Cogs Of Time

by DmitriTheWriter


Chapter 1: Stuff Starts To Happen

In a palace in the fairly large town of Canterlot, Twilight Sparkle and the rest of the Mane Six sat around their big, round table, with a map of Equestria painted in light upon its surface. Pinkie Pie was munching on a box of cupcakes, Rarity was nervously tapping her hooves on the rim of the map, as was Fluttershy, and Rainbow Dash and Applejack were fiercely debating with Twilight. The Council of Friendship had only been established a week ago, and already it was dealing with emergencies on a nationwide scale, and ones that didn’t involve Pinkie Pie trying to cook to boot.

“What do you mean Trottingham’s been invaded?!” Twilight asked.

“I mean exactly what I said. That’s what I heard from General Thunderbolt,” Rainbow Dash said. 

"General Thunderbolt?” Twilight said. “I just talked with him this morning, and he said it was all quiet on all fronts.”

“Well, I just got this letter from him five minutes ago. So there.” Rainbow slid a piece of parchment face-up onto the table. Twilight lit her horn up, and a large rotating projection of the letter emanated from the table. She frowned.

“Rainbow Dash, do you know what General Thunderbolt’s mouthwriting looks like?” Twilight asked.

“No, why?”

“Because this does not look anything like it!” Twilight examined the writing further. “Oh, for Celestia’s sake, he signed it as ‘Jnrel Tundrblt’! Did none of this set off any red flags for you?!”

“Okay, how exactly was I supposed to read all of the words?! I mean, look at this! Applejack’s chickens could have written better than this! No offense.”

“No, I agree with you, sugarcube,” Applejack said. “I’m thinkin’ we go to meet with the General himself and find out what exactly is goin’ on here. All in favor?”

The Mane Six simultaneously raised their hooves and shouted, “Aye!”

“Motion carried.”


The six good friends flew through the many labyrinthine twists and turns of Canterlot Palace until they eventually reached the War Room. The War Room was a vast, perfectly circular room with a long oblong table in the center of it. Gigantic maps of Equestria and all of the countries it bordered were plastered all across the walls. Two stallions, one an earth pony of gunmetal gray and the other a silver-coated pegasus, were lounging at the table on the side opposite of where the Mane Six had just come in.

“Good evening Princess Twilight, Rainbow Dash, the others,” the gunmetal gray stallion said. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, Trottingham’s been captured by an invading force.”

“Wait a minute, who are you?” Twilight asked.

“I’m sorry?” the gray pony tilted his head.

“I’ve literally never met you two before in my life. I was expecting to speak with General Thunderbolt about this,” Twilight said.

“Oh, well yes. He’s...unavailable at the moment, and he sent us to talk to you for him.” The dull gray pony leaned across the table to shake Twilight’s hoof. “Hello, my name is Silicate, and this other stallion here is my brother Autonomos. Nice to meet you!”

“Um, nice to meet you too.” Twilight hesitantly accepted Silicate’s hoofshake.

“Alright, so let’s get down to brass tacks here, Princess,” Silicate said, “The city of Trottingham has been invaded and occupied by hostile forces. Bassed on the amount of devastation suffered by the town’s buildings, we’re thinking it might be the yaks.” 

“Wait, I thought we agreed it was the griffons,” Autonomos said. 

Silicate turned and glared at his brother. “How about we get our stories straight beforehand, you line of junk code!”

"I didn't know! I'm sorry!" Autonomos said.

“We don’t know who did it, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t the yaks or the griffons," Rainbow said, "We just had a diplomatic meeting with Prince Rutherford, and it went great! And Grandpa Gruff is on good terms with Equestria too!”

Suddenly, a turret rose up behind Silicate and shot the ground with a laser just in front of Rainbow’s hooves. Rainbow Dash backed up from the scorched spot on the floor, her eyes widened. 

“I don’t remember asking you anything,” Silicate said calmly. “This is a private conversation between us two and the Princess. So get out of here!”

“Hold up! Y’all think you can just force us to leave Twilight alone with you?!” Applejack asked.

Another five turrets rose behind Silicate, shooting five clean, smoking holes in Applejack’s favorite hat. “Yes,” he said.

Rainbow Dash and the other Element bearers promptly fled the scene, not even bothering to close the door behind them. Twilight tried to flee too, but her hoof was held in place by a metallic contraption on the floor.

“Hey, what all this about?!” Twilight stamped one of her free hooves on the ground.

In response to this, the faces of Silicate and Autonomos began to peel away, revealing a shifting chrome interior filled to the brim with gears and moving parts. When they finished their transformation sequence, their faces were now completely mechanical, with glowing red eyes that dug deep into their heads and wicked sharp mandibles, like those of some horrible insect, that moved in place of mouths.

“...Surprise!” Silicate shook his hooves in the air in front of him, as if he were revealing a secret party he had planned for the princess.


Silicate and Autonomos swaggered cooly through the halls of Canterlot Palace, carrying the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle splayed out on their backs as they walked. Neither of them even bothered to change back into their pony disguises, so they looked more like pony-shaped hardware appliances than anything else. As they trotted near the front gate, they passed by a single old unicorn guard, spear at his side as he sat cross-legged on the floor and read a book. The guard didn’t even notice them until it clicked in his mind that ponies had muzzles, not mandibles, and he rose to see what was up with these outliers.

“Whoa, hold it right there, friends,” he said in his thick Whinnyapolis accent, gears turning in his head determining what to address first. “What do you think you’re doing with the princess there?”

Silicate scrambled to find an answer in his CPU. “I-um, uh...we’re dry-cleaning her!” he eventually settled on. 

“Yes, that is indeed what we’re doing. Orders of the Crown, you know,” Autonomos said.

“Really?” the old unicorn furrowed his eyebrows for a moment, then sat back down and picked up his book. “Alright, I guess that’s acceptable. Carry on.”

“Have a good day, sir!” Silicate and Autonomos continued on their way outside, the unconscious body of Twilight Sparkle still draped between them like a sack of potatoes.


Twilight Sparkle awoke on a metal floor as cold as ice, surrounded on all sides by a forest of metal bars. Outside of the bars she could see only inky clouds of darkness. The only details she could make out of her surroundings were the elaborate regal designs on the floor, letting her deduce that she was either in a palace or the home of some art aficionado with too much time and money on his hooves. Suddenly, Twilight saw the shadowy outline of a pony on the edge of the darkness.

“It’s so nice to finally get to see you.” The figure spoke with a tinge of smugness, as if proud of herself for what she had accomplished.. “How have you been, Auntie Twilight?” The walking shadow stepped into the light where Twilight could see. She was a very young alicorn mare, with a light pink coat and a mane coloured purple with light blue highlights. Her cutie mark consisted of three mechanical gears, intertwined, as well as a wrench. She chuckled sinisterly. 

“F-F-Flurry Heart?!” Twilight sputtered in disbelief. 

Flurry’s horn lit up, and rows of braziers on the walls were set ablaze, letting 
Twilight see the grand throne room of the palace of the Crystal Empire. At the foot of the Empire’s throne, she saw her brother Shining Armor and his wife Cadence, tied together and completely unconscious. “Ah, figured it out, have you?” Flurry asked mockingly.

“But, but why?! How?! You’re so...old! The last time I saw you, you were barely one year old!”

"Well, as you can probably figure out, I’m not the Flurry Heart from this point in time. Exactly fifteen years into the future as of today, the world was, or rather will be invaded by an army of giant space ants. The governments of most nations on the planet will be decapitated within hours, and the world will lay in ruins. Not long afterwards, I will have joined the underground resistance movement, along with what will remain of the world’s leadership. They will have sent me back fifteen years into the past to conquer the world and prepare it for the invasion to come. And now here we are in the present day.”

“Giant space ants?” Twilight scratched her ears with her hoof to see if they were working properly, which to her surprise they were. “So you traveled back to the past to fix the future. But if you were sent back in time to alter the circumstances of the invasion, then wouldn’t you thereby likely prevent the reason that you were sent back from having ever occurred, and thus never get sent back to the past in the first place, creating a massive time paradox?”

“I, uh...shut up!” Flurry said. 

As Flurry Heart was distracted by the nonsense that is time travel, Twilight lit up her horn and tried to teleport out of her cage, and with a puff of sparkly smoke ended up in exactly the same position she was in before. She tried again, to no avail.

"Anti-magic field on the cage," Flurry said. "What, do you think I'm stupid?"

Suddenly, two ponies, or rather two pony-shaped objects walked into Twilight’s field of view, emitting mechanical whirrs with every movement of their hooves. Silicate and Autonomos had such fluid and graceful gaits for ponies made out of the same material as washing machines.

“Greetings, my liege lady,” Silicate said. “Autonomos and I-”

“What are you two doing here? Why aren’t you patrolling the Crystal Empire citadel like I asked you to?” Flurry grew more irritated with every word.

“Well, construction isn’t going as well as we were hoping, and-”

“Why are you doing construction?! The Star is all finished, all it needs is a power source! You know, something like the Crystal Heart you were also supposed to be searching for?!” Flurry shouted.

“Wait, hold on. What star?” Twilight tilted her head in confusion.

Flurry just waved her hoof. “You don’t need to know right now. The point is-”

The room fell silent as Twilight, Flurry, and the two automatons could hear the sound of a wailing infant begin to echo through the far corridors of the palace.

“Was that...me?” Flurry asked.

Twilight smirked. “I think it was.”

As if to answer Flurry’s question, the infant Flurry Heart flew into the throne room. As she screamed up a storm, she fluttered around erratically like a foal-sized moth searching for a light source and fired off a maelstrom of magic bolts, which bounced off the walls and flew through the air like bouncy balls. One bolt hit the older Flurry square in her torse, and she fell to the ground with a yelp.

“I’ll get her for you, my liege lady!” Silicate turned his forehoof into a massive gatling gun and began to fire a hail of laser bolts at the infant.

Flurry Heart forcefully shoved Silicate’s hoof-gun to the ground. “Don’t shoot her, you moron! That’s me!” Flurry lit up her horn and the infant Flurry smacked herself against an invisible wall, like a bird flying into a window. The small bundle of magical power flew around some more and found that she was completely surrounded by these walls of force.

“This is precisely why I needed to help you, my liege lady. You nearly got defeated by a toddler version of yourself,” Silicate said.

Flurry grit her teeth, “I’ll thank you to never bring this up again,” she said.

“Duly noted.”

Suddenly, a young page, no older than a colt, walked up to Flurry bearing a mouthful of letters and dropped them at her hooves. “Mail for you, oh Crystal Princess of the World and the Entire Universe Also!” Soon afterwards, the colt scurried away.

Try as she might’ve, Twilight couldn’t contain her giggle. “Seriously? That’s your title?”

“It’s better than yours by a wide margin.” Flurry levitated the letters in front of her with a disinterested look and groaned in disgust. “Same old stuff. ‘The Kairos Organization has a warrant out for your arrest.’, ‘The Kairos Organization has sent agents to apprehend you.’, ‘The Kairos Organization urgently requests that you turn yourself in.’, ‘Please turn yourself in, we’re tired of writing letters to you.’, blah blah blah blah blah.” She lit the letters ablaze, discarded the ashes, and sighed. “Want to play Battleship?”