The stunned sapphire alicorn didn't know how long he laid there, looking up to where the portal that had sucked away his wife and their dear little assistant, but finally it set in, and he furrowed his brows before standing up. He didn't know what had happened or what Starlight was up to, but one thing was certain, I'm not gonna accomplish anything just standing here...
Summoning his sword, Midnight hurried outside, hoping to find some clue as to where Twilight, Spike, or even Starlight had gone, and perhaps to rally a search party. But the moment he stepped outside...!
What is this?! He felt his horn tingle at the base before it shivered along its length, and a chill ran down his horn, then his spine, all the way to the tip of his tail!
Then he heard something. It was loud yet distant, and he gazed up in confused horror to see... some kind of... wave of light! It spanned the horizon, stretching from one side to the next and reached skyward, and it was headed straight for Ponyville! Midnight had never seen anything like it, yet his horn, his instincts, his very being warned him that whatever this phenomenon was he could not overcome it, and with every passing second it drew rapidly closer, enveloping everything in its path, which was to say everything as far as the eye could see.
With his pegasus vision, Midnight was able to see animals and creatures and even other ponies taking notice and suddenly trying to run. It did them no good, and all were swallowed up by this wave, and it hadn't even arrived in Ponyville yet. There was no time to lose, he had to do something and quick!
But what can I do? he thought in panic, This thing... it's so powerful! I can't- !! Twinken! Mom! Everypony!
He had no idea where they were, and the wave was almost upon Ponyville! He came to a difficult conclusion, There's no time... but there's still hope.
With heartbreaking reluctance, Midnight forced himself to make this decision as he raised his horn and tore into the barrier between this dimension and another! The rift opened and through it, he saw his Alicorn Dimension. Looking back, the wave nearly over Ponyville, he shed a tear as he whispered, "I'll save you all, somehow!"
Forcing himself not look back anymore, he jumped through, the rift sealing up behind him as Ponyville was engulfed in the wave of light.
All Alicorns possessed their own pocket dimension called an Alicorn Dimension, where everything existed in accordance to the whims and imagination and will of the alicorn it was connected to. This was one of the lessons Celestia personally taught Midnight during his younger years after his ascension. Here, not only could he change the landscape with but a thought, time had no meaning here.
He could literally spend eternity in his own Alicorn Dimension and never grow even one second older than he was when he entered. But she had warned him, that to spend too long within his Alicorn Dimension was tantamount to losing himself in his own mind. It made sense, as his Alicorn Dimension practically was his own imagination given tangible form.
He stood there in his Alicorn Dimension as it typically was, a wintry forest that wasn't cold with cosmic wonders dancing across the night sky above. It reflected Midnight's mind in some ways, but the longer he stood there, his guilt and fears bubbling inside him, the more his Alicorn Dimension changed to reflect it. The snow melted away, leaving a dreary barren wood, the stars and constellations and nebulae and moon above faded away, leaving only darkness, with only Midnight's cutie-mark giving off a glow. He knew he couldn't stay in here forever, his family needed him. His friends. His people. His nation.
His Twily...
But there was a part of him that dreaded what he might find once he stepped out and back into the real world. What had Starlight done? Where had she gone and what was her scheme? Where was Spike? Where was his wife? What was that wave of light he had avoided at the obvious cost of his home and everypony in it?
These questions buzzed in his head like a hungry swarm of parasprites, and the buzzing would only grow louder until he stepped out to find those answers for himself. Then he felt his sword, stirring inside of him, and he summoned it in his hoof. The black blade edged with a sapphire glow, casting an eerie light on the dreary world around him. It gave off a strange sensation that felt to Midnight like heat and cold at the same, intensifying as if anxious to move forward.
It made him think of earlier today, when he'd been with his friends and of the oath they remade. An oath to protect Equestria and everypony in it. The memory, the feelings surrounding it, it made itself known in the environment around him, as the land caught a blazing blue fire before quickly burning out, leaving snow and frost coating everything as it did before while a star sparkled by its lonesome in the darkness above before it exploded into clusters of stars, lines intersecting between them to form constellations while remnants of the explosions became the luminescent shrouds of nebula, and the darkness parted to make way for the moon, glowing its silvery blue guiding light.
Finding his resolve, Midnight absorbed his sword and turned around, a door appearing before him as he whispered, "Don't worry, everypony. I'm coming!"
Stepping through, Midnight found himself in the field behind the castle and for a moment, everything seemed alright. But then he turned around, and gasped!
"The Castle of Friendship!" He hurried forward as he called out, "Where is it?!"
It was gone, and all that was left... was the Map and several broken thrones! He looked upon it and was disturbed to see the Map of Equestria was different as well. It gave off a foreboding blood red glow and it showed that the Crystal Empire took up half of Equestria.
"What could this mean...?" he thought aloud when a shadow flew over him and he looked up to see, "Thunderlane?!"
The dark gray pegasus wore some kind of protective uniform similar to the Wonderbolts, but he kept on flying! Taking flight himself, Midnight quickly flew after his friend, calling, "Thunderlane, wait! Where are you going?!"
Thunderlane paused mid-flight and turned to look at Midnight... only to take a defensive posture, and glare at Midnight threw the opening of a helmet he wore, responding, "State your name and purpose! Come no closer!"
"Whoa-whoa, Thunder, cool down," Midnight paused while holding up his hooves, "It's me, Midnight!"
"I don't know any Midnight... and I didn't know there was another alicorn," Thunderlane gave Midnight a suspicious look, "Are you allied with Princess Celestia?"
"Yes, of course I am!" Midnight replied, suddenly confused, but he could see it in Thunderlane's eyes. ...He doesn't recognize me!
"Uh, I am Midnight Blaze, Arbiter of Canterlot and enforcer of Princess Celestia's will. What's going on? Why are you out here?"
"...I'm on my way to deliver a message to Applejack of Sweet Apple Acres," Thunderlane responded though he still kept up his guard, "Production of rations must be doubled in light of unexpected developments in the war."
"The war?! Equestria is at war?" Midnight gave Thunderlane a weirded out look.
"Where have you been the last few years?" Thunderlane rolled his eyes, not in the mood for this.
"I... I'm not sure exactly what's going on, but this is gonna sound strange to you," Midnight replied, "But you, me, Twilight Sparkle, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, Big Macintosh, Fluttershy, Rarity, Blueblood, Soarin, Cheese Sandwich, and Pinkie Pie are all friends and have saved Equestria several times from disaster."
"...Did you fly too close to the sun, or something?" Thunderlane gave Midnight a weirded out look of his own. "I don't know you, or most of any of those ponies you just mentioned, apart from Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Soarin, and I only know Applejack and Big Macintosh because they contribute rations from their farm, and Blueblood because he's the head of weapons development for the war."
"I'm telling you the truth, and if you'll just come with me, I can explain more," Midnight flew back down towards the Map and used his magic to 'encourage' Thunderlane to follow, much to the pegasus stallion's irritation.
Upon seeing the Map and the remains of the thrones around it in a spot he'd passed over many times before, Thunderlane had to admit, "I've flown all over Ponyville so many times but I've never seen this thing here before."
"There's actually supposed to be a castle here to go with it," Midnight noted.
"Okay.... but what does this have to do with you and me being friends?" asked Thunderlane, becoming genuinely curious.
"A unicorn named Starlight Glimmer infiltrated the castle and used this map in conjunction with some kind of spell," explained Midnight, "Before I could do any thing, she hit me with a stunning spell and disappeared, and then so did my wife, Twilight, and our assistant Spike. I don't know what it is, but I'm certain that this whole entire thing is Starlight's fault!
"Everything as I know it has changed, but for some reason the map is still here."
"What do you mean, everything has changed?" asked Thunderlane
"Well, for starters, where I came from, there was never a war with King Sombra," replied Midnight, "As a matter of fact, you me, and the rest of our friends worked together to stop him before he could do any real harm."
Sighing, Thunderlane responded, "That's not the way I know it... When the Crystal Empire returned, it brought King Sombra with it. He immediately resumed power over the Crystal Ponies and then used his dark magic on them, turning them into his mind-controlled slave-soldiers before he declared war on Equestria!
"And even with Princess Celestia leading the war effort, the war is taking its toll. On everypony! King Sombra sends his slave-soldiers to abduct unprotected ponies so he can turn them into more slave-soldiers! He does the same to any of our soldiers his army manage to capture. A lot of us hold back because more and more of the enemy are really our friends, our neighbors, even our families! But in doing so, we're playing right into Sombra's hooves... In the ground we're managing to hold and protect, everypony is doing their part, working day and night to fight the good fight."
Thunderlane sighed morosely, "But honestly? It just seems to be getting more and more hopeless..."
"...So, we weren't around to stop King Sombra when he retur- !!!" Midnight froze mid-sentence as that specific word he's just uttered hit the lid on the coffin and he whispered, "When..."
Aloud, he said, "When! That's it! The magic Starlight used must be time-travel! She went back in time, changed history, and so in this present we're not friends and thus we never stopped King Sombra the day he returned with the Crystal Empire!"
As the realization got Midnight excited, Thunderlane sighed and said, "Look, I hope whatever all this is helped, but I really need to get this message delivered. I'm behind schedule as it is."
Thunderlane turned to leave and was about to take off-
"Thank you, Thunderlane."
He paused and peered over at Midnight, who looked solemn, "I promise. Somehow, I'll find a way to make things right."
Thunderlane didn't say anything... but then he turned and wing-saluted Midnight, who wing-saluted back, and watched as the pegasus took flight and veered off to what looked to be Ponyville.
Left alone, Midnight sighed as he wondered, "And just how am I going to make things right?"
He had no earthly idea. He'd studied time-travel magic somewhat, given his unique existence, but nothing he knew could allow him to go back in time very far. Certainly not far enough to whatever time it was when Starlight changed history. He wandered away from the Map, becoming oblivious to his surroundings as he began to ponder, But what was the event in the past that Starlight changed?
He knew the situation but little else. He needed to find out more in order to figure out how he was going to get everything back to the way it was.
Thunderlane doesn't know me, he didn't recognize some of the names of our friends... And because we didn't become friends we weren't there to stop Sombra when the Crystal Empire returned, he wondered, sighing. Damn you, Starlight.... what did you change?!
Then... Midnight's horn felt a familiar sensation and then a familiar rush of wind! "Wait! Is this...!! The spell!"
He turned around and hurried back to the Map, coming out of the grove of trees he'd wandered into and gasped to see Twilight and Spike rising up into a portal!
"TWILIGHT!!"
He called too late, and the portal closed, once again leaving him alone. He walked up to the Map in disbelief, "Were they here the whole time?!"
But before he could process this further, another familiar sensation, and he looked to the distance to see the same wall of light from before.
"No, not a wall of light... a Time Wave!" Midnight finally realized before he opened the rift and ventured back into his Alicorn Dimension.
Sitting there, he willed a glass of iced colt cola to appear to wet his whistle. He reconsidered and added some rum to it, the circumstances calling for something a little harder. Mixing the drinks he took a LONG swig until he emptied the glass of all but its ice cubes and let out a big BELCH, groaning as he figured something out.
Those... Time Waves, obviously they were the phenomena that caused the changes to the present, originating from some point in the past where history was changed.
"...and Twilight and Spike both just vanished into that same portal," he surmised, "so that means they must have somehow figured out how to use the time-travel spell Starlight used. But if they went back in time and then that Time Wave showed up, then maybe... they stopped Starlight?"
Somehow, Midnight knew it wasn't going to be that easy. After waiting a while, he stopped out of his Alicorn Dimension and found himself back at the Map, the thrones more broken, a few were missing, and just as before, everything around looked different.
Very different.
The land around the map was polluted, trees had long been cut down while others withered and were bare of leaves. The river nearby was gray and the surfaced skimmed with sludge and scum. Then he looked towards Ponyville, and felt his heart sink!
It looked like a village of slums and ghettos, ponies wandering about, everypony shifty-eyed, some were smoking cigars, others playing knives, he even saw ponies gambling on the streets, and that was just from the distance. He hated to think what else he would find here. Conjuring his cloak and an Aversion Ward, Midnight cautiously entered Ponyville. He saw many windows were broken and some were also boarded up, some ponies, dressed in rags and filth, were in the streets huddled around metal barrels with fire in them to get warm and then make themselves scarce as a few tough-looking thug ponies strolled the streets acting like they owned them. One of those thugs waved a knife at a foal, making the poor thing hide under somepony's porch.
"What happened here...?" Midnight whispered when-
"AUGH!!!"
He looked ahead and saw somepony thrown out of a building that looked disturbingly similar to Sugarcube Corner but instead of a bakery it was obviously a pub.
"Annnnnnd STAY OUT!!!"
"Eeyup, it's Sugarcube Corner," sighed Midnight in weary sorrow as he saw Pinkie Pie, her mane short but straight, wearing a stained apron, and her being devoid of laughter or cheer, snubbed the pony she'd thrown out before stepping back into not-Sugarcube Corner.
"Well... no better place to get the local flavor than its watering hole."
Midnight entered and very nearly avoided being skewered as a knife flew past him and he saw it stick into a dartboard, along with more knives, and he saw the interior was devoid of the warm and happy atmosphere that was the Sugarcube Corner her knew. Instead, he saw ponies and maybe a few griffons and minotaurs and diamond dogs sitting on barrels around wooden tables, drinking tankards full of rum, bottles of cheap wine, there was even a large brawny pegasus drinking straight from a keg as several around him were doing the typical "CHUG! CHUG! CHUG! CHUG!" chant, and he saw Pinkie Pie and also Mrs. Cake serving drinks while Mr. Cake was tending the bar. On one side of the room, a weary blue unicorn was playing a saxophone alongside Octavia Melody and her cello, the two of them providing lounge music, which didn't really fit the atmosphere in this situation.
Looking around at these ponies and other creatures, Midnight saw scum, criminals, thugs for hire. The filth he often dealt with in the Brotherhood of the Evening Hoods.
"Hey! You gonna order something or let the flies in?"
Midnight noticed Mr. Cake looking at him impatiently. The fatherly and awkwardly kind earth pony Midnight knew was not this pony. This Mr. Cake looked gruff, noticeably buffer than his lanky true self did, he wore a fancy lapel collar and bow-tie and cuffs on his forehooves, no hat, showing his mane was combed and greased down, and he had a soul patch.
"...Sure," Midnight approached the bar and sat down, "A Pink Pussy, hold the cream."
"Coming right up," Mr. Cake started mixing strawberry liquor with coconut rum.
As he waited, Midnight felt a rude jab to his shoulder and looked to see an ugly amphibious creature, rather similar to the ones he'd seen in a shithole to the south he'd been to before, a place called Klugetown. The creature was obviously saying something to him but spoke in a voice and language that sounded like he was gargling mud. Ignoring him, Midnight waited for his drink when he felt another jab to his shoulder and he looked to see it was a grizzled-looking unicorn pony with a dead eye.
"He doesn't like you," he clarified.
"Whatever," Midnight tried to ignore them but the unicorn grabbed his shoulder and forced him to face him again.
"I don't like you either! You'd better watch your step, my friend. The two of us are some of Lord Avarice's most infamous mercenaries."
"You two? I've seen worse..." Midnight scoffed derisively as Mr. Cake served him his drink.
"You'll see your own guts when we're done having a word with you!!" The unicorn snarled, unable to see the smirk under Midnight's hood as he summoned his sword... and the unicorn and his associate both gasped in brief agony as a blade impaled them both before it vanished, the both of them falling to the floor, dead.
This didn't escape the bar's notice as a chilling silence as the music stopped and everyone looked to see the corpses before Midnight reabsorbed his sword and then responded in a sinister tone, "I'm not much of a talker..."
Some of the onlookers actually laughed while the musicians resumed playing and the loud and obnoxious atmosphere returned. Midnight reached for his drink, only for Mr. Cake to pull it away.
"You made that mess, you clean it up!"
Sighing, Midnight lit up his horn, and teleported the two corpses outside, "There, can I have my drink now?"
"Four silver Bits," Mr. Cake responded.
Although he didn't have money on his person, Midnight always kept some of his wealth in his Alicorn Dimension and so conjured a small sapphire and placed it on the counter for Mr. Cake to see.
"Keep the change."
He took his drink and helped himself as Mr. Cake hesitantly took the sapphire and hurried off to stash it. Turning around on his seat, Midnight took a closer look at the patrons in the bar, and saw a few more familiar faces. He saw Gilda beating Iron Will in arm-wrestling, there was poor Button Mash picking pockets and slipping around as quiet as a mouse, and then he noticed Pinkie Pie coming his way.
"Hey, miss?" Midnight raised a waving hoof over and Pinkie approached.
"Yeah, what do you want?" she asked, sounding irritable, tired, and just plain unhappy.
"I'm from outside Equestria and just recently came into this country," Midnight knew there was no point trying to convince Pinkie they were friends because in this time they weren't. "I've been hearing of some... Lord Avarice, he in charge?"
"Are you kidding me? He and his damn family have been in charge for like ever!" Pinkie huffed, "Well, actually, a few hundred years ago, there was some kind of scandal or something, I dunno. But whatever happened, the Princess who was ruling at that time got kicked off the throne and the noble family, House Avarice, rose up and took over."
"I see..." Midnight wracked his brain and began to think, A few hundred years ago? Did Starlight travel that far?
"HEY!"
All eyes turned to an oversized and over-muscled white pegasus with angry red eyes as he held up a certain little dragon by his tail, yelling, "YOU STEPPED ON MY HOOF!!"
"Uh, sorry?!"
"Spike!" Midnight gasped and the little dragon looked the same as he always was.
"Let go of him!"
"Twilight!" Midnight whispered as he saw her light up her horn and wrested Spike out of Bulk Bicep's hold.
Bulk angrily picked up his barrel chair and threw it at Twilight, who yelped as she dodged out of the way, and the barrel hit a minotaur instead. Snorting angrily, the minotaur whirled around and glared at Bulk before lunging over to punch him square in the schnoz.
"BAR FIGHT!!!" Gilda screamed excitably and all-too-quickly did everything turn to chaos.
"TWILIGHT! SPIKE?!" Midnight tried to yell over the madness as tankards, some still half-full of drink, flew and splashed others, punches and kicks were thrown, dishes shattered, the musicians took cover while their precious instruments were used as makeshift clubs, a pony was thrown through the window, shouts and curses filled the air, and finally Midnight turned to shadow and slipped outside.
Looking around, he didn't see Twilight or Spike... until he sensed the Time Travel Spell activate and he looked in the direction of the Map and barely saw them vanish through the portal, which blinked out of existence, leaving Midnight to groan.
"Missed them again!" he cursed when he sensed the Time Wave coming and sighed before jumping into his Alicorn Dimension yet again.
"This is getting ridiculous!" he paced in annoyance, "I've got to figure out this problem and somehow catch up with Twilight and Spike! But every time this happens, the present is changed and I get lost in what's going on!"
Sighing, figuring enough time had passed, he stepped out of his Alicorn Dimension (yet again) and yipe'd as he heard an explosion while ducking to cover. He heard thundering hoofsteps and yells and fires burning before he looked up and felt his heart tear in two to see there wasn't even a Ponyville anymore! The land upon which Ponyville stood, it was devoid of trees, buildings, farms, homes, places of business. All there was, he saw a barren muddy landscape, barbed wire and large spiked posts in the ground, ponies dressed in war uniforms, the earth ponies carrying crossbows or pulling wagons full of supplies, unicorns operating Shield Cores that kept blinking on and off, there weren't any pegasi in the air. They were all hunkered down in trenches, peering out and ducking as arrows and stones were launched from the distance, and giant boulders, some engulfed in flames launched their way, ponies shouting, "LOOK OUT!!" or "TAKE COVER!!!"
The smoky air, the desperation in the atmosphere, the thousand mile long looks in some of these ponies' eyes...
"This is a war zone!" Midnight whispered in horror.