Cordoba sat in the pub, moodily staring at the cup of coffee in front of her. “Sometimes I wish I had been named Plymouth RoadRunner, so my crime-fighting alter ego could be called Superbird.”
Twilight stared at her, opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it and shook her head. She had been trying to reconcile with Cordoba since the filly had gone cavorting about on Earth with Trixie and Daring.
Cordoba checked herself in the mirror behind the bar. “I should have used more eyeliner today. You know, I’ve always thought you could kill someone with an eyeliner pencil, but I’ve never actually tried.”
Then again, maybe reconcile was too strong a word, Twilight thought.
Guinness came over and topped up Cordoba’s cup. “How are you ladies today?”
“Just another day exploring friendship,” said Twilight with forced cheerfulness.
Guinness went off to do some busy work around the bar. A table polished, a glass cleaned, a verse of Yellow Submarine hummed.
Pinkie and Rainbow came in, giggling about something. This usually signaled the beginning of one of their prank tours. Deciding it was better to be informed, just in case, Twilight asked, “What are you two up to?”
“We had an idea for a prank so epic that it could only be done on ourselves in the past,” said Pinkie. “Nopony else would truly appreciate it.”
“So we had to figure out how to go back in time,” said Rainbow. “If I strap some of Valiant’s old rockets to me, I should be able to fly around the planet fast enough to turn it back.”
Twilight stared at them. “That’s not how it works.”
“I thought you might be that way because you’re kind of a downer like that,” said Pinkie. “So I had an idea for preserving spells. You can freeze potions like ice cubes. Or better yet, keep magic in a glass bottle because as we all know magic can be grounded by metal so an insulator like glass should be able to keep it fresh and ready to go.”
“That-” Twilight paused. “Is maybe plausible.”
“But who wants to do boring magic?” said Rainbow.
“I’m just pointing out that magic is a better solution than your physically impossible idea,” said Twilight.
“Oh, come on, Twilight,” said Pinkie. “We were just having a little fun with our little walnut brains, but I’m sure your big coconut could come up with something better.”
“I’m just saying that time magic is a very delicate and dangerous spell. You even have to be careful when you’re forming it in your mind prior to applying will and releasing it. Even Starswirl the Bearded had trouble with it.”
“So you’re probably forming the spell in your head right now?” said Pinkie.
“It helps me to think about and better describe the effects of a spell’s magic,” said Twilight. “A complicated spell is like an entire book. You have to focus on the intended outcome – time travel, in this case – how that would be implemented, the amount of magical effort required, proper formation, and-”
Pinkie goosed Twilight under the tail. Twilight squeaked and reflexively fired a spell, directly into the glass bottle Pinkie held up. She promptly corked it, the magenta glow of Twilight’s magic inside. “There, one time spell in a bottle!”
“You can’t…!” Twilight stuttered, but Pinkie and Rainbow were already out of the building.
“They totally played you,” said Cordoba.
Twilight glanced at her in annoyance. “Be that as it may, this is bad. Those two know enough to be dangerous. Very literally. And not enough to be responsible. We’ve got to stop them before they break the universe or something.”
Cordoba started to draw her cutlass.
“And we can’t hurt them.”
“There goes seventy, maybe eighty percent of my solutions.”
Twilight thought for a moment. “Okay then, let’s call this an exercise in friendship creativity. Solve the problem, with no death or carnage.”
“So, hard mode, basically.”
“It’s not hard. I do it all the time.”
Cordoba rolled her eyes. “Your hard mode is doing something without a checklist.”
Twilight started to protest, but it was true.
“When you catch up to my wife, tell her dinner’s at six,” said Guinness.
“You seem unconcerned, considering that she and Pinkie might be about to destroy the universe,” said Twilight.
Guinness frowned. “True, but that idea Pinkie had about frozen potions was so good that I’ve already made some up and accidentally dosed myself with a sedative potion.”
“Yay!” said Skyla.
They left him there and exited the pub. Cordoba glanced up and down the street. “How do you want to do this?”
“First we have to find them and then we have to convince them that what they’re doing is a really bad idea.”
“Not too hard. I mean, about the first part.” Cordoba pointed. Pinkie’s bushy tail was poking out of a bush nearby.
“Pinkie!” Twilight called.
The bush rustled.
“I know you’re in there,” said Twilight. “I need you to come out and give me that bottled spell.”
Nothing happened.
“Could you go over there and extricate her?” said Twilight to Cordoba. “And don’t hurt her.”
“I know what you’re doing. You want me to be the one who gets cake or whatever smashed in my face when she suddenly bursts out of the bush,” said Cordoba.
“That wasn’t-” Twilight prostested.
“Here’s a better idea. Use magic. It got us into this mess, why can’t it get us out?”
“I’m surprised you would suggest that. It’s not how your father did things at all.”
Cordoba shrugged. “As you once said, I’m not him. One of the ways he trolled you was by being anti-magic. I like seeing you flustered, but doing it myself just isn’t any real challenge. So if magic’s the best idea, then whatever.”
Twilight turned to the bush and pulled it away from Pinkie. “There you are. Give back that magic!”
Pinkie winked and said in a loud whisper, “I’m the decoy.”
“And I’m going fast so maybe when we uncork this magic we’ll go further!” shouted Rainbow, zooming by with the spell-in-a-bottle.
“That’s now how-” Twilight started to protest, but Rainbow grabbed Pinkie by the hoof and popped the cork on the bottle. A glowing portal opened in front of them and the two went straight through.
“They played you again,” said Cordoba.
“You were the one that pointed out Pinkie behind the bush!”
“Yeah, but I’m not the one who cares.”
Twilight carefully controlled her breathing. Cordoba irritated her, and the worst part was, she wasn’t actually trying like Valiant would have. To distract herself, Twilight walked over to the portal. Her frustration immediately changed to worry.
“What are we going to do?” Cordoba asked. “Are we going through?”
“There’s no telling what might happen if we don’t fix this,” said Twilight. “They probably haven’t gone far.”
They stepped through. The other side of the portal looked much the same as the Ponyville they had left. Twilight walked over to a newspaper machine. “It’s still today. Based on the position of the sun, we’ve only gone back an hour, if that.”
“What’s the farthest they could have gone?” said Cordoba.
“I’ve never done time magic for more than a week,” said Twilight. “Even Starswirl the Bearded didn’t do much more than that. It would take a lot of power, magic that even I don’t have.”
“What’s the theoretical limit?” Cordoba asked. “Starlight Glimmer was the most powerful unicorn in Equestria and she sent us back years.”
“I don’t know if I would say she was the most powerful.”
“She figured out spells that you couldn’t, and easily held off you and others in battle,” Cordoba pointed out. “You should be grateful to me for killing her, so you could be the most powerful unicorn in Equestria.”
“She may have figured out a few things,” said Twilight. “I haven’t investigated her spells.”
“So with her spells, and if you’re as powerful as you say, how far back could you go?”
“Why are you so interested in going back in time?” Twilight asked.
Cordoba stared at her. “You know why.”
“I think we have something more important right in front of us,” Twilight hastily pointed out. “We don’t know what Rainbow and Pinkie could be up to, so we need to solve this problem as soon as possible.”
“You know, the longer you wait on this, the harder it becomes to go back,” said Cordoba. “You’re just stalling for time so you can eventually say too much time has passed and there’s no time spell strong enough to go back and save my father. Some most powerful unicorn in Equestria you turned out to be.”
“It’s the same issue!” Twilight argued. “We can’t let the past be changed! There’s no telling what might happen!”
“My dad would fix it,” Cordoba pointed out.
“He didn’t fix his own death,” Twilight countered. “If the forces that wanted him dead and were powerful enough to do it found out things had changed, imagine the destruction they could bring trying to redo it.”
“So?”
“Don’t you understand? You would literally be ripping all of existence apart for the sake of one pony who most everypony thinks is – to borrow a human expression – worse than Hitler?”
“He did nothing wrong!” Cordoba shouted. “My dad, I mean.”
Twilight felt a little prickle along her backbone. She didn’t look, but figured she might have started to smolder. There was no changing Cordoba’s mind.
“Look, I…” Twilight sighed. “I’m not powerful enough. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“What I want is my dad back.”
Twilight didn’t really have a response to that, but just then, Pinkie and Rainbow appeared at the end of the street. “There they are!” Twilight exclaimed. “Hey you two! Stop!”
“Aw darn, it’s the fun police,” said Pinkie as Twilight and Cordoba approached.
“Whatever you’re planning, it’s not worth it,” said Twilight. “Just come back with us and we can not destroy the continuity of the universe together.”
“We were just about to put our plan into action,” Rainbow said. “We found this old mixtape Valiant made and were going to prank our past selves into thinking that he was back.”
“That doesn’t sound funny at all,” said Cordoba.
“Well, we’re smart enough not to have done it to you, so we have that going for us,” said Pinkie.
That did display remarkable intelligence, Twilight privately agreed.
“But now, we’ve kind of missed our opportunity,” said Rainbow. “By now, our past selves have probably already found the tape and come up with the plan to go back in time.”
“I want to listen to the tape,” said Cordoba.
“It is kind of yours anyway,” Pinkie agreed. She held up a portable tape player.
I’m the opposite of subliminal
Unbelievably criminal
Delightfully cynical
Taken in small doses–that’s clinical
Quickly reaching critical
Levels of radiation
Selflessly bringin’ democracy to this nation
I’ve died on two different planets, survived both times
Oft-times needed to bring a plan back on-line
Back to the tracks, as it were, makin’ it fine
Won’t overlook the chance to make a shiny dime
Yes, some of what I do is considered crime
By my–quote, unquote–superiors
I’ve got a lot of plans, many-a them with ulteriors
Constructin’ WMDs and robots
For me, they’re as easy as Roblox
Time to Lego, you know that I won’t stop
Tech and violence put me on top
Armed and dangerous, turnin’ your armies to slop
For the pigs to feast on
Like the Mafia got a cleanup groupon
I’ve got an artificially-intelligent jet
In this world, I’m the Yankees, you’re the Mets
Fillies and gentlecolts, place your bets
‘Cause you know I can nail you without sex
You’re double-dribble, I’m nothin’ but net
Dunkin’ over your head
Puttin’ rumors to bed
“So anyway,” said Pinkie, “Since we missed our chance to prank our past selves, maybe we could go to the future instead.”
“Does that make sense?” Rainbow asked.
“Does it have to?” Pinkie held up the bottle of magic, which still appeared to have some inside. “We’ll have to figure out how to get this think working again. Now maybe if I held it this way…”
Another portal opened up and they went through.
Twilight let out an extended groan of frustration. “Come on, Cordoba.”
“Hang on,” said Cordoba. “The two of us from this time have probably already gone through the first portal, right?”
Twilight considered it. “Probably.”
“Then we should stop by the pub and finish our drinks. There’s no telling what the future might be like.”
Twilight started to protest, but the pub was literally next door and Cordoba was already headed that direction. She hurried after her.
They walked in. Guinness was slumped on the bar. He blinked at them, but didn’t move.
“Okay, let’s just finish them and go,” said Twilight, picking up her beverage.
Cordoba flipped over the paper she had been drawing on earlier. It read Shut up, Twilight.
“Ordinarily, I’d be impressed by your foresight, but it becomes a little bit less striking when we’re currently dealing with time travel,” said Twilight.
Cordoba scowled and slugged her coffee. It was cold, and she scowled more.
Guinness murmured something that neither of them caught. It sounded like the tune of Yellow Submarine. Cordoba paused near him. Twilight reached the door and looked back, beckoning. Cordoba followed her out.
The portal was right there, and they went through.
The scene they found on the other side stopped both of them in their tracks. It was not immediately apparent how far into the future they had gone, but Ponyville had changed radically.
It was somehow even more technicolor than before and everyone around town dressed in mod, or perhaps beatnik. For the benefit of those who didn't live through the '60s, the style was characterized by poofy and flower print and bold primary colors and scooters. And how.
Somewhere in the background played faint strains of Yellow Submarine.
They caught up with Pinkie and Rainbow again. Pinkie seemed to be in high spirits, but Rainbow suddenly looked unsure about the future.
“There you are!” Twilight called. “Come on, this is no place for us.”
“Well, messing up the future is still a lot better than messing up the past,” Pinkie pointed out.
“How far in the future are we?” Cordoba asked.
“At least half a week,” said Pinkie. “Even Ponyville couldn’t have undergone a complete subculture revolution in one day.”
A mare wearing a couderoy jacket and small sunglasses approached. “You there! Stop being ungroovy this instant.”
Rainbow scoffed. “I’m not groovy, I’m awesome.”
“That does it.” The mare summoned a few burley stallions to back her up. “Which one of you is the HMFC around here?”
“Me!” Cordoba said.
“What does HMFC stand for?” Twilight asked.
“Head mane-fondler in charge.”
“Me!” Pinkie said.
“I think she was actually asking for the leader, in which case that would be me,” said Twilight.
“Throw her in jail,” the mare ordered.
“Um…!” Twilight quickly backpedaled as the enforcers closed in. “Girls, we need to do something!”
“They’re playing some of that music Guinness likes,” said Rainbow. “Maybe that’s how the future got this way.”
“Let’s play my dad’s tape!” Cordoba suggested.
Torn between going to jail in an alternate future or listening to Valiant rap, Twilight had to think about it. But facing arrest, she ultimately said, “Do it!”
“Play what tape?” asked the mod mare. She saw Rainbow holding it. “Confiscate that!”
Rainbow tossed it to Cordoba, who caught it mid-air. The mod mare called out a warning and ponies began to pour into the area from all over.
Cordoba glanced off in the distance, towards a radio tower that was apparently the source of the music. The sky and especially the ground were becoming crowded. She tugged her bandana, the one with teeth printed on it she’d gotten on Earth, over her mouth and took off.
The feathers she’d lost fighting Starlight Glimmer had come back, but Cordoba was still getting re-used to them. According to testing, she had above average wingpower but below average manuverability. No wonder she felt kinship with Tin Mare.
Fortunately, it was a straight shot to the tower. The big problem was the ponies who kept getting in her way. While she may not have been as good at carving corners as Rainbow, Cordoba could juke her compact frame well enough to avoid being grabbed.
Did you see what we did there? “Juke” used as a pun in a music-themed narrative?
There was a small building at the base of the tower that Cordoba headed towards. The door was locked, but she wedged her cutlass into the latch and pried it off.
The inside wasn’t well furnished, but the broadcasting equipment was obvious. Cordoba yanked the tape that had been playing on a loop, replacing it with the one she held.
She was just about to press play when a group of ponies intent on stopping her barged through the door. “Get her!”
Cordoba flicked the play button with her tail and crouched low as the song began. “Who would like to be first?”
Twilight had challenged her to do this without violence, and for the most part she was successful, ducking punches and dodging unicorn spells. The smart thing to do would be just leave, but she couldn't let them stop the tape.
The whole scene would have been a lot more dramatic if they'd been able to actually hear the song playing, but it was a radio signal broadcast station, not a concert hall.
Ultimately, Cordoba's self control slipped and she bucked an adversary across the room. That in itself wouldn't have been a serious disqualification, but the switch panel he slammed into arcing electricity through his body sure was.
The lights immediately went out. The broadcast equipment went dark. Cordoba grumbled.
While the rest of the ponies in the crowded room fumbled around, she went over and picked up the lightly charred body from where it had fallen. Hoisting it into the air to avoid conductivity through herself, she jammed it back into the switchboard.
The lights came back on and the fight continued, though after the first manslaughter, the others' hearts weren't really in it. Cordoba ran them out of the building.
She came out, faintly hearing the song playing from someone's nearby radio. Pleased with herself, she headed back for the others.
“Not exactly what we were planning to do, but a prank well done regardless.” Pinkie placed her hooves on her hips and nodded.
“This seems like it goes way beyond a prank,” said Twilight. “How were you even planning to play a prank on your future selves anyway? And more importantly, this doesn’t exactly look like the best possible future Equestria.”
“That’s a problem for future us,” said Cordoba.
Twilight hesitated, but was ultimately forced to agree. Making changes to the future wasn’t really a productive thing to do. The four of them went back through the portal to present day and it closed behind them.
“I need to relax and ruminate on the potential crisis averted,” said Twilight.
“Some of the potions Guinness made could help,” offered Cordoba.
“I think I’d like to do it a more natural way,” said Twilight. “I need to keep my wits so we can talk this out and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
When they entered the library, Spike was groaning and knocking his head on the wall.
Twilight hurried over to him. “What’s wrong?”
“This song, I can’t get it out of my head! I heard it over at the pub when I went for lunch.”
Twilight and Cordoba traded glances. Cordoba grinned and Twilight rolled her eyes. “I’ll get my earplugs.”
Cordoba’s version of the song suffered from lack of music and her accent, but it got the point across and displaced Yellow Submarine while not being spellbinding enough to overcorrect the future. Probably.
Afterwards, she joined Twilight in the kitchen. There was tea and a small plate of basic cookies. Cordoba sat down and shook her head at Twilight’s offer. She frowned at the lack of coffee, but she knew Twilight didn’t keep any around. Rather unaccommodating for the student she was trying to teach friendship, Cordoba had pointed out in the past.
“So walk me through how you solved the problem,” said Twilight. “Not that I believe playing your father’s rap was necessarily better than what it replaced, but at least it wasn’t fueling a strange cultural phenomenon.”
“Well, after I got the tape, I went to the radio station and played it,” said Cordoba. “There was some resistance.”
“What did you do?”
“I stopped them from stopping the tape.”
Twilight set down her teacup. “How?”
“Well, first I just kept them busy, but then one of them got a little too close and I kicked him. He got electrocuted, which I didn’t mean to happen. After that, the others decided not to mess with me.”
“You killed somepony else.” Twilight let out a deep sigh. “We’ve talked about this.”
“I was trying not to. I said I didn’t mean to.”
Twilight looked at her for a long moment. “I believe you. I hate that I have to say this, but you’re usually pretty up front about murders.”
“It wasn’t even premeditated.”
Twilight carefully chose her words. “Thank you for being honest. And...thank you for trying.”
They sat there in silence for a moment. Twilight sipped her tea. She thought for a moment and said, “I had a few ideas for a new friendship lesson, something I was working on before this whole time issue happened.”
Cordoba held up a piece of paper.
“That’s the same note from earlier,” Twilight said, staring unamusedly at Shut up, Twilight written on it.
“Hmm? Oh.” Cordoba turned it around. The other side said the same thing.