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1. NOT Just Another Day in the Castle2,980 words
2. Living with a Fancolt2,166 words
3. Preparations and the Great West2,745 words
4. The Apple of Nyx's Eye1,610 words
5. The Appletown Hangover1,461 words

5. The Appletown Hangover

“How long before these negotiations begin?” Sombra’s voice shook Nyx out of her contemplation of the native Appleoosan’s well-toned backside.

“Hmm. Oh yes,” she consulted a flyer for the theater against the town clock looming over the other buildings in the strip mall. “About forty-five min - “ she began to say when her vision blurred and she stiffened.

“Nyx, what do you see - “ Sombra felt a ripple in the local timestream surrounding them. Nyx’s hoof shot out to steady herself, finding her mate’s foreleg, hooking over it. The last thing he saw of her before his vision shifted was her eyes glowing a soft, blue-tinged white…

A wave of strangely distorted time hit them, propelling them violently forward.

“This is - different,” Sombra tensed, unable to vocalize exactly what was off about what he was feeling, but knowing for certain the timeline felt skewed somehow. “It feels - wrong.” A strange pressure bore down upon them. Nyx cursed in Umbrum, struggling as she sought to locate their correct timestream.

Ponies were stampeding down the walkway between both sides of the open food court, their panicked cries barely heard above a strange sound King Sombra had never heard before. Similar to the sounds of a unicorn’s magical blasts, there was, however, also something slightly wrong about them...as if they were unnaturally created. Beams of straight, red light sliced the air, some connecting with individuals in the crowd, downing whoever they touched, the smoke and stench of burned hides assaulting their noses.

Just as suddenly, counter-beams of blue/white energies came from the other direction, aimed back at the attackers facing them. The stampede running towards them ducked even more urgently as they galloped, splitting into two groups, hugging the restaurants and shops on either side of the street.

When the fleeing ponies had passed, a wall of invaders in stark white and black battle armor appeared through the choking smoke. The front line were unicorns brandishing strange, black weapons in their magic and this was where the red beams were coming from. The wave immediately behind them were larger, bulkier earth ponies holding strange transparent shields they used at an upwards angle to direct any stray beams from the enemies.

“Nyx!” Sombra yelled above the din of battle.

The TimeWitch’s face was deep in concentration, but the increased pressure from her hoof over his told him she knew he was trying to get her attention. “Hold on!” she yelled, her eyes flaring hotter with her time magic.

She and Sombra turned in the same direction at the same instant, sensing something was about to happen. A foot away, an explosion of wood splinters from a support beam of the building they were in flew at a blindingly accelerated pace, but hit a shield the King had instinctively thrown around them a mere second before when they had started to turn. Once the pony shocktroopers were gone, he was about to dissolve the shield when Nyx called out, “Keep it up!”

An instant later she threw them backwards in time, the wood shards flying in reverse around them, they disappearing before reconnecting with the wooden pillar they had shattered from. The unnatural time stream’s pressure eased, the chaos around them vanished.

Sides heaving, the mare threw her hooves onto the table in front of them, clearly drained from the experience. “That was - not what I had planned for a quiet outing!” she snorted. Looking around, everything was calm and quiet once again - the few others patrons at nearby tables continuing on with their meals and conversations as if they had not been through a small war, which they hadn’t, having been anchored quite firmly in the current timeline, not having been thrown forward like Nyx and Sombra.

A waiter at a nearby table caught her eye. “If you would please, inkeep, your largest - container of water!” she halted herself from saying, “tankard”.

“Make that two, my good pony,” she heard Sombra say above her. Then more directed at her, “Interesting,” he rumbled. “That was not an normal time jump as we have done before, Nyx.”

“No,” his TimeWitch groaned. “We were dragged off course, thrown into another reality.” Her hoof found her head, but her head was not happy about the physical contact. “Oh Goddess, I ache!”

The shadow king was also feeling the effects, but to a lesser extent. “As do I.” he admitted. “The effect from such experiences is rather akin to the morning after a night’s revelry of - “

“ - being plastered dead drunk?” Nyx said wryly from where her face was content to stay against the table’s top. “Yes, I have yet to understand why that is,” she groaned.

“What did we just experience?” Sombra asked and looked around for something out of the ordinary that could perhaps give a clue as to what had happened to them, but it was difficult to spot since so many ponies around them were costumed and many of those carried replicas of the lightsaber Sombra had fashioned for himself, as well as the black, pointed implements that had fired bolts of powerful magic that had slayed those who had been unfortunate enough to be in their line of fire in that future they had just witnessed.

“I think it from us being out of synch with, well…” she fumbled, her senses still spinning and brain aching. She fought to not shake her head, knowing it would kill her to do so. “‘Twas not me, my king.” His consort pulled her face off the table slowly, even more slowly lifting her head as to not increase the pain she was in. “Something - or someone pulled us into an accelerated time eddy, veering our future off course from the normal time stream.” She drew her hood down, reordering her mane, which still twitched and sparked with the dying embers of whatever magics had grabbed them and flung them forward. “And daresay I saw it was a very reckless, untrained attempt at time control!”

Their water containers arrived. The king’s was made short work of by his highness, him downing his in one swallow, despite Nyx warning him not to. True to her warning, he regretted it when minutes later it nearly made him lose his lunch. He would have turned to shadow and reformed his body to rid himself of the sickness if there had not been so many ponies around, so with great annoyance he rode out the nauseas’ effect upon his person, using every ounce of his pride and stubbornness to avoid intimacy with their table’s surface.

He lost.

The irony of the tables being turned and his head now getting better acquainted with their table were not lost on him as his mate gently stroked his mane, both waiting for the feeling to pass while she took her own drink at a slower, more controlled pace, this despite her body yelling at her to do otherwise.

Once the king trusted his stomach to behave if he opened his mouth, he broke the silence. “These negotiations have the potential to break down in a rather violent fashion,” he observed of the alternate timeline they had witnessed.

“Yes, I do not understand how that could occur,” Nyx muttered, almost to herself. “It’s just a movie - a play,” she corrected herself for Sombra’s sake. “Somepony’s taking it wayyy too seriously.”

“Negotiations are never to be taken lightly, Nyx,” her mate counseled. “These - Sith are dangerous, whatever their intents and desires have incorrectly conveyed to yourself.”

“Perhaps,” she said thoughtfully as the king dragged himself back up, most of the nausea having passed through his body. “If we had not been laid so ill by that trip, I would be tempted to take a peek at what time’s real path has in store for us, but,” she raised a hoof to her own belly. “I believe neither of us are up to it.”

“Yes, and you have said their is a danger in knowing that path as well, yes?”

“True,” she admitted. “And if it be worse, I would not be in haste to know so far ahead. Let us just be careful, Sombra.”

“I am always careful, my consort,” he rumbled, clearly almost over the sick feeling now. “Sharing a bed with you has taught me that well.”

Further down the row of restaurants, the wheat-colored stallion that had greeted them earlier watched the shadow king and his consort, both surprised and concerned at what he had just witnessed. “Well, I’ll be - “ he muttered, but got no further as a hoof on his shoulder from the alley he was next to got his attention. He turned towards it and was pulled into the darkness, out of sight of the oblivious populace of happy, milling cosplayers and locals around him.

Author's Note:

And another story updated. This one can go two ways - the way I had originally intended, which is to be short and funny, or in another direction where it will turn longer and more serious. I had some amusing dialogue for the funny version which I might be able to transfer over if I work it in right, but I want to know what you, the readers, would like to see. Serious or funny? Let me know in the the comments and thank you for hanging on to see this strange little fic continue.

Nyx

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