I had woken up around 11 in the morning today, to get as much rest as I could before meeting with Discord to learn some kind of ‘special’ Chronomancy spell, from what I’ve been told. I did my usual morning needs before heading downstairs to the kitchen. I saw Twilight at her desk downstairs with her back to me, making me smirk, as I slowly, and silently came up behind her.

I looked over her seeing she was reading a book on spells, and enchantments of varying kinds, making me place my fore-finger and thumb on my chin as I read it as well, seeing details to the cloud walking spell, hair growth spell, anti-rust enchantment, and different enchantments for foods and drinks to change the rate of how they rot, ripen, or their state of physicality.

“Aren’t you going to be late?” I jumped as Twilight and I both looked back seeing Spike coming down the stairs. “You mentioned you were meeting with someone for something important today.” I looked back at Twilight as she looked at me with a stern look.

“Um, yeah, I should really get going.” I headed to the couch grabbing my backpack filled with fruits, snack bars, and a few drinks, as well as some clothes, and a few other essentials.

As I reached the door I heard Twilight clear her throat. “Just who are you meeting with exactly?” I froze looking at different parts of the door trying to think, since I didn’t want her to know it was Discord. “It’s Discord, isn’t it?” I tensed up, as she sighed. “I thought so. Fluttershy mentioned you had been meeting up with him a lot recently.”

I sighed and looked back at her. “I know you don’t trust him, and to be honest, I don’t fully trust him either. But he’s the only one who can help me with this chaos inside me.” Twilight nodded. “I know it was crazy for Celestia to offer releasing him, but I mean…it seems Fluttershy actually got through to him. He’s helping me out with this, and teaching me some ways to control this. I understand being…suspicious of him, because I am as well, but it’s been…what…two? Three months? And the worst he’s done was very prankish, rather than harmful.”

“That is true, but some of those pranks could harm Somepony in an indirect manner. Applejack lost a whole day of sales because he turned the apples white.” I scratched my neck nervously remembering that from my first day of training with him. “Thankfully they turned back to normal later that day but…still.” I should tell her the truth about that day; I shouldn’t make discord look bad, with his reputation, when this was my fault.

“Um, Twi…?”

“And let’s not forget how he jumbled the letters in all the books here and at the school for a day. I couldn’t read anything, and I almost lost it, but I saw the letter arrange themselves back to normal.”

“Twi…”

“And the incident at SugarCube Co-“ I walked over and gently held her muzzle shut as she looked at me surprised.

I looked at her with a serious face. “Slow down.” I let her muzzle go and sighed. “Discord is not to blame for any of those occurrences. Those were my fault, during my time training with him, so he could help me control and understand chaos magic and how its manifested, just like why some of Applejacks tree’s…the dead ones she wanted removed anyway…were destroyed. That was the same day I came back with that severely broken arm, because chaos magic is not originally meant to be used for combat, although he found ways to make it so, in a way it’s meant to be used as well, but I can’t do it that way. And I already told the others it was my fault it happened and asked them to keep it secret, just like I’m asking you to do now.”

She blinked looking down at her book then at me. “So, you turned the apples white?” I nodded. “The books?” I nodded again. “SugarCube Corner…?”

I crossed my arms. “Yes, and I paid them for their losses to reprimand my mistakes. They said I didn’t have to, but I couldn’t do nothing. It’s why they never complained after all.”

She put her hoof at her chin looking down. “I DID wonder why they didn’t mention those incidents again, and why Pinkie stuffed those cupcakes in her mouth when she talked about it, but I chalked that up to ‘Pinkie, being Pinkie.’”

I chuckled a bit. “I can understand why you would.” She chuckled as well, as I knelt down and gave her a quick kiss on her snout. “I’ll see you later babe.” I began to head to the door before I felt myself stop, and was pulled back.

Next thing I knew I was turned around and felt Twilight’s hooves go over my shoulders as she kissed me, as I pulled her closer deepening the kiss between us, until she broke the kiss. “Don’t you dare think you can get away with that poor excuse of a farewell kiss” she giggled as I smiled. “Be careful, alright?” I nodded as I got up and left the library.

I met up with Discord soon after getting my usual ‘glazed double chocolate muffin’ from Pinkie. He looked up at me from the book he was holding as he was leaning against Fluttershy’s home and smiled his usual, suspicious smile. “Ah, about time you got here Blaze.” I waved to him as I set my bag down. “So, you wanted to learn some more Chronomancy today, correct?”

I looked at him. “Yes. More specifically, the time travel aspect of it.” He blinked as he made his book disappear, walking up to me quickly grabbing my shoulders.

He lowered his face to my level staring intensely at me. “And why would you want to learn that…?”

I looked back at his eyes. “Because I need to…now…”

We kept staring into each other’s eyes, until he let me go walking away. “Don’t make me regret this.” I sighed silently and followed him grabbing my bag. We eventually reached a wide open pasture, seeing Ponyville a decent distance away, before he looked at me. “You understand the repercussions you could cause with this magic, right?”

I nodded. “But I’m not using it for those kinds of reasons. I don’t want to go to just the past. I need to do this to protect everyone…” he looked at me with a curious look. “To protect every version…” he blinked looking at me.

He began to laugh. “So you’ve seen it then, the different ways this world could have been. I’ve traveled between a few myself, but I was careful to not disturb anything.” He grinned. “Alright, I’ll teach you how.” He came up to me and grabbed my shirt lifting me up baring his teeth. “But promise me you will NOT disturb the balance of times flow.”

I grabbed his lion’s paw that was holding me up. “I promise I’ll PROTECT the natural flow of time, for all lines.” He set me down as he began to teach me how to use the spell.

3 hours later

I stood there panting, feeling the sweat flowing down my face, as my left eye was stuck closed from the sweat going around the eye. “No, no, no. you need to feel where you want to go. Imagine time as a tree that has grown to a near infinitesimal amount of branches, and still spreading and growing. Then feel the point you want. Then reach for it, and grip the doorway.” He turned his back to me as he was going into detail about the importance of these steps, as I closed my eyes, imagining the tree.

I could see the ends of the branches moving slowly, and splitting apart, intertwining with others, and seeing some stop as the gold energy of those branches burned out, as I could see a specific point begin to glow with a yellow arcing energy. I reached my hand out, before closing it, feeling like I was grabbing a thin curtain.

I slowly began to pull at it, feeling resistance, pulling harder, as I opened my eyes seeing that it was like I was pulling at the world itself. “And don’t tear it, or you will be forced through, without a choice. In doing so, you could get injured when going through, since when you come out where you’re going, you could be shot out, and become injured from the impact.” My eyes went wide as I saw what I was holding tear, creating a swirling mass of darkness in front of me. “WHAT DID YOU DO?!?!”

I looked over at Discord as he was running over, before a pulse of energy flowed through my body, making me raise my arms defensively, and hearing Discord yell out. I looked over to see he was blown back quite a distance. “DISCORD!” I went to run for him, but I felt something wrap around my waist making me look down at a black tendril, that was coming out of the black portal.

More tendrils came out wrapping around my legs, and arms, pulling me towards the portal. I tried to fight it, to no avail. “Blaze?!” I looked back to see Twilight, with Scootaloo on her back, as she dropped a basket running towards me.

“NO, STAY BACK!” I turned back to the portal, pulling harder, as my legs were slowly being enveloped by the portal, as I leaned back. “IT COULD PULL YOU IN TOO!” I tried to pull my legs back, taking small steps backwards, even as I was still sliding deeper into the vortex.

I felt something else wrap around me looking down to see purple hooves wrapped around me as I had a thin light purple energy over my body. “I will not let anything happen to you, or if I can’t stop it, I won’t let you go alone!” I looked over my shoulder and I could see Scoot, using her teeth to pull at the neck of my shirt while on Twi’s back.

I looked at Twilight, and then the portal seeing it was against my nose as I was still being pulled in. I did the next best thing I could do, and grabbed Twilight’s hooves and carefully grabbed Scoot and pulled them around holding them against me, as we were pulled into the portal. I closed my eyes, as we were spinning, and being pulled, and tossed around, before I opened an eye to see we were calmly floating through a tunnel network made of roots and branches, even though it felt like we were going at high speeds, and being tossed around like ragdolls.

I looked around and tried to call out to Twilight, but no voice came out, as well as my body wasn’t moving. As I looked around more, I saw I could barely see through the opening in the tunnel network, seeing a deep black void with a multitude of different color lights and energies floating around a large white gem wrapped securely in dense roots and branches, as I could see pulses of energy going through all of it.

We floated through this place for what felt like hours, but neither Twilight, nor Scoot twitched or moved once as I held onto to them with Scoot between me and Twilight, but I could feel them breathing. After a while longer, I looked ahead to see a large white portal open up, and it felt like my body was being sent towards it with increasing speed, until we went through.

I wrapped my arms around Twilight more, as I felt myself hit something, bouncing off whatever it was a few times, before I got my feet on what seemed to be the ground, sliding, until I collided with something with my left side extremely hard, feeling a sharp surge of pain, as I collapsed to my knees, trying to breath, from the impact knocking the air out of me.

I could barely hear Twi’s voice call my name, through the ringing in my ears, as I gripped my left shoulder making the pain surge through my body stronger, making me gasp and scream in pain. I quickly clenched my teeth together to stop my screaming and looked over to see something was pushing against the inside of the sleeve of my shirt, from my upper arm.

My vision was going in and out of focus as the ringing in my ears fluctuated with the surge of pain, which came up every so often. I forced my hand to let my arm go, and pull my sleeve up making the pain pulse stronger, making me shudder and tense up, as my I choked up a bit, coughing from the shock. When I got my sleeve up I looked over to see a shard of bone sticking out, with a red string like piece caught in the jagged end of the shard that was sticking out.

I slowly reached my right hand for it, and touched the odd red string, as the ringing in my ears grew to a deafening surge making me tense up and fall forward gasping, as tears were flowing from my eyes, making me close them tightly. I took slow breaths to calm myself down, as the ringing died down, as I could understand Twilight now. “Blaze, say something, anything!”

I gulped down the saliva that had accumulated in my mouth, and took a quick breath, seeing my backpack had been pulled into the portal with us, and gestured my head towards it. “Jacket…bag…need…”

“y-your jacket?” I nodded, as I carefully adjusted myself, so I was on my knees, seeing my left arm was limp, with the hand palm down on the ground, seeing more spots it could have been sprained and seeing chunks and pieces of wood all over it. “H-here you go.” I looked up to see my jacket floating in the air and grabbed it setting the top of the jacket in my mouth, as I carefully adjusted my left hand under my knee. “w-what are you doing? You should wait for help!”

“I…have to…reset it…correctly. Only I…can do it.” I set the jacket to hang over my shoulder as I bit the jacket harder and lifted my body to a more straight position pulling my left arm straight as I screamed in pain, using my knee to hold the hand to the ground as I reached my right hand under the jacket.

As soon as I came into contact with the shard of bone, and the odd string, the ringing returned, stronger than before as I figured out what it was in that instant, as my senses began to return. I carefully grabbed the nerve pulling it, sure I was screaming louder as I was looking at the sky, biting the jacket harder as I did. After a while, I got the nerve around the jagged end of the bone letting it go, and grabbed the bone pushing it back in, hearing myself groaning in pain, as the ringing died down, as I could feel my face soaking wet with a mix of sweat and tears.

I relaxed sitting on my legs panting with my eyes shut tight, feeling my forefinger, middle finger, and thumb were still inside the open wound holding the bone, before pulling myself back up, feeling the pain again as I carefully got the bone back in, and let it go as I lifted my knee feeling my arm snap up, as I pulled my fingers out. At that same instant, I could feel my left hand tense up, and opened my mouth coughing as I held my arm, leaning forward.

“Over here! Get the cart ready!” I heard Twi gasp and looked up to see her looking over, as I followed her gaze, seeing a large crowd of ponies making way for a cart that was coming towards me. My vision went black for what felt like a few seconds, before I opened them, to see I was set in the cart I had seen, and my arm had a quickly improvised splint and wrapped in gauss that was already soaked in my blood.

I looked over to see Twilight sitting next to me with one hoof on my chest to help keep me sitting against the side of the cart, and Scootaloo was next to her looking at me and the ponies pulling the cart, with fear in her eyes. I groaned a bit, making them look at me. “Blaze! It’s alright, just relax, we’ll be at the hospital soon.” I looked down and saw my right hand on my lap, seeing it was caked in dried blood, and chips of wood, as I felt exhausted.

I looked over my shoulder to see ponies watching us go by, and seeing some whispering to one another, watching me. As we were going, I could have swore I saw a large black pony walking the streets before we went around a corner, blocking my sight of them. I didn’t even get a chance to see what kind of pony they were, but the size seemed close to Celestia’s, if not larger. Could Scorch have followed me here? No, there’s no way he could have, I must have imagined it.

ALERT: anything may be changed or altered in final publication of full chapter. this has been the alteration alarm testing procedure. no need to panic, and we thank you for not going into an immediate panic. ☺

Author's Note

welp, here is the preview [small portion] of the next chapter. i think i am only showing a quarter of what i have written so far. the google document says it is page 7 of 26, but it is only the first paragraph of page 7, so this is only 6 full pages, and a minor bit of page 7. and yes, i have been working on this almost the whole time from now all the way back as far as a week before the previous chapter. except for a time frame of two weeks where i was...incapacitated by a mix of work, being sick, life issues, and...well....some games. heh.

i loved the one with those insane looking monsters, and those weapons and abilities were just EPIC!

i enjoyed the one with that man in the colorful suit that swings around. the way he was so scientific and strategic was always intriguing.

ah, yeah i loved those two. but let's not get off track here girls.

OOH OOH, WHAT ABOUT THAT ONE WITH THOSE PEOPLE THAT WEREN'T PEOPLE, AND YOU INVESTIGATED, AND LOOKED AROUND AND DID EVERY LITTLE ACTION

well uh...they will be stuck on talking about these games i played for a while now i think. i am still working on the full chapter, and i am hoping to get it done soon, and get it green lighted by the secondary story's creator. but please do be patient, i have not forgotten the story, nor quit writing it, nor have i died...even though i almost have a few times....dumbass drivers....but again, please be patient, i am working on it as i can, with work, possible promotion coming up [if DM agrees with store manager, who wants to promote me to said position], and personal issues, like family just barging into my room, no knocking, and me trying to keep this side of my life secret. both the writer, and brony side.

with that, i want to thank everyone who is enjoying my story, and i hope i can keep you all intrigued as the story goes on. and if i lose you as a reader, or you dislike my story as it goes, i appreciate you giving my story some time, and a chance, and i understand that preferences change, or will not be met for some people. some will love, some will hate, and some will be indifferent. everyone is different, and all i can say is for you to be yourself, and thank you all once again. have a nice day/evening/night.