//------------------------------// // 1: The Short Straw // Story: The Journeymare Project: Turbo Pegasus // by MadHighlander //------------------------------// Rainbow Dash, the greatest flier in all of Equestria, flew through the streets of Ponyville, the slipstream generated by her rapid passage fluttering the manes of those walking below. They all cheered at her passage, awed and amazed by her daring tricks and impossible maneuvers. Angling upward, she rose above the thatched roofs and turned around. All of Ponyville spread out before her, from the rolling fields of Sweet Apple Acres to the crystalline spires of Twilight’s Castle. Spreading her wings, she brought herself to a hover, watching the majesty of the town, the fields, and the distant forest bathed in the rays of Celestia’s setting sun. A flash of light from the castle drew her attention, causing a momentary bout of confusion before a dull roar – accompanied by a cloud of destruction, spreading outwards in a ring – erased the town, followed by a force like the fist of a giant striking her and throwing her to the wind- Rainbow shot up from her bed, coming to a hover several feet below the ceiling of her cloud house. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, descending to the floor as she calmed down. The explosion had just been a dream, but she was wide awake now. “Who.” Barely keeping herself from jumping back up to the ceiling, Rainbow whipped around at the sudden noise. And then she mentally cursed her unexplained jumpiness this morning on seeing that the sound had come from Twilight’s pet owl, Owloysius, perched atop the shell of Rainbow’s tortoise, Tank. Both were looking at her expectantly, while Tank held a sealed scroll in his mouth. Curiously, she removed and unrolled the scroll. Dear Rainbow Dash, I hope the reason you haven’t been answering my fire messages is that you’re already on your way to the map room. Rainbow swallowed nervously. She’d agreed (or rather, drawn the short straw) to watch the map for errant time-travellers this morning. Since Starlight’s adventures in altering the past, Twilight had been sure to have somepony watching the map at all times, to make sure that any time travellers – even if they figured out how to do so without the map – could be prevented from making any alterations they tried to make to the past. Generally, it had been fairly easy for the six of them to agree on a schedule, but this morning was a particularly momentous day, because exactly ten years ago, an alien civilization had contacted Equestria and announced that they would return in ten years with an offer of membership to what they had referred to as their ‘Confederacy of Peaceful Races’. Today was the day they had promised to return, and nopony had wanted to miss it, so they’d drawn straws, and she’d gotten the short one. Looking back to her bed, there was, sure enough, a huge mound of scrolls no doubt sent to her by dragonfire. She continued to read the scroll while rapidly brushing her teeth and hair. But, knowing you like I do, I’d be willing to bet you’re just still sound asleep. Rainbow, you were already on the verge of running late when I sent the first scroll. Even if you hadn’t been the one to draw watch duty, you’d probably wind up missing the alien reception at this rate, and then where would you be? Anyway, I sent this one with Owloysius. If you’re not already awake, he’ll be able to change that. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to miss the start of the ceremony, I shouldn’t miss any of it – I am a princess, after all, and what kind of an impression would it make if one of the princesses was late? Appreciating your punctuality, Twilight No sooner had Rainbow read the last word than she was dashing out her door and across the sky to the castle. “Who,” said Owloysius. Tank nodded languidly. Rainbow touched down on the ground in front of the castle and trotted hurriedly towards the door. She expected to be alone - surely everyone else would be at the ceremony - but before she reached the entry she was joined by Starlight and Trixie. "Hey, Rainbow!" said the former. "Fancy meeting you here." "Same to you. I thought you two would be waiting for the alien ambassador?" Starlight nodded, pushing open the door with her magic. "We were, but Twilight wants me to do a short presentation for the alien delegation and I forgot my slides. Thank Celestia I remembered in plenty of time - it could have been a disaster." Trixie nodded emphatically. "With her experience in showmareship, The Great and Powerful Trixie was the obvious choice to help Starlight practice." As they reached the map room door, Starlight waved to Rainbow as she and Trixie kept going down the hallway. "See you later, Rainbow!" she called. Rainbow took a deep breath and stepped through the door into the map room. Twilight was waiting in one of the thrones. “Oh, Rainbow! Finally! I’m guessing I was right?” she said loudly. Rainbow nodded sheepishly. “I’m sorry if I seem rude, I’ve been up all night watching the map. I’d been hoping to grab a short nap before the ceremony, but it looks like that’s not going to happen now." Rainbow put a hoof to the back of her head. "Er... Sorry about that." Twilight sighed. "It's all right, just get an alarm clock or something. Anyway, I’ve got to go, Spike and the others are waiting for me at the landing site. Remember to review that checklist I made, and don’t leave the map unattended for any reason.” Resigning herself to a morning of boring monotony (as had been every single other shift of watching the map for the past decade), Rainbow sat down in the chair that bore her cutie mark and began reading the checklist that Twilight had taped to the Map’s representation of Mount Canterlot. Truth be told, she’d read the thing hundreds of times and it bored her horrifically, but, wouldn’t you know it, in her mad rush to get ready and out the door she’d forgotten to grab her new copy of Daring Do and the Windigo’s Treasure, leaving her with the options of rereading the old list of instructions or sitting still and staring at the map for several hours. Should a major alteration be made to the timeline, the map will alert you, and provide a rough estimate of how long it will take for the alterations (henceforth ‘temporal rip’) to reach the present. You must immediately do the following: • Retrieve the box from the shelf at the far end of this room. This box contains: o One (1) iron key. This unlocks the Historical Record storage kept outside of the range of any possible temporal rip. o One (1) auto-spell array. This contains sockets for auto-spell stones, designed to allow non-unicorns to perform specific spells coded into the stones, or unicorns to perform spells they would otherwise be unable to. The array has sockets for eight (8) auto-spell stones, allowing you to utilise additional stones found in the past if necessary. o Two (2) auto-spell stones. The first is coded with Starlight’s time travel spell, and will allow you to use the map as needed. The second is coded with a scanning spell. This will allow you to rapidly map the surrounding area, examine objects and materials in greater detail than is possible with the naked eye, and will also detect any nearby lifeforms. Unicorns are able to sense the use of this spell, but do not worry: it has been used often since the early days of Old Unicornia to find one’s way around an area and will not arouse suspicion. This will come in handy in the past, as discussed later. • Use the time-travel control stone to travel to the year 0E 200,000,000. This is a prehistoric environment, so you will not need to worry about encountering other ponies. Also, once you arrive in this time, you can relax: you are out of range of the temporal rip, even once you travel back to the present, and now have as much time as you need to repair it. • In this time zone, locate the Historical Record and unlock it with the key you retrieved in the present. Return with the record to the present; you can use the map control stone to do this. • There is a duplicate historical record attached to the map. I have tied it into the map’s magic so that it will change, rather than disappear, in the event of an alteration to the timeline, just as the map itself does. The record you retrieved from the past should be outside any theoretical historical changes, and so will contain an unaltered record of history. • Compare the two records. The present-day record’s socket is equipped with an auto-spell stone that will automatically uncover any major differences and present them to you, so you don’t have to root through them on your own. • Use the time travel control stone to travel back to the altered points and stop whatever changes were made from happening. While in the past, remember the following: o DO NOT leave anything from the future in the past. This includes anything of yours or anything left behind by the hypothetical timeline alterer. o DO NOT take any historically important objects. You may take minor items ONLY as necessary to complete objectives in other timelines, and in such cases remember the previous point. o DO NOT (and this is most important of all) allow yourself to be seen by any sapient beings in the past. This, for this purpose, includes anything capable of both understanding that you do not belong in this time AND communicating what they have seen to others, including but not limited to ponies, griffons, changelings, minotaurs, zebras, etc. but excluding the hypothetical timeline alterer whom you have travelled to stop. If you have followed these instructions, you will be well on your way to repairing any alterations to the timeline. Finishing the list, Rainbow sighed and looked at the clock. She had been reading for all of two minutes. Groaning, she slammed her head down on the table with a thud. Then an alarm started to blare. What? She thought, sitting up and glancing wildly around. What did I do? A magical projection of a jagged line appeared over the map, accompanied by a series of figures that meant nothing to Rainbow. Fortunately, a calm, inflectionless copy of Twilight’s voice came to the rescue. “Temporal Rip detected,” it announced. “Arrival in 3 minutes 47 seconds.” I have mixed feelings about this, thought Rainbow. On one hand, hooray! I don’t have to sit and stare at the map for hours on end. On the other- “Arrival in 3 minutes 40 seconds.” On the other, that’s a thing. Rainbow jumped out of her seat and flew over to the shelf containing the box that the checklist had mentioned. She opened it up to find the iron key, as well as a device made from unassuming grayish stone, albeit grayish stone that glowed through several cracks in the surface with a deep violet light. The device seemed to be designed to fit over her ear, so she put it there, where it rested comfortably. There was a similar apparatus that fit around her hoof, bearing eight round pits about the size of a gold bit. There was also an empty pair of saddlebags labelled ‘for emergencies’. “Arrival in three minutes.” Panicking slightly, she slipped on the hoof device and the saddlebags, and grabbed two stones made from the same substance, the exact same size and shape as the pits on the hoof part and labelled as ‘Ma’ and ‘Sc’ respectively. She inserted them into the divots and rushed back over to the map. So how do I do this, she thought, looking at the device on her hoof. Really should have asked Twilight about that sometime. Underscoring her point, the artificial voice announced, “Arrival in two minutes.” She prodded the one marked ‘Ma,’ and the ear-part of the device projected a display in front of her eye. There was one gray part marked ‘recall,’ while the rest of the display, in blue, showed the number ‘0E 200,000,000’ and the word ‘Jump’. Huh. User friendly. “Extreme danger of unexistentialisation. Temporal rip arrives in sixty seconds.” Okay, I’m going. Yeesh. Rainbow focussed on the word ‘Jump’ and a ticking magical sphere opened up above the map, and Rainbow was sucked through it.