Part 2B: Doctor What?
With everything else she’d tried failing, Berry Punch dragged Cliff Jumper to a nearby stream. Without hesitation, she dunked Cliff’s face in. The unconscious mare came back to life, legs flailing in every direction. Berry yanked her back up.
Gasping for breath, Cliff wheezed, “Sweet… Pony… Jesus… Are you trying to kill me!?”
“Sorry, Cliff,” Berry apologised. “But you left me no other option.”
Cliff sighed, thumping her chest and squirting out the last of the water she choked on. Berry smiled. One of the things she liked about Cliff was her ability to make even the most serious situations a bit more light-hearted, yet, at the same time, would understand the true seriousness.
Clearing her throat, Cliff spoke again, “Right then… I’m just gonna say it: I am not hurt by the fact you kept your true origins secret. To be perfectly honest, I may have been deterred had you told me straight off the bat. That said, I think now’s a good time to tell the full story, or something like it.”
“Really? You want another wordy backstory?”
Cliff held out her hooves in front of herself and Berry, explaining, “Imagine, if you will, two time travelling mares, one all experienced and the like, and another who just got brought along for the ride. Now, things will happen on this adventure, and the experienced mare will have no trouble coping and understanding. The other one, however, will always be at a loss, and slow everything down with question after question after question after question aft-”
“Alright! I get it!” Berry pulled rolled up her sleeve once more, and a couple of taps on her device brought up a hologram. “Gather round kiddies, it’s story time, this time with visual aids.”
“Ooooooo...”
A long time ago in the land of Equestria, two royal Alicorns had a dispute. It ended with one of them being sent to the Moon. The remaining Alicorn knew that the spell would not last forever, and did not want another war like the one she had just won.
In this time, we ponies were in fact far more technologically advanced than today. We had engines running on fossil fuels, carts that pulled themselves and buildings touching the sky. There were televisions, computers and phones. None of this will mean anything to you, and all you need to know is that all of these things made the lives of our kind easier.
Sadly, with the other races on the planet, we were forced to advance ourselves in weaponry also, leading to the invention of the projectile weapons known as guns. They possess a far greater threat than the average magical blast attack, as they are capable of breaching magical shields.
With the rise of Nightmare Moon came a bloody slaughter. A civil war that left us vulnerable to the rest of the world. Celestia had one last course of action available to ensure the safety of ponykind. Using the Elements of Harmony, she performed a worldwide memory alteration spell. It set everypony and everything back massively in technology, wiping our greatest feats of engineering of the face of Equis.
That is where I come in. With Celestia still concerned about Nightmare Moon, she summoned me, one of her greatest soldiers. During the war, I was sent on confidential missions of assassination, infiltration and sabotage, against both the Lunar Republic and the other races that posed a threat. It was thanks to me we weren’t invaded immediately after Luna’s banishment.
Unbeknownst to anypony but Celestia and those she had working on it, a device capable of time travel was developed. They called it the Harkness. With a built-in TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimensions in Space) Anomaly Detector, it finds any anomalies within any era of time I tell it to, and takes me to it.
“So, I was sent to Ponyville shortly before Nightmare Moon’s return. It turns out that the thing that possessed Luna, The Nightmare, is somehow an anomaly. I’ve kept a watchful eye over the Element Bearers ever since. Not even Celestia knows about this; not after casting the memory spell.”
“So… Celestia reset the world? And you travelling through time spared you?”
“That is correct.”
“Basically, you’re, like, the greatest hero ever?”
“I wouldn’t exactly sa-”
“You wouldn’t believe how hot that is to me.”
“...”
“...”
The two mares remained silent. Neither of them were to blame when the silence broke. From further upstream there came hurried hoofsteps, and panting filled with desperation. The sounds grew louder as they came closer and closer. Berry drew one of her revolvers.
“Get behind me Cliff,” she said, leveling the revolver, pointing it towards the approaching noise.
Cliff scoffed, “Pfft, I’m an adventurer. I’ve encountered many a beast and black hearted pony. I can handle myself, thank you. Besides… that sounds like fleeing to me.”
Sure enough, two terrified ponies wearing black, hooded cloaks came into view, skidding to a halt upon seeing Berry’s gun.
“See? Harmle- HOLY BUCKING TARTARUS WHAT IS THAT!?”
Cliff pointed a hoof into the sky. Berry followed it to see a winged beast diving towards them. It glittered in the night; some kind of giant bat. The trained soldier did not hesitate, re-aligning her shot, and firing a single bullet. The creature managed to avoid a fatal hit, but was still struck in the wing. It must have severely damaged the muscles, because said wing went limp and the monster lost flight control.
The giant bat crashed beside Cliff. Before anypony could relax, it went straight for the mare, fangs bared.
“CLIFF!”
Cliff Jumper bounced into the air, allowing the bat’s head to pass under. Next, she landed as heavily as possible on the neck. The combined force and mass broke the bone, and with a loud snap, the beast was slain.
Dusting herself off, Cliff said, “‘Get behind me Cliff!’ I ain’t no filly, mare.”
“Th- th- thank you strangers,” said one of the two ponies, evidently a mare, judging by the voice.
“Oh, it was n-” Cliff began before she noticed something. “Hang on! I know that voice.”
Before Berry could stop her, Cliff had her hooves on the mare’s hood. A swift tug brought it down, revealing one Cup Cake.
“Missus Cake?” Berry exclaimed in surprise.
Cup pulled herself free of Cliff’s hold while other pony took their hood down. Carrot looked confused as his features were lit up by the moonlight.
“How do you know her?” He asked. “We’ve never seen you before.”
Looks were shared between the temporally out of place mares. They huddled together to whisper to each other.
Cliff was completely out of her element. “What do we do?”
“We tell them the truth,” Berry replied, matter-of-factly.
“Are you serious? I mean… they never let on about us before, and Carrot was clearly terrible at hiding things once things went south.”
“Hmmm, you’re right… then I have a plan.”
“Really? What is it?”
Berry pulled away from the huddle and turned back to the Cakes.
“We’re from the past, when Celestia still reigned. We’ve travelled here, to the future, to help you in your endeavors against the New Lunar Republic.”
This time, looks were shared between the other two ponies.
They nodded and spoke simultaneously, “Ok.”
Carrot continued, “We were just on our way to the resistance headquarters. It’s this way.”
Carrot and Cup walked past the monster corpse, and Berry made to follow. However, she noticed Cliff just staring at the others, flabberghasted.
“What’s the matter, Cliff?”
“They just took your word for it… they didn’t even blink.” Shaking her head, Cliff began to move in the same direction, adding, “I don’t like this.”
She didn’t say so, but Berry was also concerned about the initial response. Sadly, there was nothing more they could do but accept it for the time being. The Harkness Device wouldn’t be taking them anywhen else until the anomaly in that time and space was smoothed out.
So, the party of four journeyed in silence. Complete silence. Not a single whisper was heard from anypony. Berry and Cliff thought best to follow their guides’ example, assuming that noise was what attracted the bat monster prior to their meeting.
Eventually, the foursome halted by a decrepit statue of Tom the Rock. They could tell it was a statue and not just Tom the Rock because it didn’t have that air of knowing the real Tom had about him. Cliff, clearly not a mare of subtlety, gawked at it.
Cup answered the unspoken question, “This is a statue made by Rarity, one of the more well known resistance fighters. Originally just a civilian tasked with resource gathering, she was captured by Diamond Dog mercenaries. Now, Rarity claimed an oracle of Celestia came to her in the form of a spectral rock by the name of Tom. After this visitation, the mare reportedly escaped and slaughtered her captors. She then went on to become one of our symbols of hope, focusing her efforts on freeing enslaved ponies.
“It did not end well for her though. Rarity was one of the first mares to be subjected to Nightmare Moon’s corruption magic. In fact, we believe she may actually be the most responsible for the magic coming into use. What little remains of our resistance does have a couple ponies who resent Rarity for that. But… at least we have her to thank for this statue.
“Upon discovery of the corruption, Rarity fled the resistance. With what little control she had remaining, she carved this thing out. We found it atop her remains. She had committed suicide, allowing her creation to crush the life out of her.”
Meanwhile, during Cup’s speech and Cliff’s sage nods of understanding, Berry watched Carrot scout the immediate area around the statue. Around the same time of his wife’s speech coming to an end, Carrot returned to the group and knocked on the rock. The thing turned out to be hollow.
All four ponies were suddenly swallowed in magical light. When the light was gone, they found themselves inside a room consisting entirely of metal. The only light came from the metal walls, which magically glowed a recognisable shade of purple.
“Isn’t that-”
Somehow, a siren blared into the room with no source. This was accompanied by the magic glow switching to orange, pulsating in time with said siren. Before anypony could react, more purple magic flashed in front of them, leaving behind a grey haired Twilight Sparkle.
“So you’ve come at last,” she said. “A pity you’re too late…”
“Too late?” Repeated everypony else, including the Cakes.
Twilight hung her head. “Later than we originally believed, even.”
“You can’t mean…” Cup started before going silent, hanging her own head.
Berry stepped forward. “Would somepony mind telling us what it is my friend and I are too late for?”
“Oh, of course,” Twilight replied, her horn beginning to glow. “My apologies.”
Yet another flash of purple magic took the ponies into a narrow corridor. Various sized pipes ran alongside the stone walling with the odd light in the distance flickering on the ceiling. Everything seemed damp.
“Could you get any more depressing?” Cliff remarked.
Ignoring her companion, Berry stared at Twilight expectantly.
“First off, I’m Twilight Sparkle, leader of the Solar Empire Resistance.”
“We’ve met before… sort of. I’m Berry Punch and my friend is Cliff Jumper.” The mare casually saluted upon hearing her name. “We’ve come from the past to provide assistance.”
“Hmm… that explains the residue of Celestial particles and the other anomalous energy about you. It does bring up more questions though, like why are you here? Normally, ponies go back in time to change the future. And there’s also the question of how, because the only method of time travel I know of is a spell that-”
Berry interrupted the Unicorn, “I’ll explain everything, Miss Sparkle. It might be easier if I had a chalkboard though.”
“Mind if I go to the restroom?” Cliff said.
Cup turned to her, smiling, “Of course, honey. I’ll show you where it is and give you a tour too.”
“A tour? Of a resistance base? You kidding me?”
Cup’s smile didn’t falter. “Not at all.”
“Awesome!”
While Twilight took Berry to a meeting room with Carrot in tow, Cup escorted Cliff to the little filly’s room.