//------------------------------// // Chapter 3 // Story: The Clover Chronicles // by Sollace //------------------------------// The dark mass of swirling energy pulsed menacingly as Clover the Clever approached. Tiny tendrils of darkness lapped around its edges as reality threatened to snap shut upon itself. Clover hadn’t expected a large enough portal to be this easy to find, all of his previous calculations had deemed it a near impossibility, one in one-hundred-billion to be exact, and yet here it was. Clover was standing outside the ruins of an old bakery. The portal was safely tucked away in an empty corner near the back, just to the left of the building’s back exit. It stood wide enough across to fit an entire apple cart and tall enough to fit the apples inside said cart; more than enough for his purposes. He cautiously stalked around the behemoth. It appeared to be stable, but Clover’s common sense told him this wouldn’t be the case. Reality itself resists this kind of fracturing. For a hole this big to even exist, for but a second, would take vast amounts of energy; many pettawats of magical potential would have to be poured into it every second, and the best he could tell this thing had been there for weeks, maybe even longer. Clover stalked towards the portal and cautiously reached through with a hoof. His fur tingled slightly, and the inside felt mostly normal, a cool breeze blew from inside. Unfortunately, Clover didn’t have much longer to ponder on this. There was a large explosion on the far side of town and Clover had no opportunity to pull himself out before the shockwave hit. He was blinded by a bright flash of prismatic light, lost his balance, and tumbled through. As he fell he thought he heard the distinct, pained screams of a particular Draconequus being turned to stone. Clover could feel himself falling for what felt like ages, before he came down hard on a large pile in the darkness. “Ugh.” Clover groaned. He could feel several sharp objects poking him in the back, and rolled onto his side in an attempt to find some kind of relief. He sat up, careful not to hurt his back any more, and took stock of his surroundings. The interior of the portal was pitch black, save for a faint light from the opening above and the enchanted glow of Clover’s horn. The area around him appeared not unlike a junk yard. There were piles of random objects strewn all over the place. In his short observations Clover spied several piles of apples, kites, eye patches, art supplies, many, many boxes; he vaguely saw some books underneath another pile, and even the odd javelin sticking out at a dangerous angle. “Hey, what are you doing in my Hammerspace!?” A cheery, yet accusing, voice sounded from behind making Clover jump. He fumbled to get back to his hooves and spun around to find the source, the head of a pink mare sticking out from under a pile of apples, giving him an odd look. Her curly mane almost made it look like there was a mound of pink candyfloss floating there. “Your what now?” The mare raised an eyebrow in confusion, “You don’t know what a Hammerspace is?” “Well... maybe. I’ve never heard it mentioned before.” “A Hammerspace is like a personal dimension, where a pony can put anything they want and access it from anywhere. Everypony has one; you must know what it is!” Clover shook his head, “No, we never had anything like that where I’m from. ... although” Clover remembered something, and paused to try to recall, “...I do remember something similar to that— a long time ago.” He could remember a concept described in a paper published by the Equestrian Daily, back when he still worked with Starswirl. It was a new field of magic being explored by a Dr. Charles Neighwhinny. He theorised that there could be a type of pocket dimension accessable by any race using nothing but their latent magical potential. He didn’t have any evidence to support such a claim though, and the idea of a spell so basic even an Earth Pony could use it seemed ridiculous, so they all just assumed him to be a crackpot. “Heh” Clover chuckled to himself, “I guess Charles was right.” “Charles?” The pony was staring. Realising he’d zoned out for a moment, Clover waved a hoof dismissively, “Oh, nothing.” “Okiedokie!” The mare chirped and went back to looking round. “Say, could you pass me one of those eye patches over there?” She pointed with a muzzle towards where a pile of black eye patches lay, on the far side of Clover. “I have a bit of an eye patch emergency and I really need one of those.” She fluttered her eyes, pleadingly. “Sure” Clover shrugged and trotted over to the pile. He reached down and picked on up in his hoof, but as he lifted his foreleg, the eye patch phased through his grip and landed back on the pile, much to Clover’s embarrassment. The mare rolled her eyes, “Never mind. I’ll get i.” and a pink hoof popped out from under the pile, grabbing an eye patch, and then retreated back. “Bye, Clover! Nice seeing you again!” “Wait!” Clover made a move to stop the mare, but was already too late. Her head had already disappeared into the pile. Searching through the apples, Clover couldn't find any signs of her. Hm... What a strange mare. Deciding to dismiss... whatever had just happened, Clover turned back to what he was here to do. He thought back to Discord’s directions. Three lefts, a right, left again, and two rights. Then he had to figure out what the other things meant. Clover glanced around once more time at the massive pile of objects that he lay among, which he now presumed to all belong to that pony from before. He groaned again, and rubbed a hoof down his face. “This will take fore-” Wait, did she know me? Meanwhile... 3,000 YEARS LATER “Thanks, girls!” Sweetie Belle squeaked her thanks as they arrived back at the boutique. “No problem, sorry we couldn’t get our cutiemarks this time.” Apple Bloom apologised as Sweetie separated from the group to reach her front door. She turned around with a warm smile, wiping away the dribbles of tree sap that had begun to drip down into her face, “That’s ok. We’ll get them next time, I’m sure of it.” Of course there was more truth to this than what Sweetie Belle was letting on. She already knew they would have gotten them. They’d done it before in the last loop, and this time she had only sabotaged the catapult to see what would happen. However she hadn’t meant for Scootaloo to hit the tree like that, of course, but everything should be fine in the next loop, right? “Heay! Le’wl tatoyll gte tehm xent mite!” Scootaloo babbled incoherently as she wobbled on her hooves, almost knocking Apple Bloom over. She seemed her normal self at least, with that usual grin she gets when she’s hopeful about getting a cutiemark. But neither of them could bring themselves to mention the way her eyes sat at almost right angles. “Come on Scoots, let’s get ya’ to the doctor." Apple Bloom began to usher her friend away, turning to wave goodbye as she did so. "See you tomorrow, Sweetie!” Scootaloo frowned, “Tub I heat hte odcotr! M’i nefi!” but allowed herself to be lead away regardless. Sweetie Belle stayed on her front porch, waving until her friends were far out of sight, and then went inside, “Rarity! I’m home!” “Welcome back, Sweetie.” Her sister’s voice came from the kitchen and Sweetie could tell there was something delicious cooking. The smell of fresh casserole pervaded the entire boutique. “How was crusading?” She dutifully slipped the ‘open’ sign to ‘close’ and shut the door before answering her sister. “Uh...” Sweetie Belle glanced at herself, and then at the hoof prints of sap leading up from the door. “It was... Great!” She lied. I'm totally not covered in sap right now. She knew how much Rarity hated when she came back covered in tree sap. “That’s good.” Rarity seemed to buy it for now, “Dinner will be ready soon, why don’t you go wash up and we can eat?” Sweetie Belle nodded, “Okay!” and did her best to rub her hooves off on the door mat, though the stickiness only caused her to pick up more dirt. Eventually satisfied she would, at least, not be tracking sap all over the carpets; Sweetie Belle dashed upstairs as quickly as she could. She headed straight for her room to drop off her saddlebags and threw them onto her bed. Sweetie stopped to give Philomena some food, and was just about to leave to go shower when she noticed something amiss on her dressing table. Rarity’s clock was still resting against the mirror as it was when she’d left, and so were all of her books, but she didn’t remember leaving any of them open. The book on Starswirl was lying open to page 37, or at least it would have been if the page wasn’t missing “... uh, Rarity?” “Yes, dear?” “Did you come into my room?” “No. Why?” “Uh... No reason.” Turning back to the book, Sweetie Belle ran her hoof along the rough edge where the page had been torn. It was fresh.