The Challenges in Time

by Homura-Akemi-Magica

Rating: everyone
Tags: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Princess Cadance, Comedy, Other, Adventure, Twilight Sparkle, Dark, Alternate Universe
Length: 4512

Twilight has betrayed everyone, and only the background six ponies will be able to save Twilight and everyone else.

Twilight Sparkle has been corrupted by the elements of harmony. The other elements have not, however. They have no idea what to do to help their friend. The background six, (Octavia, Vinyl, Doctor, Derpy, Lyra, and BonBon) are the only ones who can truly help Twilight, her friends, and Equestria, itself. The background six will struggle against several challenges that will drive them to the brink; some that would bring them closer together; and others that may very well lead them to their graves.

~This is my very first story, but hey, I might as well give writing fanfiction a shot.~

Published 2013-06-16 17:10:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-06-20 08:02:08 UTC

The Beginning

She laughed.
The laugh was harsh, cruel and unforgiving of the current situation. The ten ponies and one dragon knew why she was laughing. The purple pony continued to laugh, manically. Twilight Sparkle, the pony who continuously laughed, could identify each and every pony (and dragon) in front of her. Applejack, the element of honesty; Pinkie Pie, the element of laughter; Rarity, the element of generosity; Fluttershy, the element of kindness; Rainbow Dash, the element of loyalty; Princess Celestia, the princess of the sun; Princess Luna, princess of the night; Princess Cadence, princess of the crystal heart and crystal ponies, Twilight’s old foalsitter and current sister in law; Shining Armor, Twilight’s brother, her BBBFF; and finally, Spike, her little dragon assistant.
A pony could wonder how this happened to Twilight, the element of magic, current alicorn, a princess even. It was simple; the elements of harmony were corrupted. The other 5 ponies couldn’t understand why only Twilight was affected. Twilight’s other friends were looking for the answers back in her library. Octavia,Vinyl Scratch, Derpy Hooves, Doctor Whooves, BonBon, and Lyra Heartstrings, to be exact.
Anypony could look and notice Twilight’s unnatural glowing-white eyes. That snarl permanently on her muzzle as well. Her wings were feathery and unkempt, just like her mane, tail, and fur. She was a mess, nopony could deny it. They were located in where Twilight originally encountered Nightmare Moon, the abandoned castle. To make it worse, Twilight put an anti-magic spell around the building. Celestia was currently searching her head for answers on how to change Twilight back to her usual self. She wasn’t very victorious in that. All the ponies wondered how things were back in the library with those 6 ponies, anything was better thinking about than this mess.
*Back at the Library*

“AW COME ON! WHY CAN’T I?!” Vinyl, the DJ, screamed loudly out of anger and annoyance.
The other 5 ponies rolled their eyes.

“Sorry Vinyl, but you can’t blast dubstep in a library. It’s not civilized.” Octavia flatly said as she searched the containments of the books.
Vinyl groaned and pushed her DJ machine out of the library.

“Hey, I think I found something, ladies.” Doctor Whooves stated.

All of the ponies turned toward the Doctor out of shock. They each and walked to him and looked over his shoulders at the book in question. The Doctor then started reading:

“The Elements of Harmony can possibly be corrupted. It’s hard to do, but very possible. Corruption would only affect the pony who united it all, for example, the element of magic; the main center controller. The last recorded pony whom got corrupted ended up being killed; there was, accordingly, no other way. Armed with the elements of harmony, the princesses of the sun and moon took down the corrupted pony. The pony was accordingly, named ‘King Sombra’.”

Each and every pony then gasped in shock.

“King Sombra? You mean…the one who took over the Crystal Empire…and *gulped*, put the crystal ponies under slavery?” Bon-Bon asked, afraid of the obvious ‘yes’ answer.

Lyra simply put a hoof around her friend as Bon-Bon huddled close to her. The door was then kicked in.

“HELLO EVERYPONY! DID YOU MISS ME? THE BEST DJ IN EQUESTRIA, YEAH!” shouted Vinyl at a ridiculous volume.

“Vinyl, please, use your inside voice.” Octavia calmly stated.

“Oh, alright, Octy.” Vinyl stated, with a hint of defeat in her voice.
Octavia rolled her eyes at her pet name, ‘Octy’.

“So, what did I miss?” the Dj asked.
Only the sound of growling could be heard. Suddenly, the Doctor jumped up with fury in his eyes.

“DERPY, WHAT DID YOU DO?!” The Doctor screamed loudly.

“Whoops, sorry Doc.” Derpy stated, completed with her bubbly voice.

“What happened?” Lyra asked.

“*sign*, Derpy spilled water all over the book, it’s useless now.”

The Doctor stated as he threw the wet book across the room.
Derpy went over and hugged the Doctor. The Doctor’s anger diminished and he hugged his companion back.
The other ponies smiled at them and continued looking for the books they needed.
Silence covered the room.
They have searched for hours and hours to no avail.

“*sigh*, anypony find anything of use?” The classical pony, Octavia, asked, with no hope in her voice.

The other ponies simply shook their head left and right.

“Great.” Octavia said, with her voice full of sarcasm.

“Wait…what’s this?” Vinyl stated out of curiosity.
Octavia walked over to Vinyl and noticed at what she was looking at. It was a couple of words, ones that made zero sense to an earth pony like herself.

“Appears to be a magical spell.” The Doctor stated.

“Well, TIME TO TRY IT!” Vinyl yelled voice full of recklessness.

“VINYL, NO, YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT IT DOES!” Octavia yelled seemingly out of nowhere.

Vinyl read the words off anyway.

“It is possible to travel back in time, to fix some problem, big and small, in mere moments, the portal will open, to take us all.”
As soon as those words were read off the slip of paper, a giant, white portal appeared in the room. All of the ponies stared in shock and awe.

“Should…should we go through it?” BonBon asked, out of fear.

Each and every pony shrugged, except for the Doctor.

“Yes, we should, trust me, I’m a doctor.” He simply stated, thinking everypony would get that he meant not a real doctor, but one whom could travel through time.

Once he looked at everypony’s face, he annoyingly said, “A time-traveler, I meant a time-traveler.”
Nopony still didn’t understand what he meant.
He simply groaned and jumped through the portal.

“AW YEAH, LET’S DO THIS!” Shouted the over-excited DJ.

“This should be rather…interesting.” The cello-playing pony said as she jumped through the portal.

“Ooo~ I can’t wait!” Derpy said as she clumsily, jumped through the portal, accidently knocking over various objects as she went through.

“Alright, let’s go.” Lyra said plainly as she jumped through.

BonBon stared at the portal and noticed it was disappearing.

“Wait for me!” she yelled as she jumped through.

Little did they all know, not only would they travel through time, they would traveled into places that could tear them apart.
Each challenge would be harder and harder to beat, but only when they defeated all of the challenges, will they be able to bring Twilight back to her old Princess self.

Location #1 - The Cave and the Beast Within

There was a quick bright flash in the area; blinding to the unprepared eye. After the flash disappeared, six ponies appeared. The ponies’ names were: Octavia, Vinyl Scratch, BonBon, Lyra Heartstrings, Doctor Whooves, and Derpy Hooves; It was an interesting group to say the least. The ponies eventually allowed their eyes to get used to the overwhelming amount of light where they were located. The equines eventually realized that the bright light was actually the sun. They eventually realized that they were on an island of the sorts. The lack of buildings and life was shocking to say the least.

“I’m guessing we should go explore the area?” The candy pony, BonBon asked.

The other five shook their head up and down.

“Well…alright.” BonBon agreed with a hint of hesitation in her voice.

The ponies then started walking around the area. The area was mostly covered in trees and even water. The island wasn’t big, to say the least. Between getting into a coconut war and drinking from the water; progress wasn’t made in the slightest. Vinyl constantly talked about her DJ job; Octavia talked about her classical music; BonBon with her candy; Doctor with his time-traveling way; Derpy kept knocking things over; and Lyra talked about her love of anthropology. The conversations were interesting to say the least.

“So, can we all agree that this is a waste of time?” Vinyl stated with annoyance in her voice.

“No, Vinyl. We haven’t searched the whole island, yet.” The Doctor stated plainly. To Vinyl, the island seemed to be nothing but sand, trees, and that’s it. To everyone else, it seemed like a new adventure.

“Hey…am I the only one seeing that?” Vinyl asked.
Vinyl then proceeded to point ahead of her. The other five looked at Vinyl and then looked at where she was pointing to; it was a cave.

“A…a cave?” Octavia asked, despite knowing the answer.

“It looks dark and abandoned. Like any other cave, of course. Let’s go in, there might be something important in there.” The Doctor said as he started walking toward the cave without waiting for an answer. The other five followed him.

The cave was murky, depressing, dark and above all, empty. Then Octavia swore she saw a shadow pass behind her quickly. She brushed it off as Vinyl trying to scare her. Every five seconds, it seemed like a shadow was following the ponies. Each and every one of them ignored it of course. Each brushed it off as their friends trying to scare them.
As they continued walking they appeared at a rundown building. There were various torches here and there that lit up the area; it was comforting.

“A building? Inside a cave? What kind of madness is this?” The Doctor asked, shocked.

The other ponies had no response; they were as shocked as he was. They started walking down the ruined stairs. Each stair seemed to crack under their weight; they continued anyway. Once down the stairs, they saw a sight they weren’t prepared for. Various pony skulls and skeletons laid scattered everywhere.

“What…what happened here?” each pony asked at the same time.

Each and every pony threw out ideas as to what could have happened.

“They got stranded?” stated Vinyl.

“Lost their way?” asked Octavia.

“Perhaps, they went into the cave and…and got trapped?” The Doctor finished his sentence uneasily. He quickly turned toward the top of the stairs and started running toward the top. Once he was out of sight; a loud, “NO!” could be heard.

“Stay here, we’ll figure it out.” Vinyl stated as her and Octavia ran toward the top of the stairs.

They finally made toward the cave exit and found what caused the loud yelling. The Doctor lay on the ground with his head down. The two musicians were confused at this at first. But then looked towards the exit and noticed something off about it. Vinyl, being an unicorn, noticed it immediately. There appeared to be a pinkish tint to the exit; it glowed fiercely.

“A magic spell?” Vinyl asked, drawing Octavia out of her emotionless gaze towards the exit.

After hearing this, Octavia could assume it meant a spell that would prevent a pony from leaving. That was a sharp estimate, but it did make sense. Octavia assumed that’s what had the Doctor angry and upset. She didn’t blame him, Octavia growled at herself for not realizing a spell could appear on the cave’s exit. An empty cave in the middle of nowhere, on an abandoned island, and full of pony bones, no less, made zero sense. She was eventually drawn out of her self-loathing state by a noise that sounded directly behind her. She felt a weird liquid running down her shoulder. When she looked over, she saw the blood.

What terrified her wasn’t the blood, but what animal was leaking it out of its mouth. It was dark, morbid even. It looked like a pony, except it had running smudge – looking skin on its own body. Its mouth was horribly grotesque; something out of a horror movie. She quickly jumped back before it could make a move. She tapped on Vinyl’s shoulder to get her attention, she then realized something…Vinyl was gone. Come to think of it, so was the Doctor.
A large wave of fear ran over her warm-blooded body. Since there was only one monster here, she could simply run past it. She quickly chose a side to run on; she picked the right. She then went on a full on sprint around the right side of the monster. She made it past, safely. She kept on running, hoping to meet up with Lyra, BonBon, and Derpy. All she heard was female screaming; several she immediately recognized as Lyra, BonBon, and Derpy’s.

She continuously heard the sound of pacing and disgusting growls behind her; catching up with her. She then heard someone’s voice. She couldn’t place whose it was or even where it came from; she loathed it. The voice was grotesque, cruel, and convincing. It sounded evil and deadly; a voice that would be used to convince someone to do an evil crime. She could understand what the voice was saying, perfectly.

“Aw, poor little Octavia, all alone. Your friends, they abandoned you, huh? Shows how much they care.” The voice harshly said.

“No, shut up!” Octavia yelled, forgetting her upper-class attitude and instead resorting to telling someone to ‘shut up’.

“Give in. You can’t run forever. It’ll catch up, you know. It’ll catch up to you…and kill you. It will be gruesome. Maybe if you were a unicorn and not a worthless earth pony, you might be able to get away. Even a Pegasus would do. Pathetic. Only unicorns can be upper-class, you know. Not someone like…you.” The voice continued to taunt her.

“SHUT UP, SHUT UP, SHUT UP!” Yelled the angry classical pony.
The laugh the evil one made was broken up and disgusting. Octavia continued running until she ran completely out of breath.

She sat on the ground and accepted defeat. She saw a pony come out of the shadows and it started talking; it was the evil one. Once fully out of the shadows, Octavia snuck a peek at the pony.
It was covered in sludge and shadows. It wore an evil snarl on his muzzle. Octavia thought of a changeling, if it had running sludge-skin; red eyes; and an evil smile with extremely sharp teeth. It was taller than Celestia, herself. She looked behind it and saw her friends, tied up somehow in sludge.

The torches that lit up the room were starting to dim. Vinyl immediately lit up her horn, which melted the sludge off of her. Vinyl had an epiphany and immediately knew how to help Octavia and get rid of the beast for good.

Location #1 (cont.) - Doctor Whooves

“Octavia! I know what to do!” Vinyl shouted; her voice full of assurance.

“WELL DO IT!” Octavia yelled loudly as she stared down the beast in front of her.

If a pony would tell Octavia that one day she would be face to face with a monstrosity; Vinyl was the only pony to save her; and that she would nearly die, she would doubt them more than a blank flank when she can’t find her cutie mark. Only one thing was important to Octavia: getting out of this situation. She thought back to the mane 6 and questioned how they could go face to face with death but act like it was nothing. After the sudden slowdown of time in her head; she noticed Vinyl lighting up her horn to act as a beacon, of the sorts.

‘So…the monster’s weakness is light, interesting.’ Octavia quickly thought to herself.

She then realized that if she was an unicorn; she could get out just fine by herself. She glanced over at Vinyl and noticed that her horn was completely brightened; it was blinding. She stared back at the monster and out of the corner of her eye; she saw Vinyl charging it, horn first. Octavia closed her eyes, not wanting to see what would happen. She knew Vinyl was reckless; but she had no idea she was this reckless. She kept her eyes closed and waited for the sound of the impact.

She heard complete silence other than the sound of running hooves. She then heard a loud crunch, followed by a piercing scream. The scream sounded distorted; awful, disturbing, and any variation of those words. She heard silence; she decided to sneak a peek. The sight she saw made her want to gag. There was sludge and blood everywhere. She didn’t see Vinyl anywhere. She gulped out of fear of what could have happened to her friend. She heard the sound of fast-paced hooves and looked to the left. She saw Vinyl’s tail disappear behind the rock wall. She also saw sludge being trudged around. She assumed Vinyl started chasing the hideous thing when it attempted to get away.
Octavia only thought of how cowardly the monsters actually were. She looked back to where her friends were placed and noticed Lyra using her horn to melt the sludge off each pony. She counted the ponies to make sure they were there; Lyra; BonBon; Derpy and… She didn’t see the Doctor anywhere. This confused her; she thought she saw him tied up.

“Lyra, BonBon, Derpy, do any of you know where the Doctor is?” Octavia asked lightly.

“We thought he was with you?” BonBon questioned.

‘Great…just great.’ Octavia thought of complete annoyance.

“*sigh*, let’s try to find him.” Octavia managed to say before walking away.

Lyra, BonBon and Derpy started following her. As they walked, they didn’t see any new landscapes. It was the same rocky-looking area as before. Other than some skeletons, blood, and sludge here and there; nothing seemed to change. Their hoofsteps continued echoing in the ‘abandoned’ cave. Lyra, Octavia, and BonBon all walked on the ground while Derpy flew overhead.

“You’re higher up Derpy, do you see anything of interest?” Questioned the grey-colored coat pony.

“Nope, not something up here.” Stated Derpy in her usual clumsy state.

Octavia was amazed at how even Derpy’s voice sounded clumsy. She didn’t question out of fear it would sound rude. Octavia continued her hopeless walking. Just to think that before all this, the six ponies were in the library looking for a way to bring Twilight Sparkle back to her normal pony self. Octavia then remembered Twilight and went from trotting to full on galloping. Lyra, BonBon, and Derpy were confused but all sped up their pace.

“Why are we…running….so fast?” BonBon asked as she took deep breaths every now and then during her sentence.

“We need to speed this up. There’s no telling what Twilight could do; we have to hurry.” Octavia said without take a single breath of air.

BonBon was honestly surprised at this. She assumed a classical pony like Octavia wouldn’t worry about petty exercises; she kept her judgement to herself. Each pony had individual thoughts in their head; some important while some were not. BonBon still questioned how a classical pony can suddenly match Rainbow Dash’s speed. Octavia questioned what Twilight could do; including various examples. Lyra questioned how different each pony is in the group; Vinyl and Octavia are exact opposites; Doctor Whooves and Derpy are opposites as well, while Lyra and BonBon were a bit similar. Derpy was thinking about how each and every pony were different than the rest while still maintaining similarities; her thoughts then switched back to muffins. Derpy still wished ponies didn’t automatically label her as unsafe, just because she was a tiny bit clumsy. Derpy brushed this thought off and continued flying.

Octavia was in lead while running; Lyra and BonBon were going the same pace but still falling slightly behind Octavia, while Derpy flew overhead at Octavia’s pace. They continued running for around five minutes before eventually being tired out. Octavia was the first to stop; then Derpy; then Lyra; and finally, BonBon.

A loud growling noise was then heard. Octavia quickly got up and trotted towards the noise. She went past a rock wall and noticed something odd. It was the Doctor’s green tie. While looking down; she heard a growling noise right near her. She looked up and then to the left. She didn’t like what she saw. She quickly yelled for Lyra, BonBon, and Derpy to get over there. The three ponies, confused by Octavia’s sudden yelling, began trotting towards her. The ponies eventually made it to the area Octavia was standing on. They were confused until they noticed what had Octavia in such a panic.
It was the Doctor. But, he seemed distorted; angry, ferocious, and a bit out of it. Then, they noticed his eyes; instead of the normal blue they usually were; it was a bright red. Lyra, BonBon, Derpy, and even Octavia stayed still out of fear. That’s when the Doctor started running toward them.

Location #1 (Finished) - Fighting

Octavia’s reflexes acted on their own; she drew her hoof up and struck the Doctor across his cheek. The Doctor’s body was thrown to the left of Octavia from her hoof’s impact. Octavia lowered her hoof and wondered what she did. She wasn’t used to fighting and had no idea what to do next. The Doctor shook his head left and right to clear his head and then stood up on all fours; growling. Octavia stared wide-eyed at the growling pony; she had to think of something… and fast.

“Lyra! Quickly, light up your horn and blast a ray of light at him!” Octavia yelled; she seemed to have an idea.

Lyra shook her up and down slowly and lightly. She readied her horn and started charging up. Her horn slowly grew brighter and brighter. Octavia continued looking back and forth from Lyra to the Doctor; the Doctor ran towards her again. Octavia was frozen solid and remained still; she prepared for the impact; it never came. She heard a sharp crunching noise; this made her look up. In front of her, she saw Vinyl delivering a sucker punch to the Doctor’s cheek; right where Octavia had punched before.

“READY!” Lyra yelled as she prepared to fire her horn’s charging light beam.

There was a loud sizzling sound as Lyra’s horn delivered a light beam blast to the Doctor. The Doctor’s body was incased in a yellowish hue as he screamed a distorted melody. The Doctor’s ear-piercing scream continued for another 2 minutes before it finally stopped. The light around his body disappeared; it revealed the Doctor lying on the ground in a heap of himself. His eyes opened up and the ponies were pleasantly surprised to find his normal blue eyes shining.
He stood up uneasily while scratching his head with his hoof out of confusion.

“Wha…what happened?” He asked out of severe confusion.
Vinyl was about to yell something before Octavia cut her off.

“Oh..um, you just passed out. We managed to wake you up though.” Octavia lied as she watched his facial reactions to see if he would buy the lie she just made.

The Doctor shook his head in an up and down pattern. Octavia silently thanked Celestia that the lie actually worked. Octavia then realized something. She started thinking to herself.

‘We destroyed the monster that controlled the shadow ponies. But, the Doctor was still evil even when we defeated it. Does that mean the monster is still alive? Or, maybe there was more than one?’ Octavia silently thought to herself.

“Yo! Earth to Octavia! You there?!” Vinyl yelled loudly into Octavia’s ears.

Octavia shook her head rapidly to try and clear her head. She wanted to get out and get out fast. She loathed this place; she was sure they would agree.

“Listen. Maybe we should leave. I don’t like it here. Vinyl was right; we didn’t find a thing and we wasted our time.” The classical pony said, nearly defeated.

Octy dropped down on her hind legs and stared miserably at the ground. The other five simply stared sadly at her. Vinyl was the first to pipe up.

“Hey, come on Octy. I’m sure we could find something around here. There’s got to be something hear; I mean the portal
brought us here, so something must be here, right?” Vinyl asked.

Octavia knew she was right. This was all a tests of the sort; she knew it. As Celestia as her witness, she was going to survive; find something and get out of this living hell. Octavia quickly stood up and started walking away before stopping altogether.

“Vinyl’s right. We can’t give up. Let’s continue searching for something; anything.” Octavia states full of enthusiasm.

“YEAH!” Lyra, BonBon, Doctor, Vinyl and Derpy all stated excitedly.

Octavia began trotting away from the group and started moving forward. All of their hooves echoed against the rocky terrain of the cave. Besides a demolished building; shadow ponies; and that evil voice; nothing of interest had been found. Octavia knew this but refused to give up.
Each of them continued trotting until a loud slam could be heard. This caused Octavia to turn around and notice that Derpy had bumped into a large rock. The large rock then toppled over and fell into the deep depths below.

“Derpy! Please, be more careful.” The Doctor harshly yelled.

“Sorry.” Derpy said before flying back into a normal formation.

“It’s fine.” Octavia stated; the last thing she wanted was fighting.

They all continued to trot but after 30 solid minutes; they found nothing. They were close to giving up; until Lyra called for the other ponies’ names. The five ponies looked around until the noticed Lyra wasn’t even directly near them. Lyra continuously called their names while ignoring the five ponies’ obvious annoyance at this. The five managed to trot over to find Lyra with her back turned toward them. Lyra realized they were nearby and decided to turn around to face them.
Lyra stood on her hind legs while presenting a key to them. The key had a skull-like shape with the skull’s eyes having a red
glowing hue to it. Octavia stared at the smile and then lightly smiled.

‘Maybe this wasn’t a waste of time after all.’ Octavia quickly thinks to herself.

Vinyl quickly grabs the key out of Lyra’s hoof.

“Alright everypony! Now, we’re making some progress!” Vinyl happily states.

Octavia simply mutters the word, ‘agreed’ while the other 4 simply shake their head up and down; each with a smile on their face. Then a white light flashes in front of their eyes. They quickly place a hoof in front of each individual pony’s eyes to lessen the direct blinding light. Once their eyes seem to focus; they place their hooves down and stare forward curiously. It was the portal from before. The ponies stare at one another as if to ask if they should go through it. Vinyl quickly nods and starts running towards it; she jumps through and disappears from sight.

The Doctor stares wide eyed and jumps through the portal like Vinyl did previously. Lyra quickly jumped through as well; Derpy clumsily flew through to the other side. The only ones that remained were Octavia and BonBon. Octavia quickly grabs BonBon’s hooves and jumps through to the other side. The portal then closes from sight.

Author's Note

So, I hope the first location was of average length. Was it too long or not long enough, or just fine?