It had been a few weeks since the Mane 6 and the Pippsqueaks returned from their last Unity Quest to help Mystery Incorporated solve mysteries at Camp Little Moose, and to Pipp's relief, the Pippsqueaks said that their parents were really fulfilling their promises and doing better to get along.
In fact, they all decided to go on a camping trip that same weekend.
And now that they were finally home, the Mane 6 decided to go and make their lives a little bit like normal before they had to venture off on their next quest.
Sunny stayed quite busy at her smoothie cart, and Zipp stayed busy helping Hitch with Sparky and solving mysteries together.
Izzy made sure her unicycling business was still rolling without a hitch, and Pipp was quite busy at Mane Melody with Jazz and Rocky.
Misty, only a few days after they had gotten back, had found another way to keep herself busy-- a special spellbook had helped her find her way to a secret room in the Crystal Brighthouse where she could really help her advance her magical skills, and this made her realize that she really had found a special place with the Mane 6... her friends AND her surrogate family.
But, what the Mane 6 didn't realize was that their next quest was going to be around the corner, taking them to a whole new dimension of time, unlike anything that they had ever seem before.
Now... time to get to the story at hoof.
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“Morning, Sunny!” Pipp said as she flew over to Sunny’s smoothie stand on her break at Mane Melody. “One Strawberry Ripple smoothie to go, please!”
“Sure thing, Pipp!” Sunny smiled as she put the ingredients in the blender. “Are the Pippsqueaks excited for their camping trip this weekend?”
“Oh, that’s all they’ve been telling me about recently,” Pipp said as she watched Sunny blend the ingredients together. “I’m really happy their parents are finally getting along-- even Peach Fizz’s mom seemed excited.”
“That’s great!” Sunny said as she handed Pipp the smoothie. “I’m glad everything’s working out for them.”
“Hey, guys!” Misty said as she came over with her spellbook. “One Pineapple Paradise, please, Sunny.”
“Hey, Misty! How’s that magic training of yours coming along?” Pipp asked. “And I wanted to ask, is there a spell that could give my mane a glossy texture?”
Misty giggled at this. “One, it’s been going great. Two… I haven’t looked at that yet, but I’ll definitely keep my eyes open for it.”
“Perfect! It would be GREAT to use that on customers at Mane Melody.”
“Hey, guys!” Izzy said as she sat down at the table nearby. “What are you all doing?”
“Taking a smoothie break and discussing our activities from the week,” Sunny said as she prepared Misty’s smoothie before blending up a Kiwipaya Blast for Izzy. “How’s the unicycling going, Iz?”
“Oh, I can’t even belizzle how many ponies need my help unicycling some of their old stuff!” Izzy said as she took her smoothie and slurped on it. “Last week, Rufus had me turn his old couch into a couch AND a trampoline! Oh-ho, and let me tell you… that was a lot of work.”
“Well, if anyone can do that stuff, it’s you, Iz,” Pipp smiled. “Now, where is Hitch and my dear older sister? It would be great if they were here to do casual talk with us too.”
“Guys!” Hitch exclaimed as he galloped over with Sparky on his back. “What are you guys sitting around here for?! Zipp sent a message in the group chat that we needed to get to the Brighthouse pronto!”
“What?” Sunny looked at her phone and realized he was right. “Sorry, Hitch, I had my phone on silent most of the day-- I didn’t see it till now.”
“I’ll ask Jazz and Rocky if they can keep an eye on Sparky while he takes a nap,” Pipp took the dragon into her hooves, “and then I’ll meet you guys there!”
“Sounds like a plan, Pipperoni!” Izzy shouted as Pipp flew back to Mane Melody, and once Sparky was dropped off and the smoothie cart was closed, the five ponies raced to the Brighthouse as fast as they could go.
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“Zipp! We got here as soon as we could!” Sunny said as the group skidded into the Brighthouse bedroom. “What’s the emergency?”
“Glad you asked,” Zipp took off her sunglasses and turned to the board next to her. “I’ve been analyzing every Unity Quest we’ve gone on in the past year, and some of the things I’ve found are MINDBOGGLING. For one thing, on a lot of different quests, we’ve helped not only the ones we needed to help, but someone ELSE to find their true purpose or their true family.”
“Now that you mention it… you’re right!” Misty realized, looking at the evidence board. “I remember doing a lot of that now!”
“But that’s not the most mindboggling thing I’ve found,” Zipp said with excitement. “What I found is… the Unity Crystals have the potential to send us to almost any timeline-- maybe even the future!”
“Huh?”
“What?”
This seemed to bring a lot of confusion to the others, until Izzy burst into laughter. “Zipperdoodle, I love you, but I don’t think that can happen… can it?”
“Think about it like this,” Zipp said before pointing to one of the photos. “Remember when we had to go to London and help Basil of Baker Street find Olivia’s father and defeat Ratigan?”
“Oh, yeah! Olivia was SUCH a sweetheart,” Pipp nodded. “One of my #favorite missions of all time.”
“Well, according to my research,” Zipp said, pulling up a date on her phone, “we traveled back to the year of 1897!”
“1897? But… that’s over 150 years ago!” Misty exclaimed with wide eyes. “Exactly,” Zipp nodded. “And remember our encounter with the Sanderson Sisters? We traveled back to the time of 1993, over 30 years ago!”
“So that proves that the Unity Crystals can send us to any time period, past or present,” Hitch said, “but what about your ‘it can send us to the future’ theory?”
“Well, the Unity Crystals have sent us to the past on more than one occasion, and the Unity Crystals have also sent us to the PRESENT to help other friends on more than one occasion,” Zipp said. “So I figured that it was about time that we get a Unity Quest in the future, to kinda balance everything out.”
“Wow… that’s a lot to wrap your head around if you think about it,” Sunny said before turning to the white pegasus. “But good detective work anyway, Zipp.”
“Thanks. But determining WHEN this Unity Quest to the future will take place is another matter entirely,” Zipp said, turning back to the board. “We have to keep this in mind anytime our cutie marks alert us that it’s time for our next mission.”
There was a brief moment of silence before Pipp suddenly gasped in surprise. “Tell that to our cutie marks, sis! Look!”
Zipp looked down at her cutie marks to discover that they were all glowing, signaling that it was time to get going on their next adventure. “All right, everypony, get all your supplies ready,” Sunny told her friends. “We need to meet up at the Unity Crystals in less than five minutes.”
“I'll go get my spellbook!” Misty said excitedly, and everyone rushed around to get their supplies ready in time for their next adventure.
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“Keep moving, Twitch... we're close. I can feel the shard close by!”
Allura and Twitch had been trying to track the ponies for weeks since they last saw them, and when Allura overheard some humans discussing some chaos going on around Big Moose Lake, they knew that the Mane 6 couldn't be too far away.
So far, she had detected the star shard at the top of a mountain close to the lake, so she and Twitch climbed to the top of that very mountain to search.
Twitch, unlike Allura, was tired from the long climb and had no interest in searching, and was about to lay down when something inside a glittering cave caught his attention, causing him to speak gibberish and jump up and down to alert Allura.
Once noticing his behavior, Allura approached the cave and looked inside. “Excellent work, Twitch! The star shars we've been seeking for is at the end of this tunnel!”
Twitch laughed excitedly as they entered the cave, walking all the way down to the end, where Allura grabbed the star shard and chuckled maliciously. “Finally... this star shard is MINE!!!”
As she cackled, the star shard in her paw glowed before blasting near the wall, allowing a portal to form, causing Allura to gasp. “This shard is more powerful than I realized... come now, Twitch! We must go through before it seals itself!”
Then, taking a daring leap, Allura jumped through the portal with Twitch at her heels, just before the portal closed.
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After a few moments of portal traveling, Allura and Twitch stepped out of the portal, letting it close behind them before they both gasped in shock.
This was NOT a place they were expecting to come to.
Instead of being in some sort of normal town, they were in some sort of skybound metropolis, with rocket cars and buildings supported by tall posts.
Allura glanced around the area, humming to herself. “I've never seen an area like this before... we better find a place to lay low for a while, until we know for sure that those ponies are here.”
Looking around, they seemed to be near some sort of large arena, and Twitch spotted a large storage unit behind the building.
When Twitch fidgeted with the lock, he opened the door to reveal a large area, filled with a few chairs and equipment, and plenty of space to move around. “Well, this isn't... completely disgusting. Maybe if I just...”
Allura looked at her paw and focused her magic as her eyes turned white. Then, she placed her paw on the walls as the ice spread and completely froze the inside of the storage unit.
Twitch stretched and yawned as he laid down and used Allura’s tail as a blanket. “It's not home,” Allura said as she laid her head down for a light nap, “but it will do... for now.”
Then, Allura closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep, waiting for the ponies to arrive so she and Twitch could finish them and take Equestria as their own world to rule.