//------------------------------// // Too Different // Story: Scales of Time // by The Psychopath //------------------------------// Twilight flew out of the portal and managed to adjust herself to land with a bit of sliding in the process. She immediately grabbed her lance and adjusted her helmet and face plate. Her suspicion grew to a rancid mixture of horror and marvel. "What is this?" she wondered aloud. The mare had attracted the attention of those all around her in the street. The walls and floors were all white and houses and buildings of various sizes, but with a mostly rectangular shape, flanked the road. Several ponies wearing overalls or aprons were starting to paint the buildings to finally give some color to the city, and what a city! Ponies all around the armored mare wore various forms of clothing, including pants and hats, something Twilight didn't understand the need for. Even her muzzle was overloaded with smells she didn't recognize. Something other than the smell of dirt and ash made her uncomfortable. What were these smells she was detecting in the air? The sun was slowly being covered by a gray, cloudy sky, dragging the attention of the unicorn upwards. She gasped when she saw pegasi moving the clouds. She pointed to the sky with her lance, trembling. "How are they doing that?!" she yelled aloud. A mare with a green coat and a bubblegum-purple mane fashioned in a bun style hesitated to answer. "Wh...What do you m-mean?" "Them! The pegasi! How are they manipulating the clouds?! " A crowd of ponies started gathering around the mare and creating a loud brouhaha. Her loud and flashy entrance was enough to attract attention to her, but her yelling was not any better. "Are you okay there, miss?" A hoof put itself on Twilight's right shoulder, causing her warrior instincts to kick in, spin around, and point her weapon at the culprit of her discomfort. It was a blue minotaur who lifted his arms in surrender. "Woah woah! No need to be so defensive there. I'm not going to--" "What manner of beast are you?!" "B-beast?!" he repeated in a defeated tone. "Are you a draco-pony?! That would explain your size and horns," she lowered her spear briefly. "but not the cloven hooves and lack of wings." The group around Twilight started mumbling to each other about what she had said. They started calling her 'looney', 'crazy', and many other derogatory terms insulting the stability of her mind. "What is a draco-po-WOAH!" A ball of magic shot out of the spear and blasted into the side of a building further away, tearing off a good chunk of rock and shattering a window built into it. This scared the crowd, causing them to scream and scatter everywhere. "What was that?!" he shouted. "I don't have time for this. I need to find Celestia," she spoke aloud to herself. The mare looked around her to see that four streets branched off her location. Two of them led forward and two others flanked her. An immense, lone building with no surrounding walls sat atop a hill further away, leading the unicorn to conclude that, if this 'Celestia' was anywhere, then it would be at the top of that hill where the most elaborate looking building was, so it was best to choose the road to her left that led uphill. The streets and the sights she was seeing looked terrifying to her. She screamed every time she saw any form of magic used. Just seeing a unicorn levitate a bag of groceries shocked her enough that she fired off another blast from her lance, torching the bag and its contents and covering the unicorn in soot. Further on, she witnessed another unicorn building something with her magic in a small park using blocks of marble as material and chisels for sculpting. They formed a familiar shape which raised Twilight's rage to insane degrees, prompting her to slice it to pieces, throw the shards into the floor, benches, and nearby fountain. "How DARE you!" she yelled at the mare. "Wh-what...?" She fell backwards and tried her best to scamper away. The lavender unicorn stopped her threats and lifted her head for better hearing. As her ears twitched around, she realized that a large contingent of ponies were coming. "Hmph." Twilight slammed her spear's butt against the ground. "Perhaps they'll teach you filthy draco-ponies not to try and raise effigies to your pseudo-queen amongst the normal ponies." The mare's high-pitched voice only compounded upon her fear. "Queen?" Ten armored ponies wearing blue armor around the head, torso, and legs surrounded Twilight with swords in their hooves. This armor was surprisingly thin and plain. They were sheets of metal painted blue and wrapped around the ponies' legs and torsos with straps under the body armor and behind the leg plates to facilitate putting them on. Their helmets were rounded balls with rings attached to the base which wrapped around the wearer's neck. "Ah. Good!" Twilight pointed her spear towards the trembling mare. "This one is creating a statue in effigy of the Dragon Queen. It's already starting. I trust you know what must be done, I presume?" Twilight asked. One of the stallions stepped forward. His coat was a mint green with white stripes on the outer sides of his legs going up to the joints connecting to his torso. His eyes were magenta, as were the locks of his mane trying to spring free from under his helmet. He stepped forward and pointed his sword at Twilight's neck. "I know that you're an insane pony and need to be placed in a recovery facility." "What are you doing?! Kill this fiend and put her head on a pike for the other dracoponies to see!" "Head on a pike?!" one of the guards shouted. "Captain Sundown, shall we take her in?" He nodded. "Yes. I want to interrogate and confiscate that weird equipment she has. I've never seen the likes, but it seems rather primitive in retrospect." Twilight nodded and raised her spear. "I see. You're working for her as well. I guess I'll have to deal with you lot as well, but I have more important things to do right now." She started focusing magic through her spears and calmed her breathing. "Tell me, is Celestia in that castle? It's vital I speak with her." Twilight's answer was a sword from behind trying to stab her, but she expected it and blocked it with her right hind leg. She took the opportunity to kick the sword away, then spin around and stab the pony through their armor. This was only to take a hold of the space between the wearer and their armor and swing them around with the spear, tossing them into two other ponies and firing a ball at them. If their comrades hadn't shield them with a magic barrier, then they would have been killed. "The dark arts of the dragon queen. I knew it! You're all corrupted!" Two swordsponies galloped to the aggressor and started moving in sync to slice at Twilight. When one would pull back, the other would follow with an attack in order to keep their enemy on the defensive, but the armored unicorn only gave one, loud laugh to their efforts. "I've seen this kind of combat technique before, and you two are terrible at it!" Twilight waited for the moment when the two's swords would align, and angled her spear in a way that allowed her to use the hilt to knock the sword out of the retreating pony's hoof and send the attacker's strike upwards. She used her spear to lift herself up and kick the disarmed guard in the head while the other felt the butt of the spear smack right into his ribs. The discharge of built-up magic provided extra 'oomph' and broke his ribs, jettisoning him through one the small fountains. That was five down, with five more to go. Twilight was having fun, but she needed to do this fast. The lavender unicorn focused much energy from her horn into the spear and waited that the remaining five guards get close enough to her. She vaulted upwards using her spear when they simultaneously thrust towards her, flipped her spear so the head could aim downwards towards the ground, and fired. She was thrown further away and that much closer to the castle, as she had intended. Unfortunately for the park, it was practically a barren crater now, and of the guards caught in the blast, only three were gravely burned. "I should have known that atrocity would already be present." She spoke to herself while galloping up the hill. "Legends did say that the Dragon Queen was alive before the two awoke." The mare was pleased to see a large, open space between the city and the castle further away and took advantage of its lack of walls and scurry over to a bush to hide behind. The enormous building in front of her was comprised of several different sections and was strange to behold. Like the city below, it was mostly white with only the roofs and domes being colored in assortments of yellow and pink. The main entrance was presented as two, enormous, wooden doors below tinted glass representing a blue and white pony swirling around six objects in the middle. It looked like a pathway was currently being constructed that would lead towards the main entrance but had only seen its shape designed and implemented first. A long trail of brown dirt two ponies wide led from several meters away from the door and was accompanied by an occasional pile of white tiles, shovels, trowels, and groovers. The lands in and around the large building were well trimmed and very green, something Twilight was unaccustomed to. In fact, a few feet away where a large assortment of bushes trimmed to look like ponies were, a gardener was watering the grass and trees. "Why is she wasting such a precious resource on something like grass? It's not like we eat it." Twilight shook her head in disappointment. She waited for the various patrols to look away before rushing to the next bush or tree. She hid in a tree for a good fifteen minutes before the two ponies guarding the entrance walked away after being called by somepony. Her goal was at hoof. It was almost done, she hoped, so she needed to be careful. She kept her spear under hoof and jumped off the tree and landed quietly on the ground. Taking another look around to make sure no one would see the door move, the mare pushed said obstruction slowly with her rear leg and backed away into the building then slowly closed the door. "Yes! I'm in!" she cheered loudly. "Now I just need to find Celestia." "Excuse me, little pony, but I do not believe I have guards wearing that kind of strange armor or wielding such bizarre weapons," a voice spoke behind Twilight. "She implied the guards are hers. Let's ask first." Without turning around, Twilight asked her question. "Are you Celestia?" "Well...I'm a princess and would appreciate the title to be used, but yes. I am Celestia," the pony answered calmly. Twilight let out a sigh of relief and turned around, her muscles finally letting loose. "I've been looking for you. I figured you would be in this huge place considering the legends surrounding you." "Legends?" "Yes. I--" Twilights smile faded when she saw the white alicorn with flowing, pink bubblegum for a mane and tail before her. She immediately started charging her spear and aimed it at the alicorn. "YOU!" Twilight roared.