War of the Unfoals

by NPP6

Epilogue - The Last Unfoal

It had been decided that the best option all around was a slumber party at Nightstone Castle. It was late in the day when the group stumbled out of said building in search of lunch. They were just down the street from Sugarcube Corner when it happened.

There was a blinding swirl of light and magic in front of them. Arcane runes and mystic symbols spun into, through, and around the nexus.

---

In a hollow hidden in the roots of a tree, a filly who didn’t quite exist sat up and stared in the direction of Ponyville as she felt reality twitch.

---

Pulling her wagon behind her down the road, Trixie paused as she sensed the major spellwork from the direction of her intended destination. Maaaybe taking an extra day or two to get to Ponyville wouldn’t be a bad idea, she wanted this visit to go better than her previous ones after all. Besides, she had been camped two days journey outside of town for a couple weeks already anyway, what would one or two more days hurt?

---

Zecora was nearly home after staying up all night conversing with Death. She felt the magic in the distance, shrugged, and continued into her home. If it was worth another trip to Ponyville so soon, it would probably find her anyway. If it wasn’t, it could wait until she woke up.

---

Death suppressed his twitch as he sensed the deep magic parting to allow something through. After a moment he decided that Midnight was probably involved and he should make himself slightly easier for the alicorn to find. He stood stiffly, worked the kinks out of his legs, and began trotting into town. Maybe he should stop by Lyra’s while he was there, see if he could give her a scare.

---

The TARDIS had arrived a little over half an hour ago.

Ditzy Doo had finished ranting at her husband a little over half a minute ago.

The pair were just about to kiss and make up when several alarms started going off.

“Oh, what now!?” The Doctor started fiddling with the controls and checking several things with his screwdriver and the display. “Rogue chronomancy? Odd, haven’t had that since… Wait a minute, signature match coming in, and…

“STARLIGHT GLIMMER!!!”

---

The light faded, revealing a filly roughly the same age as the foals in the group. She was lying on the ground, unconscious, but gently stirring. Her coat was a deep azure that was partially covered by her charcoal cloak while her mane was a pale gray.

Suddenly she sat up with a gasp, steely blue eyes flaring as she looked around. She sank in a groan as she saw the group. “I’m still here.” At the confusion she caused, she sat up again. “You don’t know who I am.”

“Nope.”

“No.”

“Nuh-uh.”

“Sorry.”

The filly’s hooves covered her muzzle. “I went even further back? Great, just great. Mom’s gonna kill me when she finds out I screwed up time.”

It said something about how accustomed to strangeness this group was becoming that that was the comment that made things click. Time travelling filly from the future? Must be Saturday.

“When am I?”

“Celestial Era 1030.”

The filly sighed with relief. “Good, I’m not that much further back then. I…” She paused and gave the trio a strange look. “When did you three get new cutie marks?”

“Uh… these’re the only marks we’ve ever had.”

“What are you talking about Applebloom, your cutie mark is supposed to play counterpart to…” She broke off as she gaped at Applebloom’s husband. “You’re a blank flank.”

He bristled. “Yeah, haven’t exactly had much of a life until recently.”

“No, but… You were supposed to get your cutie mark at the end of the War of the Unfoals.”

Midnight smiled. “Okay, we’re not completely out of time on that then.”

The filly swung to face him, paling. “What do you mean, I thought you said this was 1030?”

Midnight paused. He knew that tone. A time traveler taking that tone was never good. “It is.”

“How long ago was the Unfoal War?”

“Last night.”

“What, but… You shouldn’t be free then. You’re not supposed to be free yet. How long have you been free?”

Midnight shrugged, deliberately playing diffident. “Only a couple of months.”

“A couple of…” The filly looked like she wasn’t sure whether to cry, hyperventilate, or be sick. “Founders?”

Midnight’s eyes widened slightly as he shook his head.

“Amber?”

“No.”

“Necropolis?”

“No.”

“Scootaloo?”

“Still working on it, no open conflict yet.”

“Flim Flam Brothers?”

“Applejack didn’t take my advice when they came around with a more reasonable deal. She ran them out of town and never told anypony they’d been here. Next time they showed up they were peddling a fake tonic.”

The filly winced at that. “Spectres?”

“The initiative is currently under development, only one candidate has appeared.”

“No no no no no no no! It’s all out of order! We didn’t fix anything!”

“Why don’t you tell us what’s going on?”

The filly sighed. “Guess it can’t do any more damage to the timeline, right? A few months ago, things started getting… weird, even for us. We figured out there was a problem somewhere in history, but none of our time travelers could get to it. Twilight concluded that since my generation didn’t exist way back then, she could send us back with fewer paradoxes risked.”

“How many of you were sent back?”

“Seventeen. Time caught up with the others. I'm… We identified the spell as one of Starswirl’s, but you couldn’t quite place the magic powering it. We fell back to the Tree and used the Nexus to power the shields we were using to try and fix things. It wasn’t working, so since I was already outside of time they decided to try sending me sideways through it to slow the quantum mechanics by putting me into a version of the timeline where the magic hadn’t reached the present yet. Then I woke up here.”

Midnight nodded, falling back on the things The Doctor had coached him on for situations like this. “Okay, is there anypony you can stay with in this time period? Any relatives?”

“Well, my mother, but… I’m not sure she’ll want me around.”

“We should check anyway. If it doesn’t work out, you can always stay with me at Nightstone. Who is she?”

“She’s a filly, about the same age as this lot. Her name’s Diamond Tiara.”

Midnight deliberately did not react to that. For that matter, so did several unseen observers. “I see. We’ll check with her and her parents then. Will you need help getting back to the future?”

The filly stilled. “…I watched everypony I grew up with vanish like soap bubbles in a hurricane. Between that and how different everything is… I’m not sure there’s a future for me to go back to.”

“I’m Sorry!”

Everypony turned to Starlight, who had collapsed weeping on the road.

Half an hour later, Twilight gently picked her student up and carried her back to her castle, where she tucked her into her bed and then lay down next to her, draping a wing comfortingly over the unicorn.

It would be a long time before the crying stopped.

Author's Note:

And here we are folks, the end of the story.

As I mentioned, Applebloom and her husband will be starring in a one-shot titled What's in a Name? wherein Applebloom's husband will meet his parents and finally recieve his name.
Also, a large portion of the scene with Diamond's daughter didn't work in this setting and got cut, but needs to happen, so I'll be reworking it into another one-shot entitled Tempus Temporis.

After the one-shots, this part of the storyline will pick up again in My Little Pony: Civil War - or - The Battle of Eight Armies.

As always, feel free to leave a comment; question, concern, or review, and thanks for reading,
~NPP6