Counterclockwise

by AdrianJNovelle

There and Back Again

(The Year 1,000,000,000....I think)

I slept for a while, my body being cooked under the intense heat. After an adequate amount of rest - enough to get me back on my hooves - my body woke me up, in an effort to escape the uncomfortable conditions I was paralyzed under. I knew it would do no good, but I began to wander through the endless abyss, contemplating on my next temporal destination. I was safe from the Temporal Manipulation Squad as long as I remained in this time. But I could not stay here. And everywhere else which was safe from the weather was in the zone of the TMS. No matter where I went, I would be in danger.

So...what if I went back in time? To the dawn of mare?

No, no, that's stupid! I would be surrounded by ponies who can't even make a fire, let alone speak to me.

I was unsure of how to proceed. Where should I resume my journey through time and find out what I have long been desiring to know?

My mind suddenly clicked an answer.

To the root of all evil which started this whole thing.

Princess Celestia's death.

Hmm...nah.

How about - a little before Princess Celestia's death, hmm? How about I try to prevent her death and thus prevent myself from entering this horrible demise in the first place?

Yes! That was it!

A simple subtraction problem, and I was out of sight.

---

1,849,256...

I appeared somewhere in Ponyville, since I had traveled some distance from my Library. I wasted no time in heading to the Friendship Express and taking it all the way to Canterlot. I arrived at the steps, but remembered that I was probably visiting the Princess right about now, and I hid along a shady wall. I climbed a ladder of displaced bricks to scale one of the front columns of Canterlot Castle, until I was right outside the window of the Great Hall, where I was conversing with the Princess.

I kept out of sight. I had to. If the me of that time saw me - not in disguise or anything - I was doomed. I would create a temporal paradox and possibly rip the farbic of space-time. I could hear not a word of their conversation, nor even see them in the act. I would not know when the conversation ended, and what might happened afterward; I only knew to stay out of sight for a long while.

Many minutes I held my grip along the brick ladder, my hooves becoming sore from all the pressure I was building up from dangling along that wall for so long. But I held on, slowly and painfully growing weaker. I held my grasp for as long as I could, until my hooves finally started to give. It was a ten-story fall to my imminent death. I wasn't about to put myself through that - nor risk it and scream aloud in hopes of somepony catching me before I fall and jeopardize the universe by significantly increasing the odds of me seeing myself. So, I just swung around, and crashed through the window, right as the Princess was starting to take her leave out of the Great Hall. The sound of breaking glass echoed through the vast, empty hall.

"Twilight!" Princess Celestia exclaimed in a panic. "Are you alright?" She came rushing over to me. It did ponder to me why she asked that question, even though I had not been lacerated or injured in any way, and I also landed perfectly on my hind hooves.

"I'm fine, Princess."

"What are you doing here? You left this room not two minutes ago!"

"I'm..." I just decided to spill the beans. It's okay as long as that Twilight doesn't know this Twilight infiltrated her way to this timeline. "Listen, I'm not from this time. I'm from a horrible alternate timeline. And if I'm seen by myself, I could end up destroying the universe in a temporal explosion!"

"An alternate timeline?" asked the Princess. "What in Equestria are you talking about, Twilight?"

"Well, not so much alternate as just future. In my time, you died of some horrible, mysterious disease. The disease had been inside your body for several months without us even realizing it, and so by the time you were hospitalized and had doctors monitoring you around the clock, your death was already inevitable. I'm here to prevent that. I'm here to change my future. Go to the Canterlot Hospital and have the doctors run a thorough analysis on you - you will see there is already some sort of infection working its way through your anatomy!"

The Princess looked perplexed. "What are you talking about, Twilight?"

I grunted. "I don't have time to explain! I also have the law enforcement after me because apparently I'm a time-traveling criminal. I gotta get outta here now! Please, Princess! Go to the doctors! I'm sure they will be able to help prevent your early death!"

The Princess stared at me, her puzzled expression still on her face. She did not reply.

"Have I ever given you a reason not to trust me, Princess?" I inquired.

An assuring smile grew on her face. "Okay, Twilight...I trust you," she said earnestly. "I will see the doctors shortly."

I could not help but smile, seeing as that I had just blurted out the most ridiculous and incredulous story in Equestrian history, and Princess Celestia has faith in my truthfulness despite the insanity of my demise.

"Thank you, Princess," I said, running up to her and giving her a quick hug before hurrying back to the window and scaling the wall of bricks down back to the ground.

---

The Princess trotted down to the medical center, her sister at her side. She was immediately examined by the best doctors in Equestria.

"It's simply fascinating," exclaimed a male doctor to the Princess. "You appear perfectly fine. You have no fever and bear no symptoms based on our diagnoses, but there aren't two ways about it, Princess: you're infected with a mysterious agent. Thank goodness you came to us so soon. It's already began eating its way through your immune system, and we might be able to stop it before it systemaically spreads to every party of your body and inevitably kills you. That would be quite unfortunate! But I don't think we'll need to worry about it, since I'm sure we can synthesize an antidote for you."

Comments

[silvadel]

And THAT is why time-cops need to be careful with how they treat ponies. If you antagonize them enough, you leave them no choice but to massively mess with the future. Of course there are all kinds of things that can go wrong from here but you just your future.

[Richardson]

Twilight Sparkle:

Fixer of all the timelines.

[JDC2263]

something tells me shit's about to go down