Hour of Twilight: Chapter 7
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Despite not being to sure about what Doctor Whooves was doing with his little girlfriend, Twilight ultimately shrugged it off, for she had important business to do herself.
After getting herself ready, as well as her friends for that matter, got on a special train I had ordered to come and took off to Arcane Tower. Our destination was far up north, not as far as the Crystal Empire, but still quite far. Now you may ask yourself why you've never seen this place before. Well...
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"Royal Grounds?" Pinkie Pie asked.
"Celestia told me that to further protect the tower, she's prohibited anypony from stepping foot here. In fact, we may be the first ponies to ever come here besides the Princess herself." Twilight explained.
"Oh, wow! What an honor!" Rarity said. "It feels like I've just stepped into an exclusive party!"
"I sure hope the animals are allowed to be here." Fluttershy said.
The trip didn't last to much longer then that, but it still gave my little ponies enough time to laugh and enjoy their time together before Twilight has to leave them for a little bit. Now I'm going to give you a small spoiler on what happened later. Simply put, the next next time Twilight Sparkle got to see her friends...
Actually, I'd rather stay positive for as much as I can in the story. Just know that bad things began to happen from there on out.
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After some time on the train, we all arrived to our destination. Twilight and her friends were confused when it seemed as though I brought them to the middle of no where, but I knew right away that we arrived at the right place. Especially since there was a friendly face waiting there for us.
"Twilight!"
Much to Twilight's surprise, the one waiting for us was my niece, Twilight's sister-in-law, and co-ruler of the Crystal Empire, Princess Cadence. Seeing her old foal-sitter made Twilight run right up to her and do an old dance.
"Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake!" The two happily sang and danced together. "Clap your hooves, and do a little shake!"
"How ya doing, Princess?" Applejack asked. "Keeping the Empire out of trouble?"
"Well, I should be doing that right now, but I've put it into safe hooves until I come back. I just had to see Twilight off to the Arcane Tower. I've also never seen the Elements of Harmony in action before, so of course I won't miss it."
"Ha! It's nothing compared to one of my world famous sonic rainbooms!" Rainbow Dash boasts.
"Sugarcube! Show some respect to royalty." Applejack said.
"Says the one who never wipes her hooves." Rarity said.
"Watch it."
I knew right away that things were about to get ugly, so I figured I'd try and change the subject. I didn't want to say anything about the tower right away since I wanted to keep things casual for a while longer. So I quickly remembered something Chronos told me to do.
"By the way, Cadence. You know about Chronos, Guardian of Time, right?" I asked.
"Yeah. Why do you ask?"
"Well, the last time I spoke to him, he wanted me to pass you a message. He told me to just say...congratulations."
She thought about the what I said, then, something hit her. She had suddenly gotten a guilty look on her face, as if she knew something I didn't.
"So...I guess you know about it?"
Suddenly, the fight that Applejack and Rarity were about to get into took a pause when they overheard us talking, and took an interest in it.
"Know about what exactly?" I asked her.
"Well...I wanted to wait until Twilight finished her mission before making the announcement, but since we're all here and all...Girls, I have some great news! Twilight, in the not so distant future, you will be an Aunt!"
Jaws dropped when Cadence said 'you will be an aunt', or in Pinkie Pie's case, her jaw dislocated and literally dropped onto the ground. It was one of the most horrifying things I ever saw.
"An Aunt...YOU MEAN?" Twilight said with a huge grin.
"That's right. I'm pregnant."
Loud, high-pitch screams were unleashed from Twilight, Rarity, and surprisingly, Fluttershy was the loudest. Everypony got very excited about the good news, so of course there would be screams. They were already making plans on throwing a shower for Cadence, that's how excited they were.
I should've been excited too. Any other time, I would've been behaving like the others were.
"I can't believe I'm gonna bean Aunt!" Twilight said happily.
"DAMN IT!" I shouted. "Curse you, Chronos!"
"Oh, wow!" Pinkie Pie said, who then went on to say something I have yet to actually understand. "She just said something that we can't even say on the show!"
"Aunt Celestia, what's wrong?" Cadence asked. "I thought you would've been happy."
"Oh, no no no. I'm actually thrilled for you. It's just that...well, Chronos would always try and persuade me by given me a subtle prediction of the future in an attempt to get me to trust him. He knew you were pregnant, and he tried to use that to his advantage."
"And for a good reason, Celestia."
Catching all of us off-gaud, we turned around and saw that we had a few uninvited guests, Chronos the owl man, and his three escorts, Whooves, Nostalgia, and Clockwork.
"CHRONOS! How did you get here?" I asked.
"We snuck into the caboose before you left. As time's protector, I naturally knew precisely when you would leave."
"Your not here to stop me from fixing the tower again, are you?" Twilight asked.
"No, I'm not overly interested in wasting either of our time. I'm instead here to deal with the tower myself.
"Umm..e-excuse me?" Fluttershy said silently. "I don't mean to interupt, but, umm...where is the tower?"
"Yeah, if this tower is SOOO special, then why can't we even see it?" Ranbow Dash asked.
Chronos then turned to Doctor Whooves and gave him a nod. Whooves then picked up a nearby rock, and tossed it forward. Before the rock could reach far, it sudden bounces back as it hits an invisible force. For a few brief seconds after that, a magical barrier became visible.
"This barrier is completely impassable, unless one has the Element of Magic. Without it, it would take a godly level of power to break through it." Chronos explained.
"And that's a power even you don't have, Chronos!" I told him.
"You're right. Only someone like Discord could have such power. I do know, however, that this barrier will not be here in the near future."
He then raised his staff upwards, then swung it towards the barrier and activated his had then summon another one of his time zone onto where part of the barrier was. For a moment, the barrier reappeared, but after spending time inside the time zone, it disappeared. As soon as it vanished, his three escorts walked through the time zone, and made their way to the other side of the barrier. This was something I had dreaded would happen. Chronos had created his own way through the barrier.
"Since you and Twilight Sparkle chose not to listen, I have no other choice but to change the future myself!" He said before making his way through the barrier.
"STOP HIM! DON'T LET HIM INSIDE!" I ordered.
Responding to my order, Twilight, Applejack, and Rainbow Dash quickly ran towards Chronos to stop him. Rainbow flew past the other two and was about to tackle Chronos. However, he once again raised his staff, and created a second zone onto her location, causing her to freeze in time. She unfortunately failed to stop him.
"I'll be seeing you inside, Miss Sparkle." Chronos said before walking inside the barrier. Afterwards, he deactivated his time zone, making it impossible for anyone else to get inside.
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We then spent the next few minutes removing the time zone that Rainbow Dash was trapped in. After that, we simply had no more time to waste. The enemy had managed to get ahead of us, much farther then I ever expected them to get. In any case, I got Twilight and her friends into position, gave them the Elements of Harmony, the necklesses to Twilight's friend, and the crown to Twilight herself, and everything was set.
"Alright. Now remember Twilight. During the time you use the Elements, you'll essentially be drilling your way through the barrier. You'll have to be using your magic and running through the barrier at the same time. If you fail, you may get exhausted and the next time will get harder, so let's get this right the first time."
"You can count on us, your highness!" Applejack said.
"Alright girls." Twilight said. "Let's do this!"
"Good luck twilight. We'll be waiting for you." Spike said as he bid her farewell.
Ready to aid Twilight, the ponies began to activate the Elements of Harmony as me, Spike and Cadence got ourselves a safe distance. One by one, the Elements released their magic and sent it towards Twilight's crown. When the fifth element was transferred, Twilight's eye glowed up, and from the star on her crown, she unleashed a powerful beam of rainbows directly at the barrier. After a few moments, the beam weakened the barrier.
"Now's your chance. Go!" I shouted.
While still focusing the beam, Twilight rain towards the opening. She began to break through, even managing to get her head through, but unfortunately, she was having great trouble getting her whole body through.
"I...can't...get...through..."
Then, my niece Cadence said something rather...inappropriate. "Why do I have a feeling that my child will have a similar problem when it comes out."
"Twilight! Keep it up! We can't let Chronos get too far ahead!" I said to her, trying to encourage her to keep it up. "She just needs one more good push."
"Okay, I'm officially freaked out now." Cadence said.
"OOH! OOH! I'll help!" Pinkie Pie said.
Rushing before thinking, Pinkie Pie ran towards Twilight at a surprisingly fast speed. I'm actually very thankful for this, for the tackle actually managed to push Twilight all the way through the barrier. Getting more help from her friends then she expected, Twilight finally made it. Me and the others all cheered together upon her success.
"Great work, everypony. Now, it's all up to Twilight. Let's pray for her safe return." I said to everypony. "Now listen, she's not expected to finish her mission until tomorrow. We will return to Ponyville and come back tomorrow."
"Wait a second!" Rarity said, realizing something. "Where did Pinkie go?"
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At that time, on the other side of the barrier...
"Ugh...Well, at least I made it to the other side." Twilight said to herself.
"You sure did! All thanks to me!"
Much to Twilight's surprise, she had somepony by her side. I'm not entirely sure how it was even possible, but Pinkie Pie, the Element of laughter, had managed to get through the barrier together with Twilight. It was an outcome I did not for the life of me took into consideration.
"Well, at least things will be interesting for sure." Twilight said with an annoyed look.