Rainbow Dash travels through time to fix changes to Equestria's history.
Rainbow Dash isn't a pony who generally likes to sit around doing nothing, especially when there are big things going down. So of course it would be just her luck that she would end up watching the Map for ponies trying to change history, when Equestria is gearing up for first contact with an advanced alien race just outside. And it promises to be a monumentally monotonous task, as nopony has tried to change the past in over ten years.
Until now, that is.
As the last pony left aware of the changes, Rainbow needs to travel through time and use her own ingenuity combined with whatever she can scavenge from the various pasts to which she travels to defeat foes far more powerful than she could ever hope to be, all the while being careful to avoid altering history even further. --- This is a crossover with the first installment of the Journeyman Project trilogy of video games (and its two remakes, Journeyman Project: Turbo and Journeyman Project: Pegasus Prime. Come on, I couldn't resist that title.) It will loosely follow the plot of that game, so if you're familiar with it you'll probably have some idea where this is going.
Rainbow Dash, the greatest flier in all of Equestria, flew through the streets of Ponyville, the slipstream generated by her rapid passage fluttering the manes of those walking below. They all cheered at her passage, awed and amazed by her daring tricks and impossible maneuvers.
Angling upward, she rose above the thatched roofs and turned around. All of Ponyville spread out before her, from the rolling fields of Sweet Apple Acres to the crystalline spires of Twilight’s Castle. Spreading her wings, she brought herself to a hover, watching the majesty of the town, the fields, and the distant forest bathed in the rays of Celestia’s setting sun.
A flash of light from the castle drew her attention, causing a momentary bout of confusion before a dull roar – accompanied by a cloud of destruction, spreading outwards in a ring – erased the town, followed by a force like the fist of a giant striking her and throwing her to the wind-
Rainbow shot up from her bed, coming to a hover several feet below the ceiling of her cloud house. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, descending to the floor as she calmed down. The explosion had just been a dream, but she was wide awake now.
“Who.”
Barely keeping herself from jumping back up to the ceiling, Rainbow whipped around at the sudden noise. And then she mentally cursed her unexplained jumpiness this morning on seeing that the sound had come from Twilight’s pet owl, Owloysius, perched atop the shell of Rainbow’s tortoise, Tank. Both were looking at her expectantly, while Tank held a sealed scroll in his mouth. Curiously, she removed and unrolled the scroll.
Dear Rainbow Dash,
I hope the reason you haven’t been answering my fire messages is that you’re already on your way to the map room.
Rainbow swallowed nervously. She’d agreed (or rather, drawn the short straw) to watch the map for errant time-travellers this morning. Since Starlight’s adventures in altering the past, Twilight had been sure to have somepony watching the map at all times, to make sure that any time travellers – even if they figured out how to do so without the map – could be prevented from making any alterations they tried to make to the past. Generally, it had been fairly easy for the six of them to agree on a schedule, but this morning was a particularly momentous day, because exactly ten years ago, an alien civilization had contacted Equestria and announced that they would return in ten years with an offer of membership to what they had referred to as their ‘Confederacy of Peaceful Races’.
Today was the day they had promised to return, and nopony had wanted to miss it, so they’d drawn straws, and she’d gotten the short one.
Looking back to her bed, there was, sure enough, a huge mound of scrolls no doubt sent to her by dragonfire. She continued to read the scroll while rapidly brushing her teeth and hair.
But, knowing you like I do, I’d be willing to bet you’re just still sound asleep. Rainbow, you were already on the verge of running late when I sent the first scroll. Even if you hadn’t been the one to draw watch duty, you’d probably wind up missing the alien reception at this rate, and then where would you be?
Anyway, I sent this one with Owloysius. If you’re not already awake, he’ll be able to change that. Apart from the fact that I don’t want to miss the start of the ceremony, I shouldn’t miss any of it – I am a princess, after all, and what kind of an impression would it make if one of the princesses was late?
Appreciating your punctuality,
Twilight
No sooner had Rainbow read the last word than she was dashing out her door and across the sky to the castle.
“Who,” said Owloysius. Tank nodded languidly.
Rainbow touched down on the ground in front of the castle and trotted hurriedly towards the door. She expected to be alone - surely everyone else would be at the ceremony - but before she reached the entry she was joined by Starlight and Trixie.
"Hey, Rainbow!" said the former. "Fancy meeting you here."
"Same to you. I thought you two would be waiting for the alien ambassador?"
Starlight nodded, pushing open the door with her magic. "We were, but Twilight wants me to do a short presentation for the alien delegation and I forgot my slides. Thank Celestia I remembered in plenty of time - it could have been a disaster."
Trixie nodded emphatically. "With her experience in showmareship, The Great and Powerful Trixie was the obvious choice to help Starlight practice."
As they reached the map room door, Starlight waved to Rainbow as she and Trixie kept going down the hallway. "See you later, Rainbow!" she called.
Rainbow took a deep breath and stepped through the door into the map room. Twilight was waiting in one of the thrones.
“Oh, Rainbow! Finally! I’m guessing I was right?” she said loudly. Rainbow nodded sheepishly. “I’m sorry if I seem rude, I’ve been up all night watching the map. I’d been hoping to grab a short nap before the ceremony, but it looks like that’s not going to happen now."
Rainbow put a hoof to the back of her head. "Er... Sorry about that."
Twilight sighed. "It's all right, just get an alarm clock or something. Anyway, I’ve got to go, Spike and the others are waiting for me at the landing site. Remember to review that checklist I made, and don’t leave the map unattended for any reason.”
Resigning herself to a morning of boring monotony (as had been every single other shift of watching the map for the past decade), Rainbow sat down in the chair that bore her cutie mark and began reading the checklist that Twilight had taped to the Map’s representation of Mount Canterlot. Truth be told, she’d read the thing hundreds of times and it bored her horrifically, but, wouldn’t you know it, in her mad rush to get ready and out the door she’d forgotten to grab her new copy of Daring Do and the Windigo’s Treasure, leaving her with the options of rereading the old list of instructions or sitting still and staring at the map for several hours.
Should a major alteration be made to the timeline, the map will alert you, and provide a rough estimate of how long it will take for the alterations (henceforth ‘temporal rip’) to reach the present. You must immediately do the following: • Retrieve the box from the shelf at the far end of this room. This box contains: o One (1) iron key. This unlocks the Historical Record storage kept outside of the range of any possible temporal rip. o One (1) auto-spell array. This contains sockets for auto-spell stones, designed to allow non-unicorns to perform specific spells coded into the stones, or unicorns to perform spells they would otherwise be unable to. The array has sockets for eight (8) auto-spell stones, allowing you to utilise additional stones found in the past if necessary. o Two (2) auto-spell stones. The first is coded with Starlight’s time travel spell, and will allow you to use the map as needed. The second is coded with a scanning spell. This will allow you to rapidly map the surrounding area, examine objects and materials in greater detail than is possible with the naked eye, and will also detect any nearby lifeforms. Unicorns are able to sense the use of this spell, but do not worry: it has been used often since the early days of Old Unicornia to find one’s way around an area and will not arouse suspicion. This will come in handy in the past, as discussed later. • Use the time-travel control stone to travel to the year 0E 200,000,000. This is a prehistoric environment, so you will not need to worry about encountering other ponies. Also, once you arrive in this time, you can relax: you are out of range of the temporal rip, even once you travel back to the present, and now have as much time as you need to repair it. • In this time zone, locate the Historical Record and unlock it with the key you retrieved in the present. Return with the record to the present; you can use the map control stone to do this. • There is a duplicate historical record attached to the map. I have tied it into the map’s magic so that it will change, rather than disappear, in the event of an alteration to the timeline, just as the map itself does. The record you retrieved from the past should be outside any theoretical historical changes, and so will contain an unaltered record of history. • Compare the two records. The present-day record’s socket is equipped with an auto-spell stone that will automatically uncover any major differences and present them to you, so you don’t have to root through them on your own. • Use the time travel control stone to travel back to the altered points and stop whatever changes were made from happening.
While in the past, remember the following: o DO NOT leave anything from the future in the past. This includes anything of yours or anything left behind by the hypothetical timeline alterer. o DO NOT take any historically important objects. You may take minor items ONLY as necessary to complete objectives in other timelines, and in such cases remember the previous point. o DO NOT (and this is most important of all) allow yourself to be seen by any sapient beings in the past. This, for this purpose, includes anything capable of both understanding that you do not belong in this time AND communicating what they have seen to others, including but not limited to ponies, griffons, changelings, minotaurs, zebras, etc. but excluding the hypothetical timeline alterer whom you have travelled to stop.
If you have followed these instructions, you will be well on your way to repairing any alterations to the timeline.
Finishing the list, Rainbow sighed and looked at the clock. She had been reading for all of two minutes. Groaning, she slammed her head down on the table with a thud.
Then an alarm started to blare.
What? She thought, sitting up and glancing wildly around. What did I do?
A magical projection of a jagged line appeared over the map, accompanied by a series of figures that meant nothing to Rainbow. Fortunately, a calm, inflectionless copy of Twilight’s voice came to the rescue.
“Temporal Rip detected,” it announced. “Arrival in 3 minutes 47 seconds.”
I have mixed feelings about this, thought Rainbow. On one hand, hooray! I don’t have to sit and stare at the map for hours on end. On the other-
“Arrival in 3 minutes 40 seconds.”
On the other, that’s a thing. Rainbow jumped out of her seat and flew over to the shelf containing the box that the checklist had mentioned. She opened it up to find the iron key, as well as a device made from unassuming grayish stone, albeit grayish stone that glowed through several cracks in the surface with a deep violet light. The device seemed to be designed to fit over her ear, so she put it there, where it rested comfortably. There was a similar apparatus that fit around her hoof, bearing eight round pits about the size of a gold bit. There was also an empty pair of saddlebags labelled ‘for emergencies’.
“Arrival in three minutes.”
Panicking slightly, she slipped on the hoof device and the saddlebags, and grabbed two stones made from the same substance, the exact same size and shape as the pits on the hoof part and labelled as ‘Ma’ and ‘Sc’ respectively. She inserted them into the divots and rushed back over to the map.
So how do I do this, she thought, looking at the device on her hoof. Really should have asked Twilight about that sometime.
Underscoring her point, the artificial voice announced, “Arrival in two minutes.”
She prodded the one marked ‘Ma,’ and the ear-part of the device projected a display in front of her eye. There was one gray part marked ‘recall,’ while the rest of the display, in blue, showed the number ‘0E 200,000,000’ and the word ‘Jump’.
Huh. User friendly.
“Extreme danger of unexistentialisation. Temporal rip arrives in sixty seconds.”
Okay, I’m going. Yeesh. Rainbow focussed on the word ‘Jump’ and a ticking magical sphere opened up above the map, and Rainbow was sucked through it.
The time travelling spell spat Rainbow out in a clearing surrounded by massive needle-covered trees. Spreading her wings, she came to a gentle landing on the mossy forest floor. The sounds of various animals echoed from all around the clearing, but none came close – possibly as a result of the ring of stones set up around the area. Rainbow supposed the stones were auto-spell stones set up to deter curious animal life from disturbing the historical record. Speaking of which…
She looked around the clearing. Around the edge, not far from where she had set down, was a large, flat, gray rock, and on that rock was a metal box matching the key she had taken from the present. Inserting and turning the key, she removed a hoof-sized crystal object – presumably a storage crystal bearing the historical record.
Good thing Twilight put it someplace sensible, instead of, like, inside a cliff across a raging river. I mean, why would that even be necessary? Storing the crystal in her saddlebag, she activated the map control stone, leaving the key in the box. It could be retrieved later. The ‘Jump’ option on the stone’s display was now colored gray, while ‘Recall’ was blue. She selected ‘Recall’ and the time-sphere opened up again, sucking her back to the present day.
A present day that looked surprisingly normal, when the time spell deposited her over the table. The crystal castle was even still present, its walls obscuring her view of the outside. If it wasn’t for the fact that the map room was full of dusty crates and riddled with cobwebs, Rainbow might have assumed nothing was wrong. Judging from the map room’s state of disuse, it appeared nopony had lived in the castle for some time. From the absence of the ceiling decoration that Rainbow and her friends had made for Twilight out of the root system of the old library, it must have been abandoned not long after it had originally appeared. But speculation would only do so much – it was time to compare the historical records. Rainbow took out the crystal she had retrieved from the past and turned to the map.
Okay, now that’s different, she thought. The map was divided into three distinct segments by what appeared to be massive stone walls. Many of the cities she remembered from her timeline hadn’t ceased to exist, but had shifted so that, for example, predominantly Unicorn cities such as Baltimare were now situated in the northern segment, while large Earth Pony cities such as Manehattan were gathered in the southeastern area. Cloudsdale and Las Pegasus – while both still mobile cloud cities – were close together and far to the west, and – when she looked closer – the undersides of both cities were covered with wickedly sharp icicles. The walls converged on Canterlot and the mountain on which it was situated.
I really need to find out what happened. Locating the other recording crystal and the apparatus with which Twilight had secured it to the map, Rainbow inserted the unaltered Historical Record and watched the magical projection appear over the map table. It flashed a confusing flurry of images before displaying a list of five dates spread out across history.
“Five major events located. Three are possibly alterations, two are likely consequences thereof,” announced the inflectionless voice that had previously counted down the temporal rip’s arrival. “Events are available for your review.”
Okay, thought Rainbow. Let’s start from the beginning, I guess. A series of buttons were illuminated on the side of the historical record socket allowed her to manipulate the projection; she selected the earliest date, April 19th of the first year of the second era.
“In the unaltered timeline, expeditions from all three of the Pony races arrived in what would become Equestria. On arrival, they fell to fighting each other but were temporarily overcome by Windigoes that had followed them from the old North. Working together, three of the six successfully manifested the Fire of Friendship, banishing or destroying the Windigoes. When the other three recovered, the six signed a treaty of co-operation, leading to modern day Equestria’s deep-seated ideals of co-operation and friendship. In the altered timeline, the Windigoes were successfully defeated as normal, but following this a series of events – purported to be deliberate sabotage on the parts of various other members - set the six once more at each other’s throats, and the treaty they signed divided Equestria into sections for each of the three races.”
That explains the walls, thought Rainbow. But why would somepony want to change that? Whatever. It doesn’t matter now – next event. The next date was the 31st of December, 398th year of the fourth era.
“In the unaltered timeline, Princess Luna, consumed by jealousy, became the entity known as Nightmare Moon and attacked her sister Celestia in the now-ruined Castle of the Two Sisters. Princess Celestia used the Elements of Harmony to banish her sister to the moon for a thousand years, marking the end of the Fourth Era. In the altered timeline, a sudden explosion of advanced magical origin wiped out the Castle of the Two Sisters. Everyone inside at the time was believed killed, including the two Princesses who had temporarily united the warring Three Colonies. The magical knowledge required to generate such a blast was far beyond what was available at the time, which when combined with a strange object seen in the sky shortly afterward, led analysts both at the time and later to suspect hostile alien origin.”
Now that makes a little bit of sense. It can’t be a coincidence that this happened on the day aliens were supposed to make contact.
The next date, the very beginning of the sixth era, was marked as ‘consequential’. Rainbow selected it anyway.
“In the unaltered timeline, Twilight Sparkle, the personal student of Princess Celestia, was sent to Ponyville, ostensibly to oversee preparation for the Summer Sun Celebration. When Nightmare Moon returned, Twilight and five others entered the Everfree Forest and sought out the ruins of the Castle of the Two Sisters, retrieving the Elements of Harmony. The friendships the six mares had built along the way allowed them to activate the Elements and purify Princess Luna of her hateful feelings. The Moon Princess’ return marked the beginning of the Sixth Era. In the altered timeline, Lord Regent Twilight Sparkle, the ward of Empress Cadance, was sent to the township of Ponyville in response to ill omens that had plagued her. While there, the spirit of chaos, Discord, was freed from his imprisonment, prompting Twilight and five others to independently enter the Everfree Forest to seek out the legendary weapons that had defeated Discord in the past. While within the forest, they met each other, and despite initial mistrust, learned to work together. This allowed them to utilise the Elements of Harmony to imprison Discord again once they had located them beneath the former site of the Castle of the Two Sisters. Note: Although the similarity in these two events make it clear that they are related, there is a temporal difference of approximately 1.3 years between them.”
Rainbow found herself hoping that it was still the same five of them who had joined Twilight to bear the Elements. I don’t know why I think that. I’m about to unmake this timeline anyway. The next date, the fourth of April in the fifth year of the sixth era, was labelled as a third alteration.
“In the unaltered timeline, a magical map appeared in Princess Twilight Sparkle’s crystal castle, sending the princess and her five friends to a town in the northeast where everypony was made perfectly equal by magical means, and by their own choice. Although the Princess and her friends were briefly affected by the same spell and imprisoned by the town’s leader, Starlight Glimmer, they were eventually able to expose the trick that Starlight had used to make the townsponies give up their cutie marks, and Starlight was run out of town. In the altered timeline, the shack in which Lord Regent Sparkle and her friends were imprisoned caught fire late at night while they were locked inside, killing all six. Although a later investigation determined that the fire was accidental – a lantern had fallen on a pile of hay – Starlight Glimmer was arrested and imprisoned by a contingent of royal guardsponies for endangering an agent of the crown leading to death.”
A series of emotions flicked through Rainbow’s mind on hearing that. That’s gotta be an intentional change. But why, though? Why would someone go back in time to kill us? It doesn’t match with my alien idea, I don’t think. She gritted her teeth, then shook her head. Let’s check the last one and then get to Starlight’s Town. When I figure out who's responsible for this… The last date, marked as the second consequence, was in the seventh year of the sixth era.
“In the unaltered timeline, an alien vessel descended from the stars and hovered over Canterlot Castle for ten minutes. It then broadcast a message to all nearby radio devices, the content of which is as follows: “We represent a peaceful confederacy of alien races. Your history has been reviewed and you have been judged worthy of joining us. We will give you ten of your years to decide on your answer, and will return to receive it when that time is up – no sooner, and no later.” The ship then disappeared back into the sky from whence it came. In the altered timeline, the events proceeded likewise, except that the message stated simply “We will return when you are ready”.”
Okay. Even if it wasn’t their ultimate goal to stop first contact, they’ve done it anyway. Stopping the unification and blaming the Nightmare Moon incident on aliens fit that goal, but I can’t figure out why they would want to kill us, unless –
Rainbow gasped. Unless they know we’re protecting the timeline, but don’t know we can get behind the ripple effect. But who could know about the Map?
Rainbow’s thought process was interrupted by a pounding on the door. Uh-oh. Not looking forward to explaining why a dead mare is messing with an abandoned castle. She activated the map control stone, noting it had automatically preprogrammed the three dates she would have to travel to. That’s convenient.
The doors to the map room burst open, and a trio of armored Unicorn guards rushed in. “Stop right there, criminal scum!” shouted the leader.
Noping out. Rainbow hurriedly selected the third date and ‘jump’, and the time spell activated.
Descending from the time spell, Rainbow barely had time to note that she was in a laboratory of some sort – complicated diagrams pinned to the walls and obtuse experiments bubbling away on desks – before she felt an impact to the left side of her jaw that knocked her spinning into the nearby table. Dizzily, she looked up at her assailant, to see a mass of stone and crystal in the vague size and shape of a large pony. The chunks of enchanted material fit together tightly, like twigs on a timberwolf, save for a pair of eye-like cavities that glowed green.
Its face didn’t move as it spoke, saying in a deep, distorted voice, “I’ve been expecting somepony like you.” Its voice had a grinding undercurrent, as if it was speaking with a mouthful of gravel.
Which, thought Rainbow absently, it probably was.
Its outline shimmered like water for a moment before it assumed a precisely pony-like shape – that of a grayish stallion with an equal-sign cutie mark and the same hairstyle that had been borne by every stallion in Starlight’s Town. “You just stay there for a while. I’m sure somepony will be by to pick you up.” Its voice in this state was unchanged, and its mouth didn't move when it spoke.
Rainbow tried to stand up, her mind still slightly disoriented by the punch. The disguised construct left the laboratory, closing the door behind itself with a click just before Rainbow slammed into it.
Damn. Okay, Rainbow, think: What would Daring do? She looked around the laboratory. Wait, first things first. I have access to one thing Daring Do wouldn’t. She tapped the scanning auto-spell stone. She felt the strange sensation of information filtering through her brain of its own accord, accompanied by the knowledge of a trapdoor in the lab’s ceiling that led to – if she remembered what she knew of the Town’s layout from her brief time there – Starlight’s study. Bingo.
Flapping her wings, she hovered up to the trapdoor, only to be interrupted by the disembodied voice of the Map mechanism, apparently as a function of the scanner.
“Warning! Lifeform detected overhead. Proceed no further!”
What? For crying out loud- Rainbow looked at the scanner data again. Sure enough, the information outlined Starlight herself sitting at a desk immediately atop the trapdoor. Of course. Of course now of all times. Rainbow looked around, filtering through the scanner’s information. There was a window on the north wall, and she flitted over to it. Of course it was too small to fit through.
She looked out the window anyway. It faced straight down the main road of the Town, hidden just underneath Starlight’s front steps. She could see everything going on outside in the entire town, but she figured nopony would be able to see this window, much less inside it, unless they knew it was there. Just like Starlight to install something like that, huh.
A crowd of equalised townsponies were milling about, apparently just leaving some sort of town meeting and slowly trickling back to their homes under the darkening sky. After a moment of searching, she recognised the disguised construct that had locked her in. It was the only one without an exaggerated, toothy smile on its face.
Hang on, it gets to move around unchallenged? That’s not fair! I have to take steps not to be seen!
The construct looked around surreptitiously at the other ponies, who, sure enough, paid it no mind, and then unhooked a lit oil lantern from a nearby doorpost. Then it trotted off towards the far end of town, towards a smaller shack that Rainbow recognised.
Damn, I’m running out of time. I need to get out of here. She went to the tables, rummaging through the notes, looking for a key or anything she could use to break the door down. She found nothing of the sort, but a bubbling beaker of some noxious-smelling liquid caught her attention.
This looks like acid, maybe I can melt the lock or something. She picked up the beaker and threw it at the door, where it shattered. The fluid inside exploded with a loud bang and a bright flash, but caused no damage to the door.
She heard a muffled exclamation from the room above. “What in Celestia’s name…?” A series of hoofbeats sounded as the pony sitting over the trapdoor got to their feet. Bad to worse, Rainbow, bad to worse. She flitted over to the window, hiding behind a heavy stone object on the desk.
Out the window, ponies were turning towards Starlight’s house and whispering to each other. In the distance (the scanner spell allowed her to see it with perfect clarity) the construct looked back at the commotion, then pitched the lamp at the locked shack. A time-spell sphere appeared behind the construct as the flames caught, and it vanished into it.
No, no, no… Another time spell engulfed Rainbow, returning her to her own time just as the trapdoor unlocked with a click and swung open.
Returning to the present, Rainbow was once again confronted with the trio of royal guards, something she had failed to consider because of course she had. They were momentarily surprised by the time spell activating, but recovered quickly and levelled their spears at her.
Any conversation – or confrontation - that might occur was forestalled by the activation of a large, glowing bubble shield between Rainbow and the guards.
“Altered timeline presence detected. Activating shield countermeasures,” announced the map’s voice.
The lead guard angrily curled his lip and turned to the side, revealing a familiar cutie mark; a shield with a six-pointed star. “Hammer, Shield, commence breaching procedure,” he said, gesturing to the other two. The other two guards moved to opposite ends of the shield and focussed spell beams at it. The shield glowed more brightly at both impact points and deformed slightly into an ovoid shape. “We’ll soon break this shield, and then we’ll figure out what you’re doing in my sister’s home, changeling.”
Right, thought Rainbow. Point one: that’s Shining Armor, I didn’t notice that. Point two, the more important point: They think I’m a changeling. I have no way of disproving that, especially given that I’m supposed to be dead in this timeline. I’m just going to go. She called up the jump menu and once again selected the third date. The time spell activated and the map room vanished, once again replaced with Starlight’s laboratory.
This time, Rainbow was ready for the punch. Ducking underneath the construct’s outstretched hoof, she swung to the side and slammed her hoof into the construct’s face.
It had all the effect of punching a granite statue. Including – she felt certain – breaking something in her hoof.
Why does he get all the advantages? He can be seen, he can’t be knocked out… Rainbow nursed her throbbing hoof as the construct turned around and made for the door. She flapped her wings and lifted into the air, flying after it at breakneck speed. So fast, that she failed to react when it brought its rear hooves back and struck her in the face with what she felt certain was its full strength. It was at this point that her vision went black.
Groggily, she thought to herself, Right, don’t let it hit you. Noted. Ugh, one of these days that’s going to cause brain damage or something. She groaned and opened her eyes, sitting up from the hard surface she was lying on.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.” Surprised, Rainbow spun around. She was back in the map room (What? How long was I out?) and Shining Armor was sitting on the ground in front of the doors. “Maybe you can answer some of my numerous questions.” The other two guards were nowhere to be seen.
“What happened to the other two?” asked Rainbow.
“They weren’t expecting the shield to vanish when you did, and they blasted each other. Neither seems to be seriously injured, but I sent them to the hospital anyway.” He stood up, removing his helmet and setting it on one of the crates. “I got kicked out of the radius when the shield came back on and you dropped onto the table like a sack of apples. I tried to breach the shield by myself for a while, but when that didn’t work, I scanned it. It’s a double layered magical bubble shield designed to strengthen in compliance with non-Newponian mechanics. Nothing exceptionally unusual, except for one specific modification that allows the second layer to shift outside the first when the shield is taking damage from multiple directions. That’s why the standard breaching technique didn’t work.” He approached the shield and tapped it with a hoof, making an echoey bonk noise. “That’s a modification my sister was working on before she died. She never finished it, and as far as I know, all her notes are kept in the Canterlot Archives. So let’s start with you explaining where you got that shield.”
“Well, first off,” said Rainbow firmly, “I’m not a changeling.”
“Yeah, I figured that out.”
“Wait, really?”
Shining nodded. “Changelings bleed blue, even when disguised.”
Rainbow touched her hoof to her nose, which still stung a bit. Sure enough, it came back red. Wiping away the nosebleed, she mumbled, “Well, that would have been good to know my first time back.”
“So I know you’re not a changeling,” continued Shining. “I don’t know who you are, given that Rainbow Dash died twelve years ago, but you’re not a changeling. And that’s going to be my second question, so you can just segue right on into that once you’ve finished explaining about the shield.”
Rainbow considered for a moment. I could just jump away again with the time spell. On the other hand, if he believes me… I mean, there’s a slim chance at best that he’ll believe the truth, but if he does, he could be really helpful. I mean, he can’t come into the past with me - if I knew enough about the time spell to explain it to him, maybe he could follow, but I don’t, and I still know more than any other living pony in this timeline. So that’s out, but I could at least use some advice on how to get out of that lab. He’s a guard, maybe he knows some escape-y tricks I could use. I’m going to try telling him.
“I’m about 90% sure you’re not going to believe this,” she said out loud, “but here goes. I’m Rainbow Dash from an alternate timeline, and I travelled back in time to stop somepony – I don’t know who yet – from changing history. I’ve been using an auto-spell stone with a time-travelling spell that was programmed by Twilight. The shield is hers too, although I didn’t know about that until just now.”
Shining’s eyebrows rose, surprised. “Then Twilight is alive, in the present that you come from?”
Rainbow nodded. “You seem to be accepting this easier than I expected.”
“It fits the facts better than any other explanation I’ve thought of. That spell you’ve been using can’t be a teleport because you can’t teleport in this building. My first thought was an invisibility spell and a bunch of illusory bells and whistles, but Hammer, Shield and I did some pretty intensive scanning after the first time you disappeared, and we detected nothing. Time magic – and I can’t believe I’m saying this either – makes the most sense.”
His gaze dropped to the floor for a moment. “And maybe I’m just really hopeful that Twily might still be alive somewhere, somehow.” He looked at Rainbow again. “So this time traveller, what did they change? Do you know?”
“Yeah. They turned the founders of Equestria against each other before they could sign the unification treaty, they assassinated Princess Celestia and Princess Luna and blamed it on aliens, and they set the fire that killed this timeline’s versions of Twilight, me, and our friends.” She touched her hoof, which still stung a little. “But it looks like they’re not doing it themselves, they’ve sent back some kind of golem. I’ve only been to one of the times so far – two trips to Starlight Glimmer’s town – but I haven’t been able to do anything. I arrive in some kind of laboratory underneath her house and it knocks me out or locks me in, and I can’t get out.”
“I’ve never heard of the Unification Treaty, but I have heard of the attack on the Castle of the Two Sisters. That’s in the royal guard training manual – The scientists have been working on anti-alien countermeasures ever since, but all we have basically amounts to ‘run and pray’. Practically scared the armor off of us when they showed up ten years ago… So you’re saying those aliens had nothing to do with the attack?”
Rainbow nodded in confirmation. “I’m not sure yet, but I think the time traveller’s goal was to turn us against the aliens.”
Shining considered this. “That makes sense, I suppose. Anyway, I can’t help you with either of those, but I think I know exactly the lab you’re talking about in Starlight’s village. The main door is solid oak with an enchanted lock. You’d need a heavy siege spell to get that open if it was locked on you, and even if I could get an auto-spell stone to you through this barrier, that spell’s not the sort of thing you can store on one. Can't you just, I don't know, change where you arrive?"
Rainbow shook her head. "What I've told you already about the time spell is pretty much everything I know. Starlight invented it, I have no idea how it works."
Shining frowned. "All right... There’s a trap door in the ceiling that’s only locked with a basic latch. It locks from the outside, but if you could find, I don’t know, a knife or something, you could probably jimmy that open and get out.”
“I spotted that using a scanning spell stone, but the problem is Starlight herself is sitting right on top of the thing.”
“Oh, yeah. That is a problem. If it were anypony else I’d say to Tartarus with it, but Starlight is a powerful mage, enough to incapacitate Twily. We barely managed to apprehend her in this timeline - Empress Cadance and Arch-Mage Sunset both working together were only just enough. Even if you were able to explain to her everything you explained to me, get her to believe it, and get her to go along with it, she’d still probably delay you way longer than you can afford.”
“Plus the danger of making things even more complicated by being seen in the past.”
“That too. How about this: You’re a time traveller, so you get infinite attempts. Take a run, and just rummage through the lab, see if you can find anything useful. I’ll wait here and see if I can come up with anything better.”
“Good idea.” Rainbow called up the map stone, and selecting the third date, drifted back into the time-spell.
This time, Rainbow avoided the construct’s hoof and did nothing as it backed out the door and locked her in. Once it had left, she started seriously scrutinizing the contents of the lab.
The first item to draw her attention was the foul-smelling beaker she had initially assumed was acid. Remembering the loud noise and bright light it had made, she picked it up, thinking, I wonder if…
Flitting over to the small window, she pushed it open, leaving a gap just wide enough for one forehoof, and pitched the beaker out. It landed on the ground a few feet away, doing exactly what it had done when she had broken it the other time.
“What in Celestia’s name…?” came the muffled exclamation from above the trapdoor. This time, though, rather than the sound of the trapdoor unlatching, a series of hoofbeats sounded as Starlight trotted across the room above, presumably towards a window.
Okay. Now hopefully that was the hard part. Rainbow flitted over to the trapdoor and gave it an experimental push. Just like Shining had said, it was securely fastened from the other side. Nope. Let’s see here… She returned to the tables near the heavy contraption by the window. Sorting through the pages, she selected a relatively solid-looking piece of paper (titled, she noted absently, ‘in situ neutralization of odd matter: experiment #42’) and returned to the trapdoor. Sliding the paper into the gap, she attempted to use it to push open the latch.
Unfortunately, the page proved not solid enough to move the latch, crumpling slightly but otherwise producing no result. Right. Knife. She returned to the tables and sifted through them, but found nothing narrow enough to fit through the gap other than more paper.
Rainbow inhaled and then exhaled. Minor setback. Let’s look around, see if there’s anything else useful. The only thing in the room apart from the numerous stacks of notes were the experiments scattered around the table – a small orrery made from colored crystal, a rack of vials full of unidentified chemicals, a glass bell jar partially encased in a large mass of stone. Rainbow darted over to the chemical rack first, but the vials were labelled in abbreviations that likely only made sense to Starlight, such as DsEpm or TeSf or TarEx.
The next item in line, the bell jar, was the object from which Rainbow had retrieved the paper that had failed to unlatch the trapdoor. Inside the bell jar, there was a small metal statue of a seated alicorn. There were a number of buttons on the stone structure, which glowed faintly from within like the construct or the auto-spell stones. Rainbow pushed the one helpfully labelled ‘start’ and the statue transformed into a candle, then back again, and continued to change back and forth.
The window was just above the experiment. Rainbow took a moment to look out, and saw the disguised construct approaching the shack. She found it difficult to ignore the fact that it was about to kill her and her friends. You can’t help them now and you have infinite tries at this. She turned back to the device and looked at the other buttons.
The others were, like the chemical vials, labelled in useless abbreviations. Rainbow pushed one at random. A vial plugged into the device emptied its contents into the bell jar with a hiss, and the changing object twisted and writhed before assuming a slightly unsettling, warped medium between the statue and the candle.
One hundred percent useless, thought Rainbow. If I could figure out how to make the thing turn into a knife or something, then maybe…
Signalling an end to her most recent trip, the time spell opened up once again and brought her back to the map room.
“Think of anything?” Rainbow asked Shining upon touching down.
“Maybe. Depends on what you found.”
“I found a way to get Starlight away from the trapdoor, but I couldn’t get it open. I found some sort of … transforming … machine, in the lab, but I can’t figure out how to make it do what I want.”
“Hmm…” Shining rubbed his chin with a hoof. “That’ll be the odd matter. And no, I don’t know what that means. It was labelled when we searched Starlight’s lab.”
“You said you had an idea?” prompted Rainbow.
“Yeah. I was thinking, can you take stuff you find in one timeline into another?”
Rainbow contemplated that for a moment. “I don’t- Wait, yeah. The instructions Twilight left said we could take anything we needed to complete the mission as long as it wasn’t historically important.”
“That’s great. You can check other timelines for stuff you need, like something that you can use to open that trapdoor.”
“Right! Good idea. Anything else?”
Shining thought for a moment. “Have you given any thought to how you’re actually going to stop this thing?”
Uhh… “I was just going to wing it.”
“Yeah, that’s going to get you nowhere. I’ll put my brain to that while you look for a knife.”
Wordlessly, Rainbow activated the map control stone and called up the first set of coordinates.
This time Rainbow descended in the midst of a forest. Unlike the prehistoric clearing, this forest had trees that looked much the same as those in the Everfree, if a little less foreboding. That, though, was perhaps attributable to the bright sunlight cutting through the canopy, blades of light cutting through the forest’s shadow and brightening up the area.
“Nay, by all means keep thy blades, Commander,” came a voice from close by. Jumping, Rainbow retreated into the thick bushes nearby just in time for two ponies to emerge from the dense brush opposite.
One was a solid-looking, pure white Pegasus stallion, clothed in a set of what Rainbow recognised as antique Pegasid officer’s barding. The stallion’s mane, as white as his coat, was shoulder-length and unruly to the level that Rarity would likely have taken physical offense to its state. The faint wrinkles around the stallion’s eyes spoke to the many years he had seen, while the faint pinkish scar poking out from the collar of his armor spoke of battle experience.
The second pony was a dull gray Earth pony stallion, clad in a cloak made of something that looked like burlap. A pair of saddlebags was visible underneath the cloak in the form of a pair of bulges on either side. The earth pony’s mane was hidden beneath the cloak, but a wispy black beard grew from his chin, and as he spoke – for it was he who was the speaker - Rainbow noted with a faint shudder that many of his teeth were missing or discolored.
These, Rainbow realised, must be none other than Commander Hurricane and Smart Cookie.
“We are, after all, in an undiscovered country,” continued Smart Cookie. “We may be beset at any moment by ferocious beasts or murderous savages, and unless I am very much mistaken you seem to be the only one among us with any manner of fighting skill.”
Hurricane chuckled. “Aye. Pansy, to be certain, would be overcome with fear were he faced with so much as a squirrel, though I sense there’s more to that unicorn than meets the eye.”
“Surely you cannot mean the Queen? She seems rather a pompous fool to me – much reminiscent of mine own Chancellor.” They stopped dead, immediately in front of the bush in which Rainbow was hiding. She fell still, barely daring to breathe.
“Nay, not Platinum, your assessment of her is quite correct. I mean rather the other one. I’ve heard tales of her sorcery.” Hurricane shuffled his wings uncomfortably, the tips glinting in the rays of light.
Wingblades! thought Rainbow. Wingblades were a type of weapon used by ancient pegasi, designed to be flung at deadly speed with a flick of the wingtip. Also, their aerodynamic design meant that they would be perfect for slipping through the gap in the trapdoor. That would do the trick, if I could get my hooves on one.
“You seem nervous. Surely you don’t mistrust our new friends, do you?” said Smart Cookie mockingly.
Hurricane raised an eyebrow. “Do you not, even a little? Surely a thousand years of animosity cannot be erased in mere hours.”
The earth pony looked from side to side. “I wouldn’t say I mistrust them, but I’ve put contingency plans in place in the event I am betrayed. Not only by the unicorns, but by yourself, or even Puddinghead. I mean no offense by it, but as my old grandmother always said, it’s better to be in a rainstorm with a waterskin than a desert without.”
“That is a fair doctrine. Perhaps I should take identical measures.”
“Let me aid you in that, then. Do you know the great oak tree that towers above the forest south of here?”
Hurricane nodded. “I’ve heard tell that Clover means to hollow out the living wood as a workspace.”
Smart Cookie furrowed his brow. “That is worrisome… I had hidden a cache of witchwood totems in an abandoned animal den among the roots. Should the unicorns turn on either of us, they will make us immune to their spellwork, but if Clover uncovers them it may prove troublesome for us all. I shall have to keep watch on the place and notify you if I must move the cache. In any event, if your fears come to pass you may feel free to borrow some.”
“My thanks. Now, we must hurry to this waterfall you found –I must gather mists at the earliest opportunity, to begin manufacturing cloudcrete.” The two ponies moved on, and Rainbow breathed freely.
I need one of those wingblades, thought Rainbow, emerging from the bush. I need to be careful about following them, though. She lifted off and drifted through the dense branches of the canopy, following the faint sound of the two ponies’ conversation. I am a shadow in the wind, or something.
Before long, she began to hear the sound of rushing water in the distance. The forest opened up to reveal a massive gorge cutting through the landscape as if it had been cut apart with a giant pair of scissors. Smart Cookie was seated near the edge of the forest, as Commander Hurricane floated above the raging river, gathering up the wisps of mist that were thrown up from the river. As he gathered them, his Pegasus magic solidified the insubstantial eddies, forming a solid mass of cloudcrete.
Rainbow hid just inside the tree line, a short distance downriver from the two ponies, and tried to think of a way to obtain one of Hurricane’s wingblades without him noticing. I’m enough of a ninja to follow them here unnoticed, but no way could I fly up there and snag one without getting spotted. Especially with Smart Cookie watching. I doubt I can wait until he takes them off, I’ll probably get recalled by the time spell before then. If I –
Wait a second. Something’s wrong. Rainbow looked back around the area, wondering what had set her off. Smart Cookie is gone. Where? Why?
There was a loud mechanical noise and something shot out of the forest. Whatever it was moved too fast for Rainbow to identify, but it struck Hurricane squarely in the barrel as he turned around to react to the sound, and he dropped like a stone from the sky. Fortunately, instead of falling into the raging river, he landed on the mass of cloudcrete he had been assembling. More importantly, a small object whizzed from Hurricane’s wing and off into the forest. A wingblade! There!
She followed the blade’s trajectory into the forest. Crap… it landed near where the thing came from. Nothing for it but to take the risk. She flew through the trees toward the wingblade. There’s a bunch of thick growth on the ground here. It could be anywhere. She started sifting through the plants, looking for the wingblade. Come on, come on, it’s gotta be here somewhere…
Something wrapped around her barrel from behind and pulled her into the air. It released her momentarily, her momentum carrying her further up as she spread her wings as she tried to catch her balance, until something dropped into her field of vision and grabbed her by the neck, slamming her into a tree hard enough to shake the leaves.
It was another construct. Vaguely similar to the one from Starlight’s Town, but this one wasn’t disguised as a pony. On the contrary, its shape was reminiscent of a relatively young, wingless dragon, standing on two clawed feet and holding her against the tree with a long, powerful forearm. Its eyes glowed bright white on either side of its beaklike muzzle, and its head tapered to a hornlike protrusion hanging back over its neck.
And a lone wingblade jutted from its shoulder. There it is!
The construct’s rumbling voice interrupted her thoughts. “I was wondering when you would show up. I confess myself disappointed in your capabilities. I was told to expect a challenge.” The construct’s hand began to constrict, restricting Rainbow’s breathing.
Rainbow reached out toward the wingblade. Her forelimb was barely long enough to reach. She took a swipe at it, knocking it askew. Crap, crap. Bracing her rear hooves against the tree, she pushed forward and took another swipe at the blade, smacking it flat against the construct’s arm and gouging out a chunk of its outer shell.
Yes! The edges of her vision were starting to blur. Less yes. Pulling the wingblade toward herself, she activated the map control stone and selected ‘recall’. The time spell pulled her free of the construct’s grip and back to the present day.
The time spell deposited Rainbow back on the map, gasping for breath but with the wingblade clutched in her hoof.
“Rainbow, are you all right? What happened?” asked Shining.
Rainbow, in answer, held up the wingblade, grinning. “This should get that trapdoor open.” She rubbed her neck. “Nearly got strangled, but it was totally worth it.”
“You nearly got strangled? By who?”
“Another construct. Different from the one in Starlight’s Town. It snuck up on me. Never mind that, though – I can get out of the lab now, and stop the fire.”
“I- well, do you have a plan to not get strangled by this one?”
“I have the wingblade, and I can get the jump on it this time. I figure if I can get a good hit on it, I can just disable it straight away.”
“Right. Just be careful.”
“’Careful’ is my middle name.” Rainbow queued up the third date.
“I thought it was ‘rapid’?”
“I have a lot of middle names.” Activating the time spell, Rainbow flew back to the past.
Rainbow almost forgot about the construct’s punch, ducking just in time. She made no move against it, and it backed out of the lab, watching her warily.
She was on the move as soon as the lock clicked. Picking up the explosive beaker, she pitched it out the window, ignoring the muffled exclamation of ‘What in Celestia’s name…?’ Rushing to the trapdoor, she slid the wingblade into the gap, this time hearing the satisfying ‘click’ of the latch unlocking.
She lifted the trapdoor and peeked out. Starlight was looking out the window on the far side of the room. Rainbow climbed stealthily out of the trapdoor and snuck out of the room. In the hall, there was a window; Rainbow pushed it open and slipped out.
Taking a moment to reorient herself in respect to the town, Rainbow trotted around behind the row of houses in the east, activating the scanner spellstone. It notified her of a large gathering of ponies outside Starlight’s house, no doubt still investigating the loud noise she’d made. Using the scanner data to judge when she’d put a safe distance between herself and the townsponies, she snuck back into the main street and looked to the north.
The construct – in its pony disguise – was standing in front of the shack with the lantern raised. Crap, it’s faster than I thought. Gotta fly! She leaped into the air and rocketed towards the construct, blade raised.
It reacted with incredible speed, bringing up its free forehoof to strike her in the belly. She curled in on herself, allowing the construct to follow through and throw her into the wall. Right, it’s fast.
Before she could drop down to the ground, the construct drove its elbow into her, keeping her suspended against the wall next to a window.
The voice of the scanner spell chirped to life. “Alert! Large mobile nonliving mass ahead.”
You don’t say, thought the pinned Rainbow sardonically.
“Composition: 98% odd matter, 1% Cloverite, trace quantities of other materials.” Ignoring the voice, Rainbow swiped at the construct’s face with the wingblade. It scored a groove into the fake equine face, which oozed blood momentarily before wavering and disappearing.
Rather than react in any tangible way to the cut, the construct instead raised its other forehoof and shattered the lantern on the shack’s dry porch. The spilled oil spread across the pitted wood, carrying the eager flames with it. The fire pooled around the construct’s hooves, scorching wounds into them that would be horrific and debilitating on a normal pony, but simply vanished from the construct after a few seconds.
Rainbow, although she struggled against the construct’s grip, counted herself lucky that it was holding her up far above the flames. Although she could feel their heat, she was well out of their reach – although this would soon change when the fire started to climb the walls.
There was a ticking noise as a time spell opened and swallowed the impassive construct. Freed from its grip, Rainbow flared her wings and flapped madly to rise above the flames. She had just enough time to think, I’ve got to- before her own time spell opened up and removed her from the growing conflagration.
Rainbow collapsed in a heap on the map table.
“So, did you do it? Did you save them?”
Rainbow looked up to see Shining standing outside of the shield bubble, a hopeful look on his face.
“If I’d done it, you wouldn’t remember any of this.” She sighed wearily. “You were right, the construct was faster and tougher than I expected. And it just healed the only wound I managed to make.”
Shining looked at the floor, downcast. “And there goes the solution I’d been considering.”
“Solution?”
“I was thinking, if the wingblade didn’t do the trick, you could head back to the Castle of the Two Sisters and snag something heavier from their armory. But if the construct can repair itself, you’d need a ballista to so much as slow it down. It would almost take some Iridiine to actually stop the thing, and there’ve been no Iridiine deposits discovered for thousands of years, not to mention the collateral damage it would cause.”
Rainbow nodded, despite having no idea what Iridiine was. “The scanner spell said it was made out of something called odd matter. I have no idea what that is, but I swear I’ve heard it before.” A grin spread across her face as the kernel of an idea began to take root. “Wait here. I’ve got to check something.” She called up the Town on the map control stone again.
“Rainbow, what are…” Shining began, only to be cut off by the time spell activating.
Another punch from the construct. This time, Rainbow activated the scanner spell before it left, and got the scanner’s voice confirming once again that the construct was made almost entirely from ‘odd matter’.
Right. Now to see if I remembered correctly. She trotted over to the experiment table bearing the stone-encased bell jar. Taped to the side of the stone was the sheet of paper she had originally tried to open the trapdoor with. ‘In Situ Neutralisation of Odd Matter: Experiment #42’ read the title, just as she recalled. Yes! Lucky me! Now, with what? Reading down the page, it was largely composed of unreadable abbreviations, like the labels on the chemical vials. Not at all discouraged, she turned to the machine.
The vial plugged into the side of the machine was labelled like the others, likely meaning it was equally unreadable, but Rainbow couldn’t tell because the label faced backward towards the wall. She pulled and twisted at the vial, but it was stuck fast.
Come on, one of these buttons has to be ‘eject’. Remembering which ones she had previously tried, Rainbow tried hitting the other illegibly labelled buttons scattered around the bell jar. The first made a hissing noise, and seemingly did nothing else (the vial still refused to budge). The second caused the alicorn statuette to drop like a stone, coming to rest at the bottom of the bell jar on its side. The third button filled the jar with some kind of dark smoke, while the fourth cleared it out. The fifth levitated the statue again, and the sixth – and final – button produced a slightly sharper hissing noise.
Okay, well, there are only eight buttons on this. Rainbow tugged on the vial again, even bracing her rear hooves against the device, to no avail. She looked out the window to see the construct approaching the shack once again, bearing the oil lamp aloft.
Maybe if I can… she hit the first button, the illegible one she’d tried on her first trip. The vial drained into the device its contents vaporising with a muffled hiss. The statuette twisted and writhed, settling into a ruined mess unrecognisable as either of its previous forms, but Rainbow ignored this, grasping the vial and pulling. This time, it came free without a struggle, and Rainbow, who hadn’t been expecting this, fell backwards with the (almost completely empty) vial in her hooves. It had a small amount of dull yellow fluid sloshing around in its base, but she was immediately assaulted by a foul stench emanating from the vial.
Eurgh! What is this stuff? It smelled like a mixture of cider vinegar, manure, and rotting pond ooze, strongly enough to feel like a physical assault on her senses. The label was completely unhelpful, reading EssEw. Wouldn’t be surprised if that stood for ‘Essence of Ew’, thought Rainbow.
There’s nowhere enough here to deal with the entire construct. I’ll need to find more, and I doubt I’ll be able to find that here. She activated the time spell, and it carried her back to the present. Maybe Shining will know how I’ll be able to track down the stuff.
Shining seemed to be about to say something, only to recoil, his nose crumpling. “Ugh! What is that smell? Where did you go?”
Rainbow showed him the vial. “This stuff destroys odd matter. But this is all there was in Starlight’s lab, and I have no idea where I could get more, or even what the stuff actually is.”
Shining was holding his muzzle with both hooves. “I’b a soldier, nod ad abothecary. I cad’ dell one chebical frob adother.”
“Well, I am neither of those things, so unless you’ve come up with a way to get my hooves on some of that Iridiine stuff you were talking about, I need to find more of this.”
Shining sighed – and then immediately choked on his breath. “Urgh, I cad taste id. Fide, led be dake a closer look.” Rainbow held the foul-smelling vial close to the barrier, and Shining leaned in. There was a moment as he silently held his breath while looking at the label.
His brow furrowed, immediately followed by his eyes widening. He uncovered his nostrils and took a whiff of the smell. “Wow, that’s a blast from the past.”
“So you do know what it is?”
Shining nodded. “It’s way more concentrated than the stuff I’ve seen, but that’s definitely essence of Aetherwort. Exceptionally powerful unicorn foals take watered down doses of it to control magical surges.”
“Wait, this is medicine? Ponies drink this on purpose?”
“Well, I think ‘on purpose’ is a bit of an overstatement. Twily was never exactly willing to take her weekly doses of it. Besides, it was watered down, like a lot. The medicinal stuff never stank quite this bad, that’s why I didn’t make the connection at first.”
“Great, so you know where I can get more?”
“Well, I can’t get you any from here. Even if it didn’t require a prescription, I told you that anything I try to leave on the table gets chucked away as soon as you come back. But, the Castle of the Two Sisters should have an apothecary, and I don’t doubt there’ll be Aetherwort there.”
“Great. I’ll go there and get some, and then I’ll just need to take it and the wingblade back to Starlight’s Town and that’ll be that.” Rainbow activated the map and selected the last date she had yet to visit.
Rainbow descended from the time spell into the last new environment in the midst of a row of towering shelves covered in dust. Before she could do anything, a third construct rounded the corner and came face to face with her.
This construct was the most divergent of them all. Unlike the equine shape of the construct from the Town or the draconic form of the one from the ancient forest, the castle construct had heavy-looking legs made from stone that fit much more loosely than the outer shells of either of the others – allowing them to move more like tentacles than actual legs. Extremely broad where they joined the diamond-shaped body, the legs tapered to a blunted point near the ground. The construct stepped around in an almost crab-like manner, its hunched-over head curling up to meet Rainbow’s eyes with its own dome-like, glowing, red ones.
It was also much larger than either of the others, standing almost twice as tall as Rainbow. She backed slightly further into the aisle, confident that the massive construct couldn’t fit between the shelves.
“You are too late,” sounded its deep grinding voice, identical in that respect at least to the other two. “My victory is already secured.” Without another word, it backed away from the shelves and moved off into the castle’s hallways.
Crap, what did it mean? Is the time co-ordinate wrong for this one? She shook her head. Can’t worry about that now. Calling up the scanner spellstone, she lifted off into the air. Gotta find the Aetherwort and get out.
Almost as soon as she activated the spellstone, the simulated voice sounded in her head with a warning. Oh, for Celestia’s sake, what now?
“Extreme danger! Detecting a slowed-action area-of-effect sleeping spell in this area. Unconsciousness in sixty seconds.”
Rainbow stood still for a moment. “AAAAAARRRGGH!” She flew near the ceiling and shouted.
Nopony investigated. I suppose something that big would need more than sneaking around or shapeshifting to keep from being seen. Right, so I have a time crunch. That’s new. Ish. She consulted the scanner’s mapping data. I hope the apothecary isn’t too far.
“You are in: Apothecary storage.”
Oh.
Well that’s convenient.
Rainbow looked to the shelves around her. Sure enough, they were covered with rows upon rows of jars the side of her head, filled with fluids, powders and dried herbs of all descriptions. I could spend the rest of my life in here and not finish searching this room, much less sixty seconds. I can come back as many times as I want, but that won’t help when I’m dead of old age! She paused for a moment. Do I even age right now? I mean, I don’t even know what sort of weird effects this time spell might be having. I could be aging at double speed for all I know.
Rainbow shook her head. Sixty seconds.
“Fifty seconds,” amended the scanner voice.
Rainbow gritted her teeth, but rather than shouting aloud, she turned to the nearest jar and began reading the labels in order.
Cinnabar, no. Cinnamon, no. Cinnavis, no. Wait… She facehoofed. Alphabetical order. Of course they’re in alphabetical order. Why do I keep panicking over this crap, I miss the most obvious…
Rainbow flitted out of that aisle and moved past several shelves, ignoring the scanner warning her that she had forty, then thirty, seconds of consciousness left. Here we go, Acerbic Breath through Antimony. She flew down the row of shelves, counting the alphabetised jars as she passed them. Aconite, Adratus’ Root, Aerolith…
“Twenty seconds of consciousness remaining.” Underscoring that notification, Rainbow could feel her eyelids starting to droop. As a result, she almost missed her quarry.
Aetherwort! There! She grasped the heavy jar of off-yellow liquid and lifted the lid. Her nostrils were greeted by the same putrid stench as the vial from Starlight’s lab. The glass jar was almost as large as her head, and – drowsy as she was – started dragging her down towards the ground when she pulled it off the shelf.
“Ten seconds. Evacuate immediately.”
“’M goin’,” rainbow mumbled aloud, fumbling groggily with the spellstone brace. She called up the map control and activated the recall.
Clarity returned almost the very moment Rainbow struck the map table, and she reached out with both arms, catching the falling Aetherwort jar moments before it struck the table.
“You got some? Great!” said Shining. “That should be everything you need, right?”
Rainbow nodded. “Yep. If this works, I’ll have stopped that fire from ever happening.”
“I probably won’t remember any of this, after you’re done,” added Shining, somewhat sadly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against it in any way. If saving Twily involved stabbing me in the gut, right here and now, I’d go along with it happily. But it’s a shame I won’t remember what you did.”
Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, but it’s better than the alternative.”
Shining nodded silently, and Rainbow set the map to carry her back to the Town, one last time.
“Rainbow?” said Shining as the time spell ticked to life.
“Yeah, Shining?”
“Good luck.” As she disappeared, Shining threw her a salute.
For all her preparations, Rainbow almost forgot about the construct’s punch. She managed to roll with it just in time, cradling the jar of Aetherwort to prevent it from shattering on the hard wooden floor. After checking to see that it was intact, she looked up to notice that the construct had left.
Damn it. Having failed to get the construct at the first opportunity, she continued with the old routine. Beaker out the window, wingblade to the trapdoor, heave the jar of aetherwort into the overhead room and carry it carefully out the hallway window, bypass the crowd and follow the construct onto the main road.
Once again, the construct was already approaching the locked shack with its ‘borrowed’ oil lamp. She wasn’t going to rush in carelessly this time, though.
“Hey!” she shouted at it. It turned to intercept her, empty forehoof raised. But, having anticipated this, her body wasn’t what the hoof struck this time.
Instead, it shattered the jar of aetherwort, which Rainbow had just hurled at it with all her strength.
The foul-smelling fluid splashed across the construct’s forehoof, face, and sides. It started to say something, but was cut off by its body rippling and crackling, its pony disguise randomly shifting into stone and back again. It twisted wildly and then settled into a slightly disturbing medium between the two.
And then it started to advance on her, lantern held high.
Oh crap. This is bad, she thought.
At least until it stumbled on its own misshapen hoof, crumbling into a pile of stony chunks on striking the ground. The lantern shattered at its feet, oil burning safely away from the wooden shack.
I did it. Rainbow grinned broadly. We’re safe! Past me is not dead! She sighed. One down, two to go, I guess. What’s that? A section of the top of the construct’s cranium had fallen cleanly away, exposing an interface similar to her own spellstone brace.
Moving in closer, she prodded at the exposed section with her hoof, clearing away more of the crumbling stone and revealing an eight-slot spellstone interface similar to her own. Unlike hers, though, these eight spellstones were clustered around a tiny recording crystal, small enough to fit into a groove on one of the spellstones. One of the intact spellstones, that is; most of them were damaged or destroyed.
Well, it doesn’t need them anymore, thought Rainbow. She grabbed the three intact spellstones (and the crystal) and inserted them in her spellstone brace. As she did so, a time spell activated and seemingly hoovered up the shattered remains of the construct, followed by a second time spell bringing her back to the new, slightly repaired present day.
She descended to the map table, noting absently that the room was no longer filled to the brim with storage crates, dust, and cobwebs, and the root decoration was back in its rightful place hanging from the ceiling. She smiled, feeling the satisfaction of a job done awesomely. But the job’s not quite done yet. Let’s take a look at these… She dropped her gaze toward her selection of newly acquired spellstones.
Instead, she froze on coming face to face with a rainbow-maned bright blue Pegasus mare sitting in one of the thrones ringing the map.
The expanding bubble shield tossed a stack of papers that the other Rainbow Dash had been reading off of the map table and into her face, causing her to reel back and strike the back of her head on her high-backed chair. “Ack!” she shouted, grabbing at the papers and shuffling them back together.
The first difference Rainbow noticed between her and her alternate self was that Other Dash wore a pair of glasses, sitting low on her muzzle. The second thing she noticed was that the other wore her famed mane thoroughly combed and pulled back in a bun. The third thing was that the other was looking at her with a look of profound irritation.
“Do you realise how long it’s going to take me to get these papers organised again?” snapped the Other Dash.
Rainbow (the original one) blinked a couple times, nonplussed. I sound like a grumpy librarian. “Um… no?”
Other Dash scoffed. “Figures. You look like some sort of a delinquent. When was the last time you washed that mane?”
“Umm… hello?” Original Rainbow gestured towards where the time spell always appeared. “I just dropped out of a time vortex to get here, and you’re focussing on my mane? Are time travelling clones a normal thing in this timeline?”
“Yes, yes, the time vortex is unusual and all, but you appear to be me without any regard for personal appearance, and that’s the more surprising thing.”
Original Rainbow’s eyes twitched. “Oh, Celestia, I’m an egghead.”
Other Dash’s brow furrowed. “Egghead? Egg- You’re thirty-four years old for Tartarus’ sake, what adult pony uses the word ‘egghead’?”
“I-”
Rainbow was cut off by the sound of the door opening. “Rainbow, are you all right? I heard shouting…”
Twilight Sparkle entered the room, immediately doing a double take between the Original and the Other. “What’s going on here? Is there a temporal rip?”
Other Dash pointed to the Original. “What’s going on is that there’s a timeline where I have no respect for personal appearance.”
“Wh- that’s not- what’s up with YOUR mane?” Original Rainbow pointed back at the Other.
“My mane is kept perfectly neat and orderly at all times, an ideal you appear to be the total antithesis of.”
“And the words! What are you, a thesaurus?”
“Wow, I’m impressed you knew that one,” commented the Other Dash sarcastically.
“RAINBOW!” shouted Twilight, demonstrating an impressive mastery of the Royal Canterlot Voice. “…er, Rainbows. Let’s just calm down and talk this over like rational, calm adults.”
The Other Dash sat back on her throne, her forehooves crossed and her lips curled into a pout.
“Alright. Now, uh…” Twilight pointed to the original Rainbow. “You’re Rainbow A, and you -” she pointed to the Other Dash- “are Rainbow One. Yeah, that works.” She trotted around the table and sat at the throne labelled with her own cutie mark. “So, Rainbow A. Tell us everything about how you got here. Or, got… now, as the case may be.”
Rainbow explained, in as much detail as she could, the exact series of events that had led up to the current moment. She started from the temporal rip, outlined the affected events, and detailed her actions in Starlight’s Town.
There was a moment of silence, followed by Twilight commenting, “You know, I remember when I was a filly I always thought the world would be a better place if Aetherwort never existed. I guess I’m eating my words now… it’s really strange to consider that I set all this,” she gestured to the map, “up to keep the timeline from being changed when it had been wrong from the beginning.”
“It’s even stranger to consider that you were able to save our lives,” added Other Dash irritably.
“Okay, stop right there.” Original Rainbow gestured to Other Dash. “Can we just talk about this for a second? How did I become this?”
Twilight answered. “Well, I have a theory. You said that in your time all three pony tribes in Equestria were united as one from the beginning?” Rainbow nodded. “What sort of Pegasus population did your Ponyville have?”
Rainbow thought about this for a second. “I don’t know, like a quarter? Couple thousand, give or take? I didn’t know them all, you’d have to ask Pinkie.” She paused. “I mean, my Pinkie.”
“Right, so I assume you worked with a fairly sizable weather patrol.” Rainbow nodded. “In our Ponyville, Rainbow here is one of exactly two Pegasi, and if your Fluttershy is anything like ours you’ll know she’s completely unsuited to weather duty. The end result of this is that Rainbow is responsible for all the weather for all of Ponyville, year-round.”
Original Rainbow shuddered, while Other Dash interjected, “That’s right, and you just completely messed up my schedules.” She held up the stack of papers that the shield had scattered. “I have to go through these by hoof now and put them back in order before I submit them to the weather dispensary in Cloudsdale or I might end up with two weeks’ worth of snow clouds in August.”
“Yeah, I have that problem sometimes,” commented Original Rainbow. “I just pass it on to Blossomforth or Thunderlane.”
Other Dash calmly moved her glasses up onto the top of her head and then, with both forehooves, facehooved vigorously. Dragging her hooves down her face, she commented to Twilight, “Do we have to turn me back into her? Can’t we just, I don’t know, do it ourselves?”
“Even if we did ‘do it ourselves’, it would still restore her timeline. Besides that, what kind of hypocrites would we be if we made all these precautions against the timeline being changed, and refused to let it be repaired now that we’ve realised that it’s already wrong?”
Other Dash sighed, replacing her glasses. “You’re right, I guess. Doesn’t mean I have to like it.”
“Anyway,” continued Twilight, addressing Original Rainbow, “The first thing you should do is figure out what those auto-spell stones you retrieved do. The scanning spell can do that, but as long as you’re here you may as well just show them to me. I’ll be able to identify them on sight, probably, and once we know what they do we might be able to advise you how to use them in the other two time zones, if necessary.”
“Good idea.” Rainbow showed the spellstone brace to Twilight. “I don’t know if you use the same set of stones as my timeline’s Twilight, but the Map and Scanner stones are the ones I already had.”
Twilight looked at the stones for a moment, her brow furrowed. “Well, that one, the one with the slot on it, labelled ‘Au,’ is for retrieving audio data from a recording crystal. The construct would have had another one for visual data, but it was probably one of the destroyed stones. You should check the data stored on the crystal you found with the audio stone as soon as possible – it might provide a clue as to who built the constructs.”
Rainbow nodded, retrieving the crystal from her saddlebag.
“The second auto-spell stone looks like Skeleton Key. It’s a relatively complex charm if you don’t have a spellstone, to the point that even I have trouble with it, but when cast properly it can unlock or re-seal almost any door. I invented a ward a few years ago that can prevent its use, but it should work on any barrier in the past time-zones.”
Rainbow looked at the stone. “Well, that would have been useful a while ago.”
Other Dash nodded. “On the upside, though, now you know some of what’s going on in the other time zones.”
“That’s right,” added Twilight. “This last spellstone, though… I’ve never seen it before. I don’t know what it does.”
In response, Rainbow activated the scanner spellstone, ignoring the warnings about nearby lifeforms, and focussed on the unidentified spellstone (labelled ‘Ch’). And, simple as that, she knew what it did. “It changes odd matter. The construct must have used it for activating its disguise.”
“An odd matter spellstone?” said Twilight pensively. “That explains why I’ve never heard of it before. Odd matter was invented by Starlight only a couple years ago. She mentioned once that she was working on a spellstone to make its use more accessible, but I never heard if she was successful. But how did it get on that construct, then?”
“Maybe the recording crystal will tell you,” commented Other Dash.
“Right,” answered Rainbow. Activating the audio retrieval spellstone, she inserted the recording crystal, and a loud, distorted voice could be heard.
“Anteros!” it said, presumably naming the equine construct. The distortion in the voice prevented Rainbow from telling whether it was male or female, much less identifying it. “Your mission pertains to Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship. She has done many things for Equestria in her time, but as long as she lives, Ponykind will welcome the aliens with open arms. I have learned many things throughout my life, among them how wonderful a force friendship can be, but I have also learned that it has its place, and this is not it. Twilight refuses to realize this, and will doom us all because of it. I wish it hadn't come to this, but to save us all, she must be sacrificed. However, she is a very powerful and skilled spellcaster, rivalling even myself. I know of exactly two instances in history where she was powerless. The first, during the return of Tirek, is far too dangerous. You may be destroyed, or worse, doom the timeline to exist in an eternity ruled by that monster. No, you need to go back to the second time zone, the Town. Twelve years ago. Suffice it to say, there will be large crowds of ponies, so you must make use of the disguising abilities I have given you. Make Twilight’s death look like an accident - and make it painless - if you can, but if not…" The voice sighed. "Your mission is more important. Good luck.”
There was a momentary pause, broken by Other Dash. “Well, that was wonderfully informative.”
“It was, actually,” said Twilight. “We now have confirmation that the aggressor’s intent is to prevent First Contact. Which they’ve so far been successful in doing – nothing particularly out of the ordinary was supposed to happen today. Besides that, they indicated that they were spellcasters powerful enough to rival me, which – not to toot my own horn or anything – isn’t a very large category. Off the top of my head I only know of three – Empress Cadance, Grand Magus Sunlight, and Starlight Glimmer.” Here she frowned. “I’m fairly certain Cadance wouldn’t do this, so that leaves us with two. I’ll contact some of my friends back in Canterlot and see if they know any more, but…” She trailed off, lost in thought.
“Right. Any suggestions regarding the other time zones?”
Twilight jolted, stirred out of her reverie. “Oh, right. Well, with regards to the Castle of the Two Sisters, I wrote a paper on that event for my Advanced Thaumatics course at the Canterlot Academy. The magical spectra from the blast – as recorded in the Canterlot Observatory – match those of Starswirl the Bearded, who had been dead for several centuries at that point, but he was the one who enchanted the castle’s Siege Repulsion Crystal. It’s a primitive form of spellstone, enchanted to encompass the entire castle in a magical shield in the event of a siege. It’s actually quite ingenious for the time, drawing on stored power in the crystal rather than the life force of the user-”
“Twilight, tangent,” commented Other Dash.
“Hmm? Oh, right. Sorry. The point I’m trying to make is that if the Siege Crystal were ruptured, it would produce a blast on a similar scale to that explosion, and the spectra seem to confirm that this is what occurred.”
“If that’s what happened, why did the historical record say that the explosion was super-advanced for that time?”
“Because it was. Nopony had ruptured a power crystal before, much less one of that magnitude – you need some really advanced spellwork that didn’t exist in that time. I’ll bet the construct there had an auto-spell stone designed to do the job. The crystal would have been stored in the armory, which will be locked, but you have a skeleton key auto-spell stone.”
“So I should, what, go in there and take the crystal?”
Twilight shook her head. “No, don’t do that. In this timeline the crystal ceased to exist after it was destroyed, but in yours it may have gone on to have a historically important role. Instead, try to figure out how the construct destroyed it, then prevent that from happening.”
“What about the sleeping spell?”
“For that one, I’ve got nothing. There are counter-spells, of course, but you’d need an auto-spell stone, and from what you’ve said there’s no way for us to get that to you. I doubt the constructs would have auto-spell stones to counter magic that wouldn’t affect them in the first place, so that’s out too.”
Rainbow suddenly remembered a piece of conversation she’d overheard during her adventures. “I think I might have a thought. Twilight, what’s a ‘witchwood totem’?”
Twilight’s eyes widened. “You have access to a witchwood totem?”
“Um… yeah, I think so. Why, what are they?”
“Only the main reason for the rivalry between Unicorns and Earth Ponies. Back in the Northern Lands, Earth Ponies discovered how to cultivate and carve a now-extinct species of wood called the Witchwood Tree. For reasons that are unknown to this day, a properly carved piece of witchwood, without any enchantment whatsoever, has the power to completely nullify any and all magic cast on its bearer. If you had one of those, yeah, it would definitely keep you safe from the sleeping spell. Also, keep hold of it after you’re done. I’m pretty sure my alternate self would also give her right forehoof to study a witchwood totem in detail.”
“Alright. I’m going to go get that, then.”
Rainbow descended into the forest a second time. This time, she immediately flapped her wings and rose above the canopy before the two ponies made their way into the clearing.
Remembering the conversation she had overheard, she surveyed the landscape. To the north stood a huge mountain with a large, visible cave opening at the top of a spiralling path. That must be where they stopped the Windigoes. Turning about, she saw the tree that Smart Cookie had referenced, a giant gnarled oak that towered above the surrounding leaf cover. Spreading her wings, she flew toward it.
Partway there, she heard a rustling in the forest below. Settling into the canopy, she looked down through a gap in the leaves. It was the draconic construct, holding a large leather bag. The rustling noise was made by it digging energetically in the soil. Looking from side to side, it dropped the bag into the hole it had made, then buried it, covering the disturbed soil with leaf litter. What is going on? wondered Rainbow.
When it was satisfied that the hole was hidden, the construct leaped off into the brush, moving north – just off from the direction of the mountain.
Certain that the event was important, Rainbow rose back above the canopy and fixed the location – and incident – in her memory. Then she once again flew off toward the oak.
She arrived there momentarily. A quick use of the scanner stone confirmed that there were no ponies around the base, but failed to locate Smart Cookie’s witchwood cache, presumably due to its anti-magic properties. She descended to the forest floor and began searching among the oak’s roots.
She found nothing, save for an occupied burrow, whose inhabitant chittered at her angrily until she backed off. Where could they be?
Her musing was interrupted by an alert from the scanner spell. “Alert. Three sapient life forms approaching from the northeast.” Rainbow ducked behind the trunk of the oak tree just as a rustling sound announced the ponies’ arrival on the far side of the tree.
“Get back here, knave! Thou hast stolen from us!” came the shout of an extremely angry-sounding mare, followed by a magical blast. “Our magic has confirmed that there are none but Pegasi near here.”
Rainbow peered around the tree. A thin, teal Pegasus stallion in full armor (Private Pansy, thought Rainbow) was being pursued by a pair of unicorn mares. The lead unicorn, a slate-grey example with a sleek white mane, was dressed in a bright purple robe and wore an elaborate crown on her head. The foot-tall, silvery, gem-encrusted crown was so elaborate, in fact, that Rainbow at first wondered how it was staying put, especially given the fact that the mare was seemingly shaking with rage, but after a few moments, Rainbow noticed the tell-tale glitter of an active magic field surrounding the base of the crown. Princess Platinum.
The second unicorn, this one with a coat of brilliant azure blue, was dressed in an elaborate indigo cloak that billowed around her in a nonexistent breeze. The surface of the fabric was covered in glowing points of light in a manner that reminded Rainbow of Princess Luna’s mane. And that must be Clover the Clever.
A pale orange magical aura surrounded Private Pansy and swung him to the ground, where he landed with a crash. Rainbow cringed; that looked like it hurt. Clover stuck out a hoof, holding the princess back.
“My queen, you must restrain thy anger. My scanning spells have indicated that he did not so much as pass our food supplies,” said Clover.
“My scanning spells have indicated that Hurricane and Cookie have gone to the northwest, and Puddinghead is still upon the mountainside walling away the remains of those frosted fiends. Unless you mean to suggest that our supplies were carried away by evil spirits, then the culprit stands before you.”
“Your majesty, I do not think-”
“That’s quite correct, Clover. Your actions of late have been curiously devoid of thought. I knew your allegiance with these pegasi was misguided, and this latest series of events only reinforces my point.”
I think I know what happened to the unicorns’ food supplies, thought Rainbow, remembering the construct’s leather bag, buried off in the woods. Maybe I- Her thought process was interrupted by a magical blast, excavating a crater in the tree’s roots and sending Pansy scurrying backwards. As he went, his hoof disturbed a patch of moss, revealing the drawstring of a leather satchel.
The witchwood! thought Rainbow. But I can’t get it while they’re watching. I have to distract them somehow, but how?
She glanced at her hoof, and the spellstones contained thereon. I wonder… She activated the scanner spellstone, and felt the familiar pulse of information pass through her mind. Nothing of which she was not already aware, of course, but Platinum paused.
“Clover, did you just scan the area?”
“No, your majesty. I thought you had.”
“Then, who – Stop!” Pansy had taken advantage of their momentary distraction to take to the sky. Platinum blundered through the forest in pursuit, followed herself by Clover, shouting for her to wait.
That worked better than I could ever have anticipated. Rainbow jumped out from behind the tree, snatching the satchel from the ground. Opening it, she revealed a pile of gnarled, grayish dried-up wooden lumps. She couldn’t make heads or tails of their shape, but she assumed that they were her witchwood quarry. Snatching one, she cast aside the rest and activated the map control stone.
Rainbow descended back onto the map, holding the totem in her hoof. Looking around, she saw Twilight still waiting, but Other Dash had gone.
“Rainbow One had to go re-sort that schedule,” explained Twilight when Rainbow asked. “What about the totem? Did you get it?”
“I think so.” Rainbow held out the witchwood totem. “Is this one?”
“It looks more or less like illustrations I’ve seen. But I’ve never seen an actual witchwood totem, so I couldn’t say for sure. You’ll find out pretty quick once you get to the Castle, anyway.”
“Great. Well, I may as well go for a trial run.” Rainbow deposited the totem in her saddlebag, and activated the map control.
“Rainbow, wait. There’s one more thing you should know before you go.”
“What’s that?”
“I did some more research while you were gone. I think the explosion wasn’t the only alteration made to history that day.”
“What? What else changed?”
Twilight picked up a sheaf of paper from the floor next to her throne. “This is all the information I could find on the Castle of the Two Sisters disaster. This here-” Twilight showed Rainbow a drawing of a four-pointed, glowing object –“was witnessed by several astronomers observing the event, speeding away into the sky. It very closely resembles the alien ship that appeared over Canterlot ten years ago.”
“Yeah, the historical record mentioned lights in the sky.”
“Well, I think this might be either something else the construct arranged, or maybe even the construct itself. You need to figure out which and stop it.”
“Right, got it. Thanks. Shouldn’t be an issue. If this works, you’ll either never see me again or forget you ever saw me. Either way, goodbye.”
“Good luck, Rainbow.” Twilight waved as Rainbow returned to the past.
The first thing Rainbow did when she arrived in the storeroom was activate the scanner spellstone.
“Warning. Large mobile nonliving mass approaching. Composition: 98% granite, 1% Cloverite, trace amounts of other minerals.”
This one isn’t made of odd matter? Crap, I was hoping I could use the Aetherwort trick again. I’ll have to think of something else on the fly.
The large construct rounded the corner and locked eyes with her. Up close, she could see the resemblance to the object that Twilight had shown her a picture of. So it’s the construct. I need to figure out how to stop it. The construct, as it had before, told Rainbow that she was too late, and left. So is it just boasting, or – wait! I know! I bet it’s already rigged the shield crystal to explode.
Lifting off, Rainbow listened for the scanner spell warning her about the sleep spell. No warning came. Great. Does that mean I did it, or…
“Sleeping spell successfully nullified.”
Okay, great. Let’s go. She flew down the rows of shelves until she reached a heavy-looking wooden door. Pulling on it produced no result. Did this one try to lock me in, too? Too bad, because now I have the anti-door. She activated the skeleton key spellstone, and the door swung wide with a loud ka-chunk, admitting her into a small chamber with several chairs and a long wooden counter. Behind the counter lay an elderly unicorn stallion, fast asleep and snoring loudly.
Rainbow passed the room and entered the hallway. I have no idea where the armory is. That, though, is what the scanner is for. Another pulse of information entered her mind, revealing a massive, mazelike warren of corridors. Armory, armory, armory… The image in her mind highlighted a large room just above her head.
No delays. She pushed open the window and flew outside. Good thing there’s no danger of being spotted here. Flying up to the next floor, she crawled back inside. Opposite of her stood the door to the armory, flanked by a pair of snoring guards. Using the skeleton key spell, she pushed the door open and walked into a long room full of racks of spears, crossbows, swords, and armor. More importantly, at the far end of the room was a marble pedestal, on which rested a purple velvet cushion supporting a brightly glowing white crystal.
There! Rainbow flew over to the crystal and picked it up. There was a mass of auto-spell stones connected by bits of string adhered to the side of it. Four were labelled ‘Cl’, one – hanging loose – was labelled ‘Ch’, and the last, in the center, was labelled ‘Co’. I don’t know what these do, but they’re probably bad. She grasped the center stone and tugged.
Nothing happened.
For Celestia’s sake. Rainbow tugged on the stone. Still no result. I’ll scan them, maybe if I know what the stones do…
The Ch stone pulsed with light.
Nope. Nope, no time for that. Maybe... She reached into her saddlebag and retrieved the wingblade. Forcing the blade under one of the four Cl stones, she pushed down on it, separating the stone from the crystal with a loud crack. Rainbow flinched, but the sound was just the stone’s magic breaking, rather than the crystal exploding. The hanging stone pulsed again.
Great, let’s speed this up. Using the wingblade as a lever, she popped two more of the exterior stones free. As the center stone fell from the crystal – for it wasn’t adhered by anything more than the strings tying it to the exterior stones – the hanging stone pulsed more brightly, sending a spark down the string to the center stone, which exploded in a cylinder of prismatic light, lancing out away from the crystal.
A cylinder of stone blasted out from the ceiling where the light struck, but the crystal was untouched. Whew. Let’s get this thing off there. Rainbow freed the last stone from the crystal and put both the device and the wingblade safely away in her saddlebags.
Now I need to find that construct. She emerged from the armory and flitted out into the sky. The scanner can’t spot them unless they’re right in front, so I’ll-
Her musing was interrupted by a bright light from the courtyard below. She looked down just in time to be bypassed by a large moving object. The construct! She shot skyward after it.
She grasped one of its outstretched legs and pulled down. To her surprise, it responded with a grunt, its ascent faltering as it swung wildly back toward the ground. It must have reduced its weight to fly. Aww yeah, you’re in my world now.
She flew back downwards, both forehooves outstretched. Her impact with the construct pushed it even further downward, but revealed to her that it was still as solid as it had always been. As she fell back, massaging her injured hoof, the construct descended, flipping over in midair and extending a series of spindly limbs from its underside.
Okay, that doesn’t look good. Rainbow hung back from the construct, avoiding its grasping limbs. I’m faster than it is, but it’s way more maneuverable. It’s self-levitating, so it can fly any which way it wants, whereas I’m seriously handicapped any direction but straight forward. I’ve got to-
Suddenly, the moon rose into the sky, blotting out the sun and distracting both combatants. A peal of laughter echoed from the distant great hall.
Wh- Oh right, this was when Nightmare Moon first rose. I guess the princesses must be resisting the sleeping spell somehow. I- That was when Rainbow noticed the construct on the move. “Hey!” She flew after it, landing on its back and forcing it back down towards the ground.
A magical blast tore through the roof of what Rainbow recalled was the throne room, and two distant figures flew through the gap.
Oh, no… Twilight said they flew around the castle a bit during the fight she saw. I can’t let them see me or the construct. She forced the construct further towards the ground, even as it took them closer to the battling alicorns.
Nightmare Moon unleashed a barrage of magic, blasting chunks of stone from the castle’s towers in the wake of the fleeing Celestia. One of the blasts came dangerously close to Rainbow and the construct. Dodging out of the way, Rainbow forced the construct against the support of one of the castle’s soaring bridges. Its physical strength was such that she couldn’t force it to lay flat, but its magical strength wasn’t enough to free it from her grip.
As they stood there, in a stalemate, Celestia soared past, under the bridge, and hurled a magical beam backward at her pursuer, who returned one of her own.
Wait, something’s wrong. Twilight specifically said that Celestia never fought back- Ah!
The bridge, weakened by the twin magical blasts, was collapsing. Rainbow zipped away from the construct to avoid a falling block, and the force the construct itself was applying to free itself caused it to rocket backwards right into a falling mass of stone.
Is that it? Did I get it? A rumbling deep within the mound of stone disproved that notion, as a large chunk of masonry flew upwards to meet Rainbow. Nope, dodging now. The stone missed Rainbow by a hair, and when she looked back she saw the construct rapidly rising into the sky. Oh, no you don’t, she thought as she pursued it.
Once again grasping the construct and driving it back towards the ground, she was briefly distracted by a bright light. Looking to its source, she saw the two alicorns rising over the throne room, their two beams of magic fighting for dominance. This is where Celestia used the Elements of Harmony, realised Rainbow as Nightmare Moon began losing ground.
Then Rainbow got an idea. A very dangerous idea, but an idea nonetheless.
Following her impulse, she carried the construct skyward, toward the moon. Now below her, she heard the howl of Nightmare Moon as the Elements’ beam struck her, carrying her away towards the moon.
Seemingly realizing her plan, the construct begat struggling even more fiercely, even dropping its self-levitation spell and leaving her with what felt like at least a ton of deadweight. But she persevered, drawing parallel with the path of the rapidly approaching polychromatic beam. With a mighty heave, she hurled the construct into that path and dropped clear.
Looking back, she saw the construct reactivate its levitation and madly flee from the beam, but to no avail; it was caught in the magic and spun back to the ground, landing with an audible crash.
Spreading her wings and arresting her own fall before she struck the ground, she skirted the throne room towards the construct’s landing site.
She found it there, curled up like a dead spider in the middle of a ring of shattered cobbles.
Right. Now, I wonder if this one has any spellstones I can use. She prodded at its head, and a strip of stone receded into its body, revealing another spellstone array much like Anteros’, along with a recording crystal. Much like Anteros’ spellstones, many of this construct’s were damaged. The undamaged ones, Rainbow recognised as another audio retrieval stone, a second skeleton key stone, and a new one marked ‘Sh’. That one she placed on her spellstone brace, bringing her total up to six, and she placed the two duplicates in her saddlebag alongside the second construct’s recording crystal.
As Anteros had, the second construct’s remains were engulfed by a time-spell and whisked away, leaving no trace. Seeing no reason to remain in the past, Rainbow activated the recall function and once again returned to a new present.
Rainbow looked at the map as she descended. The huge walls that had blocked off the three segments were gone, although the evidence of their former existence – massive lines of crumbling rock, swaths of younger trees through the Everfree Forest, and the altered locations of familiar cities. Strangely, even the cloud cities were still clustered together in the west, although their porcupine-like icicle spikes were gone.
Rainbow’s guess was confirmed as the shield was activated, prompting a thud and an exclamation of “Ow!” from behind her. Turning around revealed another version of herself sitting on her throne, rubbing the back of her head.
“Hi, sorry about that,” said Original Rainbow. What do I call you? she wondered. Second Other Dash? Rainbow Number Three? “Is Twilight around? Her advice came in handy last time.”
The new Rainbow – much more like the original than Other Dash had been – stared for a moment. Then she threw her hooves up in the air.
“Sure, she’s upstairs I think. I’ll go get her, saves me from having to deal with this.”
She lifted off and flew out the door, mumbling to herself about something. “Thanks!” shouted Rainbow after her.
While she waited, Rainbow activated the scanning spellstone and pulled out the device she’d removed from the shield crystal, running the scanning spell over all three different kinds of spellstone making it up. The four peripheral stones, it identified as ‘clinging’ stones, which – according to the scanner’s voice – were designed to attach firmly to any surface. The stone in the center was a coring spellstone, which could extract a perfect cylindrical core from any substance, with a range of up to fifteen feet. Finally, the loose-hanging spellstone was a charge stone, designed to deliver a magical charge capable of stunning small organic life forms or – in this case – activating spellstones. So basically I can stick it to something and it’ll cut a tiny hole. I’m sure that’ll come in handy.
She replaced the device in her saddlebag, and scanned the single new spellstone she had obtained from the second construct. This one, the scanner informed her, would generate a small, relatively weak bubble shield capable of deflecting a single blow of varying strength.
She was just extracting the second construct’s recording crystal when this timeline’s Twilight pushed open the doors to the map room. Rainbow looked up from the crystal.
“Hi,” said Twilight. She was accompanied by Spike, who like in the original timeline had long since outgrown riding on her back – although he was still nowhere near as tall as an adult dragon, coming up to Princess Celestia’s shoulder at the most – and was walking along next to her. On her other side was Starlight Glimmer. “I guess you’re a time traveller? From the future? Have you come to warn us about some horrible event that we need to-”
“Twilight,” said Spike, “Calm down.”
“Right, sorry.” Twilight took a deep breath. The three newcomers sat themselves down around the map table, Starlight conjuring up a wooden chair with magic. “So,” continued Twilight, “Where have you come from? Or, when?”
“Well, now. That’s a story. Buckle up, ‘cause this makes three times I’ve had to recap this and it’s getting longer every time.”
Rainbow recounted the events leading up to her arrival once again.
There was, as there had been the last time, a brief moment of silence.
“Cool,” commented Spike.
“’Cool’? Is that it? I mean, ponies keep on underreacting to the fact that I have travelled back in time and now destroyed two unstoppable magical constructs Tartarus-bent on destroying time as we know it.”
Spike shrugged. “I mean, yeah, we’ve faced a lot of weird crap over the last fifteen-”
Twilight burst out of her reverie with the force of a cannon. “YOU HAVE A WITCHWOOD TOTEM?” she shouted with enough force that Rainbow could have sworn it damaged the shield. “Can I see it? Please?”
“Hold on, have you been zoned out since I mentioned the witchwood?”
“Erm…” Twilight grinned sheepishly. “Maybe?”
Rainbow sighed. Spike, fortunately, responded before she could launch into yet another recap. “Long story short, she killed another construct, saved Princess Celestia, retrieved one more spellstone and another recording crystal.”
“Right. I’m sure Princess Celestia will want to thank you for that in person – I sent her a letter immediately when our Rainbow came to me with the news. Until then, let’s hear what’s on that recording crystal.”
“Good idea,” said Rainbow Dash, inserting the crystal into the audio retrieval spellstone and activating it.
As it had been before, the voice was distorted and impossible to identify. “Hyperion,” it said, naming the second construct, “Your mission is twofold. You’re going back to the Castle of the Two Sisters, back when Celestia and Luna ruled from there. The first part of your mission is to destroy the castle, in a cataclysmic fashion The death toll will be catastrophic, and if there were any other way..." The voice paused. There was a loud, shaky sigh, although Rainbow couldn't tell how much of the tremor was actually part of the voice's inflection and how much was due to the damage to the recording crystal. "A message needs to be sent," resumed the voice. "A message that will be burned into the collective consciousness of ponykind for a millennium. Nothing else is sufficient." Another pause, this time accompanied by a clattering noise. "Use the delayed-action coring device provided to rupture the shield crystal. The reason for this is the assassination of Princess Celestia specifically – though I’ll get to the necessity of such a large display presently. With Celestia gone, odds are good that the surviving government – whatever shape that takes – will be much less inclined to make trusting overtures towards the aliens. But, they may not be entirely averse to it, especially if Anteros or Khonsu fail in their missions.”
Khonsu, thought Rainbow. That must be the last construct.
“Hence the second part of your mission,” continued the recording, “and another part of the reason you’ll need to make such a flashy display. Ponykind will have been split apart if Khonsu succeeds, and we need to give them a reason to reunite against the aliens when the time comes. To that end, I’ve given you your particular shape; it closely resembles the outline of the aliens’ ships. You are to use your self-levitation and luminescence spells to rise high into the sky in the wake of the explosion. It will have drawn the attention of astronomers across Equestria, and you will cement in their minds the certainty of alien involvement in the event. There is no way ponies will fail to defend themselves against this subtle invasion then. Go now, and good luck.”
Once the recording had finished, Twilight spoke up. “Hyperion, Anteros, Khonsu. I’m sure that’s an allusion to something, I just can’t put my hoof on it.”
Spike rested his head on his fist thoughtfully. “I remember learning from Ember that Hyperion is an old Draconic sun god, but I’ve never heard of the other two.”
“Khonsu is a Camelonian deity,” supplied Starlight. “I think it has something to do with Nightmare Moon. And Anteros, I think, is a Tauren deity. More importantly, though, have you really taken a moment to think about this pony’s disagreement with the aliens?”
“I would use the term paranoia, more than disagreement – the latter would imply prior meeting,” said Twilight.
Starlight waved her hoof dismissively. “Sure. My point is, how can we be sure they’re actually in the wrong?”
Rainbow furrowed her eyebrows. “You’re the first one so far to disagree with me changing the timeline back.”
Starlight shook her head, putting up both forehooves defensively. “No, no. That’s not what I meant at all. From what you’ve told us, the entire timeline has gone to Tartarus because of this pony’s actions. I’m just talking about their reasons. Have you ever considered the fact that they might be right about the aliens’ intentions?”
Rainbow nodded. “I mean, sure. When the aliens first showed up ten years ago, my first thought was that they were trying to soften us up for an invasion. Twilight convinced me to give them the benefit of the doubt.”
Starlight frowned. “That’s all very well for us ponies, who are more or less predisposed towards friendship and harmony, especially in your timeline. But we have no idea what these aliens want – giving them the benefit of the doubt could prove fatal to any one of us.”
“Starlight,” said Twilight, “you know the potential scientific benefits-”
“The scientific benefits outweigh the risk, yeah. But that depends on what the risk is and we have no way of knowing that until we incur the consequences.”
Twilight sighed. “You know my opinions on this, I know yours, let’s not get into it right now. Rainbow, exactly what have you found out about the last time zone?”
Rainbow thought back to her two trips back to the ancient forest. “Well, I know the construct shot down Commander Hurricane somehow, and I know it stole food from the Unicorns and blamed it on the Pegasi. I’m pretty sure something happened to Smart Cookie as well, but I’m not sure what. Oh, and I found where the construct hid the stolen food supplies, so I can retrieve that.”
“You’ll need to do it fast,” said Twilight. “I did a whole bunch of research on the last of the Windigoes a few years ago, and that entailed reading through the journals of the six Founders. Smart Cookie was put out of commission for several hours with a sleeping spell, which he blamed on the Unicorns. I’ll bet Khonsu had an auto-spell stone for that, and based on the timeline I reconstructed you’ll have a few minutes at most to get from the Unicorns’ camp to the gorge where it attacked Hurricane and Cookie. And that’s saying nothing of how you’ll actually stop it from attacking them, much less get rid of Khonsu itself afterwards.”
“I’m sure I can figure something out.” As Rainbow finished speaking, a loud bell-like tone sounded throughout the castle. “What was that?”
“Oh, you don’t have that in your timeline? The whole castle is locked up at all times. I’ve warded every opening against skeleton key spells and put a teleblock on a good kilometer’s radius around it. There’s even a minor magic-damping field. The noise means Princess Celestia is here.” Spike got up and left the room. “Even she needs us to let her in from the inside.”
“Why all the security?”
It was Starlight who answered. “It was Celestia’s suggestion, actually. She said the pegasi and earth ponies might take offense to a Unicorn putting up a castle in an Earth Pony town. I personally think she’s being a little paranoid, but in the end, the security measures aren’t hurting anypony. And besides, I can understand why – she did live during the pre-unification period, after all.”
“You should talk to her before you leave,” said Twilight. “I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you.”
At that moment, Spike walked into the map room, closely followed by none other than Princess Celestia.
“Is this the time-travelling doppelganger of Rainbow Dash?” she asked.
Twilight smiled and nodded vigorously. “She’s just saved your life in the past and she’s about to go back to make the last change to restore the timeline.”
Celestia smiled. “Well. She’s quite the hero, then, isn’t she?” She looked around to Spike, Starlight, and Twilight. “Would you three mind leaving us? I have some things that I must say to her and her alone.”
A confused expression passed over Twilight’s face. “If you say so, Princess.” The three left the room, and Celestia closed the door behind them with a shimmer of magic.
“So, Rainbow Dash. Spike has filled me in on your deeds over the past thousand years, and it seems I must thank you for saving not only my own life, but an uncounted number of my subjects and even my most faithful student.”
Rainbow grinned with pride. Even after all she’d done over the last decade and a half of her life, direct personal praise from Princess Celestia herself was a rare thing. “It was nothing, Princess. I was just doing what needed to be done.”
There was a click from the door. “Unfortunately, I cannot allow you to continue on your current path.”
Rainbow’s smile dropped. “What?”
Celestia raised her horn to the air, and a trio of glowing, fiery orange spheres launched from it with sounds like fireworks launching. The spheres orbited the bubble shield, occasionally probing it with sparks. “What you, Twilight, and all her other friends fail to understand is the mechanics of time travel. Indeed, I am not sure I understand them either. But, I believe that if the past is changed, it will destroy the future. Everything that would have gone on to exist after my death has now been permanently erased.”
“That’s not true. Twilight still exists-”
“But your Twilight, my Twilight, and any other Twilights you may have encountered are not the same entity. Just as I am not the same entity as your Celestia, and if you bring her back, I will be destroyed forever. I cannot allow that to happen.”
The spheres stopped orbiting the shield, falling still.
“Do not worry, I have no intention of killing you. I will simply imprison you far away from this map for the rest of your natural life. I’ve muted all the sound in this room, so even if she is listening in – as I suspect she is - as far as Twilight is concerned, you will have gone back and been killed by the construct, Khonsu.” She paused, looking to the spheres of light. “Perhaps one day I’ll even arrange for an expedition to excavate your fossilised remains.”
Rainbow reached surreptitiously toward her map stone.
“Do you know what it’s like, Miss Dash, to be immortal, unkillable, for multiple millennia, and suddenly confronted with your own finality? It wasn’t an event I had expected for many thousands of years, much less now, so I was utterly unprepared. I had no idea what I would do, were I confronted with the possibility of my death. If I am honest, I am afraid. Nonetheless, I believe I’ve made the right choice.”
With a thunderous noise, beams emanated from the spheres in sequence, smashing into the bubble shield. At the first two, the shield flexed, and at the third strike, cracks began to spread out over the surface. “Danger. Shield integrity compromised; avoid considering tubes,” announced the map voice.
“I only hope that one day you come to understand this,” continued Celestia, “and maybe even forgive me for my actions.”
Rainbow activated the map control stone, selecting the last remaining date. Just as she selected ‘jump’, the shield shattered, the beams passing immediately underneath her as she rose into the time-spell.
“NO!” shouted the alternate Celestia.
But Rainbow was already falling back into the past.
Rainbow descended back into the forest, once again rising back up above the treeline in time to avoid being spotted by Hurricane and Cookie.
I can’t go back to that timeline, Rainbow realized. If I do, Celestia will be waiting there and she’ll stop me from going back… I have one chance and one chance only to fix this. No retries like I needed in the Town. First thing, I need to get back to where Khonsu buried the supplies.
Thanking her timeline’s version of Celestia that she had thought to memorize the spot where she had seen Khonsu digging, she flew there at the greatest speed she could manage. Well, almost.
I can’t risk a rainboom. That’s way too obvious, it’d announce my presence to every living creature from here to Rainbow Falls.
She came to a rest over the canopy just as Khonsu bounded into the clearing below, carrying the bag over its shoulder. Rainbow hovered and waited as the dragon-shaped construct buried the food supplies and leapt away towards the north.
Now the time crunch begins. Rainbow flitted down to the forest floor, digging the bag free with her bare hooves and pulling it out. Slinging it over her back, she spread her wings and shot out from the canopy.
Wait. No! I don’t know where the Unicorns are camped!
She facehooved. And even if I did, Platinum will have already gone off against Private Pansy… She looked to the horizon. I need to… Wait! I know! She shot off towards the oak tree. Clover sounded like she didn’t want to go along with Platinum’s tirade. Hopefully she’s smart enough to go along with this plan without even knowing that I exist.
Arriving in the oak tree’s clearing, Rainbow deposited the bag of food supplies in the lower boughs of the tree, descending backwards into the thicket of twigs in the upper part of the oak. She could hear Platinum shouting indistinctly from below.
I made the food visible enough, I hope. Peering out from the leaves, she saw that both Clover’s and Platinum’s attention was focussed on Pansy. Crap, I need to draw Clover’s attention.
Thinking quickly, Rainbow reached into her saddlebag and withdrew the wingblade, rapping it sharply in the gnarled wood of the oak tree. The sharpened blade cut through the wood like butter. Damn. Flipping the blade around, she struck the pommel on the solid wood of the trunk, producing a loud echoey sound. Clover looked up at the tree.
Her eyebrows knit, but she said something to Platinum that Rainbow couldn’t make out. Rainbow retreated further into the tree’s foliage as a pale magenta magical aura wrapped around the bag of supplies and lowered it down to the ground.
Ascending towards the sky, Rainbow looked back to see Clover carrying the supplies as Platinum sheepishly extended a hoof towards Pansy, helping him back to his hooves.
Right, everything is back to normal there. She dashed off towards the gorge in the north. Now, second challenge. How do I stop Khonsu from knocking out Smart Cookie?
Rainbow arrived at the gorge and descended into the treeline before Hurricane – flying about and gathering mist – could spot her. Looking up and down the gorge, she spotted Smart Cookie, seated at the edge. I’m not too late, then. Good.
And then she saw Khonsu, creeping out of the forest, low to the ground, towards the earth pony. But I have a few seconds at most. What do I do, what do I do…
Rainbow gasped. That’s it! She reached into her saddlebag and withdrew the witchwood totem. Sorry Twilight, I know you wanted to study this thing. Winding back, she threw it at Smart Cookie with all her strength, retreating back into the foliage as she did so and moving towards the spot where she remembered Khonsu had launched whatever it was it had launched at Hurricane.
Looking to the side, she saw Smart Cookie reach down and pick up the totem just as Khonsu reached out and gestured just behind Cookie’s head. Smart Cookie’s eyebrows furrowed as he examined the totem, while Khonsu, confused, repeated the gesture.
Shaking its head, Khonsu retreated back into the foliage as Smart Cookie looked backwards, alarmed.
Rainbow, meanwhile, had found what she suspected was Khonsu’s shooting blind. Swaths of Star Swirl’s Beard moss was draped over a branch, but not growing from it – Khonsu, Rainbow guessed, had prepared it ahead of time, by gathering moss from around the forest to hide from view a large, horizontal branch that would be the perfect vantage point for it to strike at Hurricane.
I don’t know if it’s still going to try now that I’ve foiled its plans regarding Smart Cookie, but… she withdrew the wingblade from her saddlebag one more time. It’s time to try possibly the most shaky plan yet. She began sawing vigorously at the base of the branch with the razor-sharp blade.
She made it partway through the wood when she heard a rustling sound from nearby. No! Not enough time! She ducked behind the main part of the tree, hearing Khonsu loping through the undergrowth and climbing up into the tree. Its jet-black hand grasped the trunk of the tree, its talons coming within an inch of Rainbow’s muzzle. She held her breath, remembering what had happened the last time Khonsu had caught her.
There was a faint rustling, presumably the construct withdrawing its weapon from wherever it had kept it. Then it let go of the tree trunk, putting its entire weight on the half-sawed-through tree branch.
There was an almighty crack as the branch snapped, a shout of surprise from Khonsu, and a rustling crash as it fell to the forest floor. Rainbow chuckled furiously under her breath as a flock of crows rose from the canopy, cawing furiously, and (out by the gorge) Smart Cookie’s and Commander Hurricane’s gazes snapped towards the general area where Khonsu – still hidden within the foliage – had fallen. Then the other two ponies galloped off along the gorge to the south.
Heh. That solves that.
Then an iron grip closed around her forehoof. Shouting in surprise, she recoiled, worming her way free. Khonsu stood below her, glaring up at her with its expressionless face.
It looked no different than it had the previous time, when it had been victorious, but Rainbow felt certain that if its looks could kill there would be little left of her but a charred shadow on the trees. So how do I destroy you…? she thought.
Might be a good time for the shield spellstone. She reached to her wrist – only to find her spellstone brace conspicuously missing.
She looked back down at Khonsu to see it holding her spellstone brace above its head. “Looking for this?” it growled. “It will make a nice trophy after you have been destroyed and I have fixed the damage you’ve done to my mission.”
Crap. “That’s what Hyperion and Anteros said,” said Rainbow, a new plan evolving in her head on the fly as she rose up and surveying the landscape. “Guess how well it worked out for them.”
Khonsu made a deep grinding noise, and leaped from the trees at her. She dodged. It’s faster and more maneuverable in the air than Hyperion, but it can’t really fly. I have to keep it following me. She turned around and flew off toward the mountain, waving at Khonsu. It bounded across the treetops after her, either too stupid (not likely) or too angry (fairly obvious) to notice that she was occasionally slowing down to let it keep up.
I’ve got one shot, so I really hope I’m right about this. Rainbow angled upwards, climbing up the slope of the mountain. Looking back, she saw Khonsu leaving the foliage and leaping like a mountain goat from crag to outcrop in a mad dash to get to her.
Rainbow rose over a ridge, coming face to face with the gigantic cavern opening she’d seen from the forest level. An icy wind drifted from inside, and she dashed toward its source.
A puce-green earth pony, standing next to the entrance of the cave, simply stared in bewilderment. Aww, crap. I hope that doesn’t change too much.
A chorus of clicks and clacks sounded from behind her, as Khonsu followed her into the cave. Reaching a particularly chilly area (cold enough that icicles protruded from the ceiling and the floor was webbed with frost), she turned around and faced Khonsu. It too slowed to a stop before her.
“So are you prepared to make a last stand?” it asked, its voice burning with hate.
“Are you?” returned Rainbow, only half focussing on the conversation.
“Do you really think you can defeat me?” The temperature in the chamber dropped a few more degrees.
Rainbow looked around. “Well, I did a decent job with Hyperion and Anteros. But no, I don’t think I can do anything about you.”
“So you’re just standing here and accepting your fate?”
Rainbow grinned. “I don’t think I can harm you. But I’m betting they can.”
“Who-?” Khonsu turned around, and came face to face with a wispy, pale white shade in the vague shape of a pony.
It howled and leaped at him, the temperature of the cave dropping by several more degrees. Khonsu recoiled, and Rainbow curled up on the ground, focussing on her memories of her friends back in her own timeline as she was bombarded with sleet.
After a few moments, the howling abated. Shivering in the cold, Rainbow looked outward. The lone Windigo regarded her impassively, before vanishing into the depths of the cave in a whirlwind of ice.
Uncurling herself, Rainbow looked at Khonsu. It had been frozen practically into a solid block of ice, long icicles stretching backwards from its extremities away from where the Windigo had stood.
Twilight must be rubbing off on me, thought Rainbow. I came up with theories, tested them, and froze a magical golem. She pulled her spellstone brace from Khonsu’s outstretched hand, snapping off several of its frozen, brittle fingers to do so, and replaced it on her hoof. Okay, maybe that last one was still pretty cool. She chuckled under her breath at the accidental pun. Anyway, it’s a lucky thing that not only was Khonsu advanced enough to hate me, but one of the Windigoes survived the Fire of Friendship long enough to take care of it.
She flew up over the frozen construct. I wonder what it’s got in the way of spellstones. She tried to open the top of Khonsu’s head as she had with Hyperion’s, but it was frozen shut. A quick, sharp rap with her hoof shattered the covering, but revealed that all but one of the spellstones were badly damaged by the frost. The only one still functional was sealed tightly in by the icy skin covering the panel.
She tapped it with her spellstone brace anyway, causing a large crossbow-like weapon to materialise in Khonsu’s hand. As Khonsu failed to grasp it, it dropped to the ground and rested on the frost for a moment.
Is that a bolas thrower? thought Rainbow. She picked it up, and sure enough, it was a mechanical device designed to hurl restrictive bolas at great speed. This must be what he shot Hurricane with. Now that’s cool… Well, it doesn’t belong in the past, he won’t need it anymore, guess who gets a trophy. She stuck the bolas thrower in her saddlebag and returned to the spellstone slot, carefully picking out the recording crystal, which was - to her surprise - nearly intact.
After she had retrieved the crystal, Khonsu’s frozen remains drifted off into another time spell, as she activated the recall function on her own map control spellstone, summoning herself back to what would hopefully be her own timeline.