"How did I get here?" She put her hand on the window, it rained outside and she saw her own reflection in it. She looked sad, a scar marring the otherwise smooth face straight across her eye. The room was large, spacious and spartan. The few pieces of furniture that was in the room was simply elegant in their simple design, a bouquet of Purple roses was the only real color in the room. She moved slowly trough the room as not to disturb it. A bathroom was connected to the bedroom, a thin dust layer told her that no-one had been cleaning it regularly, the bedroom was connected to a large room that was furnished to be a living room, the kitchen was just divided by a counter that was most likely the dining area. These places was clean from dust. The kitchen counter was made of smooth black stone. She brushed her fingers against the smooth surface, coming off free of dust and grime. The lingering scent of food came from a unwashed pan. "Where am I?" She asked herself. she slumped down in the sofa, there was a blanket and a pillow neatly pilled on one end of it. There was an alarm-clock on the TV-table. "Well someone else is living here. Question is who?"
"It's time." A voice came from behind her. "It's time to leave." A older man stood beside her. She had only met him once before, but that was in real life. Martin a man that came to Equestria to restore the timelines. Timelines that Nero had messed up. (In the unseen part of the story)
"You! No this can't be. Not yet!" Nero pleaded. Suddenly everything started to shake. Cabinets swung open, glasses and plates fell to the floor. She flinched and she jolted awake. She was meet with a familiar face, Twilight.
"It's time for breakfast." she said with a smile." Nero still shocked from her awakening and who she had seen in her dream, just responded with a confused "Huh?" Twilight walked of towards the door just turned her head. "Breakfast. Now." she demanded, when she was outside Nero head "We are on a schedule you know." She head her call.
"...Yea, yea." Nero mumbled as she lazily climbed out of bed and dragged on her clothes. She stretched her left wing and then looked at the right one. It had gotten itself stuck in her shirt arm.
"Nero!" Twilight called from below.
Nero wrestled with the piece of fabric and her wing to get it loose. "Just a moment." The last two days had been a blast for her... Not really. It had taken her little less than three hours of talking to Rarity to not make her a dress. Letting Rainbow laugh at her little predicament until she had snapped and yelled at her, the most understanding was Fluttershy and Pinkie pie, who didn't go and made a fuzz about it. Spike and even Eclipse had laughed their asses off for a good minute, until they needed to breathe that is. Nowhere close to Rainbow. Twilight had on the other hand gone on and on about the cape that Eclipse had worn before. It had hidden the colts true age from the others and Nero had known this for a while, but went with it as a courtesy to the boy. He had reveled himself to be seven, almost an entire year younger than the crusaders. it had also dulled away his true colors, his mane white with gray streaks through it, his dull blue coat had been restored to it's more lighter self. all of it had been to stay hidden. from what he had not said, it didn't matter anymore he claimed. Nero was inclined to believe him.
She smelled eggs on her way down the stairs, she looked out over the library. their bags was packed and ready to go. "Mornin.." She mumbled when she entered the kitchen. She slumped down on the chair next to Eclipse, rustled his mane and took a sip at the coffee that Spike had prepared for her. She sat there in blissful silence, lazily drinking her coffee and eating the food Spike, prepared for them.
"So I talked to Cheerile, and she said that Eclipse can begin to attend her classes next Monday." Twilight mentioned casually from the blue.
"Really? When? I'ts like seven thirty." Nero said into her mug. Eclipse looked at her horror struck.
He then looked at Twilight. "Do I really have to?" He began.
"Yes!" Both Nero and Twilight said at the same time. "it's not only a good platform to learn from but also a good environment to build friendships with ponies your own age."
"And 'nopony'." Nero forced the word. "well most anyhow will know what you looked like before you took off the cape." Nero said. Somehow Luna had wiped the memories of the resent alicorn lunch from everyone that had been present or heard of it. Somehow she and Celestia had predicted something like this might have happened and put some sort of perception spell on the group. Not even the crusaders know what had happened or even remembered what Eclipse had looked like exactly. They had just accepted his new look at first glance without question. Nero on the other foot had been a rampart fire of gossip and his resent transformation had made it even worse. "It's so convenient that they had that spell up that it's like someone told them what would happen in beforehand." She mumbled through some toast.
"Actually I told Celestia that a perception filter might be a good idea at the time. Even our transformations was kept to the barest of minimum attention. For our safety you know." she paused momentarily. "That's what she told me anyhow."
"oh she did now did she?" Nero asked.
"yea on our way to Caters, and the others helped too... Somehow." She shock her head, "Anyhow that's no longer an issue."
"That's great to know." She gulped down the last of the coffee. "Hope nothing weird happens during this. Looks like all of us are adept in finding trouble." The others agreed, not knowing how hard they had just jinxed that day. Not knowing that this would be the last time they sat down for breakfast together for a long time.
"Alright class, tomorrow is an important time for all the magi in year two, the summoning ritual." Principal Khadgar, said to his students. "A familiar is sometime a friend coming for a visit, in which they help and assist us, often they are lifelong partners who help us define who we are as magicians." He said fondly out to the group of young mages before him. "But know this, if you don't summon a familiar before midnight fail, then you will be expelled. A young girl of short stature gulped and chuckled to herself.
"Don't worry Maria, you'll summon something for sure." One of her friends whispered. "You have studied this more than anyone." He whispered.
"I-I know that I'll mess it up like always. It's like they said it's a wonder that they bumped me up to year to at all." Maria shook nervously in her chair. "I study the most and I fail the most, Adrian. I- I know that I'll go home in a few days." She was almost breaking down in tears.
"You need more confidence in yourself. Master Kiebel, says so too. And for the sake of the burning one don't let Remra and her friends get you down." Maria took a deep breath at Adrian's words and visibly calmed down but she was nervous all the same. This day was dedicated to studying and coming up with your own variation of the summoning spell: Familiaris. The familiar summon. Later that night. Maria was yawned greatly as she for the fortieth time looked over her spell. Sighing she closed the tome and dragged herself to bed. She as normally had a nightmare, like always before a test.
She jolted awake a good hour before she normally got up and as in normal fashion got out of bed and went down to the grand bath that the girls shared at the academy. She soaked for an hour to calm herself down not thinking about the test. She was probably going to do just fine. She could do magic after all. She was just not that good at it. But at times she had a breakthrough and nowadays basic manipulation was easier than before, but still quite much harder than for others.
An hour later: Maria gulped as it was her turn to summon a creature to become her familiar, she shyly looked around to her classmates and the familiars they had summoned. Adrian stood proudly next to a draconic girl, a proud warrior of her realm now sworn to his service. _The scales on her face and her scaled elven ears and draconic eyes made her all the more fearsome. She smirked at Maria with a sharp toothed grin. Another had summoned a snow white Grand Owl, reaching half the girls size. Another girl had summoned a giant firesalamander. But most impressive of all was the young emerald dragon that Felicia Dawnstar had called upon. Maria readied her spell and stood with her wand pointing into the air, much like the others had done not to long before her, power was gathering in wast quantities and she preformed the spell not knowing what would come forth. A great explosion sounded through out the courtyard and the students and Maria herself shielded her eyes.
Packed and ready to go Nero slung her light travel bag on her back and donned her white travel mantle. "I'll meet you all at the train!" She called back into the house when she left.
"Okay!" Twilight replied. "Train leaves in half an hours so be there!"
"I know, I know." Nero muttered scratching her head and then dragging her fingers through her hair. "Just going to the sugar cube, ghee she is paranoid." She sighed heavily. "Not even letting me out for two days without a chaperon." She muttered a while later when she entered the sweets store. The telltale bell of Sugacube Corner rang happily besides her as she ducked into the store.
"Hello Nero. Good morning" Miss Pie said with a cheerful smile.
"Good morning, Miss Pie." Nero answered in kind. "The usual please."
"Two cinnamon doughnuts and a chili cupcake coming right up." She said and ducked behind the glass monitor that held the delectible treats. "Big day to day! Pinkie already left for the train, made a big hassle about this and that. Nearly took half the kitchen with her after she got the know about Applejack making all the cooking." She laughed to her self. "You know Pinkie wanting to help out her friends." She said as she hoofed Nero a paper bag with the corners sign on it.
"Pinkie will always be Pinkie. That's why we love her so much." Nero said and handed her four bits.
"That we do." Miss Pie said fondly. "You have a safe trip now."
"I will." Nero said cheerily over her shoulder, only to turn more sullen as she turned back towards the exit. She headed out towards a lonely tree on a hill.
"You're late." He said. The same man from her dream stood leaning against the tree, he was short, gruff and seemed to bear a permanent scowl on his face. "Time is an issue here."
"I know but this is to soon." Nero said in defiance.
"To soon?" He growled. "You messed with time for months and say that it's to soon? Girl you need to learn everything has it's time and place. It's not to be tampered with, you know the outcome of you staying at that wedding."
"Things are different this time." She interupted.
"Like what? That your a girl this time around?" He spat on the ground between them, "That changes nothing. Time is split, here and now. I fucked up, you fucked up, then you fucked up again." He crossed his arms.
"Martin, I" She began
"No pleading. Please, Last time an alternative you went to that wedding many died, it sparked a war on such a scale that Celestia, you and Luna reversed time. Creating the first paradox in the first place." He sighed. "This time won't go much differently. If you attend Chrysalis will strike early, and given your nature."
"I'll fight her and cause some other fuck up."
"Now you get it."
"And if I don't go?"
"I was coming to that. If you don't go it would go much to the stream of times intent. With one major difference, the death of Celestia and Chrysalis, Celestia while immortal would return with the passage of time could not change the fate of Miss Sparkle. We have seen this fate and it's not pretty."
"She dies?"
"In a sense, Miss Sparkles mind would not be how to say... Intact."
Nero sighed. "So with me we spark a war, without all of whom I care for is forever scarred for life."
"And would cause the new queen of the changelings to try again while Equestria is weak. Seeing how it's not the full force of the changelings that are attacking but just one swarm."
"And if we leave? What happens then?"
"Our influense will leave this world. Time would compensate for what we had done with some slight alterations, The hero of Caters would be solely Nocturne, Eclipse would somehow escape the Garble and end up in Twilight's care. Your 'blessing' as it is called would become a bond that always existed between the girls and time would fix this to become what it would be in turn. That's how Arthur."
"That's not my name." She growled.
"It was, is and always will be, your name. Nero. Make it a female form for all I care but it is your name." He said her chosen name with slight disgust. "Now make a decision! Leave with me and g our separate ways while we are at it, or stay here and doom this world."
"Will I ever be able to return here?" She said her head hanging She was fighting back tears both in rage and sorrow.
"One day... Maybe when time have repaired itself and become stable again. But I won't be there to get you here." He fiddled with a device on his arm. "Ready?" He asked.
"Just a moment." She looked over the town as she stifled back the tears that wanted to swell forth. An indescribable noise came from behind her. She swiveled around to see a green looking portal next to Martin.
"This is it." He offered her a pendant. "To keep the curse of transportation of you, portals that erase you from time isn't the most stable."
"An Immortal can only travel every hundred years through unstable means of transport between worlds." Nero said. He agreed and then offed her to go first, reluctantly she did after putting the pendant on.
Beyond the portal was simply a rock floating in space, a flat surface large enough for a maybe ten of so people. The portal closed behind Martin as he entered into the purple void that surrounded them. "The neatherrealm. A place between planes. Your next deastination is comming soon." He gestured forward just as another portal emerged this one a blue doorway. "This is where our paths in time split."
"Just one more question?" She asked.
"Go ahead."
"What about Wrath? What will happen to him?"
"He won't be a problem for Equestria for a long time, and when he does. Well you know what happens." He gestured to himself.
"You'll take care of it and time will correct itself yet once again."
"It already have, the mending of time has begun. Fixed points has been restored to their former selves." A faint beeping rang in the void. "The job of a fixer is never done." He sighed. "Now be off with ya before the portal closes and gets you stuck here. I'll think you will enjoy Azerthia. It's a vast world. And remember no time traveling this time."
"I don't know the spells for it anyway." She said a little mellow, sad that she had to leave her friends behind. Friends, family, love. All that she truly cared for in the world.
"True, but now you know what happens if you mess with time if you're not careful or trained to do so."
"Or happens to own a tardis." Nero joked.
"Bah Timelords, bossy bunch if you ask me. And use your real name this time." He called back as she went through the portal and faded away. The older man stroked his stubby beard, "That boy of mine, always such a pain in the ass." Martin said fondly. "Take care Arthur Artemis Fordring."
The dust settled around her and blurry shaped of people became clearer. There stood people all around her, not that she cared much.
"A human?" A female voice asked out loud. "My familiar is a human?" The cloud had now cleared thanks to the wind, that was now fading away. Nero looked up in the sky. Seeing an unfamiliar moon in the day sky.
"So this is the new world I get to explore." She murmured in a language no one would understand in this world. "Wait? Familiar?" She said as she looked down on the girl and was greeted with a kiss.