//------------------------------// // Matter of Time // Story: Dan Vs. The Magic of Friendship(Season 1) // by Barrobroadcaster //------------------------------// Fighting the urge to climb the golden robot and strangle the prince, Dan turned around to Twilight. "Okay, first, this guy is who? Second, you want me to go for the usual vulnerable spots or should I grab a bat and get creative?" "He's Prince Blueblood," Shining said, unable to keep from scowling at the other prince fanning himself atop a throne. "Princess Celestia's nephew, his royal district is a ski resort and country club near Canterlot. He's a prince but he's lived a pretty sheltered life usually surrounded by rich ponies around the castle, used to servants waiting on him hoof and knee at all times." "Hoof and knee, huh?" Dan rubbed his chin, looking back at Blueblood. A fan was levitating close to him, blowing on him and making his golden mane flutter behind him. The stallion turned his head, eyes closed in sheer contentment as the fan simultaneously cooled and misted him. His own horn wasn't glowing though; the Magic Gear's own magic was levitating the fan for him. "Ahhh, air conditioning truly is a necessity for travel in the countryside," the prince remarked. Dan turned back around. "Yeah, I can tell. And he wants to marry you because?" "I don't know!" Twilight cried out in frustration. "I don't know what's happened to Princess Celestia or Princess Luna or how he got to be in charge but this isn't the time to talk about marriage!" "So," Dan nodded, "to be clear, you don't want to marry him, right? And we all agree he should take a hike with his golden doomsday machine?" "YES!!!" the group yelled unanimously. Dan smiled. "I Just wanted to make sure we were all on the same page," he turned back to the prince and yelled, "Blueblood! Looks like your princess is in another dimension, pal. Sounds like your jurisdiction is a ski lodge anyway so why don't you go hit the slopes before I turn the slope in your head into a crater?" "D-Dan!" Cadence gasped. Shining Armor ran up to his side. "Uhhh, Captain, I know you're enthusiastic but…" "He's still a prince, Dan," Twilight chimed in. "We can't really threaten him just for doing… weirdo princey stuff." "Even if he's Blueblood," Spike muttered. The purple dragon had been scowling at the prince since he arrived. Despite his best efforts, he had trouble not having a grudge against Rarity's previous interest of the opposite sex. Now that Blueblood was going after Twilight's hoof in marriage, that was pretty much strike two in Spike's Dragon Code of Honor book. "Prince of my tail, more like it." "Ah hahaha," Blueblood laughed softly. "Quite a feisty attitude you have, guardsman. You would do well not to speak out of turn, my dear captain. Remember that you are among your betters, the rulers of all Bluebloodestria." Chrys turned to Twilight. "Oh, come on, Twilight! He's asking for it!" The prince's eyes fluttered again at Twilight. Something approaching bile began to settle in her stomach. "Okay, new plan," Twilight turned to Dan. "He's a danger to the town in that thing, that's my view on this one. Dan, you have my permission to… prevent him from hurting himself and others." Dan smiled ear to ear, mouth suddenly full of sharp teeth. "I have permission to engage?" he asked giddily. "Just disarm him." "With extreme prejudice?" Twilight looked back at the prince. Blueblood was now being fanned in slow motion. He looked at the camera and winked. "With extreme prejudice." "EEEEEE!!" Dan squeed, a different kind of squee than normally heard in Equestria like that of a bottle rocket going off. "Okay, who's going to help me kick his pompous butt from our kingdom to kingdom come?!!" "ME! MEMEMEME!!" The Blast Sisters were the first to volunteer. "We call the gizzard!" "I got dibs on his spine!" Spike announced, going full Rambo. "All right!" Dan said, turning back to Blueblood. "We charge him on three! One… two-" "HOLD IT!!" a voice echoed behind them. "What?" Phoenix asked. "Why are you all looking at me?!!" (By now, they all should know that all my outbursts are in bold!) "Not you, Nick," Chrys said, turning him around. "Behind you." "Oh… you meant her." Somehow, the somewhat haggard-looking form of Mayor Mare had appeared between the two groups, apparently jumping between them from the space between buildings before the scuffle could begin. Her mane was a mess and her glasses hung crookedly off her muzzle. She took a moment to adjust the glasses and cleared her throat. "All of you, we do NOT have time for this. Blueblood," she looked up at the prince, "I told you before that you're not allowed to crowd the street with that thing." The prince shrugged bashfully. "But mayor, there's no traffic at this time of-" "Can it, Bloomers," Mayor Mare cut him off. The prince blushed. "M-m-m-mayor!" "Bloomers?" Chrys asked. "I thought Blueblood was his only name." Phoenix noticed Dan was busy jotting that down on a notepad. "Are there any other embarrassing names he goes by or is it just that one?" "Prince Bloomers Blooping Blueblood," the mayor continued, "just because you happen to be in charge now that your aunts are missing does not mean you can totally disregard safety." "But-" "No buts. Take your toy outside the city if you want to play with it." "Awwwwww," the prince whined. "Fine. Toodaloo, all~!" he waved, engaged the thrusters on the Magic Gear and took off, blowing most of their manes back and covering them in dirt from the road. Mayor Mare adjusted her glasses and brushed off her mane. "As for you all, I need you in my office. Now." "Okay but can I please check on my chariot to see if-" "Now." Dan balled his fists and shouted over his shoulder. "Next time, Bloomers! NEXT TIME!!" Whatever complaints Dan had about leaving without beating up Blueblood was quickly swallowed up by questions when they arrived at the Ponyville Town Hall. The mayor's office was busy, which was a change of pace because it was usually never busy. Ever. Assistants and secretaries helped deal with groups of the ponies at a time while the mayor led Dan and the others upstairs to her office. Firedancer looked around as he shouldered past the other ponies. "Hmm." "What is it?" Phoenix asked. "I don't see anypony from Cloudsdale." Phoenix took a moment to observe the crowd himself. There were a few pegasi but the vast majority of the petitioners were earth ponies. There weren't even that many unicorns. But the earth ponies were all arguing, talking in concerned voices. Entire families were crowding the space and there wasn't even room to sit on the wooden floor. As the group waded through the ponies, Trixie was being carried by the crowd on her back, slowly moving her around the room like a rubber duck in a bathtub. "PLEASE PUT THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE DOWN! THE GREAT AND POWERFUL TRIXIE WAS ONLY ATTEMPTING TO PASS OUT ADVANCE TICKETS TO HER SHOW! SHE DOES NOT WORK HERE! AAAAHHHH!!!!" Fluffle Puff closed the door to the mayor's office behind her. She then noticed a random pony stuck to her side and had to open the door again to toss them out. "Hi! My name's Double Diamond and I- waaaah!!" "As you can see, I have my hooves full, here." The mayor took her seat behind her desk and pulled it close. Dan and the others gathered around her. "We've never experienced a crisis like this before. Frankly, I'm having trouble just keeping the town together." "What's going on, mayor?" Twilight asked. "Whatever it is, we'll do whatever we can to help." "Seems like you're having a bit of a civil unrest problem, mayor," Dan said, chastising. "You might not have had much of a crisis of you followed my safety protocols." The mayor paused for a moment and removed her glasses. "I'm not able to enact protocols outside of my jurisdiction, captain. I'm sorry." The surprising part was that her voice sounded genuine. "I'm afraid this is something that… none of us saw coming." "What happened, mayor?" Twilight asked. "Cloudsdale is gone." The room was silent as the words hung in the air. It was a lot to process and in fact, many of them were still in doubt. "Gone?" Dan asked. "It can't be gone. It was just up there a few hours ago," he walked over to the windows and rolled up the blinds. "If it was gone, we would've noticed it when we- HOLY CRAP IT'S GONE!" The sky above Ponyville was completely clear. Which, was something else that never happened, not truly. Cloudsdale, one of Ponyville's sister cities and guardian in many ways was always floating somewhere above, hovering around and at times casting its shadow over the land. While the city did move over the course of the day, adjusting both altitude and course based on the weather, it was all scheduled and timed according to the needs of all ponies both above and below. Since Equestria's founding, it had always been above, watching, regulating and protecting. And now it was gone. Twilight and the others got up to see for themselves. "I don't believe it," Lightning said. "My… my home." Something inside the artificial alicorn burned, something that went beyond anger. It was a desperation of some kind, a physical instinct to act based on this new information. "Where did it go?" Twilight asked. "Somepony has to know what happened to it. Where's Rainbow Dash? Fluttershy?" The mayor moved over to join them. "Your friends went looking for the princesses after we lost contact with them. Well, except for Pinkie. She and Cranky went to check on something in Donquestria to the south. We haven't heard from any of them either." "It couldn't have just disappeared. Even though, you know, it's made out of clouds," Dan said. "Where are all the other pegasi?" "The only ones that are here are the ones that live in Ponyville," Firedancer said. The mayor sat behind her desk again. "All of the pegasi involved with maintaining the weather have disappeared as well. Every one of them from Airborne and Airlift to Zephyr and the Zoom Zoom bros. But there is one pegasus that stayed behind with us." As if on cue, the door opened. "Uh, excuse me? Mayor? Package for you," Derpy said, flying in above the heads of the crowd. Again, Fluffle had to shut the door behind her. "Derpy!!" the group exclaimed and ran to hug her. "Hey guys!" she said, giggling into a massive group hug. "H-h-hey, watch the mail! I don't wanna lose any letters!" "Hey, mail mare," Dan said, mussing her mane. "Happy you're still here, ya muffin maniac. Wouldn't want our mailbox to miss out on any baked goods." "Hahaha, hi Dan. I'll have to remember to bake you guys some special muffins now that you're back in town," Derpy said. "But yeah, all the other pegasi left in a big hurry. I guess they didn't have time to invite me while I was out delivering the mail." "Pretty sure you wouldn't want to go where they're going, Derpy," Phoenix remarked. "It's not an invite any of us want to receive." "They seemed like they were really busy," Derpy said. "None of them would even talk to me when I asked them where they were going… or maybe they didn't hear me in the costume thingies they were wearing." "Costume thingies?" the group asked. She pulled a small disk out of her mailbag. "But this earth pony with flying shoes gave me this to give to you guys. He said it was a message." "Flying shoes, huh?" Dan repeated, accepting the disk from Derpy. "I think we all know who that is." The holoprojector sprang to life. The familiar image of Vice Grip shimmered in holographic blue in front of them. The stallion scientist stood, metallic gauntlets clasped behind his back as he normally did. But unlike his previous encounters, he was not smiling. "Not enjoying your homecoming, I take it? I can assure you it was better than mine. Then again, you got back a lot faster than I did so maybe it was the jet lag." "I'll enjoy it the next time when I'm dragging you behind me in chains," Dan said. The image of Vice Grip did not smile. It did not smirk, it didn't quiver or shake in any way in regards to what Dan had said. Vice just glared back at him. "The chains you're shackled to, maybe?" "Keep telling yourself that, pal. I told you a long time ago that nopony's taking what you're shoveling out." "Then maybe you should take some of your own advice- prepare for the future," Vice said, his voice cold and dire. "I'm done asking you if you want to take part in our plans. If you don't want to be a part of the world we're creating, fine but you're not stalling our destiny any longer. You see, I've realized, I didn't need to do anything to change Equestria. It wasn't a matter of getting your approval. It wasn't a matter of getting your help. Your petty arcanist rule of this world was always coming to an end. It was just a matter of time." Explosions echoed in the distance. The building shook, the walls vibrated like there was an earthquake with each blast. Dan and the others ran to the window, looked outside to see a ring of some kind rising up out of the ground. Not a ring; it was the railroad, the rails rising up just above roof level. They hung in midair, electricity crackling between them in some places. "What the heck are you doing?!" Dan demanded. Finally, Vice smiled. "I'm giving Equestria what it needs, Dan. And speaking of needs, I believe you have a couple of things that belong to me," he said, turning to Lightning Claw and Firedancer. "I'm not going back," Lightning said. "You're a cheat, you're a liar, you're-" "A busy stallion and I'm afraid I don't have time for this. Priority override: Code Clear Skies." "I…" Lightning stopped mid sentence. His eyes went wide, mouth hanging open, ear twitching. "Override acknowledged." Behind him, Firedancer echoed. "Override acknowledged…" "Lightning?" Dan waved his hand in front of the pony's face. "Sparky? You there?" "Set priority: return to base." "Understood…" the pair said. Lightning Claw exploded in a flash of electricity, Firedancer erupted into flames. In a single blinding second, the two were gone.