Three and a Half Mares

by SurprisePinkiePinkiePie

(457837584+5735739*538-2/8)*0+19: Back to the Future

"Can somepony please explain," demanded Celestia, not caring about her language at this point. "what the HELL is going on?"

"Err...." muttered Twilight Sparkle. "I couldn't explain, as such, but I think I might have a clue what's happening...."

"Well, can you make it UN-happen?" asked Luna, jumping out of the way of a rock somepony had thrown.

"Maybe," Twilight answered. "Gee, I wish I hadn't sent Spike back to the present, I could get him to bring a history book....."

"Need help?" offered Sunset Shimmer.

"Err......Yeah. If I can just snap Sweetie Belle out of it...."

"Can't you do the memory spell thingy Celestia told me about?"

She shook her head. "They mostly have memories I've never even heard of. I wouldn't be able to project them. Maybe I could......Hey, Sunset, remember that time I came for the Battle of the Bands, and we were bored, and we didn't think it would work but we tried it anyway-"

The orange unicorn shook her head. "Where are we going to find another lesbian turtle obsessed with cucumbers and an upside-down boat?"

"No, the other time."

"Oh! That. What does that have to do with anything?"

"Can somepony please explain this to us?" asked Kimono.

"Okay," explained Twilight. "So, I'm pretty sure I just need to use magic to remind these ponies who they really are. I'll have to get Sweetie Belle to do that, since I don't have their memories, and since Sweetie Belle was created when two rainbows touched, if I can make two rainbows touch again, it might spark her memory!"

"Right!" yelled Celestia. "So just make the rainbow!"

"Err, about that......You see, in the future, Pegasi learn how to make rainbows, and because they can make rainbows the Unicorns stop doing that and focus on raising the sun and moon- long story- and they kind of sort of stop teaching Unicorns the spell until after a few hundred years nopony in Equestria- again, long story- has any idea how to use magic to make rainbows."

Celestia groaned. "Alright then, how do Pegasi make rainbows?"

"Through a sequence of events that would be against all laws of physics now."

"So," asked Sparkleworks. "What exactly are we going to do?"

"Err.....Sunset, could you do me a teensy weensy favour and keep her restrained at all costs?"

Sunset nodded uncertainly, the air around her horn starting to glow orange. Within seconds Sweetie Belle had started to glow the same colour, her legs and neck locking in place. She growled. Twilight ignored her, trotting forward. Her horn started to glow purple as she screwed up her face in a look of intense concentration.

"Twilight?" asked Sunset. "What are you doing?"

"Trying....to see.......her memories......"

Beads of sweat dripped down Sunset's head. "I can't hold her forever, Twilight!"

"Just keep going as long as you can...."

The Unicorn mare nodded weakly. It was about thirty seconds before she let go.

To everypony's surprise, Twilight didn't stop. Sweetie Belle used her magic to levitate a rock and throw it towards her; she just ducked out of the way, not even blinking. The white filly wasn't discouraged, though- it was half a second before she threw another rock, which missed again.

But before anypony knew what was happening, Sweetie Belle's horn was glowing even brighter. Twilight flinched violently and fell backwards, screaming aloud as her left wing began to forcefully tear itself away from her body. Blood dripped onto the floor.

"No!" screamed Sunset, jumping forward and using her magic to flick a rock up at her. Sweetie Belle instinctively ducked and her horn stopped glowing, leaving Twilight to slowly turn her head around and stare at her wing.

She could see the white bone of her wing, and it seemed to be the only reason she still had two wings- she could see the way the flesh on her side had burned away, and her bloodstained purple feathers on the floor. She groaned before turning to the others. "Back in a minute."

"We came as soon as we heard- is Twilight okay?"

Princess Celestia nodded. "Come inside, little ponies, follow me."

She used her magic to swing the doors open and walked forwards. Rarity Belle trotted after her, with Rainbow Dash following suit. Applejack Bloom, Fluttershy Breeze and Pinkie Pie jogged after them.

After a while of going down the halls of the castle they came to another door, which Celestia gently pushed open with her front hoof. The next thing she knew there were five ponies galloping past her.

"Twilaght, Ah'm so glad ya're okay!"

"Oh thank Celestia you're alright! Hey, alright rhymes with Twilight! Twilight, alright, pineapples, okie dokie lokie!"

"And you went back in time! Is it awesome, cool, stylish or radical?"

"Oh, ignore her, darling. What happened to your cloak? Do you want me to make you another one? I think you should try a pink one, brown is sooo out of style......"

"Girls- I can't breathe-"

The hugging finally stopped. "Are you sure you're fine?" asked Fluttershy.

Twilight Sparkle nodded, raising a hoof to rub the white bandage on her side and wincing slightly as Pinkie Pie wrapped her front legs around her again, pulling the other four mares into the hug as well. "Yay for Twilight!" she shouted before they once again broke apart.

The door swung open behind them and they turned to see Starlight Glimmer trotting in, levitating a brown book behind her. "Sorry I'm late, Trixie insisted on borrowing my spoonula."

"Don't you mean spatula?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"I wish I did. And.....I would have caught up to the others, but I found this."

She levitated the book towards Twilight, who grabbed it with her front hoof and sat down, using her other hoof to brush the dust off it. The word Diary was written in large golden letters at the top, and in red pen, the words Bonbon Cupcakes scrawled down the bottom.

Twilight tried to use her magic to turn the cover, but it would only move up a little. She magically turned it onto its side, noticing a golden lock on the side. She stared, using her magic to pry it open. She eagerly flipped it open to a random page.

Dear Diary,

I'm starting to get used to senior high school. I'm still keeping in touch with Clover, thank God, I wish she hadn't had to go to that fancy ballet place. But this school seems way better, she called me yesterday and said she's getting really good! We're having a sleepover at Starlight's place on Friday. All seven of us, we're getting the gang back together. I'm so excited! I just hope Sweetheart makes it. She wasn't at school today. Teddy seemed really annoyed she wasn't there. He was acting kinda weird all day. I called Sweetheart after school and she seemed a little weird too. She hung up pretty quickly. Oh, and some crap on the news about humans and war. I don't think it's important but my parents seemed upset. Bright Eyes wouldn't shut up about it. Patch says her foster parents are going on about it too. They even started making her carry food and water in her bag in case of emergencies. I don't get the big deal, it's not even here.

-Bonbon

She stared. "Starlight, where the hell did you get this?"

"Discord gave it to me. He said you would need it."

"But....'called' Sweetheart? 'Hung up'? This.......This is all human stuff!"

"What do you mean?" asked Rainbow Dash.

"The- the human world, the one Sunset Shimmer is from! They have these things called phones, and they use them to talk to people really far away, and they call it 'calling', and when they stop talking it's called hanging up."

"Weird!" remarked Starlight Glimmer.

Celestia sighed. "Twilight, come with me."

She started to walk foward. Twilight eagerly trotted after her. "What is it, Princess?"

"Twilight......Remember when you were a little filly and I caught you trying to get into the secret part of the library, and I told you that no matter how old you were you must never go in there?"

"Yeah?"

"That area has some of the books on Ponyland history from when I was a filly. They're too out-of-date to be of any use now, since so much happened since then. I tried to write all of that down, but........I just didn't know how. I was hoping maybe after you've done all this you could start."

She trotted into the castle library, staring at the first bookshelf she came across and raising a hoof to push a red book forward. A door to the left of them opened to reveal another room with a single bookshelf. "These are the history books of Ponyland. I want you to take a few of them and read them in the Castle of Friendship before you go back to the past."

Twilight nodded, staring at the shelf and reading the spines. She telekinetically grabbed a few and started on her way.

"Spike, can you bring me one of the other books?"

Spike rolled his eyes, grabbing the book Twilight Sparkle had dropped onto the ground and carried out of the room, returning a minute later carrying another book. Twilight stared at it before grabbing it with her magic. "A History of Ponyland: The War With Humans. I wonder what this one's about!"

"A war with humans in the history of Ponyland?" suggested Spike.

Twilight ignored him. She had read most of the history books so far, and it wasn't really different to what she expected: Mostly peaceful, a few major bumps here and there, but mostly harmless. There had been something about Tirek kidnapping ponies from Dream Valley, including a foal who was born without a Cutie Mark (unlike the rest of them, apparently), and being defeated by the Rainbow of Light. And a 'human world' nothing like the one Sunset was from, including a human girl called Megan who visited the ponies frequently.

There was also another part of Ponyland, far from Dream Valley, home to only Earthponies. Without magic or flight technology had thrived- by the end of the book, they had the same phones and computers she had seen in the human world and were only discovering more things to make.

She telekinetically opened the book, wincing slightly as she felt pain in her injured wing and flipping past the dedicatons. The first 'real' page was covered with pictures of important human (as in Megan-type humans, not Sunset's humans) politicians at the time, and some stuff about them discovering Ponyland.

Then apparently one of the politicians went to Dream Valley on April Foal's, and some colts thought it would be funny to prank him. Some adults had come outside to explain that it was a joke, one called Applejack (the apple family went faaaaaar back). Applejack had tripped over something and knocked the human into a river. He had gone back to the human world and the ponies had tried to close the portal in case they mistook it to be a sign of aggression.

The humans, of course, assumed this meant they were no longer welcome, and attacked.

They came to Ponyland- all of it- not just Dream Valley- with strange black things called guns that could fatally wound ponies or kill them instantly. Weapons that could blow houses apart and set things on fire. Massive rooms that they locked ponies in and filled with gas until they died.

That was the point where Twilight closed the book.

Was this some sort of fake history? She knew murderers and truly evil ponies existed, but they were few and far between. She mentally checked off a list of enemies. Nightmare Moon? She didn't know enough about that. Discord? He was more interested in having fun than anything, and he never killed anypony- even when he deleted the old Ponyville, he brought them back as h-horses.

Sombra? He didn't kill anypony, the Crystal Empire came back, and he was nuts anyway. Changelings? Reformed. Chrysalis? Okay, it was a pretty close call with Celestia, but she hadn't intended to kill her. Starlight Glimmer? She had really thought what she was doing was for the best, and she was in a better place now. Sunset Shimmer? Okay, she wanted to kill Celestia for a while, but that was while she was an evil flaming she-demon, and she probably wouldn't have actually done the deed had she gotten the chance. She couldn't think of anypony else that was even borderline evil- some of them were jerks and snobs, yes, but they hadn't done anything really bad.

She had thought the humans were just like the ones in Sunset's world except with different colours and names, but clearly that wasn't the case. What if humans were naturally evil creatures? After all, she had only seen humans that were just human versions of ponies from her world- of course their personalities matched up!

She bit her lip. "Spike," she said softly. "Can you bring me my other bag, the one Celestia gave me when I was a filly?"

"Why?" asked the dragon's voice from the other room.

"Just bring it here."

"Err.....Okaaay......"

She sighed with relief as she heard dragon footsteps, stumbling to her four hooves and using her magic to lift the book off of the ground. Suddenly she froze dead as she heard hoofsteps.

"Twilight?" asked Starlight Glimmer's voice.

She jumped, turning her head around to see the mauve Unicorn staring at her. "Celestia said-"

"Err.....I've decided I'm going to go back to the past and read the last book there."

"But you're injured."

"Yes, but, well.....don't want to leave Sunset waiting-"

"It's time travel. You could wait years if you wanted to."

"Yeah, but........Well, my wing's almost fully healed anyway-"

"It's been two days!"

"Yes, well, you see, because I'm an Alicorn I heal faster-"

"Just this morning you were complaining about it!"

"Yes, well, that was a whole two hours ago!"

"Twilight....."

At that moment Spike walked in, a strap clearly too big for him strapped over his shoulder and the bag connected to it trailing on the floor. "What's going on?"

Twilight ignored him, levitating the bag over her shoulder and levitating the books into it. "Bye, Spike- I'll be back in a second- and also in a month- time travel is complicated...."

A flash of magenta light fell over her. "No!" protested Starlight.

She didn't know what made her do it. She knew that Twilight and Sunset had been told what to do and how to do it, that she wouldn't be able to do anything, and she would be in so much trouble when she got back. But she wasn't letting Twilight go alone.

"I'm back!" I said happily. That was when I noticed it.

"Hey, is there something on my leg-"

Author's Note:

The last two sentences is Twilight's POV.