(Present Chapter 12) Time Trial
Tempest storms into Sugarcube corner, having finally found out where her boss was hiding out, as Sunset leaves, walking past her with confusion and what seems to be a migraine.
The pony in question is staring at her frozen with a cupcake halfway to his mouth. He clamps his mouth shut.
"Hello, FP. To what do I owe the pleasure?" He says, setting down his pastry.
Tempest groans. "Sir, you're supposed to be at the tower preparing for our assault. Why are you here stuffing your face instead?"
She doesn't even bother saying anything to Grubber, who is on the other side of the booth, his own chowing down not at all paused by Tempest's arrival.
Weiss shrugs. "I'm going to be honest with you, Fizz, this whole dang day is a write off. There's time travel afoot."
Tempest decides to play along to speed this up. "And what exactly do you mean by that, sir?" She says, taking a seat at the booth across from him.
"Well, it all started early this morning, when I was drinking my morning sodie-pop."
Weiss was drinking his morning sodie-pop, a delicious blend of mango, chile pepper, and caramel flavoring, looking out over the Everfree from the newly constructed Star Road.
"This feels like a picnic," Weiss says, as Grubber and some newly christened members of "The Fizz", as the Storm Soldiers had been renamed to Tempest's embarrassment, enjoy their break.
"I think this technically is a picnic," Grubber comments.
Weiss continues, ignoring Grubber's interjection. "There must be no other place as pretty as this town."
Grubber takes a bite from his apple pie. "Does this qualify as a town? I thought it was a flying fortress?"
"Chew," Weiss responds elegantly, taking another sip of soda.
"You're not listening, are you?" Grubber correctly assumes.
"What a beautiful Duwang!"
The hefty soldiers look to each other curiously, but none of them have anything to add to this frankly Bizarre conversation.
Suddenly, the yellow soil of the floating fortress begins to shake and shudder, as in the air above them, a strange machine begins to form in the air, floating down slowly.
The Fizz get out of the way and stand at attention in response to the unknown threat, while Weiss simply looks annoyed and confused.
Finally, the machine lands, and the cockpit hisses open, Sunset Shimmer hopping out while dragging three fillies by their ears.
"Hello, Weiss," Sunset says.
"You told me to bring these three here, to this point in time, they've got an apology to make and a time machine to return."
Weiss just stares at them.
"You three have been using my Time Machine? Jumping around all day today?"
The Cutie Mark Crusaders nod nervously. "We're sorry, Mr. Weiss, we were just trying to get our cutie marks, please don't disassemble our molecules..."
"What the heck are you three talking about? Wait, nevermind, please don't try to explain," Weiss rubs his nose with his right hand, while a second right hand rubs his forehead.
He takes a deep breath, trying to stave off a headache he can just sense coming.
He then turns to The Fizz and Grubber. "All of you have the rest of the day off. This whole day's fucked. Avoid going into Ponyville for now. I'm going to ignore that advice and get some comfort food."
He then turns back to the four ponies who brought his Time Machine here. "You three, go home. Stay home. Sunset, make sure they do that, and put my Time Machine in the tower. I'll decide what to do with it later."
All of that said, the frustrated Weiss Noir teleports away, intent on trying to enjoy the rest of his day before it inevitably goes straight to hell.
Tempest soaks in Weiss's explanation.
"So why does the fact that three fillies are time traveling today interfere with our preparations?"
Weiss gives her a half-hearted glare. "Because things are about to get really weird, if Sunset bothered to take them to me.
"And time travel gives me a headache."
The bell of Sugarcube corner dings, as the Cutie Mark Crusaders walk in cautiously.
"Hi Whis! Uhh, having a nice day today?" Applebloom says, walking up to his booth.
"What are you three doing here? I told you to go home," Weiss deadpans, confusing the trio.
Sweety Belle realizes what's going on, and explains. "Oh, uhh, you haven't told us that yet."
It's at this point that another trio of ponies walk through the door, frantically.
"Other us'es, don't try to make Whis feel better, it's jus' gonna make him real mad!" Applebloom #2 shouts, running over between Crusaders #1 and Weiss.
Tempest and Grubber stare at this exchange with a befuddled blink.
Scootaloo #1 responds. "Well dang it Applebloom, this was your idea, come in here, try to make Weiss's day better, so he doesn't go crazy and start chasing us!"
Scootaloo #2 shakes their head. "Yeah, but like, us being in here is going to make him get real mad, so we gotta try and find some other way to calm him down!"
Weiss is rubbing his temples, his face buried in the table.
It's at this point that the bell to Sugarcube Corner dings open, marking the entry of Crusaders #3.
Sweetie Belle #3 grabs Sweetie Belle #1 and #2 "Girls, we need to get out of here, all nine of us being in one place is going to make Weiss-"
"Ok, that's it! I changed my mind. I'm sure as shit that I can bootstrap a better timeline than whatever farce this is going to turn into!" Weiss shouts, standing up and turning to the nonio with confused fury, prompting all three of the temporal crusaders to squeal, and run out of the shop while Weiss gallops after them angrily.
"Get back here! I'm not going through this again! And it's Weiss!" he shouts, horn flaring as the three sets of fillies scramble into their three time machines and warp away, the first set of Crusaders failing to hear his shout.
Tempest walks up behind Weiss, whose flaming mane is beginning to pop and flare up. "If it's any consolation sir, I don't understand what just happened."
"Don't think about it too hard," Weiss snarls, turning and walking off.
"Where are we going, sir?" Tempest asks as she and Grubber take point on either side of their boss.
"Sweet Apple Acres. They'll have to have gone to their clubhouse at some point in this timeline. It's too good of a staging area. Even if they aren't there, Applejack probably knows where they are."
Meanwhile, at the beginning of this sequence of chronologically confused events, the Cutie Mark Crusaders are walking sadly away from the school house.
"Maaan. Any ideas for what to try today, girls?" Scootaloo asks, as they make their way to Sweet Apple Acres to hang out.
Applebloom shrugs. "We'll figure something out, I bet."
Before long, they begin making their way to the clubhouse, but before they reach it, they spot something... odd.
In a clearing, they spot the rounded, bullet-shaped thing, painted up in greens, yellows and reds.
"What the hay do ya think that is?" Applebloom wonders, trotting up to it.
"I bet it's a spaceship!" Scootaloo shouts, hopping up onto the glass dome on top of it.
Sweetie Belle huffs. "It's not a spaceship, it doesn't even have any means of propulsion."
Scoots's messing around on top of it causes the hatch to pop open, sending her tumbling down to the ground.
"It totally is a spaceship, it's got a cockpit and everything!" She shouts in awe.
"Well, help us get up there, I wanna see!" Applebloom shouts, with Sweetie Bell nodding in agreement.
Orders given, Scootaloo holds her hoof down so the other two can climb up as well, but once they get up, her grip slips, sending her flying back as they all tumble inside.
Applebloom and Sweetie Belle fall into a pair of padded seats, while Scootaloo herself slams into a lever, making the hatch shut as the machine makes odd noises, hissing and bleeping angrily while they lift up into the air.
"Wait, I ain't ready to go to space!" Applebloom shouts, looking at Sweet Apple Acres below her.
"Oh Celestia, we're being beamed up!" Sweetie Belle squeals in terror, looking around for something she can do.
At this point, the machine's rumbling reaches a fever pitch, and it fades into the time stream, sending them all bouncing around inside the Time Machine before it slowly fades back into reality, landing softly on the ground.
The crusaders peek out over the edge of the weird cart they found and hopped inside of moments ago, spotting themselves walking up to another one of the weird cart. This prompts them to come to a realization as the other versions of them explore the device, and then accidentally activate it when Scootaloo falls inside and hits a lever.
They turn to each other, and, as if reading each other's minds, shout in tandem.
"Cutie Mark Crusaders Time Travelers, Yaaay!"
"Can you stop, for like, five minutes?" Weiss says, annoyance coloring his tone as he is forced to dodge another swipe from Applejack's whip.
"Oh sure, ah can stop, jus' hold still so ah can kick ya till you can't walk!" Applejack snarls, attempting to grab one of Weiss's legs with a sweep from the Vampire Killer whip.
Tempest and Grubber watch from the sidelines, as Weiss requested.
Weiss attempts to explain, as he flips backwards, scuttling like a spider briefly on his extra limbs, before throwing himself in the air to avoid another swipe. "I need to know where the Crusaders are, it's urgent."
This clearly isn't the right thing to say, as Applejack charges him. "You try an stink up my farm with yer rotten magic, harass the tar outta my friends, ev'ry word that comes outta yer mouth ain't honest and now yer after my dang sister and her friends?"
"I haven't lied since I got here," Weiss says smugly, dodging to the side when Applejack rears back and kicks at him.
"Oh yer sure proud of that, you ain't a liar, but you sure ain't honest either," she growls.
Weiss just shrugs, shaking his head with closed eyes. "Oh come now. I'm perfectly honest. I'm just not trustworthy. I've been perfectly transparent about what I'm about. Is it really my fault when people want to believe something other than what I'm telling them?"
Instead of continuing to banter like he wants, Applejack instead bucks him in the head, sending him flying into a tree.
Applejack snorts, before spitting on the ground. "You talk too much."
Weiss just chuckles, stumbling to his feet before spitting out a few teeth himself. "Got it all out of your system? Cause I still need to get my Time Machine back from those kids, and I'm really fucking pissed today.
"Unless you want the Cutie Mark Crusaders to be time traveling around, trying to get their cutie marks?"
Applejack sweatdrops. "They're in school, they'll be coming this way after," She says.
Weiss trots over, nodding. "Thanks for the help. I'll be sure to get my Time Machine out of their hooves before anything too bad can happen."
Suddenly, he punches Applejack in the kidneys, doubling her over with three separate fists that briefly flash with a black luster.
"Doesn't feel too good, does it?" Weiss says with a frown.
He spits out some black smoke onto the ground as his teeth regenerate painfully. "Let's get the hell out of here. I think I have a concussion."
With that said, they leave the coughing farm pony in search of Crusaders.
It's only via coincidence that they actually miss the fillies, who warp in on their Time Machine next to Applejack after they leave.
"Oh my gosh, Applejack!" Applebloom says, leaping out of the machine to help her sister up.
"What happened?!"
"Weiss, that lowdown snake, got me off guard." Applejack coughs.
Applebloom gasps as her friends come up as well. "He's been after us all day!"
Applejack nods, slowly working through the pain as she stands up with help from her little sister. "He's after that thing y'all are riding around in. And he's mad."
Sweetie Belle ponders this. "Maybe if we keep him from getting mad, he won't be acting so crazy! Let's go back to this morning and try to calm him down before he can hurt Applejack!"
The two nod, ignoring Applejack's frantic headshaking as they hop into the machine and warp away.
"Alright Applejack, gotta pony up and get some ice," The mare mutters to herself, slowly walking inside to get some relief for the painful bruises that damn unicorn gave her.
Maybe Big Mac won't mind if she gets into his hard cider...
She's confused to find Applebloom in the livingroom, with some ice packs and pain medicine ready.
"You alright, Sis? Need some help?" The filly says, bringing a glass of water and asperin.
"How'd you get here?" Applejack asks, confused.
"I've been here for a few hours, uhh, it's a time travel thing. I'm supposed to hang out here for the rest of today," Applebloom shrugs, smiling awkwardly.
Applejack takes the asperin and downs it. It's going to be a long day.
"Yer grounded, by the way," Applejack says casually.
Applebloom just nods, like she knew Applejack was going to say that.
Yeah. Long day indeed.
"Alright girls, here's the plan, we'll just go to the end of today, and ask our future selves if we managed to get our cutie marks for whatever it was we were going to end up doing, then, if none of those worked, we can try something different next time!" Sweetie Belle explains, dialing the machine for the end of the current day.
The machine rumbles and shakes, taking them through time to the clubhouse of the future, but when they arrive, their future selves run towards them, leaping out of the clubhouse.
"Y'all gotta fire this thing up, Whis or whatever his name is is comin'!" Applebloom shouts as the Future Crusaders scramble up into the time machine.
"Hey, what the heck are y'all doin?!" Applebloom shouts as her future self kicks her by mistake climbing in.
Suddenly, the Clubhouse's door flies open, Weiss Noir running forward.
"I finally found you brats, now get the hell out of my Time Machine!" He shouts angrily.
He unleashes a wave of force that coincidentally knocks the past Crusaders out of the machine as he runs towards them.
Future Sweetie Belle shouts after them. "Just run! We left our time machine behind the barn! You can make it!"
With that said, the Future Crusaders warp away in their time machine before Weiss can reach them, and the Past Crusaders scramble back as Weiss roars with the promise of violence.
"When I get my hands on you kids, I'm going to disassemble your molecules!" He shouts, prompting them to run.
"Why's he chasing us?!" Scootaloo shouts, leaping up over a magical blast as they run through the forest of apple trees.
"I don't know, but I don't want to find out the hard way!" Sweetie Belle says, as they take a hard right towards the barn.
Applebloom, spotting, wouldn't you guess it, an apple tree, has an idea and kicks it hard before continuing to run.
The yelps of pain from behind them indicates that the falling apples managed to distract the mad unicorn.
"Damn it, why is it always the face?!" Weiss shouts when an apple hits him right in the same spot where Applejack kicked him hours before, sending waves of pain through his head.
They finally spot it, the Time Machine their future selves had left behind the Apple Family Barn.
Jumping inside, they spot Weiss glaring at them, his two minions running up to either side.
"Don't you dare! I'm going to make what I did to Applejack look like a damn massage if you brats don't get out of that machine right now!"
"Applejack's hurt? Sweetie Belle!" Applebloom shouts, making her friend nod as she punches in the coordinates.
With a screech of frustration, the mildly concussed Weiss leaps for the machine, but it fades out of reality before he can grab it.
"We gotta check on my sis, it sounds like he mighta hurt her!" Applebloom says, as the machine crests the time waves back to earlier today.
The fillies ride the waves of time elsewhen, when Scootaloo groans. "Man, I can't believe we ticked off Weiss like that. I guess we aren't getting our cutie marks for calming ponies down."
Applebloom shrugs. "Let's just head to the clubhouse and take a break, Ah'm getting kinda sick of all this zipping around, and I'm startin' to get the feeling we're just loopin around without actually changing anything..."
The other two nod in approval, and they dial the machine to take them to the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse.
When the machine arrives at the wrong location, plopping down behind the barn instead, Sweetie Belle sweats slightly.
"Uhh, girls, doesn't this look kind of familiar?"
Scootaloo is the first to catch on. "Oh man, we're about to show up at the clubhouse, we've got to warn, uh... Us!"
Hopping out of the time machine, the trio gallop through the forest to their clubhouse, unaware of Weiss Noir and his minions near enough to spot their loud scrambling.
"Well, looks like they're finally making a break for it. I'll go get them and find out where they stashed the machine, you two get to searching. If it's around here, I want it found."
Grubber and Tempest salute, while Weiss Noir himself stalks into the forest, intent on catching those little annoyances before they can muddle up the time stream even more than they already have.
As a matter of fact... He's got an idea.
He opens a portal, pulling out a small crystal which he holds to his ear.
"Sunset. I need a favor. Go to Star Road for me, and wait for a Time Machine. A couple of brats stole yours and took it on a joyride. Grab all three of them the instant they come out. I don't know why, but I believe they're going to pop up there. If they don't, tough luck, I still want you to wait there. Call me when you get them. Got it?"
Some high pitched muttering from the other end confirms that Sunset heard his orders, and is exacting them.
"Good, over and out."
He portals the phone crystal away, rubbing his aching head.
"I swear that apple bitch cracked my skull. Christ this hurts."
Shaking his head as if it would sooth the pain, he continues his walk into the forest in hunt of Crusaders.
Sunset has no earthly idea why Weiss told her to come here. Whatever.
"So what exactly is Weiss paying you guys for, anyway?" Sunset asks one of the former Storm Soldiers, who just responds with a shrug, before going back to eating their sandwich.
Sunset doesn't have much else to say to them, and the silence passes awkwardly.
She levitates up a chunk of soil from the Star Road, studying it curiously. She drops it in shock when a small ring sweeps over the clod of dirt, leaving it weightless.
"Huh. Enchanted soil."
Sunset continues to wait, until a rumbling noise alerts her to her Time Machine materializing in front of her. Standing to her hooves, she prepares her magic, snatching the three fillies when the hatch hisses open.
"Ahh! Please don't vaporize us, we brought it back!" Sweetie Belle shouts, eyes squinted shut.
Sunset pulls out her communication crystal. "Weiss, I've got them. What do you want me to do now?"
Some low pitched mumbling leaves her slightly confused.
"Why this morning? Oh," Sunset responds as Weiss explains part of the confusing events leading up to now.
Sunset turns to the three fillies. "You've got an apology to make to Weiss."
"What? Why do we gotta apologize? He was chasing us like a madpony!" Scootaloo complains, as Sunset plops them all into the machine and dials it for several hours ago.
"Because what you did was very reckless, and this machine isn't a toy," Sunset explains with exasperation as they ride the timeline backwards to this exact location.
Finally, the yellow soil of the floating fortress begins to shake and shudder, as in the air above the Star Road, their time machine rematerializes and floats down.
The Fizz get out of the way and stand at attention in response to the unknown threat, while Weiss simply looks annoyed and confused.
Finally, the machine lands, and the cockpit hisses open, Sunset Shimmer hopping out while dragging three fillies by their ears.
"Hello, Weiss," Sunset says.
"You told me to bring these three here, to this point in time, they've got an apology to make, and a time machine to return."
Weiss just stares at them.
"You three have been using my Time Machine? Jumping around all day today?" He questions, dreading the answer.
'Man, today's going to get weird if they're bringing me into this.'
The Cutie Mark Crusaders nod nervously.
"We're sorry, Mr. Weiss, we were just trying to get our cutie marks, please don't disassemble our molecules..."
"What the heck are you three talking about? Wait, nevermind, please don't try to explain," Weiss rubs his nose with his right hand, while a second right hand rubs his forehead.
'And there it is. I must have gotten pissed and chased them around trying to get my machine back, if they think I'm going to atomize them. I probably used that exact threat since that's how perfectly safe teleportation works,' Weiss thinks to himself with a large amount of displeasure at the amount of work he's going to have to do today.
It's going to take all of his focus to play along with the ideal course of events and try to bootstrap his ignorance into a safe, not-dangerous sequence of timeloops.
He takes a deep breath, trying to stave off a headache he can just sense coming.
'Ok, send them home, get the originals out of the way, then go into town until they piss me off badly enough to hunt them down and fulfill the loop. I'll give the soldiers the day off too, to minimize variables.'
Finally, Sunset manages to track down Weiss, who had apparently gone to Sugarcube Corner to eat cupcakes.
Walking inside, she spots him and Tempest's lackey, chowing down on cupcakes.
"So, is there any reason why you threatened a bunch of kids and chased them around firing off dangerous magic attacks, or was that just today's entertainment?" Sunset says, plopping down in a seat across from Weiss, as Pinkie comes over and provides him with another cupcake.
Weiss just shrugs. "Time Travel is for immortals and fools.
"They were scared of me, which means I had to have done something to scare them. Which means now I have to go and do something to scare them sometime today. The fact that they're alive means I won't succeed even if I broke out every combat spell in the book, and the fact that you brought them to this morning means that future me knows that, and told you to take them to this morning, because he figured out what was going to happen."
Weiss chuckles, taking a bite from his pastry. "And people wonder why I hate time travel."
Sunset gives him a curious look. "But if that were the case, then why didn't you just act nicely to them, and have all of this play out differently?"
Weiss frowns. "Because I will have haven't. If I don't do it on purpose, then that just means I'll have done it on accident, and the time loop will conclude accordingly. The only thing I can control at this point is how it plays out based on my own ignorance.
"The kids are going to run around, try to change the past, coincidentally ensure that the past plays out exactly the way that they were trying to keep it from playing out as, and then they're going to try and return my time machine, take it to Star Road, and then I'm going to call the past-you to go catch them. Try to avoid meeting yourself, by the way. It will just make things get even weirder until past you goes back in time and becomes you-you."
Sunset swears that she tastes copper for a moment. "Alright. I'm going to go, this is entirely too confusing."
"Have a nice day!" Weiss calls out, after her as she walks out of Sugarcube corner with a small migraine, trotting past Tempest Shadow, who looks angry about something as she storms past her.
As Sunset finishes recounting the story to Twilight, the unicorn shudders.
"That sounds awful. Remind me to never mess with time travel magic."
Sunset just nods, taking a sip of her tea.
"I regret looking at the Time Machine's security camera footage. I believe Weiss's exact words on the matter were 'Just don't think about it too hard, it'll just piss you off and it still won't make sense'."
Twilight nods at the sage advice.
"Spike, take a letter," She says, prompting the baby dragon to pull out his quill and paper.
"Dear Princess Celestia,
Today I've learned that time travel will give you a headache, even if it's only explained to you through a third-party. It is much better to try and forget that any instances of time travel happened, so as to save yourself the time and headache powder.
Yours truly, Twilight Sparkle.
PS. This isn't technically a friendship report, strictly speaking, but it is something important I learned from a friend."
Weiss knows she's taunting him at this point. Every time he's seen her since Sunset had begun to translate his book, she had that smug, self-assured smile on her face. As though he wasn't a threat anymore, now that she knew his playbook.
But this time is different. This time, he's not going to use a sneaky trick.
He's not sure what kind of pony could have enough magical power to do what he can do with his delightful, wonderful dark magics, but he's sure that no ponies exist that could defeat what he has created on their own.
Oh it was excruciating. For weeks, Weiss had fought to empower the almost expired Stoppered Time with his most powerful magics by using his most powerful Dark Materia to ensure he cast the exact same spell into it each day. Weeks of not being able to sleep because he had to be awake to cast the spells without his Arcana Nox.
Now he has a SSS+ Rank Vance. Now he has the firepower needed to remind Celestia of why she needed the Elements and Weapons both to take him down the first time.
Now the games can finally begin.
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Why do I feel like he's going to make an enchanted loot-box to put it in and open with flashing lights and confetti just to fuck with Celestia that little tiny extra bit?
Jesus hes about to wreck someones shit in. I dong feel bad for celestia right now.
My question is why didn't Doctor Whooves appear to talk about time travel considering he is pony Doctor Who
Ah, time travel is so much fun, especially with the CMC, Nice to know that Weiss could match Celestia once again, wonder what he will do to annoy her again.
at least the time travel bit is over. for now, I mean imagine if Celestia and Luna or other fools went on a trip? giving Weiss experiences of why he hates it looping migraines of regret of making the darn thing and worse yet he needs to keep it for time-loop sake, for the safety of the whole world migraine for reality!
pfft sounds like Celestia needs to be humbled! just cause you to know something doesn't mean it gonna stick forever that lazy of her so now an arms race of gaining an edge begins! she kicked it off with her theft but underestimated him in arrogance again! he doesn't stop just cause his foe got a drop on him he just gonna make that knowledge obsolete and outpace it with new things and cunning!
hey so out of Weiss past was he the nemesis of the pilar six by chance then just the alicorn sisters?
9705423
The Pillar Six were already Pillar'd by the time Weiss arrives in the past. They have never met.
I had an omelette sandwich this morning.
... ... ... ... ...
That is all.
He's got a point.
9705458
oh I hope he meets them star swirl need a good check and balance
noice
"When I get my hands on you kids, I'm going to disassemble your molecules!"
.
Love the Gravity Fall reverence
That was a very homestuck series of events, playing out exactly like eggs’ and biscuit’s looping time shenanigans.
Oooh, callback to Chapter 5's flash-forward! I was wondering when that'd happen!
The more this time machine is described the more it sounds like the time machine from Dragonball Z
It's not mine, I just washed them!
You know, I didn't realize it until just this moment, but the CMC has figured out how to operate the time machine
He doesn't have the hairdo to be a Whis
Please do everyone a favor and remember that
Is this bill or Weiss?
9705458
Are you coming back after these 2 years to continue this story? Please, please tell me that you're going to continue this story. It's legendary.
Of course you give the trigger warning at the end of the chapter
10909018
Yeah, that’s just ironically cruel. Slapping one last bit of time-wimey bullshit across our faces like that.