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Trey

November 01, 2051.
11:16 P.M.

“Incredible.” I whispered, as I stared out the window looking at the sun setting behind the ocean. I could see the stars clearly once the sun was no longer visible, leaving the interior of the ship in darkness. The blue interior lights of the dashboard and the small light spot in the small ship were the only ones illuminating the place, with only the darkness of space and it’s countless stars our the front window. I continued to stare outside, as I could see the Barrier near the place we left off, covering about half of the USA.

And somewhere in there, there is another world. I thought. Too late Celestia, too late. I gave a smirk at the thought.

“So Mitchell,” I said, as I turned to Mitchell. “how’s the anticipation going? We’ll become the first time travelers in the history of humankind in just...” I glanced at the dashboard with the blue number countdown. “7 minutes.”

“Well, if this time travel attempt fails, at least we’ll die free men. Not under Celestia’s control. What do you think it would be like to be ponified?” Mitchell asked me.

I have thought about it for a long time. How could the Potion change your mindset in just an instant? Would it be like dying, or simply wanting to join them? The thought of getting ponified gave me shivers. As much as I hate admitting it, I have always been curious on how it would be like. Of course, I don’t want to find out any time soon.
“Well… I suppose you would become either a brain dead follower or somehow have the urge to join them.” I said, glancing at the countdown. “Seriously, Clark was die-hard HLF engineer and scientist. I remember when he would spend entire nights working on the machine, never taking a break. Then in just a few moments...he was on their side. ” Now I was looking out the window, looking back at the darkness of Earth since power ran out in most part of the world.

“Scary, isn't it. That's all in the past now anyway, or is it the future? Oh this is going to give me a headache,” commented Mitchell.
I looked back at the timer. “Aaaaand 5 minutes remaining. Let’s see here...” I said, as took off my seatbelt and floated towards my backpack. Holding myself from the seat, I grabbed it and went back to my seat holding my backpack with one hand. I opened the backpack. Let’s see… canned food, can opener, water filter, events notebook, US map, solar panel charged GPS, Medi-kit. It all there. “Yeah, we have everything. Do you have the temporal Potion? I think they put it in your bag.” I said, turning to Mitchell.

“Lemme check,” Mitchell replied, undoing his seat-belt and floating over to his pack,

“Let's see. Rope, water bottles, spare ammo, aha! Here it is!” Mitchell held up the containers of temporary Potion, modified to not interfere with the brain and to make the human to pony transformation temporal, about one month.
“Ok then, we are ready.” I said, glancing once more to the timer. “4 minutes left. I really hope this thing doesn’t explode in mid-air.”

“So what’s the plan when we land? Where will we land?” Mitchell asked and checked the dashboard, “entering lower thermosphere. Prepare for the drop,”

“We are dropping somewhere near the launch base in a 500 km radius. If we are lucky, we won’t fall to the ocean.” I explained. “Once we arrive we’ll use our GPS to get the the last HLF base in California to acquire the Mortuum C. Then, we go to France to get the E.D Mark 1 and get into Equestria. Not too hard eh?” I said, chuckling at the end, nodding my head sideways. Two guys for this whole mission. Seriously?

“Hard part is getting a transport to France. Last I heard the Pegasi had a tight hold on all the airspace.” Mitchell replied.

“Time travel. If we do it quick enough, we can take a plane and go to France before they had secured all airspace.” I said. “Of course, there will still be a great number of Pegasi on the skies.” I glanced at the timer. 2 Minutes...

“Oh yeah. Almost at the height needed to reach the terminal velocity to pull this off,” Mitchell said, “strap yourself in tight,”

As Mitchell finished saying that, the time-machine disconnected from the ship. The ship suffered from a bit of turbulence as it began to position itself with it’s small thrusters, pointing back at Earth.
“One minute left. God I hope this thing doesn’t turn to pieces.” I said, as I tied my backpack to my seat.

“It won't, I have full faith in Clark’s handiwork. But, look at that view,” Mitchell said. Pointing back at Earth had given them a full view of the planet. Whilst it was partly covered by the Barrier, and infested with Ponies, the sight was still tremendous.

My heart began to pound, as I could begin to hear the main thruster at our feet begin to turn on, making the whole thing shake. This this was going to break the sound barrier in a few seconds once it got into the atmosphere. I took my rifle and made sure it was well strapped to the seat and had no bullets in. As I finished doing this, I glanced at the timer. “24 Seconds.” I said, being a bit less audible because of the noise from the thruster beginning to rise.

“Oh shit, my gun!” Mitchell said and quickly unloaded his pistol, stuffing it all into his bag in record breaking times.

“10 Seconds.” I whispered, as my heart began to pound faster than ever but still tried to remain calm. I was no longer audible because of how loud the engine was. We still didn’t take off, but the noise was still there from the engine preparing for the ride. I glanced at Mitchell at my right to see his reaction.

Mitchell was nervously grinning, eyes wide with anticipation. Even though I couldn’t hear him, I could read his lips. “Three, two, one.” He said, counting down with the timer.
I looked back to the main window in front of us, as I closed my eyes. The sudden change in velocity made me get pushed into my seat, as I held my tied backpack tight with my arms. A strong turbulence hit the small ship, but quickly came to an end.
Holy fucking shit, holy fucking shit, stay calm! Don’t lose it! I thought as the ship moved at an incredible speed downwards. I opened my eyes and saw us quickly approaching Earth. I turned at Mitchell, as the loud noise of the engine was the only thing I could hear.

From what I could see, Mitchell was deep in concentration over the controls. Clark had drilled him time and again on how to operate the TASV, he hated it at the time but I guess now it was paying off. We had already set the time a few hours ago since we lift off, checking and re-checking, I turned to the pilot window, as we were beginning to enter the atmosphere into some clouds. It was all dark since it was night-time. Now the only light were the blue ones from the dashboard, showing digits and computer terminal text.

The sound barrier broke. The ship then got hit by a strong turbulence, wobbling us about and the ship made a sound unlike anything I’ve heard before.

Mitchell was poised over the controls, glancing at the numbers on the dashboard as they slowly stopped going up. “TERMINAL VELOCITY REACHED, ON MY MARK FLICK THAT SWITCH TO GET THROUGH THE VORTEX!” He yelled over the roar of the engines, pointing to a red switch.

I looked at the window once again, this time to be met a a bright blue spiral-like light against the glass. That light was all I could see out the window, illuminating the ship. I looked at the window on my left, to be met by the darkness of the night and the clouds rushing quickly at it’s side.

“NOW!” Mitchell yelled. “QUICK, FLICK IT OR WE’LL MISS THE WINDOW TO STOP! WE’LL CRASH INTO THE EARTH!”

Slightly blinded from the bright light, I managed to reach for the switch and flicked it. A loud ‘boom’ was heard in all directions and everything went completely white. We were both left with our ears ringing. I had closed my eyes.

When I opened my eyes, the small pilot cabin was now well illuminated, with sunlight coming from the windows. That can only mean one thing. I thought. We were still going at an alarming speed to the ground, as I tried to find the parachute switch with effort since my eyes were still adapting to the light. The sound of wind was heard rushing by the ship.
Come one, you can’t fail now! Would it have been that hard to give this thing parachutes that auto-deploy? I thought, as I extended my arm to reach for the blue switch at a place I remembered. We had been trained so much in this part that we almost knew the control pannel by memory.

I flicked the switch.

The parachute was released, and speed suddenly ceased. I got pushed forwards because of the inertia of the sudden stop, but the seatbelt avoided me from getting hurt.

“Welcome to the past,” Mitchell said, no longer having to shout as the noise from the engines was getting quieter, “would there be a paradox if I talked to myself, as in, my past self?”

“Nah, that’s just movie cliche. There is no reason on why a paradox would be made in that case, so we shouldn’t worry about it.” I said, now much calmer and my heart starting to pound in a more relaxed manner. “But we shouldn’t do it anyway, as we don’t want to interrupt the timeline where we get to the time machine. So we should stay away as possible.” I faced the window to my left and saw ground approaching slowly. Lucky. I thought. “Mitchell, is there ground on your side of the window?”

Mitchell looked out of his window, “yep,” he said, “looks like the landing will be okay. Get ready though, we could be attacked by ponies any second, and I highly doubt no one saw that landing,”

True, I have not thought much about the ponies since we lift-off. I felt so safe up there, away from everything. “Got it.” I said, as I untied my backpack and my assault rifle. I took out the ammunition from the backpack and loaded my gun. I looked out the window, searching for ponies. We seemed to have landed in a small grass field surrounded by trees. “Ponies don’t usually patrol in the wilderness, so that will give us time.” I said.

“Good,” Mitchell said, taking out his automatic pistol and reloading it, “now where was that HLF base again? California?”

“Yes, it’s a hidden underground base inside the mountains near Gull Lake. It will takes us weeks to get there, but we’ll find the Mortuum C inside.” I explained. “By the time we get there, the place will be abandoned.” I took my small leather book from my backpack’s front section. “This book contains all important events that will happen within the next 3 years. Where pony armies attacked, where the Barrier arrived and when, safe places, vehicle locations, this book has it all.” I opened and went to the first page. “Ok, so that last HLF base will fall in a month from now, about the time we arrive there. Then, one month later, it will be covered by the Barrier, so there’s our deadline.”

“If we get there before it falls, we should warn the HLF base. We need to alter history as much as possible to put more odds in our favour of winning this war,” Mitchell suggested, “I mean, the more we can change the better, right?” He absently scratched his hair.

“Maybe. Though, once we murder Celestia, all Newfoals should be changed back to normal and the Potion would be rendered useless. The Barrier would also weaken to the point it allows humans to pass through. So we could help them, but at the end it doesn’t matter much really.” I explained him. I paused for a moment in thought. “Actually, that’s a very good idea! We could get them to help us get to France safely since we will be more armed and in a bigger group.”

“Yeah, I mean, we have two guns between us. If we joined forces with the HLF then it would be a lot less dangerous. Safety in numbers.” Mitchell grinned, “we all know how fantastic my aim with guns is, but I only have a certain amount of rounds, and once we run out, we run out. The HLF can give us more ammo and weapons. So this Mortuum C, is it like a crossbow or something?”

“It’s kinda like...” I began to motion my hands to give an idea of how it looked. “Um… It’s like a medical needle, only that a bit thicker at the base which is made of metal, containing the potent charged poison.” I tried to explain.

Suddenly, the whole ship came to a stop, making the whole ship shake for a split second. We had landed. I looked out the window to see a small area of grass and a wall of trees ahead. The parachute soon fell, covering the windows.
“Looks like we are here. Sometime around November 1, 2048.” I said as I smirked. “This is amazing.”

“Well,” Mitchell sighed, “let's get started then.”

Author's Note

11th May: Changed some spelling and grammar mistakes. -MTB
MichaelTheBoss: Sorry about the delay in updates, the original plan was to try to release an update every weekend but we got a tad sidetracked...

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, remember this is co-authored between hourglass24 and I.

Why not leave a like if you enjoyed, feel free to add some constructive criticism so we can improve in the future and if you really liked it, favourite it and track it.

Have a good day/night

MichaelTheBoss