Daughters of Liberty

by SonicSpeedster97

The Jump

Author's Note:

In this space, I'll be noting exactly what historic event, work, or person will be featured or covered in the chapter.

Summer in the town of Canterlot City; a favored time for students of Canterlot High. It always meant they could take time away from their studies to work on personal projects for as long as they liked. And one of the students with the greatest of projects was Twilight Sparkle; a child inventor and student of otherworldly magic under her classmates and good friends.

But right now, her friends were more bored than anything. “Okay, I know we all love Twilight, but is anyone else thinking this is a waste of time?” Rainbow Dash was right to ask; Twilight had called her friends over to show them a new invention but had instead kept them locked outside her lab for almost twenty minutes as she made “final adjustments”, as she called it.

“Now Darling, you must remember; if she takes this time, she’s clearly going for fabulous.” Rarity reminded. “And fabulous takes time.”

“And in this case, so does awesome,” Twilight remarked as she finally stepped out of her lab with Spike at her side. “Behold my latest invention; the Chrono-Slide.” The girls were confused at the sight of it.

“Uh, Twilight? I don’t wanna offend you or anything, but this ‘latest invention’ looks a lot like a Walkman.” Sunset Shimmer was right; it certainly appeared to be the old-fashioned music device.

Twilight just smirked. “Well, I’m pretty sure the guys at Sony never gave their Walkman toys like this.” And sure enough, when she opened the device, instead of a tape-deck, there was a system of advanced-looking controls; buttons, switches, and a time readout. “Observe.” She pressed one button on the device and suddenly, she looked nothing like she used to; her skin was a fair Caucasian, her hair turned black and her eyes turned dark blue.

Naturally, the girls were more than a bit surprised; they had no idea Twilight’s tech could do something like that. But Rainbow was still somewhat dubious. “Really Twilight? You spent three weeks working on a makeup machine?”

“Well, if you wanna call it that, sure. But it does a lot more than that.” She pointed the device at Spike and pressed the button again, suddenly turning him dark brown and black. “It’s also a portable historic wardrobe.” With that, she pressed another button and was suddenly encased in a simpler skirt and sweater that wouldn’t have looked out of place in the 1970s.

“Oh darling, that’s divine!” Rarity was amazed as she looked at the device. “This would be perfect for my next fashion show.”

“I’m sure it would, but that’s not really why I built it,” Twilight assured, switching her and Spike back to their usual outfit and coloration. “This device is a nanotech auto-stitcher and holographic projector; true, but its main function is the temporal slide function.”

“Uh-huh, cool. And now maybe in non-nerd speak?” Rainbow insisted, much to Twilight’s chagrin.

“Wait a second, I think I’ve seen enough movies to know what she’s talking about.” Sunset realized. “Twilight, did you make a time machine?” Twilight’s smirk said everything that needed to be said.

“That is awesome!” Rainbow squeaked. “What’re we gonna do with it? Ooh, I know; we’re gonna go into the future to see just how awesome I get.”

“I would fancy a trip to the future as well; a chance to see the fate of my dreams as a fashionista would be wonderful.” Rarity agreed.

“Well, a trip to the future is certainly on my agenda,” Twilight noted. “But until then, I was thinking we might take a trip into history. A little historical research for research’s sake, y’know?”

“Only you could make something as awesome as a time machine sound so lame, Twilight.” Rainbow rolled her eyes as she said that.

“Oh please, don’t tell me you’ve never looked up certain athletic records just because you wanted to.” Twilight countered.

Rainbow opened her mouth to say something, but then realized Twilight was exactly right; she’d done that a thousand times before, so she rethought what she said; “Okay, you got me.”

“Thought so.” Twilight nodded. “Now let’s get ready for our trip into history.” With that, she quickly hit herself and Spike, turning them to their cover colors.

That actually made Applejack think. “Wait, so what’s the point of that part?”

“Well, you don’t exactly see great historic figures walkin’ around looking anything like us, do you?” Twilight brought up. Applejack just shrugged in response. “Thankfully, your coloration is fairly standard, so I won’t have to use it on you.”

“But the rest of us get a makeover. Nice.” Sunset smiled, even though her transition wasn’t really all that extreme; her eyes stayed the same, her skin turned a few shades brighter and her hair simply transitioned to low orange.

Fluttershy’s skin turned a simple fair color, while her hair turned a pale blonde and her eyes remained their standard light blue. Pinkie’s skin turned tan while her hair turned bright orange, her eyes remaining the same as well.

Rainbow’s disguise was a bit more interesting; her skin turned darker tan, but her eyes and hair both turned brown, which seriously confused her. “Whoa! Uh okay, what’s going on here? What sense is this gonna make with my name?”

“Your real name is gonna draw way too much attention from people in the past.” Twilight reminded. “We’ll have to come up with aliases based on where and when we end up.”

Sunset nodded, before glancing over at Applejack. “Are you gonna be able to handle that?” She was right to worry; Applejack was honest to a fault, and if that honesty meant she accidentally told people in the past who they really were, it might spell ruin.

“Course I can; I’m on the internet. I use fake names all the time,” she assured.

“If you’re sure.” Sunset shrugged as she glanced over at Rarity; her skin turned to a fair though pale tone and her hair turned black, her clear blue eyes remaining.

“Well, I must say; this is a remarkable look.” Rarity smiled. “Oh, I must come up with a line to suit this new look. Perhaps something with a brighter blue.”

“You won’t have to worry about that too much, Rarity,” Twilight assured, holding up the time machine. “I programmed the device to automatically create clothes appropriate for the era and location we end up in. Speaking of first, where to first?” She twisted the knobs near the time and location screens, trying to figure that out.

Pinkie’s attention was immediately caught by something on the device. “Ooh, big red button.” She immediately pressed it and the machine started revving up.

“Why did you do that?!” asked Rainbow. She didn’t get her answer as a large field of a strange energy formed around the group. “Uh-oh.”

“Twilight, make it stop!” Spike yelled.

“I can’t; it’s locked in,” Twilight answered.

“Well, where are we going?” asked Sunset.

“I don’t know; I didn’t see what the readout said and now it’s fritzing,” Twilight answered.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to see where we end up when we land.” Applejack shrugged.

“Brace yourselves; this might be bumpy.” Twilight was right to give that warning; it looked like everything outside the field was disintegrating. Then they felt as though they were being shot out of a cannon; pressed up against the back of the field as it shot through history.

“I’m gonna hurl!” That was the last thing the girls heard Rainbow yell before they blacked out. Where they ended up, only fate could say.