//------------------------------//
// Chapter 10 
// Story: Time and Space in Harmony 
// by Inkspots 
//------------------------------//



Time and Space in Harmony

by Inkspots

Chapter 10

Rarity floated Fluttershy and Applejack’s pendants over to them, and the pair quickly clasped them around their necks. Fluttershy then watched in horror from atop Oscar as Taraxipos enveloped Twilight.
“We gotta do something,” Applejack called out. Rainbow Dash and Dark Matter rushed the barrier, but they bounced off the green energy field. Rainbow Dash got up and began pummelling the barrier, but a few moments later she stopped as the black haze faded away to reveal a pony beneath it.
“Princess?” Dark Matter asked. “Is that you?”
“No, I am not your Princess, I am your Queen, I am the Once and Future Queen, and now that I exist physically in this world once more, I will exist forever,” she said. Her voice had changed completely, as had her appearance. She had grown taller, her horn was twice as long, and faded from purple to black at the tip. Her eyes were colorless black pools, and her mane and tail had become flowing and ethereal like Celestia and Luna’s. Her wings spread wide, easily twice the wingspan of a normal pegasus. She was covered in shining black armor with purple trim, and her feet were covered in battle shoes with sickle like claws on them. “You, Elements, must die, but you others may prostrate yourself before me and be spared a slow, terrible death.”
“Come out from behind that barrier and I’ll show you a terrible death,” Rainbow Dash replied.
“You really understand nothing, do you?” she asked. A black aura surrounded her horn and the barrier faded away with a whine.
Dark Matter leapt into the air with his hooves out, the Queen simply looked in his direction and a telekinetic field surrounded him and slammed him to the ground. As he struggled against the magical force, skeletal legs broke through the ground beneath him and latched onto his legs and torso, pinning him to the ground.
“You have now lost the option to grovel at my feet for mercy,” she said. “What about you, crystal pony?”
“I suffered beneath the hoof of King Sombra, I will never again bow to a tyrant,” Jade replied in a matter of fact voice.
“Oh, really? Tell me, how did his conquest of the Crystal Kingdom go? When he came crawling through my palace in search of items of power, he was a truly miserable little creature. Third son of an unimportant noble house, no natural sense for magic, terrible at conversation. I taught him the black arts simply to have something to do, fight off the boredom. Did he amount to anything?” she asked.
This time Rainbow Dash leapt into the air, moving in a blur, using her pegasus magic to accelerate to amazing speed. As she came alongside the Queen, she thrust out her hoof and struck her in a flash of electricity. The Queen grabbed Dash with her magic and slammed her to the ground as well.
“Never mind all this, I have things to do, and I am so very, very, VERY TIRED OF WAITING!” she yelled out. Her voice flung the ponies off their feet and sent them sliding back across the ground. Then she turned to Rainbow Dash and bit into the pegasus’ left wing with an audible crunch. Rainbow let out a howl of pain, but the Queen simply dug in, tossing her head side to side then finally wrenching her neck back.
Fluttershy’s mouth hung open in horror as she saw the Queen held a long, thin bone between her teeth, and after a moment, she snapped it in half and spit out the pieces.
“Oh yes, oh yes yes, finally,” she moaned. “I have missed that taste. I have missed that smell.”
Then the Queen disappeared and reappeared in the midsts of them. She began lashing out, biting at everypony in reach and striking with her wings. Fluttershy grabbed the rope reins she had tied to Oscar’s two heads.
“Come on boy,” she called out. Oscar leapt forward. Fluttershy headed for Applejack first, who was still wrapped in bandages and could barely dodge the vicious wing swipes of the Queen. She leaned to the side, held on to Oscar by just her teeth and grabbed Applejack and hauled her up onto Oscar’s back.
“Thanks Fluttershy, we need to get Rainbow Dash and free Dark Matter,” AJ said.
“Hold on to the reins,” Fluttershy said. Applejack grabbed the reins in her mouth as they bounded across the battlefield. Rarity was throwing up duplicates and triplicates of ponies, causing the Queen to bite at the empty air. Meanwhile Pinkie and Jade were both trying to land blows on the Queen. Fluttershy, Oscar, and Applejack reached Rainbow Dash, who was covered in blood. Fluttershy flew down and picked up her friend, trying not to look at her wing. She flew back up onto Oscar and handed Dash off to Applejack then pulled on the reins, directing him over to Dark Matter. “Oscar, grab the bones.”
The two headed dog bent down and grabbed the skeletal legs and pulled them off of Dark Matter. The Night Guard got to his hooves in time to see the rest of the undead ponies that were attached to the legs appear out of the ground.
“That was rather brave,” Dark Matter said, shaking himself off.
“I’m trying not to actually think about what I’m doing,” Fluttershy replied.
“Deal with the skeletons, I need to be in that fight,” he said, then he took to the air. Oscar shook his heads and flung the skeletal ponies away. One crashed into the wall of the Arsenal and fell apart, the other got back up on its feet.
“Oscar, get ‘em boy,” Fluttershy ordered. The dog rushed forward and then pounced onto the skeleton, crushing the bones beneath its feet. Once she was sure the skeleton was destroyed, she looked over. Applejack was cradling Rainbow Dash to her chest, the were both covered in the pegasus’ blood now. Then she looked over to the battle unfolding.
The Queen wasn’t using magic, she was simply biting and striking at the smaller ponies around her. Pinkie and Rarity were wearing their magical armor, but Jade and Dark Matter were simply wearing steel plate. Fluttershy watched as the Queen bit at Jade and found the real one among a pair of illusion. Jade yelped with pain as the Queen’s teeth bit into her front leg, but Dark Matter took advantage of the distraction to leap onto the Queen’s back and strike at her wings with his clawed shoes. She gave out an indignant yell and bucked him off of her back. Fluttershy looked around for Pinkie Pie, then she saw the pink pony had backed out of the fight and was now returning, carrying an entire stone column from the wall of the Arsenal. She swung the entire column above her head and brought it down on the Queen, who put up a wing to block it. The column snapped in half, and Fluttershy saw that her wing was shrouded in black magical energy.
“Fluttershy, we gotta get in there,” Applejack said.
“But you’re both wounded,” Fluttershy replied.
“And if we don’t help, we’ll be dead. Come on Fluttershy, we don’t have a choice,” Applejack insisted.
Fluttershy said nothing. The Queen then took a swipe at Pinkie with her black shrouded wing. Pinkie blocked the first strike with the remains of the column, but it was shattered. The next strike she blocked with her own legs, which was had turned to stone. Fluttershy couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The previous night the ponies had explained to Fluttershy the innate magic they had been learning from Star Swirl’s journal.
“Fluttershy, what are you waiting for?”
Dark Matter was flying back into the fight. He dove low, attempting to catch the Queen in the leg and trip her. She simply lifted her leg without even turning around and brought it down on Dark Matter, pinning him once more. Jade was back on her feet, though she wasn’t standing on her wounded front leg. She reared up on her hind legs and brought her front hoof down with a slam that echoed off the walls of the Arsenal. A pillar of stone rose up from beneath the Queen, forcing her to fly into the air to avoid being knocked off her feet. Dark Matter started slowly getting up from the ground.
“Fluttershy, no matter how bad it hurt when he cast that spell on you, no matter how scared you are right now that he might do it again, we need to be in that fight,” Applejack said.
“It felt like watching my body die from the inside,” Fluttershy mumbled.
“You have to get over that Fluttershy, get over it and save your friends, please,” Applejack begged.
Fluttershy looked over at Applejack and Rainbow Dash. The pegasus was pale, limp, and unconscious.
“Oscar, let’s go boy,” Fluttershy said with a tug on the reins. Oscar bounded forward.
The Queen was floating in the air above them. Her horn emitted a black aura, and Fluttershy knew that whatever magic was coming next would dwarf the physical blows they had taken so far. As Oscar was bounding forward she let go of the reins and stood up. She spread her wings and took to the air. She flew as quickly as she could, maybe even tapping into the magic she had only the night before learned resided in her wings. The Queen sneered as Fluttershy approached, but then Fluttershy zipped past her up into the air. She banked and started heading back towards the ground.
She knew in theory, what she was about to attempt was possible. She also knew it shouldn’t in a million years work.
“Please,” she asked herself. “Let it work for them.”
The air in front of her hooves crackled with electricity, her face was prickling with pain from the speed of the wind. She was so close to the Queen.
Applejack watched from atop the Orthrus, holding on to her wounded friend with one leg and the reins with the other, as Fluttershy hurtled down towards the Queen, then at the last moment the sky erupted in a shockwave of pale pink light. The Queen came plummeting out of the sky and crashed into the ground below, while Fluttershy sped off across the sky, leaving behind a shimmering pink and gold contrail.
“Alright boy, get in there,” Applejack snapped the reins. Oscar ran towards the the crater where the Queen lay. She watched as the creature climbed up, but the giant dog was on her before she could stand. The dog’s right head bit the Queen at the base of the neck, and she cried out.
“No, no more games,” she yelled. A dark aura surrounded AJ, Dash, and Oscar. Applejack shuddered as all the warmth was sapped from her. The three were floating up into the air. She looked out and saw that all of the ponies were wrapped in similar auras and helplessly floating up and together. “I will simply drink the blood from your lifeless bodies and then your corpses will serve me for all time.”
Suddenly a wind picked up, and then Applejack heard the crackle of electricity. She looked down below her to the ground, and there she saw a bright point of light flare into existence, and then fade. When the light cleared, Twilight was standing there, wearing her crown.
“Twilight, you’re okay!” Applejack called out.
“NO!” The Queen screamed. “I have your body, you cannot exist. I know every spell you know, there is no way!”
“You know so very little,” Twilight said. Her eyes were glowing already, and Applejack felt the familiar warmth of the Element begin to radiate from her neck. In her arms, Rainbow Dash stirred and opened her eyes.
“What’s going on, AJ?” she asked weakly.
“I don’t even know Dash.”
Twilight’s horn erupted in purple energy, creating an expanding bubble that dissolved the black auras that held everyone captive. They landed back on the ground, and Fluttershy even returned from her rocket speed flight.
“How?” the Queen asked. “How can you do this?”
“Oh, you expect me to begin sharing information? Your tricks are getting old, Taraxipos,” she replied.
“I am not merely Taraxipos, not anymore. I am the Once and Future Queen, and I have beaten you once, I will simply do so again,” she yelled.
Twilight said nothing. The gem on her crown burst with light. Applejack looked down to see her own pendant glowing, then everything went white, and she realized that the Elements had activated. She felt amazing, like she always did, like her veins were pumping golden light. Suddenly she felt her breathing clear. She put a hoof against her ribs and felt no pain. Beside her, Rainbow Dash shook her head as if waking from a deep sleep. Her wing was made whole again. Applejack gasped with shock.
“I thought it was all over,” Rainbow Dash admitted.
“Get out of my body, Taraxipos,” Twilight said. And with that the power of the Elements erupted from Applejack’s body. A rainbow of light blasted the Queen, and her skin began to peel away in chunks. Her mouth opened in a yell, but Applejack couldn’t hear the scream over the blasting wind created by the Elements. As pieces flew off of the Queen, Applejack saw Twilight’s form revealed beneath them. After a moment, she was free, and the Queen was gone. Then she toppled to the ground, unconscious.
The light faded, and the ponies were left standing there before the gate of the Arsenal.
“Did we win?” Pinkie asked.
“We won this fight,” the conscious Twilight said.
“Wait, how are there two of you?” Rarity asked. “Didn’t we just free your body from Taraxipos?”
“You did,” Twilight replied. “I’m from four days from now.”
“Why’s it got to be time travel?” Applejack asked.
Energy began to erupt around Twilight.
“The spell I use is unfinished on the third to last page of Star Swirl’s first journal, tell me to go back after the device has been activated,” Twilight  turned to Pinkie. “Don’t forget to tell me that when I wake up. You will have to fight him once more, but you can-”
Light consumed the pony, and with a loud blast of energy, she was gone. The ponies stood around in a daze for a moment.
“Uh, maybe we should go pick up Twi?” Applejack suggested.

* * * * * *

The ponies returned to their camp to lick their wounds and try to figure out just what was going on. Jade and Dark Matter were in the worse shape, lacking the magical restoration of the Elements, and Spike was beside himself with worry over Twilight.
After dinner the ponies gathered around the campfire at Dark Matter’s behest.
“This had been the weirdest day ever,” Rainbow Dash started off. “I lose a wing and Fluttershy pulls off a Sonic Rainboom!”
“Well, I don’t think I would call it a Rainboom,” Fluttershy replied.
“Twilight said any pegasus pony could perform a Sonic Boom, yours is a Rainboom because of how your innate magic expresses itself,” Pinkie corrected.
“Well, okay, magic stuff aside, that was amazing, you didn’t even get any of the training we got,” Dash said.
“I honestly don’t think I could do it again right now, and if I hadn’t gotten my Element back I don’t think I would have managed it at all... I just, I had to do something,” Fluttershy finished.
“What did it feel like?” Dash asked. “Wasn’t it the best feeling ever?”
“It was terrifying. My face is still sore from the wind. I wasn’t even sure how to stop after the explosion-”
“I’m gonna pretend you said best feeling ever,” Dash cut in.
“Aside from your contribution,” Dark Matter started. “Impressive though it was, we need to figure out what we’re going to do next. Twilight... future Twilight, said that we would need to face Taraxipos once more, correct? That is what everypony heard?”
They all nodded.
“And right now, he’s inside of her mind, for the next three days,” Dark Matter continued.
“Right, until she casts him out,” Rarity added.
Dark Matter tapped his hoof against his chin in thought for a minute.
“Why can’t we put her in the containment device? That way, when she drives him out, he’ll already be inside the device, he can’t escape, we don’t have to fight him again,” Dark Matter asked.
“Is that even safe? How would Twi get out?” Applejack asked.
“She can teleport out,” Dark Matter offered.
“If it was the kind of device you could teleport out of, Taraxipos would just teleport out,” Pinkie Pie countered.
“Really, we don’t know enough about this to make these calls, we should ask Quick Fix,” Jade said.
“Oh, no no no no, she just got the sleep for the first time in days,” Pinkie Pie begged. “Let her sleep a little longer.”
“She can go back to sleep after she answers our questions,” Dark Matter replied. “We have a three day deadline.”
Dark Matter got up and walked over to Quick Fix’s tent. He stuck his head in, and after a few minutes, the unicorn dragged herself out. Her eyes were bloodshot and her mane was dirty and tangled.
“What’s this about what?” she asked after collapsing onto a pillow near the fire.
“Can we put Twilight in the containment device, and then get her out later?” Dark Matter asked.
“Uh...what? Why?” she asked.
“Taraxipos is inside of her right now, but in three days he’s going to come out. Can we put her in the containment device so that when he gets out, he’s already trapped?” Dark Matter explained.
Quick Fix listened, then stared into the middle distance.
“Quick, you okay?” Pinkie asked.
The unicorn didn’t reply. Then a smile creeped across her face.
“This is a dream, right?” she asked.
“Quick Fix!” Dark Matter yelled.
“What?”
“Did you hear anything I said?” he asked.
“How did I get out of my tent?”
Eventually Quick Fix was awake enough to hear the question again.
“No, if you put her in there, she dies, along with Taraxipos. It’s an incredible machine, it makes sense that Star Swirl made it, because there’s no way the ponies eleven thousand years ago could engineer something like this. And mine’s even more advanced. The original device was actually part of the golem making process, then Star Swirl modified it to work as a containment device. This one is purpose built for containment. But it’s still a one time use. Once something is in it, and it’s activated, it can’t be opened again until the creature inside is dead. The pony, or well, monster, inside, is what powers the device. So it runs exactly as long as it needs to. Once the being inside is drained of all life force, the device shuts off. If you put Twilight in, there’s no way to take her out before the process is complete without completely destroying this device,” Quick Fix explained. “Anything else, or can I go back to sleep?”
“This mathemagical formula, can you complete it and make a working spell out of it in the next three days?” Rarity asked, floating over the journal future Twilight had said contained the time travel spell she used. Quick Fix took the book and squinted at it.
“Honestly, I can barely read these letters right now,” Quick Fix replied. “I can finish the device in two more days or so, but I am no wizard, it would take me weeks just to verify the components of the current spell and track down the existing problem.”
“Well then Twilight will have to figure it out when she wakes up,” Dark Matter said. “You can return to your tent.”
Quick Fix wandered back to her tent, running into a few others on her way, then flopped unceremoniously onto her sleeping bag. Pinkie got up and closed the tent flap for her.
“So,” Dark Matter began again. “The problem must be that when Taraxipos is driven from her body, she’ll likely be in no state to force him into the containment device, which give him the time to escape. Rarity, could you contain him until Twilight is capable of controlling him?”
“I really would have no idea where to start,” she replied. “Maybe if Twilight was awake and could teach me a spell, perhaps, but I never learned any combative magic and recently I’ve been working on my illusions, but not much else.”
“Twilight came from the future, she said we’d have to fight him once more,” Pinkie Pie said. “I think that means there’s really no way we can avoid fighting him. But, on the plus side, if we only have to fight him once more, that should mean we defeat him.”
“So, you’re saying that that future Twilight, is from after we defeat Taraxipos?” Rainbow Dash asked.
“Well I don’t know for certain but it sure sounded like that’s what she meant,” Pinkie replied.
“Well then we know we win, what’s there to worry about?” Dash asked. “We should kick back and use these three days to rest up.”
“All we know is that in that Twilight’s past she fought Taraxipos once more and survived. That doesn’t mean we all make it,” Dark Matter cautioned.
“But if one of us didn’t make it, she’d tell us that,” Dash replied.
“Would she though?” Applejack asked. “When Star Swirl showed up in...uh, his future, they knew his device was gonna malfunction. They couldn’t do anything about it, so they kept quiet while he was there, and he was only gonna live with that for an hour. You think she’d make a pony go three days knowin’ they’re gonna die?”
“But if she tells one of us that we die in the fight, we could do something different about it, and not get killed,” Dash returned. “She had to come back so we could use the Elements on the Queen, why not give us a heads up as well if one of us gets killed?”
“I’m not sure you can affect the future like that,” Pinkie said. “Twilight had to show up for us to defeat Taraxipos, otherwise, the Twilight in the future wouldn’t be free to come back to the past. Which would mean that Twilight was always going to show up at that moment, no matter what. Star Swirl was always going to get sent back to Harmonia, which would lead to Taraxipos being in the containment device when Twilight finds it. It’s just time travel, it’s not hard to follow.”
“You’re starting to sound like Twi,” Applejack said.
“Well with Twilight out of commission, somepony has to be purple-smart,” Pinkie responded.
Dark Matter shook his head.
“I don’t want to just spend the next three days waiting for Taraxipos to appear once more because-” he gestured at Pinkie Pie, lost for words. “Because of fate or magic or something. We need to do something to gain the upper hoof.”
“I think the best we can do,” Applejack said in a calming voice. “Is finish the device, keep Twilight comfortable, heal up our wounds, and get ready for another fight. Twilight did say he was weaker than ever before, and when he pops out, he won’t have a body.”
Dark Matter looked offended at the idea of accepting something that sounded like inaction, but he could offer no counter argument.

* * * * * *

The final pieces of the device, minute circuits and delicate crystal matrices, began to come to together. Quick Fix spent her days deep in the base of the machine with just her legs sticking out. Jade smeared various ointments on her wound, and Rainbow Dash spent a lot of time preening the place on her wing where the Queen had ripped out the bone.
“I woke up this morning,” Dash said. Her and Applejack were on Sparkle watch, as they were calling it. “And for a second I thought the bone was gone again.”
“So that was the yell I heard,” Applejack said.
“I spent ten minutes just poking it, over and over again, to make sure it was still there,” Dash finished.
“Doc Stable said I’d be in those splints for months,” Applejack replied. “But oh boy it feels good to just take a deep, deep breath.”
“You know, Rarity’s tail came back that first time we used the Elements,” Dash said. “I guess when they activate, you’re restored, or, healed or something.”
“I totally forgot that,” Applejack said. “But you’re right.”
“Dash, no,” Twilight said weakly.
“Twilight, are you awake?” Dash asked. Both ponies leaned in, but Twilight’s eyes were still closed. She tossed about, then rolled onto her side, facing Applejack.
“How, no,” she mumbled, and was still.
“I wonder if she’s dreaming,” Dash said.
“I dunno, if Taraxipos is in there, I can’t imagine it’s just a pleasant night’s dream,” Applekjack replied. She pushed Twilight’s bangs away from her face. The alicorn’s brow was wrinkled with consternation and her eyes were squeezed shut.
“Well, at least we know she wins. And honestly, if Twilight was going to fight somepony, I think fighting them in her mind gives her the advantage,” Dash suggested.
The pair sat in silence for a few minutes. Dash kept going back to preen her wing. Applejack looked around Twilight’s tent. The purple sleeping bag, the basket by her side where Spike had been sleeping. She looked into the corner and pulled out one of the books Twilight had brought and turned it over to see the title.
“Secret Fire’s Papers on Entropic Principles, in Translation and with Explains and Amends by Scroll Work,” Applejack read out loud.
Dash pulled her wing out of her mouth. “That sounds like the most boring book ever.”
“Careful, you’re getting feathers on her,” Applejack brushed a couple blue feathers off of Twlight’s sleeping bag. Then she turned back to the book. Applejack stuck to westerns, adventure novels, and occasionally something a little racey if Rarity or Pinkie Pie recommended she read it. She opened up the book to where Twilight’s bookmark was and started reading.
Secret Fire’s diversive opinion of the exponential path to ignition creation comes from an error on his own part. It has been found repeatedly in his notes that his exponential calculations suffered from many errors, a result of the already outdated notation method he performed his calculations in. His Papers are the last major work on Entropics that dissuade the practitioner from availing themselves of the exponential ignition method.
The rest of the page was taken up with a formula with various parts underlined and corrected. Applejack couldn’t understand a single part of it, and moved on.
The rest of Secret Fire’s criticisms of the exponential method quickly reveal themselves to be personal and anecdotal.
“Beyond the gross inefficiency of the mathemagical formula, the method produces slip shod practitioners who fail to wield fire, and simply fight to contain their tempestuous creations.”
In his personal journals Secret Fire details many accidents during the process of teaching ignition creation to his apprentices, and attributed many of them to teaching the exponential method, claiming that when he taught the linear method, his problems ceased. Likely, his students had difficulty executing the exponential method when working with Secret Fire’s flawed formulas, rather than the tried and true linear method.
Applejack closed the book.
“I’m real jealous of you, Dash.”
“Sorry, it’s the preening, isn’t it? Didn’t mean to give you wing envy,” Dash folded her wings away.
“It’s not that, Dash. I’m jealous of you and Pinkie,” she replied.
“Well, you know, once we stop fighting for our lives and there are some ponies in Harmonia, I’m sure you’ll go from being Ponyville’s most eligible mare to Harmonia’s. You totally had to chew out Lucky Clover ‘cause he wouldn’t leave you alone. And Noteworthy’s been carrying a torch for you for like...three years? I was sitting with you in Sugarcube Corner when Nurse Redheart asked you out. Actually, how was it being in the hospital with her around?”
“Let’s says she got a little frisky with a thermometer, I had to have Fluttershy watch me sleep,” Applejack replied. “That’s not the point though.”
“Well, you’re a busy pony, but you’ll find the right... stallion or... uh, mare?” Dash asked.
“What if I already found her, but I can’t have her?”
“Oh, wow, Applejack, I’m flattered-”
Dash stopped when she saw Applejack’s deadpan face. “Oh, sorry.” Then after a moment Dash’s face lit up. “Oh, you like Pinkie?”
“No, Dash, her,” Applejack replied with a flat voice.
“Ohhhhh,” Dash said. “She doesn’t like you that way though?”
“You know, I think she does...”
“I am so stumped as to where the problem is. You’re a pretty, single pony, you like somepony who likes you, is single...”
“You know it’s not that simple, Dash. Would you go ask Princess Luna out on a date?” Applejack asked.
“Well, no, you’re right, I wouldn’t. But I’m not super close with her. This is Twilight, you’re literally her oldest friend. By like, three hours, but yeah, where’s the problem?” Dash asked.
“This is the problem,” Applejack held up the book. “She’s... she’s a lot more pony than I can handle. She’s a Princess, a genius, brave, kind, who wouldn’t love that?”
“Eh, her manecut always bothered me,” Dash replied.
“Her manecut is cute and I will break you if you say otherwise,” Applejack shot back. “Besides, do I need to go get Rarity and have a talk about your ‘manecut’ situation?”
A realization dawned over Rainbow Dash’s face.
“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh. I have the world’s biggest bargaining chip. I know who Twilight likes! And you! That’s like... a million bits in gossip money. I could finally get Rarity to make me a Wonderbolts uniform replica and damn the copyrights,” Dash said.
“Dash, this stays between us and the coma patient,” Applejack said.
“Do you know how long I’ve wanted that uniform? You can’t buy them AJ, you can’t. I paid a pony a month’s salary for a black market one and even it turned out to be a fake, don’t do this to me,” Dash begged.
“Swear, Pinkie Swear, right now, on your own wings, this doesn’t leave this tent,” Applejack demanded.
“I swear,” Dash mumbled angrily.
“Pinkie Swear,” Applejack insisted.
“Cross my heart, hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Dash motioned.
“Alright, that’s that,” Applejack said.
The pair sat in silence, Dash with her arms crossed and her face twisted with displeasure.

* * * * * *

The days passed. Twilight tossed about in her tent while Dark Matter continued running, though not participating in combat drills. Rarity tried to keep the magic lessons on track, but they mostly reviewed the spells they had learned and started teaching Applejack and Fluttershy.
In the dark hours of the third day, Quick Fix dragged herself away from the containment device.
“Ponies, I have completed it,” she called out to the camp.
“That’s cool, now go to bed,” Dash yelled back.
Quick Fix then slept for the next twelve hours.
As dawn broke on the third day, the ponies waited around camp expectantly. Future Twilight hadn’t told them when on the third day she would wake up, which Dash was complaining about for most of the morning.
“If you’re going to complain, please do it somewhere outside of the tower,” Rarity told her by lunch time.
By the afternoon, all pretense of activity ceased, and the ponies were sat outside of Twilight’s tent, after Applejack had yelled at Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, and Rarity for all trying to be in the tent at the same time.
Twilight started to thrash about violently by mid afternoon. Applejack held her down on her sleeping bag as the ponies outside waited. Dark Matter put on his full battle regalia, and brought over the chest with the Elements.
“We should be prepared,” he said. The ponies put their Elements on, and Applejack held Twilight’s crown in preparation.
Just as the sky was fading to a dark purple dusk, Twilight stopped thrashing about and laid still. Applejack watched as she began crying in her sleep, and then, thirty minutes later, her eyes and mouth opened. She let out a long breath and a faint black haze came from her mouth. It drifted up through the fabric of the tent. Applejack turned and looked at Twilight. Her eyes were glassy and unfocused.
“You alright sugarcube?” she asked.
Twilight’s eyes focused, then began to move about, looking around.
“Is this real?” she asked, her voice faint from days of silence.
“It sure is,” Applejack replied.
“How, how can I be sure, they all seemed so real, so wonderful. You seemed so real,” she said.
“Well, it’s not wonderful, it’s a ruin, in the woods, full of skeletons and horrible monsters, and the food’s not that good,” Applejack explained.