Time Turner is not a normal pony. After a crash-landing in Equestria, it's up to him to save the world.
Time Turner is a Time Pony, and he travels in time and space. Well, until he crash-landed in Equestria. With his time machine broken, he'll be staying here a while. And it's up to him to keep the place in one piece until then.
It was the eve of the Summer Sun Celebration, the spectacular celebration of Celestia raising the sun. It would be taking place in Ponyville this year. But it was destined to go wrong...
Above the skies of Equestria, a strange cabinet of sorts was falling from the sky.
"Hmm? What's that?" Said the earth pony inside the cabinet. "It looks like a planet! Oh, it's growing too! Oh wait... It's not getting bigger... I'M GETTING CLOSER!"
Part of the cabinet exploded in reply. However, it seemed to be bigger on the inside.
"Crashing is not good!" The pony was running about the inside, flipping many switches on a console of sorts inside the cabinet. "CRASHING IS NOT GOO-"
Meanwhile, in Ponyville, a unicorn by the name of Lyra Heartstrings was heading home.
"I can't wait until the Celebration tomorrow! I should probably get to bed early, so I'm all ready for tomorrow. After all, I still haven't finished fixing those floorboards. I should get started on them right away!" She walked towards her house. A noise came from inside that sounded like an explosion. Lyra's eyes widened. "What was that!?" She ran into her house.
Inside, her house looked perfectly normal. Same white walls, same creaky wooden floorboards. Nothing had changed. Except, the seemed to be a strange cabinet of sorts in the middle of the room.
"I don't remember that being there." She said, examining the strange cabinet. The cabinet was blue, and it had a large hourglass on it, along with some kind of inscription made of odd shapes. It seemed to radiate an aura of adventure.
All of a sudden, someponie's face popped out.
"Hello there!" It said. "Where am I?"
"Uhhh... Who are you?" Lyra asked. She was quite startled by this strange pony.
"Me? Call me Time Turner!" Replied the pony now known as Time Turner he had a ridiculous smile on his face. "Now, as I said, where am I?"
"This is Ponyville, host of this year's Summer Sun Celebration! It's been a long time since it's been celebrated "
"What's a Summer Sun Celebration?"
"The biggest celebration in all of Equestria!"
"What's an Equestria?"
"How do you not know these things!?" Lyra was starting to get annoyed. "You must've hit your head when you fell down in that cabinet!"
"Ah, yes, my cabinet! It seems to have recharged, so I'll be on my way!" He walked into the cabinet. "Bye!" With a strong gust of wind, the cabinet disappeared.
"..." Lyra stared at where the cabinet was. "Was that... an illusion? Oh well, I really should get some sleep." She walked to here bed, blissfully unaware of the disaster that would unfold the next day...
It was the night of the Summer Sun Celebration, and all seemed fine. But it would not be for long...
Lyra was nearly to the celebration. She was very excited, as this was the first time that Ponyville hosted the Summer Sun Celebration in a long time. She was about to enter the town hall when-
"Excuse me, is this where the Summer Sun Celebration is?" Asked a pony that seemed familiar.
Lyra turned around in shock. "A-are you...?"
"The pony who came out of a cabinet a little while ago? Yes. I can't wait to see this celebration! Most celestial masses move on their own!" He smiled a ridiculous smile.
"Celestia- what?" She was quite confused.
"Never mind, I'll explain later..." They entered, and waited for it to begin. "So, what's gonna happen?"
"Princess Celestia will come out, and then raise the sun." As she was speaking, a gasp came from the audience.
"What does she look like?" He asked, unaware to what was happening.
"She's a white alicorn, and her cutie mark is a sun."
"Ah, thank you."
"Oh my gosh!" She looked at where Celestia was supposed to stand.
"Oh, there's the- That doesn't look like how you described her at all..." A black and purple alicorn was where Celestia should've been.
"...And the night will last... FOREVER! MUAHAHAHAHA!" Yelled the ominous-looking alicorn.
"Sorry, what's your name? You never told me." The earth pony asked Lyra.
"It's, uh, Lyra." She replied.
"Just call me Time Turner, Lyra! Let's go! Avante!" The pony now known as Time Turner ran out the door.
"Wait for me!" Lyra ran after him.
After a while, he reached a blue cabinet sitting on the street. It looked exactly the same as the one before.
"What's that?" Lyra looked at the strange thing.
"I'll tell you later." Turner entered the cabinet, then came out with an old book. "Here we go. Let's see... E for Equestria... Eccelston, no... E-Space, definitely no... Aha! Equestria!"
"Sorry, what is that book?" Lyra tried to read it, but it was written in some strange other language.
"It's a book about the Artefacts. They're... Oh never mind, I'll tell you later."
"You've been saying that a lot, you know."
"Yes, yes, I know. But I know where we are going! We must find the Elements of Harmony!"
"What are those?"
"The Elements of Harmony are a group of six element that represent virtues. When they are brought together, they can unleash incredible power! With that much power, we can stop this eternal night!"
"Whoa... That sounds pretty cool." She had a look of awe on her face. "But where did they come from?"
"I thought you'd never ask! Time for a history lesson!" He gestured to the cabinet. "Come on!"
"In there?" Lyra looked at it. "It's not exactly that large."
"Or is it?" He clapped his hooves together, and the doors opened. "Take a look."
Lyra looked inside it, and was greeted by a large room, filled with tools, grapes, and a large central console. "B-but... It's..."
"Bigger on the inside?" Prompted Turner.
"How?" Lyra was gazing in awe.
"See that tree over there?" he extended a hoof towards a tree in the distance.
"Yes, I do."
"It looks smaller than this cabinet, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, I guess... But what does this have to do with-"
"If it was over there and here at the same time, it would fit inside, wouldn't it?"
"Uhh... Yes?" She wasn't quite sure where he was going with this.
"Ok, now forget everything I just said, as it's a horrible explanation. Come on!" He walked inside the cabinet.
"Whatever you say..." She walked inside, and with a clap of Turner's hooves, the doors closed, and with a gust of wind, the strange machine disappeared...
The strange ship groaned and wheezed as it vanished from the streets of Ponyville. Well, the present-day streets of Ponyville. Inside the ship, Time Turner was flicking switches, pressing buttons, and tapping the console with a mallet.
"What is this?" Asked Lyra, still trying to understand the strange machine.
"It's my STARDA." Replied Turner, still messing about with the console.
"What?"
"STARDA. Space, Time, And Relative Dimensional Augmenter."
"I still don't get it."
"It mucks about with the fabric of the universe so I can get places faster." He nonchalantly said, walking towards the doors.
"Oh. That makes sense. Is that supposed to make sense?" She was still quite unsure about what was going on, but the explanations weren't helping very much.
"No, it's terribly irresponsible, but that's besides the point. Come look." With a clap of his hooves, the doors opened. Outside was Equestria, 10,000 years ago.
"What the..." Lyra looked outside. The STARDA was hovering above a small village. "Who's that?" She pointed to a unicorn talking to another pony. The unicorn was wearing a blue robe and a blue hat. The hat had bells on it, and both the hat and the robe had star and moon patterns on it. The pony he was talking to was wearing a strange piece of headgear, and was wearing a red robe.
"That," said Turner, pointing to the unicorn, "is Star Swirl the Bearded. And the pony he is talking to is Ra-Omega, the founder of time pony society."
"Time pony?"
"Yes. Another species of pony. Time ponies, similarly to pegasai, with weather magic, earth ponies, with farming magic, and unicorns, with space magic, contain magic of their own. They contain time magic. Because of this, they can live for very long periods of time."
"What are they talking about?"
"The creation of the Tree of Harmony."
"What?"
"The Tree of Harmony was one of the Artefacts. When your world- sorry, Equestria began to grow, the time ponies made contact and created a short-lived alliance. The Tree of Harmony was one of the large co-operational projects. By putting their magic together, they attempted to create a harmony of magic to bring peace."
"You said short-lived. Why was that? Why were we never told of these events?"
Turner ran to the console and flipped a switch. "This is why." The STARDA began to travel forwards in time. "Eventually, Ra-Omega is corrupted by chaos, and attempts to steal the power of the tree. He shattered its power into seven elements, and tried to use them against-" He was cut off by Lyra.
"Seven?"
"What do you mean by 'seven'? I was in the middle of my clever speech!"
"There are only six. Six Elements of Harmony."
"'Elements of Harmony'? Hm. That has a nice ring to it. Can I continue the story?"
"Yes."
"Ok, so, quick recap. Everypony's got magic, Star Swirl and Ra-Omega become buddies, and take up gardening. Ra gets all evil and stuff, and here we are now. So, Ra tries to attack Mr. Swirl, but he reclaims six of the Elements, as you call them. His six outpower Ra's one, and with the large amount of time magic Swirl learned from Ra himself, he banishes him back to the planet of the time ponies, Gallopfrey."
"The time ponies have their own PLANET!?"
"No, they live just across the street. Of course they have their own planet. Why do you think they've never shown up again?"
"Point taken."
"After Mr. Swirl sends Ra away, he uses more of the time magic he learned to erase these events from known history. The time ponies are forgotten about, and both societies break all connections between each other. I can't believe I didn't realize where I was once you said Equestria. I was probably thinking about picnic spots during history class. Oh well, time to save the planet!"
"I thought you said that all connections between the time ponies and Equestria were broken! Isn't what you're doing against the rules?"
"Of course it's against the rules! But I'm terribly irresponsible, so there's no time to lose!" He flicked a switch on the console. "Avante!" The STARDA disappeared from the past in another gust of wind.
"So, uh, Turner, what exactly are we doing?" Lyra still couldn't quite get what they were doing.
"Well, I got a scan on the Elements that Mr. Swirl used, so we can get a lock on the present-day Elements! From there, we can use those to defeat that evil whatever that appeared at the celebration!" Time Turner was erratically dancing around the console, hitting all sorts of devices that were beyond Lyra's capacities to understand.
"That actually seems pretty simple." Immediately after she said that, part of the console exploded.
"Why did you have to say that!?" He desperately pounded on the console.
"Say what?"
"'That actually seems pretty simple.' It's just asking for something to not be simple. You don't- you just never, never say that. You just don't." Flames erupted on the console. "Not good! This is anything but simple!" The STARDA continued to combust, and was left helpless, a leaf in the blue maelstrom of the Time Vortex.
"What are we going to do?"
"This!" Turner shouted, pulling down on a large lever. "Ha-ha!"
They sat there for a moment, silent.
Nothing happened.
Lyra broke the silence. "Why is it silent?"
Turner was nervously looking at the display on the monitor. "Well, either we've gotten lost in a parallel universe, or..."
"Or...?" Lyra responded.
"Or-" Turner was interrupted by a beeping on the monitor. "Or we've found an Element of Harmony!" He slowly walked to the door. "Well, here goes nothing!" With a clap, the doors opened into a limestone cave.
"We made it!" Lyra was overjoyed that she was still in one piece, somehow. "But wait, where's the Element?"
"I'm not quite sure. Wait, could that be it?" He walked into the cave. "What is that?"
In front of them was a glowing tablet. It was white, and had an hourglass symbol on it.
"This really is it! Here goes nothing, avante and all that!" He touched the tablet.
The tablet glistened, and the hourglass vanished, a hole in its place. A blue gem, shaped like that hourglass, emerged from the hole.
"Wow, looks like it's just for me!" He remarked, as the gem floated towards him "Hey, little buddy, what's your name?" There was a bright light, and then Turner could be seen, wearing the gem on some sort of golden necklace. "I did it. I DID IT! Ha-ha, the world is saved! All we need to do is use the STARDA and-" He was cut off by the STARDA. The lights inside went out with a dejected hum.
"That doesn't sound good..."
"No, it's not... Well," he said with a sigh, "we can only do one thing. Walk through the forest."
