//------------------------------// // The Grid // Story: Equestria Has Fallen // by ward282 //------------------------------// Time Turner sat in his favourite chair in the house he'd been given by the Princess. In his hoof was a clipboard with pieces of paper attached to it, with his mouth he used the pencil to factor in more calculations and variables. His head was sore; he'd been working on these calculations since he'd returned from escorting Twilight Sparkle to Princess Cadence. He heard a pony coming down the stairs and looked up to the hallway. It was Thunderer much to Time Turners' discontent. "She'll be back soon" Thunderer said as he entered the room. Thunderer sat in a chair opposite Time Turner. Thunderer still wore the armour he'd met Twilight in, but then why was Time Turner surprised. Thunderer nearly never took the armour off, nor the metal wings that went with it. The only difference was that Thunderer had retracted the two cannons; they were only to be used outside the city. Time Turner knew more than most that Thunderer blamed himself for what happened in Canterlot that day, he kept the armour on as punishment. As Time Turner sat in thought he barely heard Thunderer speak to him. "Hello is Doctor Time Turner in?" Thunderer said. "Yes sorry" Time Turner shook his head, "It's just these calculations make no sense, it is possible but we need a large power supply for it to work." "The Grid?" Thunderer asked. "Yes, my current hypothesis is that with a greater power source we could expand the shielding capacity by tenfold." "But?" Thunderer pushed further. "Doing so would cause the nuclear reactors to overload. Trottingham would be completely destroyed, there may be no point in overloading the shield." Time Turner sighed. There was a knock at the door. Time Turner leapt up, it was about time she returned. He enthusiastically galloped over to the front door, he flung it open. "Hello my Muff...oh" Time Turner stopped mid-sentence. Instead of his wife, two guards and a lavender unicorn stood before him. One of the guards produced a scroll from his saddlebag. "By royal decree of Princess Cadence the unicorn and former pupil of Celestia the Great; Twilight Sparkle is being assigned as your assistant, effective immediately. Your daily ration will be compensated accordingly" the guard read allowed. "I already know," Time Turner replied. He and Princess Cadence had discussed it the previous night when word made it to them both that she'd arrived. "We have also been ordered to retrieve Thunderer, he is to attend the war council immediately to discuss your current progress." the guard continued. Thunderer had been listening in on the conversation from the living room and stepped past Time Turner. "I'll inform them of our progress but we need to decide what happens next" Thunderer said to Time Turner. The two guards dispersed and left Twilight Sparkle standing on her own. The unicorn looked upset her eyes were red and puffy, the only logical conclusion was that Twilight had been told about Celestia and Shining Armour. "Cadence said you were working on something to fight the changlings with, I thought you'd need more space than a house for a lab." Twilight said "Trust me, its bigger on the inside" Time Turner said, "Come." Twilight followed her new mentor into the house. The houses looked all the same on this street so she noted the number "221b". Inside she was met with a staircase leading up and a narrow corridor, there was also a room to the right. Time Turner led her down the corridor, the room to the right was a sitting room with three chairs surrounding a table. Ahead of them was the kitchen, it was small and messy typical of two colts living together Twilight thought. "Did Princess Cadence tell you how the city retains its shield?" Time Turner said. The two of them stepped into a small room that was located under the stairs. There was a lever in front of them. "She said there was a machine that fed off the love between them" Twilight said quietly. "Hmm well not quite love but a unicorns' signature when they cast their magic. My machine; The Grid absorbs the Princess's' magic and rejuvenates the shield." "Not the love between them?" Twilight asked confused. "There is a science behind unicorn magic, I studied the field; that's what I got my Doctorate in." "So this Grid, how exactly does it work?" Twilight asked. Time Turner threw the level and the both of them descended on a platform. As the machine passed through the foundations of the house Twilight was treated with what looked like another city below. Twilight was gob-smacked at how much space there was below the city, she looked around the gigantic cavern and saw all the pipes and large machines that looked like buildings from above. The platform they were on was descending into what felt like was a microscopic area of the city, in reality the area they were heading to was massive. "This is The Grid" Time Turner said smiling, "I spent years building it as part of my studies, then when Canterlot fell and Cadence and Shining Armour arrived I was ordered to re-purpose it. Now The Grid absorbs Cadences magic to fuel the shield around the city, I only just finished it when Discord led an army of changlings into the city. I wish it could of been sooner." A tear tried to roll down Twilights' face but she no longer had it in her, she so wanted to be angry at Time Turner but really it wasn't his fault. "What Thunderer and I are working on now is a way to expand the shield to cover all of Equestria, doing so would kill all the changlings and abominations." Time Turner explained. The platform arrived at the bottom level. Twilight stepped out and looked at all the objects around her, there was a Buckingham blue police telephone box, a blue cube that levitated between two machines and a Manehatten phone box. "What is all this?" Twilight asked looking at the blue cube. "That's a tesseract, its a cube within a cube, Thunderer built it to help with my Doctorate, I was trying to master the teleportation spell as part of my studies into Starswirls forbidden spells. It doesn't work" Time Turner said disappointingly. "And the phone boxes?" Twilight asked. "I like to take phone calls down here" Time Turner replied. When Trottingham was originally built the earth ponies used the natural springs below the city to help fuel its' industry, as the town expanded so did the power output, but the input remained constant. When the first radioactive elements was discovered Trottingham scientists voted to build new generators to harness the new power source. To fit the generators the city decided to excavate the ground beneath the city, the resulting cavity meant there was masses of space to fit as many generators as possible. A few years ago Time Turner used this same space to test his understanding of magic, to gain his Doctorate Time Turner had tried to put understanding behind Starswirls forbidden spells and recreate them. The one that intrigued Time Turner the most was the ability of time travel. For several years Time Turner tried to crack the spell, but being an earth pony meant he was limited to what he build, and he wasn't very good at building. That's where Thunderer came in. A long time ago Thunderer and Time Turner met each other in Canterlot university. They both took advanced magic, but being the only non-unicorns on the course they struggled. Thunderer eventually dropped out of the course in favour of engineering, but Time Turner continued. Years later Time Turner sought out Thunderer to help him build a device to harness the power to cast Starswirls forbidden spells. They had little success, even with setting up below Trottingham to make use of the extensive power source it still wasn't enough. Time Turner eventually gave up and soon moved back to Ponyville where he'd grown up, he married a grey pegasus called Derpy and not long after had a child. When Time Turner learned that the child was a unicorn he accused Derpy of cheating on him with another colt. He left Derpy and Ditzy for a while; returning to Trottingham where he plunged into his work. Dissociating himself with others Doctor Time Turner became obsessed with the forbidden spells, he often asked himself why they were forbidden but the answers to those questions couldn't be found until he cast the spell. It was Thunderer who pulled Doctor Time Turner back from the brink, Thunderer came to keep him company and work on the machine, that's when it happened. As Time Turner set the tesseract between the two magnets it began to levitate between them. He pulled down his goggles and flipped a switch. The gigantic cavern filled with noise as the power was diverted towards Time Turners separate circuit. Time Turner checked the gauges, they were still in the safe zone. "Now!" Time turner shouted to Thunderer. The pegasus gripped the wrench with his teeth and pulled it back, he flapped his white wings several times to help him. Eventually the wrench moved and the valve opened. A stream of energy flew out in a beam as the valve opened. The beam began burning a chalkboard as Thunderer pulled hard, he was covered in sweat, it dripped down his fur and over his wrench cutie mark. The beam moved into the tesseract after burning everything in its path. The tesseract began absorbing the beam and changed colour from steel to blue. Time Turner checked his equipment, it was going haywire, far off from his predictions. Thunderer used his wings to shield his eyes from the bright light that was emitted from the tesseract. The energy beam stopped and there was silence in the room, all the lights in the gigantic cavern went off leaving the tesseract as the only light source. The two of them starred at it. As the two of them moved closer, the tesseract had a mind of its own, it projected a beam by itself. Thunderer shielded his eyes again with his wings. When he lowered them he was speechless at what he saw. In the middle of the their work area was a crack, but the crack wasn't in anything it was suspended in mid-air. Time Turner moved forward to investigate the crack, he carefully reached up and touched it. It didn't feel of anything, the crack edge moved to his hoof and then when Time Turner realised it was safe to do so, he placed both forehooves on the crack and opened it. Light entered the room and the two of them were looking at something, but it looked older, like a film from years ago. "Dear Celestia, we've done it!" Time Turner exclaimed. "That's your grandfather" Thunderer said, unaware of Time Turners comment. Time Turner looked in the crack as well, Thunderer was right, but this pony in the crack was young, his grandfather had passed away years ago. The pony was talking to someone; a unicorn. "But daaaad!" Time Turners grandfather whined. Time Turners' jaw dropped, if what he saw was true, then he was related to a unicorn. He thought back to his little filly and the comments he'd said to his wife, he'd been here two months working on this project and then it occurred to him he'd never named it. "It needs a name" Time Turner said. "How about Delorean?" Thunder said Thunderer was inspecting the equipment, he lifted an instrument with his wing, "88" was the only number on it. Thunderer dropped it and returned to the crack, fissure or tear, he wasn't sure what it was. He poked both his wings through. "I was thinking Time and relative dimension in space machine" "Dimensions would be more accurate if your theory is correct and lose machine, maybe make it an acronym." Thunderer said moving his wings in the tear. "So what? T.A.R.D.I.S?" Time Turner said playing with the idea. "Yes something like tha...." Thunderer was cut off, the crack suddenly disappeared. Thunderer tried to scream the pain so immense, he scrambled backwards trying to find them but they were gone. Time Turner was unsure what was happening, he scrambled to find a light, he found one on the burnt desk the energy beam had destroyed. He pointed the light at Thunderer; half of his wings were missing. The crack had cauterised them off. Thunderer passed out when Time Turner told him. After the incident Time Turner returned home to his wife, he and Thunderer grew apart of the next two years, that was until Canterlot fell. A few days after news came that Celestia was dead, the changlings stormed Ponyville. They destroyed his house and everything he'd built there. He told Derpy to fly to Trottingham she resisted because she didn't want to leave their daughter here, but she had no choice, changlings tried to attack her in the air, she flew away as fast as her wings would thrust. It took Time Turner a week to get to Trottingham, he knew of the Changlings but never anticipated the abominations. They'd cornered him and Ditzy on the 5th day, he'd managed to fend them off with a sharpened stick, but they bit Ditzy. In his anger he killed the abominations around him and tried to seek help for his daughter. After a few hours she turned too. That was the hardest thing Time Turner had to do, he could only remember smashing her head with a rock; that was all he had at the time. She stood up again, Time Turner had to force back the tears as he did it again, and again until he was certain she would not rise again. He spent the following day burying her, and the two days after that wondering whether to jump off the cliff he was on. This was why Time Turner wanted to rebuild the TARDIS rather than the overload the shields, he could change so much through one simple action; killing Queen Chrysalis.