//------------------------------//
// Out of Time 
// Story: The Unexpected Adventures of Trixie and Sunset 
// by Sixes_And_Sevens 
//------------------------------//

Trixie sat sullenly in the corner while Sunset examined each of the TARDIS controls minutely. “Trixie is bored.”
“K.”
“When will we be landing?”
“Once I’ve figured out how to fly this thing.”
“When will that be?”
“Much sooner if you stop interrupting me.”
Trixie fell onto her back. There was a long silence. “Trixie knows how to fly the TARDIS.”
“How to fly it into the planet of ancient gods, yes.”
“Are you still holding that against Trixie?”
“It was literally only an hour ago.”
“Feels like longer,” Trixie sighed. “Every moment seems eternal, every second moves like molasses…”
“Okay, y’know what? Fine. I’m just gonna pull on this--” Sunset yanked quite hard on a lever. “--and we’re gonna deal with being stuck on the wrong planet again for the Great and Powerful Trixie’s personal amusement.”
Trixie rolled over as the TARDIS wheezed her arrival. “Glad you finally see sense.”
“Whatever,” Sunset said, pushing open the doors. She stopped in her tracks. “Oh. … Huh.”
“What is it?” Trixie asked, pushing herself up on her hooves. She peered over Sunset’s shoulder. “A poster for a Sapphire Shores concert. So?”
“So?” Sunset asked. “So? So we’re back in Equestria already! It must be nearly the right time and place…” she stepped out to read the date on the poster. “Yeah, it’s at least the same year.”
“And you said you needed lessons,” Trixie scoffed. “Clearly, your talent exceeds even your beauty, Shimmer.”
“Huh?”
“Nothing.” Trixie frowned. “Hey, Sunset?”
“Yeah?”
“It looks like we’re in a big city.”
Sunset glanced around. The TARDIS had landed in an abandoned alleyway, filled with dumpsters and trash. “Well, it’s definitely not Ponyville,” she agreed. “C’mon, let’s see if it’s Manehattan or Windy City or what.”
“That isn’t what Trixie means. Trixie has performed across the country, in many large cities.”
“I’m sure,” Sunset said, trotting toward the light at the end of the alley. “C’mon, we can take in a Bridleway musical or something.”
Trixie hurried to catch up. “All Trixie is saying is, this city seems a little--” She broke off as she rammed into Sunset.
“Quiet,” Sunset breathed.
“Exactly!” Trixie said, standing up. “If this is Manehattan, then it must have been evacuated or-- or…” She trailed off, finally getting a good look at the street.
Ponies stood on the sidewalk, hailing taxis. Ponies leaned on carrot dog stands, hawking their wares. A team of construction workers sat on the frame of a building, eating lunch. Every one of them had one thing in common. They were all as still as butterflies under glass.
“...Trixie does not like this,” Trixie said, shrinking behind Sunset. “We should go.”
“Go where?” Sunset asked.
“...Away?”
“Trixie, if time is frozen in…” She paused and glanced toward the skyline. “In Seaddle, then it’s probably frozen everywhere. Including, for example, Ponyville.”

“So, what do you suggest?” Trixie shot back.
Sunset tilted her head, studying the sky. “Investigating,” she decided. “If we can figure out what’s stopping time, maybe we can fix it, and then we can go back to Ponyville.”
Trixie looked out at the street again and twisted up her mouth into a little rose of a pout. “If you’d like, you can stay in the TARDIS,” Sunset said.
“Pah! The Great and Powerful Trixie is no cringing coward! Trixie will help you discover the source of this perilous plight. Come, bold Sunset! Let us advance into the unknown and ponder this paralyzingly puzzling problem!”
She stopped to take a breath and realized that Sunset was already halfway down the street. Trixie dropped back to her hooves and raced after her.


***

They had walked several blocks. Sunset didn’t seem to be in a very chatty mood. She kept stopping to kick at pebbles or inspect window displays. The silence was crushing, pressing in on Trixie. “So!” she said with false cheer. “Trixie would like to take this opportunity to get to know you a little better!”
Sunset blinked. “Er, okay,” she said. “What do you want to know?”
“Trixie does not know.”
“Um,” said Sunset. “I like books.”
“Very good,” Trixie said, approvingly.
“And… uh, sports, I guess. I can play chess pretty well, and I’m loud.”
Trixie blinked. “Very forward of you to say.”
“Wha-- ew, no! I just yell a lot.”
“Ah.” Trixie considered this. “You are not a fellow appreciator of beautiful women, Trixie takes it?”
“No, not really. I’m kinda asexual, actually. And sex in general just kinda squicks me out.”
“Squick?” Trixie repeated.
“Oh, sorry, that’s human slang. It means, uh…”
Trixie giggled. “Trixie can guess. It is a fun word! Squick, squick, squick.”
Sunset chuckled. “I guess it is.”
“Sunset?”
“Yeah?”
“Have you actually found any clues yet?”
Sunset slumped, her flames suddenly shrinking. “No…” she sighed. “This always looked so much easier on TV.”
“Tee-Vee?”
“...Another time,” Sunset promised. “I just don’t know what we’d look for! All the buildings look about as likely as any of the others. I mean, I don’t know what sort of place would build a time-stopping device. And it wouldn’t even need to be in town! Like I said before, it’s probably covering the whole planet. And the city is driving me crazy! It’s just so-- so--!”
“Quiet.”
“Yeah.”
“No, be quiet,” Trixie said urgently. “Trixie heard something!”
Sunset fell silent. “I don’t hear it,” she said after several seconds.
“There was a crash,” Trixie insisted, turning to face across the street.
Sunset frowned. “If you’re right,” she said slowly, “that could mean…”
“We’re not here alone,” Trixie said, hurrying across the street, leaving Sunset to race after her.
“Trixie! You can’t just dive in half-cocked like that! Whoever you heard, they might be dangerous! They might be the ones who stopped time! Who knows what they’re capable of?”
“Pah!” Trixie said archly. “You can bend fire and chaos to your command, and Trixie is a master of prestidigitation! She would like to see the foe that could withstand our combined might!”
“Actually, I don’t think you would,” Sunset said as Trixie pushed open a door.
The two mares walked into a curio shop. It was dimly lit and dusty, with shelves full of glass animals that glinted in the frozen sunlight and books that leaned against one another in a barely-functional system of supports. The shopkeeper, an older she-camel with large tortoiseshell glasses, was frozen mid-glare at a hapless customer who had just knocked a large steamer trunk off a table.Trixie circled the trunk, fascinated. It had stopped in the middle of its fall, and hovered in midair.
Sunset looked around. “I don’t see anything that looks like it was disturbed,” she said. “Then again, in this pigsty, I don’t know if I could tell the difference.”
“It’s like Trixie is walking around in a photograph,” Trixie marvelled. “Everything is frozen…”
She reached out a hoof to rub the side of the steamer trunk. No sooner had she touched it, though, than gravity seemed to get right back to work. Trixie squealed and jumped back as the trunk hit the ground with a heavy thump.
Sunset spun around. “Trixie, what did you do?”
“Trixie just touched it! She didn’t know that would do anything!”
Sunset glanced around. “If whoever was in here earlier is still around, they know we’re here. C’mon, let’s get out of here.”
Trixie pushed open the door and both mares hurried into the silent street once more, weaving through the mob of petrified pedestrians, only stopping after they had run three blocks.
Sunset stopped to lean up against the front of a barbershop, and Trixie, after a moment, stopped and trotted back to join her. “The Contrite and Regretful Trixie wishes to say that she had no idea that would happen.”
Sunset nodded. “I know,” she said through deep breaths. “It’s alright, Trixie.”
After a moment spent regaining her breath, Sunset glanced up thoughtfully. “Actually, it’s probably just as well you knocked that trunk down. At least now we know how we can affect things in here. That might actually give us some kind of clue as to what’s going on here.”
“Oh,” Trixie said. “Good.”
Sunset glanced around. “Better yet…” she reached out to touch a nearby stallion’s hoof.
He jerked to life, setting his hoof down before becoming cognizant of somepony touching him. He stared at Sunset, surprised. “Um… can I help you?”
“We need to know what just happened,” Sunset said urgently. “What do you remember doing right before I touched you?”
He blinked. “Er, nothing much. Walking. What’s this all about? And--” he turned. “Why is it so quiet? Why is everypony frozen?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out,” Sunset said quickly. “Please, if you can tell us anything at all--”
“What’s going on? Oh Celestia, are they even alive? What did you do to them?”
Sunset blinked. “Hey, we know about as much as you do!” she defended.
Unfortunately, the stallion was too high-strung to feel reason. He lifted a hoof to strike her, or perhaps he was merely rearing up to run away.
Trixie, though, was faster. She tackled Sunset to the ground, knocking her out of harm’s way, and both mares landed painfully on the pavement.
Sunset scrambled to her hooves. “Sir? Sir! Are you--” she stopped. The stallion was frozen again, rearing up in the air. His face was a mask of raw panic.
Trixie stood up as well, dusting off her cloak. “Perhaps you should try somepony else?”
Sunset shook her head. “I can’t imagine they’d react any better. Um, thanks, Trixie.”
Trixie nodded. “He didn’t feel anything different?” she said.
Sunset shrugged. “Dunno. I didn’t think to read his mind while I was touching him. Wish I had…”
Trixie thought about that for a moment. “Trixie thinks she has an idea…”
Sunset cringed. “I’m not going to like this, am I?”
“Oh, hush. Trixie has excellent ideas. Now, this is what we’re going to do…”


***


Crystal Goblet had been hurrying to market to buy herself some lettuce for the lunch date she had agreed to have with her friend Coffee Kettle. She had made the sandwiches, prepared the lemonade, even made some nice gelatin shapes for a dessert. But when she went to toss the salad, she was horrified to find that her nice leafy greens had wilted.
So she had run out of her apartment, and now she was panicking about whether she had left the door unlocked whilst already busily panicking about the salad.
In a way, therefore, it was actually rather a relief to be bowled over by a unicorn mare and pinned to the ground. It quite made her forget all her other concerns. “Trixie has got her!” the mare shouted. “Quickly, Sunset! Before she escapes!”
Suddenly, another mare came into view, this one leaning over her head. Her mane looked like fire. She gave Crystal an apologetic smile. “I’m really sorry about this,” she said. “On the bright side, this won’t take any time at all.”
Crystal opened her mouth to ask what this strange unicorn was talking about and why this other unicorn had pinned her to the street, and if she knew that she was on fire at all, but the mare reached out a hoof and tapped her on the nose.
The mare’s eyes burned white, white like solar fire, white like lightning strikes, white like Crystal’s mind as a force washed through it, picking at this and that but moving nothing, as careful as it was powerful.
And then it was over, and Crystal was left blinking in the light of day. The fiery mare smiled down at her sheepishly. “Sorry about that. I only looked at the surface stuff. Um, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
“Well?” said the other mare, releasing Crystal. “Did you find anything?”
Crystal tried to say something, anything, to find out what in the world was going on, but when the blue mare got off of her, then suddenly


***

Sunset cast a last glance at the mare, frozen in time as she hauled herself upright, then shook her head. “Nothing. She was going to the market to buy lettuce, and then you tackled her. Nothing else.”
“Hey, you agreed to Trixie’s plan!”
“Yeah, because I thought you were gonna stop her and distract her, not bodyslam her!”
“There is very little that is more distracting than a bodyslam,” Trixie said primly. “You would be amazed that the tricks that Trixie has been able to perform just by bodyslamming a pony at just the right moment.”
“I’m sure.” Sunset let out a frustrated huff. “I’m sorry. I’m just really annoyed, and you’re the only one around I can vent at.”
Trixie shrugged. “Eh. Trixie is used to it.”
Sunset frowned. “Really? I thought Twilight would treat her assistants better than that.”
“No, not Twilight.”
“Then--”
“Trixie would like to get some lunch.”
Sunset blinked at the abrupt non sequitur. “Oh! Um, alright. I’m not actually that hungry right now.” She watched Trixie closely. She didn’t need to read the other mare’s mind to know that something was on it, and the illusionist didn’t feel like sharing. “Would it be cool with you if I went back to the TARDIS while you ate? I’ve got an idea I’d like to check out.”
Trixie nodded, glancing around. “Did you see any hayburger joints around here?”
“There was a diner a couple blocks back,” Sunset replied. “You can pay, right?”
“Of course Trixie can pay! She’ll leave the bits on the counter.”
“Okay. I’ll meet you there after I finish in the TARDIS,” Sunset promised, spreading her wings and soaring back the way they’d come. Only after she was several blocks away did she stop and remember the noise that Trixie had heard earlier, and the possibility that there was some other being moving around in this frozen city with them.
She dismissed the thought quickly. She was letting the dead silence of the frozen city make her skittish. Trixie had probably been letting her nerves get the better of her as well. Who would be wandering around a city frozen in time?
Sunset’s mouth tightened. Okay, her theory about what had stopped the clocks could wait until later. First thing she was going to do when she got back to the TARDIS was run a scan on all the life signs in the city.
She went into a dive down into the alleyway.


***

Trixie, meanwhile, had managed to locate the diner Sunset had suggested. It was quiet. Well, obviously it was quiet, everypony was frozen. But there weren’t many diners in the restaurant.
She considered the jukebox for a moment. Would it be worth it to keep one hoof on it all the time while she was eating? She reached out and touched it. 
“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”
She withdrew her hoof. “Nope,” she said to nopony in particular. “Not worth it.”
She went to sit at the counter instead, pulling a menu out of the rack by the door. She perused it idly, looking for something that would catch her eye. Then she remembered that she would have to go back into the kitchen and swipe a burger off the grill if she wanted anything to eat, because if she waited for a server to come and take her order, she would be waiting for a very very long time.
She sighed. Well, she could at least work out what she wanted to swipe, and how much it would cost her. She glanced around the restaurant again and noticed for the first time a burly pegasus angrily pointing at his date, apparently yelling at the smaller stallion.
Trixie considered that for a moment. Then, she levitated a bottle of ketchup over his head and squeezed. The condiment bubbled out, forming a thick, frozen cloud over the yelling pegasus’ head. Trixie smiled. One more reason to undo whatever had stopped time in this city, she supposed.
That’s when she heard it. A clatter from the kitchen, like somepony had knocked into a pile of pots and pans.
Trixie stood very still, not even daring to turn around. Despite what she had told Sunset earlier, she was very afraid of whatever might be walking around the frozen city with them. But she screwed up her courage and snuck over to the kitchen door. She peered around the side. She could see nothing, nothing, nothing… nothing that wasn’t trapped in time, that is. A cook flipped a burger in midair, watching the patty as it remained trapped in mid-fall. A drop from the milkshake machine hung suspended in midair. Slowly, Trixie peered around the edge of the counter. She saw a flash of light, and then she knew no more.


***

Sunset pored over the screen. It seemed to be taking an awfully long time to run. She had asked the TARDIS how to scan for signs of life, but the craft had seemed oddly unwilling to talk to her. Eventually, she had gotten the information she needed, though the ship still seemed unwilling to cooperate. Sunset frowned and tapped on the glass.
For some reason, that appeared to solve whatever problem the TARDIS was having.  Hopefully, the stopped time wasn’t somehow affecting its systems, because Sunset had no idea how to repair it.
She looked at the readout of life signs and did a double-take. There were no little dots signaling heartbeats, or anything like that. Instead, there was a pair of squiggled lines, sometimes running parallel to each other, sometimes diverging. And then it flickered, and a set of dots appeared. And then it flickered, and another set of dots appeared. And then it flickered again, and Sunset was looking at the two lines again. Sunset growled and smacked the console. “Alright, fine. Be that way. How do I search for time anomalies?”
No reply. She touched the console and focused. It had been an accident, the first time. She had touched the console, and seen another mind. Not for long, and not much-- thankfully, actually, because even the mind of a draconequus could only handle so much information at once. But there was another mind there, one she could read if she only tried hard enough. Tell me how I can find the information I need, she said.
She opened her eyes, and white light shone out. And the TARDIS grumbled and snarled at the invasion, but it told her what she wanted to know. Sunset nodded and withdrew herself from the timeship’s mind.
Barely even stopping to process what she was doing, she manipulated the scanner and waited for it to scan. Much to her surprise, this time the results came back almost immediately. However, they were still a little… unexpected. For one thing, the TARDIS apparently counted itself as an anomaly, as well as Sunset. There was a dot representing the two ponies they had stopped on the street earlier, and another dot that lit the curio shop. There were several in the diner, which Sunset suspected must have been caused by Trixie wandering around.
She shook her head. “I don’t get it,” she muttered. “If I’m looking at this right, the only thing that’s happened here is the TARDIS arriving.”
She sighed. “I’ll just go over to the diner. Maybe Trixie’s found something. Or at least found a good burger.” She trotted out the doors again, and they slammed behind her.
“Jeez, testy,” she muttered, spreading her wings and taking off.


***

She swooped in for a landing at the diner some time later. It felt like the trip had been much shorter than it should’ve been, actually. She pushed open the diner door and walked in. No Trixie.
Sunset frowned. “Hey!” she called. “The TARDIS was a wash. I couldn’t find anything out.”
She let the door hang open behind her-- without her touching it, it wouldn’t close again. “Trixie? Are you in here? I told you I would come meet you here.”
She glanced behind the counter and her heart stopped. A pale blue hoof stuck out from inside the kitchen. Sunset tripped over herself racing to Trixie’s side. The magician lay facedown on the floor, her eyes shut and her tongue lolling. “Oh man, oh man, oh man,” Sunset muttered. 
She put a hoof to Trixie’s jugular. There was a pulse, strong and normal. Sunset let out a sigh of relief. Just unconscious, then. She tried to remember what she had learned back at Canterlot High-- there had been a lesson about this in lifeguard training, right? No, that was CPR. Trixie wasn’t choking. Okay, fine, plan B.
She rolled Trixie onto her back, straddled the magician’s barrel, and slapped her for six right across the face. That woke her up in a hurry. “OW!” Trixie glared at Sunset, massaging her jaw. “What was that for?”
“You were out cold,” Sunset pointed out.
“Yeah? Well, Trixie would’ve taken that over what you did!” She tried to sit up, and Sunset quickly scooted off her.
“Well, I’m sorry,” Sunset said. “What would you have wanted me to do to wake you up, kiss you like Sleeping Beauty?”
Trixie considered this. “Well…”
“Oh, come on, that would’ve been so creepy! I always hated that story. And freakin’ Snow White, don’t get me started…”
“Trixie still would have taken a kiss over a slap.”
Sunset sighed. “Fine. Next time you’ve been knocked out cold, I’ll give you a kiss and we can ride off and live happily ever after or whatever. Happy?”
“No! My jaw still hurts.”
Sunset rolled her eyes. “So, what knocked you out?”
Trixie’s eyes went wide and she grabbed Sunset’s arm. “The things!”
“The… things,” Sunset repeated.
“The ones that are walking around in here! Trixie heard them knock over a bunch of plates or something, and when she went to investigate, they knocked Trixie out!”
Sunset’s pulse quickened. “So they do exist,” she muttered. “The TARDIS must be acting wonky. What did they look like?”
“Trixie did not actually see them,” Trixie admitted. “There was a flash of light, and the next thing she remembers is your hoof cracking her jaw!”
“Oh for-- how many times do I have to apologize?” Sunset demanded.
“When the pain stops,” Trixie retorted.
Sunset sighed. “So, fine. There was somepony in here, they knocked over a stack of plates or something, and then knocked you out when you came to investigate. Let’s try and find the stack of plates and see if that gives us any clues.”
They looked all over the kitchen, doing their best to skirt around the cooks. They checked the counters, the cabinets, the floors-- nowhere was a plate, pot, or pan out of place. “Maybe they put them all back,” Trixie suggested.
“Why?”
“To cover their tracks, of course.”
“But you already saw them-- heard them, so what good would that do?”
“Likely, it was meant to make Trixie doubt herself!” She paused and looked at Sunset. “Or to make you doubt Trixie.”
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, Trixie,” Sunset began.
“Oh, save it,” Trixie snapped. “You were not here! You did not hear what Trixie heard! You were not the one who was knocked out!”
As she spoke, Trixie only grew more animated and agitated. As if to punctuate her last sentence, one of her shaking hooves struck a dirty soup pot, sending it and the spoons inside crashing to the floor.
Both mares stared at it, shocked into silence. “Trixie--” Sunset began.
“Trixie is sorry!” Trixie said. “Trixie didn’t mean to do that!”
“I… I know you didn’t,” Sunset said, confused. “It was an accident. You might want to try and reign in your temper a little, but it’s fine.”
Trixie struggled for a moment, then nodded. “Trixie… is sorry she lost her temper.”
“It’s cool. Happens to me all the time,” Sunset said. “C’mon, grab a paper towel or something so we can clean the floor off.”
Trixie nodded. “...Thank you.”
“For what?”
“Understanding.”
Sunset frowned, but nodded. “Yeah, it’s cool. Uh, is this related to what you were saying earlier?”
Trixie didn’t say anything. For a moment, Sunset considered just reaching out a hoof and taking the story right out of the magician’s head. She pulled her hooves in toward her own body, as if jerking them away from a hot stove.
Trixie gave her an odd look. “What?”
“Uh, cramp,” Sunset said. “Always stretch before slapping somepony across the face.”
“Serves you right,” Trixie said with a sniff. “Next time--”
“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”
Both mares froze, staring into one another’s eyes. “You heard that, right?” Trixie whispered.
Sunset nodded, held a hoof to her mouth to signal silence. From just outside the door, they both heard the faint sound of hooves on tile. Sunset charged up her horn with a knockout spell. If they were going to do it to Trixie, she had no compunctions about giving these whoever-they-weres a taste of their own medicine.
She saw the whites of a pair of round eyes peering round the corner of the counter, and she let loose.
“No!” Trixie yelled, but it was too late. Sunset blinked the afterimage spots out of her eyes and saw Trixie at the end of the counter, standing over the prone form of… Trixie.
Sunset’s jaw dropped. “What…”
Trixie scowled at her. “You-- you-- you blockhead! You knocked Trixie out, and then smacked her to wake her up! Is there no limit? Is there no end to your attacks on Trixie?”
“Trixie. I think that that might, just maybe, not be quite the most pressing concern right now,” Sunset said, her voice a register higher than normal.
Trixie scowled down at her own unconscious body on the floor. “Fine. But Trixie will have words about this later, Shimmer.”
“Good for you!” Sunset sighed and buried her head in her hooves. “Ugh. Okay. Clearly this is some kind of time loop, right?”
Trixie cocked her head. “Eh?”
“Somehow, we wound up in our own past. That’s why things are happening over again! Okay, great. That means we have to clean up this mess and get back to the TARDIS before it starts again and things get even weirder.”
“Fine.” Trixie looked up. “Uh, what mess?”
“The pot that you… knocked over…” Sunset trailed off. There was no pot lying on the floor. There were no droplets of soup. The pot, spoon, and lid, were all sitting on the counter once more, as though they had never left.
Sunset pointed at it. “See? SEE? Even weirder!” She rubbed her head. “And I don’t see how a time loop enters into it now…”
“--s new, Pussycat, whoa-o-o-o-o-oah!”
Both mares jumped. Trixie peered out around the side of the door. “Trixie sees nopony,” she reported. Then she glanced the other way. “Hey! Where did Trixie’s ketchup go?”
“Your what?”
Trixie sighed. “Some pegasus was throwing a fit at his companion, so Trixie upended a bottle of ketchup over his head.”
“I--” Sunset drew in a breath. “Setting aside the question of whether or not that was a good idea, it isn’t there now?”
“No,” Trixie said, looking back at Sunset. “It is most peculiar. Trixie definitely did that before you knocked her unconscious.”
Sunset ignored the jab and joined Trixie. “Well, if that’s not ketchup, what is it?”
Trixie glanced at the angry pegasus again and did a double take. “That was not there a moment ago!”
“You sure?”
“Trixie is a master of observation!”
“Hmm.”
“Do you doubt--”
“No, not at all. I’ve got an idea, actually. Look at the jukebox.”
“Why?”
“Just… look at it.”
“Fine. What about it?”
“The lights on it change color. I noticed it flashing on the wall when it played both times.”
“And?”
“Are the lights like they were before you touched it, or after?”
Trixie considered that for a long moment. “After.” 
“Okay. Good. Now, blink.”
There was a pause. “What the hay?” Trixie said. “The lights changed!”
“And the ketchup is gone,” Sunset mused. “Interesting.”
“Trixie doesn’t understand.”
“I think I’m beginning to,” Sunset said. “We’re stuck in a single moment. Everything is meant to stay frozen. Whenever we touch something, that changes. Time, or whatever force, can’t keep up. It’s a perfect example of the Haysenberg Uncertainty Principle!”
Trixie blinked. “Come again?”
“It doesn’t know whether it should act like we were never here, or if it should change,” Sunset explained. “So it just keeps shifting, over and over again, playing through the time they experienced when we touched them.”
Trixie considered that. “So all the noises we heard-- were us?”
“Yeah, pretty much. The thud you heard in that shop must’ve been when you knocked over that trunk, and the crash you heard here was the pot you punched.”
“And Trixie investigated that, and you shot her.”
“...Which is something of a problem, actually,” Sunset said, her brow creasing.
“Gee, you don't say.”
"No, see, we're part of this now. We need to leave before all of this gets any weirder, okay?"
"But what about everypony else? Surely we can't just leave them."
"That's the thing. I think that we caused this when we arrived. Or, well, not caused, exactly. If I understood the TARDIS right earlier, we're caught in between moments, and I think it's because I screwed up. I double-parked us on a cosmic scale."
"Trixie doesn't understand half of what you said, but it sounds really smart."
"...Yes. It was. Very smart. Come on, before we run into ourselves."
"What happens if we do that?"
"Well, we might blow up the universe, but we'll definitely have to talk to ourselves. I'm not ready for that, are you?"
Trixie cocked her head. "Hey, Sunset?"
"Yeah?"
"If Trixie made out with her future self, would it be--"
"Please stop speaking."


***

"Okay," Sunset said, turning down the alley. "We parked down this one, right? Okay, there it is."
Trixie trotted after Sunset. "Right. I just have to back out a little and pull in again," Sunset muttered as they approached the box. "No problem, right?"
"Sure," Trixie said. Then, she stopped. "What was that?"
"What was what?" Sunset asked, turning around just as the smoke bomb hit the ground.
"Ugh!"
"Hey!"
Sunset flapped her wings, beating the smoke away just in time to see two figures opening the TARDIS door. Her future self glanced back and blew a kiss before slipping through the doors and slamming them shut. "No!" Sunset roared, running for the box.
But she was too late. With a grinding wheeze, the TARDIS began to fade into nothing. She threw herself at it with a scream, but passed through, continuing headlong into a pile of cardboard boxes on the other side. The screeching sound faded into nothing. Trixie made her way out of the cloud of smoke and made her way over to Sunset. "Are you okay?"
Sunset threw back her head and screamed every obscenity she could think of.


***

It was quite dark in the alley. Fortunately, considering that Sunset was basically made of fire, that wasn’t much of an obstacle, and from her position sitting on top of a dumpster, she illuminated the whole narrow street. Unfortunately, nothing that Sunset could say or do could stop Trixie from swooping from doorway to doorway with her cloak swooshing about. She probably thought it made her look dashing. Really, she looked like a deranged wannabe Batmare, albeit in a rather endearing way.
However, after what felt like several minutes of putting up with Trixie’s shenanigans, Sunset conjured a barrier for the magician to smack into. Trixie fell on her flank. "Hey!"
"Let me sulk in peace, why can't you?"
"Trixie thinks you're taking this way out of proportion. We know we'll get out. We saw ourselves get in the TARDIS and fly away. We can wait until time loops around again."
"But how long will it take?" Sunset asked, flopping onto her back. "I don't know! Time doesn't seem to mean anything here, anyway."
There was a moment of silence, and then Trixie hopped up on the dumpster to sit next to her. "Tell Trixie what's really bothering you," she said.
Sunset let out a long sigh. "I don't like not being in control," she admitted. "Here, I can't do anything. I can't change anything. Everything is predestined, and I can't stop it or change it or even leave until it's time to leave."
"Uh-huh," Trixie said. Sunset peeked one eye open. To her surprise, the magician actually seemed to be listening. "Go on," she encouraged.
"Well," Sunset said slowly, "growing up in the castle was like that sometimes. I always had to keep to a schedule, and go where I had to when I had to. And when your adoptive mom is the Sun Princess, that means that you have to go to a lot of boring, stuffy parties, and sometimes you're stuck in your room all alone because mom's at a summit with the mountain goats. And then, when I was about sixteen, I found out that she'd been keeping information from me. Guiding me along a path without telling me, molding me into something and keeping me from what I really thought was my destiny."
"So you left."
"I was sixteen years old and I just had a fight with my mom. Of course I left. And then I found out that I couldn't actually get back through the mirror portal. So I freaked. Again, of course. And then my hormones got screwed up because I was going through puberty again and I was a different species, which was how I got the genius idea of marching on Equestria with a legion of brainwashed high schoolers."
"Wow."
"Yeah, I know. I'm messed up."
"Trixie went through something similar."
Sunset looked up at her. "Yeah?"
Trixie nodded. "Trixie was always the overlooked child. In many ways, she was freer than you. She could come and go as she wished. But her parents cared not at all about her safety, and her brother took advantage of that."
"What do you..."
Trixie pushed back the fur on her foreleg. It was crossed with scars. "He was a summoner. Gifted. He needed blood, and Trixie was an available source."
Sunset covered her mouth, horrified. "Sweet chaos. I'm sorry." She let herself fall against the lid of the dumpster. "You must think I'm such a spoiled brat."
"Please, you grew up in a castle. It was never in question." There was a moment's silence. "But Trixie feels bad for you, too."
"You do?"
"We aren't so different," Trixie said. "Great magical prodigies, defined by limitations, took a course of vengeance against the world until we actually made some decent relationships."
Sunset smiled. "Well, when you put it that way..."
Trixie extended a hoof, and Sunset gripped it tight. They sat like that for several seconds. "You do realize that Trixie is trying to help you up, yes?"
"Oh." Sunset scrambled upright. "Sorry."
"Trixie does not mind. It is not often that she gets to hold hooves with such a lovely mare."
"Uh, thanks."
Silence fell again, but it was much more comfortable now. After several minutes passed, Sunset sighed. “This is stupid. We’re gonna just sit her forever.”
“What do you suggest we do instead?”
“I don’t know. We could get closer to where the TARDIS will be and wait there.”
Trixie got to her hooves. “Very well. A walk will do Trixie good.”
“You know,” Trixie continued as they walked down the alley. “Something occurs to Trixie.”
“Hm?”
“We saw our future selves run down this alley and get into the TARDIS, yes?”
“Uh, yeah.”
“We are now walking down this alley. In the future, relative to our earlier selves.”
Sunset stopped dead in her tracks. “Trixie?”
“Yes?”
“I’m a Chaos-damn moron.”
“Ha! Yeah.”
Sunset broke into a gallop. “I see it!” she shouted. “Come on!”
“Wait!”
Sunset skidded to a halt. “What?”
“We need to watch us get into the TARDIS, because that's what we... did already.” Trixie frowned. “Trixie does not like the problems that this causes with her grammar.”
“Oh, sure, talking in the third person is fine, but this…”
Sunset trailed off as the TARDIS doors swung open. “Rut. Get dow-- whoa!”
Trixie had already grabbed her and yanked her down behind a bin, causing the lid to clatter. “Who is it?” she hissed.
Sunset peered around into the alley and saw herself glancing down the alley. “Me,” she whispered. “Just, just wait a minute. She’ll go in three… two…”
The earlier Sunset shook her head, spread her wings, and took off into the frozen sky. “Phew. Good call, Trixie.”
Trixie smirked. “Thank you.”
“Y’know, I think we actually make a pretty good team when we aren’t arguing,” Sunset said, rising to her hooves.
“Trixie agrees. You aren’t as terrible as Trixie originally supposed, Shimmer.”
Sunset sighed. She would let it slide. “You aren’t so bad yourself, Trixie. Hold it-- We're coming down the alley. Smoke bomb?”
Trixie pulled something small and oblong from beneath her cloak and hurled it at their earlier selves. Sunset watched herself turn around just as the smoke bomb landed. "Okay, go-go-go-go-go," she chanted, hopping to her hooves and dashing for the TARDIS.
She opened the door, but paused on the threshold. She turned to see her earlier self standing in the cloud of smoke, enraged. Sunset smirked, blew herself a little kiss, and trotted into the TARDIS, slamming the door behind her.
"Okay, time to take off!"
Trixie threw the switch. They heard the howls of the Sunset outside, followed by a crashing noise. Then there was silence, save the hum of the ship.
Sunset leaned against the door, laughing weakly. "That," she said, holding up a hoof, "was way more fun on the other side of the equation."
Trixie grinned. "Right? The look on your face..."
Sunset sighed and let herself slip to the ground, still giggling. Trixie stepped away from the console. "Here. Trixie thinks you can take over now."
Sunset lifted her head. "Oh, hey. Thanks," she said, getting back on her hooves. "Okay, I'm pretty sure I know where I went wrong. I just need to--"
She paused and looked at Trixie. She had sat down in the corner again. She looked bored, and a little sad. Sunset sighed. "Hey, Trixie?"
"Yeah?"
"You wanna help me pilot this thing? I bet together, we can get back home."
Trixie glanced up in surprise. Then, she smiled. "Sure. Together."
Trixie trotted to the console opposite Sunset as she finished setting the coordinates. "Okay. Ready?"
In answer, Trixie grinned and pulled down on a lever. The TARDIS groaned and flew off through the vortex to her next port of call.