//------------------------------// // Ch.8 At the End of Our Rope // Story: Seconds to spare // by Hope //------------------------------// The six creatures crossed the bridge carefully, the pegusi making sure noone would fall, until they were all walking through what had once been the City of Everfree, capital to Equestria long long ago. But instead of being fully abandoned, as the clock in the tower turned back, ghosts walked the streets of Everfree. Dressed in fashion long since abandoned, or in some cases wearing uniforms or outfits that had never been seen before, they would wave to the group or bustle by without a care just like any large city. They were rebuilding the lost city around the group. Buildings were being put up in record time, brick construction side by side with the steel beams of a skyscraper, a quaint shop window displaying rusted bronze swords and armor. “What is this?” Rarity whispered as she looked around. “It’s time. All of time,” Eris replied, dodging a cart being pulled by a motorcycle. “All… building.” “Reckon Father Time’s got himself a plan,” AJ declared. “One that’s got a whole city in it.” Pinkie hopped around the group, trying to take it all in, before giggling. “Well duh!” she said, gesturing around. “He’s probably gotta have a city to make stuff for him! Like, does he have to eat? What’s his favorite comfy pillow? What if it rains!” Eris nodded slowly. “He’s… a mortal pony, despite all the power. So he needs support. I’m curious why he isn’t having them stop us though, since we’re here to stop him.” The group murmured their agreement, as they continued deeper into the city and eventually to the Castle itself. There were no ghosts here, no construction being done. Instead, the flow of time was slowly repairing the damage that the castle had taken on, almost as slowly as it had been done. They watched a vine creep back from where it had dislodged a stone, and that stone settled back into place. “Stick together, everyone,” Fluttershy whispered. “Was there… anything in that book about how to stop him?” she asked hopefully, half hiding behind AJ. Eris got the Elements of Harmony, a Guide, back out of her backpack and flipped through it. “Stars, escape, thousandth year… Okay here we go… According to the prophecy of Shattered Time, he was originally stopped by the Elements of Harmony. There are six Elements of Harmony, but only five are known: Kindness, Laughter, Generosity, Honesty and Loyalty. The sixth is a complete mystery, and various translations interpret it as a Spark, Unity, Force, or Happiness.” Eris sighed, rubbing her face as she looked up at the clock tower. “So we need to find the elements!” Pinkie said, gesturing at the slightly open doors of the castle. “Let’s get lookin’!” The ponies all agreed as they started off, but paused when Eris stayed where she was. Rainbow approached her first, landing in front of her. “You’re scared, aren’t you?” she asked bluntly. “Yeah,” Eris sighed. “I… I’m not very good at Harmony. I… I’m scared that I’m going to mess this all up. That literally anyone else would be better at this than me.” “It’s ok to be scared,” Pinkie said, trotting up beside her.  “But know we’ll give it all we’ve got, and that’s gotta be good enough,” AJ added. “I’m just glad that… If it’s the end of the world we’re all facing,” Rarity said tactfully, looking around at all of them with a smile. “I’m just glad I was here with all of you for it.” Fluttershy joined the group last, looking up at Eris, before looking back to the castle, frowning. “Eris… We’re going in there. To try and find these Elements, and we want you to come with us. We want you by our side.” Eris met Fluttershy’s gaze when she turned back, and she saw the truth in her words. Eris wasn’t second best, she wasn’t a failure, she was just another friend. A part of this group. She smiled a little and nodded, as finally they all moved forward together, and into the castle. -------------------- Ancient stone walls and wooden beams still held up the tower above, with tattered tapestries telling stories long forgotten by mortal ponies. The story they told was of a teacher, a great and powerful unicorn who had unlocked secrets of the universe beyond anyone else’s comprehension, secrets of time and space, energy and matter, and everything that lay between. What the tapestries did not tell was the story of his frustration, when those discoveries didn’t produce the perfection he demanded of the world, and his obsession drove him to ruin. The group of friends that entered the great hall didn’t know that last part of the story either, as they took in the tapestries and then the holes in the ceiling, and finally the complex mechanical apparatus in the center of the room. It looked like a clock broken open and warped into something new and strange, with gears and chains and flywheels frozen in place, and bronze cages containing stone spheres presented up towards the holes in the ceiling like offerings. “You think those are the elements?” Rarity asked, lighting her horn to pick one up, slipping it out of its cage and bringing it down to rest on the floor in front of her. “One, two… five of them, yeah,” Eris nodded, looking around as the group got each stone they could find and clustered them together on the stone floor. “But there is supposed to be a sixth one, I don’t…” “Oh, I found it,” a low masculine voice said, drawing everyone’s attention to the shadows at the far end of the hall. As the unicorn stallion stepped out from his hiding place, the tapestries on the wall repaired themselves, and the stone floor became bright and polished. His grey fur shimmered, while his white mane and tail sparked and smoked, a crown of literal burning stars hovering over his horn, and a cloak of them swirling over his back. “Father Time!” Rainbow gasped, before she growled and began flying towards him, clearly in an attempt to take the stone orb that floated in his magical grasp. But a star shot out and hit her, and everyone watched in horror as she was changed. First she became young, a filly straining against the magic to fly, but that didn’t stop her. So instead she was made old, her breath coming in gasps as she finally landed, wings thin and tired, her mane and tail faded and grey, barely able to stand. “No!” Eris shouted, running forward and jumping in between Rainbow and Father Time, before a flash of light surrounded her and...  She was alone, standing in a different room, the walls covered in spinning gears and winding springs. The massive face of a clock took up one wall, and she knew she was in the clocktower. “No,” Eris whispered as she frantically looked around, unable to spot her friends or the Elements. “I did find it first. Did you think that, after being frozen in a timeless void for so long, I wouldn’t go after the Elements first? Your teacher prepared you poorly,” Father Time scolded as he stepped out from the darkness, and dropped the sixth element on the floor, a thin crack running through it as Eris gasped. “No,” he stated simply. “She will be improved.” He turned his head and from behind a cog stepped a blue alicorn, that Eris only recognized by her cutie mark. Princess Luna had been warped, her eyes black except for white pupils, her fur matted with sweat, and her simple crown replaced with one covered in sharp points, like daggers aimed at everyone around her. “Destroy it,” he instructed. “No, no, Princess Luna please,” Eris begged. But with one blast of black magic, the stone sphere was torn into shards of stone and dust that swirled in the air and scattered across the charred floor. Eris backed away, one hand on her mouth as she realized that she was no match for her teacher, or for this stallion, and she had nothing left to try. “You’re alone,” Father Time stated simply. “No elements of harmony, no friends, no hope left. Bow down to us, and I will restore your proper place in the timeline. Resist, and you will be destroyed." As Eris stared at them, contemplating her fate, she heard a distant sound. Hooves running on stone, and a soft voice. “We’ve got to find her,” Fluttershy was saying. Eris stood a little taller, and then looked to her former teacher. “You’re right,” she said, smiling a little despite her tears. “She didn’t teach me very well.” Luna scowled, but didn’t respond. “But she was busy,” Eris said, looking down at her hands. “And I wasn’t a very good student. But one thing I do remember her telling me about was Artifact Permanency. If something is so powerful, so incredibly connected to the world that it becomes an artifact, then it can’t truly be destroyed.” A star shot out at her, but a shimmering field of purple surrounded Eris, destroying it as it approached. As tears poured down her face, her new friends poured into the room behind her. “I thought ya’ll didn’t have any magic!” AJ said, laughing a little at the impressive shield. “I don’t,” Eris said, her confidence renewed as she stood tall. “But I have all of you! I might not be full of destiny and magic, but I have Applejack, who was so generous, she would give her life for another without a thought!” In a flash of light, a green shield surrounded AJ, lifting her off the ground a little as she gasped. “I have loyal Fluttershy, who is scared to even talk to someone new, but who would face a Manticore for her friends! Rarity, who will do anything she can to see others smile!” They were both lifted up as well by the magic building around them all. “Rainbow Dash, who told the truth, no matter how much it hurt, and Pinkie, who is so kind she healed hurts we thought we could never recover from! And all of them, all of them are my friends!” The building shook a little as they were all lifted together, side by side. Luna looked a little proud, but numb to what was happening around her, but Father Time was roaring in anger, flinging stars and horrifying spells at the group, only for them to splash harmlessly aside. “That’s what it is, isn’t it?!” Eris asked, laughing gleefully. “That’s the lesson Luna was trying to teach me, that’s the sixth element, and it’s what I’ve been missing for so so so many lifetimes! It was friendship.” The stone fragments on the floor evaporated into light, and reassembled around Eris’s head as a purple star, wreathed in gold. AJ’s green apple became a necklace, as a red butterfly formed a bracelet on Fluttershy’s arm. Rainbow found a golden yellow lightning bolt on a chain around her neck, Rarity gained a light blue crystal circlet on her head, and Pinkie Pie found a dark blue balloon-shaped gem on a belt around her waist. Their magic and light poured together and blasted across Father Time, Luna, and the building around them, while those six friends felt eachother’s dedication and their hope in the future. Eris was not alone. When they finally touched hooves and claws on the floor again, an ordinary stallion was curled up on the floor, as Luna in all of her glory sat next to him. Outside, the sun had finally set, and the moon lit the inside of the clocktower in cold silver light, now in disrepair and ruin once again, the great gears still and the city around them again abandoned. Slowly, Eris approached, as Luna turned to smile at them all. “He’ll be alright,” she said quietly. “But I must thank you all…” “I’ve been a poor teacher,” the stallion whimpered. They could finally see him as he really was. A tired old man, whose eyes were full of regret and sorrow, but no burning stars or eerie magic left. “He was your teacher?!” Rarity gasped. “Some teacher,” Rainbow snickered, checking out her necklace. “He was, and still is, my teacher yes,” Luna said as she put a hoof to his side. “And I failed to help him before he became Father Time. Now the elements have given me another chance… A chance to help him again.”