//------------------------------//
// Intro and the Time Machine 
// Story: The Escapades of Lord Corn Wall 
// by Megatron 
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In Equestria all Ponies work for the good of all. From the Royalty and leadership to the common folk all strive for the sake of peace, happiness, and friendship. All that is except for the Nobility of Canterlot. These strange individuals are the backwards products of a time that they believed still existed when in fact it had died away long ago. Perhaps there is no better example of this than the Pony Noble known as Lord Corn Wall. 

Cornwall’s ancestor the great Corn Lord had ruled as a feudal overlord of sorts during the reign of Discord, promising sanity in a world gone mad to the desperate earthpony farmers who had all ripped away from them. After a short time Corn Lord had the loyalty of nearly every Farm and Peasant in Equestria (which gave him his name) and he used this to gain extreme amounts of wealth and power in the land. When Luna and Celestial arrived and defeated Discord using the elements of harmony, they found that this overlord had already been hard at work growing nearly endless fields of crops. They took advantage of the situation by making a deal with Corn Lord, saying that if he pledged loyalty to the new kingdom of Equestria that he and his descendants would be given a place of wealth and power in the hierarchy. Corn Lord accepted. But as generations passed things changed. Eventually the system changed and peasantry was no more. These peasants became independent farmers (several even created inventions that would earn them so much wealth that they became nobles themselves and created rival houses). 

Now in modern day Equestria there are roughly a dozen noble houses that all desire nothing more than the complete and utter ruination of all their competitors and even dominion over all of Equestria. Corn Wall of course was one of them and had made it his life work to emerge on top. This of course was complete and utter fantasy, for with every other house trying to do the exact same thing all were doomed to failure from the very start. Celestia knew this full well and it was for this very reason that she never truly intervened or disbanded the Nobles. She figured that it kept true tyrants and rebels from rising up and was also extremely fun to watch. Nobles were creative but extremely irrational and impulsive. They commonly came up insane plots to try and gain the uper hand against the opposition. These plans ranged from brilliant and daring to downright sad. But either due to the actions of the opponent or the plans themselves these plans always failed. That in no way discouraged the Nobles though. 

On this particular day Cornwall awoke to knocking on his door from his personal bodyguard Fire Star. “My lord are you there?” Fire Star inquired anxiously. “Zap Watt believes that he has finished the device!” with those words Corn Wall leapt from his warm bed and searched for his coat and top hat (two items that a noble simply couldn’t go out in public without). 
“Meet me by the elevator, we’ll meet up with Zap Watt there.” Corn Wall commanded. Fire Star immediately obeyed his master’s request and made his way to the elevator.

Corn Wall stepped outside his room into the main hall of Corn Manor, where the stained glass windows splashed color across his grey coat and white mane. His corn stalk Cutie mark, though reflective of his name, reflected none of his actual talent and the only reason he had it was because his ancestors also all had it as well. This has nothing to do with Heredity, for the only reason this same mark appeared time and time again was simply due to the fact that Nobles lived off the fame, deeds, and 
Fortune of their ancestors. Fire Star’s mark however reflected perfectly his life’s path, as it was a shield wreathed in red fire set against his black coat and orange mane. Fire Star wore only a large peaked cap upon his head (that he referred to as “the Commissar’s cap”) that he had purchased from a local Canterlot vendor immediately after becoming Corn Wall’s bodyguard due to how cool it looked. 

Upon meeting by the elevator the two called a lift to take them down to the secret underground laboratory where Corn Wall’s hired scientists, researchers, and engineers worked tirelessly on machines that could be used to somehow turn the tides in his favor (Corn Wall thought that by doing this he was being insanely clever when in fact all the other houses happened to be doing the exact same thing). Chief among them was Zap Watt a Pony who is regarded as one of the most brilliant and insane of his generation. He earned his name due to his thought pattern that electricity could do anything if applied in large enough amounts. This was reflected in his Cutie mark (if one could it that). This mark was a single blue lightning bolt that constantly pulsed and shifted with varying shades of blue light. This lead to Cornwall being so disturbed by it that he required all scientists to wear very thick lab coats at all times so that he wouldn’t have to see it. His light tan coat and white mane were covered in coal black scorch marks left by wayward electricity resulting from his experiments. These mad experiments with electricity ranged from attempts at mastering robotics to outright breaking the very laws of Physics themselves. A research team from the University of Canterlot had sought to determine how Zap
Watt’s mind got to be this way and just how it operated. So far this Endeavour has been a dismal failure and the team is on the edge of giving up. 

At last the lift reached Zap Watt’s personal lab floor and the Noble went out to inspect his newest invention, a time machine that could (supposedly) take all inside to any point in time they desired. “Is it finished?” Corn Wall inquired. 
“Yes lard my Tyme Maschine is ready!” Zap Watt responded in his strange accent. “Ve efen hafe enough elektricity built ap in the coils for a transportation!” 
“You’ve tested it already?” Fire Star asked with a tone of disbelief. 
“Vell noh but I vigured zhat ve could prevorm zhe virst jarney today!” With those words a look of pleasure crossed the Nobles face as he devised a plan that he believed would end the great struggle of the houses forever and leave him as the unquestioned ruler of all Equestria. 
“Make ready the device for three passengers we’ll test this machine personally.” Corn Wall ordered. Without any further instruction Zap Watt sprung into action, pulling levers and pushing buttons with speed rarely glimpsed at in the mortal realm. 
“You can’t be serious my lord?” Fire Star concerningly inquired. 
“Come my friend, time itself bows to us!” Corn Wall said while moving towards the time machine. 

The time machine was a large, globe shaped chamber located at the far side of the lab with signs that read “Zap Watt’s time machine DON’T TOUCH OR ELSE!” like everything Zap Watt created, the device was covered in Tesla coils so that it could radiate electricity in all directions. Zap Watt believed that this ensured that it would work. And while this was in keeping with his firm belief that electricity could do anything, in truth it didn’t make the slightest difference (the University team was also unable to determine how Zap Watt’s inventions worked with such inefficient designs). 

By the time Fire Star reached the machine he could see that Zap Watt and Corn Wall were already inside and motioning for him to join them. After a few seconds of thought he reluctantly joined them and the steel door shut behind him.
“What must I do to get this machine working?” Corn Wall asked.
Zap Watt responded “you mast type zhe year und zhe date into zhe machine using zhis keyboard zhat I invented lazt tuezday.” 
“What’s a keyboard?” 
“Zhat black box zhing bellow zhe vindow.” Corn Wall went to the keyboard and typed in the year before the royal sisters had come to Equestria, then he motioned for Zap Watt to turn the time machine on. Zap Watt did this with the flick of a single switch. Then the three of them were thrown into the ball of time.

Time travel in practice was not nearly as pleasant an affair as it was on paper. One did not simply teleported to their destination, but instead had to randomly travel through all of time until they reached their destination. This was so rapid and chaotic that the time travelers themselves saw nothing but a colorful blur that seemed to last for a few seconds before they finally reached solid ground. They found themselves in the middle of a town square packed with ponies moving in all different directions. A near by newspaper confirmed that the date had not changed.

Zap Watt compared the time on his pocket watch to that of the clock tower in the center of town and stated “interesting ve appear to have travelled ten zeckonds into zhe futar”. “Either zhat or my vatch is off”. 
“Where the hay are we?” Cornwall questioned. 
“This looks like Ponyville, a small village outside Canterlot, I was here as a Colt once.” Fire Star said. “The train station is this way follow me!” they all followed, still disoriented from (possibly) having traveled through time. Once they reached the station they saw that every train to Canterlot was either gone or down for maintenance. They would be trapped here for the night. 

Lord Corn Wall did what he always did at a moment like this, searched for the nearest Pub. Nobles tended to drink nothing but alcoholic (though extremely watered down) drinks with any meal and at any time of the day. These drinks are considered to be some of the worst tasting beverages in all of reality (in unreal space they are second only to the infamous “Discordian mind destroying tree sap ale.) Ponyville however was unlike any other town Cornwall had ever known due to the fact that it lacked any bars, pubs, or distilleries in the first place. Lord Corn Wall was utterly cutoff from his lifeblood and would have to resort to the most desperate of acts, consuming the drinks of commoners without any alcohol to make them bearable. This on top of the complete failure of his greatest plan quickly caused him to consider this his darkest hour. 

The only Inn in town was a large but humble building that had little hospitality other than a warming fire and a roof that protected you from rain. Reflecting alone in his room, with only a cup of putrid tea to comfort him, Lord Corn Wall came to the conclusion that time travel was a bad idea and couldn’t work for him. He instead must find a more conventional means to victory. Perhaps he could raise unrest among Steel Heart’s foundry workers, crippling her industry and forcing her to put aside any plots against his farms. Maybe planting a rumor of Gold Hoof forming an alliance with Water Eye could divert attention away from his expansion into new, fertile lands. Corn Wall pondered on ideas like these for hours until night had fallen and he could keep his eyes open no longer. He slept easy knowing that tomorrow a train would arrive to take him home. For once he was there he would have a new plan for victory in the eternal struggle of the houses. He would have 100% confidence in this plan just as he had every other before it. He thought as he always did, this time things would be different.