Scootaloo rubbed her aching head. Everything was spinning. And fuzzy. And making a weird ringing noise. What had she been doing? She was up in the air doing… something… and then she had fallen down? Where was she? She stood slowly, shaking. The confused little filly looked around for something, ANYTHING, that might give her a clue as to what had just happened. Or what had happened before that. Or before that…

Why couldn’t she remember… much of anything? Name: Scootaloo. Cutie mark: not yet. Favorite color: all of them. Was that it? Was that all she could remember? No, she remembered there was a word for this. She had... what was the word… amnesia. Yeah. She had amnesia. She must have been doing something in the air and fallen and hit her head. The impact must’ve fogged up her brain. That was it. She just needed to go find a doctor and make sure she was okay, then wait for her memory to come back. She remembered that in the movies it usually only took a few days.

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So what if Twilight said no more time travel? So what if her stupid flux whatever spell was what made it possible to begin with? Who cares if paradoxes are bad for reality? If you can’t stand up for something worth fighting for, what’s the point?

Every day since the first trip back, Rainbow Dash had become more and more amazing. Stunts that were downright inconceivable became second nature. She was no longer just the best flier in Equestria, she was the best flier in HISTORY. She could go faster than anything else, and if she had to fly faster than time or causality or reality or physics or whatever was in her way, she would.

Rainbow Dash was going to find a way back, and she was going to stop herself from making the biggest mistake of her life. She wouldn’t try to do that stupid trick, and Applejack wouldn’t get hurt. Either Applejack was going to be okay and they were going to be happy together for a long time, or existence itself would be torn asunder by a pony being foolish enough to go back to try to change the past. Whatever the odds, it was a chance she was more than willing to take.

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“I don’t get why everypony has such a hard time understanding this, Twilight. I’m just a filly and I got it in no time at all!”

“Falling down explains nothing!”

“Now now, you know you’re a special case… I’m… I’m still sorry.”

“I already told you, it’s okay. You did what had to be done, and it’s not like I even knew what was wrong anyway...”

“No, Scootaloo, it’s not okay. It wasn’t right of me to use you like that. It’s not okay because I still have to ask you to do one more thing for me.”

The broken mare coughed. “Don’t ignore me!”

“Really… I’m okay with it. So everything got a little screwed up, it’s not like anypony got hurt. And now I’ll get to spend all the time I want with mom, and I’ll even get to fly! I can do one last thing to help save Equestria and then I can go home.”

Twilight’s eyes shimmered with a fine mist. She tilted her head down, not wanting to make eye contact. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo. This last thing isn’t for Equestria. I need you to do something for your mom. Something... really difficult.”

“I’ll do anything, just name it!”

“I need you to pretend none of this ever happened.”

“What… what are you…”

“We’re going to get back home, and I need you to just land on the ground and pretend you fell out of the sky trying to fly. That’s not exactly a lie. Pretend that you never did any of this, and that the other pegasus who looked exactly like you running around Ponyville all that time really was just a coincidence you’ve heard stories about now and then.”

“So after all this… I don’t even get to be a hero? Mom doesn’t get to be proud of me?”

“Your mother already has plenty of reasons to be proud of you. And now you get to go home and be a family again. Like you said, you’ll finally get the chance to fly. You’re young and full of potential and you can do anything in the world… except talk about this. Please… for Rainbow Dash. You don’t know how badly it would hurt her to know the truth.”

Scootaloo turned and faced away from Twilight, fighting back tears of her own. “And how am I supposed to explain my cutie mark? I got it from falling? My mom’s not stupid, you know!” The mare lying at her hooves began to stand.

“I may not understand how you have managed to sneak something past me, but I should think it rather unwise to ignore an enemy who is not incapacitated.”

“There are two of us and one of you. You’re injured and we’re not. I’ve bested you in a strategic game where you had the advantage. It’s over. You’ve lost.”

The mare spat a glob of blood as she reached a standing position again. “Oh have I? You’re not going to finish me. You’re not that kind of mare. You’re going to be as peaceful as possible, using as little force as you can get away with to subdue me. And it’s not going to work, because as you may have forgotten we are on MY turf and it looks like you’ve already played your trump card. You went all in, and you won that hand. But I’m not out of the game yet, and I’ve still got quite a few aces up my sleeve.”

“What is WITH you and your stupid metaphors?”

“DO NOT QUESTION MY METHODS, CHILD. YOU HAD THE ELEMENT OF SURPRISE AND YOU WASTED IT. YOU ARE STILL IN MY DOMAIN AND I STILL DRAW BREATH. YOU WILL NOT FOR MUCH LONGER. YOU DO NOT TRULY GRASP THE DEPTHS OF MY ABILITIES. ALLOW ME TO REVEAL MY HAND.”

“Enough with the cards! We GET it already! But apparently YOU don’t, because this is NOT your domain. Take a good look at me and think carefully about everything you’ve seen leading up to now. Think about what I’ve done and how any of it is even remotely possible! Look at my cutie mark. This isn’t your domain. It’s MINE!”