“I thought Sunburst and I were the same,” Starlight Glimmer said in an angry tone. “But we turned out different, and it tore our friendship apart!” She screamed tearfully as the scroll she held aloft with magic was torn further.

Twilight suddenly flapped her wings, rising above the cloud she stood on as Spike held onto her back. Spike looked down at Starlight with a sympathetic expression.

“So try again,” Twilight said. “Make new friends! And if something that you can't control happens that changes things—”

Spike raised an eyelid slightly.

"—work through it together! That's what friendship is! And it's not just my friendships that are important to Equestria! Everypony's are! When yours ended, it led us here. But just imagine all the others that are out there waiting for you if you just give them a chance!”

“Uh, excuse me,” Spike said.

Starlight’s expression had softened. “How do I know they won't all end the same way?”

Spike raised his hand. “Hello?”

Twilight glanced behind her. “Just a second, Spike.” She turned back to Starlight, “I guess it's up to you to make sure they don't,” Twilight said as she descended to a cloud right in front of Starlight.

Spike interjected, “See, that’s what’s bugging me.”

Twilight turned her neck as best she could to look at the dragon on her back. Starlight looked up at Spike with an inquisitive look.

Spike motioned to Starlight. “If she could travel through time to any point, why focus on this moment in time?” Spike asked as a Sonic Rainboom suddenly turned the sky beneath the group into a brilliant display of colors.

Starlight sighed and brought the scroll closer. “Reset,” she said in a tired tone.

“No, wait!” Twilight pleaded.

Spike nodded. “Yeah, you can do that whenever you want. You might as well sit and answer my questions for a bit.”

Starlight let out an exhausted sigh and sat down on her haunches.

Twilight turned again and attempted to scowl at the dragon. “That’s not… Wait, what questions? You have more than the one?”

“Well, yeah,” Spike answered. “Twilight, she can travel to any point in time! Why didn’t she go back and make it so she succeeded with her Equalist plot? Instead, she’s fighting you to a standstill time and time again. Even there she could have gotten some help! Heck, she could have gone back and fixed her friendship with Sunburst.”

Twilight pursed her lips as her eyes went wide, then turned to face Starlight Glimmer. “Those are all excellent points! Why didn’t you do any of that?”

Starlight let out a long continuous moan of annoyance. “You two better get comfortable. This might take a while.”

Twilight lowered herself onto the cloud, laying on her belly as Spike leaned forward, propping his head up on a cloud as he laid on top of Twilight’s back.

“So… of course the first thing I did was to arrange time so I ended up achieving my dream of Equestria-wide equality…”

Starlight grit her teeth as the turquoise glow of her horn flickered in the dark night. In front of her was a modest two-story cottage, a hammer coming down on a nail with a ‘thwack!’

With a rather annoyed expression on her face, Starlight whipped a foreleg across her brow and gently floated the hammer to the ground. “There! After destroying all of Canterlot Castle, I finally made a new cottage for myself.”

A large group of ponies, all bearing the same ‘equal sign’ cutie mark, all wearing the same symmetrical too-perfect grin, gently clapped their hooves together.

“Ugh… Yes, yes, thanks,” Starlight said in an exhausted tone. “Now if you all don’t mind, I can use some re—”

An earth stallion male with a pure white coat raised a forehoof. “Just a second, Starlight Glimmer.”

Starlight let out a heavy sigh. “What is it now, Double Diamond?”

Double Diamond turned to a dark blue pegasus mare. “Night Glider? Would you do the honors?”

Night Glider flew up to the chimney of the cottage, pulling out a tape measure. She hooked it to the edge of the chimney and then descended to the ground, making sure the flexible tape measure stayed flat against the roof and side of the cottage.

Starlight buried her face in her forehooves. “Oh Equality, not this again…”

Night Glider brought the tape measure all the way to the ground and eyed it closely. “It’s a few millimeters larger than it should be… The cottage is too tall… Or too wide… It’s hard to tell.”

Double Diamond nodded. “Alright, tear it down and try again.”

Starlight Glimmer lowered her hooves revealing a rage filled face. “But this is the fifth cottage! I know I’ve taught you all the value of equality, but this is too fa—”

“Starlight Glimmer!” a male voice called out. “Double Diamond!”

“Oh, what now?” Starlight huffed out.

A male blue unicorn with a two-toned blue mane and a pink unicorn with a purple mane crested a nearby hill, trotting up to the group. Rectangular metal red canisters floated behind them as they joined the group.

“We just finished burning down all the corn we could find!” the pink unicorn announced happily.

Double Diamond nodded satisfactorily. “Good work.”

“WHAT?!” Starlight exclaimed. “Sugarbelle… Party Favor… Why the buck would you do that?!”

Sugar Belle and Party Favor exchanged a confused look as if they were just asked the most obvious question in the world. They answered in unison, “Because corn grows taller than other vegetables.”

Twilight stared in silence for a moment, blinking as she tried to process what she just heard. “…Wow.” was the only response she could muster.

“Yeah…” Starlight said as she sheepishly looked away. “I may have pushed the idea of Equality a little too much.”

Spike spoke up, “Hey, if you traveled in time to run the Equality movement, doesn’t that mean you would have met yourself?”

Starlight let out another heavy sigh. “Yes. What an obnoxious snob that pony was.”

Spike raised an eyelid. “Was?”

“Okay,” Twilight said, “but what about you getting help?”

Starlight’s eyes went distant. “That… that was even worse…”