//------------------------------// // Information // Story: A Timeless Classic: The Story of Klokwerk K. Millennia // by Psycho Shy //------------------------------// Spike snapped awake to the sound of thunder echoing throughout the town. Grumpy after being awakened from one of his dreams about Rarity, he somehow found the willpower to open his eyes. "It's not supposed to storm until next Thursday," he complained to no one, and lazily reached over for his alarm clock. "Let's see, should I go back to sleep or...?" If Spike hadn't been fully awakened by the oddly loud thunder, looking at the clock was enough to finish the job. The three hands of the clock were seemingly frozen—not even ticking in place, simply not moving at all. For a moment, Spike thought this was the correct time, but then he noticed the completely stationary second hand. Used to (and slightly frustrated with) seeing odd things like this in the library, Spike thought he knew what had caused it. "Twilight, did you do something to my alarm again?" That was when he heard the front door open. He heard a small group gallop in, and tromp all throughout the library. At first, Spike dismissed them as simply looking for a book, but when he heard the sound of books falling off of shelves, he knew that Twilight would be furious. With a great deal of effort, he rose from his bed and bolted downstairs. "Hey, why are you tearing up the library—you, of all people!" he added quickly, after seeing that Applejack, Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy were with this group. "Twilight's going to be furious when she sees what you've done!" From another room close by came Rarity's voice: "Applejack, be a dear and explain what happened to our poor dragon." With a sigh and an adjustment of her hat, she came to regard Spike with sad eyes. "Twilight's the reason we are doing this, Spike..." Spike could barely believe what he heard. In more than one place during Applejack's relations of the events, he interrupted with an outburst. "What?!" he would always shout, sometimes interrupting her mid-sentence. "The Elements didn't work?" "You couldn't even land one hit?" "He got Twilight?" "Yes, Spike, and now we need to find a book that might hold the answer to saving her," Applejack replied with the slightest hint of irritation. Though it was important that he stayed informed, he was beginning to try her patience, especially at this critical moment. "Something about...Swirlstar the...Beard...ly...?" "Oh, Starswirl the Bearded!" At this, Spike grabbed a ladder, and quickly ran it along the shelves. "Twilight...'borrowed' a few books from his wing after our little trek there. I tried to talk her out of it,but she wouldn't have any of it—something about wanting to be prepared for anything." Spike reached the top of the ladder, and pulled a small collection of very large books off of the shelves. "She took three in total; do you know which one to look in?" He turned to see the three shaking their heads collectively, but as he turned, he lost his footing and tumbled through the air. With quick reflexes, the triad in the room seized control of the situation. Fluttershy sped over and caught one book in midair—though she was so overcome by the book's weight, she nearly fell with it. Applejack reached out and caught the other two with one hoof, and Pinkie Pie's spastic leaping somehow caught Spike on her back as she fell. "Nice work, gals," Spike thought aloud as he recovered from disorientation, "it's good to know that your collective efforts can solve any problem." "Well, I'm not sure about any problem," Applejack replied as she set the heavy pair of books on the table. "Hey, Rainbow! Rarity! We found 'em!" And through the door they came—Rarity looking rather sad; Rainbow Dash, frustrated because she didn't find them first. As Fluttershy finally regained control of her flight and set the third book on the table, the group stopped and pondered which book would offer the most help. One book appeared to feature information on all sorts of ancient relics, another's title hinted at dangerous foes and how to defeat them, and the third was an encyclopedia of sorts featuring almost every time-based spell Starswirl had written. Using her wings to shrug to the others, Rainbow Dash opened the book about relics and began paging through. Doing the same with her front hooves, Applejack started flipping through the book about time spells, and before anyone else in the room could speak, Rarity lifted the last remaining book with magic, and carefully used the levitation spell to page through. After a few minutes, Applejack broke the silence. "Here it is! Says it's a spell that returns time to its normal flow," she explained to the group. "I think it's just what we need to land a hit on that time tyrant! Now, lessee here. 'Restore Time...refer to Relics book, see "Scrolls of Time Restore" '?" Rainbow didn't need to look up to know Applejack was staring at her, and she responded to her silent statement. "Yeah, yeah, I'm goin'!" A few seconds later, she shouted a similar cry, before her face became confused as well. “ ‘Refer to Monsters book, see... "Æon?" ’Who in the hay is that?!" Almost on cue, everyone's eyes were locked on Rarity. Feeling the pressure of being waited for, the pages of the book began to turn faster. “Sorry, girls, I don’t see their name in the table of contents!” She shouted as she continued to scan the book. Frantically flipping to the back of the book, Rarity saw no mention of Æon's name, and was about to throw the book down in frustration when her keen eyes spotted some very faint writing on the inside of the back cover. Upon closer examination, she saw that the words were actually written boldly—they were just on the other side of the page that helped seal the book together. With a great deal of care, she ran her magic along the sealed edges, and eventually succeeded in splitting the pages. As the book fell open to reveal the concealed page, Rarity nodded to her friends. "Hey, I think I found something!" Seeing that Rarity had found the correct page, the rest of the group huddled around the book, trying to read along with what she said aloud. In the end, most gave up—the page was very old and worn, and overall, Rarity read faster. " 'If anypony has found this hidden page, they must either be very curious or in desperate need to find the Scrolls of Time Restore. And that means that my worst fears were true all along.' " " 'See, I...have my reasons to suspect that the alicorn Klokwerk K. Millennia may become a much larger threat than most would think. A much larger threat than I should scare the general populace into thinking exists. "Æon" is the name I have given this potential threat. As a failsafe, should things take a turn to the dark side, I have produced the Scrolls of Time Restore, which together form a spell that will halt all time-field distortion for a few hours—effectively rendering "Æon's" powers useless. Of course, when Klokwerk used his methods to learn about what I had done, he became angry and attacked me, attempting to destroy the Scrolls, as they were "a symbol of distrust." " 'We struggled briefly, but there was no clear winner, and eventually we both got away from each other. After that small battle, though, I knew the Scrolls of Time Restore would have to be kept somewhere safer than in my hooves—after all, unlike Klokwerk, I would not be around forever. So I took my apprentice and we scoured the land, looking for the most isolated places in Equestria. There, we toiled for months, building temples of stone, metal, magic, and whatever else we could think of. We filled them with the most dastardly trials our minds could conceive and construct. Due to our need to protect it from any disciple Klokwerk may gain, we used everything we could control safely—and a couple things that we couldn't. It's the closest I've ever come to becoming a Dark Mage. Regardless, after we were sure they would be safe there, we placed one Scroll of Time Restore in the deepest location of each temple. " 'If my suspicions are correct, then I have wasted too much time boring you with details already. There are five Scrolls in total; thus, five temples to hold them. You can find their coordinates on the opposite cover of the book. Celestia speed your journey, and may you save your special one in time.' " With all the haste she could possibly muster, Rarity flipped the whole book over with her magic and performed the same trick again to the front cover. All that was there was five sets of coordinates—hopefully, the mapping style hadn't changed drastically since the book had been written. "I call the first one!" Rainbow suddenly shouted. As the group turned to stare at her, she quickly rethought her statement. "Well, the first one is probably the easy one...why don't we send Fluttershy to that one?" Always one to prevent arguing, Fluttershy just nodded her head quietly. "Which means I'll take...that one," Rainbow continued, pointing to the fourth coordinate on the list. "Because you're too chickenhearted to take the fifth?" Applejack commented with the raise of an eyebrow. "Fine, then—ah'll take that one." Rainbow was about to respond, but settled to release her stress through her wings b y hovering above the ground. Crossing her front hooves, she muttered to herself, "You win this round, AJ..." With the brash challenge-takers settled down, Rarity lifted her head to speak to the only other pony who had yet to choose her destination. "Well, I guess that leaves you and me, Pinkie—" she was cut off by the sound of Pinkie slamming her hoof into the book. "I choose...this one!" she announced happily, her hoof planted on the third number set. Initially, Rarity was greatly irritated for getting no choice, but a quiet sigh allowed her to regain her composure. "Very well. You all should be very happy that I am a lady, and do not care about being stuck with the second. Now, let's go find out exactly where we're heading." As Rarity went off to search for a map, Spike decided to raise his objection. "What about me?! I haven't been able to help much the last three times, and I'm tired of sitting around and being useless! What can I do?!" Applejack turned towards him, unsure what to say. The six friends were used to traveling and fighting with only each other, but she suddenly felt sympathetic for Spike—Ah don't know how ah'd deal with feeling so unimportant. After some thought—and considering what Twilight would say—she lowered her head to talk to him. "Ah appreciate the thought, sugarcube, but there's only five places to go...and, well, it'd probably be faster to get there if we traveled alone. I know I'm not her, but Twilight would want you to stay safe—but, of course, with Klokwerk around, no place is really safe." Like lightning, it hit her just what Spike could do. "Why, ah bet all of Ponyville is in a panic right now! It's not so much of a help to us, but ah bet you'd be a savior to others if you could direct them to somewhere safe—or at least safer—outside of the city! How does that sound, Spike? Sure, it's not a hero's job, but it's better than sitting around and doing nothing!" Spike didn't respond initially, but eventually, he smiled and shook Applejack's hoof, muttering something along the lines of "baby steps for a baby dragon, Spike". Soon afterwards, Rarity returned with a detailed map of Equestria. Carefully spreading it out on the center table, she politely stepped back and waited for somepony else to go first. It took no more than half a second for Pinkie Pie to dart to exactly where she had been standing. "Let's see here...seventy two degrees this-way-itude, sixty-five degrees that-way-itude, and forty-nine degrees altitude...wait for a few minutes, aaaaand...BAM!" she finished suddenly, slamming her hoof onto the map and startling the rest of the group. Her method of reading the map was questionable at best, but nopony could complain—after all, she had chosen her destination correctly. "I'm going to be right here, just four hundred and ninety-seven meters below the surface!" she continued, lifting up her hoof to reveal a hot pink tack that had found its mark in the town of Canterlot. Off to the side of the group, Rarity felt a twinge of jealousy. "Good idea, Pinkie. Ah think we'll be able to handle ourselves, but we should probably mark where we're headed on this here map, case people wonder where we've gone. You don't have any more of those tacks, do you?" To her pleasant surprise, each of the remaining ponies was holding a tack matching their coat's color in a few seconds. As Applejack stepped towards the map, she had to glance several times at the coordinates before she could remember them. "Let's see, I'm going to be...here!" she announced, stabbing her tack down at a rather barren portion of the map, not too far from Appleloosa. "Ah'll have to do some hikin', no matter where ah get off, but ah suppose it's no trouble to me." Fluttershy had been silent all this time—partially out of respect for the fact that this was a library, but primarily out of fear and nervousness. Eventually, however, she decided to end her agonizing wait, and she trotted up silently to the map. Glancing once at her coordinate set, she traced over the map with her hoof, then carefully placed her tack on the map. When she looked at the surrounding location, she let out a sigh of relief—all she had to do was enter a cave in the Everfree Forest. Though this would probably wind up being easier said than done for her, it was good to know she wouldn't have to go far. When Applejack came over to ask if she was happy it was so close to home, she smiled and nodded. Nervous as she was about going into Everfree alone, at least she wouldn't have to go so far. "Yes, how wonderful for you," Rarity grumbled, still irritated for fooling herself out of going to Canterlot. "Well, let's see, where am I headed?" Levitating her tack in the air beside her, Rarity looked at her coordinates, then the map. She appeared to be silent and unmoving for a time, but after a great deal of calculation, Rarity gingerly placed her tack on her destination. When she saw where she had hit, she gasped, groaned, and nearly fainted on the spot. Her destination was the peak of a mountain range, in the countryside between Ponyville and Canterlot. The only verbal comment the rest of the group could hear was "not fabulous." "Yeah yeah yeah, big deal. Now it's my turn!" Rainbow hovered over to the map, and carefully inspected her coordinates. After about thirty seconds, the group became puzzled as to why she goes going so slowly. Suddenly, Rainbow whirled around to face her friends, and shouted, "The Lightning Dragon!" Her friends just stared back at her in confusion. "The Lightning Dragon? What's that?" "Yes, the Lightning Dragon!" Rainbow exclaimed back as she flew up to her standard hovering position. "All that's listed here is an altitude coordinate, but I know for a fact that at that exact height is the eye of the massive mystical storm, the Lightning Dragon!" When their incredulous stares did not lessen, Rainbow shrugged. "Okay, so I was an egghead about storms long before I was one about books, but that's not the point! Anyway, nopony's ever successfully flown to the eye of this storm and out again, but it looks like I'll have to be the first. Last I checked, it was in the countryside between here and Neighagra Falls—"here, Rainbow stabbed her tack into an empty portion of the map that she would cross on her way there—"but I'd better check with the Cloudsdale Weather Watchers, just to be safe." "If we all know where we're headed, then, let's hit the road. In case ya don't remember, every second counts here!" Before scattering to their own separate needs, the six hurried back to town square, where the situation hadn't changed. There was still practically nothing in the bottom half of Twilight's hourglass prison, but Klokwerk was still there, horn ablaze should they launch another feeble attack. He was rather surprised when they didn't, but equally irritated by what they did instead: they shouted a very important message. "Don't worry, Twilight!" "We read those books, and we know how to save you!" "We've just got to run somewhere else, and get the pieces of something we need!" "We'll be back before you know it, so hang on!" Twilight didn't know exactly what they referred to, so she just smiled weakly and whispered, "be safe." Unsure if they had heard her, she went back to putting all of her focus into her spell. And with that, the race against time was on. The six quickly dispatched—some headed home to frantically gather whatever supplies they might need, others headed towards a checkpoint on their journey there, and one left to walk the streets of Ponyville.