//------------------------------//
// Brooks 
// Story: A War 
// by Comma Typer 
//------------------------------//

Do you want to know something funny if you try to stick to grammar rules while talking about time travel? Those rules break down.
Dismiss my humor as dry as a rock, but it's true.
Say, you want to stop a time traveling villain. He goes back into the past. How will you phrase the statement, "We will stop him!" if the act of stopping him would take place in the past? I've posited this seemingly impossible question in some niche sci-fi magazines years ago, and the answers I've seen are what you would expect. "We will have stopped him!" is the tamest of them all, and already, ponies at large can't form something even close to a somewhat correct answer. Here are some of the answers that pulled no punches unlike the one above:
"We will stopped him!"
"We will stop him in the past!"
"We will had stopped him!"
"We'll stop him ten years ago!"
"We had stopped him later!"
However, this little comedic pause from all the heady stuff you've digested from the previous chapters (I'm assuming you did) serves to make a point: That it's hard to talk about time traveling actors without a proper frame of reference (and, sometimes, it's hard even when there is.
Think about it. Star Swirl the Bearded's present is our past. Our present is his future. Our great-grandfoals' present is our future, our present their past. Bring ponies from those points of time together in one room and force them into a conversation about time travel or, at least, "present history". Not only will you be blasted by lots of angry ponies, but you will also learn that they'll have a hard time getting along (except in dishing out revenge on you for your hypothetical time travel shenanigans).
A bang on the wagon.
Trixie levitated a bit on to the open book and went to the open door window. She poked her head out and looked around in the lonely night.
A pegasus mare banging on the wagon with a hammer.
"Hey!" Trixie yelled, shaking a hoof at her. "You dare vandalize the vehicle of the Great and Powerful Trixie?!"
"Not really, ma'am," the pegasus said as she hovered to the ground. "I'm part of the Equestria Games Society and I'm nailing notices of the upcoming Equestria Games which will begin three Mondays from now."
Trixie recoiled at that. "The Equestria Games?"
"That's what I just said," the pegasus said, placing the hammer on the grass. "They'll be taking place in Ponyville. Not that far from here if you plan to use the train, but since you have your very own...wagon..."
"Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie does not distrust wheels. She merely prefers the practicality and the effort dedicated to pulling one's own wagon!"
"Uh-huh." The pegasus scratched her head in confusion. "I'll...leave you alone since, uh, the notice is done and I, uh, already notified you so reading that notice is redundant." She bowed her head a little. "I apologize for damaging your wagon."
"As you should, but the Great and Powerful Trixie forgives you."
She levitated her wizard's hat on to the pegasus's head.
"Oh!" The mare looked up, handling and fondling the hat. "I...I don't know what to say."
"Say, 'Thank you, oh Great and Powerful Trixie, for letting me wear this one-of-a-kind hat made to grace the head of the Great and Powerful Trixie!'"
The mare flinched. "That's a mouthful."
"Then, you don't get the hat," Trixie said as she magically pulled it back to her head. "Besides, I only got two of these and the other one's for emergencies."
The mare nodded. "I'm sorry over what I did to your wagon."
She left.
Trixie was alone once again in the open country, more dirt road and railway back and forth.
"Huh. The Equestria Games are in Ponyville. A trip by wagon with lots of stops to put the Great and Powerful Trixie's feats of magical prowess on display...that will take about one week."
She raised a hoof to the sky.
"I'll do it!"



On Monday night, under the same reading light, Trixie lay on her bed with the book in front of her.
There are three main types of timelines from what could be gathered from the tons of sci-fi books I've read (and, yes, I say tons because I put all of them on a weighing scale once and it went over two tons, so I am correct when I say "tons" in that regard):
The Unchangeable Timeline: You can't change the past. Even if you did go back in time, what you did in the past was already done. In a sense, you were only "waiting" to do what you'll do in the past.
A good example of this is this very short story: Say, there's a building that burned down some time ago. A time traveler wants to visit that building before it mysteriously burned down to see for himself what it looked like. He goes back in time and visits the building. During his stay, he trips on a burning oil lamp and sets the whole building on fire. Of course, he wants to stay alive, so he exits the disaster he caused and goes back in time. Then, he realizes that it was himself who burned the building down that time ago.
The Changeable Timeline: You can change the past. This is your usual time travel stuff that appears in the most popular of sci-fi novels (that feature the subject heavily) like "Timely Business", "The Chrono Code", and "The Paradox of the Temporary". You go back in time, do something, and go to a present that's changed.
A good example for this type of timeline is this: A time traveler regrets not getting pizza for a friend last night. So, what he does is he goes back in time, buys pizza, and gives it to his friend that night before traveling back to his present. In this changed present, his friend is happier since he has received a pizza last night.
It's also true that this type of timeline is the one that causes the most problems (and headaches) down the line, since there's only one timeline. It's rife with the possibility for creating paradoxes that, well, nopony's actually caused yet so we don't really know what would happen if a paradox would occur (though lots of authors agree that it's not a good thing). More on paradoxes later but, for now, prepare your mind if you want to dive in to the realm of time travel novels that rely on this kind of timeline.
The Multiversal Timelines: Yes, you read that right. The plural "Timelines" with an "s" at the end. You can change the past, but you'll end up having two timelines, the original timeline where you didn't go back in time and the new timeline where you did go back in time. The former is same old, same old. The latter experiences all the ramifications of what you did, from major things like different heads of state to minor trivia like the most popular pizza flavor in Manehattan being ten cheese instead of five cheese.
Since I've stated examples for the two other kinds of timeline(s), I'm obligated to give you an example for this one: A time traveler goes back in time and gives a random pony a lump sum of a million bits. He goes back in time but then realizes that the present he's in has nothing changed. The random pony is largely unknown in this original present. Lucky for him, his time machine can go to the new timeline to see what's happened. He goes to that timeline and sees that random pony as a rich philanthropist who gives generously to everypony he comes across. He is well-known and well-loved by all.



On Friday night, a kilometer or so outside a city with an entrance adorned with two fountains spewing out water high into the air, Trixie was tucked up on her bed, once again reading the book inside her wagon.
....Alternate timelines are a fickle thing, morally speaking.
One of my biggest gripes in juvenile sci-fi fiction is that it treats alternate timelines like trash. Oh, you accidentally caused a brand new timeline? Too bad, there's a plot to follow, so let's move along. Nothing to see here. It's as if whoever churns out these stories has a vendetta against those timelines without even knowing it.
Want to see the prime example of this? Don't look any further than "The Journeypony's Many Worlds". The titular Journeypony sees time travel as nothing more than a vacation cruise through time. So, he does what most of us expects such a pony would do: Hop to various points in time and see historical events unfold. Well, since he's there, he's impacting the timeline. In one of his temporal jaunts, he bumps into Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon in their epic duel and eats some popcorn. This causes Nightmare Moon to be distracted and be promptly defeated by Princess Celestia. The narration goes on to state that he comes back to the present and then desires to go to the future (again) on some whimsical whim. What makes this awfully egregious is that the author then off-hoofedly writes down the differences in that new timeline: The Princesses build sea cities, Equestria discovers lasers much earlier, and millions of ponies use jumping as the main form of transportation.
I've seen knock-offs marketed with better sales pitches than this.
To be totally serious, though, this displays a wanton carelessness from the Journeypony about the timelines he's making, as if you can merely classify alternate timelines with three curt descriptors. While I understand that this is for schoolponies and that some things are "dumbed down" to make it understandable for them (a practice which I've railed against ever since I discovered that it existed, but talking about that is beyond the scope of this book), you subtly teach the foals that these timelines have no real substance, no real history behind them, no real ponies within these many times.
Extrapolate that to real-life analogues. A foal visits a city he's never heard of. The ponies there act differently. Why? Different culture, different upbringing, different history, different everything. But, if the foal has read "The Journeypony's Many Worlds" and makes the ignorant mistake of connecting new timelines with new cities, the only thing that will come off for him from that lovely trip is that the ponies there are obsessed with fishing, are addicted to bungee jumping, and would rather chop gum into little pieces first than eat it whole outright. That foal has compartmentalized an entire city, full of complex and intricate interactions and equally different (if not more so) ponies that are different everyday, into three phrases.
You don't. Do. That.



On Monday, early morning, with the sun as if a few meters above the hills, Trixie pulled her wagon into Ponyville.
She remained silent as she walked by the town's many cozy cottages and homely shops. Ponies walked about, minding their own business at their tables, their food, their chairs, their couches. Behind windows, behind doors, more ponies.
Darker.
Trixie looked up.
Pegasi creating a low canopy of clouds, covering Ponyville.
The magician sighed. "Another air raid about to go off? Aren't the Crystal ponies far out from here?" She shook her head. "Nevermind. Now, where's the spa? All this pulling's tiring me out."



Humid yet cool.
Trixie rested on a comfy recliner-like chair, a warm towel bundling her mane. Much of her face was covered in imported mud, her eyes protected and soothed by cucumber slices. Two beauticians massaged her hooves.
"That hits the spot," Trixie blabbed.
"I do agree with you," a voice said.
"Huh?" A frown. "You're the pony beside me, right?"
"Sort of. I'm behind you. In fact, I didn't even notice you until you spoke up."
"Really? The Great and Powerful Trixie is also the Stealthy!"
A giggle. "If you kept quiet, you would've kept that title for yourself, too."
"Ah! You've trodded on what you can rightfully describe as rightfully that of the Great and Powerful and Stealthy Trixie! Take care, lest you face the wrath of the Great and Powerful Trixie!"
"Wow. You really call yourself that, huh? Do you hate first-person pronouns or what?"
Trixie growled. "Oh, so now you think you can begin to think yourself as an equal, to throw out frivolous words like that to my face?"
"Uh, miss," one of the beauticians said, "you should stop moving. It's hard for us to—"
"Fine! But, you better watch out!"
The beautician shrugged her shoulders as she continued massaging the Trixie who did not see anything at all.



Trixie left the spa.
A minute later, the cloaked pony left the spa as well.
She tip-hoofed on the streets, hiding at a moment's notice whenever a pony came into view. Around a wall, under an unattended cart, inside a bush or a shrub.
A few minutes of sneaking around, and she got to her destination: the boutique turned candy store.
The pony went inside.
That brightly-colored atmosphere and theme was  there; so was the sweet scent of the candies themselves. Shelves of the same candies, yet something new was put on some columns: huge lollipops the size of pony heads. They even came in different flavors: strawberry, blueberry, apple, and orange. A sign beside them said, "More flavors to come!"
Only other pony inside was Bon Bon. The kitchens were unstaffed, their machinery off.
"Good morning!" the candy pony greeted with a cheerful wave, though had a suspicious eye on the newcomer. "I haven't seen you before. What do you want?"
The cloaked mare locked the door and closed the window curtains.
A darker store.
Bon Bon got out of the counter and leaped right in front of her. "And, what do you think you're doing, intruder?"
"I'm not sure if reverse psychology is going to work on the Ponyville populace, Agent Sweetie Drops."
Bon Bon raised an eyebrow. "So, what? I've heard that super secret agencies take refuge in being as obvious as possible. Hiding in plain sight. I understand if you're very paranoid, but...I'm not a secret agent of a secret agency, doing some secret things and reading secret documents with secret information. I'm just your better-than-average confectioner who passionately concocts candies for a living." A pause, a dead on stare. "Read all the papers I have stashed here and in my house. They'll check out."
"Likely story," the cloaked pony said. "Then again, you're quite good for the pony who got the bugbear in the first place."
Sweetie Drops gasped. Scared, eyes wide, hoof on cheek. "How did you know? I heard rumors that the league's still up and running somewhere in Manehattan, but I didn't know they were true!" Inhaled. "Unless, of course, you're one of those leftover pals who cleans things up and clears agents' memories of their whole agent lives. Well," fumbling a hoof on the floor, "I've contemplated this before, and I'm willing to give up those precious memories if it means safeguarding the secrecy of S.M.I.L.E. I have a good life here in Ponyville as 'Bon Bon' and, to be honest, I wouldn't trade it for the world."
A pause. "You don't have to do that, Sweetie Drops," the cloaked pony said, taking a step forward and peeking out the window for a second.
She raised an eyebrow again. "Then, what is it? The agency's back up, so what's in it for me? Do I have to move out of Ponyville and relocate to Manehattan for whatever top secret operations you have for me?"
"You could say that we've...expanded."
"What do you mean?" she asked, fearful.
"The war against King Sombra has taken its toll on us. You can deduce the rest."
Bon Bon's eyes looked down. Thinking. Another gasp. "You're going to bring the agency to the war?"
"Agent Furlong's bringing the agency to the war. We're already experts in the intelligence division, so it's a matter of time before Princess Celestia calls us up to conduct espionage behind enemy lines."
"How long will I have to stay out of Ponyville?" Bon Bon quickly asked. "I've made lots of friends here in Ponyville! You can't just swipe me away like that!"
The cloaked pony shook her head. "This is exactly why we keep agents at a certain distance from the rest of the world. To answer your question, I can't give even a rough estimate, for the war is constantly in flux. We'll inform you when it's time."
She headed toward the door.
"What's your name?" Sweetie Drops asked, hoof outstretched to her.
"Agent Brooks."
The cloaked pony left, opening the door with a blue wing.



She dashed past the trees leading up to the farm, halting every now and then, breathing almost silently.
Away she went.
A rustle.
The three ponies at the arched entrance to Sweet Apple Acres looked about them, Trixie holding on to her hat as the wind blew.
"You're really sure that there's nopony else here?" Applejack asked her, looking past the magician's shoulders and focusing on the traveling wagon behind her.
"I think so," Trixie said. She turned to Filthy Rich. "So, what were you two talking about again?"
"Oh, I was consoling her about the change coming over the old farm," Filthy Rich answered, standing beside her. "We'll take the mayor's word for it that it'll be reverted back to the good ol' barnhouse of yesterday."
Trixie studied the red structure over there. "It looks like a barnhose to me. What's the big deal?"
"They're doin' it in stages," Applejack replied. "If you haven't noticed, there's...less apple trees in the fields."
She raised her head a little higher to take a look.
The hills were still covered in many apple trees, though there were markedly fewer trees as if somepony took out every other tree.
"They're also green," Applejack said. "Lots of 'em. Filthy Rich found some fert'lizer specifically for sour apple trees and their kind...said it's cheaper than sweet apple fertilizer."
Filthy Rich nodded as he pulled his tie, facing Trixie. "Do you plan to stay in Ponyville for the month? We're wrapped up in two big events: the Equestria Games and the Summer Sun Celebration. Having a magic tricker around would certainly benefit both you and us Ponyville folk."
Trixie turned her head down, pensively staring at the dirt path below. Looked up. "Yes, Filthy."
The businesspony grimaced. "I prefer 'Mr. Rich'."
"Oops!" Trixie covered her mouth.
Applejack chuckled.



She sat on her bed.
It was a dark night. No light but a lantern illuminated her bedroom. She could see the rug jutting out from under her bed, the closed door with an apple sign on it, the window to the outside where she could see more grassy hills and fewer trees.
On her hooves, a package with a letter written on it:
For Applejack,
After the Summer Sun Celebration, they're going to install simple processing machines. Nothing too complicated. Just pull the lever and the conveyor belt will roll. It's up to you to sort the apples.
Consider these hairnets as a practical heads-up from me. I don't want you and your family to suffer blame because of hair strands in the cans. I know you're very careful, but this is very new to you.
From, Filthy Rich
She tore open the package.
Two hairnets. One small, labeled for the mane; one large, labeled for the tail.
"Welcome to a whole different Sweet Apple Acres, Applejack," she said to herself, gripping the hairnets.
In her dark bedroom.