Time! There's Never Enough of it!

by GrandSpellcaster

Prolouge

Doctor Whooves was frustrated, not because this was his thousandth attempt on the infernal machine that sat there mocking him. No his frustration was coming from the fact that the machine had sort of worked, he had managed to transport himself ten whole seconds into the past. Sure it was a breakthrough unlike any other, but he had had high hopes and all he had gotten was ten seconds. It was hardly anything to be proud of, especially when one considered that the unicorn Twilight Sparkle had managed a whole week, on her first attempt! Celestia only knows how far she could travel now.

He took a deep breath, "its okay Whooves." He said trying to quell his frustration, "She cheated. She used magic."

He'd told himself those exact words every time he'd failed with his machine. It had become more of a ritual than anything else. But still he had to admit to himself ten hole seconds was pretty cool. It was just enough time for him to wish his younger self good luck.

"Oh well. Back to work." He said pushing his frustration aside.

He walked over to the large wooden box that served as the outer casing of his time machine. He moved around back of it and opened the panel to reveal that, as expected, the internal wiring had been turned into a chard mess.

I wish bringing the past forward was as easy as simply traveling forward was. He thought as he began to pull out the mess of nearly destroyed wires. He had actually managed to skip a whole day once, albeit by accident.

He dragged the mess over to one of his workbenches where a nearly identical chard mess was sitting. He didn't know why this part of his machine always looked like this after each experiment but it always did. He had even tried using different materials and wired it differently, but he always ended up with chard copper wires. He grabbed some spare wires in his mouth and lugged it over to the machine to install them.

After thirty minutes or so he finally finished replacing the components and he moved to the side where he opened another panel where his 'Evercharge Batteries' where and checked that they hadn't become lumps of coal again. Thankfully they hadn't, which meant if the coils were still functional he could try one more time today.

Once everything was checked he prepared himself for traveling. He entered the cavity in the side of the machine meant for transport and set the timer back for three minutes. He took a deep breath the pulled down the small lever to activate the machine.

There was a sudden flash and a flurry of lavender feathers and a large mass hit him like a sack of potatoes.

The next time he opened his eyes he was floating in a vortex of colors. Hundreds of hundreds of colors surrounded him, every color he could imagine and even some he couldn't.

Where am I he wondered. He felt a sense of familiarity that comforted him. All of time and space is unfolding before me and it is beautiful. That was his last conscious thought before the vortex overloaded his senses and he blacked out.

---

Princess Twilight Sparkle was tired, very tired. She and her friends had gotten home from one of the Map's quest an hour ago and seen her friends off. As she walked into the throne room she looked up at the wooden chandelier with the memory crystals hanging down. She smiled and yawned, and that's when she noticed something. Rainbow Dash had forgotten her saddle bag on here throne. Twilight levitated the bag over to herself and peered inside.

"Just as I thought." She proclaimed to the empty room. "She's going to want this book back as soon as possible."

Just then Spike walked into the room, "I'm going to bed Twilight." He yawned at the end.

Twilight gave a sympathetic yawned and said, "I'll be right there, I'm just going to teleport to Rainbow Dash's reel quick to give this to her."

"You sure that's a good idea? You look pretty tired." Spike asked more alert. He had a bad feeling that something would go wrong if she tried to teleport now.

"Don't worry Spike, I'll just be a minute." She assured him.

"If you say so." He said shrugging, "I'll be in my room." He walked off and Twilight's horn began to glow she imagined her destination and prepared to cast the spell. She got the energy and just as she cast the spell she began to yawn.

Suddenly she was in a brown room falling forward onto what must have been a pony. There was the unpleasant sensation of time travel then blackness utter and complete blackness...