//------------------------------// // A Spoonful of Tachyons // Story: World of Colgates // by TheDriderPony //------------------------------// Ponyville has ponies again. That’s a promising sign. It’s early afternoon, judging by the sun, and most definitely a few years before I woke up today. That much is immediately obvious thanks to the Sunnyside Hotel. Notable for being the sole hotel in Ponyville and one of the only buildings around the plaza with a second story. At least, it will. Right now it’s still under construction. I get moving. There’s no time to waste when you’re a time travelling agent trying to stop the apocalypse. It’s… kind of eerie, being in the past of a place I know. It’s all the little differences that really get to you. Trees are smaller, paint is newer, and the ponies— it’s in the ponies that I see the most difference. This is the era when Big Mac was in his experimental phase and still trying to pull off that ridiculous goatee. When Cranky the donkey walked the streets in a malcontented fugue, unmarried and alone. As I walk I see Bon Bon and Lyra pass each other with barely a glance. Practically strangers. So weird. Unfortunately, finding somepony about to release a plague upon the houses of Ponyville is a lot harder than it looks. It’s not a big city, but it’s not small by any means either. What am I even supposed to look for? A stallion with wild hair and a scorched lab coat spraying ponies down with liquid virus in the streets? Some gross-looking monster from the Everfree breathing on everyone? A mysterious figure just ahead of me darting into Ponyville’s one and only dark alley? ...Yeah, that could do it. I speed up as much as I can without looking suspicious.  You wouldn’t think that a bright and cheery place like Ponyville would have dark and suspicious alleyways. That kind of thing you’d think would be found only in Manehattan or maybe the older sections of Canterlot. Not so. Ponyville has them. Every town does. They’re just a lot harder to spot. Ponyville’s signature creepy alley is down Bronco Boulevard, born of the gap between Green’s General Store (which is still open here in the past since Barnyard Bargains hasn’t pushed them out of business yet) and the old bank-turned-museum. There’s a big tree that grows between the two, half blocking the entrance and casting the alley itself into perpetual shade. Just to get inside you have to squeeze between the tree and the wall. It’s not somewhere ponies enter by chance. I slow down as I reach it, stepping softly so I don’t make any noise. Odds are it’s just some local teen sneaking off to get into trouble. But this Ponyville. And this is the only spot rated anything less than “charming”. I bet bits to bullions that that’s my plague doctor. Squeezing into the alley is not as easy as it should be, thanks to a hazardously placed knot and my hips. With a small grunt, I squeeze past.  The inside is dark, downright gloomy even, and far more seditious-looking than any place in Ponyville has a right to be. The path ahead is straightforward, but blocked in fragments by old boxes and hanging cloths. I guess with only the one spot available, the teens sectioned it off for some degree of privacy from each other. One of the sheets is waving slightly, like somepony just ran through it. I creep forward silently, ears perked for any sounds, but catching nothing but the wind rustling the branches.   The curtain pushes aside easily enough, and I let it fall slack behind me as I weave around a crate. I should have brought a weapon. At the very least a rock or a stick or something. Do I even have a plan if this is the right pony? Maybe, in the spur of the moment, I’ll remember a spell from that self-defense class. There. That’s a plan. Admittedly it’s a terrible plan, but it’s still better than nothing. Suddenly, a loud crunching crackling noise comes from behind me. I whirl around, spinning on my backhoof just like the instructor said. However this small success of muscle memory does nothing to stop the hoof flying at my face. I see stars and for the second time in recent memory, I black out. I wake up groggy, but still in the same alley I passed out in. That’s progress. Maybe next time I can avoid getting knocked out at all. Baby steps. Like any good mugging victim, I check my pockets. Time Spoon? Check, thank goodness. I don't even want to think about the ramifications of losing that. What else? Weakened virus strain? ...Gone. Well.  That’s not good. I push my way through the rest of the hanging sheets and boxes until I reach the other side of the alley. Maybe, if I’m lucky, I’ve only been out for a minute and my assailant is still in sight. In seconds I’m out of the gloom and back into harsh sunlight that tries to shield the villain by forcing me to squint. This side doesn’t have a tree in front of it, but it opens at an awkward angle to the next street.  Nothing. Nopony around in either direction. The backstreet’s completely empty I let out a sigh of frustration. That’s what I get for going in without a plan. My flank handed to me on a silver platter and probably the start of early onset brain damage. I don’t even want to think about what this repeated head trauma is doing to the integrity of my molars. And during my unexpected naptime, whoever knocked me out has gotten away scot free and I’m no closer to stopping the apocalypse, yet one lead shorter. Wonderful. Actually, that’s not quite true is it?  They got away, but now I know for sure that they, or at least somepony suspicious with a wicked right hook, was in this alley and exactly when they were there. And I have a Time Spoon. I can go back and get ahead of them. Or at the very least, see who it was that hit me. I just have to make a quick pit stop to resupply. With a quick spin and a puff of blue, I disappear. The desolate future of Ponyville is much as I’ve left it, furniture maze and all. I guess the Time Spoon can move me around in space as well as time, since I definitely walked a good couple of blocks away from the center of town. “Hey Starlight!” I call out, “Are you here?” “Minuette?” asks a voice that’s definitely not Starlight. It takes me a moment to realize that the voice is coming from above me. Luckily, the pegasus is quick to land. “Derpy?!” “Hiya!” she says, looking at me with one golden eye and behind me with the other. “You’re real?” A confused expression crosses her face. She takes a moment to pat down her sides, flex her wings, and nibble on a lock of mane. “I think so?” I shake my head to clear out the confusion. “Sorry. I met Starlight here earlier… probably… and she thought I was you.” Derpy nods. “She thinks everypony is me. Not that we get many visitors.” “That and the couple of inanimate stand-ins she talked to made me think you weren’t real either.” She sighs. “Yeah, those are… a compromise. She spends an awful lot of time alone working while I’m taking care of Dinky or flying cross-country getting food or rare materials for her gizmos. It… hasn’t been good for her.” Derpy is quiet for a moment before her face quickly brightens again like the sun coming out from behind a bank of clouds. “But that’s all okay now! She’s really really close to putting the last touches on her plan!” She skips over to one of the many many nearby dressers and rummages through a drawer. “She's out now looking for the final parts she needs to finish this!” She holds up a familiar silver tool. “This is-” “A Time Spoon,” I interrupt. “I know.” Her smile dims a little and I immediately regret ruining her reveal. She’s just so cheery and pure, even in the apocalypse, it’s hard to dislike her. “Oh, she told you already?” “Yes, a couple times.” I take my own Time Spoon out and hold it up to the light. “You could say I’m familiar with the concept.” Her eyes widen at the sight of it then start to dart between the two of them. “Another one? But I… when did… how?”  I shrug. “Time travel. She told you she based hers on one she saw before? That was mine. I was actually just trying to fix all this—” I gesture to the world at large “—but the mission didn’t quite go as planned.” Derpy quirks her head a little, like a dog, though her eyes remain fixed on my fully operational Spoon. Not that I blame her. If she works closely enough with Starlight to know the plan, then she knows full well what this Spoon represents. “Her plan? You mean the one for me to go back and swap out the sickness for a weaker one?” For her to go back? Then again, Starlight did say that I would do it and she thought I was Derpy at the time. Did I nearly steal her moment of world-saving glory? Should I maybe let her… No. It makes more sense for me to do it. Once I fix things, this timeline will cease to exist. So if she does it, then stops having existed, that would be a paradox. I think? I’m really starting to regret not taking that Chronomancy elective.  “Did you release the weaker virus?” She presses as I realize I’ve been silent too long. “Then why do I still remember the sickness? What went wrong?” “Well, actually,” I start to explain, “I never got that far. I narrowed down the right place and time, but somepony knocked me out and stole the bottle. So I came back here to get another sample and try again.” “I see.” The pegasus strokes her chin for a moment. It would probably look a lot more intellectual if she had a beard. As it stands, she looks like there’s a hair on her tongue that she can’t quite grab. “I think Starlight kept a few more bottles of sickness samples around. Let me check!” She darts off among the local portion of the maze, easily moving from one salvaged bit of furniture or homemade tech to the next with an ease only born of experience. To be honest, I get a little bored after watching her for a minute or two. There’s only so long you can watch somepony rummage through their belongings before you start to- “Found it!” Of course. The moment I look away she finds what she’s looking for. Figures. Derpy holds up a glass bottle, slightly larger than the one I had before. The contents look just about the same, maybe a little darker, but that’s probably just from the wider glass. She wraps it in a protective red cloth and passes it to me with a delicate, almost worshipful solemnity. Understandable. It’s the sickness that wiped out everypony she knew and which is about to maybe bring them all back. I carefully secure it in a pocket. “Thank you,” she said quietly. “For doing this. It means so much. So much more than you know.” I nod. Knowing what happened is one thing. I can’t imagine having lived through it. “I’ll see you on the other side then.” I take my Spoon and plunge it. I give it a slow spin, trying to focus on the idea of ‘when I was before, but slightly earlier’. Like every time before, the red mist surges from nowhere. Just before it clouds my vision, I just make out Derpy waving goodbye. She’s such a cinnamon roll, that mare. I arrive before I left, which is sooner than I arrived before. Hotel under construction? Check. Big Mac’s goatee? Check. Depressed single Cranky? Check. Lyra and Bon Bon strangers? I don’t actually see them anywhere, but that just means I successfully landed earlier than did the last time. I waste no time this time. Now that I know exactly where I need to go, I make a beeline there. There’s not many good places for a stakeout on the street opposing the alley’s entrance, so I make do by leaning against the wall of the post office. Ponies come and go as I wait and watch. Some greet me, a few don’t, but none make a move on the alley. Time ticks on. Minutes pass without any suspicious activity. At this rate I’m going to fall asleep and miss him. Wait. Oh, duh, I’m so stupid! I know he’s going to be in there, so I can just go ahead in and ambush him! New plan decided, I enter the alley. This time I remember that pesky knot and make sure to slip under it before it can trap my hips again. The alley is just as dark as before, but somewhat less ominous now that I know for sure there’s no one else in here. I make my way through quickly and easily, brushing past curtains and rounding the crates. No sneaking up on me this time! Suddenly, I hear a noise. It’s quiet, but it was definitely a grunt of some kind and coming from behind me. Instantly I freeze up. What was I thinking? Get ahead of him? Get the jump on him? I still don’t have a plan! This is the monster that loosed a plague across a whole country! Who knows what he’s capable of. Why in the name of Celestia's rotting dentures did I think this was a good idea?!  A faint brightness catches my attention! Yes! That’s right! The other side of the alley! I make a run for it as an actual plan starts to form. Now that he’s in there, trapped, I can come around from behind again! Then, when he sneaks behind my younger self, I’ll be behind him and he’ll be boxed in on both sides. I’ll knock him out before he can knock me out! Earth pounding beneath my hooves, I circle around the museum-bank, nearly skidding into a few ponies as I round the blind corner. In less than a minute I’m back by the tree. I squeeze in again, quietly hopping past the knot. The oppressive feeling is back, but this time I’m buoyed by an underlying confidence. This time it’s two against one. I can see him now, in the shadows ahead. A dingy grey coat, just like the hoof I glimpsed before it hit me. He’s small for a stallion, probably has some kind of inferiority complex. I bet that’s what drove him to evil. And he clearly doesn’t take care of his mane, it’s a rat’s nest, as expected of some evil mad scientist type. I stalk towards him when something crunches underhoof. I look down. It’s an old Hayburger’s wrapper, new enough to still be crisp and brittle. I look up to see him spinning around. Now! Before the moment’s lost! My hoof surges out before I even realize and socks him hard in the temple. He’s out like a light, collapsing bonelessly to the floor like a puppet with its strings cut.  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. That’s it. It’s over. He’s out. The villain is defeated and the day is saved.  Though I would like to get a proper look at this would-be global saboteur. With a little little luck and a lot of magic I manage to wrestle his prone body out towards the more open end of the alley, just far enough so there’s some proper light before I toss him back to the floor. Actually, in the better light I can tell he’s not just slight, he’s a she. And, without the gloom, her gray coat is actually a pale blue. And her jacket is rather a lot like mine. Who am I kidding; it’s me.   “Oh. I really gotta stop it with punching ponies as a first response.” It was me all along. I saw myself go into the alley looking for myself, followed myself in, heard myself, ran away, snuck up on myself, heard me again, rounded on me, and then watched me punch myself in the face. I’ve heard of self-destructive tendencies but that’s gotta be some kind of record. “Hello? Is anypony there?” A voice calls around the alley’s blind corner. I freeze. Being caught standing over an unconscious pony is going to raise a lot of questions I don’t have time to answer. Being caught over my own unconscious body will be even worse.  “Hellllooooo?” They continue, “I got a message saying I was supposed to meet somepony here with a package to deliver? A Miss…” There’s a sound like paper rustling. “Uh… Miss Viral Agent?” No way. Can I possibly be that lucky? Despite accidentally stalking and taking myself out, did I still manage to stumble on the vector by which the evil pony got their virus? Via courier? Let it never be said that I was one to look a gift cat in the mouth. Patting down my mane to a nicer shape (did it really look that  bad from the back?) I try to put on a normal face that won’t betray the fact I’m intercepting a dangerous epidemic. A few steps takes me around the corner to see- “Derpy?” “Oh hi Colgate! Have you seen a pony called Miss Viral Agent? I’m supposed to meet her here to pick up a package.” The codename is blatantly obvious, but at least I seem to have beat the actual courier to the punch. My hoof moves instinctively to the pocket where the jar is. “Do you know what the package is?” I ask, testing the waters. “Nope!” she replies, cheery as you like. “I just got a message saying to pick it up here and that there’d be more instructions after I dropped it off.” Oh no. Not Derpy. Say it isn’t so! Poor mare. To think she has no idea that she’s been caught up in a criminal conspiracy that’ll one day leave her one of it’s innocent victims. How ironically tragic. Still, at least now I know what I need to do and she can be a part of saving herself.  “You just missed Miss Agent, actually,” I lie on the spot, “But she gave me the package and told me to hand it off to you. And also to tell you to be very sure that it gets to its destination. You got it?” She nods eagerly and salutes, her hoof knocking her little brown mailmare’s cap askew. “Rightio! I always make sure my mail gets there on time.” “Good.” The timeline has to be preserved. The bad pony has to release the weakened strain. “Here you go.” I carefully give her the bottle from my pocket, still wrapped in its protective fabric. “No box?” she asks. “No box.” “Usually that should cost extra.” “...Miss Agent said it’d be covered by the recipient.” “Ah! Gotcha! Well, see you around Colgate! I gotta make my delivery.” I wave as she flies away. Faustspeed to her. Great! That’s that taken care of. Now I just need to deal with… me. Right. There’s still that.  With a fair bit more care this time, now that I know any more bonks to the head will be paid forward, I manage to move my younger self back to where I knocked her out. Or at least close enough to where I remember being knocked out. I try to make her decently comfortable; self care is very important. As I’m rearranging my limbs, I notice the bulge in her pocket. Opening the clasp, a small glass bottle falls out. That’s right, she still has the first weakened strain because there was no actual assailant to mug her. Except me. Which I now have to do in order to maintain causality. I pocket her bottle in my own. Timeline restored, I award myself a congratulatory pat on the back. Well done me, you saved Equestria, not that anypony will ever know about it. The question remains though, now what? Do I just go home? Tuck the Time Spoon in a drawer and forget this all happened? I could do that, but some little pessimistic voice in the back of my head is urging me to take one more trip to the future. Just in case. Ponies are unpredictable, after all. Maybe one setback won’t be enough to make them set aside their dreams of mass equicide. Drawing out my Time Spoon (for hopefully the second-to-last time) I give it a few good clockwise spins. As blue mist swirls around me, I can see my younger self just starting to wake up. Good luck to her, she’s about to have a tough time.