Spike yelps and spins. "Princess Celestia! What are you doing here?"
"Hzbuh," I say, using my words seven times more efficiently.
"Spike," she says, drawing him into a winghug, "the spell Twilight Sparkle just cast has some unusual consequences that I need to discuss with her. Why don't you run to the palace kitchens to get her something to eat?"
"I. Er. But …"
"I hear Garde Manger is looking for taste-testers for a new line of powdered gemstone condiments." She gives him a wink, and shoos him away with a hoof. "Twilight deserves only the very best of those, wouldn't you agree? We'll join you when we're done here."
I watch Spike go, then turn to Celestia unsteadily. "Uh … I've got a billion questions, but first I probably ought to say, 'coruscating preengaged blackout —'"
I'm stopped by a hoof to my mouth. "Let's not go through that again. We've got a lot to talk about and I don't want you paralyzed."
"Okay," I say, "what."
Celestia smiles. "I know you can figure it out, Twilight. You did last time."
"Last time I didn't say your 'coruscating' safeword and you killed me."
Her smile falls away. "Two things about that. One, if you'd been lying about looping, your only way of knowing the trigger words would have been the darkest of forbidden magics, and if you were studying those behind my back, you would have been an existential threat to Equestria. I had to be certain, and I knew that if you were telling the truth all I would do was reset you."
The logic is flawless, cold and impersonal. She's right, of course, and that means that rationally I should drop it and move on, but there's an unfamiliar internal voice screaming that logic isn't sufficient here. I have no idea what to make of it. "Okay," I say uncomfortably.
"Two, that was your last time. I've been busy."
It takes a second for that to click. My jaw drops. "You're in a time loop too?!"
"Yes."
"Did I —"
"No, this is my own loop, independent from yours."
"When —"
"My reset point was first thing this morning, though I cast the original spell right after I was forced to banish Luna. I promised myself I wouldn't ever let those I loved go through such pain again."
She looks at me expectantly. The obvious next question assembles itself in my mind. She braces herself.
"Then why," I whisper, eyes blurring with hot tears.
"Let it all out, Twilight." She lowers her head. Her shoulders droop.
"Why. Didn't. You," I say, voice rising to a yell, "STOP. ME?"
She won't meet my gaze.
"You were standing RIGHT THERE!" My vision swims. I want to strangle her, and I'm not sure whether that's more insane, or the fact that she just stood there and watched me cast the spell that locked me into subjective weeks of ceaseless torture. "ONE WORD and I could have never cast this in the first place! I've discovered ways to die I didn't even know were POSSIBLE!"
"If it helps, Twilight," she says, still staring at the floor, "I have, too."
"LOOK AT ME!" I scream. She flinches, but complies.
Despite all the time we've spent together, it's easy for me to forget how old Celestia is. She was old when my granddam's granddam's granddam was just a twinkle in the eye of two ancestors yet to meet. She's never acted old. But right now, as I stare into those magenta eyes, it is as if the centuries worth of weariness have collapsed in on her all at once.
"Why didn't you stop me," I say, tears streaming down my cheeks, "you heartless bitch."
She stares mutely at me, one corner of her muzzle quivering, eyes glistening. A dam breaks inside me. A shudder wracks my body, then a sob, and then I'm on the floor bawling, curled up into a little ball, and a hoof touches my shoulder and I lunge for the comfort of the universe's most callous chessmistress, who holds me and doesn't flinch when I flail my hooves weakly at her side and wipes my cheek with a wingtip when I soak her shoulder with tears.
"Because I need you, Twilight," she whispers when my breathing finally slows, and I believe her, even without the evidence of the damp patch on the top of my mane.
"But not like this," I beg. "I can't keep failing over and over. Failing my friends and failing Equestria, and … and failing you."
"I'm sorry, Twilight, if there were any other way …"
"Why isn't there?"
"Because we're not the only ones looping."
"Chrysalis?" I ask, and Celestia nods. "Right. Setting the building on fire to take advantage of my joke."
"Yes. Even the tiniest imperfection in a plan, even a one-in-a-million chance, is exploitable with infinite attempts and sufficient patience."
"… But you don't need me. You can do the same thing."
"I can." Celestia sighs. "That puts us at a stalemate. When I change the past to stop her before you cast this spell, then she changes her tactics to launch pinpoint strikes at our most valuable and least guarded assets, and I haven't been able to halt her invasion without … unacceptable losses. I had to let her set the stakes, and then delay until she was irrevocably committed to this invasion. Now I need to break our parity, and you're a resource she can't counter."
"But why me?"
"There are four living ponies capable of casting the loop ritual. A side effect of Luna's banishment is that she can no longer anchor time loops at any point except for the moment of her departure, and I would watch Equestria burn before putting her through that millennium alone again. Your brother dealing directly with Chrysalis would be … let's just say problematic. That leaves you, Twilight."
No. No! It doesn't. It can't. Haven't I been through enough? "I need some time to think about this," I stall.
Celestia smiles wanly. "We've got nothing but time. Two things first, though." She floats a spellbook over to me, making a show of lifting it from the nearby shelf so I can see where it came from. "One: You will want to learn the Euthanatos spell on page 146. It painlessly vaporizes a small area of your own brain, which causes instant death. Trust me, this is far preferable to jumping off a cliff, or drinking poison, or stepping into one of the deadfall traps in Canterlot Caverns, or whatever you've been doing to reset."
I've already snatched the book, and I'm skipping past the giant screaming warnings — "KNOWLEDGE OF THIS SPELL WITHOUT ROYAL AUTHORIZATION IS PROHIBITED", "THIS SPELL IS INSTANTLY FATAL TO CASTER", "MISUSE OF THIS SPELL IS PUNISHABLE BY EXILE OF ALL FRIENDS AND FAMILY MEMBERS" — to read the surprisingly simple instructions. I can already see how invaluable this spell is. Once upon a time, I reflect, I would have found that notion incomprehensible.
"Even with that odd explosive feedback surge — I'll help you change your grounding runes to mitigate that — the Euthanatos should make looping a great deal more pleasant for you," she continues as I read. "I only wish we had had a few weeks for proper preparation. I could have helped you enchant yourself to activate this on a verbal trigger — that way you could end any loop instantly even if you didn't have the time or focus to cast a spell. That comes up more often than you'd think."
I try not to think about the fact that I'm about to willingly learn a suicide spell from my mentor. "What's the second thing?"
"We're going to need to start coordinating. So let's call this loop T-zero C-zero. Every time you die from here on out, raise your half of the loop number by one. At the beginning of each loop, tell me your current number, and the last number you remember hearing me say for myself. That way we'll both know which loops we don't remember."
And now we're discussing number of resets as if we were keeping score? My stomach flips. Accepting death was one thing when I was desperately fighting for my life, alone against the changelings — when I had no choice and no hope except for pressing forward and getting it right — but I'm talking about the process with the one pony who should understand the pain involved. I can't wrap my head around it. How can she be so casual about death?
She misinterprets my stunned silence. "Memory is critical, since it's the only permanent asset we have. Here's the one-paragraph version of several lifetimes' worth of time-loop theory: When multiple loops like this interact, then the first caster to die resets the timeline state for everyone — including other loopers — back to the time of the dead caster's anchor. It's that process of triggering the reset which causes your start state to update with the new memories, so only one looper will ever remember a given loop. If something happens you want to remember, you should reset immediately, before Chrysalis or I die and change what you observed."
I'm barely registering this. "Princess," I say, "I'm sorry. I need time. Alone."
She opens her mouth to respond, reconsiders, and looks away with a sigh. "I'll see you in three hours after the Elements explode, or sooner if you cast the spell. Please don't leave Canterlot this loop, or the explosion will kill me first and we'll have to have this whole conversation a third time." She trots away, pausing at the library door. "I'm sorry, Twilight."
As soon as I'm sure she's gone, I scream incoherently and start destroying the library — bucking over bookshelves, ripping up scrolls, tearing pages by the hornful out from thousand-year-old books and then using mouth and hooves to dismember the bindings. Every time my rage starts flagging, I picture Celestia standing at the edge of my evocation circle, smiling — smiling! — as she waits for me to complete the spell. When even that image can't push my body to further violence, I sink to the floor, curl up, and sob until my body's drained of all emotion.
This is all her fault, says a voice I can't shake.
The faithful student wants to help her. Intellectually, I can accept that she needs me. But she stood there and watched me — no, she maneuvered me into it; any outcome of a time loop can only be deliberate — as if I was just a cannon to be fired. A cannon powered by hundreds upon hundreds of agonizing deaths. Gee, thanks for giving me that Euthanatos spell right away, Princess.
I can't do this.
She's waiting for me to reset and talk to her, right? And she said only the one who dies remembers anything. So if I make up a large number of deaths — say, Twilight thirty-four, Celestia zero — and tell her we keep arguing and I just can't handle helping any more …
A time loop means infinite chances to get it right, doesn't it? She doesn't really need me. After she stops me from ever having been in this loop, she just needs to try something different. Try enough different things and one of them will work. She doesn't even have to hurt to get another chance.
I consult the spellbook and light up my horn —
* * *
A wave of vertigo smashes into my head. Magical feedback crackles along my coat and sears through my nerves, but it's already fading before I can process it. Huh. Amazing how much difference dying easily makes. That wasn't so bad.
… It's quiet. Too quiet.
I open my eyes. The library is a darkened mess, lit only by a giant hole in the outside wall. Every magelight in the room has shattered, and sharp fragments of glass are everywhere. Books carpet the floor, as if I'd just missed an earthquake. Spike lies motionless at the edge of the circle, eyes open and unfocused, greasy blue smoke curling up from his body.
"C-376, T-34," Celestia says from behind me, voice flat. "You lied to me, Twilight."
I turn and look. She's bleeding from her mouth. Both wings are shredded. Her back looks like a cactus spined with glass shards. She's directly between me and an empty magelight pedestal.
A black figure alights at the hole in the wall. "There you are," Chrysalis says.
Well, that didn't work.
Yay, we get explanation for what craziness is going on here! But now I'm confused and left with more questions.
Wait. So what was the point of the whole thing with the safewords? Shouldn't Celestia have known what Twilight was up to already?
Why didn't Celestia talk to Twilight about this sooner?
How did Twlight manage to go through hundreds of identical loops before something changed? Shouldn't Celestia and/or Chrysalis have figured out something was going on sooner? At the very least, shouldn't there have been subtle differences in the loops? Especially since there's no way that Twilight died first in every one of those loops. Didn't she even kill Chrysalis in some of them?
This is the problem with playing fast and loose with the timeline. Things get mixed up so easily.
I love the Die Hard reference in the title!
...huh.
Well... That escalated quickly.
The sad thing is, Twilight could have had all the time she wanted to consider whether to lie to Celestia like that, right? Heck, she could have had ... 34 loops to think about it.
3795992
Yeah, I'm getting more and more confused here.
So... she was there when Twilight cast the first time spell?
How?
3795992 My understanding is that even though Twilight was the "first" one to enter the loop, when the others (for example Celestia) also started looping their anchor point was at a previous time to Twilight's. So, Celestia gets to start her day an hour (or whatever) before Twilight blows herself up, even though Twilight was the one who started the whole mess. Which is why Celestia didn't "know what Twilight was up to already".
My only thought is that not having any limit on how far back your anchor point can be seems like it could lead to silliness. For instance, if Chrysalis knew how to loop, why not set it a month, or a year, before the invasion, and get all the chances in the world to make it go off without a hitch? The only limit is your patience, and the possibility of someone else having a TWO year old anchor point.
This is going to be gloriously insane!
What just happened? I suppose we'll find out in the next chapter.
Hmm, ya I'm lost. This is exactly why I did not choose time travel as my major for college, I would create sooo many paradoxes that they would revoke my time travelers license after one trip. I'm going to keep reading and hope things are explained.... slowly.... with small words.... and lots of analogies.
...I am confused
sorry, this story doesn't make any sense at all.
derp
3796167
I think it's pretty obvious, I'd put this up as a Rule for time loops, at least for Hard Reset II as this never happened it Eakin's.
SPOILERS
Rule #1 - She can only remember the loops she died in first, as in before Celestia or Chrysalis.
So the first time Twi told Celestia it was her 34th loop while Celestia had none. Now, Twi doesn't remember that. She doesn't remember the other 376 times Celestia died, either. Something must've happened in those loops making Chrysalis appear right at the start of Twi's loop.
Since I am a die hard Doctor Who fan, I unfortunately understand everything already, at least to the point of whatnis readily available as far as the information provides. In the words of River Song, "Spoilers."
The answer is quite simple: Chrysalis spied their conversations, learned the passwords, and posed as Twilight, leaving the original one out of the loops. I assume she has a way to bypass the changelling detection spell.
You know, the concept of multiple time loops going on at the same time in this manner reminds me of Harry Potter and the Temporal Beacon. I like it.
Wow! Now that is how you throw a bag full of wrenches into the works! This is off to a deliciously confusing start, and the addition of Celestia's 'insta-death' spell really puts it over the top into awesomeness.
Okay, so if I understand this correctly, the most tactically advantageous move is to ensure that you are the first to die in every loop, so that you are the one who gets to take back memories and plan ahead...
I can imagine things getting to a point where something absolutely crucial to attaining victory presents itself, and everything boils down to a suicide race between the three of them.
I am now looking forward to a scene where Chrysalis self-inflicts a heart attack to take back the information, only to have Twilight resuscitate her and then commit her own suicide.
"Oh, no you don't. I'm the one who's gonna die this round!"
My money's on Twilight taught Chrysalis the time loop spell to get revenge on Celestia.
3796118
Having an old "save point" isn't really advantageous. Remember, while only one remembers the details of a specific loop, all other players are perfectly able to act during that time, and furthermore, are able to kill themselves to reset themselves to a previous time - now with the knowledge that you are going to come after them, and prevent the plans you are going to have in the future of having any validity.
For instance, say that Chrysalis has saved at three points, Cx0 at Day 0, Cx1 at Day 10, and Cx2 at Day 20. Meanwhile, Celestia has other two, Cl0 at Day 5, and Cl1 at Day 15. If Chrysalis dies after T20, she will return to Cx2, but if Celestia dies, she will return to Cl1. Celly will be able to remember things at this point, but if Chrissy gets wind of her actions, she may simply reset things back to Cx1 - prior to Cl1, and negating any valid knowledge Celestia may have. But then when Celly gets wind of her actions, she may reset her timeline even further back, to Cl0, and so on and so forth until both are stuck in their first loop. Thing is, for the pony going the farthest back, there is little guarantee that your memories of that period will even be valid, since they will have been altered many more times by your rival.
Based only on the fic so far, it seems you don't retain previous memories from the current timeline, but only those from your dead-first loops and your memories as coming from your original timeline. That means that any knowledge coming off the loop will be misguided by that point. Thus, the best course of action is to synchronize your save points with your enemy, so to avoid taking actions that will end up sending your rival further back, and always having the most valid knowledge.
Great work adding a fresh twist on Hard Reset! Can't wait to see where you are taking it.
3796209 It's going to be a mind-bender, that's for sure. Try checking other peoples comments if you're having trouble figuring things out. I know it helped me.
Oh, and you should check out the original Hard Reset if you haven't already. That's fairly important.
It took me a bit, but I think I get it. After Twilight Euthanatos'd herself, she told Celestia she was on T-34 and said they kept arguing. Celestia then tried to take care of matters herself. Three hundred seventy six Celestia-deaths later, here we are. From Twilight's perspective, this is the immediately next loop. From Tia's, not so much.
In any case, looking forward to more.
3796242 The Doctor said spoilers too: "And, yeah... Spoilers!"
Multiple intersecting time loops that can interfere with one another?
i.imgur.com/pGBrKNs.gif
3796209 It's just...wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey. Just go with it.
3796537
Well think about it: Celestia has more time to engage with Chrysalis since her loop restarts at the beginning of the day (and I'm assuming the same with Chrysalis; or somewhat close to the same anchor point anyways) and so has an infinitely higher chance of getting offed by Chrysalis rather than Twilight getting killed by some random act perpetuated by opposing parties. (Let's face it, it's gonna come down to a three way race to the suicide line.) Celestia, despite her extremism in her acts, (hopefully) still cares enough about Twilight that sometimes, she can't help but take the bullet for her.
Let's also not forget the fact that Twilight lied to her once and said it was T-34 for her and that they kept arguing with each other, prompting Celestia to take matters into her own hooves again to try and correct this as much as possible resulting in C-376.
Now, I wonder what letter will be used for Chrysalis as I am so wondering who will have the high score by the end of this (my money is on the soft one as opposed to dumb one or the pissed off one)
3796471
That. Sounds. AWESOME!
I'm actually completely following this so far. Somehow everything makes perfect sense. Also, naming that spell Euthanatos? Pure genius.
Great... Now we have time loops crossing over into other time loops. This is going to make my head hurt trying to keep up with all this.
But, I am glad that you are giving Twilight so much emotion. I am glad you made her angry when I felt she should be. And I am still enjoying this story a lot. Here's to the next chapter.
3796114
Haha, I can't help but answer both of these, if you don't mind.
Celestia is in a loop that starts at the beginning of the day, long before Twilight's loop starts. She simply found Twilight earlier in the day and...persuaded her to enter into a time loop, essentially changing the looping Twilight's past. So, in some respects, she was there in the beginning. At least, that's one theory. The other is that Twilight is just imagining Celestia standing there as she completed the spell, as Celestia appeared at the edge of the circle waiting waiting in the latest loop. I'm not sure which it is, since I'm not entirely sure if Celestia changing Twilight's past has an effect on her persona during the loop.
In answer to how Twilight lied see this towards the end:
Twilight kills herself, returns to the past and tells Celestia that 34 loops went through before determining that the two of them were arguing too much to work together, and Celestia takes her at her word and doesn't waste any more loops in trying to recruit Twilight. She and Chrysalis go toe to toe at least 376 times without Twilight dying first, so Twilight doesn't remember any of those loops. I guess either Twilight admitted in a loop where she didn't die that she lied, or Celestia just figured it out. In any case she lost out on a lot of learning time in the fight.
Messing with time is tricky in real life and in stories, but this story hasn't screwed up too bad yet.
This is getting REALLY complicated. This kill-yourself-to-keep-memories tactic just made the whole fic really dark.
So you don't love Twilight... I always knew it.
There is one thing I disliked in this chapter:
I think the emotional parts were kinda... rushed. You used too little amount of words for those parts and rather felt like an action scene than a deep emotional breakdown of Twilight Sparkle.
3794499
Oh you
Huh, I'm going to have to think about this.
3797143
Okay, but still. This leaves us in a place where the only two reasonable answers for the question, "Why didn't Celestia tell Twilight about all this?"
A) She's an idiot, because having Twi in on the plan from the get go would greatly increase their chances of success.
or
B) She's cruel, to the point of sadism.
...Well, this escalated pretty quick...
3797178
Admittedly, I'm a little confused about your question. This chapter has been all about Celestia telling Twilight about the situation because Twilight would be immensely helpful.
3797202
I think he is suggesting that that Celestia should have tried to recruit Twilight BEFORE suggesting Twilight try this spell rather than AFTER. Or rather, after giving her a chance to experience constant death/murder/pain/crazy but not giving her enough time to get enough loops under her belt to become inured to it.
It really was the worst time to broach the subject, which in a time-loop fiction is somewhat ironic.
3797202
Yes, but remember, this story starts after Twilight has been loopin for subjective weeks, if not months. If Celestia was looping as well, hell, she was looping BEFORE Twi ever started! This states that Celestia deliberately brought Twi into this because she needed the help. and she was based on what we have been told, then she deliberately made. Twilight go into the loop with no prior knowledge, leaving Twilight to have to suffer for such a long time without coordinating her help.
Celestia basically told Twilight, "Here, try this spell! It could be interesting." When she could have said, "Twilight, the changelings are back, and I've been looping in time trying to stop them , but I need your help. Here's the spell, and here's how to end the loop painlessly." Would it have taken more time? Yes, but not much. With as loyal as Twi is to Celestia, she would have gone with her.
Instead, she manipulated her into this living hell. As I said, she's either an idiot or sadistic. And whichever is the case, the author had better provide a damn good reason beyond, "yeeeaaaahhh... I totally should have done that in the first place, huh?"
3797281
3797242
A fair question. Now, mind, this is a continuation (see Alternate Reality) of another author's story. Horizon, I'm sure, is trying to put his own spin on the story so he can't affect the original premise of Hard Reset.
Given that, it is my suspicion that Celestia ISN'T the original looper, Twilight is. Honestly, I don't know how Chrysalis got in on the looping action but Celestia cast a looping spell a LONG time ago (after she banished her sister) and probably moves her starting point around each day to the beginning of each day. The words that she had Twilight speak were her verbal trigger, to have her start looping back to the beginning of the day. Celestia then has the earlier part of the day and any loop that Twilight didn't die first in to be "busy".
Twilight isn't upset that Celestia pushed her to start time looping...she's upset that Celestia didn't stop her from pursuing the spell when she had the chance. I think.
3794048
wow. If that's how the rest of this is going to go, I'm going to be taking notes.
And I like things that make me take notes.
Wow, this is good - a truly worthy AU.
...should I be worried that I have as of yet no difficulty unwinding the timey-wimey ball of temporal yarn?
3797342
Eh... I don't think it was said that Celestia was TRAPPED in the looping spell, merely that she had used it in the past. I think it read that Celestia used the spell on e she learned that Crysalis was invading.
At the end of all this (or once it becomes sufficiently wibbley-wobbley), scene shift to Discord sitting in a big chair in front of a fireplace with a book on his lap saying, "This is too ridiculous for even me to understand, I give up!" and then he throws the book into the fire.
I've been nerd sniped.
So if I follow the rules, a looper remembers all previous self-terminated loops, even if this is a new timeline leading to the anchor point. That is, an upstream looper doesn't reset the memory of a downstream looper when the upstream looper resets. I suppose this obviously must be the case since C changed the upstream timeline to make T's anchor point be in a Dire Situation. Interestingly, T seems to have lost her memories on the path from C's anchor to T's (adjusted) anchor and only has the upstream memories of her initiating anchor point (or having memories of multiple upstream paths will be addressed in later chapters).
Hmm, so it took 376 loops for C to detect T's lie and engineer a dire enough situation to change T's mind.
So then a plausible move at this point would be for T plan to yell "C-376, T-35, I'm sorry, reset us!" if she sees the Dire Situation, then Euthanatos, then awake to see a Pleasant Situation and C saying grumpily, "C-377, T-35", right?
I love the horse-racing-princes revearsal of this mechanic - to win, you have to keep your enemy from dying instead of killing your enemy. I suppose to really win you have to 1) achieve a Desirable Situation, 2) keep your enemy from dying, and 3) destroy your enemy's loop anchor point. I suppose one of Chrysalis's challenges is achieving a Desirable Situation without the Elements destroying everything.
I also echo The Letter J's question: How did Twlight manage to go through hundreds of identical loops before something changed? FinalFan had a good rejoinder. Now I need to go reread, and I'm going to post this before something goes wrong and I loose it.
ETA:
Upon rereadeing chapter 1, it looks like Chrysalis's anchor point was probably triggered retroactively by some unknown event not yet mentioned in the story. I think we saw Celestia retroactively trigger her anchor point. It reminds me of Starswirl's do-over ring in You Can Fight Fate. It seems like a great thing for a Chessmaster to have! So the original question, how did Twlight manage to go through hundreds of identical loops before something changed, remains explicitly unaswered, presumably to be answered later.
Also, if it holds true that events between an upstream looper's anchor and a downstream looper's anchor are invisible to the downstream looper, that seems like a diabolicly good place to lay traps!
Oh, and I suppose T isn't the only one who can lie about her loop count. C-376? Of course it is!
3797281
The first chapter only makes sense if Celestia started looping after Twilight.
Just stopping in to make a note that an unstoppable force (unacceleratable object) and an immovable object (unacceleratable object) are the exact same thing.
3797505
And now I wonder how much mindfuckery one could shove into a game with tmeloops as a primary tool.
Your job: Defend the castle. Problem, Explosion in 3 hours, and your enemies are also timelooping.
I find myself both appalled and thrilled with this. After spending half of my lifetime reading science fiction, and the majority of those dealing with time travel, loops, and bubbles, I have a pretty solid grasp on the situation. Many of the previous commenters affirmed my suspicions, and now I'm grinning almost sadistically with manic glee.
Now all we need is for Saphoreth's Time Loop Files to be tossed into this at the very end, so the Awake versions of the Element Bearers and Celestia can unload a multidimensional can of whoopass on the local changelings. But alas, that's unlikely to happen, since universes like Doctor Who where time is out of whack are strictly read only.
Probably just a coincidence, but check out the punchline on the Latest Order of the Stick strip.