A Lifetime of Dreams

Yes, here we go once again with the next chapter of this story.

Once again, I'm sorry it took me this long to complete the chapter but I assure you that not only it is longer, but I think it is now better than ever, hope you guys like it this way.

First of all, as you saw last chapter, this has a soundtrack which I take from doctor who and other places, soon I'll make a compilation of every song that will ans is used in the story.

And finally, if you want, check out my very own tumblr account of this story, hope you guys like it and visit it, you can make suggestions, questions or rants there, I swear the characters will try to answer all:

A Lifetime of Dreams TUMBLR

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I was born and raised in Canterlot, the majestic city in the cliff of the mountain, the sacred center of Equestrian history.

The center of the hierarchy and the heart of our society, everypony who is anypony reside in the city where I spend my youth, but besides my parents and brother, there is nothing that I could call home now. Only my years as Princess Celestia’s protégé are still in my mind and I hold onto them remembering the smile of my teacher whenever I did something well, the sight of my mother when she gave me my first birthday cake, my brother’s proud expression when he was made the captain of the royal guard.

I was born and raised in Canterlot, but I became what I am today because of one small town that grew with the strength and perseverance of Earth ponies. Ponies that with their own hooves created a town where everyone can be accepted, where friendship and happiness go side by side with adventure and strange antics, but none of us will have it any other way.

That’s was my foalhood, this is now my home.

And this.

This is the story where I saw the beginning and the end of everything I knew, where I had to fight for myself and for my heart, where the fate of millions rested on our hooves.

My name is Twilight Sparkle.

And this is the story that marked the end of my Lifetime of Dreams.

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Like always, most of the sky was engulfed in the thick fumes that rose like snakes through their tubes. The factories that once ago had marked a new age of growth and prosperity for his kind was now nothing but a sad look for him and his family as they little by little forgot how a clear and blue sky looked like.

Thankfully for Shiny Gears, his two daughters and his son were away from this sickening ambient and where right now visiting his mother in the family ranch. The image of his mother teaching his children how to buck a tree brought a smile to his face as he little by little walked through the conglomerated streets of the mid-afternoon in Ponyville, well, nobody called it Ponyville again, it had ceased to be the small and quiet town of his ancestors and was now a modern and productive city where ponies came to seek a way out of poverty and hope for the future, but Shiny knew better.

In this city, everyone arrived, but no one ever left; sure, ponies gained money to feed their families, but they were never became rich and little by little the city ate their dreams until they turned into another shadow in the city, engulfed into the sea of anonymity and joined the ranks of another ponies that worked in the day and returned to a small apartment in the night where the next day was always the same.

Day in and day out.

Shiny Gears knew that coming to Ponyville was a mistake, but he couldn’t avoid it, the city was calling for him, it was his ancestral town, where his family had created, no matter if he didn’t have their characteristic name, but it was true, a name could do so much, it was what was inside that made him what he is today, and he will never forget the Apple family name, he will always have it in his heart.

With that last idea on his mind, Shiny Gears went into the fabric alongside his co-workers, a mass of ponies that had their futures and dreams shattered and a for a second Shiny felt the weight of what they had become on his shoulders. Gone were the days where they could walk through the then town and know everyone, where everyone was your family and your friends.

“Welcome, welcome all, to this new and bright day” If there was something that Flip Coin, the owner of the factory, was known for was his horrible sense of humor and fake happy tone whenever they arrived to the factory. It was so bad that even the mild and calm Shiny Gears could cringe at hearing the obnoxious voice tone that early in the morning “I just want to welcome you to another productive day where we will be capable of doing our quota! And, not less of all, this day will mark the beginning of a new era not only in our beautiful and modern city, because today, we welcome a new way of life, the future of our race!” The Earth Pony said almost like a preacher on Sundays before a group of unicorns, his loyal retinue of idiots in the opinion of many in the factory, began to shut down the doors and windows making Shiny and the rest of the workers nervous seeing as all the light was being extinguished inside the factory.

“Sadly, this means that your services… are no longer necessary” The voice of Flip Coin was heard in the middle of total darkness before steps were heard around them. Metallic clangs came from everywhere while the tension escalated. The workers were close to total panic when several lights in the roof let islands of light return and they all saw them. A metallic face watched them from empty sockets. The scream that followed was never heard to anypony outside the factory, the silence spell had worked perfectly.

(Cue opening theme)

BBC

Hasbro

In Cooperation with Meteor Beat Entertainment

With:

Iván González

Ross Money

Ben Betteridge

Joseph Jafari

Twilight Sparkle

Applejack

Rarity

Rainbow Dash

Fluttershy

And Pinkie Pie

A Lifetime of Dreams

Episode 2: The Day of Nexus

Chapter 2: The Mine

Even after every single adventure they had, saving the world from eternal darkness and continuous chaos to simple things like a pony/buffalo battle, a parasprite infestation, hydras, ursas, manticores and everything else their ‘pacific’ world threw at her, the thing that never tired her or stopped being exciting was the idea of teleportation.

The theory was simple, use magic to open a gate through space that connected to places and instantly you will be transported there, but it was much deeper than most ponies knew. The truth was that in order to use the spell, Twilight had to rip open the very fabric of space, tore it apart so her body could be swallowed inside and be thrown out at the other end. Thankfully it was repaired magically as if nothing happened, but for one instant, the caster was everywhere at the same time.

It was an exhilarating moment that for a while she had become addicted to the spell, using it continuously for every single thing, just like teleporting at the side of Applejack when she was only a few feet away from her. Of course, it had been useful just like when Spike and she had been surrounded by every single mare in Ponyville wanting the extra ticket to the Great Galloping Gala, quickly learning that teleporting more than one pony (or dragon) required extra care.

With that in the front of her mind she closed her eyes focusing her magic in the tip of her horn feeling the pulling force of the spell starting to take effect, the feeling of reality vanishing for mere moment before everything went insane at the next.

Her head was throbbing, her world had exploded and there was no other explanation for what had just happened, the feeling was completely wrong. Twilight for a second was scared, had she missed? Did she do something wrong? Was she dead? What will happen to Equestria?...... oh no, what would Princess Celestia do when she finds out that she had done it wrong? She’ll probably FAIL HER! Wait, she wasn’t in the academy, she couldn’t fail… right? Of course she could! Celestia was the Princess of Equestria, the ruler of the land! Well, technically speaking she was co-ruler now but still, she could fail her!

Before Twilight could go into her crazy full panic mode the world went right again, the throbbing was gone for now and the light was making her vision slightly blurry but she could see figures and blobs.

And what a view, she must have failed the spell because this was in no way the same place she was before, the size was humongous; the white pillar around the circular room with a very high ceiling that was gorgeous. Her eyes cleared enough for her to see the ceiling was painted showing different constellations in the starry night, although some of them were new even to her, they must had been wrong or done by a complete amateur.

“What?” She heard a familiar voice come near from her. It was the same voice behind the door. Shaking her head a bit she quickly discovered the… well, she couldn’t call him a pony, neither a Diamond Dog, unless it was a hairless Diamond Dog. The creature resembled more a monkey than anything else.

“Okay, it worked, now I don’t want to scare you but I would like to ask you some questions, my name is…”

“Twilight Sparkle… but that’s impossible, how did you get through the shield!?”

“What are you talking about? And how did you know my name?” Any explaining was cut short before they felt the machine start to hum and shake.

“No… no no no no no! The time vortex is opening!”

“What are you talking about?” At her question the stranger turned around from the console with a bewildered expression on his face; that he was a very strange looking creature didn’t register on Twilight’s mind, neither the difference in colors, the whole reality itself and more importantly her own body bore now a very close resemblance to the species of the stranger.

“It means we are traveling through time!” At those words Twilight’s mental machinery halted for a millisecond at the due to the huge meaning behind them, it just couldn’t be possible.

“We are what? That is not scientifically possible!” The ‘now’ long haired girl said holding onto the console after a rather abrupt shake from the machine. Finally Twilight remembered that the mere existence of all this space inside the small blue box and maybe, just maybe, the idea of a time traveling device wasn’t such an incredible idea, besides, didn’t Starswirl the Bearded himself experimented with those kinds of spells finding that travel through the ages was indeed very possible although limited in, ironically, time, only mere minutes as the limit.

“Tell that to the TARDIS because we are traveling… 300 years to the future?! Oh what the hell, CHAAAARRGE!” The other creature exclaimed with a huge grin on his face while outside the machine disappeared from sight much to the shock of the rest of the elements of harmony.

“What in tarnation?” Applejack was the only that talked while holding onto her hat due to the sudden gust of wind that followed the  blue box, and just like that, everything went quiet on that night.

“……..ooookay……….. now what?” The cyan colored mare asked to her friends.

/////

The rumbling and shaking continued to be the order of the day at the box continued to tumble in the time vortex. That continued until the young man pressed a big blue button in the console.

“Blue stabilizers, usually I don’t mind the shake but not this time” he turned around from the console to look more closely at the other pony/person standing in the middle of the console.

It was so weird, here he was, in the presence of one of the nicknamed Mane 6, the bearer of Magic, the student of Princess Celestia, Twilight Sparkle, but it was not the way he imagined. Instead of the purple unicorn that he had seen so many times on his computer screen and the television, here was a young girl, maybe no more than 20 years, her skin pale in comparison with his own, blue almost purple eyes that showed the intelligence behind them. Also, even if he didn’t know how exactly that was possible, she was completely dressed, a magenta t-shirt and denim shorts with canvas sneakers to finish the ensemble, not the most fashionable of outfits.

Both of them stood rooted where they were standing; both not knowing how to break the awkward pressure inside the TARDIS.

“Did… did you just said that we were traveling through time?” that made him almost jump, he was extremely nervous.

“Ah… yes, ah, this is the TARDIS, Time And Relative Dimension in Space, it is technically a time machine, and we are, hold on” Iván said looking quickly at one of the screen reading the information in them “we are 331 years and two months in the future if you want to be precise”

“And you are?” Twilight arched an eyebrow while he scratched the back of his head thinking on how to answer that question.

“Well… isn’t that the million dollar question?” he said not turning from the console.

“You are not a pony”

“I thought that was obvious” seeing her glaring at him the message was obvious, ‘don’t get smart’ “I’m not a pony.

“Are you… are you from Equestria?” She was slightly worried about what the answer could be.

“No… I’m not from Equestria… I’m from far, very far away”

“… you are an alien”

“Yeah” and that was the last word he said, the silence once again dominated the TARDIS.

/////

“Well, I just want to say thank  you for giving us a room to rest last night” the de-facto leader of the group of humans said while Autumn Crisp waved her hoof as if it was nothing.

“Ah shucks, you don’t have to be so formal m’boy, it was something that anypony would have done, it was no problem at all, I just feel bad that we couldn’t find your friend” the mare said remembering the news of the ponies she send early in the morning and that they found out the cliff bare of any box or anything at all.

“I wonder where he went”

“Do you think he left us here?”

“Ben, he has a TARDIS, he could be anywhere”

“And any when” the other human said walking out of the bedroom. Thankfully it seemed that the human/pony size ratio wasn’t that over the top and what was good for ponies seemed to be good for human beings, it just took a little to get used to the difference but the similarities in both architecture and the different objects around were strange to the trio of travelers.

“Be as it may, we are in Equestria now, maybe we should go to Ponyville?” Of course the idea of visiting the nearly mythological town for them was an obvious lure, but it wasn’t the only bait out there in the world.

“I don’t know, from what you say maybe it should be better if you go and have a talk with Princess Celestia in Canterlot, better not to create mass panic and get into too much trouble” Autumn Crisp said not trying to rain on their parade but it was needed a little bit of thought, the three were a never before species that could send more ponies into screaming and running, heck, last night was proof of that, thankfully they were only five ponies and not a whole town.

“I… think that will be for the best” Ross said thinking back to Zecora’s appearance and the faux Cutie Pox accident, maybe going directly to Ponyville wasn’t the best choice, they had a whole lifetime to visit and watch Ponyville, a couple of day acclimating themselves to this new world couldn’t be so bad.

Before any of the present ponies and humans could continue their talk, a huge rumbling of the earth took their whole attention.

“Earthquake?!” Joseph screamed while holding unto one of the ceiling lights of Crisp’s living room, how he got there no one was sure. While the three humans were worried on different levels Crisp simply sighed knowing exactly what had happened. Waiting a bit she was show right seeing Silver Lining running into her house.

“BOSS! HE DID IT! FLARE DID IT!”

“What are you talking about?”

“He finally threw down the wall! The tunnel is open!” Crisp’s eyes opened to ridiculous size at the news.

“What?! Of all the… how he even did it? What did he use? A freaking atomic bomb or something?” Crisp said quickly regaining her bearings, as the boss around he had to be composed at all times, no matter how many of those times she was close to choke Flare Twister’s neck for all his eccentricities.

“Meh, one of his new concoctions, hey guys, didn’t see you there” Silver Lining waved at the humans on the living room while Crisp trotted out of the house in search of her crazy worker.

Joseph was finally on the floor while the four males went outside the house.

“What were you talking about? What did Flare did exactly?”

“Oh, well, you see, Cobalt Ville is a mining town”

“Hard to miss by the name” Ben said watching everything around them, the colors were so vibrant and the air… the air was so clean, so fresh, even thought it was a mining town the air was completely different at what he was accustomed back home.

“Good thing about the name is that everyone knows what we do, so, yeah, we are a mining town so we mine, we discover deposits of minerals like steel and then send them to specialized rock farms”

“Wait, rock farms? Those things really exist?” Ross said surprised that rock farms were real in Equestria.

“Sure, why? Why did you think they weren’t real?”

“Different world” Joseph said as explanation.

“So that means you know the Pies?”

“Of course” Silver said quickly going for the change of topic “great family, a little eccentric but nice people, heard one daughter lives in Ponyville and another in Canterlot but can’t quite remember what she does” the three human beings looked at each other hearing that… he couldn’t be referring to… nah “anyway, last month we discovered a natural tunnel but try as we might damn rock wall couldn’t break, the local unicorns tried to break it down with magic but they also found out something weird, here, put these on” Silver said giving each one a hard hat while he took one with a lantern.

“Thanks, you were saying?”

“Well, they sensed something, some kind of energy but they couldn’t get close to it so we decided to leave it alone for now, but Flare, well, he just had to see what was hidden behind the wall and presto, today he finally did it!” Silver said very excited about the news.

It seemed that his cutie mark had appeared when he watched pictures of miners, tunnels and minerals while visiting his grandfather, the same love for mining had awakened in him and next thing he knew, he wanted to be just like his granddaddy.

After talking and walking through the dark tunnels of solid rock they finally arrived at the explosion site and at the right time to hear the last of Crisp’s scolding to the stallion, but the most amazing thing was not the tunnel full of crystals but what was in the middle of it.

/////

In the middle of a tunnel, a forbidden part of the city, there was a peculiar blue box silently standing vigil alongside the rows of pipes traveling everywhere to different factories several miles on top, red and grey thick tubes transported steam everywhere in Ponyville in silence.

The wooden doors were pushed from the inside and a head looked around quickly realizing that they were indeed in another place and time.

“So you are saying you are from another universe?”

“Exactly, although I’m not quite sure if we are a completely different dimension or a parallel universe, that still eludes me”

“I… can… believe it! Oh, where is Spike when I need him!? This could revolutionize how we see the universe! It could mean a complete new page in Equestria’s science and history, I need to document it!”

“Twilight… Twilight… Twilight!” the young man finally screamed to get the young girl out of her ruminations quickly focusing her eyes on him, a slight blush appeared on her cheeks when she realized what she was doing “thank you, now, look, what you did, the teleportation, it shouldn’t have been possible, I had my shields up, that means that nothing could have been capable of getting inside… probably, well, now that I think about it, Donna teleported into the TARDIS, but that was because of the huon particles”

“What particles?”

“Nothing, anyway, you teleported inside and this is only a theory of course but, what if the energy you used to do the spell… reacted with the TARDIS, I mean, I’m not an expert but, what if you fed energy to the TARDIS… and this activated the time travel, overloaded the systems, of course it will send the systems into overdrive sending us into the time vortex, well is as good as any theory”

“So now what? Do we have to wait until we are back into our time?”

“It doesn’t work that way” the man said looking at the readings in the screens “the TARDIS travels through time and space, it doesn’t have a return option… and it seems that it doesn’t have enough energy for another travel”

“What?”

“When you found me, the TARDIS was still recharging so all the energy you used is gone now, gotta wait until it has enough energy for another trip”

“So how do you exactly pilot this thing?” Twilight said pointing at the different buttons and levers with her index finger. It was really disconcerting how she didn’t notice the differences in her body, as if they were normal and he wasn’t going to make her realize the changes.

“It would take some times so maybe you will be better reading the manual” at the words reading Twilight almost appeared at his side, a grin from ear to ear blossoming into her face.

“There is a manual?”

“Ah, yes?”

“That’s so amazing! I not only meet the first inter-dimensional travelers to Equestria but also read something from another dimension! Oh, this is going to be the best report I have ever done for the Princess!” she said clapping her hands a little while jumping up and down, she seemed like a little kid that have been said that she was going to get ice cream.

“Okay…” was the only thing he said before walking once again on the direction of the doors “so, will you stay or will you accompany me?”

“What? Of course! We are in the future, I wonder what has happened to Equestria? This is so exciting, but now that I remember, I did give you my name, but you never told me what was yours”

“Oh, right… well, now that you mention it, I'm in the company of ponies, so why not... right now… I’m just a traveler” and with that said both opened the doors of the TARDIS and walked into the future.

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A/N: Guess who we have to deal with in that year.

What is the thing they found out in the mine?

What will the mane 6(5?) will do to get Twilight back?

Don't miss the next chapter of A Lifetime of Dreams.