//------------------------------//
// Prehistory by TheMusicalBoy93 (Whoops!) 
// Story: Tainted Love: A Twysalis Prompt Tag Collab 
// by Foals Errand 
//------------------------------//

by TheMusicalBoy93

Twilight twirled the small helix in her magic idly, glancing around at her setup. A small tank of saline solution sat on her science desk, cables and electrodes protruding from the glass container and spiralling off into two formidable looking machines that whirred and buzzed with static excitement. Chrysalis popped her head round the corner, blinking in wonderment at the bizarre equipment before her.

“Let me guess,” she quipped with an eye roll. “You’re trying to revive your little pet rock there, right Twiliy?” The changeling queen winked as she strode across the laboratory floor. Twilight booped her on the nose as she leaned in for a nuzzle before stealing a short kiss.

“It’s not a pet rock, it’s an ammotine fossil,” the Alicorn berated. “Ammotines are probably the most mysterious of prehistoric creatures, since we know so little about how they evolved, what they ate, or how they lived. I’m hoping to bring this fossil back to live so I can study its behavioural patterns.” The purple pony dropped the fossil into the saline solution and started mixing a few test tubes of multi-chromatic fluids together in a large flask. “Who knows? If this test proves successful, I may be able to revive more extinct species for scientific research.” She clapped her hooves together in excitement, eliciting another eye roll from her changeling lover.

“So how does this work, then,” she queried as she peered over Twilight’s shoulder. “In theory?”

“Well, in theory, the potion I’m making should be able to find some sort of DNA trace in the ammotine fossil. Obviously, the shell itself is not made of fleshy organic matter, so the shell itself doesn’t contain any genetic coding. But, hopefully, some small scrap of living tissue became petrified over the millions of years the shell took to fossilise, which would be what the potion would use for a genetic template. The solution should then, hopefully, repair the DNA strands into something understandable for the genetic reading machine,” Twilight pointed to the machine on her left as she explained her experiment, “to translate into a basic binary code, which it can transfer to the cloning machine,” she indicated to the right machine, “to create a synthetic flesh replica of the original organism.” Chrysalis scratched her head as she tried to piece together the puzzle of jargon and mumbo-jumbo her workerfriend had said.

“So… it’s supposed to make a clone of the ammotine from a projected guess of what a computer thinks it was like?”

“Yes, if you like.” Twilight beamed as she finished her complicated potion.

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing.” Chrysalis slowly backed away as discreetly as she could to try and distance herself sufficiently in case something went wrong and she needed to summon Spike to send a letter to Celestia.

“Only one way to find out.” Twilight squinted with concentration as she slowly dropped her potion, meticulously, into the saline solution. Once the glass flask was emptied into the salty bath, the machines began to whirr and sputter as they sent out electrical discharges into the tank. Sparks flew around spastically as the machines attempted to make sense of the fossilized helix caught between them. Readouts and dials spun wildly as they processed what little data they could extract

Suddenly, the two machines began to flicker and fade in and out of existence, making a very strange wheezing, groaning sound, like something extra-terrestrial. Shortly after the noise came a bright flash of dazzling white light and when the two mares dared open their eyes again, they found themselves surrounded by a strange alien world.

The trees were a mile high, and the air felt thick and muggy. The soil beneath their hooves felt rough and sandy, and the stench of sulphur and marshland swamped their nostrils.

“What happened?” Chrysalis looked around at her strange surroundings. “Where are we?” The sounds of roaring send shivers up the lovers’ spines. With great trepidation, the two mares looked toward the general direction of where the noise had come from. What their eyes saw before them was too much for both their brains to comprehend, combined.

“I think the better question is… when are we?” Twilight stuttered. “I think, don’t ask me how, but I think my experiment just time warped us.” The mares looked out over the wilds of the strange lands they found themselves in. Giant reptilian creatures, all in various shapes and sizes, roamed the land. Some walked on four legs, sporting large horns on their faces of thick clubs on their tails. Some roamed on two legs, each limb ending in razor sharp talons. “We’ve been sent back in time to when the ammotines were alive,” the Alicorn swallowed thickly. “Some sixty five million years ago, or more.”