Dawn of The Ice King

Again and again we went to the past, and again and again we were flung into a dystopian future. One where the changelings were in charge, one where Flim and Flam industrialized everything, one where Tirek ruled, another where Discored was ensuing chaos, and one where The crusaders turned into Tyrants, that was an interesting one.

Each time my body was racked with more and more shockwaves and my head hurt more and more, but I powered through it all, either to buy enough time for Twilight to fire up the spell again or to completely overturn the hierarchy, regardless I was getting exhausted, I was running on fumes and we were thrown once again into an alternate future, I wasn’t able to land this time and was sent crashing into the ground.

I staggered to my feet, the tremors and shockwaves hitting my body were worse than all the other times combined to the point I was kneeling over screaming in pain.

“Chris! Chris!” Twilight called out to me, I wasn’t able to respond, too much pain, “That’s not good, they weren’t this bad before, Spike get under his other arm, help me carry him, we need to find someone, and judging by where we end up each time, we should be close enough to Ponyville that we could get him to a doctors! This timeline doesn’t seem as bad as the others.”
That was the last thing I heard before I passed out from the pain.

I woke up some time later, I wasn't sure how long I was out but I looked around, my heart stopping, is this… “Hello? Anyone there?” I called out, I heard shuffling come from the kitchen before Twilight stepped in through the doorway.

“Oh thank goodness you’re okay.” She said, quickly helping me sit up fully, the pain in my head was still there but the body pain faded.

“How long?”

She sighed, “Not very, a couple of hours at most, what was that? The shockwaves never hit you that bad.”

I shook my head, “I don’t know.”

Ixis, any ideas? No response, Ixis? Still no response.

“Shit…”

“What?”

“Ixis isn’t responding to me.”

“Has that happened before? I didn’t think she could just not respond.”

“She is her own person, she has free will but she tends to answer if I call for her. The only times she hasn’t is… well never mind, we’ll burn that bridge when we get to it. Now, is this where I think it is?”

“Fluttershy’s Cottage? Yeah, yeah it is.” Twilight confirmed my suspicions, though she looked away from me when she said it.

“Why are we here? Why not the doctors? Where is Spike? And if we’re in her cottage where is she?”

“Ah… thats… I don’t… they wouldn’t treat you, Shy was the only one who would. Spike is outside, helping feed the animals and Fluttershy is…”

“Right here.” I heard the voice of my wife, but it sounded off, even from all the other versions of her we’ve run into there wasn’t any hatred or malice, caution sure, but this feeling in her voice made my skin crawl.

I turned to look at her, a smile working its way onto my face despite the feeling I got, that was until I saw her eyes, there was no love there, only pure hatred and disgust, it shook me to my core and I clutched my chest in pain, “W-What?”

“I don’t even know why I helped you, especially after everything you’ve done.” She said, venom dripping from every word.

Twilight stood up, “Fluttershy! I told you, it's not, he’s not, we aren’t!”

“Stop Twilight, I know what you said, and it's possible that that’s the case but this could also be a trick, he could have finally found you and brainwashed you.” She said, standing a good distance away from me.

“But Spike is helping you feed the animals.”

“Could be part of the trick.” She said simply.

My head was spinning, what’s going on here, why did she hate me so much, what did I do? I looked up at her tears forming in the corners of my eyes, “Shy… what did I do to make you hate me?”

“WHAT DID YOU DO?! Don’t you dare play innocent!” She screamed at me. “I hate you, I wish you were dead, stop this trick and just do whatever it is you came here to do to torture me like you always do.”

I felt something inside me shatter and the tears starting flowing like a dam inside me broke, “I-I didn’t… I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m so so sorry… I’m sorry. Please don’t hate me. Please… Please… I can’t lose you, please…”

Twilight came to my side and wrapped an arm around me, “Would someone who was trying to torture you cry like this? Would he do this?”

Fluttershy stammered, “I-I… n-no… he wouldn’t, are you all really from?”

“A better time than this one? Yeah” Spike said as he entered the house, putting the bags of animal food down.

“Oh no… no what have I done.” She rushed over and hugged me, her chest pressing against my head, “Chris… honey… I’m so sorry… I’m so so sorry, it’s okay, it’s okay, if I’d have known that you weren’t him truly I wouldn’t have said any of that. I love you and I missed you, I missed this you, please be okay.”

I sniffled and just buried my face deeper into her, still crying, we stayed like that for god knows how long, by the time I was done, my throat was dry, my eyes hurt, there was a small circle of ice on the floor from my tears. Eventually I was fine enough to lift my head up.

“Are you okay Chris?” Twilight asked.

I shook my head, “But I will be… Shy?”

“I’m sorry.” The butter yellow pegasus said.

“I know, I forgive you… can I have some water?”

“Of course, with extra extra ice right?” She asked, a small hopeful smile adorning her face.

I nodded, “Of course, I wouldn’t want it any other way.” She nodded and got up to go get the water.

“Twilight?”

I wasn’t calling her Twiggy so she knew it was something serious, “Yeah?”

“It’s me, isn’t it?”

She paused for a second, not sure if she should answer before sighing and nodded, “Yeah.”

“You know I need to know everything he’s done.”

Another sigh, “I know. Just promise me you won’t kill him.” I didn’t answer, “Chris?”

I looked her directly in the eyes, “I can’t promise anything Twilight, he made Fluttershy hate, I’ve not seen anyone able to do that.”

“To be fair, she has every reason to hate him.” Spike said, once again just showing up in the living room.

“You… need a bell, you’ve gotten way too good at that.” Twilight said.

“No thanks. This timeline you has done some horrible things.” He said taking a seat in the arm rest across from us, we were on a three seater.

“I bet, I’d like to hear it from Shy.” I said turning to her since I heard her coming back from the kitchen.

She handed me the water and I gratefully took it, “So would you mind telling me what happened, what did I… what did this version of me do?”

She sat next to me and took my hand, “You… he… he killed everyone Chris, all of our friends and family. I guess he spared me because of what we had… but I think it was all just to torture me just because of what we had. He drove our Twilight into exile and no one has seen her since, last I heard was that she was seen outside of Saddle Arabia but that was 3 years ago.”

“Any idea what she would be doing?” I asked Twiggy.

“If I was in this situation, I would be looking for new wielders of the elements.” She said.

“Makes sense, I lost my ability to use kindness after I knew I hated him.” She squeezed my hand, and I did so gently back, “Then he imprisoned Celestia and Luna in the moon and sun respectively, that way they’d still rise but it would be torture for them to do so. At times the sun and moon won’t rise at all and it’s just darkness as far as the eye can see, it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced. You don’t even know if you’re alive, he rules all of Equus, no one can stand up to him, every race has tried.”

“Every race? Even the dragons?”

She nodded, and hesitated before continuing, “Even them, no one knows how he managed to subdue them but he did. The world has been in chaos since, he has emissaries everywhere. How my Twilight hasn’t been caught yet is a miracle, or maybe she has and that's why we haven’t heard from her, I can only hope she hasn’t.”

I could tell she was avoiding something, my heart rate was already skyrocketing and I had to subdue the rage that was building as is, “Shy what aren’t you telling me?”

“I… did you and your version of myself have a child?” She asked me cautiously.

“Yes… a daughter, her name is Golden Skies, she is one of if not the best thing to ever happen to me.” I said,some warmth flooding me, thinking about my daughter who I cannot wait to get home to.

“He took her. He took our daughter a year ago. I-I couldn’t stop him… he took my Golden Skies.” She said looking at me, tears forming in her eyes but despite that it was nothing but hate and rage towards this version of me shining in them.

“He… what? He took her? He TOOKher?!” I roared out, the entire room freezing over and I could hear animals running away and scurrying around outside, but not from me, no from something else, something else that I could sense but disappeared as quickly as it showed up.

Fluttershy rushed to calm down her animals, though as soon as she opened the doors she fell back and screamed, causing me to rush over to her, “Shy, what’s wrong?!” She said nothing and just turned to cry into my chest. I looked around and saw exactly what caused her to cry.

On the ground in front of me was a letter attached to the horn of the head of Twilight Sparkle.