Prologue
The day was supposed to start out normal for the alicorn emperor. Wake up, eat breakfast, attend boring meetings, eat dinner, and prepare for the next day. But today was very different.
After he finished breakfast one of his advisors told him that the city was under attack and the imperial forces needed the emperor himself to participate in battle. He was about to ask why but his advisor told him that the solar army was attacking the outer ring of the capital. That was all he needed to hear from him. The alicorn quickly teleported to his bedroom and put his armor on.
While he was dressing he started to think. “It seems the time has come for me and my empire to be sealed. I must follow the flow of time or else there would be even greater consequences”.
He knew this was going to happen and he couldn’t prevent it. Like Celestia the emperor had control over a single element. His was time, when he unlocked his abilities he was shown the past, present, and future of not only the universe but also alternate versions of this universe. Thanks to this he is able to calculate almost any scenario. He was also given time energy that strengthened his magic to incredible levels. Despite all these abilities he had to follow the flow of time or else there would be a paradox that would cause much more damage than he could handle.
After a few minutes he fully dressed in his armor with the exception of his helmet. Before he put his helmet on he looked in a mirror. He was two inches taller than Celestia, he had a pure white coat and a silver hourglass containing blue sand and a black gear in the background for a cutie mark that was obscured by silver armor. His eyes were bright green and his mane was a deep blue color, slightly transparent and was unkempt like always. If you looked closely you could see the outline of turning gears in the flowing locks. After looking at his reflection he put on his helmet and teleported to the battlefield.
When he got to the battlefield he didn’t expect so much destruction. A large portion of the buildings were either burning or completely destroyed. The sky was filled with so much smoke that you could hardly see the sky. Luckily the majority of the civilians had been evacuated but this didn’t help the fact that the imperial forces were taking heavy losses. They were not prepared for this level of attack, when his advisor said the solar army was attacking he meant the entire solar army and to make matters worse Celestia herself was leading the advance. But before he could take action one of his commanders ran up to him.
“Sir, he panted. One of our scouting units has sent a report saying that the spellbender district has been completely destroyed.”
“What!” He shouted. “That’s impossible the spellbenders are very powerful alicorns how the buck were they killed?”
“I don’t know sir we haven’t heard anything else from them.”
“Well were there any survivors? At least one should’ve survived.”
“Again I don’t know sir.”
The emperor stopped for a moment and weighed is options, either stay and defend against the siege or go to the spellbender district and look for potential survivors. After a couple seconds he made his decision.
“Commander I want you to hold this position for as long as you can I’m going to the district, I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“Yes sir and good luck sir.”
With that being said the alicorn teleported to the district. “This doesn’t make any sense the spellbenders were never wiped out in any of the universes I’m aware of. This could be a new timeline.” He thought to himself. “If it is I’d better be careful my future sight is limited in a timeline I don’t know about.”
When his hooves touched the ground he was greeted with a horrific sight. The entire area was in complete ruin, every single building was destroyed, bodies were scattered all over the place some being burned in the fire, their faces bearing looks of pain and agony. He wanted to cry, he had so many close ties to the ponies in this clan that they felt like family to him. The spellbenders had made several contributions to the empire and now they were gone. But that didn’t matter at the moment right now he had to look for survivors. After a couple minutes of searching he heard somepony crying. He quickly ran to the source of the cries and found a young alicorn colt standing over two bodies in front of a burning house, he realized those two were his parents and he assumed he was standing in front of their house. He slowly walked up to the colt and knelt down behind him. Apparently the colt heard him and frantically turned around as if somepony else was going to kill him. When he realized who it was the colt hugged the emperor’s neck and cried into his fur.
After a few minutes of embracing the young colt he asked him, “Are there any other survivors”?
The colt wiped his eyes before answering. “I-I think so, four of my friends went to the inner ring of the empire before this happened.”
The emperor leaned forward a little bit. “What is your name?”
“Cobalt Codex,” he replied.
“Ok Cobalt I need you to listen to me, did you see the one who did this?”
“Y-Yes she had a cream colored coat, rainbow colored flowing mane, and a sun for a cutie mark.”
The emperor froze he knew who filled that description and the sadness he was feeling earlier slowly turned into rage. He put Cobalt on his back and teleported into the palace where he would be safe.
He appeared in his throne room right behind his bodyguards which startled them but they quickly regained their composure.
“Guards, take this colt to one of the safe rooms I have to defend the outer ring.”
Both guards nodded and escorted Cobalt out of the room. With that taken care of he quickly teleported to the outer ring.
Right when he landed he found the commander and asked what happened while he was gone.
“Well sir several districts have been destroyed as well as a large number of casualties on both sides.”
“What about civilians? Have they been evacuated?”
“Yes sir. They have been taken to the lower levels of the city. Unfortunately some got caught in the crossfire.”
“What about Celestia? Where is she?”
“I don’t know sir. In fact ever since you left I haven’t…..”
That was all he could say before he was knocked back by a huge ball of magical energy. The emperor quickly ran up to his commander in hopes of saving him but was too late, he was already dead. He looked up at the attacker and saw that it was none other than Celestia with her horn pointing to where the commander was once standing. He quickly stood up and faced her, his rage filled eyes locking onto hers.
“Why,” he asked. The response he got was Celestia raising her head and illuminating her horn with a golden aura. Without another word he lit up his own horn with a silvery aura. The two of them stared at each other for a while longer before charging forward, their horns clashing.
Each strike he delivered she countered and attacked with him countering that, both of them moving in almost perfect unison. She then teleported a few feet behind him and fired a beam of magic. He quickly froze time and moved out of the beam’s path and fired his own, breaking the time spell. The beam knocked Celestia back several meters away, she got up and quickly flew up with him doing the same.
In the air they started exchanging blows, each of them landing one or two on the other. Below them the battle between the solar and temporal armies was at its peak, each and every solider giving everything they had as well as each side taking heavy losses.
With Celestia and the emperor they had done a good deal of damage to each other. Their once polished armor was now covered with scratches, dents, and a few burn marks from spells. But the solar princess was panting a bit harder than the emperor.
“It seems his attacks are more refined than mine, she thought. At this rate I won’t be able to use that spell on him and his empire. I just need a few minutes to charge it.” She began to charge the spell which light up her horn. This caught the emperor’s attention.
“She’s charging the spell,” he thought. “It seems this part hasn't changed.”He tried lighting up his horn again but this time the aura flickered before staying solid.
“Damn it, I’m running low on magic energy. What am I going to do?”At that moment he felt a sharp pain in his head.
“I can give you power, a voice said. You want revenge on Celestia for killing your friends and attacking your empire, well here it is.”
And like the voice said power surged through his body turning the aura around his horn blue, but it also started to change his eyes to a bright red and his pupils into slits. Celestia took notice of this.
“What happened to his eyes? Is it some kind of spell or did he gain more power? It doesn't matter the spell is almost finished.”
“Chronos! No matter what you do it won’t affect me!”
Right when she said that Chronos swung his head to the side which fired an energy cut. She tried to move away but it grazed her side leaving a long cut across her armor. She flinched and looked down to see blood running from the cut. She looked back up she saw him charging another spell.
“It looks like he’s going to cast one more spell and from the looks of it he’s putting the rest of his power into this one. I’d better seal him now before he uses it,” she thought.
“This is it Chronos!” She shouted. “You’re going to be sealed along with your empire and the threat of you taking over Equestria will finally come to an end!”
“You may think so Celestia,” Chronos said in a slightly deeper voice. “But one day we will return and destroy you and your kingdom,” he said as he fired a large beam of magic.
“We’ll see about that,” she whispered as she fired an equally sized ball of magic that was the spell she was preparing.
The two attacks collided and the ball tore through the beam and headed straight for Chronos. He immediately stopped his spell and dodged the ball that was now headed toward the center of the city.
“NO!” He shouted. He flew as fast as he could so he could intercept the ball but it was too late the orb had struck but instead of an explosion a wormhole opened and started sucking in everything around it.
“What?” He asked as he turned around to face Celestia. “What have you done?” He shouted.
“I’m sealing you and your empire in a pocket dimension where it will never see Equestria ever again,” she replied.
Right when she said that Chronos started getting pulled toward the wormhole. He tried as hard as he could to try and escape but it was no use it was just too strong.
“CELESTIA!” He screamed. “WE WILL RETURN AND WHEN WE DO WE SHALL DESTROY YOU! DO YOU HEAR ME?!”
As he entered the wormhole his coat and mane shifted colors. His coat went from white to navy blue and his mane cyan. Not noticing his little transformation Celestia turned and flew down to the solar army that was headed back to Canterlot. When she landed she took a deep breath and relaxed. The Temporal Empire had been sealed successfully and its threat of taking over Equestria was gone forever.
Or so she thought.