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Prologue2,579 words
Chapter 12,203 words
Chapter 21,878 words
Chapter 33,028 words
Chapter 43,213 words
Chapter 52,242 words

Chapter 3

The Royal Foal-Hood Chapter 3
Uke-Joe

“Alright class” called Cheerilee, trying to get her classes attention. “For today's family appreciation day, we are pleased to welcome Tate's family!”

The royal sisters walked into the classroom. The class gasped, and at first seemed shocked, but then remembered that Tate lived with them. The class quieted down and waited for the presentation.

“Hello subjects!” said Princess Luna.

“We're Tate's older sisters, and, as most of you probably know, royal Princesses as well.” added Princess Celestia.

They went on to explain how they raised the day and night at the appropriate times each day, and also told some of their more remarkable stories of ancient days and people from the past.

The class was captivated by the tales of the Princesses, who had clearly told these stories countless times before, and perfected their presentation of them. Tate however, was bored of class, as he had heard all these stories already, and silently wished it was over. Before he knew it, the Princesses had concluded the stories, they were bombarded with questions from the class. Cheerilee interrupted the class and said that there would be no questioning for today, as the class had already gone overtime with the Princesses' stories.

The class picked up their saddlebags and headed out the door, chatting with their friends about the day's events. Tate caught up with his friends as they began walking to hang out at the Library.

“Tate!” called a voice behind them. Turning around they saw Princess Luna and Celestia walking towards them. “Try to get home on time today, we have some guests joining us for dinner.”

“Alright Luna, I'll be home on time. Out of curiosity though, who is coming?”

Celestia answered, “Twilight Sparkle, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, Rarity, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy. It's been a while since we've all seen each other at the same time.”

Tate was a little disappointed as he was looking forward to crusading that day. Luna picked up on this and was quick to continue, “Your friends can join you if they have permission”.

Tate looked at his friends. Sweetie Belle and Applebloom said they could probably go, and Scootaloo said she was free to go to. With that, the Princesses said they would see them later and flew off towards the town hall. The Cutie Mark Crusaders resumed walking to the library.

“Okay Spike, I'm trusting you with the library this afternoon, and I won't be back until after you go to bed, so take care of everything.” said Twilight, who was exiting the large tree building.

A little purple dragon gave her a salute. “You can count on me Twilight!”

“I knew I could, Spike.” said Twilight, turning around to face the Cutie Mark Crusaders. “Oh, hey there guys, going to the Library?”

“Yup! We were gonna read up some ideas for late night crusading, but since we're going to be with you and the princesses then, I guess we'll have to wait” said Sweetie Belle.

“Oh, so you all will be there tonight?” asked Twilight. They all nodded their heads. “Well I guess I'll see you then! Just ask Spike if you need anything!”

The Crusaders nodded and dashed into the library, finding as many books as they could carry and sitting down at a table.

“How about Cutie Mark Crusader night fishers?” asked Scootaloo.

“We already tried fishing though!” Tate thought back to a few weeks ago when they decided to go fishing. Long story short, they had all ended up soaking wet and covered in mud, with not so much as a sighting of a fish.

They sighed, and resumed looking for things to try. “Oh! Ah got one! What do y'all think about Cutie Mark Crusaders pony guards?” asked Applebloom.

“Who would we guard though?” asked Tate?

Applebloom looked back at the book. “Ah guess anypony, or anything.”

“Why don't you guard Rarity?” offered Spike. The ponies giggled, knowing full well of Spike and his crush for Rarity. “Oh never mind then.” huffed Spike, before grabbing a ridiculously tall stack of books and beginning to climb a ladder.

Everyone else continued talking, but Tate let his mind wander. He thought about class today. He didn't remember much besides wishing it was shorter, but then again he wasn't paying much attention. He snapped back to reality when the ladder Spike was on began to tip.

“Woa... Woaahhh,” Spike yelled, trying to stabilize the ladder. But the ladder had gone too far, and was sending it, Spike, and all the books he was carrying right towards Tate.

There wasn't enough time to react for Tate, besides to close his eyes and brace for impact. He crouched down and put his hooves over his head, waiting for the impact...

That never came. He opened his eyes. The rest of the Cutie Mark Crusaders all were looking horrified at the sight of a ladder heading straight for Tate, except for Applebloom, who seemed to be the most horrified and was staring straight at Tate. He looked at the ladder, only to yell and fly backwards straight into another bookshelf. It was no less than half a hoof away from him.

He looked at the ladder, and his friends expressions, and wondered what was wrong with the picture. All of a sudden, it hit him like Spike was about to.

They were frozen. Not actually frozen in ice, but they didn't seem to move at all. He walked over to his friends, and tried everything to get them to move. He waved his hooves at them, made funny faces right in front of them, and even did the pony polka on the table. Nothing happened.

He walked over to the door of the Library and opened it, to find somepony who could help him. He ran over to Fluttershy's house, which wasn't so far away, and opened the door. Fluttershy sitting on her chair, reading a novel.

“Fluttershy!” he yelled, before sticking a hoof over his mouth, remembering Fluttershy was an easily scared pony. He expected to hear a scream, but to his surprise nothing came. He walked around to the other side of Fluttershy, and saw that she was as frozen as his friends and Spike were. Puzzled, he walked outside again, only to run right into a small bird, stuck in mid air.

The bird hit the ground and looked up at him, giving him a chirp as if to ask what that was for, before flying away. Tate quickly got up and ran over to a small bunny and touched the bunny. The bunny was still for a moment, but Tate held his breath. He touched the bunny again and the bunny looked at him, tired of being poked, before hopping into Fluttershy's house.

Coming to the realization that things started moving again if he touched them, he ran back to the library and grabbed all the books and the ladders before finally grabbing Spike and putting him on the ground.

“Uh, t-thanks Tate” stammered Spike, who was now unfrozen. “Thanks for uhh...” Spike looked at the ladder and the books, which were neatly put back into place. “uhh... Tate.. how did you do that?”

“I honestly don't know. You were about to hit me on that ladder one second, and when I looked up, everything was frozen.”

Spike looked around the room, just now realizing that everything was frozen. “WOAH! How did you do that?!”

Tate was trying to think of a way to get everything back moving again, “I don't know Spike, I just... don't know.”

“You don't know what Tate?” asked Sweetie Belle

“Tate! You're alive!” yelled Applebloom, tackling him in a hug. “Wait a second, how are you alive? We all thought for sure you were done for”

“Uhh...” said Tate, still recovering from the hug. Applebloom blushed as she let him go “Well I don't really know. Spike was falling towards me one second, and then next second, I looked up, and everything was frozen. So I went to Fluttershy's house and she was frozen too. That's when I realized something was wrong, and I found out I could unfreeze things by touching them after poking Fluttershy's pet. So I came back here and, woah-” Tate sat down, his vision suddenly going fuzzy. “I feel like I just got up after laying down for a while, ugh”.

“Oh! I know what that is! Rarity gets that when she uses a lot of magic.” Sweetie Belle told them.

“But I haven't used any magic!” Tate said, walking over to where he put the ladder, “All I did was put the ladder back in place and- what, are you all looking at?”

The three ponies and young dragon were all looking just behind him. Turning around to see what they were looking at, all he saw was a stack of book, the ladder, and an elaborately decorated gold watch sitting on his flank.

“Tate, you got your cutie mark!” the Crusaders yelled in unison. And so he had. He leaned even closer to examine it.

It was a fancy gold watch, with some design carved into the side of it. Still recovering from using a large amount of magic, along with the shock of finding his cutie mark, he fainted and fell to the floor.

***

Tate opened his eyes. The floor felt a lot softer than it should have it seemed. Tate looked around to realize he wasn't on the floor of the library, but on a sofa in the town hall.

“Hey everypony! I think he's waking up!” cried somepony to his left.

Suddenly the room was crowded with ponies, all questioning him, making sure he was okay, and congratulating him.

“W-whats going on?” he asked, looking at all the ponies in the room. The Princesses were there, as well as his friends, and Twilight Sparkle and all of her friends. “How'd I get here?”

“Fortunately for you, Twilight had forgotten something at the library, so she was able to carry you back to the town hall after you feinted from finding your cutie mark”, said the dragon who was sitting on Twilight's back.

The last 2 words repeated themselves in Tate's head. “CUTIE MARK?!?” he cried, and looked at his flank. Sure enough, there was the fancy golden watch he thought he had dreamed of. He smiled and started bouncing on top of the couch.

“Yeah kid, congrats- that watch is pretty cool looking” said Rainbow Dash.

In midair, he suddenly put on the brakes and came screeching to a halt in a way defying physics so much that even Pinkie was impressed, he asked “What's a watch got to do with anything?”

Celestia smiled. “According to what your friends told us, I think your special talent is over time itself!”

Tate thought about it, “That would make sense. That must be why everything seemed frozen earlier, and why school passed so quickly today”.

Luna seemed mildly upset by the last part of his sentence, but before she could say anything, Twilight spoke up, “It also explains why you were so drained after you stopped time. That must have taken a lot of magic!”

“He should be alright now though, r-right Twilight? I would h-hate to see anything happen to him.” said Fluttershy.

“Yes, he should be almost fully restored by now, there's no reason to worry about him.”

“Well in that case, let's eat! I'm starving!” said the hungry cyan pegasus before zooming into the dining hall, leaving a trail of rainbow colors were she just was.

Laughing at their friend's impatience, the ponies all trotted over to where Rainbow had already started eating. Tate stayed behind to chat with his friends.

“Ah guess you won't be hanging out with us anymore then?” said Applebloom, a tear forming in her eye.

“Of course not! After all, you all need to find your cutie marks, right? Besides, the way I figure, I can just freeze time with us all touching and we can have even more time to hang out now!”

“He's right you guys!” said a very excited Scootaloo, “This could be the best thing to ever happen to us!”

The Crusaders all gave a cheer and dashed into the dining hall to join everypony. They all had a great time that evening, and ended up going to the park for desert. When they had all finished, they were sorry to have to say goodbye and go to their houses. Tate, Luna, and Celestia all set off towards the town hall.

“Did we take a wrong turn somewhere?” Tate asked, “and why isn't anypony here?”

They found themselves right by the Library, with no Twilight or Spike to be found. Puzzled, the retraced their steps and arrived at the park at the same time as everypony else.

“Didn't we all say our goodbyes already?” asked Rarity.

“Ah was walking home when Ah ended up at Fluttershy's house!” responded Applejack, “Ah lived here all my life and not once gotten lost like that.”

“Oh my, I made the same mistake!” exclaimed Twilight. “Well not exactly the same, I ended up at Carousel Boutique.”

As it turned out, they had all found themselves at different places then they'd wished to go to. Rarity and Sweetie Belle went to the Town hall, Fluttershy went to Rainbow's house, Pinkie Pie went to
Fluttershy's cottage and Rainbow had found herself at Sweet Apple acres.

“Well this is very odd” commented Luna, “But I guess it must be a strange combination of being tired, bad luck, and... erm...”

“The weather?” offered Rainbow Dash, staring at the thick fog closing in around them.

“Now wait just an apple bucking second”, started Applejack, “Ah know ah've seen this type of thing before, it's just to familiar”.

A deep laughter rumbled out of the fog. They all knew that laughter, and slowly turned to face the direction it came from.

“It's so great to see that you all came to greet me, I've been so terribly bored without you”. The creature laughed as it's silhouette appeared in the fog. “Of course, I'd love to stay and chat with all of you, but I can't let all the elements of harmony be together in the same place, now can I?”

The shape stepped out of the fog. Everypony gasped as the creature snapped its fingers . Applejack, Celestia, and Luna were disappeared. Applebloom drove away from the creature and ran to Tate, who kept staring at the creature.

“Discord! What did you do to them? Are they okay? And how did you escape our prison?” asked Twilight.

The creature chuckled to himself, “One question at a time. Your friends are sleeping in their homes, completely untouched, dreaming of apple pies or a beautiful sunrise or … whatever they dream of. For your other question, the six of you wielding the elements of harmony was enough to put me away for a bit, but it was nothing like the combined magic of two princesses I felt all those thousands of years ago. I knew it was only a matter of time before one of you lost connection from your element, and I could escape. That day turned out to be today, all of you at the same time this afternoon for about 2 minutes to be exact, which was more than plenty to wake my from my afternoon nap and escape.” He smiled, showing off his one pointed tooth. “Now, to make sure none of you try any funny business”

With a puff of magic, the fog clustered and turned into a full size dragon. Fluttershy shrieked in terror and the whole group found themselves paralyzed in fear, except for Twilight, who was having no luck with any spells she tried on it or Discord. The dragon roared and reeled backwards, drawing in a giant breath. Applebloom hugged closer to Tate, who was frantically trying to think of anything he could do. His horn started to glow as the dragon built up a fireball in its mouth. The dragon roared as it unleashed it's fireball, the force of the fireball hitting the magical barrier Twilight set up. It didn't last for long though, and with the last of the dragons fireball the barrier exploded, sending the group flying backwards, with Applebloom still hanging onto Tate.

Time slowed for everypony except for Tate and Applebloom, who was still connected to Tate in midair. Hitting the ground, Tate unleashed the final part of the magic, fully stopping time.

He hit the ground. Hard. He didn't black out but was too dazed to do anything else. He hoped his passenger had landed more softly than he did, and heard deep laugh walking up to him.

“Well well, we can't have this can we? Another little Alicorn?”

“H-how are you not f-frozen?” Tate asked

“Well what fun would that be, if everything made sense.” Discord chuckled to himself. The last thing Tate saw before blacking out was a sharp knife slicing the air in front of him, before something hit him in the head.

Discord chuckled and turned to the rest of the group. He had separated the elements of harmony, put the princesses in a deep sleep, and that foolish young Alicorn was nice enough to stop time for him, giving him no reason at all to kill the group of frozen ponies. He teleported the dragon elsewhere, and decided to pay the citizens of Canterlot a visit. Sure they would be frozen, but he could wake them up, one by one. He liked the sound of that, and let out an evil laugh he never got tired of using.

***

It was early in the afternoon when Dr. Whooves was running from one place to another, looking for somepony, anypony who could sell him a pair of socks, when all of a sudden he stopped. Something didn't seem quite right. He paused for a moment before pulling out his electronic screwdriver and taking a few readings with it.

“Oh my. We need to get to the Tardis.” he said to nopony in particular. He galloped away to his blue box, need for socks completely forgotten.

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