Temporal

by FaleYur

(Act I) Chapter 2: A Step Behind

The green earth pony woke up in a cold sweat, tangled in her bed-sheets. She blinked repeatedly, trying to expel the sleep out from under her eyelids. Once she was in an acceptable state of wakefulness, she peered around her room in confusion.

The feeling had come from nowhere, permeating even her sleep-state, evaporating her dream in seconds. She had not felt a surge that strong since Mr. Whooves’ appearance in Ponyville months ago! And even then she had not been this affected by it.

Shaking her head, the pony rose from the mass of bedding awkwardly, stretching and yawning in agitation. She stood by her window, peering out over the nighttime scene of Manehattan. She took in every minor detail, from the amount of lights on in the building across from her, to the shady-looking character standing in the mouth of an alleyway ten stories down.

Nothing seemed off, and everything was in place. The soft babble of the city was muted through the pane of glass, but she managed to pick out individual voices on the streets below her. All of it was nonsense really, but no information was useless information in her field of work.

She narrowed her eyes, scanning the cityscape again. The feeling was rarely ever wrong, and never when it was this strong. She crossed her small room silently, turning on the light as she opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. The drawer slid completely off the slides, and she placed it on the floor behind her. She reached down into the opening and pulled from within it a black briefcase, studded with tiny bumps and grooves.

Replacing the drawer, she threw the case onto the bed, and closed the blinds on the windows. You couldn’t be too careful in today’s society. The latches flipped up with a touch of her hoof, and the briefcase opened with a small click.

Inside, on a bed of greyish insulation, lay a watch. But instead of a clock face, the watch contained four dials placed in a square on the black backing. While the first three dials were showing normal signs, with their needles pointing to green segments, the fourth and final dial spun repeatedly in a circle at a constant speed, letting out a tiny whirring sound.

The earth pony paled. That kind of reading suggested catastrophic magical activity, the kind not seen since the return of Nightmare Moon. She gulped down her uncertainty, and put on the watch, noting the inscription on the back.

10-1-4-5: 2208

She closed the case again, leaving it on the bed. It would disappear with her when she leaped, so she was fine for that aspect. Before leaving her room, she reached under her pillow and retrieved a long, serrated knife. She slid the knife into her jacket pocket on the hook and put the dark coat on.

Beep.

The small notification from her watch caused her to freeze at the door handle. With an apprehensive sigh, she flicked a dial on the side of the face, and a wavering blue image was projected into the air an inch above the surface of the glass.

“Jade!” the voice hissed irritably, making the earth pony roll her eyes condescendingly. “Did you feel that?”

“No,” Jade said sarcastically, making the floating figure glare at her seethingly. “I’m just out of my obscenely comfortable bed at three in the morning because I feel like going for a stroll.”

The scowl deepened. “Not today Jade, of all nights. Teddy screwed up royally about sixty years ago in Zebrica, and now I have to fix his mess, as well as deal with this one.”

The green pony grinned. “You have fun with that Sigma. Do you have my dossier?”

The floating image snorted derisively. “Of course. What do you think I am, some slow, half-wit pony?”

This time it was Jade’s turn to furrow her eyebrows in anger. “No, you’re a slow, half-wit bug. Now send me the damn dossier so we can go back to our lives.”

The holographic changeling hissed at the insult, but a second later, another window opened up, displaying several files describing her primary target and the VIP’s that were assigned to her. Jade scanned over them quickly, recognizing some of the names vaguely.

“This one is important Jade.” Sigma highlighted the second file, showing a small, purple filly with a short, stubby horn protruding from between her two-toned violet mane. “Don’t let the target get anywhere near her. Also, as Teddy’s in Zebrica, Atlas is in Stalliongrad, and Grace is in Fillydelphia, you’re on your own for this one.”

Jade looked surprised. “Are you serious? No one else in the TCA can assist? What about Omega? Or Dante? Or-”

“They’re busy!” came the abrupt response, effectively cutting her off. “You’re on your own. Don’t screw it up.” The changeling’s window closed with a blip, leaving Jade to grumpily stare at the other files, memorizing and organizing the information in her head near-instantly before shutting the watch down.

Her thoughts turned to Sigma. If he wasn’t such an asset to the Temporal Control Agency, she would have beaten him into a green, chitinous pulp long ago. He had his good moments, but they were mostly overshadowed by his insufferable superiority complex.

The door closed silently as she slipped into the hallway. She looked forlornly at the brass numbers 78 on the oak door, and trotted to the top of the stairs. She didn’t trust elevators, despite being born centuries behind the contraptions. The stairs were always reliable.

When she reached the foyer, the desk clerk looked up from her book uninterestedly. “Headin’ out Jade?” she asked.

The green earth pony smiled, and replied, “Yeah, this place was nice, but I guess I’m moving on.”

The clerk cocked her eyebrow at Jade’s strange comment. “Uh-huh. Right. I’ll take your name off the room in the morning then.”

Jade nodded and raised her hoof up to the watch on her ankle, pressing knobs and buttons on the side with practised ease. She noted worriedly that the fourth dial was still spinning, though much slower now.

The clerk opened her mouth to comment on the device, but it hummed loudly, and Jade winked out of existence with a pop. The clerk blinked in confusion. Hadn’t she been talking to somepony? She shrugged and turned back to her book.

She only had got a paragraph in, before a thin pony wearing a top-hat walked through the revolving glass doors. The clerk straightened into a professional posture.

The top-hat wearing pony approached the desk with a pompous air. “I’m in quite a hurry to get put up for the night. I trust you have a room available?”

The clerk checked her list of occupied rooms. “Hmm... Yes, room 78 has been open for a couple months now, so you can have that one. Shame nobody’s used it really, it has quite nice accommodations.”

***

The sphere of raw magic popped into existence in the middle of Canterlot Square, obliterating the fountain and sending cobblestones into nearby store-front windows. The sound of breaking glass and screaming filled the air, as the orb threw Lady Lulamoon and her three sadistic creations into the city.

Lady Lulamoon rose to her hooves shakily, drained of energy and soaked with water-runoff from the decimated fountain. The former guards shook their deformed heads and let out keening wails that echoed off the confines of the square, joining in the terrifying cacophony of panicking townsponies and stampeding hooves.

Just as Lady Lulamoon regained her sense of balance, the mutated ponies lurched towards a frightened shop-keeper who had just run out to see what was making the racket. The grey pony’s eyes widened as he saw the freaks, and he turned back to the door of his shop.

He never made it. The first mutant latched onto his back hoof, tripping him onto the street. In seconds, the other mutants had gathered around him, and the pony had time to scream once before the freaks ripped into him, tearing his limbs from their sockets and pounding his remains to a pulp.

Blood trickled out from between the feral monsters, as they continued to beat and chew at the fleshy mass that used to be a pony. A gnarled, gory hoof flew out of the mess, landing at Lady Lulamoon’s own hooves.

She regarded it for a second, picking it up in her magic and turning it over, disregarding the steady dripping of blood staining the cobblestones beneath her.

“Guards, on me!” shouted a voice over the madness.

Lady Lulamoon looked around curiously, the mangled appendage still wrapped in her scarlet haze. A large group of guards came running into the square, following a pony in a very elaborate suit of armour.

The group stopped abruptly when they saw the freaks, but their leader unsheathed his sword and turned to them. “Send these demons back to Tartarus!” he rallied, and the guards nodded and drew their own weapons. “For Celestia!”

Lady Lulamoon sighed. Something had to be done about these guards. They would probably overwhelm her creations with numbers alone. Raising her head, she gave a long, sharp whistle.

Both groups, consisting of the freaks and the guards turned to look at her. The scene seemed to freeze, as all the eyes in the square rested upon the crimson unicorn and her bloody trophy. All was quiet, except for the steady, drip, drip, of the blood smacking the stones.

She smiled.

With a flick of her magic, she threw the severed hoof at the group of guards, nailing the captain in the chest and leaving a large, bloody mark on his pristine armour. The guards looked in shock at the appendage in front of them, and the freaks cocked their heads, regarding the ponies.

Then, one of the mutant’s heads split vertically, peeling back its skin and revealing a dark pink maw with row upon row of tiny, dagger-like teeth. It let out an ear-splitting roar, spittle and blood flying from its mouth in ropy streams.

The freaks charged at the guards, scattering all but the captain, who stood stagnant, either in bravery, or stupidity. He yelled as the first mutant approached, ducking and swinging upwards into the beast’s stomach. He rolled out of the way of the retaliating blow, into another freak, slashing his blade through its knee and sending it crashing to the ground.

Lady Lulamoon watched in detached interest as the pony ducked and weaved between her creations with fluid motions, cutting and stabbing when he could, and drawing roars of pain out of them as their blistered skin parted under his sword. The captain was good, she’d give him that.

He jumped over a low strike from one of the freaks, but a small push of scarlet magic stumbled his landing. He mis-stepped, and Lady Lulamoon giggled as he desperately attempted to regain his footing.

The freaks took full advantage of her interference. A quick strike against his side sent the captain sprawling onto his chest, where he was pinned by the forehoof of one of the beasts. The branching antler-like bone structures on its back quivered, before striking downward with surprising flexibility, stabbing and puncturing through the captain’s back. He screamed in pain as the spines slowly lifted his impaled body high into the air, his blood streaming out of his suspended form and down the antlers.

From his elevated position, he locked eyes with Lady Lulamoon, chocking out a wet gurgle for help. The mutant below him tilted its head to look at his captured prey, before rapidly splaying the individual stems of bone in different directions. The captain’s impaled torso was shredded into visceral pieces, spurting torrents of gore and entrails in every direction, most of it raining down onto the gathered beasts.

The freaks seemed to revel in the red mist surrounding them, splitting open their toothy maws and devouring the torn chunks of pony lying on the stained ground. Even from the opposite side of the square, Lady Lulamoon could hear in brilliant clarity, the wet, slurping gurgles of the feeding mutants.

The intermittent screeches and wails from the freaks, coupled with their brutal efficiency in killing and their gaping mouths, reminded her ever so slightly of the old tales of wild beasts that lived in the dark, northern parts of the world, past Equestria’s borders. The animals, named Vraals by the early pony folklore, would hunt silently through the wastelands, creeping through shadows and devouring unsuspecting travelers foolish enough to travel near the border.

Her creations were probably about as stealthy as an elephant, but their insatiable hunger proved too much coincidence for her to pass up the naming opportunity. Vraals they are then. Thought Lady Lulamoon smugly, as she watched yet another Canterlot pony be ripped to shreds by the magically altered guards.

A stroke of inspiration struck her, and she grinned as she created three tendrils of energy from her horn. With a touch of surprise, she felt little to no drain from the magic, when she should have been struggling with the output.

She suspected involvement with her recent contact with the sphere of raw magic. Instead of having to pace herself to retain her magic, she felt like she was reaching into and drawing her energy from an endless pool, the tendrils barely registering with her as she snaked them through the air towards the Vraals.

The Vraals, preoccupied with their feeding, didn’t notice the scarlet ropes of magic creeping up on them until it was too late. The magic shot out, striking the back of their necks and spreading around the girth of their throats fluidly, clasping them into crude collars.

The Vraals reared and clawed at the magic, roaring indignantly at the solid energy. One of the Vraals noticed the leads snaking back to Lady Lulamoon, and it immediately set its smouldering rage in her direction. It shrieked and charged, the leash around its neck shortening as it got closer and closer to its target.

When Lady Lulamoon decided that it had come close enough, she solidified the rope, clotheslining the Vraal and sending it crashing to the ground, cutting off its shriek with a sharp gurgle. The leash softened again, and immediately the Vraal got to its hooves in another attempt at attacking her.

Lady Lulamoon’s smile grew, and she sent a violent electric shock through the rope, bringing the Vraal to its knees. She repeated this process with the other beasts, stopping them in their tracks and causing them to claw desperately at their collars.

She sent one final blast of electricity through the leash before letting them go slack, leaving the Vraals steaming on the cobblestones, twitching with muscle spasms.

Lady Lulamoon regarded the twitching, whimpering beasts on the ground for a second longer, before eyeing the crowd that had gathered at the edges of the square, looking on in a mixture of amazement, shock, and fear.

Just then, the clock tower above their heads struck three, giving out a trio of deep, ringing gongs, making everypony in the vicinity jump. In the reverberating silence, a pony in a blue tailored suit stepped forward, toward the crimson unicorn.

“You stopped them…” he said timidly, looking back and forth between the slowly recovering Vraals and Lady Lulamoon. She glanced at the electrified tethers with interest, taking a quick, breathy laugh.

“I wouldn’t say, ‘stopped them’.” She said thoughtfully, holding a hoof to her chin reflectively. “They’re more like… under new management.”

The suited pony’s thin smile faltered, and he began to back away unsure, his eyes growing to the size of dinner plates. Lady Lulamoon grinned evilly and threw the pony the rest of the way to the crowd with her magic, sending him tumbling across the bloodstained stones to land at the hooves of the frightened masses.

The throng withered under her maniacal stare, some watching the pony, some watching the Vraals, nopony making eye-contact. Suddenly, Lady Lulamoon dropped the magical leashes, allowing the beasts to get to their deformed hooves angrily.

The Vraals regarded the unicorn warily, watching her every move. She slowly lifted one hoof to point at the gathered ponies, and the beasts turned their heads to look at the crowd.

“Dig in.”

***

The air outside of Joe’s Donut shop crackled and distorted, bending and twisting around a fixed point a couple feet off the ground. An indistinct mass wriggled out of the torn reality, popping and fizzling violently. Then, the vortex rippled, tumbling a dark green pony in a black jacket onto the street.

The pocket of air vanished as quickly as it had appeared, leaving Jade to dust herself off from her rough landing. She grumbled something about her coat getting dirty and miscalculations, before taking in her surroundings. She looked around confusedly for a second, then caught sight of the towering turrets of Canterlot Castle in the near-distance.

“At least one thing works.” She muttered darkly, giving her watch a scolding look. The uppermost dials were spinning in sync, slowing down before coming to an abrupt stop facing directly up and quivering slightly. Jade sighed and began trotting in the direction of the castle, unaware of the golden eyes following her from the shadow of an alleyway, narrowing in recognition.

Behind her, three BONG's rang out over the city, emanating from the large clock tower in the square.

Author's Note:

Whoa! Double reference! Can you spot them both? Does anyone give a fuck? Is Sigma an asshole? Probably, no, and kinda. Sigma's got a reason for being a bitter douche, but I probably won't cover that until way later.

As always, leave some feedback.

(Oh, and on a side-note, did you guys know that there exists a magical button on the top of the editor page that will automatically indent all your paragraphs? 'Cause I sure didn't until today. Dammit.)