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. Next Chapter: Beyond (Epilogue) Estimated time remaining: 6 Minutes