartedly, moving closer to her sister and nuzzling her gently. "And I promise to never go away again. We may not both be alive, but we will always be together. I am only ever a dream away, sister."

The two alicorn Princesses conversed for what Luna initially thought was several minutes, but in reality were the span of several hours. They spoke of everything and anything, Luna's joy and surprise only growing as she recounted more than a millenniums worth of her life which Celestia seemed to already know all about somehow, but allowed her to explain it nevertheless.

Outside the realms of Luna's dreams, the time for the sun to rise was quickly approaching, and even Celestia could feel the end of night swiftly approaching. Luna simply did not want to return, for fear of loosing Celestia once again...part of her wanted to believe that Equestria could wait, that this might be the last dream she might ever have, and if she were to wake back to reality than this precious reunion would be all but forgotten.

"A few more minutes." Luna said simply, noticing Celestia's glances out her window, at the sun rising even in her dream world. "Please...tell me more about..."

"Some other time, Luna." Celestia promised, pointing out the window at the glowing orange of the clouds overhead, the sky turning a bright red hue in the growing dawn. "For now, Equestria is calling. Your Equestria. I'll see you soon."

Nodding sorrowfully, Luna closed her eyes as if falling asleep, when in reality she was forcibly destroying her dream world as she prepared to return to her real world. After all, it was just another day in Equestria, one that Princess Luna would make sure was just as peaceful and hope-filled as the last.

She owed her subjects that much.