The... thing was catching up to her. Her! The fastest pony in all of Equestria! Yet try as she might the glowing metal creature was steadily gaining ground as she sped back to Ponyville. Twilight and her friends needed her. The Elements of Harmony wouldn't work unless they were all together and being worn by each of them.
She had been the diversion to keep this... whatever it was from destroying more of the town that it already had. She had smacked it in what she believed to be it's head, but it was hard to know if that was true. It was just a big metal blob thing four times as big as a pony and that didn't stop it from crashing through pony's houses for no reason. When talking to it received no response and Twilight's magic just bounced off of it they had decided to use the Elements on it. However, the metal monster had accosted Twilight constantly until Rainbow Dash had plowed into it to get it away from her.
The metal thingy had kept going after her until Applejack had reared back and bucked it as hard as she could. Then after trying to ram into her a few times Twilight had tried again to do something with her magic against it, but to no avail. After dodging it once more and the metal menace plowing into another home Twilight decided that they needed to distract it while somepony retrieved the Elements from the library. Knowing that she could buy the most time, Rainbow Dash volunteered herself by knocking it into a whirl as she then sped up into the sky and lead it away from town for a bit.
Rainbow Dash had chosen to make a wide loop that would circle back to town and give her friends the time she needed to grab the Elements. However, she soon realized that the metal moron wasn’t a slowpoke like she had thought from how it was moving on the ground. As she sped up so too did it speed up to match her.
Now that she was getting close to Ponyville again the big metal miscreant- Miscreant? Was she Rarity now or something? Whatever it was it was starting to gain on her now and she couldn’t go faster or else she would end up flying right past where she needed to go. She would need to out-maneuver this thing now to get herself to Twilight with enough time to put on her Element and take this hunk of junk out.
She tried some simple sharp turns first. Those were aborted quickly as it didn’t seem to veer too much off course when doing so. Zig-zagging through trees in the Whitetail Woods really didn’t do anything as it cost her just as much time to dodge around them as it did for the big, metal doorknob to go plowing through them. Two sharp ninety degree turns, one towards the ground and the other back on course, seemed to only work a little bit as it followed her and skimmed the ground when it corrected its course. She even flew around in some clouds to try and lose it, but it went right through them without even faltering.
A large, purple firework went off over Ponyville and caught Dash’s attention. It must’ve been Twilight. She slightly altered her course to give herself a straight line towards the source of the lightshow. It was going to be a pretty tight window. She would only make it there about five seconds before the thing caught up with her and she had to land, put on her necklace, and power up before it got to them. A pretty short time, she admitted, but Rainbow Dash knew that she was just awesome enough to make that happen.
And she did just that. Zooming in at nearly sonic rainboom speeds Rainbow Dash disregarded any qualms about about having to possibly barrel inside of the treebrary. It was unnecessary as her friends were waiting outside for her. A bit silly of her to think they would be inside she supposed. She skidded to a halt next to Twilight as the mare held Dash’s necklace in her telekinetic grasp. The necklace snapped around her neck as the weird whatchamacalit barreled into sight and the Elements powered up not a moment too soon. Twilight’s eyes glowed a bright white as a rainbow formed around the six of them and just when the thing reached them-
“Yo Brad!”
Brad looked up from his computer as his dormmate yelled at him from outside his room.
“Yeah? What do you need Deshaun?”
“I left my key in there. Can you let me in real quick?”
Brad rolled his eyes and got up to let his roommate in. He opened up the door and was surprised to see not only his African American friend but a woman standing behind him as well. She was a petite little thing too, even to Brad’s five foot five ass, and that was saying something seeing as Deshaun was six feet eight inches tall himself. He didn’t really mean to size her up, but it was not something he was expecting.
“Come on bruh. Let us in real quick.”
Brad stepped aside letting the two of them in. While Deshaun went over to his desk, the woman stayed close to the door. She was also eyeing Brad as Brad was doing the same to her.
“Sorry ‘bout that. This is Tina by the way. She’s a biology major.”
“Nice to meet you,” Brad said as he offered his hand to her.
“Same,” she replied quickly as she shook his offered hand.
“Me and Tina are going to see a movie. I hate when I forget the small stuff like this. You finish your paper for midterms?”
“Pretty much. Just need to proofread it.”
“Cool. Imma be out late so I’ll try not to wake you up when I get back. Peace.”
“Nice meeting you,” Tina said as she left in front of Deshaun.
“You too,” he replied just before the door shut. “Didn’t really know how late it was,” Brad mused as he looked at the time on his computer. “Guess I oughta get some food at the commons before it closes. I should make it in time.”
With that said, Brad saved his progress and turned off his laptop before grabbing his jacket. He didn’t think he’d need it but he’d been wrong before and there was a fifty fifty shot at rain. He grabbed his wallet and his own room key and looked outside for a moment. It was completely overcast and a little dark, but not ‘rain’s a coming’ dark. A shrug of his shoulders and he soon left his room; forgetting to turn off the light.
The room sat in silence for a few minutes. Then, as if it was alive, Brad’s laptop opened up and turned itself on. After booting up, a Google doc opened up on it. It was the story that Brad was writing before his roommate came in and interrupted his train of thought. It idled there for a moment before turning off and the laptop folded up once more.
“Not bad,” a voice said from nowhere. “Decent tension but not enough drama. Not bad for a first time. Then again he isn’t putting as much effort into that as he is his schoolwork. I suppose it’s understandable.”
A man faded into existence while rubbing his near chest-length beard. He was wearing a blue tank-top with a pair of maroon red pants and some black velcro shoes. He let out a huff as he closed his eyes.
“Oh well. Just something else I guess I’ll be creating a new timeline for.”
A wave of his unoccupied hand and a glowing circle appeared in the room. Beyond that circle was an open field with a farmhouse in the distance. The man stepped though and the circle disappeared behind him. He looked around himself for a moment before holding his hand out again. Day and night seemed to flip over themselves at a rapid pace before settling once again during a point near morning. A bright light appears out of the palm of his hand and the world looks like it’s in double vision for a moment before turning back to normal.
“There we go. Looks like another job well done, eh Eris?”
A glow from his pocket proceeded a woman’s voice.
“Of course. Not that it took much effort on your part.”
“Sassy as always. Well, I’m kind of bored after going through the last twenty of these. Want to see what the girls are up to? I kinda want to see them post-Pillars right now.”
“You have nothing better to do. I checked.”
“Well then… Up, up, and away!” he exclaimed with his fist raised into the air only to fall into the ground like it was water.