All The Time In The World

by Clockwork2003


Chapter 2: Mysterious As The Dark Side Of The Moon!

Princess Luna watches Alphabittle very carefully. From her first encounter with him, she doesn’t hold a good opinion of the unicorn. This could be because of his greed, or his fear of seeing Luna for the first time. Whatever the goddess of the night has to think of him, it doesn’t really matter now. Her distant descendant, Sunny Starscout, along with the mare’s friend Izzy Moonbow are now traveling through time to bear witness to her son’s youth.

“Wait, wait just a second. Where in the hay did those two go again, Miss Luna? I heard something about time travel, but the moon?! That doesn’t make any sense!” Alphabittle asks the alicorn of the night with a hint of audacity. Luna magicks up two mahogany wood chairs, and sits down on one of them.

“Sit, Alphabittle. I’ll give you my own two bits of what Sunny and her friend are seeing. I remember it like it was yesterday.” Luna kindly offers. Alphabittle sits down in the remaining empty chair and looks at Luna. The mare picks up the tome with her magic and places it on the counter next to them. She chuckles, and can’t help but feel relieved. It may have been five millennia, but Luna cherishes every moment that she spent with Clockwork, and remembers each of them vividly.

“Two bits, you say? Let’s start with what the hay Sunny and Izzy are doing in the vacuum of space, shall we?” Alphabittle asks, puzzled. Luna nods her head, quite eager to begin telling her son’s story.

“A perfectly fair query from a sound mind. I don’t see why we can’t start there, Alphabittle.” Luna cheerfully says. The princess clears her throat and begins to explain herself to the unicorn stallion.

“Alrighty. I’d take it you don’t know anything about Ancient Equestria, is that right?” Luna begins, debuting her story with a question. Alphabittle embarrassingly nods. “Yeah, Miss Luna. I don’t know much about your time period, just the folklore I learned as a colt. Most of the stuff I learned proved to be false, ever since Sunny proved Friendship between ponies could be viable.”

Luna looks at the greyish unicorn with understanding. “Go on? What kind of stuff did you learn? It can’t be that inaccurate, right?” She jests, not knowing what kind of a can of worms this could open. Alphabittle begins to laugh and shares a fascinating tidbit he learned as a colt in Bridlewood.

“Well, Sunny told me that her Earth Pony village believed us unicorns had the ability to completely incinerate the pony brain! And that pegasi swooped from the air, and abducted foals for their own amusement!” He explains, feeling embarrassed that he believed these foolish lies for so many years. Luna does a double-take, making sure she heard exactly what she did.

“Wait…you seriously thought pegasi abducted foals, and Sunny thought your noble unicorn race fried brains?” She chuckles, breaking out into a fit of laughter. “I haven’t heard a joke like that since Pinkie Pie, and that was five millennia ago!” For a solid few minutes, Luna did nothing but laugh, but she eventually realized how serious Alphabittle was with her, and quickly changed tune.

“I’m sorry I laughed, Alphabittle. I thought you were being sarcastic or crude with me.” She apologizes, and Alphabittle solemnly nods. “It’s fine, Miss Luna, really. Now, tell me about Clockwork. How does this tie in with Ancient Equestria?” The unicorn asks a follow-up question. 

“Would you like me to tell you, or would you like me to show you?” Luna rhetorically asks, bringing her son’s tome into her hooves. “I just need to do a little tweaking on Clock’s magical signature, and I can project what Sunny and Izzy will see onto your parlor’s wall. Just one moment.”

Luna does exactly as she claims. With a quick spell, Clockwork’s tome begins to glow navy blue, and a beam of light is projected onto Alphabittle’s parlor wall.

“Oh, we’re just in time! Let’s enjoy the show!” Luna cheerfully says as the magical projector reveals the lunar surface and two mares who just arrived on the scene:

***

Sunny and Izzy both arrive on the moon. They quickly realize that they are in space, and Izzy begins to freak out. How exactly can two ponies be in space, and not suffocate to death?! Even if unicorns can hold their breaths for over five minutes, the vacuum of space is a totally different environment in which to hold one’s breath. Sunny Starscout takes a deep breath, and like magic, she is able to breathe. She exhales and is able to do so with ease.

“Izzy, calm down! You can breathe! This is a simulation, remember? It’s like Pipp’s virtual reality video games, but much more lifelike!” The Earth Pony says, trying in vain to calm down. Izzy had been holding her breath. Sunny isn’t taking any chances, and she gently smacks Izzy on the back, forcing her to exhale. Izzy quickly comes to her senses and begins to breathe normally. “Sorry about that, Sunny. I just thought that since we were in space, we couldn’t breathe. Now, why don’t we take a look around?”

Once Sunny and Izzy had both begun to breathe at normal respirative patterns, with steady inhales and exhales, the two ponies begin to trot along the lunar surface. Equestria’s moon was very serene, with the planet Equus facing it, rising above the lunar horizon. The lunar surface feels a lot like beach sand. Izzy eventually notices that the tiny pebbles on the moon float very high before falling back down, as a result of their trotting. She gets excited but wants to make sure it’s okay to proceed.

“Sunny, any idea why the rocks are floating really high?” Izzy Moonbow asks. Sunny takes a minute to think about Izzy’s question, before coming up with an answer. “Well, I remember learning in elementary school that the moon has one-sixth of the gravity on Equestria. For example, if you weighed 100 pounds, you’d feel like you weighed around 17 pounds!”

That was all the permission Izzy Moonbow needed to begin leaping in bounds and strides across the moon. Because of the lighter gravitational pull, each jump launched her much farther ahead across the moon’s surface than a normal running jump would. Sunny shakes her head with dismay, before sighing. “Might as well. When else am I going to go on the moon?” Sunny gallops along the moon’s surface, before launching herself in the air. Just like her friend, Sunny jumps very high in the air and meets Izzy a few dozens of feet above the moon’s surface.

“Isn’t this so cool, Sunny?!” Izzy cheers, jumping up and down, trying to make funny faces, and landing with style. Sunny can’t help but laugh and mimics the silly maneuvers Izzy is doing. “Yeah, this is really cool! Imagine if that weird, fake horn and wings showed up! I could fly on the moon. This is pretty close, though!”

The two of them continue playfully jumping around the moon for quite some time. Sunny couldn’t help but think why she didn’t see Clockwork yet? Isn’t he supposed to be on the moon? Izzy, on the other hand, couldn’t care less, and was too busy enjoying the moon’s low gravity, and trying to figure out different ways to play. “Typical Izzy…” Sunny mutters to herself. Izzy continues to jump up and down, varying from cannonballs, to dance moves, to all sorts of silly faces.

“Izzy, this is serious! We were sent back in time to try to learn more about how to restore Equestria’s magic! We don’t even know how much time we were allotted in the past. We could very well be sent back at a moment’s notice. Pull yourself together!” Sunny exclaims, quickly landing on the moon with a thud. Izzy lands next to her, and giggles. “Okay, Sunny, we’ll have fun with time travel after. What’s the point of traveling through time if you can’t have any fun, too?” She asks her friend.

Sunny was also wondering why the sound of their voices was able to be projected in space since sound can only work if there are air particles for the sound waves to bounce off. Nevertheless, she believed this to be something that will only make herself and Izzy more confused; so she kept this scientific tidbit to herself. She’ll ask Zipp when she gets back. That pegasus mare knows a LOT about aerodynamics, more than she should!

Sunny hears a gentle, maternal voice, whispering a short distance away. That’s her cue! “Izzy, be quiet! I hear Princess Luna. Let’s go investigate!” Sunny exclaims with joy, trotting along the lunar surface, next to Izzy. They finally see a small cave, underneath a large lunar mound. Izzy hears singing and briefly spots a birthday cake with ten candles.

Happy Birthday to you…Happy birthday to you…Happy birthday, my little Clockwork…happy birthday to you!”

Izzy heard the Happy Birthday song and almost ran off to throw a surprise party. She was prevented from doing so, thanks to sunny grabbing her by the tail and keeping her quiet.

“Izzy! We have to practice noninterference. Didn’t you hear what Clockwork wrote about the Butterfly Effect? Even if this is a simulation, we need to make sure we don’t mess anything up, in the event we ever get sent back in time for real!” She sternly reprimands her friend, before they slowly trot over to the cave’s entrance, eyeing inside to see what’s going on.

Sunny and Izzy see a mare that looks a lot like Princess Luna, but taller, more muscular, and with a darker, cosmic black coat of fur. Her mane still resembles the cosmos. Sitting on a makeshift chair made of moon rocks, was a cyan-blue unicorn colt. He didn’t have a cutie mark, and he was blowing out the candles of his small, chocolate birthday cake.

“Thank you, mommy!” He cheers, hugging the alicorn after blowing out the candles. Luna uses some magic to cut the cake into foal-size pieces and serves a morsel to her son.

“Happy tenth birthday, Clock. I made this cake myself. Take your time, and don’t rush! Last year, you gave yourself a tummyache when you ate your cake too quickly!” She kindly reminds him, acting like a responsible mother. Clockwork slowly but surely ate his morsel of cake, and the taller, blacker Luna had a piece, as well. Izzy taps Sunny on the shoulder and wonders what will happen next. “What’s going to happen next, Sunny?” Izzy asks, unsure of what key information they will pick up. Sunny sighs, and replies “shut up, and maybe we’ll find out!”

When Clockwork finishes his slice of cake, he looks at his mother eagerly and smiles. “Hey mommy, can you tell me the story of why we’re here again? You always tell it to me on my birthday!” He pleads. Luna chuckles and kisses Clockwork on his forehead.

“Of course, child. I always tell you the story. Just promise me you won’t interrupt with your own Clockwork hot takes, this time!” She chuckles, projecting some images onto the cave.

“Once upon a time, in the magical land of Equestria, there were two regal sisters who ruled together and created harmony for all the land. To do this, the eldest used her unicorn powers to raise the sun at dawn; the younger brought out the moon to begin the night. Thus, the two sisters maintained balance for their kingdom and their subjects, all the different types of ponies. But as time went on, the younger sister became envious. The ponies relished and played in the day her elder sister brought forth, but shunned and slept through her beautiful night.”

“You’re the younger one, right mommy?” Clockwork pipes in. Luna chuckles and kisses him again. “Yes, dear, I am the younger one. Your Aunty Tia is the older one, can I continue, please?” He nods, and she continues to tell her tale.

“One fateful day, the younger unicorn refused to lower the moon to make way for the dawn. The elder sister tried to reason with her, but the bitterness in the young one's heart had transformed her into a more powerful version of herself: Nightmare Moon.”

Luna makes some fake ghost noises to enhance the experience, and Clockwork chuckles. “She vowed that she would shroud the land in an eternal night; to show her sister that the nighttime can be beautiful, too. Reluctantly, the elder sister harnessed the most powerful magic known to ponydom: the Elements of Harmony. Using the magic of the Elements of Harmony, she defeated her younger sister and banished her permanently to the moon. The elder sister took on responsibility for both sun and moon.”

“What happens next, mommy? You’ve been here for nine hundred and ninety-nine years?” Clockwork asks. Luna is very patient with her foal and continues to explain her genesis.

“Well, this part is less formal, but it has to do with you. Almost eleven years ago, a stallion came to visit me on the moon. His name was Sombra. Sombra was a prince of a land called the Crystal Empire. The older sister, your aunt, didn’t like him, so she sent some ponies to overthrow his kingdom, and placed your cousin Mi Amore Cadenza as a puppet ruler. Sombra had big plans. He wanted to take his kingdom back and knew that I wanted to bring parity to your aunt. We fell in love and spent some time on the moon. However, he was much more interested in power than spending time with me.

Luna takes a minute to compose herself, making sure to keep this rendition of the story family-friendly. He can’t possibly know the graphic details of what happened next!

Sombra proposed the best way of defeating Tia was by having a foal. I told him that I didn’t want any foals, because I can’t die. He insisted, and I told him that I wasn’t interested. He claimed to be understanding, but that was a lie. One night, while I was sleeping, Sombra did something very, very naughty.

Luna tries not to cry. She doesn’t want to divulge the details of her violation, but she promised to tell Clockwork everything eventually. This watered-down version will have to do for now.

He hurt me in a very special place, and then he left. However, by hurting me, Sombra gave me an accidental gift. He gave me you. Clockwork. Eleven months later, I gave birth to a lovely unicorn colt named Clockwork, and you’ve been the light of my life ever since.”

Clockwork is enamored by his mother’s storytelling and wants to ask his mother a few questions.

“Can I ask you a few questions, mommy?” Clockwork asks. Luna nods. “Of course, Clockwork. Also, don’t forget to drink your water.” Luna says while Clockwork’s horn lights up with magic. His glass of water floats in the air, and he drinks. Finally putting his beverage down, he poses his questions.

“Will I ever get to see this Equestria?” Luna takes a minute to think about how to answer this question, and then she sports an evil grin. “As a matter of fact, we leave for Equestria in thirty minutes. My millennium of exile is coming to an end, Clock.”

The bastard foal’s eyes widen, and he gets excited. “When we make our way back to your home, will I ever get a cutie mark?” He follows up. Luna nods. “Yes, yes. You’ll have a cutie mark. Most ponies get them when they begin to grow up. I got mine when I was fourteen! You are only ten, Clockwork. You have plenty of time. Any other questions?”

Clockwork takes a minute to think, and then he asks a question that shocks his mother. “Is this “Sombra” alive? I want to kill him. He hurt you, and nopony can get away with hurting my mommy!”

Luna was aghast at her son’s rage, but at the same time, understands how he feels. She wouldn’t mind if he acted on his urge for vengeance!

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Now. Since we’re going to depart the domain of my exile in half an hour, why don’t you and I do a little magic practice?”

Luna, or Nightmare Moon, in this instance, teleports both herself and the young colt to a barren arena within eye’s distance of Sunny and Izzy. Within moments, massive explosions and rapid-fire movements are seen, with Nightmare clearly going easy on her son. Izzy was in awe and wondered if unicorns in her own era were capable of performing such magical feats. “WOAH, SUNNY, LOOK AT THEM GO!!” Izzy cheers, wondering who will win this magical duel. 

“Izzy, be quiet, please!” Sunny begs, but is still interested in this epic bout of ponies occurring in front of her. Pillars of flame, ice, pure magical energy, and all sorts of other spells combined, deflected and merged on the lunar surface, and even though it was apparent that Nightmare Moon was going easy on her son, Clockwork didn’t care. He was having the time of his life!

After a good twenty-five minutes of this, Clockwork and Nightmare Moon cease their bout, and the young colt tries to catch his breath. 

“Woah…that…was…something…mommy…” Clockwork says, helping his mother get back up from the ground. He places his barrel as a support for his mother’s wings, so she could steady herself. Both the mistress of the night and her son were in a cold sweat! 

“That was excellent, Clockwork!” Nightmare Moon exclaims, hugging her son with black, swanlike wings. The colt returns the embrace before Nightmare looks at the planet along the horizon.

“Clockwork, the time is nigh. We must seek vengeance for Aunty Tia’s misdeeds against me. Come along now, I promise nopony will get hurt. You have my word!” Nightmare says, trying to reassure her skeptical son that all will be alright. A portal opens, revealing a gathering of ponies in a quaint little town, awaiting for somepony to inaugurate an event. The two ponies enter the portal, which for some reason remains open. Perhaps this simulation wants Sunny and Izzy to go back to Equestria of yesteryear?

Sunny eyes the crowd through the portal, and sees six very familiar ponies. “HOLY GUACAMOLE, IZZY, those are the Mane Six! This is a time travel adventure!” Izzy doesn’t know who Sunny is referring to but nods along. “Uh-huh, Sunny, sure. They're going through the darn portal. Let’s follow them!”

Izzy takes the lead and leaps through the portal, Sunny right on her tail. With the portal closing right behind them, they see young Clockwork in the audience. Meanwhile, his mother begins to speak to the crowd.

“Oh, my beloved subjects. It's been so long since I've seen your precious little sun-loving faces.” Nightmare says while the ponies in attendance are quite upset. One of them, a cyan pegasus, is the first one in the group to confront Clockwork’s mother.

Sunny taps Izzy on the shoulder and whispers. “That’s Rainbow Dash. She’s the element of Loyalty, at least she will be when this incident is over. Let’s see what she has to say!”

“What did you do with our Princess?!” Rainbow Dash says, pointing a hoof at Nightmare Moon. She is taking the role of the prosecutor, cross-examining the mistress of the night. An orange earth pony taps Rainbow Dash on the shoulder, and whispers “Whoa there, Nelly…”

Sunny smiles. “That’s Applejack. Element of Honesty. She sounds funny! What’s with that accent?” She asks Izzy. Izzy doesn’t seem to know, either. “Beats me. Clock’s mom is going to talk!”

Nightmare Moon is quite cross with a few of these upstart ponies and questions their knowledge of their history. She lets out a hearty chuckle, and asks: “Why, am I not royal enough for you? Don't you know who I am?” Nightmare asks, rhetorically.

Ooh, ooh, more guessing games! Um, Hokey Smokes! How about... Queen Meanie! No! Black Snooty, Black Snooty!” A pink Earth Pony mare asks. Before Sunny and Izzy had any time to realize that this mare is none other than Pinkamena Diane Pie, Nightmare continues her monologue.

Does my crown no longer count now that I have been imprisoned for a thousand years? Did you not recall the legend? Did you not see the signs?”

Finally, it was a very familiar purple unicorn’s turn to stand up to Nightmare Moon. The personal idol of Sunny Starscout, Twilight Sparkle, was about to correctly identify and confront the alicorn of the night.

“I did. And I know who you are. You're the Mare in the Moon, Nightmare Moon!

The gathering of ponies gasps in shock and awe. Was it really true? The very mare they learned about as foals in schools? The stuff of legends? It was all starting to come together for everypony.

Well well well, somepony who remembers me. Then you also know why I'm here.” The alicorn questions Twilight. She struggles to come up with an adequate response because the poor mare is quaking in her hooves. “You are here to…too-.”

Nightmare Chuckles, and reveals her grand plan to the large audience. “Remember this day, little ponies, for it was your last. From this moment forth, the night will last forever!”

Clockwork was clapping in the audience, while someponies gave the colt a look of contempt. Why would a pony be happy about his new overlady? That seems atypical, doesn’t it? Sunny and Izzy quickly gallop around trying to see what’s going on, but they begin to glow.

“Aw, shucks. We’re heading back.” Sunny moans, as the two of them are slowly thrust forwards in time, back to the parlor in Bridlewood. Just before they vanished, Sunny could have sworn that Clockwork turned his head back at the duo, and waved, knowing who they are…