Chapter 1
“What do I do?!” Rainbow Dash—Princess Rainbow Dash if you followed royal protocol, though the young alicorn mare hardly felt she deserved that title anymore, after she had failed to save her family—wept. “What do I DO?!”
Dash could still hear the screams of her sisters, of her Mother, and of her Father as those…things…lashed out and grabbed ahold of them. The living silvery goop rushed up from puddles and coated her family in a casing of molten, moving metal. It poured inside them as they cried out in pain, slithering down their throats until even the insides of their eyes turned grey and their manes faded to white.
Dash had tried to save them. Oh, how she had tried. Using her special gift, zooming at the speed of light, had allowed the alicorn to shake free of the silvery substance when it came for her, and she tried to cut to ribbons the gunk on her family as she slashed by her quickly submerging sisters, Father, and Mother. But they were too far gone, too deeply drowning in the merciless muck that pulled them farther and farther away from the cyan streak of multicolored speed.
Dash had known that to dive in after them would only mean losing herself to the stuff, and she would be no good to them there. Dash had shaken off droplets of the silver before, but there was no way she could break free of gallons, much less trying to pull her family up with her.
That didn’t stop her from trying, of course.
Dash took a deep breath, soared into the air, and dove down into the silver mess.
She didn’t get far. The moment Dash had become fully encased in the goo, she thrashed wildly, her hooves and wings darting out in all directions, desperately searching for the feeling of a familiar hoof, a mane, anything that would indicate her family hadn’t already been swept away by the nightmarish thing.
But, try as she might, Dash couldn’t feel them—couldn’t feel anything. Her senses were slowly dimming, her consciousness being yanked away from her. As Dash drowned in the grey, so too did her mind in the black.
As the last alicorn finally stopped struggling, the goop collected its prizes in a bundle and slithered back into its containment unit. The door slid closed and the green safety light pinged the ‘all-clear.’
A suited figure stepped out of the shadows. It was tall, bipedal, and bulky with armor. Try as Dash’s Father might, he couldn’t seem to unlock it with his sonic screwdriver. Try as Dash’s Mother might, she hadn’t been able to rip it open with her magic—magic that was able to move stars.
Such was the nature of thirty-fourth dimensional engineering, though. Nothing in the known universe could break what wasn’t FROM the known universe. The face behind the black visor smirked—the being’s master’s weren’t going to believe this.
. . .
Dash awoke to a harsh, blinding light.
“Wha—Mom!” Dash had cried out, lurching out of the deeper-than-sleep unconsciousness she had been trapped in. “Dad! Pinkie, Fluttershy, anypony?!”
“Subject 7 has awoken,” announced a clear, monotone, emotionless voice.
Dash tried to jerk from her position on her back into the air, flapping her wings, but all she got in return was the realization that nearly every inch of her was strapped down with the same stuff that creature they had encountered back had worn for armor. If her Mother couldn’t break the stuff, then Dash certainly knew she would be unable to break free of it.
Breathing quickly in her fear and disorientation, Dash closed her eyes against the bright light and tried to calm the rapid beating of her heart.
“Just take a deep breath,” Dash told herself. “Take a look around, assess the situation.”
Opening her eyes ever-so-slowly, Dash turned her head as much as she could to see what lay beyond the scalding light. What she saw wasn’t reassuring; nothing but paneled white walls all around.
The light suddenly switched off and the large mechanical arm it was connected to rose and folded itself into what might be considered a dormant position, if it didn’t keep twitching every so often. The light gone, Dash could see up to what was once behind it. That didn’t make things any easier, though; if anything, it made Dash’s heart beat all the faster.
Up there, behind a glass wall, were more of those…things. These ones weren’t wearing armor like the one they had encountered out on the Last Planet at the End of the Universe. Instead, they looked an awful lot more like the pictures her Father had shown her of what the species was supposed to have looked like billions of years ago.
Dad had thought they were extinct this far in the future. Dad had thought that there wasn’t anything to fear from them anyway. Dad had been wrong.
The things wore long white lab coats and many of them worse glasses, though all of them were seated at control panels. Dash couldn’t hear anything from them on this side of the glass, though their lips were moving, so they must have been conversing with one another.
The one in the middle, taller than the rest and balding, seemed to come to a consensus with the rest and pressed a button in front of him. Suddenly the others stopped, and only the central creature’s mouth moved, though this time Dash could hear what he was saying.
The thing spoke in perfect Equestrian, though Dash supposed it would probably say that she spoke perfect whatever they called their language. What was it that Father had said? Not only was Equestria’s language based on that of this species, the ponies had more in common with them than they thought. Dash was beginning to doubt that last part.
Ponies wouldn’t do this. Ponies wouldn’t attack a family out of the blue for no reason and then capture them in the belly of some kind of liquid monster. Ponies wouldn’t strap another being down for all to see.
Dash also knew, though she didn’t know how, that ponies would never do what these creatures did next.
“Greetings, Subject 7,” announced the thing that Dash guessed was the leader of this herd. “Allow me to introduce myself: I am Doctor Proteus. But that’s not quite so important right now. My colleagues and I are very, very interested in finding out whom YOU are.”
“Where’s my family?!” Dash roared, hints of the flames her Mother was famous for flickering threateningly in her flowing, multicolored mane.
“All in good time, Subject 7,” Dr. Proteus smiled darkly. “First, though, we want to know your name. Or do you want us to keep calling you Subject 7?”
“I don’t care what you call me, you hairless apes!” Dash spat. “Just let me out of here so I can tear you a new one!”
“Testy,” remarked Dr. Proteus with some mild derision. Dash wanted to wipe that smug smile off his face—if it wasn’t for this fancy metal or whatever it was, the fragile bodies of these creatures would all be at her mercy. Dash would FORCE them to tell her where her family was—but the simple fact remained that they DID have this stuff, so she couldn’t get to them. Yet. “But you are right, we DO have the thirty-fourth dimensional quantum alloy, so right now you’re at OUR mercy.”
“What?!” Dash gasped. “How did you—”
“Read your mind?” Dr. Proteus smirked. “I didn’t. We’ve had you in that restraint for a full minute and a half. Did you really think we wouldn’t have learned enough to predict most of your actions by now?”
“What?” Dash inquired, confused. “I know better than anypony the value of speed, but you couldn’t have possibly learned that much so fast!”
“Take note of that,” Dr. Proteus spoke to one of the creatures to his right. “Subject 7 uses the word ‘anypony’ rather than ‘anybody.’”
“Where’s my family?!” Dash demanded again, getting annoyed.
“They’re being tested in the other chambers, just like you will be momentarily,” Dr. Proteus answered, turning back to Dash. “If you want to see them again, you will comply with these tests. Otherwise…well, it’s best if you don’t know what we can do when someBODY makes us angry.”
“You’re making ME angry!” Dash snorted. “Now let me go!”
“Very well,” Dr. Proteus sighed. “It seems we won’t be getting your name from you through standard interrogation techniques—i.e., asking nicely—so let’s just move on to the testing.”
Suddenly the straps binding Dash vanished, as if they had never been there at all.
Dash leapt from the hard medical table-like bed she had been strapped to and soared into the sky, or at least soared as high as one could go in a room like this. Now able to stare Dr. Proteus and the others in the eye, Dash glared at them angrily before rushing forward with her horn outstretched.
Dash’s horn slammed into the window—but not through it. In fact, the window didn’t so much as budge.
Dash fell back, gasping in surprise. Being an immortal alicorn, she wasn’t actually hurt from being stopped at such speeds, even if she had hit something so hard with her horn, but she certainly hadn’t been expecting such a reaction.
“Please, did you really think we wouldn’t reinforce the glass?” Dr. Proteus told her, inches away, though they might have been miles apart with the glass between them. “This barrier is even stronger than the thirty-fourth dimensional bonds we used to bind you. You won’t be getting at us that easily. But now, on to testing!”
Dr. Proteus pushed another button and Dash was suddenly yanked backwards. Dash spun around and yanked her tail free of one of the mechanical arms of the machine jutting down from the ceiling, giving it a swift buck only to meet the same reaction she had had with the glass. Was there anything these creatures made that could actually break?
“Certainly, but none that you could break,” Dr. Proteus replied, causing Dash to shiver at how easily and casually he could predict her very thoughts. “Through extensive theoretical analysis, we have hypothesized that each of you beings—I’d ask you what you are, but I doubt you’d tell us—have a unique talent. Yours, as we have guessed from estimation, is speed. Would you kindly demonstrate this for us?”
“I’m not doing anything for you unless you show me my family!” Dash huffed, crossing her forelegs defiantly.
“Fine then,” Dr. Proteus conceded. Then, turning to another of his kind, the doctor commanded “Bring up the holo-feed.”
One of the other creatures pulled a lever, and suddenly Dash found herself surrounded by floating, moving pictures. Each had a transparent glow to it, and each was displaying a member of the alicorn’s family.
“Mom!” Dash gasped, seeing that she too was pinned down with the same bonds that Dash had been imprisoned with only moments before, as were all the other members of Dash’s family. “Dad! Pinkie Pie! Fluttershy! Rarity! Applejack!”
“Rainbow Dash?” Twilight breathed, and this sentiment was echoed by the others, each turning tired eyes towards their daughter and sister. “Is that you? Where have you been all these years?”
“Years?” Rainbow repeated, a spark of dread growing in her stomach. According to Dr. Proteus, she herself had only been in this room for about two minutes by now, and that felt like the proper time frame, but Dash knew from all her travels with her Father that time was a fickle thing. “But I’ve only been in here for a few minutes!”
“Each test chamber is sequestered from the outside reality, and each has its own sped-up time stream to allow for more expedient results to give to HQ,” Dr. Proteus explained. “They got around to testing the others before you, so they’ve all been being tested for several millennia now. The time flows have been synchronized for this little conversation, though.”
“Several MILLENIA?!” Dash echoed in shocked horror.
“Oh, Rainbow Dash, have they not started with you yet?” Twilight asked quietly. “Quick, you must leave! You have to escape! They do terrible, horrible things—they’re draining the life from us, one speck at a time! You have to break free before they suck you dry too! If you don’t, then soon we’ll all be dead!”
“But I can’t get out of here!” Dash exclaimed, beginning to panic. What could these monsters do to her family that was so bad it could slowly kill an immortal alicorn? “The walls—everything—they’re all too hard!”
“But you CAN do it!” her Father spoke up, coughing painfully. Looking closer, Dash could see batters and bruises on his coat, and sweeping her eyes in a squint over the others revealed that they were worse for wear as well. Cuts, scrapes, and what looked like burn marks littered each of them. These creatures really were killing her family—taking away one piece at a time—until there was nothing left. Each pony looked like a mortal would after a brutal mauling. If this is what these monsters had done to her family in thousands of years that passed by in a few minutes, then what could they do to her family every minute more she wasted trapped in here? Dash had to rescue them! There had to be a way! She couldn’t stand to blink and have her family’s life taken away right before her eyes! “You can travel at the speed of light, yes, but you can go so much faster if you just try—”
“Visiting hours are over,” Dr. Proteus announced, and with the flip of a switch the images disappeared. “Time flow is independent once again. Now, Rainbow Dash, is it? Would you please demonstrate that ‘light speed’ for us? We’ve never seen a creature move that quickly unaided by machinery. It would be so nice to learn how to do it ourselves—”
“Is that what you’re doing to them?!” Dash demanded. “You’re taking them apart piece by piece! Are you trying to steal their powers from them?! Is that what you want?!”
“In a manner of speaking, yes,” Dr. Proteus agreed, apparently unperturbed by Dash’s outburst. “Now, the speed—”
“I’d never fly for you!” Dash spat. “And even if I would, there’s not enough room in here to even reach Mach 2!”
“Distance, is it?” Dr. Proteus questioned. “We can fix that.”
The doctor turned a knob and Dash felt a rush of air behind her. Turning, Dash witnessed the back of the testing chamber shooting away from her, the room growing exponentially in length.
“Now fly as fast as you can, please!” Dr. Proteus commanded, losing a bit of the poisoned honey in his voice as his annoyance at ‘Subject 7’s’ continued disobedience increased. “We’ve always wanted to figure out how to surpass the speed of light as well.”
“No!” Dash defied, sticking her tongue out at Dr. Proteus.
“Very well,” the doctor grinned darkly, as if he was actually looking forward to what was coming next. In retrospect, Dash surmised that he probably was. “Have it your way.”
The mechanical arm produced a new limb, this one with two blackened tongs on the end that began crackling with energy. With a jab, the electrified appendage was thrust onto Dash’s rear, causing her to cry out in pain and instinctively rush forward at her natural speed.
Rainbow shot off through the air down the newly made tunnel of the test chamber, leaving nothing behind but a seven-color streak of light. Dash turned her head as she flew off down the corridor, thankful that she would now at least be millions of miles away from Dr. Proteus and his lightning-producing arm.
But she wasn’t.
Dash gasped as she saw that, somehow, the window full of creatures and the mechanical arm were still right behind her. But that wasn’t possible! She was travelling at the speed of light! Dash glanced at the walls to make sure, and saw that she was indeed travelling at tremendous speeds by the panels of the walls flying by.
“It’s called quantum space-distortion,” Dr. Proteus explained, seeing Dash’s confusion. “This way we can make you go even faster while we watch!”
“Make me go even faster?” Dash echoed. “But I’ve never been able to go faster than the speed of light!”
“Your ‘Father’ sure seemed to think you could do it,” Dr. Proteus said. “Until proven otherwise, we’re willing to give it a try.”
Dr. Proteus pushed another button and the arm swooped down to zap Dash again. Dash cried out in pain, surprised that she could feel the sensation at all with her being an immortal, but it seemed that these creatures had interlaced whatever wacky science stuff they had used to make those bonds unbreakable to her inside the electricity, causing it to actually harm her. Who were these freaks, that they could make such powerful devices and then use them so cruelly?
Dash leapt forward at the zap, her muscles acting against her will as she amazingly increased speed in a vain attempt to get from ‘here’ to ‘there’ though ‘here’ refused to leave her side even if it was in one place while she was moving faster than the speed of light.
“Good, good,” Dr. Proteus smiled. “It seems we’re making progress with you after all! Let’s see just how fast you can really go!”
Another zap, and Dash sped up even more, her body roaring at her to get away from the lighting-machine, but try as she might Dash knew that it was impossible. That didn’t stop her body from trying, though, acting against Dash’s commands, her muscles convulsing and contracting involuntarily at every shock from the machine.
“Stop!” Dash pleaded after the third strike, the world around her—except for behind her—nothing but a blur of indescribable colors by now. “Make it stop! I’ll go faster, I will, I just—”
“You will indeed go faster,” Proteus agreed. There was another shock, and Dash was thrust forward once more. She was flying faster than anything in all the universe had probably ever travelled at this point, but even that wouldn’t satisfy the creatures.
Tears of pain began welling up in Dash’s eyes as the zapping continued, her wings on fire and threatening to collapse from sheer exhaustion. If this kept up much longer, Dash knew she’d be passing out and crashing with the floor, and at this speed, who knew what would happen, whether she was an alicorn or not?
The world was nothing more than a broken blur now, colors scintillating and breaking in and out of the loose threads of reality here where the laws of physics virtually broke down. As Dash flew faster, the colors intensified, and with one more shocking explosion of pain, the colors burst into a white magnificence, flooding all around Dash, blinding her, and pouring into her mind, only to be replaced with the darkness of unconsciousness.
. . .
The first thing Dash felt was pain. On her rump, mainly, which felt as if it had been at the center of a thousand thunderheads, but the rest of her didn’t feel so well either. Dash tried to open her eyes, only to painfully squeeze them tight as the bright light pounded at her eyes.
After a few moments, Dash began to hear sounds, and after a few moments more, those sounds started to feel less like a throbbing in her head and more like familiar, welcoming tones she had heard only once before, when Dad had brought the family to a planet near the Beginning of the Universe that was ninety-nine percent ocean with one luxuriously exotic and relaxing island.
The lapping of the waves, the soft call of gulls—or the alien equivalent—were all there. So was the warm feeling of the sun pleasantly bathing her body in a golden glow. The notion was confirmed when Dash felt a swish of water rise up to tickle her hooves.
Dash tentatively opened her eyes again, thankful that the sunlight didn’t hurt them this time, and raised her head to look around. The young alicorn mare found that she was indeed on a beach, soft white sand cuddling her aching body as colorful birds soared overhead.
“What?” Dash wondered at last. “How did I get here? Where’s the test chamber, or Dr. Proteus, or Mother—”
Dash’s eyes lit up.
“Mother!” Dash realized. And everypony else, too—wherever she was now, they were all still back at that horrible prison, being broken apart piece by piece!
But where was she? How had she gotten to a beach?
“I believe you flew so quickly that you actually broke the time barrier,” answered a voice.
Dash sprang up, ignoring the flaming protest of her joints as her eyes darted to and fro, searching for the source of the noise. What was Dr. Proteus doing here, at this place that even she didn’t know how she had gotten to? Then Dash realized that the voice which had spoken wasn’t that of Dr. Proteus.
“Who’s there?” Dash called, looking suspiciously around.
“An old friend of your Mother’s,” the voice informed her. “Though I must be honest, I sort of knew you as well…in another time, as it were.”
“What are you talking about!?” Dash wondered. “And where are you?”
“Many miles away,” the voice said. “You only hear me in your mind. Though I do have a few questions for you, starting with how you got here.”
“I…I don’t know,” Dash admitted. “I was flying faster than the speed of light because of that horrible…thing…and then the next thing I know…I’m here.”
“It seems I was right!” the voice exclaimed, apparently pleased with itself. "Flying faster than the speed of light does indeed break down physics—it’s one of the few non-magical ways to do so—so breaking through the time barrier with such tactics would feasibly send you to another place in another time. Lucky for you, you’re still on your home planet—you could’ve ended up on another planet at the End of the Universe.”
“But that’s where I just was!” Dash gasped. “How can you predict my actions just like Dr. Proteus?”
“Who’s Dr. Proteus?” the voice inquired. “I’m simply reading your mind. Oh, that’s who he is…wait a minute, those things all went extinct billions of years ago! What’re they doing—oh, that makes sense; you must have travelled through time with your speed to see them, and now you’re returning home. But no, according to your thoughts, this is the first time you’ve travelled through time that way…but not the first time you’ve travelled through time altogether? I’m very confused…I like that, mind you, but still—”
“Get out of my head!” Dash commanded, shaking her cranium as if that could dislodge the intrusive entity from her noggin.
“Sorry,” the voice apologized. “But seriously, shouldn’t you be getting home to your Mother? I’m sure she’s worried sick about you right now.”
“About me?!” Dash echoed, then bagan weeping. “She’s still captured by that mad creature! I have to save them before they’re all killed! I have to get back there! What do I do?! What do I DO?!—”
“Slow down, Rainbow Dash,” the voice instructed kindly. “First of all, you should know that nothing can kill an alicorn. Second of all, according to your mind this was your first time travelling through time by surpassing the speed of light. You’re in no condition to do that again anytime soon, and you wouldn’t even know how to get back to wherever you once were! It’s amazing at all that you got here, back to your own planet and your own time!”
“How do you know my name if you’re not reading my mind anymore?” Dash wanted to know.
“I told you, I know your Mother, and in a way I know you,” the voice explained. “In fact, I’m actually glad you stopped by. I had been meaning to send a messenger to Princess Twilight, and now you can deliver it for me! Just tell your dear ol’ Mom that her ally Discord finally found his own kingdom—”
“You're Discord?!” Dash brightened up instantly. “Mom’s told me so much about you! You have to help me, please! Mom’s in danger, and…ugh, you wouldn’t believe me unless you saw it for yourself. I wouldn’t believe me either unless it had been me who was there.”
“I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about,” Discord intoned. “But if you let me take a quick look into your mind…”
“Go for it,” Dash sighed.
Instantly, Discord knew everything. How the family had been travelling through time in the TARDIS like they usually did, just having fun together. How they had stopped at the last planet at the End of the Universe for a picnic. How they had encountered a creature Dad had believed to be extinct, which had proceeded to easily defeat them all with some kind of technology. And then had come Dr. Proteus, and the knowledge of what they were doing to her family, how they would all be killed slowly, painfully—
There was a flash of light, and a tall, lithe creature Dash had only ever heard her Mother talk about was suddenly in front of her. It was a mish-mash of all different kinds of creatures, it’s very body a blatant laugh in the face of reason.
“It sounds like your family needs help,” Discord said, anger brewing behind his eyes at the prospect of somepony hurting the only ally he’d really ever had, even if they had been enemies at first. “Rainbow Dash, I assure you, I will provide all the assistance I can. And so will my kingdom.”
. . .