Time: And Time Again
Twilight spent the next two months studying the workings of the Great Clock alongside Sigmund and Clank, focusing on the exact manner in which the systems were designed to manipulate time and how the safety systems kept the Great Rift - the tear in the fabric of space time the Clock was originally built to repair - in check. Since her overall goal was to use the clock to save three specific individuals, her focus was specifically on what systems could be utilized without risking damage to the Rift or the Rift Containment Systems...as well as the Rift itself.
During those two months, Ratchet, Azimuth, and Qwark focused on protecting the Clock, observing the universe for any possible threat to the Clock, or anything else they might have to fly out to address. Ratchet also put his skills to use alongside the 117,000 Zoni Twilight had brought back via the capsule, repairing the damage to the clock and restoring its systems to full working capacity. Sigmund made sure all organic beings had everything they needed nutritionally for their stay, doing his best to be a good host.
At the end of the two months, Twilight gathered everyone together in the Orvus Chamber. "Alright," she said firmly. "We're ready to attempt the first stage of the plan."
"Running a little slow, aren't you?" Azimuth teased playfully. "You did say a month. It's been two."
Twilight rolled her eyes. "I could have attempted this a month ago, but I wanted to make sure I'd reduced the margin of error to 1/1000000, instead of 1/100. Besides, it gave Ratchet time to fix a few key systems."
"Glad to know I was helpful," Ratchet offered happily.
"Mommy, Sigmund," Twilight instructed, "I need you to use the time gate on Zanifar to create a stable wormhole between the present now and a specific frozen instant of time." She laid out a few sheets of calculations. "These should enable linking to the frozen moment in question."
"Well...it could work in theory," Sigmund replied as he and Clank got to work. "But once you try to penetrate through time, the time flow rates will sync up. That's not something we can correct."
Twilight grinned widely. "I know," she replied. "I've taken that into account for this stage...and for the second stage, we'll have the help of the experienced expert who gave me this idea." Her hoof reached into her saddlebags, and she touched the egg she'd found so long ago under her pillow, ticking away to the heartbeat of the universe...to the rhythm of the Great Clock.
Sigmund lowered his hands as the rift appeared. "Time gate...open."
Twilight nodded as she braced herself. "And now the tricky part..."
Orvus glared at Dr. Nefarious, fighting through the pain he was experiencing as the villains tried to forcefully scan his brain. "There is only one who will enter my chamber...and he is safe...far from you!"
He began gathering his energy to launch himself through the fabric of time, to randomly return to the time stream somewhen else...if at all. However, as dangerous as this was, he could not allow Nefarious to learn of his son. The time energies began to surround him, the last of his power starting to burn as he was surrounded by a corona of light.
To his surprise, a pale lavender energy lasso slipped over his head and arms, tightening around his waist. "Close it close it close it close it!" a young female voice screamed as he was jerked backwards through a stable time gate that collapsed so quickly he nearly lost a foot. Only long instincts guided him to curl up around the lasso to minimize quantum drift.
His body slammed into something soft and warm, and he found himself staring through lavender hooves and feathers at his chamber. Seeing the portal closing behind him, he couldn't help but chuckle. "And with all I'd seen of you, I thought it was your enemies that had to stop underestimating you, Twilight!"
"Grandpa!" Twilight squealed happily, pulling him tight to her barrel. "It worked!"
"Are you alright, Father?" Clank asked worriedly, approaching eagerly.
"Sir! Did you make it through alright?" Sigmund demanded, just as worried.
Orvus chuckled again. "Nothing a good cup of tea, a relaxing story of how this happened...and a bit more oxygen won't fix." He glanced up at Twilight, amusement strong in his gaze.
Flushing, Twilight released him from her embrace, which had grown progressively tighter with her excitement. "Sorry..."
Twilight took a breath as she finished explaining what they had done. "So, Orvus, I was hoping you could help us with figuring out how to accomplish the same thing we did with you, but this time for Kaden and Vashiir."
Orvus shook his head in wonder. "Linking to a frozen instant of time to pull someone into the future at the moment they ceased to be part of the timeline...I never would have dreamed such a thing was possible."
"What?" Twilight gasped out, shocked. "But it was your idea!"
"I beg your pardon?" Orvus asked, confused.
Twilight pulled out the ticking egg, showing it to him. "This!" she insisted. "It's the Time Egg from the Chrono Trigger video game, but real! A Zoni left it under my pillow in exchange for my first baby tooth that I lost! It's what gave me the idea to save you using the Chrono Trigger method!"
"I'm aware of the game," Orvus admitted. "One of my favorites, actually. But the method won't work for what you want. The energy requirements alone to reach that far back without disruption are prohibitive, not to mention the need for an inorganic entity capable of functioning in frozen time to make the switch. You'd need millions of Zoni just to bridge the gap, not to mention sustaining the energy flow."
"But...but if it won't work, why would you send me the Egg?" Twilight demanded angrily.
"I didn't," Orvus insisted. "It may have been delivered by Zoni hands, but not at my orders."
Twilight sat down heavily, confused beyond belief. "But...but if you didn't do it...then who...?"
"Whee!"
Everyone turned at the sound as a Zoni arrived through a time hole, passing seamlessly without disrupting the time stream. While this wasn't anything interesting in its own right, this same Zoni was already directly overhead fixing some stained glass. Not only that, the Zoni which had just arrived floated straight up to Twilight...and handed her the baby tooth in question.
Orvus chuckled somewhat. "If I'm not mistaken, Twilight Sparkle...you did."
"Wha...bu...how...?" Twilight stammered, holding up the Egg as she stared at her tooth in confusion.
Temporal energy leapt between the tooth and the Egg when they got too close.
Twilight gasped, her eyes lighting up with sparkles. "Of course!" she screamed out. "Now I see it!" She laughed madly as she dashed for the control systems. "Hang on to your hats everyone...because I am about to be brilliant!" She patted her head. "Hang on a second!" She dashed out of the room. "Aphelion you sexy thing, get your tailfins to the Orvus Chamber!"
Aphelion quickly arrived as requested. "You really shouldn't be calling me sexy, Twilight," she chided. "I'm your Aunt."
"Just stating a fact!" Twilight shrieked happily as she dashed back in, wearing a fez and an impractically long multi-colored scarf. "Azimuth, give Sigmund the exact space-time coordinates - as close as you can - that Vashiir died in Tachyon's original attack on Fastoon! Sigmund, use the time viewer to fine tune and program the exact moment before her body was vaporized into the equations for the FTG!(1) Mom, do you remember the coordinates Blue Shift told you?"
"X-327p, Y-77252p, Z-minus 37749p, 21274-11-25.13:47.54-321," Clank responded readily. "What about them?"
"Plug those into the formula for a second FTG!" Twilight ordered. "Orvus, assuming a source of energy sufficient to generate two simultaneous FTGs reaching back that far, would 117,000 Zoni be enough to control the energy flow?"
"With myself at the helm, yes," Orvus agreed. "But who will go to make the swap? And where will you get the 'clone dolls', if you are doing the Chrono Trigger method?"
"Azimuth!" Twilight continued, spinning around. "You have a genetic sample of Kaden and Vashiir on your person? Well preserved?"
Caught in Twilight's intensity, Azimuth pulled out the locket he'd shown to them back when they first met, with the picture of himself and Kaden inside. "Two tufts of tail fur behind the picture!" he called out, tossing it to Twilight.
Catching it in her magic, she threw the locket up to Aphelion. "Protoplasm!"
"Already generating it!" Aphelion shouted out.
"But where will you get the power-" Orvus began.
Before he could finish, Twilight hurled the egg into the air and zapped it with magic, causing it to break open. Raw, unfettered time energy erupted out of it in an unceasing flow. Orvus quickly shot up to guide it, all of the Zoni acting on his instructions to shape it into the two gates.
"Kaden's gate is open!" Clank shouted out.
"Vashiir's gate is open!" Sigmund added, his voice awed.
"Orvus, time stop NOW!" Twilight screamed.
Orvus raised his hands, and time stopped.
Aphelion flew down, aiming herself at the gates. "Clone dolls are complete," she murmured. "Manipulator arms ready. Beginning transfer."
"How?" Orvus asked, stunned. "How are you able to function in frozen time?"
"AS systems upgraded with Zoni energy," Aphelion replied, driving first into one portal, then another. "Start time!"
Orvus quickly lowered his hands as the time energy was expended, the FTGs closed. Pandemonium began to ensue as the barely alive Kaden and Vashiir - the quantum shift had put a strain on their bodies - were rushed to the Great Clock's Temporal Recovery Ward. "It...it worked..." he marveled. "But...but where did you get the energy?"
Smiling, Twilight handed over the fragments of the Egg. "What is this?" she asked, leaving it with him as she carried her baby tooth to the Primary Control Lever.
Orvus studied the fragments. "It's...calcium constructs. Enamel and dentine...charged with chronitons, magic, and...potentia?"
"That's right," Twilight replied as she seized hold of the Control Lever. "It's my baby tooth. A completely organic substance effected by time, but so heavily charged with time energy and raw potentia magic from being the first tooth I lost that time energy can't damage it...making it the perfect container!" Without warning, she pulled the Lever in two, pushing it all the way to Past and Future at once. Rotating the control 90 degrees, she slammed them back together.
"Rift containment field disengaged," the computerized voice of the Clock intoned as the sky overhead tore open, the time rift exploding with raw quantum foam.
"What are you doing?" Orvus demanded in terror.
"Making causality my bitch!" Twilight screamed, casting a spell on her tooth and hurling it into the rift.
Time energy flowed from the rift into the tooth as it changed shape, swirling around itself as it sucked all the excess time energy straight out of the rift. When no more poured out, the Time Egg dropped, forged properly, right into Twilight's hoof. With a kick, she spun the Control Lever around.
"Engaging Quantum repairs," the computer intoned as the reduced rift began to spin around itself. "...Space-Time repaired."
Twilight grinned as she held up the Time Egg. "Ta-da-" Her words stopped, her horn and ears sparked, her eyes rolled up into her head, and she slumped to the ground, Orvus only just barely catching the Egg as it fell.
"Is...is she alright?" Qwark asked worriedly, Ratchet and Azimuth having rushed after Sigmund and Clank to the Temporal Recovery Wing. "What happened to her?"
Orvus floated forward and placed his free hand against Twilight's head. "...arrogant fool," he muttered. "Just because you can do something, doesn't mean you should."
"Orvus?" Qwark asked worriedly.
"She's fine," Orvus replied. "She used her magic to Quantumly Entangle her mind with itself elsewhere in her own timestream in order to increase her available brain power, letting her think in the fourth, fifth, and sixth dimensions. But a three-dimensional mind like hers isn't designed to handle that...so when she was finished, the recoil knocked her out. Get her to the Temporal Recovery Wing. She should wake up...a little before Kaden and Vashiir do."
Nodding, Qwark lifted Twilight and rushed off.
Orvus stared at the ticking Egg in his hand before summoning the proper Zoni. "You know when to return to, yes?" he asked softly.
"Whee!" the Zoni replied, taking the Egg and warping away.
Orvus chuckled indulgently. "It seems I was mistaken, Twilight," he murmured. "I just hadn't already sent it yet."
(1) Frozen Time Gate, Twilight's term for a portal opened to a frozen moment of time.
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Eh?
Oxygen?
Zoni are made of pure energy and encased in metal shells. Why would they need energy?
So Aphelion can move in the frozen time? Cool.
49.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m85e8mw00m1rqfhi2o1_250.gif
So how did Twilight fix all of this, in English please? The technobabble lost me awhile ago.
7034720 ... Easiest way to put it would be, ponies are OP and Twilight just made a Deus Ex Machina.
I hate Temporal-Mechanics.
Funny Chapter....
So just a shot in the dark since I've never actually seen an episode, but I think Twilight just had a Doctor Who moment.
ah Chrono-Trigger messing with time and multiple endings before it was cool
Back in my RP days, I would use that turn of phrase whenever time travel came up. ...where as the GM always had someone commenting on how time travel made for lousy book keeping.
7034720 actually, what Twi did was make a stable time loop. she was the one who created the Egg that she got for her first baby tooth, she just hadnt created it yet until this chapter. in the words of the Doctor, "time is more like a big ball of wibbily wobbily...timey wimey...stuff". all Twi did was close a Time Loop and prevent a paradox
PLOT DUMP lol also C Trigger you sly dog
7034814
And is also why only the Doctor should be doing it. Doing anything to the timeline is dangerous enough but what will Twilight learn from this is scary enough.
They're only OP and funny because this is Tatsurou.
7034695
He's probably just feeling a touch uncomfortable because of how hard Twilight is hugging him, and figured mentioning oxygen would be a good way to get her to let go.
7034720
Basically, Twilight had Aphelion create blank posable copies of Kaden and Vashiir and switched them with the real versions the instant before they died in the timeline, allowing the real ones to reappear in the present without disrupting the timeline.
She also repaired the Time Rift by leeching the excess time energy from it, making it manageable. She used that Time Energy to make the 'swap' possible by storing it and attuning it to her magic over the course of over a decade, making it controllable.
7034846
It isn't what she learned in that case. It was more that doing so enabled her to think much faster and in more dimensions than is normally possible. Such knowledge and thought processes are incompatible with a third-dimensional brain.
It's basically the equivalent of that guy from "Limitless" when he pops the pill, except cranked up to eleven with far more dangerous consequences if overused.
7034823 ah, but u forget, she already did it, when she received the egg she made for her first baby tooth. if she never made the egg to be sent back to her through time, well, then were getting into the realm of the Doctor. but in this case, she did do it, because she will do it, because she had done it.
and this is y i never mess with temporal story logic...always gives me a headache...
A fantastic Chapter. Great job.
7034904
Absolutely not. She doesn't actually have any time specific magic. Everything she did here was using existing tech in manners it had already been used - just a few levels more advanced - and manipulating vast amounts of energy with help.
7034867
Join the club; every time I try and unravel a time paradox like this, I run the risk of turning my brain into a wet noodle. It's better to not think about it too hard.
...And once again, you reinforce my belief that this is, by far, the most epic crossover story on Fimfiction.
How old is Twilight at this point? Because I'm thinking Clank needs to wash her mouth out with soap several times.
My head hurts after reading this chapter. All the 4th dimensional thinking is barely something I can handle, but getting into 5th and 6th dimensions????? I'm glad they didn't try to explain it in Chrono Trigger, keep it simple. Just how big a Timey Whimey ball did Twilight make????
7035062
She's 16.
7035062 She linked to 2 and a bit years into the past, then about 2 decades give or take twice, and then created a stable time-loop while linked with her mind from (probably) the future.
Accepting that one can't actually make timey wimey balls, one big enough to encompass the universe about 2.37 times. Give or take rate of expansion.
7035068 At that age I was still very careful not to cuss around my mom and dad despite 6 years of Boy Scouts exposing me to quite a few bad words. Also, I would at the very least expect Ratchet to be worried where she got the expression from.
And it just occurred to me: did any of Ratchet's potential harem visit them at the Clock??? Because I can totally see a romantic evening consisting of watching past super novas and comets on a giant screen while cuddling.
7035077
Regarding the first paragraph, he knows she learned it from him. Specifically from his rampage on the Technomites post a...certain traumatic moment.
Regarding the second, the Great Clock is still a secret. They aren't telling anyone where it is.
7035068 O_O. And since she's an Alicorn she's immortal (or very long lived) just think about what she could do when she reaches 1000 years.
7035218
Yup. And with the Time Rift repaired, something like this isn't even possible anymore.
The Clock still can't be used as a Time Machine without risking the fabric of existence.
Twilight has gained no new abilities or knowledge.
And everybody gets a happy ending.
...except Nefarious.
And this chapter shows why Twilight is the baddest motherbucker in the universe
WEEEEE DOCTOR WHO refrence awesome.
another great chapter but it almost feels like this is starting to come to an end.
that would be Affected by time
okay, that was AWESOME. And it didn't make my head hurt with the explanation! that will earn you 2 extra
s on your final score.
7035146 to be fair, Ponies seem pretty long lived at any rate. Like.... Granny Smith, who was around since before the founding of Ponyville. and considering that someone (i forget who) calculated that Equestria's years would have to be about twice as long as Earth's....
I'm imaging this scene happening during the eventual crossover:
The others stared as Ratchet finished explaining the events at the Great Clock. Finally, Tony Stark threw up his hands and said, "Can anyone top that? Because I can't."
There were more than a few negatives offered.
Never played Chrono Trigger, but I still called the method a few chapters ago.
Awesome chapter by the way.
As one of the few people I know that can (relatively) understand 4th dimension gibberish I'd like to say, that made my head hurt... Looking forward to more.
Keep up the good work. Deus tecum.
7035389 now THAT I am looking forward to! Huh, maybe batman will have a little something up his sleeve for that. Plenty of space time shenanigans there. Either that or call in Superman.
7034960 'join the club'? i own the club...
7034867
7034960
7035531
Made perfect sense to me...
7035609
Oh, time paradoxes like this make sense; however, trying to get them straight is like trying to figure out Pinkie Pie. Doing either of the two is not conducive to retaining sanity. Whenever I try, I get all
7034770 More like a Rose Tyler moment for absorbing the equivalent of the Time Vortex from Doctor Who into her body and gaining omniscient knowledge and power.
7035389 Then you'll have Shinning Armor and Jak being all : Been there, done that. (I don't want to spoil what exactly)
7035685
Rescuing three people from the time stream before they died?
Chrono Trigger and Doctor Who in tandem. Not bad
Also, Twilight's causality quote was hilarious
I wonder if my easy comprehension of time shenanigans has anything to do with playing the Legacy of Kain games...
Still.... power like this will come with a price I think. No such thing as a free lunch. But, something tells me, no matter the price, Twilight would pay it all over again for her daddy.
...I have no idea what just happened. I think I got lost as soon as that time egg thing came up. Also, I can't be the only one who thinks that the Eleventh Doctor's theme "I Am The Doctor" would fit perfectly with this chapter? Twilight was definitely acting like a new series Doctor here.
Twilight is my favorite god.
Also, did you just make a stable time loop LOGICALLY?!
7035712 Not exactly, but they did abuse time travel so their older selves could protect their younger selves.
7035609 Same here, it just made my head hurt in the process.