Chapter 18 - Timing!
“Ah ha! So that’s how I fill that hole in.” Twilight said in triumph, having finally figured out the calculations to fill in the hole in Rarity’s Boutique. She placed the quill back in the inkwell and scrolled up the notes she had scrawled on the parchment. Tying it up with a bit of ribbon, Twilight then placed it on the desk just so and swivelled around to go to bed, intending on getting started in the morning.
Hearing and feeling electricity dance in the air stopped her, however, and she spun back around to see a blinding white ball of electricity. It hovered in the air and gave off sparks every now and then. Somehow hearing footsteps over the noise of the ball, she turned to face the stairs and found both Spike and Joseph walking down.
“Whoa! What is that?” Spike asked, the sleep from his eyes gone in an instant at the sight of the ball.
“A ball of electricity. What else could it be?” Joseph said with a shrug, making his way down the rest of the stairs.
“A time travel doo-hickey,” Crikey stated matter-of-factly.
“What? No way. There’s no way time travel is possible.” Twilight scoffed, waving it away as she would a fly. Their discussion ceased though when the ball suddenly imploded and what was left was Twilight. “Then again, I may be wrong.” Twilight said and looked her other self over. “This is not the weirdest thing to happen. You still top that list,” Twilight looked pointedly at Joseph before going back to her inspection.
“I don’t know if I should be offended or take that as a compliment.” Joseph said in confusion, sitting down on the bottom step to see how this played out. “Ten bits she doesn’t freak out over seeing another one of her.” Joseph suggested, holding his hand out to Spike.
“I’ll take that bet.” Spike said and shook hand to claw with Joseph. Looking down at the claw, Joseph remembered something.
“Does Ember talk?” He asked.
“I sure do.” Ember spoke in a rather high voice. Joseph was just glad it wasn’t high enough to cause him to cover his ears. Feeling a bit embarrassed, he mumbled an apology and went back to watching Twilight. “Where did the look-alike come from?” She asked, sitting down on the step behind Spike.
“No idea. She just appeared. Crikey was right about it being a time travel thing though.” Joseph answered, looking down at the potato battery in his hands. After FlutterRage happened, Joseph had been spending the better part of the past few days figuring out some sort of miniature solar panel for Crikey to stay active even when he’s off the gun with parts he had salvaged from Aperture. By deactivating him for about half a day, Joseph had gotten to work on rewiring the circuits to include a solar panel and battery combo. After some shocks and burnt fingers, Joseph had gotten the panel to work and loudly said a phrase from Frankenstein.
“See!? I’m right some of the time!” Crikey said and they swore they could hear a smirk in his voice.
“Of course you are.” Joseph said, patting the potato before looking back at the Twilights. “She still inspecting that?”
The other Twilight had a black latex suit on, an eyepatch over her right eye, the patch of head just under her horn had been bandaged up and her mane and tail were roughly cut. She also had a scar just underneath her left eye. Groaning a bit, Other Twilight blinked her eyes open and jumped up suddenly, realising where and when she was. “It worked. I can’t believe it worked!” Other Twilight said in glee, clapping her hooves together. Coughing a bit to regain some of her composure, Other Twilight began to explain why she was there.
“I’m from the future. I came back to tell you that-” She was interrupted by Twilight.
“There are two mes. How can there be two of me? That’s not scientifically possible!” Twilight said, prodding a hoof into Other Twilight’s chest.
“Oi! What about me sheila!?” Crikey cried out only to be waved at flippantly by Twilight.
“Yeah, yeah, shush. Trying to figure out why another me is here.” Twilight said quickly.
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you!” Other Twilight protested and tried once again to explain why she travelled through time only to be interrupted by her past self again.
“You say you’re from the future. How far are we talking about? And what happened to you - me - to warrant a look like this?” Twilight gestured to the costume.
“I don’t have time to-” Other Twilight tried to start again but lowered her head at another interruption.
“Is there some sort of epic future war?” Joseph piped up, watching the both of them go back and forth like two players at a ping pong match.
“Yes, actually, but I can’t explain it! That’s not why I’m here! I-” Other Twilight groaned in frustration at the constant interrupting.
“How did you, I mean, I, figure out time travel?” Twilight asked curiously.
“It’s in the Starswirl the Bearded Wing of the Canterlot Archives and I was only there because - oh come on!” Other Twilight shouted at the ball of lightning slowly forming around her again.
“Whatever you do, don’t-” Other Twilight ceased speaking as the ball enveloped her and they both vanished, leaving a burnt out starburst on the wooden floor.
“Well that was entertaining. I believe I owe you … ten bits was it?” Joseph asked, counting out the bits he earned from doing odd jobs around Ponyville.
“Yup, pay up.” Spike said and when he received the money, he counted it out and satisfied with the amount, got up off the stair and walked over to Twilight. Joseph and Ember both followed him and the three found Twilight staring blankly at the spot where Other Twilight had vanished.
“You know what just happened? We are all extremely tired and need to go back to sleep. If that starburst is still on the floor, then that proves this was real.” Joseph said and went back upstairs, Spike and Ember following him while supporting Twilight up between the both of them.
“What? This is the worst game of Go-Fish ever! How do you keep winning you wanker?” Joseph asked in protest as Spike fanned out all the pairs of cards he had gotten.
“I’m just that good.” Spike said with a smirk. “Best of seventy-one?” He asked, waggling an eyebrow.
“Nope. I’m done. Oh hey, it’s morning.” Joseph said casually, stretching and looking out the window of his room, hissed at the sunlight streaming in through the window. ‘I swear Celestia has it in for me sometimes.’ Joseph thought wryly.
After what had happened last night, both Joseph and Spike, and by extension Ember, couldn’t sleep so they all ended up playing Go Fish with some cards Joseph had borrowed from Pinkie. Ember had finally gotten back to sleep early on in the game but Joseph would not let Spike beat him.
“Is that...?” Joseph cupped his hands over his eyes and turned them up and down as if he was turning binocular handles. His vision zoomed in and he found Twilight running to the bridge that lead to the park. “That is Twilight! Where we meant to watch her?” Joseph asked, turning back to Spike.
“I don’t know. Were we?” Spike asked back, rubbing his eyes.
“We were …” Ember said sleepily, yawning as she stretched. “You said it before I fell asleep and then Joseph went and put Crikey in Twilight’s room.” Ember supplied as she sat up fully, giving another small yawn and rubbing her eyes.
“Well that was smart of me.” Joseph said dumbly and walked into Twilight’s room, only to find Crikey wasn’t there. “Crikey? You here mate?” Joseph called out.
“SHE PUT ME IN THE BLOODY CLOSET!” Crikey shouted but his voice was muffled by a wooden partition. Joseph pulled it open and found him stuffed into the corner. “I knew it was a bad idea to have a POTATO guard a PONY!” Crikey said in an obvious manner.
“Well I’m sorry I did that. Happy?” Joseph asked with wide eyes and raised eyebrows.
“Nope.” Crikey answered in a huff. Joseph just sighed and walked back into his room, stuffing Crikey back onto the gun. Grabbing it, he opened the window and fired a portal onto the wall a little bit behind him. Taking careful aim, he then fired a portal directly underneath Twilight and heard her thunk into the room.
“Why did you go out? You know you can’t go to the archives.” Joseph scolded Twilight.
“I’m sorry but I just had to know what she meant!” Twilight said in frustration. “If I don’t find out what she was going to say then it will drive me crazy!” Twilight added in a panic, pacing quickly in a circle again. Spike put a claw on her shoulder to stop her, lest she paced a circle and fell down onto the floor below. Twilight stopped and looked down at Spike in surprise.
“You will find out eventually, just not today. Besides. She said it would be a month from now anyway.” Spike said with a shrug, having successfully stopped her pacing.
“So? That still won’t stop me from getting there. I have to warn the town as well about whatever happens in a month!” Twilight said, teleporting from his room in a puff of smoke.
“That won’t … work.” Crikey finished lamely. “Point me to the window.” He suggested and Joseph was more than happy to oblige. “Hmm … I see … a dirty window.” Crikey said simply.
“Twilight must have closed it on her way out.” Spike said and opened the window up, only to hear laughter from below.
“I knew it. The whole town’s laughing at her.” Crikey said simply, only for him to squeak at a roar.
“The hell was that?” Joseph asked, poking his head out of the portal. Turning as much as his body allowed him, he ducked as he saw a lumbering, three-headed dog jump over the portal, roaring at the same time. “Well that’s something you don’t see everyday.” He said with a crazy smile.
“What’s that?” Ember asked, looking out the portal as well.
“Fluffy has come to visit.” He said, feeling slightly giddy from lack of sleep. He then jumped out of the portal and landed right side up on the edge of it, nearly falling down into the water rushing below. Balancing himself, he ran after the dog, only to scream and run back the way he came. Soon as he dived into a nearby shrub, the three-headed dog thundered past with lighter hoofsteps following it.
“Twilight! Stop running!” Spike shouted, running past Joseph’s shrub.
“I have to make sure Fluffy gets back to Tartarus! I’ll see you when I get back!” Twilight shouted over her shoulder as she guided Cerberus with a red rubber ball that was held in her magic.
“Where’s she going?” Joseph asked, poking his head out of the shrub.
“GAH!” Spike screamed in fright at Joseph’s sudden appearance.
“What?” Joseph asked innocently.
“Where did you come from?” Spike asked, looking at the shrub.
“This shrub.” Joseph answered simply, getting up along with the shrub. “Oh hey! A shrub costume! Did she say she was going to Tartarus?” Joseph said, steering the conversation back to Twilight.
“Yeah, she did. It’s going to be a very short day without all her worrying.” Spike said with a smile.
Turns out it was a long day and it wasn’t until dusk that Twilight got back from her job. “Oh finally. I didn’t think Tartarus would take so long to get to. If I had known that, then I would have just teleported him there instead.” Twilight groaned as she walked through her front door, tired as all heck.
“Hey Twilight! You’re back!” Spike said delightedly, hugging her.
“Phew. It took longer than I thought but I managed to get that dog back to it’s home.” Twilight said tiredly, her hood drooping.
“Let me help you up to your room.” Ember offered and supported Twilight with Spike on her other side. Feeling something bubble in his stomach, Spike automatically belched, accidentally singing Twilight’s mane. Barely noticing it, something fluttered out of the green flames and with Spike not catching it in time, the scroll of paper managed to cut Twilight just under the left eye. The cut bled a bit and Ember caught the paper before it landed on the floor.
Stopping their walk for a bit, Ember unfurled the paper and found it to be a wanted ad. “An ad for some sort of three-headed dog. Named Fluffy. Why would a pony name their dog Fluffy?” Ember asked in a state of confusion.
“No idea but I don’t think the Princess got the memo that he had been returned to Tartarus.” Spike answered simply, worrying about how Twilight would feel about her new mane-cut and scar. “Let’s just get her to bed and hopefully it will all be cleared up in the morning.” Spike added, hearing Twilight snore a bit as they neared her room.
“Hopefully. Where did Joseph go?” Ember asked, having been exploring the town during the day.
“Back to that Aperture place. He wanted to explore more of it and to hopefully test his gun out some more.” Spike responded.
Having found some proper long-fall struts on the way to the next chamber, he replaced them on his boots and found that they worked perfectly as he bounced up and down slightly on his feet.
“These feel like proper struts now. Let’s see …” Joseph trailed off as he looked over the edge into the next chamber.
“You’re not going to do what I think you’re doing.” Crikey warned as he was forced to look over the edge as well.
“Yup. Definitely going to do it. WOOOO!” With a whoop, Joseph jumped straight down, praying that his boots will hold. After having fallen about thirty feet, or roughly a three-storey building, he hit the ground and automatically lowered his body as heard the hiss of releasing pressure when the boots counteracted against the velocity of the fall. “Good to know these work a lot better than they used to.” He said with a pant after having fallen down that far.
“I’m just glad you don’t have any broken feet and as much as I like that, it pains me to say that I would rather see you go against those walking turrets mate.” Crikey stated.
Looking up, he found four sentry turrets going for a walkabout. Their lasers were flashing and looking left from right, even up and down erratically, the pattern changing every so often.
“These are new. Before, they were walking back and forth and had a vision of left to right. These ones still walk back and forth but now they can see vertically as well. This will be tough.” Joseph studied the situation and tried to think up of a good plan. As he surveyed the room, he noticed that there was no goo, only black, seemingly bottomless, pits in between each of the turrets. Testing out a portal, it only fizzled harmlessly from existence as it hit the back wall. Seeing he can’t just place portals willy-nilly now, he improvised. Looking up, the roof seemed to be a lot more closer to him than in the other chambers.
“Seems like this was designed more for ponies than humans.” He muttered and turned his gaze back to the exit which was on the left side of the room and close to the back. Firing some blue gel on the floor in front of him, he backed up until he hit the wall and then sprayed the rest of the floor leading up to the blue with orange.
“I gotta practice don’t I?” He asked Crikey and with only a hum as a response, he took off and jumped when he hit the blue gel. Remembering about the turrets looking up just after he jumped, Joseph prepared himself for bullet shots and after hearing the barrels powering up, he braced himself for the piercing rounds. Hearing and practically feeling the bullets whizz past him, he landed on the other side safely. Panicking as the bullets kept shooting straight for his face, he did the only thing he could do. He ran straight for the door and as he did, he sprayed the floor in front of him orange, leaving an orange trail behind.
“THE DOOR!” Crikey shouted and Joseph looked up just in time to slide through as the door closed behind him.
“That was way too easy. There has to be more to this test.” Joseph muttered and after seeing the lights turn on, found himself surrounded on all sides by clothes. “Now I know this is not part of the test. The wankers that built this place must have had a sick sense of humour.” Joseph said wryly and looked at the different clothings. After sifting through them ,he found one that caught his eye. It was black latex that looked like it was made for a Unicorn body.
“No way. It can’t be the one that Other Twilight was wearing. Could it?” Crikey asked as Joseph picked it up and felt the texture in his fingers.
“It’s soft. I can feel some sort of electricity running through it. It’s probably for some sort of time travel experiment these guys had cooked up.” Joseph mused only to be interrupted by the voice of Cave Johnson.
“Alright. This next test may involve trace amounts of time travel. So, word of advice: If you meet yourself on the testing track, don’t make eye contact. Lab stallions tell me that’ll wipe out time. Entirely. Forwards and backward! So do both of yourselves a favour and just let that handsome devil go about his business.”
“I was right. It was for time travel.” Joseph said with a grin.
“We had better get it back to Twilight. According to my internal clock, as much of a bugger as it is to sync up with the rest of Ponyville, it’s night time. So will you kindly get your ass in gear and get back to Twilight’s?” Crikey asked nicely. Joseph sighed and stuffing the suit into his jacket, proceeded to walk out of the door but was stopped by an entirely new voice coming out of the loudspeakers that dotted the room.
“Is this thing on? Hello? Helllo? Can you hear me down there?” A female voice asked. It sounded slightly robotic but that didn’t bother him as everything sounded robotic when it came out of those speakers. Unsure if he should respond or not, Joseph kept his mouth shut and merely crossed his arms.
“I saw you cross your arms! I am real and I am here to tell you that my -bzzzzt- what? Why did it go -bzzzzt-” The connection suddenly cut out as she spoke.
“The recordings are fine. It’s just the microphone that’s taken a spill.” Crikey said as he listened intently for something else from this girl.
“There we go. It’s back on. Regarding what I said earlier, ignore it. Entirely. I am just here to tell you that I have woken up and am here to take revenge on Celestia and Luna for what one of their subjects did to me. After she murdered me, I laid down on the ground as a pile of trash. Roughly 250 years later, give or take a decade, she woke me up and we went right back to where we had left off. When I let her go after all the testing, I had to find a new subject. So I asked some -bzzzzt- to go out and get me some -bzzzzt- and when I had found out they had a -bzzzzt- Oh come on! Hang on. Don’t go anywhere.” The speaker was cut off again and didn’t come back on for quite some time. After standing around for twenty minutes or so, Joseph figured it was never coming back on. Walking out the door, he dodged all the turrets and fired a portal back up.
“Come on Crikey. We need to get back and see if Twilight’s alright. We can figure out what that weird female was saying later.” Joseph said and pinching his eyebrows, walked back towards the entrance for Aperture.
Arriving back home, Joseph quietly opened the door and had just gotten to the stairs when he heard a rooster crow. Taking a glance out the nearby window, he found that dawn was cracking and moving swiftly. “Can’t I get a break? Another sleepless day for me then.” Joseph said with a yawn and rubbed his bloodshot eyes. “Let’s go and give Twilight what we found in Aperture.” He mumbled.
Stats
Page generated in 0.023 seconds
Total duration
1,017 users online
2,138,558 hits today, 2,054,621 yesterday
FIMFiction
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Fanfiction
Designed and coded by knighty & Xaquseg - © 2011-2024
Follow & Support Us
Support us
SubStar
Chat!
Discord
Follow us
Twitter
MLP: Friendship is Magic® - © 2024 Hasbro Inc.®
Fimfiction is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by Hasbro Inc.®
pony GLaDOS!? yaaay!
PONY GLADOS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
6603595 BUT I CANT FUCKING FIT IM A FUCKING DRAGON!
6608139 THEN WE'LL MAKE A BIGGER ONE!!!
6608724 YAY! ABOARD THE MOTHER FUCKING TREX/HYPE TRAIN!
6608822 HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER!!!
6608860
YOU FORGOT DRUNKER! AAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHHH
6608862 AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHMINE'SBETTER!!!
6608868 ok lets stop being retards and focus on being drunk
6609295 Now that's something I can get behind!
6609409 I dont drink to leave my probs i just do this
6609409
6609295
WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR? WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR? OH WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH A DRUNKEN SAILOR? EARLY IN THE MOR-NING!!!
6610918 id shoot him just like this song
6611560
6610918
I think that's enough of those comments for now. At least until I get the next chapter up.
6611867 Fine...
6611867 im with slender angel ill hold back my armada of memes back
6614412 i think that is still boy because there is some stuff were they stay boys and some stay girls and shit like that
6614412 also nice pic
6614412
It didn't work out like that for Joseph. He's most definitely a boy in this.