A crack of thunder woke the Princess of Friendship from her slumber. Twilight sat up in her bed, taking a second to collect herself before she glanced out the window at the storm that was raging outside. Lightning flashed across the sky, illuminating the rain that beat against her windows. The windows at the Canterlot castle. She still wasn't used to that.
"Guess it's as good a time as any to get up," she muttered. Twilight rose, stretched her wings and headed for a small desk at the edge of her room. Despite having lived in this castle for the better part of three years, she kept her room looking almost exactly like the one she had back at her crystal castle. She wondered how Starlight decorated it now?
Starlight...there was a pony that she hadn't talked to in a long time. Twilight scooped up a clipboard with all of her duties for the day while pondering what Starlight was up to. Had she finally become principal of the school? Were she and Sunburst finally together? Maybe she could take a day off, go visit Ponyville and see how...Nope, one look at her list told her that today was going to be as busy as the rest of them had been.
"Spike? Where are you?" Twilight called out as she walked the halls. Normally her dragon brother was always at her side when she first woke up, but recently he had been spending more time out of the castle. He said that he had been heading out on official business, but Twilight knew he was sneaking out to see Gabby. Not that she minded. She was glad that he still had some friends to talk to.
She reached the main throne room as she thought this, opening the doors with her magic and entering the throne room...her throne room. Standing next to her throne was Shoeshine, her aid who had been hired when Twilight and Spike discovered that the two of them were not enough to perform all of the royal duties. He bowed as she entered, but Twilight wasn't looking at him. She was looking at the stained glass. The tales of her and her friends. The Defenders of Harmony and all the foes they had battled. Tirek. Chrysalis. Discord.
'When was the last time we were all together?' she asked herself. When they had first split apart, they had made a promise to meet together once every moon. And for the first year they had. Every moon. But then a moon came where Rarity had a special show in Mareiland and she couldn't attend. Then there was the time Rainbow broke every bone in her body pulling off a Double Rainboom. Impressive, but still. And then this previous moon Pinkie couldn't show because she was about to become a mother. Well, Twilight could forgive that one.
But it was becoming a pattern. Her and her friends growing more apart. Leaving Twilight alone. Alone with the crown and the responsibility of an entire nation. But that was alright. That was her burden to bear. And if she had to bear it alone, then so be it. She was the princess.
"What's the day looking like today, Shoeshine?" Twilight asked.
"It looks to be another busy one, my Princess," Shoeshine replied. He bowed as Twilight walked past him and sat on her throne...her throne, she would never get used to that. "You have a meeting with the king of Yakistan this morning, have an opening ceremony for a new bakery in Canterlot at noon, a baseball game to attend in the afternoon, and a concert to hear this evening."
"Is it a band I like?"
"Sadly not, princess."
"Ugh," Twilight groaned. She then shook her head and leaned against the side of her throne, resting a hoof against her face.
"Please do not slouch, Princess," Shoeshine reminded her. Twilight snapped back up, a sheepish smile on her face. "Come now, you wish to be like your teacher, Princess Celestia, do you not? You do not wish to be like Princess Luna, do you?"
"Come on, Princess Luna wasn't that bad," Twilight said.
"She would lay upside down on her throne and blow raspberries at the ponies that entered. She is hardly what I would call a standard princess," Shoeshine said.
'I've been doing this for only three years now and I want to do that. I'm amazed she had the strength to last as long as she did,' Twilight noted. But then her ears perked up for a second and she started to look around, gaining Shoeshine's attention.
"Is something the matter, Princes?"
"Hey Shoeshine...can you hear the rain anymore?"
Shoeshine opened his mouth to answer, but before he could the ceiling exploded and rained rock and marble down upon the both of them. Twilight had a magical barrier up a moment later, narrowing her eyes as the rubble bounced off her shield. With a flash of her horn she blew away the rubble and the dust, revealing seven beings that had entered into her throne room. But what she saw caught her off guard.
It was seven humans. Or at least, six odd looking humans and some sort of monster. She started with the left side. One of the humans had long, silver hair and a white cloak that covered...her? entire body. She wore a white mask with two slits for eyes. Next to her was a man covered in gold, silver, copper, bronze...all sorts of metals. He wore only a tank top and cargo shorts, but his face was as cold as the material he was made of. Then there was a guy whose body literally had fire coming off of him. Green fire. That was odd. He wore pink glasses, had an open shirt and wore shorts, like he was going to the beach. But the smile he wore was anything but pleasant.
The others weren't any better. A man wearing all black, with rings around his arms and legs. He had fallen to his knees the moment he landed, breathing heavily as his purple hair covered his face. A woman wearing enough jewels to make Rarity envious stood next to him, along with a fur coat and a fur hat. She looked like fun. And then there was the beast. The giant, horned beast with enough fangs and muscles that Twilight wondered if it could match Tirek.
And then there was the man in the middle. A man who wore a black trenchcoat, had a bowler hat on his head and had a grey mustache/ beard combo. The man looked around the room before he locked eyes with Twilight, causing him to lower his glasses slightly as he stared at her. The others followed suit and soon most of the humans were staring at Twilight.
"What did I tell you guys? Am I a great escape plan or not?" the man wearing rings asked. When none of the others answered him, he looked up at them. "Did ya hear me? I said-"
"Warp Drive. Look up," the man in the coat said. Warp Drive looked towards Twilight, his eyes widening when he saw her. "Warp Drive, where did you take us?"
"I swear I was trying to just get us to Tokyo. I don't know what we're doing in a castle...with some kind of pegasus."
"I told you those enhancers you got were a bad idea," the man of gold snarled. "And to think you used them all at once..."
"Hey man, I panicked. And until you've had All Might barreling towards you with that freaky smile on his face, I don't want to hear it," Warp Drive snapped back. Twilight decided that she had enough.
"Hello there...humans," she said regally. All eyes were on her after she said that. "I do not know who you are or how you managed to get into my throne room, but it seems that you are lost. I am Princess Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship and of Equestria. Now if you would please, who are you?"
"Equestria? I do not know of any Equestria," the older man muttered. He pulled out a pocket watch and looked at it for a second, before shaking his head. "Seems we are in a different land after all. Perhaps a different world altogether. Well that will be a problem to deal with later. But first, where are my manners? I am Chronostasis. Chronos for short."
"I see. Chronos. How did you and your...friends get here?" Twilight asked.
"Well you see, we were on the run from some goody hero when we had to use my power to warp to escape," Warp Drive bragged, resting an arm on the jeweled woman's shoulder. "But I managed to get us out of there, thanks to a bit of help. Seems I took us a bit too far, though."
"On the run from a hero?" Twilight picked up on. "Why would you need to run from a hero...unless you were people a hero would hunt?" Six sets of eyes glared at Warp Drive for a moment, before the humans aside from Chronos began to walk towards her. Fire flared to life, golden and silver weapons formed along arms, and the floor shook as the monstrous being started moving.
"That's what I thought. Shoeshine, reschedule my appointments. I've got to clean up my castle," Twilight said. Her horn glowed and she teleported her assistant from the castle. The humans eyes went wide at the sight, causing Twilight to smirk. "What? You thought you were the only one's with powers? I'll give you a chance. Stand down and you won't be harmed."
"A generous offer. Here's my counter argument." Chronos snapped his fingers and the six attacked.
Green fire blazed towards Twilight, who flapped her wings and took to the air to avoid the flames. Daggers of bronze ripped through the air towards her, causing her to have to twist and turn to avoid being hit. The girl with the white mask hurled blasts of energy towards Twilight, whose horn flashed once more as she created a barrier to deflect the attack. A massive hand reached up and grabbed hold of her barrier, which began to crack as the monstrous being began to squeeze. Six red eyes all looked in on Twilight as the monster lifted a fist, ready to break Twilight's shield.
"Nice try," Twilight smirked. She dropped her barrier and fired a blast of magic from her horn, catching the monster in the chest and sending it staggering back. She then whipped around and lifted the man of ore with her magic, hurling him across the room and through one of the walls. Magic bolts erupted from her horn and blast the fire man into a statue, where he slumped to the ground.
Twilight barely moved her head to the side to avoid three blades made of light, turning her attention to the girl in the white mask. Twilight fired a blast of magic towards her, but to Twilight's surprise she extended her hands and absorbed the magic into herself. Twilight's eyebrows went up as the girl laughed at her.
"Fool. I can absorb any form of energy. Even yours," the girl laughed. Twilight's response was to use her magic to tear two giant chunks of the floor up, which she then hovered over the girls head. A smirk cross Twilight's face as the girl stopped laughing and started to back up.
"Yeah, I noticed. But how good are you at absorbing five tons of marble?" Twilight asked, before she hurled the marble towards the girl.
"And that is enough."
Twilight blinked as the girl blinked out of her sight, her projectiles sailing into the wall. Agonizing pain blared across her side and with a cry she collapsed to the ground, looking to her side to see three holes in her side. Her horn flashed as she started a healing spell before she forced herself up to her hooves, noticing that all of the people were in different positions than then had been. But her eyes were only focused on Chronos.
'Did he just do what I think he did?' Twilight thought. Chronos smiled in response, as if he knew what she was thinking. Then he held out his stop watch once more. Twilight crouched down and prepared herself. That was until the entire castle shook as if something impacted against it. Then, once more, the ceiling was caved in as something fell through and slammed into the ground.
"Oh what now?" Twilight snarled. She and the humans all turned towards what had fallen through the ceiling as the dust began to clear. Twilight saw that it was another human, but this one was built like a brick house. He wore a blue suit with white and red stripes, had blond hair that stuck up like rabbit ears in the front and had one of the biggest smiles on his face that Twilight had ever seen.
But what truly gained Twilight's attention was how this human's presence affected the other humans. For the moment this new human arrived, the other ones began to back up, fear and hatred the only expressions on their faces.
"Warp Drive, I thought you said there was no chance of him following us?!" the woman with jewels snarled at him. "You said that we lost him!"
"There was no way. In order for him to go through one of my gates he would have been having to be moving..." Warp Drive whispered, only to go silent as the man in spandex rose to his full height. The man threw back his head and began to laugh, before his head snapped back down and his brilliant, blue eyes locked onto the humans.
"Have no fear," the man said, his voice shaking the room.
"Because I am here."