Chapter Thirty Six: The Heart of the World.

***

Twilight Sparkle was floating… somewhere. There was a warm, peaceful, relaxing light surrounding her, enveloping her, embracing her. She felt nothing but a sense of peace and contentment here, as though all the worries of the mortal world no longer existed, no longer held any power over her. All the horrors she had lived through melted into nothingness, and there was no fear - not for herself, not for Equestria, not for anything.

She wished for a moment that she could live here, forever, floating in nothing, with no cares and no concerns, just…

***

… resting here with her friends beneath Celestia's sky, enjoying the sunshine in peace.

Twilight looked around to see what her friends were doing Pinkie and Fluttershy were having a conversation off in the distance - Twilight couldn't hear the details, but she gathered from what she had heard that it was about Pinkie planning (rather exuberant sounding) parties for Fluttershy's animal friends. Rarity and Rainbow were having a chat about clothes - or rather, Rarity was trying desperately to convince Rainbow that she would look better if she took the time to actually style her mane ("but this is a style! Rainbow Style!" "I assume that means none whatsoever?").

She blinked. This felt strange - though everything was fine, she could feel a sort of… unease around her, like this was somehow wrong. But how could it be wrong? Equestria was peaceful, her friends were with her, and all was well.

Unless… that was what was wrong...

"You ok, Twilight?" Applejack asked, startling her from her thoughts.

"Oh," she said, smiling, "I'm fine, Applejack, just…"

***

... fine.

She shook her head, the movement feeling sluggish in this place. What was that?! What had she just experienced? She had been with Applejack, Rarity and the others… but that wasn't possible, they were dead…

***

… and she would be too at this rate. Gritting her teeth, she yelled out to her troops. "Hold that bucking line, hold that bucking line!"

Commander Twilight Sparkle cursed. Blood leaked from a dozen minor injuries, and she felt the briefest moment of indignity (soon forgotten in the heat of battle) the thought that all her wounds - all of the chaos and destruction surrounding her - was nothing more than the product of one, stinking, bucking human!

Thousands of Royal Guard stood with her, Pegasi warriors dive bombing the figure, Unicorns firing every conceivable destructive spell they could possibly think of, and everywhere she looked all she could see were dead ponies. This one, impossibly powerful figure had withstood every single strike her armies had sent at it, killing it's way from the Everfree Forest where it had first been sighted to the gates of Canterlot now. This one figure had cut through Archmagi, Solamina's personal reserves, the Sun Idols of Invictus…

Even Sol Invictus' banner itself, the work of devotion and loyalty to the Empress that the Converted had commissioned as a sign of his unwavering faith, the banner he always carried into battle, had fallen, still clutched in the mad old idiot's teeth as his head was parted from his body… nothing was working against this monster, nothing.

The figure marched forward with all the purpose of an angry god, a blade that crackled with power of all shades and hues in it's hand, a tattered cloak of deepest scarlet flying behind it. His golden armour was rent and bloodied and dented and yet it still held strong. His hair was a dark halo around his head, blowing in the wind of his own magics and those arrayed against him.

"Do you understand now?" a deep, impossibly powerful voice asked, at once all around Sparkle's ears and inside her own head. "Do you understand the futility of your struggles, the insignificance of your armies, next to the holy, pure wrath of the human race unshackled from their morality, liberated from their fear? Do yourselves a favour: end your struggle. Surrender yourselves to the inevitable. You will spare yourselves toil and uncertainty before the end."

"Keep fighting!" Sparkle yelled desperately, her own voice, magically amplified, still feeling impossibly small next to the power of the being's words.

"You are brave, little ponies, but your bravery is irrelevant against the power of Albion," the voice spoke again.

"Commander Sparkle!" a Royal Guard spoke, sounding terrified. "Nothing's stopping this creature! We must withdraw!"

"If we withdraw, nothing's standing between that thing and Empress Solamina!" Sparkle retorted loudly. "We fight to the death!"

"Buck that!" somepony yelled, and she saw ponies break from the defensive line as the figure drew closer and closer. Fifty steps. Forty nine.

"Stand and fight!" she yelled, and a blaze of purple energy incinerated the deserter before he'd made it twenty paces. "Die against that or die by my hoof, I don't care which you do!"

Nonetheless, more ponies broke the line, and she couldn't kill all of them. Thirty nine, thirty eight.

"If you think that you have a chance against me, little ones," the creature said as it approached, its voice now tinged with a dark amusement, "then by all means… come at me."

Twilight snorted angrily. She imbued herself with enchantments, strengthening and bolstering herself with as many spells as she could think of. She conjured just about every spell designed to make one unstoppable in battle that had been invented since the days of Starswirl the Bearded himself. She drew her own sword, given to her by the Empress herself, and filled it with yet more spells of the same sort. She prayed to Solamina, to the spirits of Starswirl and a thousand other deities that she would not fail at this final hour.

"For Solamina and Equestria!" she yelled out, and despite their fear the strongest that stood with her returned the cry. Emboldened, she charged at the figure, conquering her fear. She was Twilight Sparkle, Commander of Equestria's armies, the bearer of the Element of Magic. She was the most powerful creature in Equestria short of Empress Solamina herself! Nothing in this world could stop her! Screaming a war cry, she charged straight for the creature.

The being swung it's hand in a backhanded motion, throwing her backwards fifty feet through the air, impacting through lines of her own troops with enough force to shatter bones. Her defensive spells managed to make the blow and the impact less than fatal for her (though the same couldn't be said of those she'd been backhanded through, but she was fairly certain she was paralysed. She applied a painkilling spell with the last of her strength.

She could hear the creature slaughtering her forces. Dimly she was aware of the fact that she had failed her Empress, and cursed her frail body for its weakness.

And then he was standing above her, his face shrouded in shadow.

"Twilight Sparkle," he said, his voice almost soft, yet still filled with that power. "Only now, at the end, do you see the futility of your struggle. Do you understand now?"

"The… the Empress… will defeat… you…" Sparkle struggled to say with the last of her strength.

"Fool. You are a tool of the false goddess, nothing more. Blinded even now by implanted loyalty and her dark magics," the figure said, sounding both contemptuous of her and full of pity for her. "As a final gift… I shall release you."

Sparkle's eyes widened as suddenly, all the things she had done, all the things she had fought for, were made abundantly clear to her. Her breathing, already ragged, began increasing in pace as she hyperventilated, horror filling her mind and destroying all conscious thought as she realised just what she had become...!

And then, mercifully perhaps, she felt the blade of this creature stabbing through her abdomen, drawing power from her dying body, and she knew no more…

***

...except the mercifully tranquil embrace of the whiteness once again. The images that had flashed through her mind, the smell of sweat and blood and toil, the fear and the rage and all the raucous sounds of battle... all of these things faded, but the memory remained, strangely vague but also completely clear. She remembered being freed of... something, by whatever that dark figure had been.

Had that been the so-called "Avatar of Albion"? Such a creature was terrifying to imagine. And yet she had faced the being in battle before, on the shores of Cornwall, and did not remember such power being displayed then by the man.

She scoffed internally. Whatever the case, there was a part of her that was more than certain that...

***

... the Solaminan Empire would triumph.

Twilight Sparkle blinked in surprise at the tense in her own mind. The Solamina Empire had triumphed. She had stood over the broken corpses and converting bodies of the last humans herself as the Equestrian Militia and Royal Guard had trampled on their bodies. The few who had escaped, though shielded from the Barrier still by Earth's natural magic, still to be quashed, would be no threat.

Twilight smiled a bittersweet smile. It had taken much hardship and sacrifice to come to this point. Billions of the Converted, millions of Equestria-born ponies, and most of her close personal friends had all been killed in the war. The humans had made the ponies fight tooth and hoof for every single inch of ground they had taken, every single life, every single moment. Their leader, the so-called Avatar of Albion, had apparently fought like a man possessed: thousands of ponies had died at his hand alone. When he had finally fallen, his body had disintegrated in an explosion so massive it levelled the entire city of London to the ground, killing tens of thousands (including Commanders Fancy Pants and Flash Sentry).

Fortunately, after that the humans had no force able to stand against the ponies of Equestria. Their weapons, though powerful, were running on empty, as were they. The last of them had been converted or killed, save for a few dozen who had fled into the undergrowth, most likely never to emerge.

Rumours of the so-called Equestrian Resistance surviving the war were still a bother. It irritated Twilight that the traitor Blueblood had survived and escaped, along with thousands of other ponies. Other traitors - Doctor Hooves, Lyra Heartstrings and the deviant Converted Hell Blazer - had also survived, somehow. Still, tonight it didn't matter.

Tonight, on the streets of Canterlot, ponies were celebrating a victory hard fought and well earned. Flags and banners adorned the streets and Converted and Equestria-Born alike were in the streets, partying to their heart's content. It made Twilight happy to see such joy among the ponies of Equestria again. She vaguely thought that Pinkie would have loved to be part of such a party... and then her smile faded. It would be a long time, she thought, before the war's after-effects left the populace. Everypony had lost someone - either to the humans or else they had joined the Resistance. In some cases - the Apple Family's especially - it was often both.

"Bit for your thoughts, Commander?" came a serene, oddly-accented voice. Twilight turned, to find herself facing Sol Invictus. The golden-coated pony's eyes were wide with joy, and he was beaming at her, his red mane grown out a tiny bit since she had last seen him, where it had been cropped for battle. She smiled back, a little half heartedly.

"Just thinking about what I've lost, Chancellor Invictus," she said politely. "And please, call me Twilight. With the crisis past, I'm no longer part of our armed forces."

"Nonetheless, the rank is one of respect," Invictus said. "Nonetheless, I shall do as you ask... Twilight." He seemed a little less than comfortable with such familiarity.

"Congratulations on your appointment to the position of Council Chancellor," Twilight said, nodding at him. He smiled modestly: 'Chancellor' was the title now used for the chief of the new Equestrian Council - essentially a glorified body of talking heads who supposedly would advise Empress Solamina on affairs of state. Privately, Twilight didn't see them doing any better than the previous council, but it couldn't hurt, and they would likely be able to apprise the Empress of situations among the general populace.

"My thanks," he said politely. "It is by Her beneficence that I have come so far, given my lowly origins."

Twilight's smile soured a touch. Invictus believed Solamina to be a Goddess. In actual fact, he had founded the Solaminan cult, even coining the name that Princess Celestia would eventually take as empress. His influence was undeniable - and Twilight disliked it. To her, Empress Solamina was as she had always been - wise ruler, inviolate and untouchable, the pinnacle of all Ponykind could ever hope to accomplish or be in a single body. To Invictus, these traits made her a Goddess. To Twilight, they made her a very real role model. Still, he was allowed to view her however he wished - and she could not deny, his help with rousing the Converted to battle had certainly helped turn the tide in the war.

"In any case," he continued, still smiling. "I should retire for the night. The honoured Blessed Star and myself have an appointment with Princess Cadence to discuss new Converted Welfare measures, especially since so many of our new Converted now come from Britain - many have guilt relating to their actions."

"I can imagine," Twilight said idly.

"Good evening Commander," Invictus said. With that, the Converted walked off, heading for his private chambers situated in the nearby council building.

Twilight sighed: one of the things she supposed she'd have to learn for the sake of harmony was how to get along with ponies like Invictus, even if she didn't like him very much.

As the party continued, she began idly wondering what she would do now with her life. While there were many affairs of state that she could theoretically become involved with, a large part of her considered the possibility of just going home and working in the library again. That being said, Ponyville was a lot emptier these days: a lot of her friends from the town were gone, either traitors to the cause or else killed in the war. She sighed - even Spike had...

"Ma'am?" she heard a Royal Guard say. "Are you alright?"

She turned, but the Guard hadn't been talking to her. He had been talking to a beatific blue unicorn in a white robe that covered her lack of a cutie mark: she was the Converted priestess Blessed Star, Sol Invictus' counterpart. However, she was a very different kind of pony to the Sun Warrior Priest. Where he was filled with righteous fury, she was filled with compassion. Where he had been the pony behind the creation of the tools of the statues of Solamina called the Solar Idols, tools of destruction, she had been the one who formed the "Beacons of her Light", giant altars with small, benevolent figures of Solamina atop them that served to remind the ponies of their duty. One of her Beacons was, in fact, permanently stationed in the city as a reminder of Solamina's benevolence.

Blessed Star was standing still, staring at nothing. The ponies she had been talking to were whispering to each other worriedly, but she didn't react to them. The glass she held in a magical grip shattered in midair, a shard cutting her cheek as it exploded, but it still didn't provoke a reaction.

"Ma'am?" the Royal Guard asked, approaching the unicorn. "Are you alright?"

"Lady Blessed Star?" Twilight added, approaching the priestess. "Is something wrong?"

Blessed Star looked up at Twilight, her eyes locking on the purple unicorn's - and Twilight was struck by just how wide they were... and how filled with turmoil, like a thousand different emotions were running through her mind at once.

"Lady Blessed Star?" Twilight asked again, frowning.

The unicorn smiled, a wide rictus that was wholly unnerving to everypony that saw it - and then she started smashing her head into the concrete floor. Once - nopony moved, shocked as blood flew from her muzzle. Twice - teeth fell out, and her nose flattened under the impact. Three times - more blood flew as her horn snapped off and her face malformed under the power of the impact, and still nopony moved to help her, shocked out of all reason by the display. Four times - and she fell to the floor, twitching as her brain still fired off impulses to her no-longer responsive limbs. She spasmed twice, and then was still, her breathing stopped forever.

"Commander Sparkle?" the Guard asked, looking sick. He looked to Twilight as though she held any answers to this horror.

Before Twilight could answer him, could even begin to address what she was seeing, there was a loud smash from somewhere. Somepony screamed.

And then with a loud thud, a mutilated golden-coated body impacted on the ground behind her. She jumped, an involuntary shriek escaping her lips. Her eyes widened as she realised she was looking at the body of Sol Invictus. His expression was one of horror, and carved into his chest in shaky writing were two words.

NEVER FORGIVEN.

That's when the screaming really started...

***

... and yet it was dead silence.

There was an image of victory: the possible victory of the Solaminan Empire. Sparkle knew that such an image should have been filled with joy, with happiness at the end of these wasteful hostilities and the beginning of true harmony. And yet... why was it not perfect? Why were there still problems? Why...

***

... was it always on him?

Dusk Shine frowned, looking down at his hooves. For a moment, he had felt a strange confusion, but he didn't know where it had come from. He blinked. He was a he... now why was that somehow a surprise to him? He had always been a stallion, there had never been any confusion about that (much as he'd had to endure ribbing from his mother that she'd expected a girl). That was a fundamental fact of his life. So why was it so...

"Dusk?" somepony asked, interrupting his train of thought. He turned to face Rainbow Dash - no, Rainbow Blitz - who looked at him with concern. "What's...?"

***

... wrong, everything was wrong! Everything was...

***

... going so horribly wrong with her life.

Twilight looked down into another valley: the road had turned from soap to dirt five hours ago, but here the road was made of yellow brick. Spike had stayed behind, determined despite everything to fix what had happened - it couldn't be done, though, that much she knew for certain. This place was just another example. All around her she could see ponies running away from creatures that looked like miniature minotaur's with misshapen heads and wings. In the distance, she could see Discord, his entire body turned green and clothed in black robes, wearing a pointed hat.

"Fly, my pretties, fly!" he was yelling. He looked over at Twilight. "Hey, Twilight! How's it going?!"

Twilight ignored him and the insanity he had wrought, her grey body turning away from him and...

***

... back to the serene silence, except it wasn't serene anymore: there was a ringing in her ears, some kind of after effect of the...

***

... noise! The horrible, horrible noise!

"What the hay is that thing?!" somepony screamed. Twilight didn't answer, the harsh blaring drone drowning out all conscious thought. She looked up, her eyes fixated on the giant, black metal insectoid creation as it descended upon Equestria. A single, baleful red eye glared down at her.

"Do not fear," a voice spoke. "We are the harbingers of your perfection."

Twilight closed her eyes...

***

... and found herself back in the silence. Her eyes opened again, but before she could be used to the ethereal brightness...

***

... she found herself in darkness.

"Where am I?!" she yelled out. Nopony answered her. "Where am I?!"

"Quiet!" a harsh voice spoke. "Unless you want me to hit you again!"

Hit her...? No, she remembered now...

"Where are you, you crazy bucker!" she yelled out, blood flying from her mouth where she had reopened recent injuries. "What are you doing?!"

"I said silence!" the harsh voice spoke. "Be thankful you get to live this long, you murderous wretch. I do this for Ditzy. That you have to be alive is integral, but you don't need your tongue to serve the purpose set for you!"

A figure stepped out from the shadows. He was a human: ancient and bent over with age. A battered leather coat was slung over his shoulders, a simple shirt and trousers his attire, and his skin was leathery and worn with age and stress.

"Who are you?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. The man laughed harshly.

"I was once called the Doctor, a long time ago," he said, his voice seemingly filled with all the rage and all the hatred in the universe. "I have lived more years than I care to count, and the last few have been more trying than I care to think. I am the man who will end your insanity, and exterminate your filth once and for all!"

"What insanity?!" Twilight screamed desperately. "What filth?! I don't understand you!!"

"You ask as though you did not know," he said dismissively, turning away from her and stepping back into the darkness, "and perhaps you don't. Perhaps she has denied that to you, even now. No matter. Your knowledge, like your voice, is not required. Punishment is punishment whether you repent or deny your sins."

The darkness, now more oppressive than ever, seemed to swallow him, his voice fading and echoing throughout the chamber. Suddenly, a single, pencil thin line of bright light appeared - bright, yet strangely sickly light. And then a great white blaze of light appeared, almost blinding her - she tried to look away, but the restraints that held her would not allow her to move.

A figure - again, human - was within the beam of light, almost like a pupil within a great eye. It seemed to approach her - and yet at the same time, it still seemed to be an eye - and yet a figure, and yet an eye, and yet a...

"Little Pony," a voice spoke, everywhere at once. "An age and more it has been since I killed you and killed you and killed you. I know your fears. I know your hopes. I know your soul - I have tasted the darkest regrets and the deepest torments that lie in the very heart of you."

The figure - the eye - the figure... the whatever it was... got close enough to her that she could feel almost scorching hot breath on her cheek. Tears spilled from her eyes and she was fairly certain she had emptied her bowels.

"Twilight Sparkle," the voice said quietly, and yet it deafened her with it's power. "I accept your sacrifice."

She cried out in terror...

***

... and was suddenly silenced.

She was breathing heavily, her eyes wide. She could feel the scorching breath of whatever that creature had been on her cheek. Tears were flowing freely from her eyes...

***

... as she witnessed the city of Trottingham burning.

"Get those people moving!" somebody yelled. She didn't really hear them. Her gun was slack in her hand. She fell to her knees and looked at the ground, tears spilling and falling to the floor.

"Twi?" somebody asked. She didn't respond. "Twilight!"

She looked up, to see Pinkie Pie staring at her, eyes wide. She was smiling slightly, her black rubber suit scuffed but otherwise intact. She still held her rifle, and Twilight found the weapon incredibly incongruous in her old friend's hands, like it didn't belong there. But then, what about this, this insanity, belonged anywhere? Even if Celestia could somehow channel the power of Equestria, even if they could somehow defeat the forces of the Camelot Empire and the crazed pony Emperor Imperatrix Mars... what would be left when they were done?

"Pinkie," she said quietly, "this... all this... how do you cope?"

Her friend smiled widely, and rummaged in her kitbag, before handing Twilight a leaflet. She looked down at it - it held the image of a human and a Resistance Pony, both in the same black uniform, beneath a symbol of a skull superimposed on a map of the globe of Earth. Underneath the two figures was a question in bold writing.

DO YOU SEEK PURPOSE?

Twilight looked up...

***

... and screamed. Screaming echoed in her ears, louder and louder…

***

… the screaming of damned souls as the demons poured into the city from wherever they had come from, whatever Hell this Lucifer had spawned them from. Twilight didn't know why this Hell Blazer's soul was worth all this horror, but she was damned if she was going to let him destroy Equestrian cities without a fight.

"For the Empress!" Twilight called out, her horn glowing as she destroyed three of the demonic entities that spawned before her, her horn blasting the creatures away.

It was dark - unnaturally so - so, perhaps thankfully, she couldn't see much of the creatures, though she got the impression of spiked heavy armour and bloody red skin bulging with unnatural muscles like mutated Minotaurs. As she watched, more of the creatures spawned, their heavy hammers and axes sweeping aside Guardsponies like they were nothing.

"Fight to the last pony!" Twilight yelled, her horn glowing and a sword sweeping through necks and limbs, cutting the creatures apart.

"Twilight!" she heard Rarity yell, the elegant mare looking frazzled, her mane out of joint and her rapier covered in thick ichor. "We can't hold the streets, not like this!"

"Just keep fighting!" Twilight called back to her friend. "We daren't give up, not now! If we fall -!"

She wasn't able to finish her sentence. A sudden explosion near her threw her off of her hooves and into a wall, where, dazed, she could only watch as Guards were slain by demons that seemed to come from nowhere. The shadows themselves seemed to spawn monstrosities. Gritting her teeth, Twilight pushed with her magic, and a great flare of purple magic obliterated dozens of the creatures. A cheer went up from the embattled Guardsponies, and Twilight found Rarity and Pinkie had come to her side, Pinkie's mane cropped short and a grim look of determination on her face.

"Well," she said to Twilight, "this isn't exactly the sort of party I was expecting."

"Dear, if this is your idea of a party, remind me to order you an Ol Trotspur if we survive this," Rarity said with a humourless smile.

"Almost makes you nostalgic for fighting humans," Pinkie said with a smirk.

Twilight snorted. "Enough chatter. Together."

"Together," the other two said, raising their weapons.

Twilight nodded, and then she charged back into the madness…

***

... the madness that would never end, never end, never end…!

***

The madness would not end! It could not end! The Dark and Glorious One demanded that it never end!

"For the glory of chaos eternal!" Twilight screamed, blood and spit frothing from her mouth. "Tear, kill, maim, burn, rip, shred, annihilate, exterminate, destroy!"

Her forces - in the loosest sense of the word, some besieged rational part of her mind said - screamed in glorious, reckless joy, and charged forward against the guns of the enemy. The last survivors of Equestria and Earth would fall before the might of their lord!

Twilight's eyes were wide and filled with a mad sense of ecstasy, like there was nothing she couldn't do. It was almost too much…

***

... it was all too much, too many images, too much at stake, too many voices, too many Twilights...

***

... "there's just too much off about this, Twilight," Spike finished. "This potion thing, the whole idea of turning these humans into ponies..."

"... and this is Celestia we're talking about!" Twilight countered angrily. "Sure, I'll admit that some things about this Barrier business seem…. off… but even so, I'm sure there's a logical explanation!"

"Yeah, well I don't think you should just go up to her and ask her, 'say Princess Celestia, why is this potion thing filled with weird magic?' I don't see that going down well!" her number one assistant said, sounding even more determined. "It doesn't feel safe to me, Twilight!"

Twilight sighed. "Alright, look. I don't feel any better about this than you do."

"Thank you!" Spike said, throwing up his claws.

"...but I can't believe Celestia would have any kind of ulterior motives!" she continued. "I mean, this is Celestia!"

Spike groaned in frustration. "How about this then?" he asked. "If I flip a bit for it?"

"A bit?" Twilight asked, dumbfounded. "You want me to make an important decision based on a coin toss?"

"Sure," Spike said, with such sincerity that Twilight just had to laugh.

"Ok, then," she said. "Heads."

Spike flipped the bit, it landed, and he laughed aloud.

"Tails," he said. "I win."

Twilight groaned. "Great."

"So what will we do instead?" Spike asked.

"Wait, I guess," Twilight said softly. "Wait and find out where all this is going..."

***

... no, that hadn't been what happened. She remembered that coin toss! It had landed on heads, she had gone to Celestia, she had reassured her about the potion, about its necessity. She remembered that she had...

***

... brought all of this on herself. All of it. All of the pain. All of the loss. All of the sacrifice. She had served evil and evil had been dealt unto her and she deserved every single iota of it.

"Ma'am?" the green unicorn who had become both jailor and bodyguard asked. She turned to smile at him, though it was half hearted as always.

"I'm fine," she said. "I just..."

***

... needed to focus, she needed to focus on one thing, one thing...

***

... "Just one thing! I'm sure there's just one thing missing from this but I don't know what!"

Twilight Sparkle sat on her haunches, sighing. House Moon and Star's Archmagister cursed at her failure - she had been so close that time, so close! Why? Why did it constantly elude her?!

"More volunteers!" she yelled. Her Guards nodded, marching out of the room to retrieve more 'volunteers'. "And clean up these!"

She looked over the crispy, charred corpses of her latest batch of "volunteers". The deceased Earth Ponies and Pegasi had signs of magical mutation, but apart from vestigial stumps of horns and wings there was no sign that they had even been close to becoming Alicorns. Once she perfected it on these degenerates, she could use it to ascend every pony to perfection. Unicorns first, of course.

As more terrified 'volunteers' were brought in, she decided to rethink her strategy. Maybe if she increased the amount of power she exposed them to...

***

... she would be closer to getting results.

She shook her head. It was becoming more and more difficult to separate these different, alternative realities from her own separate self. Every time she went into these different worlds, she felt who she was being more and more subsumed by the alternative personas, almost as if...

***

... almost as if she had lived forever.

She had lived for something like ten thousand years, of course, but ten thousand years wasn't forever. Maybe she'd have a different perspective in another thousand years - maybe she'd feel better about her age. Right now it was very difficult to feel anything other than so very tired: age might never catch up with her body, but her soul? Now that was a different matter...

"Milady?" the voice of Celestia, her faithful student, asked. The young unicorn was sat watching her, her pale coat almost glowing. Twilight smiled.

"It's nothing Celestia," she said, trying to project an aura of reassurance. "Return to your studies..."

***

... her studies... her studies... her studies...!

She tried to hold onto who she was, onto what she remembered. If only Shiny was here...

***

... but he was off in Ponyville somewhere, being an Element of Harmony. She sighed. She didn't resent her brother, or the other stallions (though she personally thought Blueblood was a bit up his own plot and that Time Turner, whoever he was, was downright insane...) but all the same, she wished she could hear his voice...

***

... because he had always been her anchor, and she desperately needed an anchor...

***

... or she would lose all sense of time and space in this place. This TARDIS was insane: bigger on the inside, strange and filled with wonders she couldn't imagine. The machine held within it things that could never have fitted it's shell, and though the Doctor - this strange pony who had whisked her away from Ponyville and her life - seemed inclined to wave it off with a short explanation of "dimensional relativism", she was still disinclined to entirely believe where she was.

"Doctor?" she asked, trying to calm herself down. "Where are we going?"

"The question," the light brown Earth Pony replied, "should not be 'where' but 'when'? And the answer is..."

***

... further and further into the depths of the abyss, into the heartland of insanity...

***

... "not that any of us have to worry about sanity, silly!"

Twilight Sparkle sipped at her tea. The Mad Pinkie, her tailcoat and top hat battered and ill-kept, gulped down tea straight from the teapot and grinned at Twilight. Next to her, the March Alligator ("but call him Gummy, everypony does!") sat next to his teacup. Occasionally, he would stick his snout into the teapot, but otherwise he seemed to be entirely unconcerned with it or with what the ponies were doing.

"You know, I do believe this is some of the best tea I've ever had," Twilight remarked.

"It should be!" the Mad Pinkie said earnestly. "Why, I served this tea to the Red Princess, and she only threatened to cut my head off twice! At least I think it was twice. The amount of 'thees' and 'thous' she uses, it's hard to keep track of..."

***

... who she was, where she had come from. She didn't know anything any more…

***

…"ya'll know nothin', Twilight Star."

Twilight scowled at this Wildling Earth Pony - Applejack, she said her name was - as she said this for something like the third time in an hour. She hated that this pony thought she knew better than her. She hated that she kept using the name "Star" - a constant reminder that she was the bastard of the illustrious Sparkle line. She hated walking through this bleak land.

"I know enough to tell you that you needn't bother attacking the Wall," she said sourly, trying not to snap. "The Night Guard of Luna haven't failed to defend it yet, and they won't fail now."

Applejack scoffed. "The Queen beyond the wall'll teach ya different, Bat."

"The Queen beyond the wall is the seventh such Queen in six hundred years," Twilight pointed out. "And in all those times, none of your kind have ever succeeded in breaking through."

Applejack snorted. "Like I keep saying, ya'll know nothin'..."

"Twilight Star, yeah, yeah," Twilight said irritably. Honestly, she didn't think she could…

***

... cope with this any more. It was too much! It was all a blur, all a massive...

***

... blur of motion, ponies running hither and thither, and all the while the sonorous booms of the giant thing's footsteps drew closer and closer. The giant, strangely armoured creature had already torn its way out of the Canterhorn mountain, nearly destroyed Canterlot and narrowly avoided flattening Ponyville. She still couldn't believe its existence: it was at least two hundred feet tall, maybe more, and it's skin - was that skin? - seemed to be made from metal. At the same time, it couldn't be anything but a creature… as she thought that, it let out yet another roar, loud enough to nearly deafen her even from this vantage point. Ponies had fled from it, but it had to be stopped: hence her presence here, as requested by Princess Celestia herself. If nothing else, the Elements of Harmony would stop it, though they were to be deployed as a last resort, only after every other measure (of which there were far too few) had been exhausted.

"Alright, everypony, this is it!" Shining Armour yelled from nearby, distracting her from her thoughts. "If we don't stop this thing it'll stomp Appleloosa to rubble! Fortunately, we have a secret weapon."

Next to him, Discord of all creatures waved at the assembled forces of Ponykind, looking altogether more nervous than Twilight could ever remember seeing him. he had confided in her earlier - in the spirit of their recently strengthened "friendship" - that looking at that creature "fills me with terror in a way I don't think anything ever has". He hadn't been willing - or able - to explain why, but the very fact that a Draconequus was afraid was something to worry about.

In any case, Twilight could hardly blame him - the thing terrified her as well. Her throat was dry, her stomach felt like it had become home to a nest of buzzing bees, her wings were all of a flutter, and she could barely...

***

... keep a hold of anything anymore. It was all falling apart, all of it just…

***

… made no sense.

"Cadence, run this by me again," she said simply. "Some pony took your consorts…"

"My Shinies!" Cadence screamed. "Some bucking piece of filth stole my Shinies!"

"Mother, please," one of the Royal Guards near Princess Cadence said softly. "You must be calm, or you will hurt yourself."

"I won't hurt myself," Cadence hissed. "I'll just kill Flash Sentry. I should never have let that little, bucking piece of -!"

"Cadence!" Twilight snapped, before calming herself, her flared wings slowly lowering back into position. "Please, you have to be calm, now. Your position demands it -"

"My position demands my Shinies!" Cadence yelled. She turned on Twilight, her eyes blazing and a soft glow to her horn that made the younger Alicorn feel a mite on edge. "How can you, of all ponies, think of abandoning your brother?!"

Twilight raised an eyebrow. "Those… individuals, are not Shining Armour…"

"YES THEY ARE!" Cadence screamed, and Twilight was forced to raise a shield to stop a spell from obliterating her. Even with that, she was forced backwards by the impact of the spell. "EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS SHINING ARMOUR! EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM IS MINE! And I WANT THEM BACK!"

The Royal Guard bowed. "We will move to mobilise our war-carriages, darling mother."

Cadence, drained from her outburst, slumped to the floor.

"Yes," she said softly. "You do that. We'll get Shiny back. We'll get them all back."

Twilight, bruised from Cadence's attack, suppressed a low growl. She didn't know why she was here, sometimes. She didn't know why she…

***

… even bothered trying to remember. It was so hard, there were too many voices! Was she Dusk Shine? Commander Sparkle? Twilight of Canterlot High? The Undead, the leader of the Dead Men? Was she a unicorn, was she an Alicorn, was she human? Was she even alive or dead?! So many different names, different titles, and none of it mattered as it all kept flashing in and out of existence...

***

... an existence she wished would end the torment was unbearable how could this have happened trapped in her own mind a prisoner of that thing that CelestiaNotCelestia had put in her and the others that made her watch everything it had done with her body why why why why why why why why why why...?!?!

***

Why?! Why was she here?!

She knew there had to be an answer to that question, she wouldn't have just been here for no reason. There had to be an answer...

***

March 27th 2030. Somewhere beneath Scotland.

... there just had to be, somewhere!

Twilight hadn't expected the question of the portal spell to answer itself: that would have been naive, and while she knew someponies - in fact, an awful lot of ponies - thought of her as being naive, she knew for a fact that she was not. She knew the truth about research: that you had to sometimes read every book in a library and then some in order to find what you needed, and even then you weren't certain to find everything. Nonetheless, this was... troublesome. She had researched and researched, and there was nothing she could find in order to figure out a way to modify that portal spell.

She frowned. There was something nagging at her: she didn't understand it, but she felt like she was being watched by somepony, somepony almost familiar.

"Hello?" she called out, feeling foolish.

***

"Hello?" Sparkle called out, eyes wide. This was unexpected. Almost as though...

***

... she could see her.

The image, faded and translucent, of another Twilight Sparkle was stood in front of Twilight: this one was at least five years older than she was, a handful of grey hairs and a spattering of stress lines visible on her tired features. She stared at Twilight with wide eyes, full of suspicion and confusion.

"You can see me?" this new Twilight said, frowning at her.

"Y-yes," Twilight replied. This was an entirely surreal experience - sure, she had stared herself in the face before: time travelled future and past selves, changelings... but this was different. This was at once much closer and much further. "Who... who are you?"

At once, a babble of words erupted from the figure, incoherent and faster than Twilight thought was possible from the larynx of one pony.

"Twilight Sparkle, Dusk Shine, Captain Sparkle of the Equestrian Systems Alliance, Twilight Star of the Night Guard, Commander Sparkle of the Equestrian Guard, Nightmare Paradox, Captain Sparkle of the USS Equestrian, Archmagister Twilight Sparkle of House Moon and Star, Princess Twilight Sparkle of Equestria, the Undead, Chancellor Sparkle of Equestria, Princess Twilight of Camelot, the Avatar of Albion, Corporal Twilight Sparkle of the Canterlot Defence Force, Twilight Sparkle of the Equestrian Resistance, Twilight Sparkle of Unicornia..."

The new figure paused, her eyes widening.

"Oh my," she said quietly. "Oh my. I remember. I remember!"

"Remember what?" Twilight asked the obviously confused (not to mention confusing) figure.

"Commander Twilight Sparkle," the new figure said at once, "of her glorious majesty's..." She paused. "Of the Solaminan Empire.

Twilight stood up, her eyes widened in shock.

"You're..."

"The Twilight of this world," the figure said, her eyes wide, "and you are the Twilight Sparkle of a world that has never known a war like this. Never before even considered it. There's numbers involved that you don't even understand. It's amazing how you've retained your sanity."

"How do you know this?!" Twilight asked, suddenly terrified.

"I've been you," the other Twilight said at once. "I've been every single Twilight Sparkle. I've seen your lives, fought your wars... died your deaths... I know... I know everything..."

Before Twilight could say anything else, this figure vanished. Twilight leant back, sitting on her haunches, her mind racing. A moment later, Giles rushed in, two Dead Men guards with him, rifles poised for action.

"We received an alert that some kind of magical incursion was happening," he said quickly. "What happened?"

"The…" Twilight swallowed, unsure how to say this. "The Twilight from the Solaminan Empire. She was here. She knows I'm here! I think she knows what I'm doing, too!"

The three humans were silent, this news shocking them speechless, and Twilight couldn't blame them.

Suddenly, things seemed a hell of a lot more desperate.

***

Twilight floated in an endless sea of colours and lights and flashing images, at once alone and never alone, surrounded by friends, surrounded by enemies, worshipped, feared, hated, loved. She died and danced and fought and lived and loved and did a thousand other things, living a thousand lives in a moment, remembering and not remembering and losing herself to it all until even the name "Twilight Sparkle" was a distant memory in a sea of insanity that had become her very being and then...

***

The Heart of the World, March 25th 2030 (human calendar).

… it was all over.

Twilight Sparkle (was she Twilight Sparkle? the name felt familiar… yes, maybe she was) opened her eyes, to see Princess… no, Imperator… no, King… no, Queen… Celestia… Sun Shine… Solaris... Corona... Solamina...? Yes, Solamina, her Empress... standing over her.

"My faithful student," the Empress said quietly, her voice at once urgent and calm. "Do you know?"

"Everything..." Twilight said, her eyes wide as she realised what she was dealing with. She scrambled to get away from Solamina, her hooves flailing against the floor. "I know everything - what you did, what you've become...!"

"Twilight!" the voice of Solamina spoke, and suddenly her eyes became orbs of glowing incandescent light. Twilight found herself transfixed. "Do you know from whence the other Element bearers come?!"

"Another world," Twilight replied at once, her voice almost robotic. "They come from a parallel world that does not know war. They came to help the humans."

"And what are they planning?" Solamina continued.

"They intend to come here if they are able," Twilight said.

"A mistake on their part," Solamina said, more to herself than the still transfixed Twilight. She turned away from her student for a moment, but Twilight still stared at the burning imprints of light that seemed seared onto her brain. Finally, Solamina turned back to Twilight.

"This experience has hurt you, my most faithful of students," she said quietly, "and so I will release you from it. Be free of these memories."

As if wiping a blackboard clean, the memories of other lives vacated Twilight's mind, leaving her once more as Commander Twilight Sparkle, the memories of other lives gone. She blinked once, as if disorientated, then focused once more on Solamina.

"Empress...?" she asked tentatively.

"You have succeeded, Twilight," Solamina said quietly, "and I know now the origin of these impostors. You will instruct the Militia and Guard that their primary objective on the field is to find and kill these ponies - they are mockeries of yourself and those you have lost. You will also prepare our defence forces and the Wonderbolt garrison for a possible invasion of Equestria itself."

"Invasion? Is that likely?" Sparkle asked, worried.

"At this stage?" Solamina replied. "I don't know. I fear the worst."

Sparkle was filled with horror. Whatever she had done here, whatever she had seen, must have been a harbinger of ill tidings.

"I'm only sorry I couldn't do more," she said, bowing low in reverence and shame.

"Fear not, most faithful Twilight," Solamina said, a soft, almost unreadable smile appearing on her face. "You have done more than you know."

***

Author's Notes:

This has been a foray into various multiversal elements - some are recognisable fanons that already exist, and some are possible alternative universes for AOA itself. I hope you enjoyed. :-)

EDIT: This chapter was edited 2nd August 2015.