There was a burst of static. "Hello?"

The two ponies glanced up. The intercom was active.

"Uhm, hello? Hello can anyone hear me?! Is this thing on?!"

"That ah recordin'?" asked AJ, trotting over to the wall, unsure why anyone would be visiting.

Rarity also stood, slipping off the couch and making her way to the window. With a tug on the drapes cord, she drew them open, revealing the front gate... and the pink-haired, pink pony standing there yelling into the intercomm.

"Maybe I should've said I come with free pizza? That usually works!"

Rarity and Applejack didn't quite know what to think, gazing at each other than back down at the gate where Pinkie Pie was hopping up and down like a maniac. She'd been gone, everyone assumed she'd been dusted alongside her family when the stomp occurred. But here she was, back. Did that mean that others could come back as well?

"Guys are you there?! Don't you remember me?! Remember, way back when, I got super big? I was the pink one! I mean, apart from Cadence that is!" She was waving her hooves frantically.

The Pillar Accords. Pinkie Pie had fought alongside the two of them against Iron Mare's Pro-Accords team.

"Ant-Mare!" she cried. "I was Ant-Mare! I need to talk to you guys! This is super duper urgent!"

It had to be a mistake. But where had she been for the last five years? Or was there more to this than met the eye?


To say Rarity and Applejack were stunned was an understatement, as Pinkie Pie rattled about the central hall of the Friendship School, chattering a mile a minute.

"... and another thing, why is it so gray out lately, and why is it so many places are boarded up and shut down? I mean, I enjoy a bit of melodrama as much as the next pony, but you'd think homes would be cheaper now, and more ponies could live in them. Oooh that means more housewarming parties I can throw! Also, I..."

"Pinkie!"

The pink mare grinded to a halt instantly.

"Can ya'll summarize?" Applejack asked, feeling her nerves beginning to fray. Today was just... beyond unusual. And just when they'd started to get used to the unusual.

Pinkie nodded. "Right, so!" she took in a deep breath, then let out her explanation in one long stream. "Five years ago, right before Grogar showed up, I was visiting a place called the Magic realm. It's like a teensy tiny little universe next to ours. Or under. Or sideways. Something. Anyway, to get there, you have to be incredibly super duper tiny and I have to shrink down to get in and out with my Pie Particles and even though I was there for five whole years for me it was only five hours."

Applejack and Rarity exchanged bewildered glances, both thinking the same thing. Pinkie Pie was prone to exaggeration, but was it possible?

"The magic realm of quantum has way different rules of physics. Ain't like around here, no sirree pardner," Pinkie said, briefly imitating a southern drawl of her own. "Everything's unpredictable. Black is up, left is a sandwich. Speaking of which, you gonna eat that?"

Rarity glanced over at her cucumber sandwich, abandoned when she's gone for sweets to drown her sorrows in, and idly pushed the plate across the table to Pinkie, who devoured it in a single bite.

"Mmmf, it's good!" Pinkie said, wiping her mouth. "Anyway, what I'm saying is... time works differently in the magic realm. It's pure magic, so it can do anything, and it does! The real problem is, we can't navigate it. It's like trying to find your way in the middle of the ocean with no landmarks or stars. But what if we did? What if, just somehow, we could control the chaos, navigate it, pop out anywhere you wanted? Burst through walls one through four and show up anywhere, anywhen? Like... like before Grogar," she added emphatically, for the first time ever appearing completely serious.

"... we talkin' 'bout ah tahme machine?" asked Applejack.

"What?! No! Nonononooo!" Pinkie said, arms waving exaggeratedly. Then a thought crossed her mind. "Well yes. Kinda. Sorta. It's like a... well yeah that's kinda exactly what it's like. Sounds crazy, right?"

She gave a grin almost from ear to ear, and Applejack and Rarity took a moment to remember that crazy compared to Pinkie was relative. However...

"I have a space rabbit on speed-dial," Rarity remarked. "Very little sounds crazy anymore."

"Oh, cool. Maybe he and Gummy can compare notes," Pinkie Pie suggested. "So... who can we talk to about this? Dad knew this stuff way better than me, and he's..."

She trailed off, nothing further need to be said. A serious blow to their cause, no arguments there. They needed someone else to work out the science of travel through the magic realm. Travel through time itself. And naturally, the three of them came up with almost the exact same answer at the exact same time.

"Sparkle."


Out in the wilderness of Equestria, far removed from Ponyville, on the edge of the Everfree Lake, there sat a modest little wood cabin. A far cry from a tower of shimmering crystals or a Friendship School of stone and mortar, this was a simpler, more mundane life. So it would have surprised the casual observer to find Princess Twilight Sparkle, alicorn, greater arcane mage, and Iron Mare, casually out strolling amongst the foliage and enjoying nature's beauty for its own sake. And yet it was true, and she honestly looked completely at peace.

"Flurry!" she called. "Flurry Heart! It's nearly noon, interested in some lunch?"

A helmeted head popped out from behind a nearby shack, where Twilight kept her gardening tools (amongst other things).

"Defwine lunch or bwe disintegwated!" came a childish voice with an adorable little lisp.

Utterly un-phased, Twilight walked around the side of the shack, none-too-surprised to see her daughter hovering there at about an average mare's height, and wearing a helmet she'd designed for Timber Spruce, as part of his own set of armor. "Flurry, dear, that's not yours. That's your dad's, remember?"

With a gentle tug of her hooves, she popped off the helmet, revealing the cherubic features of little Flurry Heart Sparkle. She didn't look much like either of her parents, not even in their youths, being white of coat and with a mane of a more pinkish purple than Twilight's straight violet. But she'd been born an alicorn, with both great magical potential and a pair of fully functional wings, making it clear she was every bit the daughter of Iron Mare.

"Okay mowmy," Flurry said, fluttering over and hopping on Twilight's back, demanding to be carried. Her mother smiled, easily acquiescing to her request, helmet tucked under her wing as she carried it and her daughter.

"There you go... so, what were you thinking for lunch? Going to go hunting for crickets?"

"Bleck," Flurry Heart replied, tongue extended comically.

"Yes, you're right, it's definitely not the season," Twilight said with a hint of humor. "Alright then, salads it is..."

"Sawads!" cried the little imp, throwing up her forehooves, nearly falling off of her mother's back in her excitement. Twilight just smiled, wondering how she could have been so blessed.

But her smile froze on her face as she glanced up, spotting a black carriage in the driveway to the cabin. And Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie climbing out of it. They all had very serious looks on their faces (semi-serious for Pinkie, at least) which told Twilight immediately she wasn't going to like this.

"Why don't you run along and find dad, okay sweetie?" she said, giving Flurry a little nudge. The toddler alicorn nodded, taking flight as she went in search of Timber Spruce.

Leaving Twilight to face her old co-workers in the hero game.


Pinkie, of course, tried to break it down gently. "Now, we know what it sounds like..."

But Applejack cut to the chase. "Ya'll think this is really impossible?"

"Quantum fluctuations with a variance of point of seven to the third power, replicated every third nuance when dealing with arcane forces of cosmic level or greater," Twilight rattled off in reply. "And that's assuming for an aperture curve of temporal events."

The three other ponies shared a look, puzzlement reflected on their faces. None of them had any sort of skill when it came to this level of magic.

Rolling her eyes, Twilight spelled it out for them. "It means no. It's not possible. You wouldn't make it there and even if you did, you wouldn't make it back."

"I did!" Pinkie protested.

"No! No, you accidently survived," Twilight clarified. "A billion to one cosmic fluke. You have a better chance of being struck by lightning multiple times. And surviving, I might add. And now you want to stand in the middle of a storm and pull off a... a... what did you call it?"

Pinkie Pie held up a diagram to show, complete with title. "A time heist!"

"A time heist," Twilight repeated, resisting the urge to facehoof. "Of course, why didn't we think of that before? Because it's impossible!"

"The Elements of Harmony now are gone, but the Elements of then are still there," Pinkie explained, like she was talking to a child. To Twilight she sounded more like one herself. It didn't help her diagram was drawn in crayon.

"We can stomp our own hoof," Rarity chimed in, picking up where the pink pony left off. "Bring everyone back."

"Or make it worse," Twilight reminded her.

Stepping forward, Applejack shook her head. "Ah don't believe we would."

"Why not?"

"Because ah'm honestly not sure we could get much worse'n this."

Frowning, the princess stepped past her, considering the whole matter well and done. "I really missed your optimism," she said sarcastically. "However, high hopes won't help if there's no logical, tangible way for me to safely execute said 'time heist.' I believe the most likely outcome would be our collective demise."

"Not if we strictly follow the rules of time trave," chimed in Pinkie Pie, flipping the pages of her diagram. "That means no talking to our past selves, no stepping on butterflies, no betting on sports, no interrupting important events in history like the first sonic rainboom..."

Twilight held up a hoof, positive if she heard much more she was going to throw up. And she still wasn't sure how horses even did that. "Stop. Pinkie, just... just stop. Are you seriously telling me your plan to save the universe is based on a couple of movies?"

"... nooooooo..." Pinkie stretched out in slight embarrassment.

"Good," replied Twilight. "Because that's not how it works. Magic just... does not work that way."

"Twilight... we have to take a stand."

"We did," she reminded Rarity, rather bitterly. "Look where it got us."

Pinkie stepped up to Twilight, taking the alicorn's face her hooves. "Twilight, look at me. I know you got a lot on the line. You got a cool hubby, a sweet daughter, great character development. But I lost someone very important to me. A lot of people did. And now, now we have a chance to bring her back. Bring everyone back. And you're telling me that won't even..."

"That's right!" Twilight retorted, a flare of magic throwing off Pinkie Pie. "I. Won't. Even. Not for this."

She trotted away, back to the door of her modest cabin. "I'm... I'm sorry, guys. I really am. If there was anything else I could do but... not this..."

None of them stopped her as she opened the door and slipped into the cabin and out of sight, the door closing behind her. Not a slam, but the impact felt like one.

"She's scared," Rarity remarked unnecessarily.

"She's got every reason to be," AJ countered. "And she's not wrong."

"Well yeah but I mean, what can we do now?" Pinkie Pie asked, her eyes big and wide, threatening to spill out tears any minute. "We need Twilight."

"You heard her. She isn't budging."

"Yeah but what can we do? We need her. Who else could possibly know more about this sort of stuff?"

"Doctor Glimmer or Granite Pie," Pinkie said. "Only two names I know, but both are gone."

Rarity pondered that. "There is one other pony who might know..."


At an ordinary wildlife preservation park...

"Come on, I feel like I'm the only one eating. I don't mean to be rude or anything, really, please, help yourselves."

Sitting opposite her, on a picnic blanket, Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie could only stare in a mixture of confusion and awe as their close friend Fluttershy... well... simply towered over them. She wasn't quite as fully big as her regular hulk form, somewhere about a foot shorter, but no less muscled and immensely powerful looking. And yet she was equally calm, articulate, and graceful as she was on the average day, wearing a pair of reading glasses perched on her muzzle and her pink mane gently brushed into place, rather than wild and disheveled as usual. She was at once the best of both worlds, or so it seemed. She was even eating her salad with a refinement Rarity might well have envied.

Rarity tapped the side of her head, gazing up at her friend in astonishment. "I am so confused."

"These are confusing times," Fluttershy replied with something close to a mischievous smile.

"But... how... why?!" asked Pinkie. "Also what!"

Chuckling softly, Fluttershy leaned back on her haunches. "Five years ago, we lost. Except it was worse for me. First Flutterhulk lost. Then Fluttershy lost. Then... then we all lost."

And she was definitely still coming to terms with that, even as Rarity laid a hoof on hers. "Darling, you know no one blamed you for that."

"I did."

Two simple words, encompassing the depths of her personal anger and self-loathing. Not just over the Elements of Harmony and the Stomp, but even further back than that.

"For years, I tried treating my other side like a disease. Like my anger was... wrong. Something I had to cure, get rid of, or at least ignore. But then I started to look at it... like at her like a cure. So I went out into the wild, and spent some time locked in a shed working on gamma magic. I found a way to put brains and brawns together, make myself strong but still shy and... well..." she gestured down at herself, living proof of her accomplishments.

"That's... honestly amazing," Pinkie Pie remarked, impressed.

"About what we was sayin'," Applejack interjected, gently trying to steer back to the conversation topic at hand.

Fluttershy nodded. "Right. Time Travel Do Over? It's... it's a little outside my area of expertise," she admitted. "My kind of magic isn't really suited for something this... this... ooh, I don't even know what the word is."

Rarity laid a hand gently on Fluttershy's hoof. "Darling, we've seen you do incredible things before. I mean, look at you. There was a time you couldn't do this... it seemed impossible to merge your two halves, and yet here you are!"

Considering that, the hulking yellow pegasus nodded thoughtfully. Rarity had a point. Maybe it was worth a try.

After all, what was the worst that could happen? she mused.


After dinner, Twilight Sparkle washed the dishes, since it was her night to do so. It used to be every night, thanks to Timber having a considerably better handle on actually cooking, but now they tried to rotate out a lot more so Flurry could get a hoof in such things as well. But Twilight enjoyed it, the dishes and plates stacking neatly as she finished with the last one. Not using her magic made everything she did more difficult, yes, but also more rewarding.

Not to say she was completely without magic, of course. She wasn't a savage. Her home still had all her books, and there was Owloicious, her familiar, sitting above the bookshelf. Twilight's gaze strayed over to him, fast asleep, when she happened to spot a photo beside some of her tomes on Eldritch Lore. Specifically, one photo of herself and her prize student Sandbar, shortly before...

Before...

... sighing, Twilight dried the last dish, and then her eyes. For a moment, she simply stood there in the living room. Timber Spruce was out cutting down firewood outside, and Flurry Heart was asleep upstairs. Leaving Twilight Sparkle alone with her thoughts. Thoughts that refused to rest. Idly, she wondered if Rarity and Applejack had known stirring up such a thought process would do to her. It was like they were trying to...

On a whim, she called down her Owl, gently waking him, and decided, for the heck of it, to give the quantum equations a run.


An hour later, she was still at it.

"Might as well run scenario two-twenty-two, with an inverse magical ratio of nine to the second power this time... don't be upset if things don't..."

"Whoo!"

Twilight glanced up from where she'd been lost in a tangent, glancing over at her familiar owl and the complex magical formula he'd been rendering in glowing runes for her. And to her shock and surprise...

"It works..."

"... what works?"

Twilight nearly fell over herself as she gave a most undignifed yelp, startling Owlocious, who flew up to his perch. Standing there at the base of the stairs was her little Flurry Heart, gazing up at her inquiringly. "What works, mommy?"

"Uh..."

"And why are you up so late?"

"I'm... I was... I..." Twilight couldn't even articulate, her brain was still rebooting from the revelation it was actually possible. "I was doing... important thinking."

"Was it about juice pops?"

Despite herself, Twilight chuckled. "Yes. Yes it was, aren't you so very clever?"


A short while later, Twilight was tucking her little imp of a filly into her bed upstairs, having just finished off a juice pop they'd shared. Twilight didn't speak much, she couldn't, she just kept staring at Flurry Heart. Her second chance not to screw things up, and wonder if maybe finally thanks to this time travel nonsense (Time Heist, hah!) maybe she could have her cake and eat it too. But was that greedy of her?

Or was it fair?

Not just to her, but Timber Spruce, and his family, and so many other families. Twilight didn't want them sad, but she couldn't even think about them when Flurry was in her line of sight.

The adorable filly yawned, mouth opening so big she nearly split her head in half. "Aww. Night mowmy. Wuv you."

"I love you too, Flurry," she replied.

"I wuv you more," the sleepy girl protested, eyes already half-closed.

"I love you the most," Twilight said with a wry smile, well accustomed to this game.

"I wuv you thwee thowsand."

This was new, however. Twilight played along. "Three thousand, huh? Lucky me." She kissed Flurry's forehead, tucked the tired little filly into bed, and turned out the lights. She trotted down the stairs as quietly as she could, not too surprised to find Timber Spruce already down there, reading. Of the two of them, he was easily the more outdoorsy and adventurous, but even he enjoyed a good book now and then.

"Whatcha reading?" Twilight asked, trotting down towards him.

"Oh, just a book on compost," he said, double-checking the title to make sure of the fact.

"Oh, that's uh... that's nice," replied a distracted Twilight. "I figured it out, by the way."

Timber paused, marking his page, putting his book down. "And by... figured out..."

"Time Travel."

There was a brief pause between them.

"Really, wow," he said, slumping back in his seat. "Well that's... amazing... and terrifying."

"... yeah," Twilight agreed. She sat down beside him, and he nuzzled closer comfortingly.

"We got really lucky."

"I know."

"A lot of people didn't though."

"I know, but I can't help everybody," she said. A far cry from how she'd felt half a decade ago, when it seemed nothing could stop her, nothing could get in the way of her brilliant intellect. That she could find some spell or build some armor that could handle anything. Now...

"It sorta seems like you can, with this," Timber said with a half-hearted chuckle.

"... not if I stop," she said. "I could put a pin in this right now. And... stop."

"... yeah, alright, you could," he said, after a moment's silence. "But would you be able to rest, knowing you could've done this?"

They both knew the answer to that one.


Authors Notes:
Naturally, with Twilight as Iron Man and Cadence as Scarlet Witch, had to do a bit of re-assigning roles for Flurry Heart as Morgan Stark, but honestly, we see plenty of Twilight being a pseudo-parent to Flurry in various episodes, it's not too hard to imagine, I hope.

Twilight's magical formula references how Generation Four ran nine seasons, two-hundred-twenty-two episodes with two specials. Not counting the Equestria Girl films.