The expanding bubble shield tossed a stack of papers that the other Rainbow Dash had been reading off of the map table and into her face, causing her to reel back and strike the back of her head on her high-backed chair. “Ack!” she shouted, grabbing at the papers and shuffling them back together.
The first difference Rainbow noticed between her and her alternate self was that Other Dash wore a pair of glasses, sitting low on her muzzle. The second thing she noticed was that the other wore her famed mane thoroughly combed and pulled back in a bun. The third thing was that the other was looking at her with a look of profound irritation.
“Do you realise how long it’s going to take me to get these papers organised again?” snapped the Other Dash.
Rainbow (the original one) blinked a couple times, nonplussed. I sound like a grumpy librarian. “Um… no?”
Other Dash scoffed. “Figures. You look like some sort of a delinquent. When was the last time you washed that mane?”
“Umm… hello?” Original Rainbow gestured towards where the time spell always appeared. “I just dropped out of a time vortex to get here, and you’re focussing on my mane? Are time travelling clones a normal thing in this timeline?”
“Yes, yes, the time vortex is unusual and all, but you appear to be me without any regard for personal appearance, and that’s the more surprising thing.”
Original Rainbow’s eyes twitched. “Oh, Celestia, I’m an egghead.”
Other Dash’s brow furrowed. “Egghead? Egg- You’re thirty-four years old for Tartarus’ sake, what adult pony uses the word ‘egghead’?”
“I-”
Rainbow was cut off by the sound of the door opening. “Rainbow, are you all right? I heard shouting…”
Twilight Sparkle entered the room, immediately doing a double take between the Original and the Other. “What’s going on here? Is there a temporal rip?”
Other Dash pointed to the Original. “What’s going on is that there’s a timeline where I have no respect for personal appearance.”
“Wh- that’s not- what’s up with YOUR mane?” Original Rainbow pointed back at the Other.
“My mane is kept perfectly neat and orderly at all times, an ideal you appear to be the total antithesis of.”
“And the words! What are you, a thesaurus?”
“Wow, I’m impressed you knew that one,” commented the Other Dash sarcastically.
“RAINBOW!” shouted Twilight, demonstrating an impressive mastery of the Royal Canterlot Voice. “…er, Rainbows. Let’s just calm down and talk this over like rational, calm adults.”
The Other Dash sat back on her throne, her forehooves crossed and her lips curled into a pout.
“Alright. Now, uh…” Twilight pointed to the original Rainbow. “You’re Rainbow A, and you -” she pointed to the Other Dash- “are Rainbow One. Yeah, that works.” She trotted around the table and sat at the throne labelled with her own cutie mark. “So, Rainbow A. Tell us everything about how you got here. Or, got… now, as the case may be.”
Rainbow explained, in as much detail as she could, the exact series of events that had led up to the current moment. She started from the temporal rip, outlined the affected events, and detailed her actions in Starlight’s Town.
There was a moment of silence, followed by Twilight commenting, “You know, I remember when I was a filly I always thought the world would be a better place if Aetherwort never existed. I guess I’m eating my words now… it’s really strange to consider that I set all this,” she gestured to the map, “up to keep the timeline from being changed when it had been wrong from the beginning.”
“It’s even stranger to consider that you were able to save our lives,” added Other Dash irritably.
“Okay, stop right there.” Original Rainbow gestured to Other Dash. “Can we just talk about this for a second? How did I become this?”
Twilight answered. “Well, I have a theory. You said that in your time all three pony tribes in Equestria were united as one from the beginning?” Rainbow nodded. “What sort of Pegasus population did your Ponyville have?”
Rainbow thought about this for a second. “I don’t know, like a quarter? Couple thousand, give or take? I didn’t know them all, you’d have to ask Pinkie.” She paused. “I mean, my Pinkie.”
“Right, so I assume you worked with a fairly sizable weather patrol.” Rainbow nodded. “In our Ponyville, Rainbow here is one of exactly two Pegasi, and if your Fluttershy is anything like ours you’ll know she’s completely unsuited to weather duty. The end result of this is that Rainbow is responsible for all the weather for all of Ponyville, year-round.”
Original Rainbow shuddered, while Other Dash interjected, “That’s right, and you just completely messed up my schedules.” She held up the stack of papers that the shield had scattered. “I have to go through these by hoof now and put them back in order before I submit them to the weather dispensary in Cloudsdale or I might end up with two weeks’ worth of snow clouds in August.”
“Yeah, I have that problem sometimes,” commented Original Rainbow. “I just pass it on to Blossomforth or Thunderlane.”
Other Dash calmly moved her glasses up onto the top of her head and then, with both forehooves, facehooved vigorously. Dragging her hooves down her face, she commented to Twilight, “Do we have to turn me back into her? Can’t we just, I don’t know, do it ourselves?”
“Even if we did ‘do it ourselves’, it would still restore her timeline. Besides that, what kind of hypocrites would we be if we made all these precautions against the timeline being changed, and refused to let it be repaired now that we’ve realised that it’s already wrong?”
Other Dash sighed, replacing her glasses. “You’re right, I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Anyway,” continued Twilight, addressing Original Rainbow, “The first thing you should do is figure out what those auto-spell stones you retrieved do. The scanning spell can do that, but as long as you’re here you may as well just show them to me. I’ll be able to identify them on sight, probably, and once we know what they do we might be able to advise you how to use them in the other two time zones, if necessary.”
“Good idea.” Rainbow showed the spellstone brace to Twilight. “I don’t know if you use the same set of stones as my timeline’s Twilight, but the Map and Scanner stones are the ones I already had.”
Twilight looked at the stones for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Well, that one, the one with the slot on it, labelled ‘Au,’ is for retrieving audio data from a recording crystal. The construct would have had another one for visual data, but it was probably one of the destroyed stones. You should check the data stored on the crystal you found with the audio stone as soon as possible – it might provide a clue as to who built the constructs.”
Rainbow nodded, retrieving the crystal from her saddlebag.
“The second auto-spell stone looks like Skeleton Key. It’s a relatively complex charm if you don’t have a spellstone, to the point that even I have trouble with it, but when cast properly it can unlock or re-seal almost any door. I invented a ward a few years ago that can prevent its use, but it should work on any barrier in the past time-zones.”
Rainbow looked at the stone. “Well, that would have been useful a while ago.”
Other Dash nodded. “On the upside, though, now you know some of what’s going on in the other time zones.”
“That’s right,” added Twilight. “This last spellstone, though… I’ve never seen it before. I don’t know what it does.”
In response, Rainbow activated the scanner spellstone, ignoring the warnings about nearby lifeforms, and focussed on the unidentified spellstone (labelled ‘Ch’). And, simple as that, she knew what it did. “It changes odd matter. The construct must have used it for activating its disguise.”
“An odd matter spellstone?” said Twilight pensively. “That explains why I’ve never heard of it before. Odd matter was invented by Starlight only a couple years ago. She mentioned once that she was working on a spellstone to make its use more accessible, but I never heard if she was successful. But how did it get on that construct, then?”
“Maybe the recording crystal will tell you,” commented Other Dash.
“Right,” answered Rainbow. Activating the audio retrieval spellstone, she inserted the recording crystal, and a loud, distorted voice could be heard.
“Anteros!” it said, presumably naming the equine construct. The distortion in the voice prevented Rainbow from telling whether it was male or female, much less identifying it. “Your mission pertains to Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. She has done many things for Equestria in her time, but as long as she lives, Ponykind will welcome the aliens with open arms. I have learned many things throughout my life, among them how wonderful a force friendship can be, but I have also learned that it has its place, and this is not it. Twilight refuses to realize this, and will doom us all because of it. I wish it hadn't come to this, but to save us all, she must be sacrificed. However, she is a very powerful and skilled spellcaster, rivalling even myself. I know of exactly two instances in history where she was powerless. The first, during the return of Tirek, is far too dangerous. You may be destroyed, or worse, doom the timeline to exist in an eternity ruled by that monster. No, you need to go back to the second time zone, the Town. Twelve years ago. Suffice it to say, there will be large crowds of ponies, so you must make use of the disguising abilities I have given you. Make Twilight’s death look like an accident - and make it painless - if you can, but if not…" The voice sighed. "Your mission is more important. Good luck.”
There was a momentary pause, broken by Other Dash. “Well, that was wonderfully informative.”
“It was, actually,” said Twilight. “We now have confirmation that the aggressor’s intent is to prevent First Contact. Which they’ve so far been successful in doing – nothing particularly out of the ordinary was supposed to happen today. Besides that, they indicated that they were spellcasters powerful enough to rival me, which – not to toot my own horn or anything – isn’t a very large category. Off the top of my head I only know of three – Empress Cadance, Grand Magus Sunlight, and Starlight Glimmer.” Here she frowned. “I’m fairly certain Cadance wouldn’t do this, so that leaves us with two. I’ll contact some of my friends back in Canterlot and see if they know any more, but…” She trailed off, lost in thought.
“Right. Any suggestions regarding the other time zones?”
Twilight jolted, stirred out of her reverie. “Oh, right. Well, with regards to the Castle of the Two Sisters, I wrote a paper on that event for my Advanced Thaumatics course at the Canterlot Academy. The magical spectra from the blast – as recorded in the Canterlot Observatory – match those of Starswirl the Bearded, who had been dead for several centuries at that point, but he was the one who enchanted the castle’s Siege Repulsion Crystal. It’s a primitive form of spellstone, enchanted to encompass the entire castle in a magical shield in the event of a siege. It’s actually quite ingenious for the time, drawing on stored power in the crystal rather than the life force of the user-”
“Twilight, tangent,” commented Other Dash.
“Hmm? Oh, right. Sorry. The point I’m trying to make is that if the Siege Crystal were ruptured, it would produce a blast on a similar scale to that explosion, and the spectra seem to confirm that this is what occurred.”
“If that’s what happened, why did the historical record say that the explosion was super-advanced for that time?”
“Because it was. Nopony had ruptured a power crystal before, much less one of that magnitude – you need some really advanced spellwork that didn’t exist in that time. I’ll bet the construct there had an auto-spell stone designed to do the job. The crystal would have been stored in the armory, which will be locked, but you have a skeleton key auto-spell stone.”
“So I should, what, go in there and take the crystal?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, don’t do that. In this timeline the crystal ceased to exist after it was destroyed, but in yours it may have gone on to have a historically important role. Instead, try to figure out how the construct destroyed it, then prevent that from happening.”
“What about the sleeping spell?”
“For that one, I’ve got nothing. There are counter-spells, of course, but you’d need an auto-spell stone, and from what you’ve said there’s no way for us to get that to you. I doubt the constructs would have auto-spell stones to counter magic that wouldn’t affect them in the first place, so that’s out too.”
Rainbow suddenly remembered a piece of conversation she’d overheard during her adventures. “I think I might have a thought. Twilight, what’s a ‘witchwood totem’?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “You have access to a witchwood totem?”
“Um… yeah, I think so. Why, what are they?”
“Only the main reason for the rivalry between Unicorns and Earth Ponies. Back in the Northern Lands, Earth Ponies discovered how to cultivate and carve a now-extinct species of wood called the Witchwood Tree. For reasons that are unknown to this day, a properly carved piece of witchwood, without any enchantment whatsoever, has the power to completely nullify any and all magic cast on its bearer. If you had one of those, yeah, it would definitely keep you safe from the sleeping spell. Also, keep hold of it after you’re done. I’m pretty sure my alternate self would also give her right forehoof to study a witchwood totem in detail.”
“Alright. I’m going to go get that, then.”
Rainbow descended into the forest a second time. This time, she immediately flapped her wings and rose above the canopy before the two ponies made their way into the clearing.
Remembering the conversation she had overheard, she surveyed the landscape. To the north stood a huge mountain with a large, visible cave opening at the top of a spiralling path. That must be where they stopped the Windigoes. Turning about, she saw the tree that Smart Cookie had referenced, a giant gnarled oak that towered above the surrounding leaf cover. Spreading her wings, she flew toward it.
Partway there, she heard a rustling in the forest below. Settling into the canopy, she looked down through a gap in the leaves. It was the draconic construct, holding a large leather bag. The rustling noise was made by it digging energetically in the soil. Looking from side to side, it dropped the bag into the hole it had made, then buried it, covering the disturbed soil with leaf litter. What is going on? wondered Rainbow.
When it was satisfied that the hole was hidden, the construct leaped off into the brush, moving north – just off from the direction of the mountain.
Certain that the event was important, Rainbow rose back above the canopy and fixed the location – and incident – in her memory. Then she once again flew off toward the oak.
She arrived there momentarily. A quick use of the scanner stone confirmed that there were no ponies around the base, but failed to locate Smart Cookie’s witchwood cache, presumably due to its anti-magic properties. She descended to the forest floor and began searching among the oak’s roots.
She found nothing, save for an occupied burrow, whose inhabitant chittered at her angrily until she backed off. Where could they be?
Her musing was interrupted by an alert from the scanner spell. “Alert. Three sapient life forms approaching from the northeast.” Rainbow ducked behind the trunk of the oak tree just as a rustling sound announced the ponies’ arrival on the far side of the tree.
“Get back here, knave! Thou hast stolen from us!” came the shout of an extremely angry-sounding mare, followed by a magical blast. “Our magic has confirmed that there are none but Pegasi near here.”
Rainbow peered around the tree. A thin, teal Pegasus stallion in full armor (Private Pansy, thought Rainbow) was being pursued by a pair of unicorn mares. The lead unicorn, a slate-grey example with a sleek white mane, was dressed in a bright purple robe and wore an elaborate crown on her head. The foot-tall, silvery, gem-encrusted crown was so elaborate, in fact, that Rainbow at first wondered how it was staying put, especially given the fact that the mare was seemingly shaking with rage, but after a few moments, Rainbow noticed the tell-tale glitter of an active magic field surrounding the base of the crown. Princess Platinum.
The second unicorn, this one with a coat of brilliant azure blue, was dressed in an elaborate indigo cloak that billowed around her in a nonexistent breeze. The surface of the fabric was covered in glowing points of light in a manner that reminded Rainbow of Princess Luna’s mane. And that must be Clover the Clever.
A pale orange magical aura surrounded Private Pansy and swung him to the ground, where he landed with a crash. Rainbow cringed; that looked like it hurt. Clover stuck out a hoof, holding the princess back.
“My queen, you must restrain thy anger. My scanning spells have indicated that he did not so much as pass our food supplies,” said Clover.
“My scanning spells have indicated that Hurricane and Cookie have gone to the northwest, and Puddinghead is still upon the mountainside walling away the remains of those frosted fiends. Unless you mean to suggest that our supplies were carried away by evil spirits, then the culprit stands before you.”
“Your majesty, I do not think-”
“That’s quite correct, Clover. Your actions of late have been curiously devoid of thought. I knew your allegiance with these pegasi was misguided, and this latest series of events only reinforces my point.”
I think I know what happened to the unicorns’ food supplies, thought Rainbow, remembering the construct’s leather bag, buried off in the woods. Maybe I- Her thought process was interrupted by a magical blast, excavating a crater in the tree’s roots and sending Pansy scurrying backwards. As he went, his hoof disturbed a patch of moss, revealing the drawstring of a leather satchel.
The witchwood! thought Rainbow. But I can’t get it while they’re watching. I have to distract them somehow, but how?
She glanced at her hoof, and the spellstones contained thereon. I wonder… She activated the scanner spellstone, and felt the familiar pulse of information pass through her mind. Nothing of which she was not already aware, of course, but Platinum paused.
“Clover, did you just scan the area?”
“No, your majesty. I thought you had.”
“Then, who – Stop!” Pansy had taken advantage of their momentary distraction to take to the sky. Platinum blundered through the forest in pursuit, followed herself by Clover, shouting for her to wait.
That worked better than I could ever have anticipated. Rainbow jumped out from behind the tree, snatching the satchel from the ground. Opening it, she revealed a pile of gnarled, grayish dried-up wooden lumps. She couldn’t make heads or tails of their shape, but she assumed that they were her witchwood quarry. Snatching one, she cast aside the rest and activated the map control stone.