Sepia Tock: Adventures of the Ponyville Clockmaker

by CanvasWolfDoll

Mr. Tock and the Watch

The sun was on its way to below the horizon, and the moon was getting higher. The bubbles seemed to have increased in numbers since the last time Sepia braved them. For the sake of blending in, Trixie and Soarin had left their notable outfits behind, stashed in a hollow tree to be reclaimed later. Soarin made to preemptively sign his flight suit in case it went missing anyways.

The three ponies carefully wandered the bubbles to Sepia's shop. “So, this Master Ragnarok is doing all this,” Soarin indicated the domes, “with a watch you sold him?”

“That's the general gist of it, yes,” Sepia answered, “I mean, there's some complicated history, and bad moves performed in ignorance, but yes.”

“I see,” Soarin said, “Could you make me one?”

“Even if I knew how, Ragnarok's got a one of a kind power source,” Sepia answered.

“I know, but just imagine! I could rewind and get an outside perspective on my tricks!” Soarin said excitedly, “Best way to see where you went wrong.”

“You could fix your mistakes,” Trixie continued from Soarin's thought, “Plus it would really impress the crowd!”

“I'm sure it could,” Sepia said, unimpressed.

“Come on, imagine the possibilities, Sepia,” Soarin said.

Sepia tried to imagine.

“You could travel time, fight evil.” Trixie added, “You could actually be Doctor Whoof!”

Sepia thought on that point. He certainly could live up to those rumors. He thought of all the times and places he could go to. He could see the invention of the first clock, watch the construction of the mighty Canterlot clock tower, or attend a few of Octavia's classic concerts in pony. Foremost in his mind, however, were certain words from Luna's letter: the watch was constructed to keep perfect time. You could look at it at any moment, and know what its face tells you is absolute. Never lose a tick, never have to reset the hands, always have the exact time.

The cog work of the thing must be absolutely breathtaking.

“Sepia?” Soarin waved a hoof in front of Sepia's face.

Sepia snapped out of the day dream, “What? Sorry, did you say something?”

“We're here,” Trixie pointed at the clock shop.

In Sepia's eyes, there was something haunting about it. He was filled the terror born from the knowledge that, in your home, right now, something malicious waited for you. “Right...” Sepia said, foreboding in his voice, “I'll take the main entrance; you two go around back and get his prisoners out of there while I keep him distracted.”

“Will you be all right?” Soarin asked, worried.

Sepia gave his friends a nervous smile, “Oh yes, he can only kill me.” The watch and its powers came to Sepia’s mind, “Several times. Over and over. Until he gets bored.”

The three stared at the store, knowing they really should enter, but didn’t want to be the one take charge of the situation.

“That sounds horrible,” Trixie said to Sepia, looking over her shoulder, “Last chance to get out of here. Set up a new clock shop in another town, never speak of this again.”

“I can't do that,” Sepia said with a sigh, “Apparently I’m the only one who can put a stop to this, and everypony is counting on me. If I fail, please tell Colgate the store is hers. She'll do a terrific job with it.”

The three stood in silence again.

“For Equestria?” Soarin suggested.

“For Equestria,” Sepia and Trixie echoed.

They set out on to accomplish their missions.

“Ragged, I'm here!” Sepia announced, entering his shop. He looked at his clocks. They were all off, ticking to their personal own beats, each telling a different time, a hoofful running backwards.

“Ah, Doctor, you've come! I was getting worried,” Ragnarok said, exiting the kitchen, mad grin on his face. He spread his wings out dramatically, “Here we have it, the big confrontation. The final battle! The Doctor's last stand! What fun this will- what're you doing?”

Sepia looked over from the clock he was working on, the glass cover open, “Just correcting this.” He closed the clock, then looked around his shop, “Did you really have to mess them all up? It’s really hard to maintain them all as it was, it’ll take me forever to get them back on track.”

“I got bored,” Ragnarok answered grumpily, “It was something to do.”

Sepia pointed to a small group, “Those three are running backwards.”

“You took a remarkably long time.”

“This one is built backwards!” Sepia looked at a specific specimen, “Even the face is reversed! Why?”

“Ponies love those,” Ragnarok said, “Fun gag, you know. Real conversation starter.”

“I see you stopped that one,” Sepia pointed at another.

“That one is actually broken.” Ragnarok said, his eyes analyzing the timepiece “It was like that when I got here. I was just about to repair it when...” Ragnarok stopped himself, considered the conversation, and angrily looked at Sepia, “Oh will you stop stalling!”

“You're right,” Sepia admitted, looking at the clock, “It is broken. How'd this splinter get in there?”

Sepia removed it from the wall, trotting towards the workshop, sneaking a quick glance to the pegasus and unicorn moving Pinkie and Fluttershy out the back door of the kitchen. Three ponies were left before Soarin and Trixie could help deal with Ragnarok.

“Will you drop the act?” Ragnarok demanded angrily, time-jumping into the workshop, “You’re not fooling anypony!”

“Hey, Colgate finally replaced the spring!” Sepia remarked after setting his clock down on a work bench besides the Mayor’s clock.

“Stop ignoring me!” The grey pegasus demanded, stomping a hoof.

“Start being interesting,” Sepia retorted, picking up tweezers. He went flying, colliding with the hourglass builder, turning its blow torch on. “Ack!” He spit his tweezers out of his mouth, “Be careful! I nearly swallowed that!”

“When I'm done with you, that'll be the least of your worries,” the pegasus hissed, then dived at the brown earth pony, who barely avoided the strike by jumping to the side.

The torch broke off, setting fire to the oil that was pooling from the tear in the fuel line. “Great…” both ponies remarked. Sepia caught Ragnarok's angry glare, and bolted out of the workshop and into the shop proper.

Ragnarok chased after Sepia, “Get back here you… what the hay?”

Five Sepias were standing in the shop, looking at Ragnarok.

“Okay, how’re you doing that?” Ragnarok asked.

The Sepias didn’t answer, but they did increase, walking in from the kitchen and down the stairs.

“Seriously, stop, this is weird,” Ragnarok said.

The Sepias kept appearing.

Ragnarok let out an irritated scream and jumped at a nearby Sepia, who vanished. Ragnarok searched around in confusion real quick, and then tried another Sepia, who also vanished. Ragnarok stood up, a victorious grin slathered on his face, “Ah, illusions, huh? Well, I’ll just have to keep attacking until I find the real Doctor!”

“You do that,” Sepia’s voice said from somewhere in the crowd, “I don’t know what our upper limit is, but I’m sure you won’t have time to try everyone. Besides, you set fire to my shop.”

Ragnarok fluttered into the air, “Huh! It’ll be easier than you think!” He chuckled evilly, “I have all the time in the world!”

“No you don’t,” Sepia answered simply.

Ragnarok let another evil laugh, “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten about my distinct advantage.” He displayed the watch, the chain looped around his left wing, “Still, it’d be such a hassle to beat every last one of you… Oh, I know.” He glided swiftly into the workshop, where the fire had spread to engulf almost the whole room. Ragnarok grinned to himself and picked up a wooden clock that was beginning to burn, and flung into the store proper, then fluttered back over to it, concentrating the watch’s magic on it, causing a rapid expansion of fire, which began to lick at and evaporate Sepias, none of them reacting to it. None, that is, except one, who backed away from the encroaching flames. “Got you now!” Ragnarok announced.

Sepia bolted for the door.

Ragnarok chuckled a little, “Silly Doctor, you can’t escape me that easily.”

Sepia shouldered the door open, stopping outside to pant.

Ragnarok stopped time, happily trotted to grab an extra propane tank from the kitchen, brought it to the world of no time with him, and then tossed the tank into the flames.

Sepia gritted his teeth, silently praying that Ragnarok would still play his part.

He heard the loud explosion.

Sepia looked over his shoulder and saw his entire store engulfed in flames.

Ragnarok appeared before him, laugh that mad laugh of his, “What are you going to do now, Doctor? You can’t beat me.”

Sepia gave Ragnarok a calm gaze, “How quick are you with that watch, Ragged?”

Ragnarok gave Sepia a confused looked, “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Well, I guess the better question is, can you stop time in less than twelve seconds?” Sepia clarified.

Ragnarok scoffed, “Time is irrelevant to-”

He was interrupted by the force of a light blue pegasus, at high speeds, thunderclouds streaming from behind him, slamming in Ragnarok, pinning him to the ground.

Sepia calmly walked over to Ragnarok and removed the watch from his wing, setting it carefully outside the reach of the defeated pegasus. Sepia looked at Soarin, “Did Trixie get out of there?”

Trixie trotted over from the side of the burning building. “Don’t worry about me,” she declared, “such a pedestrian thing as an explosion cannot possibly stop the Great and Powerful Trixie!”

Sepia shook his head at the pegasus on the ground. “Well, then, Mr. Rocks, what do you have to say for yourself?” he asked.

Ragged struggled under the stronger Soarin. “Get off me!” he shouted, “That’s no fair, Doctor, you cheated!”

“Why can’t you be a good loser?” Sepia asked, “Besides, who would the Doctor be without his companions?” Trixie and Soarin smiled triumphantly at the line. Sepia leaned in to give Ragged a hard glare, “Now, let’s get this straight right now: Doctor Whoof is not a real pony. Never was, and never will be. You have terrorized the poor inhabitants of this town in pursuit of a fairy tale. There is a refugee camp set up in the Everfree Forest. The Everfree Forest, Ragged. You have made ponies so afraid of their own home that they sought sanctuary in the Everfree Forest!” Sepia picked up the watch, “Now, how do I use this?”

Ragged grinned, “Hand it over and I’ll show you.”

Soarin slapped the smug pegasus.

Sepia sighed and opened the watch, looking past the glass face at the interlocking gears, each turning and doing their part of the overall assembly. Inside lurked the powers of time itself. He just had to connect with it.

Knowledge flowed into Sepia’s mind. The method and process of the power became clear to him. He smiled, and waved a hoof at a nearby time bubble, and it shrank away until it ceased to be entirely. He then dismissed another bubble, and another. He went over to where the seven frozen ponies had been placed by Trixie and Soarin and gently tapped Colgate, who awakened.

“Sepia!” she screamed.

‘Whoa, calm down, it’s okay,” Sepia said, waving his hooves reassuringly, “It’s okay, I’ve got the watch now, and Soarin has Ragnarok. It’s over, everything’s fine”

Colgate looked around, her eyes stopping at the shop. “Sepia, the store is on fire.”

Sepia looked at the store. He blinked twice. “Okay, that’s still a problem. Uh, Trixie, would you mind getting the weather patrol to put this out?”

Trixie ran off to retrieve the team.

Sepia smiled at Colgate, “So, how was it?”

“Like a really long blink.” Colgate answered, “One moment I’m in the castle, the next I’m here.”

“You weren’t aware at all?”

“Nope.”

“Good.” Sepia rolled the tension out of his shoulders, “Well, I’ll start cleaning up, why don’t you get back to base camp and contact the princesses.”

Colgate nodded, “Okay then!” She ran off.

Sepia walked over to Soarin, “Think you can hold him until the authorities can take him.”

“Why don’t you just freeze him like he did to them?” He pointed at Twilight and friends.

Sepia shook his head, “No. As poetic as it would be, I refuse to be so cruel.”

Soarin nodded to this wisdom. “Fine, it’s your watch,” he said.

Sepia looked at the watch. The greatest clock in existence, containing time itself. “Actually, to be fair…” he trailed off, and looked at Ragged, who had given up struggling, “I owe you a new watch, I’m afraid, since you do pay me for one.” Sepia smiled, “I’ll try to make it as similar to this one as possible.”

“What happened to not being cruel?” Ragged groaned.

“Well, I could refund you the bits if you’d like.” Sepia offered.

Ragged just went silent, choosing to patiently wait to be arrested.

“Have your way then,” Sepia said, “I’ll just tidy this all up now then.”

Sepia started with the flaming ruins of his home. He could see thin outlines now, where past, present, and future were pressing against each other, and resumed unsummoning the small bubbles littering the area. Unfortunately, the explosion was an event firmly planted in the present, so he had to leave the store in flames. He then set about removing the larger bubbles throughout Ponyville, bring each pool of past back to the present. When he was halfway through cleaning up the town, the weather patrol had finally wrangled up the rain clouds to extinguish the store, so Sepia paused his efforts to investigate the remains. He carefully moved rubble around, checking if there was anything immediately salvageable. He found one trinket that had managed to be unscathed. He smiled to himself as he picked it up, “Good to see you’re alright, buddy.” He said.

The tin dog said nothing. Sepia smiled whimsically to himself, setting it down on a stable table, only lightly flamed licked, and went back to the bubbles.

He made short work of them, the frozen ponies, and the wall of time distortion between Ponyville and Canterlot. Town cleaned up of chronological interference, the ponies of the town began to head home, gossiping about what went down, speculating as to what occurred while the Doctor was away, and the incoming guards of the realm.

Sepia, Trixie, and Soarin gave a report to a unicorn with a notepad as Ragged Rocks was taken away, wings restrained so he wouldn’t out-fly the guards. Once the guards were gone, Sepia sat with his friends, looking at the burned structure before them, “Well then, this is disappointing,” Sepia said.

“What’re going to do with the watch now?” Soarin asked.

“I haven’t decided yet.” Sepia said. They kept silent for a moment. A thought came to Sepia’s mind, “I need to go and stop the Gala from looping, don’t I?”

“That would be nice, yes.” Soarin said.

Trixie stood up first, “Well, I need to take advantage of the library anyways.”

Soarin stood up next, “Yea, and I have a date to finish,” he said reluctantly. “Then again, perhaps I could easily weasel out at this point,” he added contemplatively.

Colgate stood up, “I’m going along too because… I have nothing better to do, my job burned down.”

Sepia stood up and stretched, “You think we can catch Octavia while we’re there?”

“You’ll still need tickets,” Soarin answered, “Sorry.”

“Oh, well,” Sepia sighed, “I’ll just have to wait for next year then.”

“Hey, grab a ticket early. Use a little watch magic, and it won’t be so bad,” Colgate said.

“I’ll think about it.” Sepia lied.

Comments

[PaulRap Raptor]

Keep up the good work.