This is a recursive fanfiction by Kendell2, and thus should be considered OPTIONAL CANON! And thus shouldn't be taken as irrefutable canon.
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The plan to erase the corruptions from the other world had failed. Wallflower Blush was beaten and the Memory Stone destroyed.
That Fauna Luster allowed her powers to be used to ruin the plan through the Elements did not go unnoticed and drew attention.
The concept of empathy looked down at them all. "WALLFLOWER BLUSH WENT BEYOND THE PLAN AND BEGAN DOING MORE HARM THAN THE PLAN WOULD HAVE CAUSED GOOD. HAD ALL OF THE HARMONY BEARERS' MEMORIES OF HIGH SCHOOL BEEN ERASED, THEN THE WORLD WOULD HAVE LOST ANY PROTECTION AGAINST MAGICAL THREATS IN THE FUTURE, AND NOW THAT MAGIC HAS BEEN UNLEASHED, THERE WILL SURELY BE MORE...FURTHERMORE, SEEING THE PAIN AND SUFFERING IT CAUSED, I GAZED INTO THE WIDER WHOLE, BEYOND WHAT YOU MAY SEE, THROUGH MY OTHER EYES OF THE WHOLE THAT IS EMPATHY THROUGHOUT ALL TIME AND SPACE...AND I MAY HAVE FOUND ANOTHER SOLUTION."
"And what is that, Mother?" asked Rota Fortuna, knowing she saw the timeline but hadn't the context to know which one. She saw all timelines.
Pensilis looked up. He had been one of the Concepts rather adamant about finding some other way to resolve this. After all, it was his nature to not seek needless suffering on any good person.
"THE PROBLEM IS NOT THE PRESENCE OF SUNSET SHIMMER IN AND OF ITSELF. IN HER WORLD, A YOUNG HUMAN NAMED MEGAN WILLIAMS FROM ANOTHER WORLD WAS TAKEN FROM MEGAN'S WORLD TO SUNSET'S BY THEIR WORLD'S VERSION OF FIREFLY."
"Sound like that world is in love with meddling with other realities," said Currus, concept of honor, courage, conquest, and the status quo.
"BE THAT AS IT MAY MY SON, IT WAS EVEN MEGAN WHO DEFEATED THEIR LORD TIREK, NOT MAJESTY... AND WHILE HE WAS ALSO EMPOWERED BY MORNING STAR'S MEDDLING, THE DAMAGE HE'D HAVE CAUSED WOULD HAVE BEEN EVEN GREATER. MEGAN'S PRESENCE HOWEVER BALANCED THINGS OUT, RATHER THAN LEADING TO THINGS SPIRALING OUT OF CONTROL. THE DIFFERENCE IS, THE TWO WORLDS WERE JOINED AT THE HIP, NOT PERFORMING TRANSFUSIONS THROUGH A TUBE. THEIR WORLDS ARE MORE LINKED TO THE POINT DESTINY IS INTERTWINED. SUCH A THING IN OUR WORLD COULD POTENTIALLY FIX OUR PROBLEM PERMANENTLY RATHER THAN SIMPLY PUT A BANDAID ON A PROBLEM THAT COULD POTENTIALLY RESURFACE...AND PERHAPS LEAD TO AN EVEN BRIGHTER FUTURE...HOWEVER, WE SHOULD TREAD CAREFULLY TO ENSURE THIS HAPPENS THE RIGHT WAY, DOING IT WRONG COULD CAUSE HARM. AS WITH MANY THINGS, TAKING THIS CAREFULLY IS KEY."
"So the new plan isn't to separate things further but to connect them closer?" Pandora replied. "What a twist!"
"CHANCE, YOU ARE UPSET, I FEEL IT."
"...I ripped off Rota's wing for nothing..." she said looking down, almost on the verge of tears.
"INCORRECT. THE WOLF HAS ALREADY PURGED MANY, MUCH MORE MALEVOLENT INVADERS FROM OUR UNIVERSE. BEINGS THAT IF LEFT UNCHECKED WOULD BE FAR MORE DANGEROUS THAN THE SIRENS. IT HAS ALREADY DONE MUCH GOOD. AS IT WOULD HAVE GONE TO DO WHETHER THE PLAN SUCCEEDS OR NOT."
"She's right, Chance. We've given the universe a guardian; even if the plan failed, the universe is better for that," Rota said, causing the counterpart to nod and give a small smile. The two hugged.
"Indeed, your sacrifice was not in vain, sister..." Pensilis said, being a comforting presence to both. "And I admit, I am happy Sunset and Twilight may not need to be sacrificed as well."
"Aren't you sacrifice incarnate?" Anarchy asked.
"Self sacrifice, Anarchy, and if it had been me who had to be sacrificed I would have done so without a moment's hesitation, as I have in the past...if all else fails and those girls choose to sacrifice their own place in our world of their own accord, I will stand by it...but I am not sacrificing the unwilling."
"Mother, if I may..." said Rota Fortuna, picking up the tapestry of reality, tiny threads that came rope as you looked farther away from it. She drew attention to one braid of rope... "This is the world that the pony Sunset Shimmer came from..." Another thread of rope drifted closer to it. "This is the reality of Megan Williams... Note that while the two have similar laws of biology, and social concepts, Megan's reality, like ours, is one where magic is incredibly rare as to be considered part of Pandora's domain by the majority of humans.
"But that is where similarities end. The two realities do not share parallel histories, or rather, where certain people and events in Megan's world exist in Sunset's world until Megan introduced them... like Robin Hood and firearms. In fact, Sunset's reality suffered a major self-inflicted reality-crash that required a forced reboot soon after the ponies of Sunset's world began to mimic and run parallel to Megan's world at the time of her visit!"
Currus took a closer look at the ropes. "And that's what we have to look forward to in a thousand years or so... a blink of an eye over the reach of infinity. And it would seem that the technological and cultural revolution Megan gave ponies also gave them the tools to try and remake their world into what they thought Father is, and instead nearly destroyed their own world line. This is why bleeding over between world lines is forbidden."
"And further more..." Rota Fortuna presented another braid of rope... this was... was much much closer in resemblance to Sunset's reality, even more so than their own universe was. "Note that this reality had much the same history... except... that Mother and Father there gave birth to Nature's Fury and Havoc and Entropy gave birth to Nature's law there for some reason... I think... looking at concepts from across worlds can be like trying to have a lens look upon itself This worldline, Sunset's Celestia visited almost constantly, Sunset's Celestia practical become a resident ... However... once they began to interact... "
The two ropes began to unbraid... threads going off and tying to each other, becoming more and more connected as time went on, and went they inevitably tried to go their separate ways, threads broke, snapped, and caused both ropes to randomly veer off course as they tried to override the other with the choices made from their counterparts, resulting in an equal and opposite reaction happening for more and more decisions across them, stripping both world lines of their complete free will. Until all... like an ambulation, Rota Fortuna forcibly cut free the two threads before they completely unthreaded each other into a rat's nest where no choice made any sense.
"I would propose mother, it was not the similarities between the worlds that were the solution, or the scale in which they were connected... but their differences. Megan's world was different enough to have a separate identity not corrupted by its neighbor, but at the same time, say unlike the Outer Concept's domains, ran on enough similar rules to compliment each other. On the other hand, the world line visited by Sunset's Celestia was simply too similar... I sense it's possible that as the two realities' threads began to be tangled, they became opposites of each other as a desperate attempt for both realities to keep their individual egos, ironically binding them further. And the mirror that Sunset's Celestia used was EVEN MORE POWERFUL than the one the alien Sunset Shimmer used to come here.
"And may I remind us all, that Nightmare Midnight DID create solid, much stronger portals that would enable beings to pass over without being adjusted to that reality's rules... And the results were... not good. I propose mother, that the key is not so much the strength or size of the binding of the threads... but our world be fortified with enough unique traits that both realities are able to sustain their own sense of identity."
Fauna Luster looked down at Rota in a way that left Rota unknowing if this whole thing was simply a means to get her to come to that conclusion herself or not. Of course Rota also knew her mother would admit to as much if asked, and as the Gods did such things to teach mortals to make good decisions on their own, it would be hypocritical to be angered by it. "WISE THOUGHT, MY DAUGHTER. HOWEVER, YOU MISS ONE KEY DETAIL ON THIS, THOUGH IT CHANGES THE VALUE OF THAT IDEA LITTLE."
"What is that, Mother?" Rota asked.
"MEGAN INTRODUCING THOSE IDEAS IN AND OF THEMSELVES DID NOT CAUSE THE REALITY BREAK, IT WAS THE PONIES' CHOICES OF HOW THEY USED THEM THAT DID IT IN THE END. LOOK INTO YOUR CONCEPT AND I BELIEVE YOU WILL FIND A REALITY WHERE THINGS WENT ANOTHER, FAR MORE BENEVOLENT PATH."
Rota did so...and found a thread of reality where the Wish Spell was a complete success. "...You are correct, mother..."
"THE QUESTION HOWEVER, IS HOW WE DO THIS, MY DAUGHTER?"
"...Hey! I may have one!" said Pandora, a light bulb appearing over her head. "Magic is acting all wonky down there due to this mess, right? It's acting wild, kinda like us Draconequi, right?"
Rota nodded. "That is correct."
"Well...what if we made it a feature and not a bug?" the embodiment of imagination replied. "IE, magic acting wild and free and needing guided, not controlled, is how it NATURALLY works? That'd make it completely different from how magic works in THEIR world and thus a fundamental way things work in very different."
"That...is an interesting idea..." Rota replied, tapping her chin.
"But we would require a Concept of Magic to make that decision," Curris noted.
"...We already have a good potential one..." said Puerilis, looking down at existence, at the alien Sunset Shimmer, her native self, and the humans Moon Dancer, and Trixie, in particular. "Make that at least four. And in our domain, where there is potential..."
"The alien Sunset Shimmer? Really?" Currus asked.
"Sometimes, the best way an oyster can deal with a grain of sand is to make a pearl," said a young nature goddess.
"So we have four candidates to become the idea of magic itself." Pandora said reminding everyone their guest was still there. "Strife will LOVE seeing which ones comes out on top!"
"LET US BEGIN OUR NEW PLAN...AND LEAD TO A BRIGHTER FUTURE."
When their children had dispersed, Oblivion arose within safe distance from Empathy. Beyond them the whole that was The Beginning and The End stretching out to infinity in all directions stood in the void between worlds.
"DO YOU REALLY THINK THOSE MORTALS CAN FIND A WAY TO BALANCE THE WORLDS?" Entropy questioned.
"DO YOU REALLY BELIEVE IN A HAPPY END TO EVERYTHING?" Fauna Luster replied.
"WE BOTH KNOW THE ANSWER: I BELIEVE IN EVERY TYPE OF END, INCLUDING HAPPY ONES."
"AND I BELIEVE IN EVERYONE. INCLUDING THOSE MORTALS," Fauna Luster replied. "SO IN A WAY, WE BOTH BELIEVE IN THEM, DON'T WE?"
"IN A WAY...YES WE DO..."