The Titans' Orb: Breaking Dawn

by Mister Horncastle

Chapter Nineteen: It's About Time

I beckoned for the others to come out, and one by one they stepped out of the bus, Josh included. Still carrying a sobbing Rainbow Dash and wiping at his eyes, Alex saw them and shook his head.

“You, really were telling the truth…” He wheezed, looking back to me.

“You were never going to believe me, until you saw for yourself.” I replied.

Setting Rainbow down, he wrapped both of his arms around me and hugged me tightly, thanking me profusely. Once he had calmed down some, he took a step back and asked how we’d found him, along with why we were here.

“The first bit was easy.” I said, shrugging, “Slipped a phone in your truck while we were in the McDonald’s, then we just tracked it. As for why we’re here, you might want to invite us in for a chat.”

Dipping his head, Alex wiped at his remaining tears and loudly cleared his throat. He then turned to face the other girls and sighed in disbelief. Dashie meanwhile, buried her face into his side, still totally overwhelmed by all of this.

“I never thought I’d be seeing you all again.” He croaked.

“We’ve met before?” Applejack quizzed.

To this, Alex tilted his head.

“You don’t remember?”

Hopping forward to stand beside Alex, I quickly explained that it was only Twilight and Rainbow Dash who had recovered their memories, and that the others still had no recollection of ever coming to Earth. Nodding in understanding, he sniffed again and shakily greeted everyone, shaking Josh’s hand and then returning to Dashie, of whom was still trying her best to stop crying, her whole body trembling like jelly. He scooped her up for a second time, and she instinctively wrapped her limbs around him like a koala, letting him carry her indoors. We all followed him, with Josh quickly scooting over to collect his extra phone from the pickup truck. I also collected Alex’s pistol from the deck, and noticed that the safety was on; I huffed with amusement, knowing that he never had any intention of actually shooting me. I placed it on the countertop just as we entered the building.

“Damn, nice house…” I murmured.

The outer appearance didn’t do a shred of justice for the inside, the building had a massive open plan entryway with a plethora of modern furniture and technological gismos; we were escorted into the living room, where there was a huge contemporary L-shaped couch, two reclining armchairs, and an enormous plasma television mounted to the wall, which was hooked up to a handful of games consoles, and in one corner was a bar with a very sizable selection of alcohol.

“My chair!” Rainbow cried out, getting tearful again.

Alex broke into a laugh and set his daughter down onto his father’s old recliner; she immediately reverted to a childlike state and squashed her face into the chair’s armrest, rubbing her cheek against it like a cat. Josh and I clutched at our chests in perfect sync, both struck by the sheer wholesomeness of the sight before us. It was truly larger than life to see the chair for itself, after reading about it in My Little Dashie, especially after hearing about it further from Rainbow’s perspective just a few days ago.

“So, can I uh, get you guys anything? Tea, coffee, water? Um…” Alex began, stumbling over his words.

“How about we get a big pot of tea underway? Earl Grey if you’ve got it.” I replied, sitting down, “This isn’t going to be the jolliest of chinwags, so I’d say hot drinks all-round are in order.”

Inhaling deeply, Alex looked at Rainbow Dash one last time, as though he was expecting her to be gone upon his return. He then puffed heavily and stepped away into the kitchen. Everyone sat down with me on the couch, and I quickly reached over to Dash to give her shoulder a quick rub.

“You alright?” I whispered.

Tightening her lips and nodding frantically with glistening eyes, it was clear that she’d start crying again if she were to speak. Alex came back and forth from the kitchen with teacups for us all, setting them down on the coffee table in front of us. He then finally brought out a big pot of tea once it was ready, to which I offered to pour, as his hands were still visibly shaking. I took the pot from him and he went to sit down, moving the second armchair to be closer to his father’s, so that he could sit beside Dashie.

“Okay so, can someone please explain to me what’s going on? Because I was told by the Princess that I would never see any of you again. She made that very clear to me.”

“Yeah well, that was before… He, escaped…” Twilight sighed, closing her eyes for a moment.

I spared Alex of his confusion by jumping into the conversation, to tell him of the living nightmare, whose name Twilight could not utter.

“To skip the pronoun game,” I began, “Equestria is in immeasurable danger, at the behest of an ‘orrible cunt, by the name of Nah’Lek, the Defiler.”

Twilight flinched, but remained steadfast; I hated having to say his name in front of her, but it was going to come up at some point in this conversation, so I’d decided to get it out of the way sooner rather than later.

“He’s a demigod, more evil and more horrifying than you can possibly imagine. Now long ago, he was imprisoned in Tartarus for bringing about the most violent slaughter in their world’s history.” I continued, nodding to the girls, “And for thousands of years, he was left to rot, to the point where everyone forgot about him. Recently however, he broke free, and he’s put their whole world in danger, by sending a very powerful artefact here, to Earth.”

Trying to wrap his head around this information, (which was a mere droplet in comparison to everything else we were about to tell him), Alex slowly inquired as to what this ‘powerful artefact’ was. I took a large sip from my tea, and smacked my lips together with a little gasp.

“That, my friend, would be a little-known thing, called The Titans’ Orb.”

And thus, between the girls and I, we told him the entirety of our tale…

---

“Once Josh arrived to pick us up, I used his phone to arrange our meeting at the McDonald’s. We then drove for two days straight to get here, and lo and behold, here we are.”

Slumping back into the sofa with my fourth cup of tea, I concluded the entire recollection of our journey so far; from the evening I had met the girls in my garden, to the morning we had left the Belmont Towers hotel, and everything in between, warts and all.
There were only two details which I had chosen to neglect…

Firstly, I didn’t tell him how severely Twilight had been abused by Nah’Lek, for that was something she didn’t wish for the other girls to know about. Having assisted her in writing her poem, A Frigid Burial, I could fully understand why; I wouldn’t want people knowing if I’d been tortured in such a way…

Secondly, I decided not to tell Alex of my more salacious history with Rainbow Dash. He had already been through an absolute whirlwind of emotions today, just hearing about what happened in Brazil nearly broke the poor guy; the very last thing he needed to know right now, was that I’d slept with his daughter.

“Shit… You guys have, really been through hell, huh?” Alex sighed, visibly exhausted from the tale.

“You can most certainly say that again.” Rarity replied, tutting.

“I almost can’t believe it to be honest.” He said, “It’s just so, awful. Like, I’m under no delusion that this world can be a horrible place, but it’s like you’ve all been thrown straight into the worst of it. And you’re saying that you’ve only found what, three, of the six pieces of the Orb? So after all the shit you’ve been through, you’re only halfway?”

“Well blimey, don’t give us any words of encouragement!” I laughed in response.

“Sorry, I’m just, um… I can only imagine how much more lies ahead for you guys, that’s all. Like, I feel bad, I just want this all to be over for you!”

Dipping my head in understanding, I shrugged.

“Well it’s just the way of things. All we can do is keep pushing forward, and steering clear of danger whenever we can get such a luxury.”

“And, for what it’s worth…” Rarity interjected, “We may only have three pieces, but we’re most certainly past halfway. Not only did we also retrieve the Titans’ Sword, which one could argue is no less important than the Orb itself, but we also made this detour to visit you, for Rainbow’s sake.”

“That’s true!” Twilight chipped in, “The Orb may have six pieces to find, but this has turned out to be an eight-step mission, and as of today, we’ve just reached our sixth step, meaning we’re actually three fourths of the way!”

“When you put it like that, it almost feels like we’ll be going home soon.” Added Fluttershy.

“I wouldn’t say almost, not by a long shot.” Applejack said, shaking her head, “But Rare ain’t wrong, we’re over halfway for sure.”

Putting down my teacup, I decided to change the subject.

“Well, we’ve told you our story, now how about you tell us yours? Because I’m betting my bollocks to a barn dance that it’s very interesting…”

“Oh, and what gives you that impression?” Alex chuckled innocently.

“Because recently, I came to a realisation about you.” I replied, wiggling my finger in his direction, “Now, it started off as a theory, but I knew I was right from the second I stepped in here.”

Looking around, I pointed out Alex’s vastly expensive home, from the massive TV, to the varying games consoles, to the furniture and the personal bar.

“There isn’t a square inch of this place that doesn’t cost a fortune, and there’s not a speck of dust around here either, meaning you almost certainly hire a cleaner. Now, everything in here shouts ‘swanky businessman, probably owns a company and does cocaine’, but we all know that’s not who you are, so something’s not adding up.”

Everyone started looking around to analyse the living room, and realised that I was onto something, upon taking in the sheer quality of the place.

“That vinyl record player over there, surrounded by boxes of LPs?” I continued, “And all those beaten up trucks outside? You’re a hobbyist, meaning you probably don’t work much harder than the average Joe, if you even work at all. So how does a fellow like you, live in a house like this?”

The penny dropped for Josh, and for most of the girls, all finally understanding where I was going with all this; Pinkie Pie on the other hand, bless her, was virtually chewing her own hoof off trying to figure it out.

“Nobody gets this rich without being lucky, and I mean very lucky… I’m talking about the kind of luck where a guy goes gambling for the night, and for every single bet, he goes all-in, and every single time, it pays off. Almost like, he knew what was going to happen…”

Opening his mouth for a moment and then closing it again, Alex knew that he’d been had.

“And here I thought Twilight was the smartest one in the room.” He tutted.

“Hey!” Twi whinged.

Chuckling, he asked how I’d figured it out, to which I pointed out his fatal flaw.

“You published My Little Dashie in Two-Thousand-and-Eleven, in which you mentioned how My Little Pony stopped airing after eight seasons. But when this lot showed up last year and our adventure began, Season Five hadn’t even finished airing yet. It’s not that hard to suss out really, you just have to connect the dots.”

Impressed, Alex gave a huff of amusement and clapped, shaking his head with approval.

“Well done, you got me. Although, I’d like to point out that I don’t hire a cleaner, I just have a lot of spare time, with which I like to spend keeping my house clean.”

Conceding, he bowed his head and told us his side of the story.

“I may have tweaked one or two details when writing about my time with Dashie. For starters, it doesn’t stop airing at eight seasons, it stops airing at nine. Before publishing the story, I decided to scratch one off, just to make sure I don’t get thousands of bronies going nuts in a few years, demanding to know how I was able to predict the future or whatever.”

“OH MY GOSH, I’VE GOT IT!” Pinkie Pie shrieked, flinging her teacup halfway across the room, “YOU’VE BEEN TO THE FUTURE!”

“For goodness’ sake, Pinkie!” Rarity barked, upon witnessing the cup shatter.

Bursting into laughter, Alex insisted that it was fine, and continued his story.

“At the end of My Little Dashie, I said that Twilight had cast a spell, and then they were all gone. This was, a lie. By that point, I had already told my truth, and I needed to end things on a nice simple note, which is why I ended it how I did.”

“Wait…” Twilight breathed, “I remember this! The Princess told me to use a memory spell on Rainbow Dash, the same one from when Discord returned. And once I did, she opened a portal and sent us back to Canterlot, and when we stepped through, she was already there on the other side! That was when she gathered us all together, and I guess, removed our memories. I woke up in my bed with Spike next to me, and that was the end of it.”

Without warning, Rainbow Dash started to cry again.

“Dashie? Oh Dashie, what’s wrong sweetie?” Alex sighed.

Clenching her jaw, the pegasus looked at Twilight, shaking.

“I remember it too, and I remember hating you, so much, because I knew that you were taking me away from…”

Clamping her eyes shut and hissing through gritted teeth, she went silent for a moment, before opening her mouth and releasing the most heartbreakingly broken cry I’d heard from her since the mutilation of her wings in Brazil.

“You took me away from my daddy!”

Burying her face into her hooves, Rainbow completely broke down again, with her words causing a knock-on effect on both Alex and Twilight, with the latter biting her bottom lip hard enough to break the skin. Dashie then clambered over into Alex’s lap and buried her face into his chest, practically bellowing into his torso.

“I didn’t want to go! I didn’t care that I didn’t belong here, or that we were different! I just wanted to stay here with my daddy!”

Fighting back his own tears, Alex tried to console his daughter, rocking her gently and stroking the back of her head, hushing softly to her. Gripping Twilight’s wrist, I tried to calm her down as well, for the unicorn was now rigid as a statue.

“Alright y’all, I’m putting my hoof down.” Applejack announced loudly, “We’ve been talking about a lot of heavy stuff, and it’s time for a little break now. Twilight, you go out with Callum for some fresh air, while Rainbow has some time with her dad. The rest of us are going back to the bus. Come on now, chop chop!”

Looking to Alex, we gave an understanding nod to one another, knowing that Applejack was right. After getting up and stretching, I gently ushered Twilight to her hooves.

“Your land’s not overlooked or anything, is it?” I asked Alex, who shook his head.

“It’s all private, feel free to go wherever.”

Dipping my head in thanks, we all left the building. I gave Applejack a quick hug and thanked her for making the call, to which she squeezed me back, and told me to do what I did best.

We went around to the side of the house, and as soon as no one else was in eyeshot, Twilight fell apart and crumbled to her knees. I sat beside her in silence for a good few minutes while she cried, with a hand on her foreleg, drawing little circles on it with my index finger.

“I’m so horrible.” She finally spoke, still weeping.

“Go on?” I replied, reserving my own emotions.

“When she said that just now… That I took her away from her dad, you know what I saw?”

Her body twitched and she threw her head to one side, before continuing.

“I saw you, in Portugal, beating me half to death for what I did to Bunnie. The others were trying to stop you, and you screamed at the top of your lungs, that I had taken away the only person who’d ever really love you.”

I stopped tracing circles, and held her foreleg tightly.

“Twilight, no…”

“I traumatised Rainbow Dash in those last moments. I ripped her away from a fifteen-year relationship, from the only one on this planet that loved her, and I knew that’s what I was doing…”

Her body continued to twitch lightly, as she cast her mind back.

“When you were screaming at me to save Bunnie, I knew that leaving her to die would ruin you, and I knew that, because there was this look in your eyes, this desperate look… And even if I didn’t consciously know it at the time, I knew I had seen those eyes before, and now I know where from. It had been Rainbow’s eyes, silently begging me not to change her memories, to let her stay with her dad.”

Raising her chin briefly, Twilight let out a shaky breath before continuing, trying to maintain control over the bubbling mass of emotions which strived to consume her.

“I was knowingly ripping apart a loving relationship, and I was ready to do it without hesitation… And as for Alex? Well, I did to him exactly what I did to you, I took away the most treasured individual in his life. And this was all before that monster got inside my head, before the Fel started, changing me… What if it never had anything to do with that? What if it’s just who I am, Callum? What if I’m just, bad, deep down?”

Her eyes widened, and she looked to face me.

“Am… Am I a bad pony? Like, am I just inherently, bad?”

“Oh, Twi…” I exhaled heavily.

Scooting around to sit in front of her, I stared into those big almond eyes of hers and cupped her cheek.

“Sweetheart, no… You aren’t bad, and don’t you ever think otherwise. Twilight, right now you are reeling from a lot of trauma, and you’re trying to rationalise it by making yourself the bad guy. You had been given a direct order from the Princess, to do the right thing, and you obeyed her.”

“B-But, if it was the right thing, then why did it cause so much pain?”

Another wave of tears began to flow from her eyes, slowly rolling down her cheeks until they were absorbed into her velvety fur. Combing my fingers through her mane, I assured her that she hadn’t done a damn thing wrong, and reminded her that sometimes the right thing, wasn’t always the good thing. For as wholesome as Rainbow Dash’s life with Alex had turned out to be, it was no less of a mistake, which needed correcting. A reminder of this helped Twilight to calm down, and after a moment of silence, she looked into my eyes.

“I just, wish there could have been another way.”

“I know…” I replied softly, “But there wasn’t, and that doesn’t make you a bad pony, okay?”

She dipped her head, and I lightly massaged the tips of my fingers into her scalp.

“Promise?” She whimpered.

Placing a finger under her chin and gently lifting it, I gained eye contact, and brought my face closer to hers.

“I promise.”

At last, she was able to stop crying, and began to slow her breathing, gradually calming down. Thankfully, she was able to take what I was saying on board; this came at a good time, for Alex and Rainbow Dash had come outside and were walking towards us.

“Twilight, your lip…” I murmured, noticing the blood.

Quickly licking some of it away, she told me that she was fine, and that it didn’t hurt. Whether she was lying or not, I couldn’t tell, nor could I further inquire as the other two reached us. Rainbow was the first to speak, hanging her head shamefully.

“Twilight, I’m really sorry for what I said. I just got so caught up in the memories, you know? I was pulled straight back to that moment and I just, blurted that out without thinking. Please, I know you were just doing what you needed to do, I don’t hate you, I promise!”

{Looks like Twi wasn’t the only one having a trauma response…} I mused to myself in thought.

Sniffing, Twilight accepted the apology and the two ponies made up with a tender hug. Alex looked at them fondly, before inviting us back indoors.

“Applejack definitely made the right call.” He said, as we walked back around to the front of the house.

“Yeah, she’s good at reading the room and knowing what to do.” I agreed, “And when she switches on ‘mum mode’ like that, you listen to what she says, no arguments.”

“Yeah, that’s AJ alright.” Dashie chuckled.

Spotting the four of us together, the others left the bus and made their way over to join us, and we all returned to the living room to pick up where we’d left off.

“So, I believe you were about to tell us how you’ve won life by travelling through time.” I teased, sitting back down on the sofa; Twilight hopped up beside me and leaned heavily against my arm.

“Hey, just so you know, it wasn’t my idea, it was Celestia’s.” Alex retorted.

“Whoever’s it was, spill the beans already!” Dashie demanded, shaking at her dad’s arm with both hooves.

Playfully batting away his daughter, he inhaled deeply through his nose and rolled his shoulders.

“Okay, so after Dashie’s original memories were restored, the Princess sent them through a portal and then promptly closed it, without going through it herself. Obviously I asked what she was doing, and that’s when she sat down and had a long talk with me. She asked me a bunch of stuff, like how well I’d kept Dashie hidden away and things like that, so I think she was worried that someone might have seen her.”

“Makes sense.” I shrugged.

“Yeah I guess so.” Alex agreed, “Well anyway, I swore that I’d kept Dashie well-hidden, but I don’t think Celestia wanted there to be any loose ends, at all. After promising that I could keep my photo album and Dashie’s letter, we went to my old house, back in the city. That’s when she told me to place a hand on her peytral, and under no circumstances was I to let go.”

“Her what?” Asked Josh.

“Her golden neck, chest thingy.” Alex clarified, gesturing to his neck.

“Oh, so that’s what that thing’s called…” I mused loudly.

Letting Alex continue, he went on to explain how he did as the Princess instructed.

“I held it tightly, and she began to use some sort of magic. Now I’m telling you, this shit was creepy as all hell to watch. Her horn went black as night, and these dark crystals started to grow all over it, and when they stopped growing, they started oozing this deep purple smoke.”

“That sounds like dark magic…” Twilight murmured.

“I thought that was called alicorn magic?” Rarity replied.

“Well, they’re one and the same.” Twi explained, “In truth, it’s dark magic, but unicorns are forbidden from using it, on account of it being too dangerous. With only the princesses being permitted to use it, the EMA publicly labelled it as alicorn magic.”

“Ah, I see.” Hummed Rarity.

“Uh, what’s the EMA exactly?” I inquired, tilting my head.

“The Equestrian Magic Administration.” Said Twilight, “They’re the ones who oversee all magical matters in the country. They decide the names for spells, whether they’re legal or not, and which ones should be taught in schools. Oh, and they also investigate any unlawful use of magic, and have Princess Celestia’s permission to make public arrests, if there’s enough incriminating evidence.”

“Oh my god, you guys basically have a magical FBI!” Josh pointed out, putting his hands atop his head.

“That’s actually amazing.” I chortled.

“Magic shmagic!” Rainbow Dash scoffed, “What happened next, Pops?”

Agreeing that we’d gone a little off-topic, Alex cleared his throat and told us what happened next.

“So, as Celestia started using this magic, the world around us began to distort. It was like, existence itself was shaking, glitching almost! Everything in the house kept changing properties, turning from solid objects to liquid and dust, swirling around in all directions, before eventually reforming back to normal. It was like some sort of drug-induced fever dream, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. The worst part, was Celestia herself.”

To this, Twilight gasped loudly, demanding to know what he meant. Shaking his head, Alex continued, blankly staring at the coffee table as he cast back his mind.

“Something was wrong with her, she was in pain, so much pain! It was like she was silently screaming, her whole body was writhing in weird directions, and I could literally see the muscles under her skin convulsing. And what’s worse, was that it looked like her skin was bubbling or something! Jeez man, one reason I didn’t write about this, was because of how goddamn terrifying it was…”

Every single one of us stared at him with our mouths agape. Never in a million years did I see this coming; My Little Dashie had always been nothing more than a melancholy story, between a father and a daughter, with a straightforward ending. But now, I was learning about this most horrifying twist.

“When at last things returned to normal, she straight up collapsed, and I had to help her onto the couch while she recovered. I fetched her a glass of water, which was when she explained to me what had really happened.”

Alex paused for a moment to clear his throat, which caused the lot of us to lean in, desperate to hear the rest; he savoured the suspense for a moment, before continuing.

“You see, Celestia didn’t just rewind time, because if she had, it would have messed things up. I don’t know exactly what she meant, but she said something about a paradox and possibly damaging the workings of time itself. No, what she did was far more incredible, she somehow found a way to make time continue normally, but for fifteen years, it continued, backwards.”

“Oh my gosh… Oh my gosh! That makes so much sense!” Twilight shouted, throwing her hooves up into the air.

“I, what?” I blurted out, dumbfounded.

Everyone else, bar Twilight, was just as confused.

“It’s okay, I didn’t understand it at first either.” Alex laughed, “To be honest, I still don’t really get it. It doesn’t matter though, because what I know for certain, is that she was able to bring me back by fifteen years, to just a few days before I found Dashie. But this time, I wouldn’t find her in that box, because it had already happened!”

“Uh, is it just me, or did that make it even more confusing?” Applejack asked.

“It’s not just you darling.” Rarity assured, rubbing at one of her temples.

“What about you, Cal? Figured it out yet?” Twilight probed, grinning from ear to ear.

“If I say yes, do I have to elaborate?”

“Yes.”

“Then no.”

Giggling, a very excited Twilight tried her best to explain things as simplistically as possible.

“Okay, so time normally flows in a straight line right? Imagine a line of chalk being drawn on an endless blackboard. Normally, tampering with time means erasing the chalk, and redrawing it, which can be disastrous if you don’t know what you're doing.”

“Alright, I’m following so far.” I murmured.

“Well, instead of erasing the chalk and tampering with the timeline that way, whatever spell she used, made it curve backwards. This means that time went in the opposite direction, which is not the same as reversing it.”

“How are those not the same thing?” Said Rarity, now completely and utterly bewildered.

“Because rewinding time would be like erasing the chalk on the blackboard, you’re just forcing everything back to a previous point in time. If you retain your future memory, you might be able to do a few things differently, but inevitably, everything’s pretty much going to play out in the exact same way.”

“And that would be a time loop, correct?” I added for clarification.

“Correct!”

Bouncing up and down like the adorkable numpty she was, Twilight was finally back in her true element, with her scientific mind finally getting a complex subject to dive into. Absolutely beaming, she continued to educate me.

“By naturally continuing the flow of time, just in the wrong direction, the Princess could allow everything to return to its state before Rainbow’s arrival, without causing a loop, because Equestria’s timeline was allowed to continue normally. This meant that Alex would never find Rainbow in that box, because it had already happened fifteen years ago, in the past, on the exact same timeline!”

“Holy shit, I actually think I’m getting this.” I muttered, more to myself, “So, it’s almost like there have been two pasts? Rainbow Dash came to Earth and Alex raised her in the past-past, and then Celestia took him back to a future-past? And our timeline is now something of a zigzag, or an ‘S’ shape, am I getting that right?”

Twilight squealed loudly and lunged forward, wrapping her hooves around me and shaking me around like a bloody rag doll.

“Yes! Yes yes, yes yes!”

“I have the smarts!” I wailed as she shook me, laughing.

“I’m still completely lost.” Applejack groaned, rubbing the back of her neck.

The others were still struggling to get to grips with the concept, but as Alex had said, it didn’t really matter; what was important was that it had worked. Still, Twilight tried, and failed, one further attempt to help the others understand, before she allowed Alex to finish up his side of the tale.

“After resting on my couch for a while to recover, the Princess bid me farewell. She opened a portal, and stepped through, and that was that. From there, I started a brand-new life, I spent a few weeks gathering myself and trying to remember exactly where my life was at fifteen years prior. Then, once I got my bearings, I took out a loan, and started making hefty bets on future events. I’m talking presidential races, talent show winners, winning sports teams, stock options, you name it.”

“Called it.” I spoke, snapping my fingers.

“Hell yeah you did, I’ve been raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars on a monthly basis for the past few years now, I can basically pull money out of thin air. Whenever I want to get something expensive, or just feel like my bank needs topping up, I’ll put half a million bucks on whichever upcoming bet has the best return rate, if I remember the outcome of course, and boom! A few weeks later, I have enough money to buy a private island in the Bahamas!”

“Hah! My daddy’s rich, suck it chumps!” Dashie hooted.

Every one of us exploded into laughter, with Pinkie almost falling off the back of the couch where she had been perched. Tutting and shaking his head, Alex reached over and ruffled his daughter’s mane.

“Well, I’m not going to say that I’m not.” He admitted, “But it’s never been about that, not really. I’ve just taken full advantage of the situation. In truth, I’m just happy with my hobbies. Working on my trucks, listening to my records, drinking the finest whiskey you ever did see, and writing stories.”

“So, dumb question, but speaking of stories, you’ve written a bunch of them on Fimfiction. I’m guessing none of those are real?” Josh quizzed, shrugging.

“Oh god no!” Alex laughed, “No, I wrote My Little Dashie as a way of preserving the memories, so that I could look back and relive some of the best days of my life. Then there came a point where I wanted to tell my story to the world, I wanted them to know somehow, but I also couldn’t have them actually believe me! It had to be a work of fiction, nothing more. So after a few weeks of tweaking, I uploaded it, which is when I got such a huge response from the brony community! In just a few months, I got what I wished for, the world finally knew my story.”

Smirking, Alex looked at Rainbow Dash and corrected himself.

“Our story… That’s when I realised how much I loved writing, and I didn’t want to stop. So, with my truth already written about, I took to writing actual fanfiction. Since then, I’ve put out a handful of other little silly tales and one-shots. Nothing as significant as My Little Dashie, but it’s fun to write them.
But anyway, that’s the story, pardon the pun.”

Taking in a big breath of air and stretching, Alex concluded his account; and after a moment of everyone silently taking in all the details, I snapped my fingers and grinned.

“I told you it would be an interesting story!”

Everyone chuckled, before Alex brought things back to the present.

“So, what’s your plan exactly? Were you wanting to stay here for a while? I’ve got two guest bedrooms, and this couch is comfy as heck to sleep on, so you’re welcome to stay as long as you’d like.”

“That would be great.” I replied, dipping my head, “We were wanting to give Rainbow Dash at least a week with you before we took off again.”

“Of course, mi casa es su casa! I’ll go make the beds!”

With the plan set, the girls went back to the bus to retrieve their bags, gearing up to move into our new base. Once we’d been given the house tour and had settled down, Alex asked if there was anything in particular we’d like to do for the evening. Not even missing a beat, Rainbow Dash puffed out her chest, fluffed up her wings, and scowled at her father.

“Order some pizza, and get the VHS ready.”

Storming up to Alex, she plonked a hoof against his chest and glared into his eyes.

“We’re watching Titanic, and this time, we’re watching both the damn tapes!”

---

Author's Note:

This was a mind-bogglingly fun chapter to write, and I spent a great deal of time trying to create my own realistic spin on time travel, (or at least, time manipulation).

For those of you still stumped, I decided to make a fun little video on the matter...

I hope you enjoy it!

Comments

[MagicalPony2099]

Love the chapter, loved the video you did, and I just subscribed to you on your yt channel. You have a lovely voice you chap.

[Mister Horncastle]

11655021
That's very kind of you, thank you!

I've been hoping to one day turn TTO into an audio-book,
so it's really nice to know my voice is good enough for the job! 😁

[Real Solaris]

Holy shit, this was one hell of a chapter! I love your take on the events of My Little Dashie, and after reading how well you’ve incorporated it into your amazing story, I feel I should do something similar with my own story too! It’d be fun to see how Alex reacts to his daughter being married to Sonic THE Hedgehog!

I can’t wait to see where this story goes, so keep up the good work, Callum!

[Mister Horncastle]

11655105
Glad you liked the chapter, it was a fun challenge to create an engaging narrative which didn't feel out of place for The Titans' Orb, while also remaining true to the spirit of My Little Dashie.
I have a great deal of respect for Alex, and my inclusion of his story (and himself personally) within my own is less of a 'fun twist', and more of a heartfelt immortalisation to one of my first inspirations to begin writing, so I wanted to do right by him and his work.

Thanks again for your kind words, I'm so glad you're enjoying the story.

[MikiStenbeck]

11655144
is Alex gonna join this ragtag team of numskulls?

[Mister Horncastle]

11655585
Only time will tell.

[MikiStenbeck]

11655818
ahhhhh, XD good one Callum, :)

[GoldOsburn]

I don't know why but I feel like the father would actually have a room dedicated for like everything Dashie I'd be surprised if he doesn't have a life-size plushie of Rainbow Dash.