Delay in Arrival
Beep. Beep. Beep.
Flash woke up in a blind panic and smashed his head onto the ceiling of his bed.
He hissed in pain and yelled obscenities as he clutched at his battered noggin. He turned to the left and saw he was back in the guard compartment with his alarm clock blaring beside him.
That didn’t seem right. The last thing he had remembered was that he had been in the storage compartment, argued with Point Guard, then-
He stumbled out of bed. A quick survey of the room showed it to be exactly as he had left it that morning with his armour packed in the wardrobe along with the inventory manifest on Point’s side.
The train wasn’t overturned and, after a moment of focus, he could hear the telltale chugging of the train.
Flash stopped and gathered his bearings. The current situation didn’t make any sense. The train had crashed. He knew that.
The most sensible conclusion was that it had all been a dream, but his training as a guard required that he be able to recognize when he was dreaming and nothing pointed towards that conclusion.
Seemingly, he had been sent back to his room and everything had reset to its state from that morning.
Which meant he had travelled back in time?
Flash growled in frustration at his lack of knowledge and looked out the window. He saw a glittering wall of gemstones embedded into the sheer rock face through the clear glass.
“Wait,” Flash said in surprise, “We’re in the tunnel?”
That couldn’t be right. If they were in the tunnel, that meant that he hadn’t travelled in time, he’d just travelled… back to his room?
This was the kind of oddball situation he wished his marefriend, ex marefriend, was around to help solve. She was always better at dealing with this kind of thing.
Flash took a deep breath. No time for regrets, he had to figure this out. Thinking through his actions from before, he had checked in with Next Track, went to storage and then he had a fight with Point Guard. Shortly afterwards, the train derailed, and he was put back to where he woke up.
This had all the trappings of a time loop similar to those science fiction novels his marefriend had read. However, there was still the issue of the train having reached the crystal tunnel instead of being just before it like this morning.
Last morning?
This was confusing.
Flash mulled over the parameters and decided that at least for now, travelling back in time was the most likely scenario. If it was a loop, he assumed that there must be an exit condition. The obvious answer being to stop the train from derailing.
If it was something else, he would have to find out through trial and error.
Flash puffed himself up and smiled contentedly. He was pretty proud of himself for coming up with that. Several years of dating a super nerd had finally rubbed off on him.
Now all Flash needed to do was get some help in stopping the train and hopefully he would break out of this loop in no time at all.
He supposed by logic that the best pony to ask first for assistance was Point Guard. Flash’s body slumped as he remembered the argument from before.
Hopefully, the loop reset before all of that.
“Oh, look who’s come back.” Point Guard sneered. “Here for round two?”
Flash had searched the train car by car hoping to find Point anywhere else, but no such luck. She had been waiting in the storage car.
Evidently, he had not travelled far enough back in time to avoid their previous spat.
“No, I’m not.” Flash took a deep breath. “Point, I’m sorry. I went too far and we should talk about it, but there’s something more pressing-”
“Don’t apologize,” Point interjected, “I’m glad you did it.”
“-happening right now… Wait, what?” Flash asked incredulously.
“I’m glad you punched me.” Point grinned.
Flash could feel his train of thought crumbling around him, “I don’t understand. What I did was wrong.”
“What you did was needed.” Point scoffed. “You’ve been stuck on your ex this entire time, and now you can finally move on.”
“Point, no. That was not okay, I let my anger get the better of me and hit you,” Flash said in disbelief, “That hasn’t helped at all. It’s only made me think I’m worse off than when I started.”
“Ugh, seriously?” Point Guard rolled her eyes. “When are you just going to get over this? You need to get it out of your system and move on.”
“Point, it’s not that simple.”
“Ugh, yes it is, Big Wig.” Flash gritted his teeth at the use of that nickname. “You get over it and then you find somepony else to be with. You are making a huge deal about nothing.”
Flash could feel himself heating up in anger. He hated it.
“Point, you don’t just let things go that-”
“Yes, you do. Your feelings about this are pointless. You need-”
“My feelings are not pointless! Stop disregarding-”
“Ugh, why are you such a foal. Seriously-”
“I am not a foal. I’m trying-”
“Yeah, whatever you need to tell yourself, Big Wig. You know-”
“Stop calling me that!” Point Guard took a step back, “Stop calling me that name! Stop saying I’m useless! Stop trying to get me to lose what little I have of myself!”
“I don’t want to deal with this right now!” Flash yelled.
Flash heard a loud screech come from his left.
“Oh, no,” He said.
He turned towards the noise as he heard the familiar pop, saw the ties snap, and the luggage careen toward him.
Flash blacked out.
Flash smashed his head into the ceiling of his bed for what was the fifteenth time by his count.
He groaned as he rubbed his head with a wing. He had spoken with Point Guard for each of those loops and hadn’t once been successful in bringing up the topic of the train derailing.
Every conversation had progressively gotten worse and worse with each interaction. His last try had him start by yelling at her when he entered the storage compartment as a follow up to the conversation before that one, which had devolved into nothing but insults.
The only thing he could even remotely be proud of was that he hadn’t lost his cool and punched her a second time.
Despite how much he really really wanted to.
Talking to whom was quickly becoming an ex friend was not working well.
He needed a new plan.
Flash weighed his options. Point Guard was a dead end. He assumed that even with an infinite number of loops, a statement he couldn’t confirm the truth of, he would never resolve their disagreements enough to get Point Guard to actually help him before the train derailed.
That had been a waste of time with the exception of confirming that Flash was in fact stuck in a time loop.
Asking Point Guard for help was off the table. His next option, at least as he saw it, was then to stop the train before it even had a chance to crash.
That meant Next Track.
Flash galloped to the engine car and burst through the door.
“Good morning, Guard Sentry,” Next Track greeted, “How can I-”
“I need you to stop the train,” Flash interrupted.
Next Track tilted his head in confusion. “Why do you need to do that?”
“I have solid intel that the train will derail if we don’t stop it now,” Flash replied.
“Well, it is not my place to question a guard of your position,” Next Track answered, “Give me one moment, while I start up the emergency brake.”
Next Track turned towards the series of levers and pulleys that made up the main interface of the train. He fiddled with several pulleys and knobs before he grabbed a long red lever with both hooves.
He took a deep breath and pulled.
The lever didn’t budge.
“Do you need assistance, Next?” Flash said irritably.
“No, I’m fine, Guard Sentry,” Next Track said, “The emergency brake just isn’t used often, so it may be a little stuck in place.”
Next Track repositioned himself to be on top of the lever and pushed against it using his full weight. This time the lever released a metallic creak as it slowly lowered.
Then it snapped in half and dropped Next Track on the floor with a loud thud.
“Well,” Next Track said, “that is quite unfortunate.”
Flash felt his eyes twitch as he heard the familiar screech coming from outside the train.
He didn’t even bother to try and stop himself from flying into the wall of the engine compartment.
Flash took a deep breath as he woke up in bed once more. He’d finally managed to learn to not smash his head onto the ceiling every time he restarted, but that was the only improvement he’d managed over the course of several loops.
A lot of loops.
Too many loops.
He had recently run out of options. He had tried multiple times to have Next Track stop the train, but that had been pointless. Either a mechanical failure caused the lever to stop working or it was too late to stop the train from derailing.
His attempts at working the emergency brake were best left unsaid.
He had attempted to find the source of the crash, but that had failed on two fronts. The first was that he was too big and couldn’t fit in the small gap between the tunnel and the window to explore the outside of the train.
The second was that there was significantly less train to explore.
He wasn’t sure when it had happened, but a number of cars on the train had disappeared. There was now only the engine room, the storage room, the guard’s bedroom, the lounge car, and a single passenger car.
In terms of ponies, the only inhabitants on the train were himself, Point Guard, Next Track, the mare in the lounge car with the mark he didn’t like to think about, and the pink stallion he thought was a goofball.
Furthermore any of the other doors in the passenger car refused to open with the exception of the already opened car containing the pink stallion.
Having exhausted the possibility of finding the source of the derailment, he had then considered bailing through the back end of the train. He could fly as fast as he could, and hopefully arrive at the Crystal Empire to retrieve help before the inevitable derailment.
There was also no guarantee that the loop would continue if he left, that he would arrive at the Empire with enough time to return with help, or that he could leave the loop through those means.
He would also be leaving everypony on the train to their fates.
Leaving everypony to die.
After having managed to reach the back end of the caboose without any interruptions or interference, he had been ready to launch before his own self loathing caught up with him and he collapsed onto the floor.
He had spent the rest of the loop crying and berating himself for being such a coward for having decided to let everypony potentially die.
He got out of bed carefully and stared into the middle distance not looking at anything in the room.
He should start thinking of his next plan to escape the loop.
He didn’t really care at that point.
Instead, he began the short trot to the lounge car. He noticed the mare was still sitting by the window, staring out into the crystal tunnel. She gave no acknowledgement to his presence.
As she did every loop.
Flash trotted around to the bartender side of the counter, grabbed a half empty bottle of scotch off the shelf, twisted the cap off and chugged the entire thing down in a few hurried gulps.
Then he downed a grape wine.
After that an apple cider.
By the time he hit his fourth bottle, he had accomplished what he set out to do and hit drunk in short order.
By the time the train finally derailed, a large number of bottles were scattered around Flash in several piles around him and he was crying in the comfort of the shadowed corner behind the bar.
Flash rolled out of bed immediately upon waking up. He had to get moving if he wanted to start the loop off right with a bottle of scotch. That had been his favourite from the dozen or so bottles he’d downed.
He exited the guard compartment and began to trot to the lounge area. As he arrived at the door to the car in question, he paused with his hoof pressed on the handle.
The timing on the derailment of the train was inconsistent.
He had managed to get through almost half the shelf of liquor before the train crashed, which had been longer than when he had asked Next Track to stop the train.
He paused as he allowed his thoughts to organize themselves then opened the car door to the lounge.
He surveyed the room and found what he was looking for just above the door he had come in through: a hanging clock.
He grabbed a cushion from one of the lounge tables and dragged it to the bar so he could keep an eye on the clock as it ticked by.
After several minutes of observation, the clock hands stopped moving.
It wasn’t a time loop.
Flash thought back over all of the prior loops and attempted to find a commonality to when the train derailed.
It had derailed when he had reached his limit arguing with Point Guard and desperately needed to stop.
It had derailed when he had reached a stopping point for a specific idea he had about exiting the loop.
It had derailed when he reached a state in which he couldn’t continue on in the loop.
It clicked.
The loop was tied to him.
The train derailed when he derailed.
Him. In his absolutely worst state. When he was desperately avoiding a problem he was having because he didn’t want to deal with it.
His ex had told him about a story she had read once that was similar to this situation. In it, the protagonist could only leave when he had finally attained closure on the issue that was bothering him.
If this was a similar situation, it meant that Flash was going to have to confront what was bothering him and sort through his feelings about the problem.
It could really only be one problem.
Flash wished that the train would mind its own business.
He turned to look at the mare sitting by the window with her ever present wine glass of brandy that bore a mark he didn’t like.
If the train was tied to him, this was clearly intentional.
Flash took a deep breath and trotted towards the mare.
No time like the everlasting present.
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That time loop is pretty interesting...
Hmm, that's smart thinking by Flash, and an interesting Mare with a Mark too.
Mmmm I'm not too sure about spelling it out this way, and so early on. Unless it indicates that Flash is smarter than he looks, heh. On the other hand, Flash figuring it out so early is pretty refreshing.
Clever lad.
What you are in the dark, eh?
The mystery thickens. But there's so much more left to this, hmm...
she does have canonical experience with weird time stuff!
evidently! nice way to get those thoughts in that he would not have had otherwise
good to see flash in the "trying other things" stage of the time loop narrative
definitely a lot more going on here than time loops! which you've already hinted at with how the resets don't seem to quite reset everything.
ah, the sad acceptance phase, very nice.
surprised that the premise was figured out so quickly, in the second chapter, though maybe there are twists ahead i will see later.
I like when character’s realize the advantages of bad situations.
That… actually hit quite close to home with me. Well done.
Okay, this got me laughing
I like that Flash is smart here about the loop.
Props to my guy Flash for figuring things out!! Must have been all that time with Twilight. I think you tend to pick things up pretty quick around her vortex of insanity.
I'm really interested in these side characters, too. You've introduced them in ways that are so enticing... I'm not totally sure how this story links up to the others in the series, but I'm guessing I may have to wait until the next installment for some answers! Either way. Hype hype.