Somepony
I’ve hung out in a thousand caves in my long life, but this cave had to be the single least interesting of them all. Which was rather odd, the caves under canterlot were part of a mountain sized geode which happened to also be a nexus point of twelve laylines. I suppose if I had not lived in the caves for three and a half years I would find them interesting today. My adventurous spirit didn’t like being confined.
Though there was little choice but to live within the caves. The odds of any other safe haven existing outside these crystalline walls was extremely low. For now I was safe from the darkness outside, as were my comrades, the ponies who had managed to survive and like me, found a way to prevent the horrors of the last few years from happening.
Changing the past is extremely difficult. The slightest change can have far reaching consequences, and not all of time can be changed. The only way to change a timeline is indirectly. You can’t simply go back in time yourself and change things, the universe doesn't like that. All it lets you do in person is observe, unless you are very lucky and hit one of the rare narrow windows which occur in very select points of space and time.
Even Discord couldn’t simply alter the past, but his power was the one thing allowing us our one chance to replace this timeline with a better one. All five of us had a role to play in our little attempt. All of us had sacrificed more than any of us cared to mention to get our plan off the ground. If we succeeded, we never would have lost anything, if we failed, worse torments awaited.
I sat in the main cavern, on the south side of the prismatic, glowing, ever shifting magic circle in the cavern’s center. The calculum magicae instruxit aciem, more commonly known as the magic calculation array. Commonly being a relative term as practically nopony alive knew what the words even meant.
The array was the very heart of the world’s magic. Not its source, magic itself came from everything, the array was magic’s very soul. This ever shifting pattern of spells was what allowed the most powerful of mages to change the world, if they had the power. None of us had the power, and Discord had used the array once before, he could never do so directly again.
Individually the five of us could not access the array, but together, by virtue of our sacrifices we could serve as a conduit for Discord to influence the spell he had previously added to the array. We could use the framework for the game he had wished to play to try and save all Equis.
We had but a single attempt available. By manipulating the array to influence the world before the present day the five of us had cast a spell of our own. We could never use the array again the moment the conduit to the past we had opened reached the date a week and a half ago we had finally begun our quest.
“If Pheonix explodes, Celestia will be lost a half year sooner than our timeline. We have accelerated the chain of events!” One cried in distress.
Our names were a part of what we had sacrificed. We had only numbers now.
I nodded, “I warned you, the smallest of changes can have the greatest of consequences. In the new line, Phoenix acquired the metal she needed. She never did previously. While this threat was created by us, it is an indication we have changed things by bringing the appropriate champions to help.”
Discord smiled, “I do have my moments don’t I? But my old friend is right. We can’t allow Phoenix to explode, then there is the other problem… Since the Dogs losing the mine Genesis is now being relocated to the Crystal Empire, and the Remnants are preparing to fight off a second human invasion. They are now much more of a threat.”
Three sighed. “Three heroes and a few skilled ponies will not be enough. We need our champions to be able to divide into two teams.”
Five laughed and shook her head. “Of course more champions would be better, but our spell won’t allow Discord to travel to the past again, and his past self is being very unhelpful. How do we get more? We must find a way to guide them more efficiently than this silly game!”
“Oh that’s easy!” Two giggled. “Phee’s old captain’s ripping open other universes right now. We just use that gift to invite some more friends to help!”
“That could work.” I smiled thinly. “But I doubt we could fetch more humans, they lived too long ago. Frankly getting some to help was a mistake, we used too much mana.”
“Yepperoni!” Two exclaimed with a grin. “But they aren't the only non-magical species we know of! Anypony else remember the Crystal Mirror? Everyone in that universe kind of look like humans, or well, at least Twilight told me they do. Maybe they are just as brave and heroic and stuff. Oh! Since they aren't humans Miss Squishy won’t have a problem with them.”
Everypony thought quietly about Two’s suggestion. One nodded, “That world is parallel to our own and it’s time is relative to ours. We can afford to take two people from it without losing much energy or losing our ability to influence our champions.”
“It’s a good idea,” I agreed, “but we can not ever send them back. If we succeed we wont remember taking them from their home, and if we fail… we should prepare these ones for their quest as best we can. It would be best to shield them from the transformation heir species experiences when entering our world as well. We can spare the energy.”
“I agree.” Five admitted reluctantly. “We should have used their kind to begin with. If we fail, I am laying the blame squarely on your insistence that Humans make the best heros Three.”
“To be fair,” One said with a chuckle, “all of her books with human characters were just that much more interesting.”
“Then we are agreed on what to do… But after this we won't be able to bring anyone or anything else into the past. We also can’t directly reveal ourselves or we will collapse the conduite… I’m sorry about using our one shot back to give Taylor the rulebook, but they needed it.” Discord said as he flew into the center of the array.
“We’ve already forgiven you for that Discord.” One reminded. “It did after all allow us to start directly communicating with them. Everypony, focus your magic. Discord, perhaps you should give whomever we get as much of a briefing as you can manage without disrupting the spell.”
I closed my eyes and focused my energy. One by one my senses went dark. I stopped being myself, I became one fifth of the array itself. For a moment I was aware of things nopony could or would ever dream of. For a moment I was magic itself.
The sound of a talon snap jerked me back into my body.
“It’s done.” Discord said sounding more tired than the other times he used our jury rigged spell. “Two more champions due to arrive… soon. We can only give them messages from now on. The spell was weaker than we thought.”
“Will it destabilize?” Five asked fearfully.
“No. Not if we continue to fill the role of DMs and allow the game to play out as it will. Our plot meddling can go no further than observing the state of the world and hoping our champions ask the right questions.” Discord sighed. “I… I will need some time to rest.”
One nodded. “That’s all we need. Rest as long as you need to. Two, keep an ear out for our champions. This is their game now.”