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Chapter One: The Beginning
It's a clear day in Ponyville. The sun is shining, birds are singing, and the weather schedule indicates no clouds in the skies this day. It is here we begin our story. Just on the outskirts of town, near the bridge leading towards the Everfree Forest is a house. Not a soul in town realizes it exists. It is a subtle blue color, made of waddle & daub with a thatched roof. Here we can see a couple stallions sweeping the road & bridge, wearing what appears to be sanitation department suits, with caps covering their eyes from clear view.
"So, Jules, you think we're gonna get a real job soon?"
"Doubt it. It's been a few weeks since command needed something. Better not start stirring up trouble."
Echo looks at his brother with a smug grin. Leaning on his brush, he starts to talk.
"Who? Me? Why would I start trouble? I don't want to get into trouble with-"
He cuts off as some locals pass by, completely unaware of these two ponies sweeping the roads. Chatting away they continue towards another house. Another local, by the name of Fluttershy. The two going towards the house appear to be known as Twilight Sparkle, and the owner of the house, Fluttershy.
"I can't wait to show you the baby bunnies. They're just so precious and adorable."
Twilight giggles, almost as if Fluttershy has been talking non-stop about the wide variety of new born animals she has.
"I'm sure they are going to look quite cute Fluttershy."
Fluttershy & Twilight pass out of earshot. Echo sighs in relief, however his brother isn't quite as happy, giving him a scold that could seriously injure a normal ponies feelings.
"What? We didn't get caught, isn't that enough?"
"No, no it's not. Three more steps and they could have heard you! We can't just go around, flaunting what we are in the face of every being around here."
Jules gives Echo the scold for a few more seconds, then goes back to work, sweeping the road, picking up trash. Echo looks down, his brown fur starts looking as if it caught fire, at least his face.
"Sorry, I may have better hearing than most, but I don't have eyes in the back of my head. A heads-up would have been nice."
"Just get to work. We'll get a job soon enough, just you wait."
Echo, leaning on the broom the entire time, begins to start sweeping again. No ponies to be seen, lest you looked into a house. Echo looks up as he works.
"You think the bunnies are cute?"
"Probably, Echo. You should go ask."
Being the joker he is, Echo begins to walk off towards Fluttershy's house. Not caring for his jokes, Jules trips Echo. Echo being a master of counters, brings Jules down with him. Now a large ball of brown and black fur, they pick themselves up and brush off the dirt from their clothes.
"This never happened."
"Agreed."
The day passes by, slowly. After cleaning the bridge the duo work their way closer towards the center of the town. Finally reaching the center of town, the day nearly over, the day being very empty of ponies, they head off home. Back to their abode near the edge of the town. As they enter, they see the endless luminescence shining from everywhere, yet nowhere. The room was a single room with no definable shape or texture. The only definable thing was a few dials on the wall, from a distance you could see numbers on the dials, and above the dials you could see a few words.
"Check your H.U.D., Echo, we might have gotten something from Command."
"Doing it as we speak."
A device comes from a pocket in the right side of his head. It comes out and adjusts itself over his right eye, it's made of glass, and some details come up on the screen. using his mind to send neural signals through to the device, he brings up his inbox. In it can be seen a notification.
"Command sent something."
"What's it say Echo? Is it a job?
Echo whistles, high pitched and long.
"What does it say?"
"Command suspects an event to occur over Equestrian skies. Time rift, class S+, tomorrow."
"Class S+? That's some high-level stuff right there. Our job?"
"You know it."
Echo puts away the H.U.D. and high fives his brother.
"Finally! A job, been awhile since we last had a job like this."
"Yeah, it's been awhile since we got a time rift job. You ready Echo?"
"You know it, brother."
Jules stop celebrating for a second. He begins to think about the events of tomorrow.
"What is it Jules?"
"It's about tomorrow."
"What's the concern about?
"We're going to have a problem keeping covered after tomorrow. An event like this, every high-ranking Plumber is going to be here."
"Well, it's been awhile since we saw the General. You think he'll remember us?"
"Doubt it. Last time he saw us was 40 years ago as living adult male humans, not exactly like we are still human or anything."
"Well I could make us human, for the General."
Jules gives Echo the same stare that had occurred just this morning by the bridge.
"I told you already! No flaunting of powers, not even to our friends."
"Geez, and I thought command was strict. We die one time and suddenly the fate of the universe depends on us not being show-offs."
Echo sighs, then walks into some of the empty space, he begins to sit down in the empty space when suddenly, out of the darkness, appears a couch.
"You and I both know that because we died in public that it is vital that no being realizes that we still exist accept-"
"Accept the Commander and Chief. I remember. Makes me regret saving that drunkard of a Time Lord."
"We didn't have a choice and you know it!"
Jules, now furious, storms out of the house. Echo, master of sighs, blows out a long breath of air. Now a large flat screen television has appeared in the empty space in front of the couch.
"That's just great. I can't transform, but he can storm out of the house like a mad man. That's just perfect."
The rest of the night passed by, Jules never came home. Echo used the television the rest of the night, not needing sleep, like his brother. Due to their curious powers that even they barely comprehend.
Chapter Two: The Rift
Having not slept through the night, Echo was completely oblivious to what time it was. If it hadn't been for the absence of his brother, he'd never of left the television screen. As he sit there he gazed off to the side of the television and a window appeared. Echo got up and went to it. It was a lovely day, more overcast than the day previous, he counted at least 20 he could see. He then directed his attention to the front area outside his house, at least 10 ponies, he could only name three of them though. He spotted Fluttershy, enjoying her animal friends. he could see a tree across the road Lyra, sitting down on a bench under the tree. Then he saw the unique Derpy flying around delivering mail to the ponies. Then he saw a dark figure barging through ponies near the bridge. The ponies were not happy about it either, the figure didn't care, and he continued to run. Echo suddenly realized it was Jules, figures since he's the only dark horse in these parts.
"JULES! HEY! SLOW DOWN! YOU'RE GONNA HURT ONE OF THESE PONIES!'
Jules didn't even look up, he continued until he made it to the house. When he made it to the front door he skidded about two feet and had to walk back the distance to the door. Echo looked to the door as it slammed open. There stood the most scared face he'd ever seen on Jules in nearly sixty years, and it frightened Echo, to the pit of his stomach he was scared. He was relieved when Jules' face straightened out, but it completely killed the horror mood. Echo frowned.
"We have a minor problem."
"What is it? You seemed scared for a moment."
"It's... it's..."
Jules had another concerned face on, and now it was starting to anger Echo that Jules wasn't answering.
"FOR GOD SAKE JULES!"
"Sorry, it's Command. They sent a small council to check the Time Rift, and have us consult."
Echo's jaw physically hit the floor, he then proceeded to produce a new jaw so he could talk. The original jaw retraced and grew back into the new jaw smoothly, like a shovel in wet ground.
"So you're telling me, that out there, is something non-pony?"
"You bet'cha."
Echo walks over to a closet that just appeared and started pulling out two suits. Both had black stripes along the sides and stomachs that joined around the tail hole in a square shape. Echo tossed one to Jules.
"Looks like we got a job to do. Suit up!"
"It's been awhile, hasn't it?"
"Yeah it has, been waiting to get back out there, show up my enemies."
The suits unzip along the bottom and fit like gloves. The suits are made of high density Kevlar, yet somehow acts like a flotation device in water, even to the brothers it was a mystery. Once they got the suits on they rushed over to the Town Hall. Upon getting there, they discovered everypony for miles had come to check out what was happening. The crowd was dense, making it nearly impossible to maneuver through. Once they got to the front they discovered two human guards protecting the entrance. Wearing similar outfits to the brothers except there was three bars running along the stomach, and one line running down their weapon arm.
"State your names, ranks, and business."
The guards were in complete unison, blocking the entrance with light-based halberds. Giving the duo icy stares.
"High-Officer Jules, I am here for the council meeting about the Time Rift."
"High-Officer Echo, I am here for the council meeting about the time Rift."
The guards nodded and unblocked the entrance and let the brothers inside. The doors were closed the moment they stepped inside, and they had to figure out where the meeting was. It was fairly easy seeing as it was the only lit up room in the building, the cloud cover had increased since their arrival, and was making the building dark due to the light being removed. They walked in and found an old friend. With his back turned he started to talk.
"So, when were you going to tell me you were still alive?"
The man turned around to reveal an old friend of Echo & Jules'. High-Officer Brigadier General Yveltch Tmarv (Ye-VEL-ti-ch, Te-MA-riv)
of the Plumber High Command. He was neither human nor pony, but of a species closely related to ant, oddly his head was that of an octopus, his left hand was like a crab claw. His right hand was like a normal human's, besides the fact it was as big as a baseball glove, and everything below his waist was basically a satyr. His head was a grayed red, and the fur was of a red color, too, becoming darker as it approached his waist. The brothers Saluted, then hugged him. They could never figure out was his race was, Yveltch always insisted that he had told the duo, but they knew they would have remembered that.
"So, how did you figure out we were here?"
"I'd like to know that too."
"I found you through our tracking system. I was checking out the sector because of the Time Rift, and saw two names. Montana and Hotel, it wasn't hard to figure out who that was."
The siblings looked at each other, then back to Yveltch, then they noticed a new figure in the room behind The General. It appeared to be an Automaton, for what they couldn't be completely certain of. It had a face like some generic futuristic robot, plain and smooth, however the body was too large for the head, so they figured that had to be apart of it's function
"So who's your friend over there?"
"Does he have a name, or is he just 'The Automaton'?"
Yveltch looked back to the robot behind him.
"Oh, you mean Johnson? That's what I named him, Johnson."
"I like that name, seems fitting for a robot."
"It does, doesn't it?
"So what does he do, Johnson?"
"Well I'm glad you asked, soldier. Johnson! Front and center!"
The automaton's head swiveled around, then the body. It began to walk over, clearly not it's strong suit, seeing as he was waddling. He finally made it in front of the group and managed a salute.
"Johnson, print results."
Johnson began to rumble and shake, and a high-pitched whine could be heard. A compartment opened in the front of the robot's body, revealing a kind of printer-like machine. It began producing a complex, wide, long, paper that had a lot of graphs and statistics on it that made no sense to the dyad. Yveltch grabbed the paper and looked it over and grew an unhappy frown on his face, as apposed to his happy frown, which was as close his octopus head could get to a smile.
"What is it?"
"What does it say?
"It's where it's going to produce itself at that gets me."
The pair walked around to view the document, and saw the complicated graphs. They had been looking at those, then Yveltch pointed to the bottom where in plain text it had three parts. One of ETA of the Time Rift, about five minutes. Another indicated what time eras' it would effect. The last said where it would appear, 10 kilometers in the air, above a large Tree house. That's when they realized something, that tree house belonged to the mare Twilight Sparkle.
"I can't figure out what it means by, 'Large Tree house' does it meant like tall? Maybe Round? You live here, you should know."
Outside the door could be heard a loud commotion. The three looked up from the paper.
"Stop! You can't go in there!"
"I can't just stand by as i get removed from my house!"
"HEY! Put me down! I command you to put me down!"
A loud thud can be heard, and the hallway becomes eerily quiet. Hoof steps can be heard, then the door flies open as if an explosion went off. Standing there can be seen a lavender mare with a furious expression all over her face.
"I demand to know what is going on!"
The fury fades as she notices the alien standing next to the stallion brothers. Close behind is Fluttershy, who quickly faints as she spots Yveltch too. Yveltch waves at the purple pony, then does his best to smile, better referred to as a happy frown. The duo look to each other then to Twilight, then to the fallen Fluttershy, then behind them to Johnson. Echo shrugged, and Jules nodded, one of their few infamous completely wordless conversations.
A Tree House, a Time Rift, and Madness
Chapter Three: A Space-n-Time
"So, Miss Twilight, it's a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Echo, how do you do?"
Echo walks over to the dumb-struck Twilight Sparkle. Her mouth hanging in awe. He shakes her hoof, but she's stuck, eyes fixed on the unknown, red being standing in front of her.
"So, your name is Twilight Sparkle, I take it? Pleased to meet you, I am known as Yveltch Tmarv. My friends just call me Yveltch."
The General walks over an kneels down to shake the hoof of the, ever curious, pony. Fluttershy regains consciousness, spots Yveltch and falls back over. Jules walks over to Fluttershy, and places a pillow underneath her head that he created using one of his various powers, same as one of Echo's powers too. Twilight is still incapacitated by what she sees happening.
"Hey? Twilight? You there?"
"Don't startle her, Echo, she might run."
"I suppose I would too, if I saw a strange person, in a room, that I've never seen before, as well as viewed a non-magic pony create something from thin air."
The three of them left the violet pony to her thoughts, assuming she was managing to process what she saw.
" I assume this is our cue to go take out the Time Rift?"
"Yes, according to this, it opened up a few minutes ago, which is probably when she came here."
Fluttershy awakes again, this time managing a squeak, before fainting a third time.
"Looks like Fluttershy is taking this better than Twilight,, she managed to at least make noise this time."
Twilight blinks, then shakes her head. She begins to open and close her jaw, as if she's trying to say something.
"W-w-what are you?"
The trio looks to each other, then to the slightly less baffled Twilight. They managed a unified question.
"Who are you taking to?"
"Any of you? I'd like to know what you are, General Yvalch?"
Yveltch stepped forward from the group.
"It's pronounced Ye-VEL-ti-ch, and I am not of this world. That is all I will say."
"Sorry, I couldn't quite understand your name the first time, you can understand, right?"
"Yes, you are forgiven. I suppose I would have the same problem in your situation."
Yveltch nodded, then stepped back into the small group. Jules then stepped forwards, and nodded.
"How did you make that pillow appear? You're no unicorn, you clearly don't have a horn to conduct magical abilities."
"You can call it, slight of hand. It's one of my various talents."
"That can't be, your hoof was too far away from your body to have just produced it from some sleeve."
Jules bows.
"That's why it's called slight of hand, it's not very noticeable, and it's done purely by hand."
"But you don't have hands?"
"Oh, but don't I?"
Before Twilight can respond, Jules flashes for an instant, and in his place stands a tall, male, human, doing jazz hands. The human looks similar to Jules, besides the fact that the human is caucasian. He is also wearing a suit exactly like Jules', except the lines gather around the upper chest. Echo is visibly angered by this, Twilight is jolted by this.
"H-how did you?"
"JULES! WHISKEY TANGO FOXTROT!"
Yveltch smacked Echo upside the head.
"What? What's the problem?"
"You can't just tell me off for almost blowing our cover, then pull this. It's not right!"
Echo, dawning the face of flabbergasted fury, flashed, then in his place stood a new tall human male, looking identical to Jules, except his hair color was dark brown, as apposed to Jules dark hair color. The human walked over to Jules, and hit Jules hard. Jules was dragged down by the fist and made impact with the ground. It caused the ground to crack. When Jules got back up, there wasn't a scratch on him, and the ground had repaired itself, good as new.
"Better?"
"You bet'cha. So, where were we?"
Twilight gave up on figuring out what was happening and left. Fluttershy woke up a fourth time, saw the new human Echo & Jules, and fainted. Echo caught her in his arms, and laid her down onto the pillow.
"We should follow her, Echo. Make sure she doesn't get into trouble."
"Alright, let's go."
The duo looked to Yveltch, he was occupied with Johnson and more statistics.
"You coming with Yveltch?"
Yveltch looked up from the papers, then shook his head.
"Nah, I got work to do. It was nice knowing you were alive at least."
The pair left and chased after Twilight, who had apparently ran out the building, because they couldn't see her close by. They ran out the doors and sprinted to the Tree house. There they saw the mare sitting on the ground looking between a couple of guards, and a large opening in the sky.
"Hello there, again."
Twilight jumped and quickly turned around.
"How did you know I'd be here?"
"Not hard to guess really, if I couldn't go inside my house, even though I might have something that would help, I'd still stand outside it thinking of a plan."
"Oh, right. Can you help me?"
"Sure Twilight, just give me and Echo a second, alright."
Twilight nodded and sat back down, facing the brothers this time. Having attracted the attention of some of the ponies that gave up, they were being watched. They looked to each other then to those around them. They walked back to the guards and requested entrance, no questions asked.
"Come in Twilight, it'll be easier for us to think of a plan in safe quarters."
"Thank you, I might have a book that could help."
The duo looked to each other, being the masters of condescension, they laughed.
"What's so funny? This is a serious matter! We have no idea what this thing is."
"Correction Miss Sparkle, you, have no idea what this thing is."
Twilight tilted her head in wonder.
"You see, do you think we'd be here if we didn't? This has happened before, and it's our job to stop it. Now, sure go ahead, look around. I doubt you'll find something on the matter, though."
Frustrated by their discouragement, she looked for something. The brothers started a telepathic conversation.
"So, how do you wanna solve this problem, Jules?"
"You're the one with the power to stop it, your call."
"I think I'll do it the easy way. it's high enough in the air, shouldn't be too much of a problem."
"Roger that, your skies."
Echo looks around the Tree house. He spies Twilight looking around the bookshelves, most likely looking for a solution to the Time Rift problem.
"You won't find anything Twilight, these things are completely unheard of by anyone out side of the Plumbers, it's useless. Even if you did find something, mortal beings cannot close it permanently like ourselves, only temporarily."
"Fine I give up. I can't find anything here anyways."
Twilight comes down from a ladder she had been using to look for a book on the high shelves. She had a look of exasperation and defeat, Jules gave her a pat on the back.
"It's okay, Twilight, you had no possible way of knowing this would happen. This sector of space never had to deal with such things before."
As Jules cheered Twilight up Echo made his way up to the second story and out the balcony for a better view of the Time Rift. It looked similar to a rift the Doctor's TARDIS had to use to pass through time and space, grey-blue with heavy lightning activity. He smirked, nothing he couldn't handle. Still in his human form he floated up towards the rift. As he approached the rift an orange aura began to surround him. As he entered the rift the aura was layered thickly around him. He disappeared from view into the Time Rift and a loud fiery blast could be heard, and a similarly colored light radiated from the Time Rift. The glow vanished with a fizzle and Echo returned, floating down, back to the balcony. When he touched down, he looked back to where the rift was, it had disappeared, almost as if it had never been there. He walked back inside to see a laughing Twilight and a smug Jules.
"What did I miss?"
"Not much, just a funny story from one of our previous travels."
"Which one? The one with the Scandinavian and the Russian?"
"No, the one with Chuck and the German. You remember that one?"
Echo began to laugh as he remembered the story.
"How could I forget? Do you remember the look on Chuck's face when the German mentioned-"
Echo began to laugh profusely and Jules began to sputter.
"And then- and then when the German asked for another cherry soda. It's just- his face, he was so serious about such a ridiculous thing."
While they shared in the glorious humor they were recollecting from times past, Yveltch, Johnson, & five guards walked into the library.
"Did someone tell a joke and left me out? Shame on you two, I love a good laugh."
Yveltch straightened up and looked to the brothers. They'd finally stopped choking for breath long enough to stand and salute the General.
"I suspect you took care of the rift? It doesn't appear to be plaguing the clouds anymore."
"Yes sir we took care of that. The skies are clear once more."
"Glad to hear that. I suppose I shall take my leave, gentlemen, it's been a pleasure working together once again."
He saluted to the duo then bowed to the violet mare. He pulled out a wrist H.U.D. and activated a teleporting device that beamed the party back to an orbital shuttle, that proceeded to go back to Plumber High-Command HQ. Echo looked to Miss Sparkle.
"Quite the day, you could say?"
"Yes, quite the day. It's almost noon, would you like to stay for lunch, I could invite over my friends and introduce you to them."
Jules and Echo looked to each other and shrugged, then nodded.
"It will be nice to be properly acquainted with the rest of your group."
While they discussed Fluttershy walked into the building. Clearly gripping the brothers different forms better, she walked closer to them. Echo knelled as Fluttershy trotted closer.
"Hello, I don't believe we've been properly introduced."
Echo held his hand out to the timid pony.
"My name is Echo, who might you be?"
Fluttershy looked away, covering her face with her draping hair.
"Oh... I'm..."
Echo couldn't hear, even with his special increased hearing talent, she somehow still managed to speak so quiet, only the atoms directly around her could be witness to her voice.
"Sorry dear, could you speak a little louder. What did you say your name was?"
"My name is Flutter..."
Again, she managed to speak quieter than a fly with a sore throat.
"I'm sorry, Flutter-what?"
Trying to speak gentle as not to scare the fainthearted mare anymore than she already was. She squeaked. Echo giggled a little bit.
"I'm sorry, am I too much? Here, i think I can fix that."
He flashed for an instant, and in his place was now a cute, little, brown mouse.
"Hello, again, my name is Echo, what's your's?"
Echo's voice now sounded of a higher pitch, the kind of voice most people would imagine a mouse would sound like.
"Aw, you're so cute. My name's Fluttershy, it's nice to meet you."
Fluttershy held out a hoof, Echo, still a mouse, used his little mouse paw and shook the hoof. Twilight giggled, and Jules grinned.
