//------------------------------// // The Lonely Road // Story: The Time Ponies (Fail to) Take a Vacation // by My name is R //------------------------------// It was a dark day in the Crystal Empire. The Equestrian army had reached the outer perimeter, but that had merely incensed the king. He had retreated to the castle, and the Equestrian alicorns had followed him in. Tragus didn’t really care what happened to the king. Sure, he was evil, but he’d never hurt Tragus personally and he probably never would, a lowly tumbleweed was beneath his notice. Even so, Tragus had enough awareness to hope the alicorns made it out safely. Even a tumbleweed needed sun and shade. As he made his way South, hoping to slip through the invading army, sorry, the ‘liberating army’, there was a bright flash of light from behind. Tragus rolled as fast as he could, but to no avail. The wave of light caught up to him in an instant and the world went white… When Tragus could see again, the plains were coated in thick snow. At first, he thought the wave of light had merely imploded the Crystal Heart’s dome of protection, but then he noticed that the army now rushing into the city was ten times larger and no longer composed entirely of ponies, with ranks of minotaurs, soaring dragons and griffins, and the telltale mounds of burrowing diamond dogs. The magic couldn’t possibly have created an army from nothing. Did it teleport them all here? The wave of minotaurs crashed upon him, and Tragus was knocked ninety degrees away from everything… And then fell back into reality, bouncing along in a calm breeze. But now the lands were a verdant green, without a sign of war in sight. A large metal-clad beast was just coming to a stop at a station of some sort that Tragus was sure hadn’t been there before. Two unicorns and the strangest diamond dog he’d ever seen stepped out of the metal beast and looked around. The light purple one spoke first. “Uh, disguise or not, Spike, I don't think you need to worry about being mobbed. Nopony's here.” “It's like a ghost town,” the diamond dog agreed. “I’ve got a baaad feeling about this,” the dark purple unicorn said as they headed toward the city. As she turned away though, Tragus noticed her wings. Wings! She was an alicorn? But, there were only two alicorns, and they were large, imposing sovereigns of the skies! How could this little thing be an alicorn? But before Tragus could get an answer he felt a tugging sensation as he was once again whisked away. Tragus went through many repetitions of that scene, never getting any closer to understanding what was going on with the strange alicorn. Occasionally things were different. Today, he was underwater. Outside a foreign city which bore uncanny resemblance to his own, but the landscape was all wrong, and there were broken tracks for the metalbacks everywhere. A stallion in a strange suit was swimming around with a spear, sneaking up on the largest fish Tragus could imagine. Who would build a city underwater? It made no sense! You might as well build a city in the sky… Oh, that’s right, the pegasi already did that. A smaller fish approached Tragus. Its eyes were a milky white, and its jaw opened to reveal wicked teeth. Tragus shut his eyes and desperately wished for a jump, which he got just as the jaws began to close around him. Sombra was a bad pony. Tragus knew that, intellectually. He enslaved the crystal ponies and probably meant to spread his foul influence across the rest of the world. Maybe. Tragus wasn’t exactly his closest confidant. But Sombra was a conqueror, not a destroyer. Today, Tragus saw what a true destroyer could do. There were fires, explosions, and utter chaos splattered over the city, blood and bodies littered the streets, many of which had been pulped or crushed by the falling debris of houses. Scattered among the destruction, he spotted the cause. Strange, glittering objects that leapt about like gnats, smashing into things with what seemed to be a speed so potent that it broke through even the reinforced crystal walls of the buildings they crashed into. King Sombra came bursting into the city, apparently as shocked by the destruction and death as Tragus. He flinched, then rushed down, crashing into a wide clearing in the town, already reduced to a crater filled with some ice and slush. Suddenly, one of the gnats leapt into his face, and with a vicious spinning impact, forced him into his black smoke. With a growl, Sombra reformed elsewhere, only for two more of the beasts to again leap towards him, this time crashing into his body and throwing him back into his cloudy form. Idly, Tragus noted that they didn’t seem to care about him, but that didn’t matter. This was crossing a line that he would not stand for. He charged the nearest one, only for it to bounce away, leaving him to smash through the wall behind it. He was once more lost in the void between… This time the castle was abuzz with the flurry of battle. In the distance he could hear the screams of the crystal ponies, as well as the murderous roaring of some hideous beasts. Oddly, none of the land between him and the castle seemed to be under attack. A horde of ponies was making their way into the metalback, with several guards organizing them. Tragus noted that they weren’t Sombra’s guards, looking more like the Equestrian forces. But clearly crystal ponies. One of them called out over the worried murmur of the crowd: “Everypony, please board in an orderly fashion! We are working on getting seats for you all, please be patient!” Then the guard turned to a group of ponies including the infuriatingly mysterious alicorn, whose existence was the second greatest mystery in Tragus’ life. “Your Highness!” he called, beckoning the group to one side. Then they began talking to each other, though Tragus was unable to make out the words. Confused as ever, he felt the familiar pull as he moved on, questions ever unanswered. Tragus took a breather as he tumbled along the mountain leading to Yakyakistan. Things were a bit cold for his tastes, but he was neither living through the same conversation for the hundredth time, nor was he watching the empire burning to the ground, so that was nice. How come those seemed to be the only options? Boredom, terror, or despair? Still, this was nice. A calm day in which absolutely nothing was going wrong. Tragus had never mastered the concept of irony. Slowly, he noticed the snow right outside the empire shifting. Suddenly a giant monster burst out of the snow. It appeared to be some kind of lava elemental, molten rock veins and stone skin for its four arms and its head, while the legs and torso were made with flesh and blood. Slowly, the stone spread along the flesh, and the creature arched its head back and threw its arms wide, letting loose a chilling scream; of rage or pain, Tragus could not say. As the stone expanded, the lava beneath grew brighter and thicker, until the beast simply burst from the pressure. As burning blobs of molten rock descended upon the Crystal Empire, Tragus shook. It wasn’t fair. It just was not fair! Why did these things have to keep happening? Slowly, the scene below drifted from his sight, but never from his mind. Once again, Tragus was bouncing along, watching the usual group walk out of a metalback. It was going to be one of those days. “The illusion of an emotional chameleon is complete,” the unicorn said. “The absence abounds.” Okay, that wasn’t normal. And Tragus was pretty sure that even in context that made no sense. “Appreciated. And indeed, the spirits are alone,” answered the diamond dog. Tragus was pretty sure they were talking about how empty the place was, just like the usual times, but he couldn’t figure out what chameleons had to do with it. Did they think the ponies were hiding? The unicorn laughed. “A snowman isn’t built with the rear hooves.” Compared to a line like that, the one about an emotionally unstable chameleon practically made sense. “Query?” asked the diamond dog. Then he seemed to realize something. “Scorching.” “You did change color,” the unicorn said with a laugh, confusing the dog. And Tragus, but that was true for everything out of their mouths. “The shadows of intent darken,” reprimanded the strange alicorn. “Betrayal of blood appears imminent. Stand by your walls.” And as Tragus was pulled away, he decided that he should probably just forget that one ever happened. He had enough mysteries without engaging with runaways from an institution or something. Tragus was shocked to come to a new world falling out of the sky, and even more shocked when wings of bramble netting burst from his back to level out his fall into a gentle glide. Granted, Tragus had never tried to fly before, but he was pretty sure tumbleweeds weren’t supposed to be able to sprout wings. When he got his bearings, he saw that he wasn’t flying over the Crystal Empire, but rather he was sharing the sky with it. Okay, he was technically at a higher altitude, but since they were both a thousand hooves above the ground it seemed less important which of them was higher. From the South, a flock of black and white beasts were attacking the city, which was retaliating with cannons and fireworks pouring out of the whole side under attack. Any time a monster did manage to land on the city a team of one to six Crystal ponies, wearing tons of belts, sashes, and carrying more swords than anypony could possibly need, would cut them down with ease. And they were all smiling! They seemed happy about the hordes of darkness, who hadn’t, as far as Tragus could see, actually killed anypony. Then a portal opened up in front of him, leading to the next world. An actual portal, which felt like any onlooker could have seen, real as anything. As he passed through, his new wings retracted back into his sides, and no matter how he tried, they would not extend again. Tragus bounced by the lair of the metalback, which was currently deserted. Then he shifted back to the start of his bounce and did it again. Odd. Then he started another bounce, but froze in midair before he could land. Then he shifted quite a ways forward, before the world around him was invaded by squares of black and white dots screeching at him. Then he was bouncing down a stone road, heading away from a city of tall, crumbling buildings. He passed a strange being wrapped in what looked like bedsheets trudging towards the city in the distance. The creature paid him no mind as they passed by, like ships in the night. He wasn’t sure, but the creature looked half-starved. Hopefully it wouldn’t want a tumbleweed snack. It was another base scene. The mysterious group stepped out, they pondered the emptiness for a while, and then they set off. At least they would probably figure it out in a few minutes, a few days tops. Not Tragus. No, he got to wonder for eternity. Still, better that than not having anything to wonder about, perhaps. It slightly reduced the boredom. But then the alicorn said something outside of the ordinary. “Wait a minute, a tumbleweed!? Those grow in deserts and occasionally somewhat dry prairies, not green hills!” Her companions snickered at her and Tragus instantly stopped zoning off and paid close attention. This was new territory; maybe he could learn something. “Well it couldn’t have blown in from the icy wastes!” she countered their laughter. “That makes even less sense!” “You’re not going to go overboard on this are you?” asked the diamond dog. “Like Pinkie’s Pinkie sense, or when our friends were suddenly hanging out with Discord, or finding the mathematically perfect organizational system?” Tragus thought that if one’s friends were suddenly ‘hanging out’, whatever that meant, with the Lord of Chaos, that would warrant all the attention one could muster. Lest they go from ‘hanging out’ to hanging rope. Suddenly he realized that she might be able to help him get unstuck, or was it restuck, in space. He turned around, but then he felt the shifting again. Bother. It had such a knack for timing.