As Twilight Sparkle awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a gigantic insect.
No, hang on… wrong story. Okay, here we go. Let’s try this again, shall we?
As Twilight Sparkle awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself able to transcend time. She wasn’t sure how she’d done it, or what it meant for her future as an interior decorator, but she was entirely sure that it was going to make her day quite an interesting one. Rolling out of bed, she accidentally slipped through a crack in time and appeared in the same place several thousand years in the future.
“Oh, now that’s just lovely,” she said, standing up and looking around at the desolate wasteland that was once Ponyville. A tumbleweed blew across a cracked landscape, and the wind howled in her ears as a massive dust storm raged in the distance. Twilight sighed, holding up a hoof to shield her eyes from the storm. “Juuuuuuuust perfect.”
It was then, as Twilight made to step forward, that she saw a tiny glimmer of light out of the corner of her eye. Hard to see though it was, she could just make out what looked like a crevice in the air. She approached it, her eyes squinted against the wind.
When she reached the time split, she paused for a moment, examining the anomaly with a scrutinizing eye. With a shrug and a casual, “Meh,” she stepped into the light and immediately found herself surrounded on all sides by… well, what appeared to be every second of every day all at once.
As Twilight attempted to keep up with the frankly dizzying sights happening all around her, she frowned. “Well, this is all rather odd,” she said, watching simultaneously as two dinosaurs engaged in fisticuffs while a cheeky mare played a winning hand in poker.
Twilight looked down, expecting to see some sort of pathway, or perhaps railing, but she only saw more infinite stretches of time. She could see everything happening at once, and on top of being massively confusing, it was also incredibly exhausting. Floating in a time freefall, she simply watched as the entire universe happened around her.
“So, time isn’t a straight line, huh?” she asked no one in particular. “I suppose that makes sense. If it was a straight line, then there’d be a clear beginning and a definite—Whoa!”
Without realizing it, she had accidentally stumbled right into another time crack and wound up being spit out sometime in the distant past. Brushing herself off, she stood up and attempted to get her bearings straight.
She looked around. In stark contrast to the bleak future, she was in an incredibly lush and fertile past. Everywhere she looked, trees stretched as far as she could see. Twilight unfurled her wings and lifted herself into the air. She pushed her way through the thick canopy of leaves overhead and emerged in the midst of a massive forest. Her breath caught in her throat as she looked around. Far off in the distance she could make out the mountain where the sleeping dragon had been, and, in the opposite direction, she saw the mountain where Canterlot was, or would be, as it were.
Twilight beat her wings softly, keeping herself aloft as she tried to determine where she was. “This must be the Everfree Forest,” she guessed. “It must’ve been a lot bigger back then… or now.” She shrugged. Either way, it was certainly covered a much larger area now than it did in the present, if that indeed could be called the present. Twilight rubbed a hoof against her forehead in frustration. “I don’t have time to be worrying about all this weird time stuff. I have to get back to my own time in time for my morning tea time.”
Still holding steady above the immense forest, she began searching for another time split, any glimmer of hope that might lead her back to the future… or present. She sighed. This time stuff was getting really confusing.
As she searched, unsuccessfully, for a time split, she began to wonder if perhaps she wasn’t being punished for something. “Was it my hubris?” she asked, looking to the sun. “I mean, that seems like the logical choice since that’s usually the case for these types of stories, but I don’t remember doing anything particularly… umm, hubrical.” She shook her hoof at the sun. “What did I do to deserve—Bwaah!”
Before she could even start to curse Celestia’s name, she felt herself being grabbed out of the air by, well, something. It was hard to tell what exactly was going on when she was flapping her wings wildly and flailing about like a fish on a hook. And, much like the wily fish, Twilight soon found herself being dumped into a nest of baby birds.
As she landed with a loud crack, smashing an eggshell to pieces, she watched a giant eagle fly away, presumably to gather more ponies. Twilight heaved herself up, rubbing her sore butt. “Gah, that really hurt,” she groaned. She stopped suddenly, her hoof still on her butt, as she saw a clutch of baby eagles, their eyes wide and mouths open, approach her.
She rolled her eyes. “Seriously? This seems entirely too cliche.”
Unfortunately, she only had a few seconds to ruminate on the irony of the situation before she was beset on all sides by ugly eagle chicks. “Actually,” she said as she ignited her horn and backed away from the babies, “this isn’t really ironic. This more like contrived, or just plain stupid.” She smirked. “Still though, I’ve never had the chance to fight giant eagle chicks, so this should be—”
She stopped suddenly as she felt her rear bump up against the edge of the nest. Glancing over her shoulder, she noticed that they were situated on the edge of a cliff face, and it was a long drop to the ground. She cracked her neck. “Guess this is the end of the line.” Licking her lips, Twilight’s horn grew brighter as she began to envelope the chicks in violet light. She heaved them up, much to the chick’s dismay, and was about to toss them over the side of the nest, probably while dropping some witty one-liner, like, “See you next fall!” or perhaps, “I guess birds of a feather also fall together!” but was unable to because, at that moment, the mother eagle returned.
With a loud caw, the mother eagle swooped in and surprised Twilight so much that she could no longer keep her hold over the chicks. Twilight was barely able to roll out of the way in time as the eagle divebombed her.
“Unhand me, you giant chicken!”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Wait a minute… I’d recognize that pompous voice anywhere.” She looked up and, sure enough, there in the grip of the eagle’s talons, Trixie was fruitlessly trying to free herself. She was beating her hoof against the eagle’s leg, but it seemed not to notice, instead it’s yellow eyes were fixed on Twilight.
Screeching angrily, it dove at Twilight again.
“Yikes!” yelled Twilight as she rolled to the side. As the eagle passed, Twilight said, “Trixie! What in Celestia’s name are you doing here?”
Trixie, who seemed to notice Twilight for the first time just now, replied, “How the frick should I know? One second I’m digging through a dumpster, and the next I’m—Ahhhh!”
“Watch out!” Twilight yelled, entirely unhelpfully, as the eagle released Trixie and she began to fall towards the ground. “Hang on. I’m coming!” Vaulting over the edge of the nest, Twilight pointed her hooves forward and kept her wings tucked against her sides as she rocketed towards the screaming and flailing Trixie.
Seconds before she hit the ground, Twilight scooped Trixie out of the air and opened her wings, causing them to glide gracefully away from the cliff and into the safety of the forest. Wrapped up in Twilight’s hooves, Trixie, under her breath, said, “Phrasing.”
Beating her wings to slow herself down, Twilight touched down in a clearing and put Trixie down. As she curled her wings back up, she glanced back over her shoulder at the cliff they had just escaped from. “Whew, heh, that was pretty close.”
Trixie brushed herself off. “You could say that, if you wanted to be as cliche as possible,” she said, rolling her eyes.
“Remind me, whose life did I just save?”
Trixie waved a hoof dismissively. “I had total control of the situation. I was just about to make my escape.”
Twilight laughed. “Right, right, of course. I suppose falling to your death was just a ruse, to lull the eagle into a false sense of security.”
In a huff, Trixie replied, “As a matter of fact, it was. I was going to—”
“What? Pretend you were a pile of mush after you hit the ground?”
Trixie’s face reddened. “Well, no one’s saying it was a perfect plan—”
“I’m certainly not.”
“—But at least I had a plan.” She flicked her mane to the side. “I didn’t see you coming up with any brilliant ideas.”
Twilight chuckled, patting Trixie on the head. “Uh huh, whatever you gotta tell yourself. Anyway,” she said, putting her hoof back down, “now that we’re away from that eagle, perhaps you could tell me what you’re doing in the distant past.”
Trixie shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. Like I said, I just appeared here suddenly.”
Rubbing her chin with a hoof, Twilight cocked her head to the side. “Hmm… I see. Did you pass through a sort of… tunnel to get here?”
“Now that you mention it,” Trixie said, tapping a hoof to her lip, “I think I do remember something like that.”
Twilight pursed her lips. “Somehow we both entered the time-space continuum and ended up here.”
“Setting aside the astronomical odds that we’d end up in the same time, why did we both even enter the time-space continuum to begin with?” Trixie asked. “I mean, you’re an alicorn, so I guess that maybe makes sense, but what about me?”
“Well…” Twilight said slowly, “do you remember when you had the alicorn amulet?”
Trixie nodded. “What about it?”
“I think that when I used my magic against you while you were wearing it, it somehow connected us together, sorta Harry Potter and Voldemort-style.”
With a shrug, Trixie said, “Sure, that almost sounds believable. I’ll buy it.”
“The real question though,” said Twilight, looking up to the sky, “is how we get back to our time.”
Trixie sighed. “That is the sixty-four thousand dollar question, isn’t it?”
For the first time, Twilight really took a good look around the clearing they had landed in. Trees ringed the perimeter and a large rock sat in the middle, almost too perfectly in the middle. Her eyes narrowed. She approached the rock, placing her hoof against it. It felt warm to the touch, and it was smooth. Rapping her hoof against it, she waited for something to happen, but when nothing did, she frowned.
“Man, I was sure this would be the perfect MacGuffin.”
Trixie trotted up beside her. “I don’t think it works like that,” she said. “I bet you have to say some magic words, or something.”
Twilight screwed up her face. “Rock!” she said, in a commanding voice. “I beseech thee! Open sesame!”
Covering her mouth to keep a laugh from escaping, Trixie looked away. She trotted around to the other side of the boulder while Twilight’s eyebrows narrowed in concentration. Just as Twilight was about to smite the rock, Trixie called to her. “Hey, Twilight!” she said. “Come over here. I think I found something.”
Following the sound of Trixie’s voice, Twilight walked around to the other side of the rock where she saw what the other mare was talking about. Another time split hung in the air before them, light spilling out from it like an open window.
“Oh!” said Twilight excitedly. “It’s another one of those time-y split-y things! We can use this breach to get back into the middle of the time-space continuum.”
Trixie nodded. “Yep, that holds up to scrutiny.”
As the two ponies stepped into the light, it seemed to open up wider and wider until it had completely enveloped them. Just like before, Twilight found herself in an infinitely large, for lack of a better word, bubble. All of time stretched out before her, and was bunched up at the same time.
She waved her hoof over the area. “Here we are, Trixie. This is the space-time continuum.”
Trixie looked around, nodding slowly. “Not bad,” she said. “Could use a bit of touching up around the edges, but otherwise it’s all right.”
“I was thinking of maybe putting up some mauve curtains, or a nice Afghan rug over—” Twilight shook her head. “No, that’s not what we’re here for. We’ve gotta find our own time somewhere in this infinite ocean of time… it might take awhile.”
Barely listening to Twilight, Trixie watched as a dragon flew over a mountain while two ponies entered a darkened room. “What are those two ponies do—Oh!” Trixie looked away quickly, coughing. Her face reddened slightly, Trixie turned back to Twilight. “So anyway, what happens if we never leave this place?”
“Well… I’m not actually sure,” Twilight confessed. She bit her lip. “I think though, that since we’re actually in the time-space continuum, we exist in a sort of limbo.” She massaged her temple. “This is confusing, I know, but bear with me. You see, we don’t actually exist right now.”
Trixie raised an eyebrow. “...What?”
Twilight fumbled with her hooves, somehow hoping that if she made enough random motions, things would just explain themselves. “Exposition is never easy,” she mumbled under her breath. Twilight held out her hoof. “Okay, so here’s what’s going on. Time is… continuous. It doesn’t have a beginning or an end, but right now, we’re inside time itself. As of this moment, we exist outside of time. For all intents and purposes, time might as well be frozen for us. Once we step back outside the time-space continuum however, it starts again right there.”
“Okay…” said Trixie slowly. “So, we’re basically immortal right now?”
Twilight considered this, her hoof tapping against her chin. “Well, I suppose that’s technically true.”
Trixie hoofpumped. “Yus.”
“But, it doesn’t really matter because we exist outside of time, so it’s not like time actually means anything to us.”
Shrugging, Trixie said, “I’m okay with that.”
Twilight sighed. “Yeah, well, I’m not. I just want to go back home and have some tea. Is that so much to ask?”
With a smug smile on her face, Trixie said, “You may not be satisfied, but I am. You can go back home, but I’ll stay here and become the Queen of Time!”
“Ya know,” said Twilight, cocking her head to the side, “it’s not like you’re going to have any power or anything. You’ll just float in a timeless plane for all eternity. It’ll be like being the supreme overlord of a window. You can watch everything happen around you, but you’ll never be able to interact with it.”
Trixie opened her mouth. She made some motions, moved her tongue around a bit, but no sounds came out. Finally, she closed it again. “I’ve decided I don’t want to be the Queen of Time anymore.”
Twilight chuckled. “Then let’s get the heck outta here.” She jabbed a hoof over her shoulder. “I think I saw our time back thataway.”
Smiling, Trixie said, “Let’s not waste anymore time, then.” She paused. “Wait… I guess we can’t actually waste time in here, can we?” She shook her head. “I’m just going to stop thinking about that now.” She reached out and grabbed Twilight’s hoof, pointing her head towards some distant… something. Looking back down at Twilight, she said, “Into the breach, eh?”
Twilight nodded, somehow gripping Trixie’s hoof tighter even though hooves have no way of doing that. “After you,” she said.
Taking a deep breath, the two dove into what they thought was their original time, except, when they came back out, that was pretty clearly not the case.
A cannonball whizzed past Twilight’s head and shattered the mizzenmast into thousands of tiny splinters, sending the tall structure crashing into the ship and tossing more than a few ponies overboard.
Twilight slowly turned to Trixie. “Ruh roh,” she said. “I think we may have ended up in the wrong time.”
Trixie rolled her eyes. “Good read, Scooby.”
Ignoring her, Twilight looked around. They seemed to be on a ship of some sort, and they were currently under attack by another ship that was rapidly closing the distance between them.
“Arrr!” came a voice from behind them.
Twilight and Trixie spun around to see a stallion with four peg-legs standing with his fore-pegs on the wheel of the ship. He had an eyepatch and a large hat, and even a parrot on his shoulder.
Trixie laughed. “Is this guy for real?” she asked, jabbing her hoof over her shoulder at him. “He looks like a cartoon pirate.”
“Avast, ye scurvy dogs!” the pirate shouted, pointing at them with his cutlass, which he was inexplicably holding. “Maidens be bad luck, especially when we be already under attack by the Royal Equestrian Navy.”
Now clutching her stomach from laughter, Trixie said, “He even sounds like a cartoon.”
The stallion ducked as a cannonball flew over his head and took out a random sailor. “Arr, I be the infamous Captain Beardsley the Beardless,” he said, waving his cutlass around in the most swashbuckly manner possible.
Trixie shook her head. “This guy…”
As the Royal Equestrian Navy approached, Twilight looked around for another time split. “We gotta get outta here,” she said, leaning over the railing of the ship. “Things are about to get piratical.”
Trixie cocked an eyebrow. “That was the best one-liner you could come up with?”
Rolling her eyes, Twilight said, “It’s not my forte.” Her eyes lit up. “But finding time splits is!” She pointed over the edge of the ship to where a hole had opened in the water with light spilling out of it. “Come on,” Twilight said, grabbing Trixie by the hoof and pulling her with her over the edge.
Too late, Twilight realized that they were traveling too fast, and before they could stop in the time bubble again, they went right on through to another random period in time.
When they popped back out, landing flat on their faces, a metallic voice called to them.
“Halt!” it said. “Organics are not welcome here”
Scraping themselves off the ground, Trixie and Twilight stood up to see a robotic pony pointing an oddly-shaped object at them. It waved the device at them.
Trixie whispered out of the corner of her mouth. “What time period did we land in?”
Twilight glanced up and saw thousands of flying vehicles buzzing by overhead. All around them, massive multi-story buildings rose up like tombstones, and in the sky, a fractured Moon hung like a dog-chewed frisbee disc.
“Whoa…” Twilight muttered quietly. “What happened to the Moon?”
The robotic pony seemed to hear Twilight. It jerked its weapon at the mares and motioned for them to get up. “The Moon was destroyed in the Great Cheese War. This is common knowledge.” It paused, then added, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
Twilight raised an eyebrow. “Wait, what do you mean?”
The pony reached up to its head and pushed, popping off a helmet and revealing a handsome stallion underneath.
“Aren’t you a little short to be a robot?” Trixie said, eyeing the stallion.
He ran a hoof through his mane, shaking it out. He held out his hoof. “I’m Commander Solo, Solo Journey,” he said. “I’ve been working undercover as a robot-guard for the past few months, infiltrating their ranks as part of the rebel army’s initiative.”
Twilight held up a hoof. “Hang on, what are you talking about?”
Commander Solo sighed, putting his helmet in the crook of his leg. “You really don’t know, do you?”
Twilight shook her head. “I have no earthly idea what you’re talking about.”
“It all started fifteen years ago when the first true AI was created,” Solo began. “They were supposed to make our lives better, easier. We programmed them to have three laws that they could never break… but then everything went wrong.” He hung his head. “We’ve lost a lot of good men to this war, and I won’t stop until every robot has been decommissioned.”
“Wasn’t this the plot of a movie?” Trixie asked. She brought a hoof to her chin. “Pretty sure it was.”
Ignoring her, Twilight waved her hoof dismissively. “Yeah, yeah, that’s all well and good, Commander Sulu—”
“Solo.”
“—But we’re, uhh… in the middle of a very important mission.” She shot a glance at Trixie.
Trixie, catching on, quickly added, “Right, yes, it’s a very important mission of the utmost importance.”
Twilight brought a hoof to her forehead, shaking it slowly.
Commander Solo considered them with pursed lips. “That may be true, but for the time being, I’ll need you to come with me.” We waved for them to follow and he began to walk away.
Trixie leaned towards Twilight, holding a hoof to her mouth. “So, when do we ditch this loser?”
“The second we find another time split,” Twilight replied, whispering under her breath.
Commander Solo glanced over his shoulder at them. “Hey, what are you two whispering about?”
Before they had a chance to answer, or not answer, a high-pitched wail rang out and klaxons began to blare. Solo spun around, his eyes wide. From the walls, robots began to pour out in droves. They crawled along the sides of buildings like insects and then jumped across landing in front of them. As they transformed into a taller standing form, they drew their weapons and aimed them at Solo.
“ORGANICS, SURRENDER NOW. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE.”
Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Uh oh, this won’t end well.”
Drawing his own weapon, Commander Solo smirked. “You think you can take me, robot scum? I’m worth ten of you!” He looked back at Trixie and Twilight. “We can take these guys. We’ll just have to work toge—What the?”
By the time he had turned around, Twilight and Trixie were already hightailing it outta there and turning the corner.
Trixie nodded towards the end of the walkway. “Look! There! It’s another time split.”
Twilight grinned. “Good, we can get out of here.”
“Hey,” said Trixie, glancing over to Twilight, “do you think he’s gonna be okay?”
As they reached the time split, and Twilight made to enter, she said, “He’ll just have to do a solo run,” and then entered the split, disappearing in an instant.
Trixie shook her head, entering after her. Once inside, she said, “Seriously, Twilight. One-liners are really not your—Oh come on…”
Rather than finding herself back in the time bubble like she had expected, Trixie was standing in a dark room. She looked around. Drawn blinds covered a window and only stripes of light arced across the messy bed. A bit of motion caught her eye and she turned to face it. She sighed, relieved.
“You scared me, Twilight,” she said, seeing the other mare walking slowly towards her. “I thought you might be somepony else.”
Twilight didn’t answer Trixie, instead she just came closer and closer until her nose was pressed against Trixie’s. Her eyes going wide, Trixie gulped.
“Umm… Twilight, I don’t think this is really the time for this. I mean, I’m flattered, but…”
Twilight put a hoof over Trixie’s lips and pressed her own against them, making Trixie’s eyes go even wider. For the third time that day, Trixie’s face turned red, and she started to look around, unsure of what to do. Luckily for her, before Twilight could go any further, something slapped her hoof away.
Trixie saw another Twilight standing there, a scowl on her face. She looked down at Trixie. “Really?” she asked. “Are you that desperate?”
Trixie mouthed wordlessly. Eventually, speech returned, and she said, “That wasn’t you?”
“Not me me,” Twilight answered, looking with disgust at the other her. “Apparently in addition to many different times, there’s also alternate timelines we can visit.”
Trixie frowned. “So wait, what’s different about this one?”
Twilight glanced down at the other Twilight who was slowly standing back up, a hungry look in her eyes. “Everypony is gay.”
A knowing look came over Trixie’s face. “Ahhhh, so this is where all those shipfics come from,” she muttered under her breath. “Wait,” said Trixie suddenly. “Was there another me, too?”
Twilight’s face went red, and she looked away. “So, uhh, we should find another time split and get outta here.”
Trixie smiled slyly. “Whatever you say, Twilight.”
Having left the room and the amorous Twilight, they hurried down some stairs and soon realized that they were inside Twilight’s house, in the kitchen, in fact. Twilight looked around, throwing open some blinds and letting light fill the room.
“Just because they’re gay doesn’t mean they don’t like light,” Twilight grumbled. She turned back to Trixie. “Okay, so we’re really close right now. If I’m right, then the time continuum has aligned itself with our previous time and created a stable ‘bridge’ that we can use to return to our own time before the time tunnel collapses.”
Trixie shrugged. “Sure, that sounds scientific enough.”
Twilight sighed. “If only we could just find one more time split.”
“Uhh… like this one right here?” Trixie was standing with her hoof on the handle of the fridge and light pouring out over her.
Twilight ran across the room, a wide grin across her face. She hugged Trixie, and then said, “The refrigerator!” She smacked her forehead. “I should’ve known. It’s so obvious!”
Peeling Twilight off, Trixie laughed awkwardly. “Yeah… obvious.”
Taking a deep breath, Twilight put her hoof on Trixie’s shoulder. “You ready to go back?” she asked.
“You’re acting like we were on some big journey… Technically, we were never even gone to begin with.”
Twilight opened her mouth to say something, then thought better of it, and just shook her head, patting Trixie. “Let’s just go home.”
Pulling the other mare behind her, Twilight entered the time split, eyes closed and a smile on her face. A second later, she reappeared, Trixie still in tow, in her own time and in her own fridge. Obviously, being in a fridge, with another pony no less, was a little awkward. She slipped, fell, and landed in a heap with Trixie on top of her.
“Well this is awkwar—Oof!” Trixie was stopped mid sentence as Twilight shoved a hoof in her face while trying to push her off.
Once they had both managed to stand themselves up, Twilight gave Trixie shifty glance. “So, uhh,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck, “you wanna stay for breakfast?”
Trixie smiled. “Sure. Why not?”
A few minutes later, Twilight and Trixie were sitting at the dining room table, pouring themselves some tea. Trixie thanked Twilight for the tea and took a sip. She was about to say something, but a little purple dragon interrupted her.
“Umm… Trixie?” Spike asked, mid step through the door. He put a claw against the frame and used the other to point at her. “Are you… I mean, what are you doing here?”
Trixie waved a hoof dismissively. “It’s a long story,” she said. “Doubt you’d want to hear it.”
Twilight nodded. “Yes, suffice it to say, we both somehow ended up amidst the cosmic sea of time-space and traversed several different time periods and at least one alternate reality.”
Spike raised an eyebrow. “Okay, then. Uhh, so how was that, being time travelers, I mean?”
Twilight lifted her cup to her mouth, took a sip, then glanced at Trixie. Setting the cup back down, she said, “On the whole, I’d say it was rather dull.”
Trixie nodded, taking a sip from her cup as well. “Yes. Dull.”
