"Come with me, Twilight Sparkle," Princess Twilight Sparkle said. "You will find this interesting."
Twilight Sparkle looked at her friends for a moment, wondering if this could be a trap.
"You wanted to know about your future," the princess said. "Now you can."
Twilight gulped and followed at a trot.
The princess led her through long halls and down winding stairs, going ever lower until they reached the dungeon. Princess Twilight turned towards the obsidian statue of an alicorn built into one wall and blasted it with deep violet magic, causing a section of the wall to slide away and reveal a long hall. At the end of that was a hole in the wall.
"Be prepared to shield if need be," said Princess Twilight Sparkle, "but normally I can control him." She inserted her horn into the wall.
The cracks between the bricks glowed with dark purple energy, and then slid aside to reveal a small room. Sunlight streamed down from a hole in the ceiling, but Twilight couldn't see anything but the silouette of a sleeping pony, even though the room was as bright as day.
"Sunlight makes him sleepy when he has no life forces to attack," Princess Twilight Sparkle said. "I used to just have a hole to the outside world, but whenever the night fell and he could see the moon through the hole, he made such dreadful noises that nopony could sleep, and Canterlot thought they were being attacked by timberwolves- I suppose you could cause his unearthly cries howl-like. Understandable, considering... I mean, about the moon being... oh, never mind. I shouldn't be talking; our enemies will have had a head start by now."
The edges of the hole gleamed with dark purple magic, and it dilated and disappeared. For a moment, the room was still dark.
Then, where the pony had been, purple flames appeared. The monster unfolded itself and unfurled its wings. It was shaped like an alicorn, with a horn like a wicked spike. It was formed of purple flames that rolled across him in waves, often parting slightly to reveal the black shape underneath.
Twilight Sparkle gasped. What was this creature? She'd never read anything like this.
"What is it?" she whispered.
"A Shadowfire," Princess Twilight replied. "It has the mind of an animal, but it can be directed against certain targets." She lowered her head and walked towards it, her horn gleaming dark purple.
Twilight Sparkle wondered why, in the future, her magic suddenly changed color. Had future Twilight's aura always been that color? She couldn't remember. Perhaps the spell was just of an unusual magic, like the magic used by King Sombra, that always appeared the same color no matter who the unicorn using it was. It wouldn't suprise her if controlling these shadowy creatures required special shadowy magic.
"Lord Shadowfire, Hunter mine," Twilight Sparkle said. It was not the royal Canterlot voice, but it did echo oddly. "You remember the instructions I gave you before. Once more you will be called on to execute them. Go now, and may the power of the sun be with you."
The Shadowfire blazed even more brightly, until he was no longer alicorn shaped, but shaped like a towering inferno. Dark purple magic surrounded him, and he slid through the ceiling.
"He will find them," Princess Twilight Sparkle said, mostly to herself. "He has never failed me."
It wasn't until they had left Canterlot and began hiking through the forests that their purple auras disappeared.
"Hey, what gives?" said the bluish-green unicorn. "We're not out of the woods yet."
"We just reached the woods," said Maybe-Roseluck.
"Ha ha ha," said the bluish-green unicorn. "But we need more protection!"
"What do you want from me?" Not-Pokey snapped, jerking his head towards her. "You can't expect me to freeze time for hours, and recharge enough to create a portal home! Why oh why oh why did they only send one True Time Guardian on this mission?"
"Are you complaining about their management?" the bluish-green unicorn said, looking offended.
"Yes!" said Not-Pokey.
"Maybe you can't handle it on your own," the pony with the rose-colored mane said, "but really, you have no right to complain. When you do have another True Time Guardian, you complain they get in your way."
"I do not, Roseluck!" Not-Pokey snapped.
Roseluck and the bluish green pony gasped.
"You're not supposed to tell her my name!" Roseluck whispered loudly.
"Well why does it matter?" Not-Pokey demanded. "We're just going to-"
"Hush!" the bluish-green pony snapped.
The white and blond unicorn walked up to Applejack in the meanwhile. "It must have been scary, being arrested for something you didn't do," she said. "But you're a very brave pony." She hummed. "Honorable, too."
Applejack stared at her. "How do you know about me?"
"Oh," she said, smiling and tossing her mane, "of course I know about you. You are one of the bearers of the elements of harmony, after all." She lowered her head, and her mane fell back in front of one eye. "Honesty. So simple in concept, and yet so hard to find in anypony." She looked sadly at the pony who wasn't Pokey and sighed.
"I say we should have fetched the remaining ponies while we were there," the bluish-green pony said. "This way we'll waste energy."
"Like you care about my energy," Not-Pokey said, rolling his eyes. "I could not sustain it any longer. There was some force resisting me and we've only just got away from it. I vote we don't go back until we've found some unicorns."
"Like they'd help you break into the castle," said the bluish-green pony.
"I wasn't going to ask!"
"Hush!" Roseluck cried, probably noticing Applejack's shocked expression.
Applejack was beginning to wish she hadn't just run off with some strange ponies. She sighed and stared at the sky.
Well, Lord, she prayed, Ah know you have a reason for everything and all that. But please bless the others, and help us all to get home where we belong. Ah'm sorry Ah tried to run away; just, please, send help. Ah feel so alone.
At that instant, something flew across the sky. It had gone by pretty fast, but it had looked like a shiny silver pegasus.
"What was that?" the white unicorn asked next to her.
"What was what?" said Not-Pokey and Roseluck in unision.
The metallic pegasus flew across the sky again, and this time took its time hovering overhead before beginning slow circles.
"I don't know!" Not-Pokey said. "I may be the senior Time Guardian, but I've never traveled to this timeline before, so stop expecting me to be the expert on everything!"
The white unicorn looked shocked, and Not-Pokey shook his head. "I-I'm sorry, I'm just on edge. I shouldn't have said that, my dear."
"Er," Roseluck said, "It's coming down here."
The metallic pony dove in front of them, righting itself and slowing down to touch the earth, standing on all fours. It was not a pegasus; it was an earth pony made of metal plates. Instead of eyes, it had green glass with a light bulb behind them. These pulsed and glowed brighter.
Roseluck slowly stepped forward. "Who- or what- are you?"
The light pulsed and changed to blue.
The three unicorns twitched.
"Scatter!" Not-Pokey shouted.
In a flash, the Time Guardians lept away, leaving Applejack wondering for a fraction of a second what had just happened, before blue lasers hit the trees on either side of her. She shouted and took off through some bushes.
"Target detected!" she heard the robot pony scream in a high-pitched, broken, metalic voice. "Target detected!"
Rainbow Dash was feeling pretty confident. The other pegasi were flying abnormally fast. She wondered if any of them had been former Wonderbolts. But she had a head start and was flying at the top of her game.
Then, with a blast of colors, a blur streaked past her, leaving a rainbow behind it.
"Hey," said Captain Rainbow Dash, stopping in front of her.
Rainbow Dash gasped and climbed higher into the sky, flying over the Captain's head.
"You think you're smart," Captain Rainbow Dash said. "Redtail, Goldy, Soarin', Sunshine Skies! Formation 12!"
Rainbow Dash wished she knew what that was. She tried banking to the right into a mass of clouds, cutting through them with her nose first and using her hooves to push the clouds behind her, hoping to create a barrier for any pegasus silly enough to fly with their hooves in front. She dipped shallowly and spun further to the right, wheeling around and zooming above and to the side of her pursuers.
Two pegasi continued for the cloud bank, but none of them flew hooves first and were hardly hindered by the clouds. The other three, including Captain Dash, did a half-front-flip to reverse direction and continue after her. They flew with one above, one below, and one to the side of Rainbow Dash's current path.
Rainbow Dash poured on the speed as best as she could, but the Captain was quickly gaining on her. She flew in weaving pattens, swooping and rolling in random directions, hoping to confuse Captain Rainbow and the other pegasi. They did get confused, even the Captain- even though they thought the same way, she couldn't predict what random moves Rainbow Dash would make. But they recovered from their confusion quickly.
Rainbow Dash realized she was fighting a losing battle. All they had to do was stay on her tail until she got tired. She would have to constantly come up with new ways to keep them away from her until all five of them got tired.
She growled under her breath. She would have to do something desperate. She couldn't lose them in cloud cover- flying nose first all the time would decrease her speed, and no cloud bank was big enough to hide her long enough. She would try the forest below. It would take a skilled pegasus to weave through those trees are top speed without breaking their necks.
Rainbow Dash was sure she could do it.
But then, the Captain probably could too.
She dove in among the trees anyway, weaving through trunks by instinct, since conscious thought would have taken too long for the speed she was going at. She couldn't look back, so she couldn't tell who was following her. For all she knew, she'd lost them long ago.
She rose back above the trees and scanned for the other ponies.
That was a mistake. Captain Dash whirled through the sky and headed right for her.
Rainbow Dash shouted and propelled herself up in the air, higher and higher. And then a cloud blocked her path.
Rainbow Dash and the Captain were going too fast to stop and both smacked into the cloud, but instead of sailing through it, the cloud stuck. With their wings too gummed up to fly, the two pegasi began their fall to earth.
"No!" Captain Dash shouted. "It can't be!"
It was a cotton candy cloud.
The ponies raced through the forest, each in different directions.
Not-Pokey had gone with the white unicorn. Roseluck had gone with the bluish-green pony.
Applejack ran alone, her hooves tearing up the ground as she sped with all her might through the forest, afraid some strange metal creature was coming after her with a laser.
The metal pony flew through the forest, skimming the ground. Two other metal ponies dove from the sky and flew next to her in point formation.
"Prime Enemy detected?" asked one of them, its eyes flickering as it spoke.
The metal pony in the middle nodded. "Affirmative. Exterminate!"
The two new metal ponies broke formation and spun through the air to one side while the first one kicked off a tree and flew at an angle to her original trajectory.
The bluish-green unicorn saw the metal pony come at her and screamed, pouring on the speed. She ducked as lasers flew at her.
"Targetting," the metal pony hummed to itself.
And with another blast, the bluish green unicorn ceased running and fell to the ground.
"One down," the metal pony hummed, looping into a U-turn.
Roseluck plunged out of the trees towards the bluish green unicorn. "Oh, Bright Eyes! Don't... you're..." Roseluck burst into tears.
From the cliff she stood on, Applejack could just make out Bright Eyes' magenta eyes, staring blankly.
She'd just seen murder.
The thought froze her in place. For a pony to murder another was practically unheard of, and now it had happened right before her eyes...
A scream brought Applejack back to reality, and she whirled towards the sound and charged, head down.
The white unicorn was crouched under a rock. Two metal ponies desceneded towards her.
In a flash, a white translucent shield surrounded the two metal ponies. While they hammered away, the unicorn dashed from her hiding place, her horn glowing white.
The first metal pony slammed into the unicorn, knocking her to the earth.
"Two down," the metal pony said, aiming its hoof.
Applejack plowed into the metal pony. Not really very bright, she realized, as all that happened was the metal pony stumbled off the unicorn, while she had a massive headache.
The unicorn scrambled to her feet and started back.
"Stay where you are," said the metal pony, aiming its hoof at her.
Applejack didn't think. She just slid between the two ponies.
Pause. "Out of my way," said the metal pony.
"Nothin' doing," said Applejack.
Another pause.
He doesn't want to shoot me, Applejack realized.
"You don't know who she is," said the metal pony. "You should not try to save those you know nothing about."
Applejack walked toward the metal pony. "Ah know her a heck lot more than Ah know you, you strange... freak." It was the worst insult she could think of.
The metal pony hummed.
Steam poured out of the sides of the metal pony's neck as the head lifted up on metal rods.
No, Applejack realized, not the head.
A mask.
The full head mask lifted up to reveal a flesh pony's head. Her eyes were smaller, her mane shorted, and the bow was gone, but there was no mistaking that pony.
"Apple Bloom?" Applejack said, reeling back.
"Applejack," said Apple Bloom, reaching for her older sister. Applejack flinched as the cold metal hoof touched her shoulder.
"Applejack," Apple Bloom repeated, "soon as we heard from our double agent in Canterlot that you somehow ended up in the clutches of those cruel princesses, Ah was sent here to fetch you. Come with me quickly."
Applejack just stared.
"Ah don't know you," she said.
"Applejack," said Apple Bloom, scowling. "Yer jist fussin'. You don' know what yer saying."
"You... murderer."
Apple Bloom drew back in alarm. "Applejack. I reckon you don' know anything about these times, but all's fair in love an' war, sister."
"They aren't makin' war!" Applejack shouted. "They's jist tryin' to be helpful, that's all!"
"Oh, yeah?" said Apple Bloom. "What d'you know about these Time Guardians, anyways?"
"They... they's helpin' me and my friends get home, an'..."
"Uh huh," said Apple Bloom.
She turned and seized the pony who wasn't Pokey Pierce and pointed her metal hoof at his throat. "Tell my sister the truth. Were you or were you not plannin' to wipe her memory soon as you got her to her own timeline?"
The blue unicorn stammered, "I don't make these plans, I really can't-"
"Liar!" Apple Bloom shouted, shaking the unicorn. "You don't deserve to live, you scumball!"
"Yes!" the white unicorn shrieked.
Everypony turned to stare at her.
"Yes, that's what we do, we go around erasing memories and kidnapping ponies and putting them other places in an attempt to preserve continuity or whatever that means, but apparently it's important for some reason!" The white unicorn started crying.
Nopony spoke for a moment. Then Apple Bloom turned back to Applejack.
"Come with me," she said.
Applejack lowered her head and glared at Apple Bloom.
"Only if you leave these ponies alone," she said. "Ah don't care what you say they've done, where there's life there's hope. Let them go."
Apple Bloom narrowed her eyes. "Ah'm gonna regret this." She turned away from Applejack. "Get up on my back. It'll be faster if we fly."
The helmet lowered back onto Apple Bloom's head, making her appear as a robot again.
Applejack hesitated, then swung herself onto her sister's back. It was cold and hard to sit on.
The other two metal ponies joined Apple Bloom, and they launched into the sky in a point formation, with Apple Bloom leading. Applejack took one last look at the Time Guardians before the trees blocked them from view.
And then she was high in the sky.