Techorse VS Midnight Blaze
A gentle breeze drifted over a long-abandoned field of grain located just a few miles to the east of Ponyville. The farm it having belonged to having been long gone, it was now overrun by a wild species of the formerly edible grain, and the brown waves of the grass rippled in the wind. The field was surrounded by the normal green and lush meadows that covered the rest of the area around the town, but not a single resident had noticed the strange occurrence in the lot. Amongst the tall grass, a cobalt colored ear stuck up, twitching slightly. Said ear belonged to a young alicorn who was curled up in a ball, wisps of thin white smoke coming up from a burned circle in the grain around him.
Regaining his scattered thoughts from his prior accident that had placed him in the field, he sat up straight on his hind legs, and spread his wings before shaking them out of the dirt caught between each feather. The stallion then stood up, revealing the rest of himself to anyone nearby, although the only beings present were some grasshoppers resting among the grain.
He was a handsome alicorn pony, only somewhat taller than his peers with a larger body build in general, although he was still smaller than most of his kind. With dark sapphire blue coat, and an even darker black mane streaked with this blue, the rest of the light brown dirt came off with a quick shake of his tail, colored the same way, and bearing a similar resemblance in shape to the brush of a lion's tail. A quick gaze back at Ponyville with his light blue eyes told him that he was in the exact geographic spot he believed he was, and he gave a loud, disappointed sigh, stomping his rear left hoof on the ground. His cutie mark, a white moon curled upwards with a light-blue star, and five smaller twinkling spots of white light around it, moved with the stomping leg, down to his hooves, which had the ruffle cut he preferred.
“So much for that experiment...” he said, disappointment ringing in his voice.
It had only been moments ago that he had been experimenting in dimensional and time travel with his marefriend, Twilight Sparkle. They were working on a way to move back in time without suffering the stability issues of the time travel spells explored by Starswirl the Bearded. In addition, Midnight Blaze was hoping to pioneer a way to change physical location in addition to changing the time he was in. Unfortunately, with him still being stuck in the same stupid field of grain, and Twilight having vanished, he quickly understood that he had simply gone back in time for a few minutes.
“Just gonna wait for the time spell to collapse and take me back,” muttered the rather irritated alicorn.
Several minutes passed, however, and his horn did not spark the familiar gold and yellow that signaling the time travel spell having collapsed. This began to worry him very much, but he had courage knowing that as usual, despite all of the terrible things he normally had to put up with, he would get out of this situation just as well. His eyes, looking around the field, fell upon a strange structure he had never seen before in Ponyville. A boxy fortress, made of black stone and featuring a plain, but large wooden door, was now built at the southern part of town, a tiny castle in the otherwise plain village.
“Is that a fortification of some sort?” he asked himself, “Since when does Ponyville have a fort?”
After asking himself the question, the thought occurred to him that perhaps he hadn't gone back in time at all. Perhaps, he had gone forward in time a few years instead! In a few years, it's more than likely that a fortress would be ordered to be built for Ponyville, although that certainly meant that some matter of the town's security had come into question.
Midnight Blaze shook his head, “Hopefully I haven't been missing for too long! They all probably think I was a goner or something. Better go into town and let Twilight know everything's ok. Maybe we can figure out how to undo this.”
With his decision to get back to Twilight in place, he spread his wings and lifted up into the air, flying at a steady pace for Ponyville. Besides the small fort, nothing else had seemed to change from his aerial view of the town. The windmill, library, and other key features still seemed to be in place. He spotted Fluttershy, walking towards the downtown market, saddlebags for shopping at her sides, and dove down to meet her. Midnight landed in front of his friend gently, and folded his wings at his sides. To Fluttershy, such an appearance of an alicorn made her gasp, and she stopped dead in her tracks. A few others in town noticed him as well, and watched curiously.
“Hey Fluttershy!” said Midnight, smiling, “Have you seen Twilight?”
“Oh... my, how do you know my name?” she asked.
Noting his wings, she added, “I mean... how do you know my name, sir?”
Midnight's blood ran cold as he realized something was far more terribly wrong than a goofed-up time travel spell. Fluttershy was a good friend of his, surely she should have been able to recognize him! He kept his cool however, and explained to Fluttershy what was going on.
“Fluttershy, you don't have to call me that,” he said, “look, I know I've been gone for a while, but is something going on here?”
“Nothing's going on...” she answered nervously, “I have never seen you before, sir! Please don't be upset.”
The alicorn looked into Fluttershy's timid eyes, and realized that she was telling the truth, she actually had no idea who he was. Could it be that he had been struck with some weird magical side effect from the time travel?
“Maybe going forward in time has a fluke to it where the ponies in the future don't recognize you,” he said out loud, looking around.
“This stallion is crazy!” thought Fluttershy, beginning to sweat.
Midnight asked her an innocent question, “Look, Fluttershy, have you seen Twilight anywhere? She'll remember me.”
“She's going over to Techorse's castle,” she answered, “or she's back at the library. I... I can't remember.”
Midnight Blaze had never heard of this “Techorse”, so he asked, “Who's Techorse?”
“Well, he's the town inventor,” she said, “I'm one of his friends. He lives right there in that tiny, cute castle of his,” she said, smiling softly and pointing with her right wing.
“Techorse,” continued Midnight, “what a weird name for a stallion. Closest I've ever heard to that was this guy Workhorse that I know. Anyways, I appreciate your help Fluttershy, take care!”
He trotted off to go visit the inventor, leaving Fluttershy and the other ponies in the town square very confused. The visitor had acted very bizarrely, denying his title despite being an alicorn, and acting as if he knew Fluttershy and Twilight Sparkle. Regardless, they as Ponyville residents wanted to welcome him and try to be as accepting as possible, so they smiled and returned to their work. But Fluttershy was very curious as to why he had recognized her, and she decided to pay Twilight a visit in case she was at the library like she had thought.
When Midnight had reached the strange fortress he had seen earlier from the field, he took a short moment to think about how quickly such a structure could have been built. Surely even if the owner was wealthy, the fastest such a building could be completed was at least a few months. Time travel might have been a rather unpredictable pursuit, but it wasn't likely that he had been missing long enough to warrant a brand new “castle” being built in Ponyville. The rectangular home, barely three stories tall and made out of gray stone, was little more than a glorified block with battlements, glass windows on each floor, and a giant set of wooden doors on the first floor, which was disproportionately larger than the second and third floor. The lost and highly confused alicorn walked up to these giant doors, and titled his head up to get a good look at the height of the building, before returning his focus to the gate.
He stuck out a hoof and casually knocked on the door, wondering if anything could even hear him inside such a home. Within a few minutes though, the two halves of the entryway slowly began to open with the sound of well-oiled gears turning, and the electric-lit main hallway of the castle became clearly visible. Not surprisingly, it was a rather dull stone interior, but it was kept very clean, well-lit, and paintings and houseplants were kept to the walls to provide some homeliness in an otherwise empty place. A beautiful red carpet lined the main entryway, leading into the depths of the home, and at the front door was Techorse, a curious look about him. He had seen his visitor on a camera he had installed outside the front door, and was looking to know why an alicorn he'd never heard of was bothering to visit him.
Techorse's brown mane and blue eyes struck some kind of familiarity with Midnight Blaze, but he couldn't quite remember where he had seen the stallion before. His cutie mark, three yellow check marks stacked upon each other like a chevron, didn't seem to ring a bell with any ponies he knew. The soft green coat of his also seemed to bring a memory back to him, and Midnight sorted through his mind for answers. Techorse spoke before he could come up with anything.
“Hello,” he said, unsure of himself, “how can I help you?”
“Yes...” stated Midnight Blaze, sounding a bit suspicious of the castle's owner, “I'm looking for a stallion named Techorse.”
“That's me,” answered the inventor.
Remembering that he was talking to an alicorn, he tried to be polite by saying, “Is there anything I can do for you, sir?”
“Uh oh, here we go again,” said Midnight Blaze, rolling his eyes, “look, I need your help figuring out what's been going on recently. I've probably been gone for a little while, but nopony from Ponyville seems to recognize or remember me. This castle here of yours is completely brand new to me! It wasn't here when I left Ponyville, and I wanna know why it's here now.”
Techorse didn't understand what the situation was, as Midnight had assumed that he was aware of either who he was, or something about time travel magic. Being completely in the dark about the true nature of the predicament Midnight was in, Techorse concluded incorrectly that his new acquaintance had been away from town too long, and that most of the ponies living there had forgotten about him while he was gone. Wanting to be helpful to the alicorn who clearly either denied his royalty or didn't expect others to care, he offered to let him inside.
“I can try to explain what's going on, come on in and we'll talk about it,” he suggested.
The metal device on Techorse's back, a robotic machine called the battle saddle, opened up at the sides, and a robotic arm emerged out of the left, pointing indoors.
Midnight Blaze was freaked out by the contraption, and asked,”What is that thing?”
“Oh, I'm sorry!” laughed Techorse, making sure the other arm also stuck out of the machine, “This is my battle saddle, it's a saddle that reads my thoughts with a brainwave processor and acts accordingly. It's full of gadgets that help me do things a bit more easily, like these robotic arms here.”
“I see...” his startled guest mumbled, “anyways, I'd love to talk about what's going on, if you think you could help.”
“Of course!” he answered, smiling as the arms retracted back into he machine.
Soon the two had settled into the living room of the castle, located just inside the leftmost doorway down the hall. The room featured a cozy fireplace and a few teal colored couches, along with a beautiful oak coffee table and many pictures of Techorse and his friends mounted on both the mantle of the fireplace and the walls. Two large bay windows allowed lights into the room, and a comfortable rug made from gray artificial fur covered the floor. Each of that sat facing each other on opposite couches, and Techorse had called his friend and assistant PAL to bring them some tea and homemade oatmeal cookies.
“So you've been experimenting with time travel magic, and think you've been sent here to the future?” asked Techorse again, trying to understand,”as far as I know, time travel magic never really seems to work very well, if at all.”
“It shouldn't have sent me so far forward that you've been able to get settled into town after building your home,” replied the alicorn, frowning and shaking his head, “I just don't get it.”
Midnight Blaze looked around the room and added, “By the way, Techorse, I really do like your castle. It's very.. homey, and compact. It's not big, empty, and cold the way most castles are. Did you build it that way to be different from the royal lines?”
“I'm glad you like it, but I designed this before I even knew about any kind of royalty around here,” answered Techorse, smiling and making eye contact, “you probably wouldn't believe where I came from.”
“You likely made your own fortune with your inventions,” Midnight said, filling in his own explanation with a smile, “of course, all I know about is that saddle, but even that thing's pretty amazing on its own.”
Techorse tried not to act flattered, and admitted sheepishly, “Well... I don't sell this one. I mostly make appliances that are easy on our hooves to use. Things like ice cream makers and vegetable peelers. Most of the big or groundbreaking inventions stay here at the castle...”
He paused for a moment before continuing, “Anyways, it would seem you're doing great work trying to research time magic. It's not easy, my marefriend has tried it before, and she hasn't had much luck with it. But you seem to know what you're doing.“
Midnight didn't ask who Techorse's marefriend was, but simply thanked him for the compliment, “Hey, thanks, but trying these things is what I like to do!”
The two looked at each other with a level of respect, and sort of felt as if they might become friends once they had unraveled the time travel mystery. They spent time talking about small things, not really focusing on the main purposed of getting Midnight Blaze home. In a few minutes, PAL entered the room, breaking up the conversation with his entrance. The robot, six feet tall and humanoid in appearance, with soft orange mechanical eyes and a square jawline, entered with a tray containing a plate of warm cookies, a kettle of caffeinated tea, and two cups for the ponies in the room. He set the tray down on the coffee table, and chuckled at Midnight Blaze's expression of awe.
“Master!” he said to Techorse, turning to face him, “I didn't realize we were having an alicorn over today. Is he looking for one of your machines to buy for his castle?”
Techorse pointed to his guest and answered, “PAL, this is Midnight Blaze, and he's not a customer at all. He's been pioneering a new way to cast time spells recently, and thinks he's gotten lost here in the future.”
“It's nice to meet you, PAL!” exclaimed Midnight, flapping his wings to push himself off the couch, and craning his neck up to look at the machine eye-to-eye, “If this is what machines can do in the future, I'm going to have a pretty cool story to tell when I get back home.”
”But didn't you say you were only from a few months in the past?” asked Techorse.
“Well, I'm not entirely sure,” he answered honestly, “I'm only guessing that because when I cast the spell, I ended up in an empty field where the shed I was standing in used to be. I'm sure it's been torn down by this point.”
“It's highly unlikely that's the case,” calculated PAL, “is there any possibility your spell moved your physical location at all? After all, if you traveled into the future and somebody had dug, say, a very large hole underneath where you cast the spell...”
Midnight shuddered and held up a wing, “I don't even want to think about it!”
“So what happened anyways?” asked Techorse, “Must have been creepy going into town and nopony recognizing you.”
Midnight turned around and nodded, “Yeah, not even my closest friends...”
The alicorn's eyes darted over to the pictures on the mantle of the fireplace, and he saw in them something very, very curious. In each photo was his own best friends, Rainbow Dash, Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie, Rarity, and Applejack. But in each photo, Techorse was present, smiling and having a good time with his own friends. How could it be that someone so new to town could make such great friends with the ponies he knew? A few months was likely not enough time for Techorse to accumulate that many photographs.
Most shocking of them all was the final picture on the fireplace. It was of Techorse and Twilight Sparkle staring at each other up close, only their necks and heads sticking into the photograph. Midnight didn't understand how Twilight could forget so quickly about their time travel experiment. It was almost as if Techorse had somehow managed to replace him.
That idea quickly enveloped his mind, and Midnight Blaze began to believe that perhaps the inventor before him was actually behind everything. If he could invent a device that turned his thoughts into actions via machines, it seemed that almost anything was possible. But first he had to figure out if his accusations were correct.
“Where'd you get all these pictures of Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy?” he asked.
Techorse frowned and said, “They're my friends. You know them?”
“They're also my friends,” he said, “but they didn't recognize me today.”
Midnight paused, and then finished, “And you also know my Twilight.”
The two stared at each other, questions swirling in their minds. Techorse couldn't imagine that his friends would dare to forget about a good friend, especially an alicorn. Something was definitely awry, and he started to think Midnight Blaze wasn't telling him everything he ought to know about the time travel experiment. The chances that they both shared the same set of friends and yet did not know each other was very slim.
“Techorse... is a time machine a real thing?” Midnight asked, trying to not give away that he was suspicious of him, “As in, inventing a device that could allow time travel in place of magic?”
The green colored stallion took a moment to process the strange question, and then answered with concern in his voice, “Well, it is... but...”
“I think I need to talk to my friends again,” interrupted Midnight Blaze, believing he was on to something after picking up Techorse's hesitation and nervousness, “thanks for letting me in Techorse, we'll be in touch.”
“You're going?” he asked, “Are you sure?”
He tried to push past PAL, “Yes, I need to leave. I can figure this out now and get back to my own time.”
“Well, all right...” said Techorse slowly as the alicorn left the room and opened the wooden doors for himself, “thanks for coming in Midnight! Hope you visit again.”
“I think I just might...” he answered, looking back and staring right at Techorse with some kind of frustration in his eyes.
No sooner were the wooden doors shut behind him, that PAL came to a logical conclusion about their guest, and confronted Techorse.
“Master, I do believe we've been had,” cautioned the machine, “we should probably inform someone about Midnight Blaze immediately.”
“What do you mean?” asked Techorse, standing up on the couch closest to the bay windows.
PAL walked over to the window and crossed his arms behind his back, watching the strange pony fly away back into Ponyville.
“Midnight Blaze, an alicorn we've never heard of, arrives here claiming that he was from the past, practicing a time spell. He then proceeds to ask if time travel via machine was possible, and then, all of a sudden, once you answer in the affirmative, he leaves in a hurry.”
Techorse put his front hooves on the edge of the couch and propped himself up to get a look out the window as well, watching the alicorn flee, “It's very weird that he claims to be friends with the girls, yet has never met me before.”
“What do you suppose your guest really is here for?” asked PAL, putting a metal hand to his chin.
Although he didn't want to assume the worst, there was really only one thing Techorse could think of, and he answered, “What if... Midnight Blaze is really from the future. He made friends with the girls there, but got jealous of what I have now and my friendship with them?”
“Or even... something more than that?” questioned PAL, walking away from the window and moving to the fireplace.
“What do you mean, tin man?” asked Techorse, thinking he knew where his robot's point was going, but not wanting to hear it.
PAL picked up the photo of Twilight Sparkle and Techorse, and held it in his arms, looking at his reflection in the glass.
Techorse remembered Midnight's words, “You also know MY Twilight.”
“Midnight Blaze is trying to rewrite things so his future will happen now,” concluded Techorse, anger building up, “maybe he even wants Twilight. That's why no one recognized him, it's because they haven't met him yet.”
“And yet for some odd reason, he didn't attack you here,” commented the machine, replacing the picture on the mantle, “I wonder why...”
“Because...” continued Techorse, the robotic arms snaking out of his saddle again so he could point at things in anger, “Midnight Blaze asked me if a time machine was possible. What if his plan is to figure out what life is like for me here so that he can go further back in time and change things around so that he can brainwash our friends and erase us from space and time?”
“I thought he was just going to berate Twilight out of angst for being forgotten,” said PAL, “What you've described is probably too far, he didn't seem that vile. Perhaps we're jumping to conclusions and over-thinking a simple misunderstanding. Maybe we ought to give him another chance.”
“Well, I guess I could go talk to him,” muttered Techorse, “I'm going to the lab to gear up. You stay here, PAL.”
The robot watched his master and shook his head as he left the room in a fury, “Master has gone off on one of his justice-based rants again. Ah well, at least this afternoon should be interesting for him.”
Midnight had to blow off steam to keep himself from getting too angry at the inventor. It seemed to be that Techorse had somehow managed to invade his life, and yet, he seemed far too friendly, if not a bit naive. An individual like that logically was not going to try to steal a great life from someone else, he'd make his own. The alicorn wandered down the main road of Ponyville, not bothering to look up at the others who were staring at him.
“Maybe I should just try going back in time myself,” he said, talking to himself, “I'll take a guess as to how long it's been, and then, I can try to figure out what was going to cause everypony to forget who I was. Maybe Techorse doesn't have anything to do with this at all.”
Even though he was slowly losing his mind, he stopped in front of a public drinking fountain and looked at his reflection in a puddle of water that had accumulated under a leaky pipe jutting out from the side.
The alicorn shook his tail and said with an ill combination of laughter and mental pain in his tone, “Besides, I could have used one of his inventions, like that ice cream maker he told me about. I really could use an ice cream right now.”
“Ooh! I could use an ice cream too!” squeaked a happy voice next to him.
Midnight Blaze smiled at Pinkie Pie's warm and cheerful tone, and lifted his head from his misery to meet her eyes.
“Hey Pinkie Pie!” he said happily, before remembering that he was forgotten in this land.
“Oh um... remember me?” he asked hopefully.
Pinkie Pie had no idea who she was looking at, but being too friendly and positive to say no, she answered him anyways.
“Well of course I remember you!” she said, closing her eyes and jumping around him in a circle, “Who could forget an alicorn?”
Under normal circumstances, Midnight would have asked Pinkie Pie if she remembered his name to try and uncover the lie. But he was so worn out from all of the possibilities in his situation that he was willing to take any of his old friends remembering him, and believed Pinkie to be sincere.
“So, how about that ice cream? Still up for one? I've got some super-yummy rocky road left in the freezer!” asked Pinkie Pie, coming to a rest in front of the stallion.
“Sure!” he answered, his ears perking up, “Lead the way, Pinkie.”
They walked back to Sugarcube Corner to enjoy their frozen treat, while Techorse lurked nearby behind a bench set up beside the stone road. Hidden carefully by sitting down on the green grass, he had watched the exchange between Pinkie Pie and Midnight Blaze.
“Weird, I thought he said no one remembered him, but Pinkie Pie certainly did,” he said to himself, throwing his front legs over the back of the bench, “maybe I ought to go with them to the bakery and find out if he's willing to re-introduce himself.”
Techorse took an alternate route to Sugarcube Corner that allowed him to avoid the other two ponies and arrive slightly behind them. Taking an alleyway behind Lyra's townhouse, he passed undetected through the passage, and appeared on the main street, spotting the gingerbread and colonial styled building he was heading for just across the street. The main square was filled with activity, ponies were selling their wares or talking about the pleasant weather, while a few pegasi overhead were arguing over just how partially cloudy the day ought to be, shoving clouds around and finding a place for each one in the sky overhead. A few trees in growing plots interrupted the sidewalk-free roads, and Techorse weaved among the large plants as he made his way to the front door of Sugarcube Corner.
After a moment of preparation, Techorse casually opened the door with a robotic arm, and strolled inside to avoid making it look like he had shadowed them. The delicious smells of cookies and bread wafted through the room, and the tables on the wooden floor had been polished after the mid-day rush of customers to allow the later guests to have a dessert there in the shop. At the table closest to the large display case, full of cakes and brownies, sat Midnight Blaze, enjoying a tall silver dish of the brown and white ice cream Pinkie Pie wanted to share with him. The alicorn gave a quick glare at Techorse as he entered, before returning to his dish.
The alicorn spotted him and struggled to not frown or look angry as Techorse pretended to ignore him and head to the front counter. Pinkie Pie came back with her own dish of ice cream, and greeted him with a broad smile on her face.
“Oh hey Techie!” she said, dropping the dish off of her head and onto the counter, sending rainbow sprinkles flying in all directions, “How are you?”
“I'm great, thanks!” answered Techorse, “How about you?”
“Well!” she answered, looking at the alicorn and grinning, “I was just about to enjoy a dish of super-tasty rocky road supreme ice cream with my friend Midnight Blaze! I made it myself with that new ice cream maker I built.”
“So you didn't use Techorse's?” interjected Midnight Blaze, incredulous at that statement.
“Huh?” answered Pinkie Pie, turning around, “Why do you ask that?”
“Well he is your friend!” he said, trying to get more information about Techorse, “I met him earlier, he has this cool ice cream maker he invented. Why not just use one of his? Or is it because he wouldn't give you one for free?”
Pinkie Pie looked at Techorse, then back at Midnight Blaze, before staring forward into oblivion with a confused look. That statement seemed rather rude to her, but she shook it off as a big misunderstanding and giggled.
She then pointed at Techorse with her front hoof and gave her answer, “Techie would have given me an ice cream maker for free, but I didn't want one! I wanted to try making one myself with some metal buckets and an ice grinder that I found.”
“Huh,” coughed Midnight Blaze, “So even though he invents stuff, he sets aside his special talent... for you?”
“Well, he did help me hook up the wires and circuits and stuff, but those are messy,” admitted Pinkie Pie, “I built the rest of it though, yeah!”
Techorse took a nice lick out of the ice cream dish in front of him, forgetting it was supposed to be Pinkie Pie's, and felt the sweet, chocolate ice cream melt in his mouth.
“It tastes better than what my machines make too, because you have to refill the ice and add ingredients during the freezing process. Pinkie Pie's cooking skills are what makes the ice cream good,” he said, licking his lips.
Pinkie Pie giggled, “Aw, thanks! But the ice cream from your machines is pretty yummy too!”
Midnight began to have second thoughts about Techorse, “Maybe Techorse really is a good friend of Pinkie Pie's... is there room for both of us though?”
“So how long have you known Techorse for?” he asked casually, trying not to tip off Pinkie Pie as to his motivations.
“Well, for about two whole years now!” she answered, “Or, almost two years.”
Now Midnight was truly confused by everything. Techorse had known Pinkie Pie for two whole years, yet he was only gone for a few months, maybe at the worst a whole year depending on the extent of his time travel mishap. If the inventor had truly come up with a time machine or some other way of “taking over his life”, how come he'd been around for two years?
“Longer than me?”
“Well of course silly!” answered Pinkie Pie, forgetting that she was humoring him, “Techie and I have been friends for a long time, you're kinda new.”
The alicorn stopped eating his ice cream as the information entered his brain, and he thought he was going to be sick. He had thought that maybe Pinkie Pie had been lying to him, and now he had some proof.
“Pinkie Pie, I'm sure you and Midnight are still good friends,” said Techorse, attempting to smooth over the conversation, “he's been lost in time for a while, but that's not a big deal, right?”
“Techie, I don't actually have any memories of him!” whispered Pinkie Pie, getting very close to Techorse's right ear, “I just wanted him to not feel so yucky, and now I've ruined that!”
“That's what I'm trying to figure out... why we don't remember him,” he muttered in response.
“I'm sitting right here you know!” shouted Midnight angrily, standing up from the table and walking towards the door, “Thanks for the ice cream Pinkie Pie. I'm going.”
“Wait, don't leave!” she called, “I'm sorry I don't remember you, but I can change! We can start all over and do all sorts of super-fun things together until the memories come back! Maybe we all have amnesia or something really weird like that.”
Midnight's dark blue ears drooped and he looked at the floor. Maybe he had erased himself from the space time continuum on accident, and would have to start life over as a pony nobody knew. All of that time he spent making friends and getting to know Twilight Sparkle personally would have to started fresh. After thinking it over, he made up his mind that there was no chance he was going to get back to his own time ever again, and he would need to begin again. Knowing his friends, they'd likely stick with him again after he got them to know him once more, and then, he'd also have Techorse as an ally. It would all be worth it if he could continue his life with Twilight Sparkle, for sure.
“Where's Twilight Sparkle?” he asked, turning around, “I'd like to say hi to her again. Is she busy?”
“Maybe,” answered Pinkie Pie, before delivering a foolish statement, “of course, if she's not busy in the library, or going on a date with Techie. But Techie's right here!”
If heartbreak were an audible sound, everybody in Ponyville would have been able to hear Midnight Blaze's shatter. He couldn't believe that one tiny accident in magic had caused him to not only lose all his friendships, but also the love of his life to this guy he'd met just a few minutes ago. A dark mixture of hatred and despair overcame the stallion, and he ran out the door, struggling not to cry.
“What did I do?” gasped Pinkie Pie, slumping over on the table she was sitting at.
“Midnight Blaze might be trying to go find Twilight,” warned Techorse, headed for the front door after him, “he claims to be from the past, and came here by magical accident. In the past, apparently, he was involved with Twilight and knew all of us.”
“Twilight told me everything she knows about time magic!” giggled Pinkie Pie, “If that's true, he's going to go to where he cast his first spell and try to fix everything right up!”
Techorse went over the logic Pinkie Pie described and nodded in agreement, “You're right, Pinkie Pie. I'll follow him out to where he said he came from, and see if I can help. He seems nice, but he's really lost his marbles.”
“If I lost my marbles, I'd be sad too!” agreed Pinkie Pie, “I have lots of those rare cats-eyes!”
Techorse turned around from the front door and rolled his eyes while smiling, “Not those kinds of marbles, Pinkie!”
“I know!” she laughed, “I'm just teasing you! Good luck helping that guy out!”
Techorse left Sugarcube Corner and galloped after Midnight Blaze, who had already gained a fairly large head start on him. There was still hope that this whole accident could be fixed, and both of them could be made happy, if the right steps were taken.
Twilight Sparkle finished balancing the library's book checkout ledger, making sure that each book returned had an entry stating for how long the book had been borrowed. With her magic, she dipped a quill into a well of ink on her wooden desk in the library's first floor, and began to write a new entry. The ground shook gently, making her misspell one of the words, and she looked around for the source of the vibration. A flash of light appeared, and Twilight shielded her eyes with her front hoof as another pony stepped out of the magic portal.
When it had finished, Twilight looked at the new guest in her room, and couldn't believe her eyes.
“No way!” she exclaimed.
The field had been left just as it was when he woke up in it that morning. The wild grasses had stopped waving as the wind had died down, but the various rocks and boulders in the remote wasteland still provided an eerie sense of openness and abandonment that chilled any observer to the bone. Midnight Blaze had wandered down to the very spot where he had woken up, now a burned crop circle in the middle of the wild wheat, and wondered if he was going to be able to cast a spell to get him home. Even if he failed, surely being lost forever in space and time was better than this reality where no one remembered him. Any other time period where he could forget his old life and make a new one would be a strict improvement. Although, deep in his heart, nothing could replace his old friends and Twilight, and he knew he'd just be running away for the rest of his life, if it could even end, being an alicorn and all.
“All right,” he told himself, “I'll just go back in time 4 months. If nopony remembers me there, I'll keep going back 1 week at a time until they do. With any luck, maybe, just maybe... I won't be a nopony wherever I end up.”
“Midnight!” called a voice.
He turned around to face Techorse, who was urging him to stop. The inventor had managed to catch up, and was short on breath from having made a mad dash across town. A robotic arm waved to him, hoping to gain his attention.
Annoyed, Midnight Blaze turned around and said, “What do you want?”
“Don't do anything just yet!” he answered, “I need to know something.”
A small pickup in the breeze ran through his hair as he stared at who he believed was either someone who had usurped his place in life, or just had the misfortune of being pasted into the hole where he belonged.
“What?” he demanded.
“Why are you really here?” asked Techorse, “I have good reason to suspect that you want to trick my friends into thinking they've met you before. You especially seem interested in Twilight.”
Midnight Blaze had reached his limit with Techorse's accusations, and shouted angrily, “Look! You're the one trying to trick me. I used to be friends with the girls, and I used to have something with Twilight. But ever since I made that mistake with that time spell, it's been you taking my place everywhere!”
“Take your place?” answered Techorse angrily, “I'm the one with a place. You're the one trying to barge in!”
“All I know is, you are the only thing different from when I first left,” he answered, “everything is where it should be, it's just... you're here instead of me. That makes me believe you're the one behind this all.”
“And these mind games lead me to believe you're trying to get rid of me,” retorted the inventor, “is that true?”
It was an invitation to start a ruckus, and Midnight Blaze couldn't resist. Even if Techorse was 100% innocent, he was going to learn some manners and perhaps help him out in his quest to get back home.
“If you're such a smart, great inventor, you'll have no problem building a machine for an alicorn to get him home,” demanded Midnight Blaze, a bit of darkness behind his voice, “I don't like to throw around my royalty, but you've pushed your luck Techorse. Turn things back to normal, or you're going to be in for a world of trouble when you've been tried for treason against me.”
“What kind of a prince threatens his subjects to get what he wants in the first place?” growled Techorse, his anger and need for justice rising, “Oh, I know! One who doesn't deserve his title.”
Abuse of power was one of the things he had come to hate the most over the course of his life, and Midnight Blaze was about to push him over the edge.
Spreading his wings and lifting up into the air, his horn glowing black with blue sparks, he said to his opponent,“Well Techorse, we'll see who deserves to keep his place.”
Opening up with a volley of energy from his horn, Midnight Blaze blasted away at Techorse, who jumped out of the path of the attack. The mechanical doors on his battle saddle opened up, and his trusty pair of laser cannons emerged, tracking the alicorn in front of him. He sent a stream of yellow-colored bolts of explosive energy at Midnight Blaze, who dropped to the ground to avoid the destructive shots. The alicorn rolled behind a boulder, and Techorse continued to fire, blasting away chunks of the rock which were tossed into the air as each bolt exploded on the piece of terrain.
Getting an idea to defeat his enemy, Midnight Blaze snickered and cast a smoky puff of energy from his horn at the ground to his left. A visually identical copy of himself galloped out from the smoke and continued on. Techorse switched his fire to it, and four beams struck the copy, which vaporized in a magical blast of energy. Realizing that it was some kind of magical decoy or hologram, Techorse gasped knowing he'd been tricked and looked around quickly for Midnight, who had already taken the moment of distraction to flank him. A geyser of black energy smashed into him, and he was knocked onto the ground.
“Get up Techorse!” demanded Midnight, “We're not done here yet.”
The green stallion shakily stood up on all fours, mud on the right side of his face from the impact. He then realized that he was on fire, the flames glowing an eerie blue and black color.
“Aaaaah!”
Techorse shouted and screamed as the fires started to lick at him, even though they weren't really doing much physical harm. Panicking, he ran over to a nearby puddle leftover from a prior rainstorm, and jumped into it, rolling around. When he stood back up, however, to his horror, the flames were still on his body.
“Like those?” chuckled Midnight, “It's Darkfire, a form of dark magic that can't be put out using water. You're a guy of science, right? Fire normally needs oxygen to live, but not these flames!”
“If I don't do something soon, I'm going to burn to a crisp!” cried Techorse to himself.
In addition to the fire threatening to burn through his coat and harm him, Techorse's battle saddle was beginning to overheat. It would soon shut down and leave him defenseless unless the flames were extinguished. Remembering his theory of magic, and how thought energy relates to it, he wondered if stunning Midnight Blaze would cure him of the fires. Quickly, he switched from his laser cannons to his missile launchers, and a pair of small, red-tipped rockets left their racks and flew towards the alicorn.
Not really knowing what the projectiles were, but guessing they were dangerous, Midnight Blaze jumped over them and landed back on the grass with a graceful flap of his wings.
“Heh, can't say I saw that coming, but you're going to need to do a little better than that if you want to...”
The missiles, having locked onto Midnight's body heat, turned around in the air behind him, and smacked into his rear end, exploding and sending him careening into the sky. When he hit the ground, he groaned in pain and shock, and the fires on Techorse's body vanished into thin air.
The two faced each other, both bruised, scorched, and overall quite unhappy with each other. Midnight Blaze's eyes glowed white, and he lifted into the air, his horn charging furiously.
“You're going down, Techorse!” he shouted, a ball of energy forming at the tip of his horn.
Techorse retracted his weapons, and his familiar robotic arms emerged. Without saying a word, he opened up a small keypad in his right hand, and with the left one, began to push a series of numbers. Once he had entered the combination, he stared at a large red button at the base of the remote, and pushed it.
Back at his castle, three sets of stone hatches on the roof opened up, and out of them shot three ballistic missiles, each ten feet tall and weighing several hundred pounds. The rocket launches did not go noticed by the residents of Ponyville, but since they were normally used for making deliveries, they were unaware of their true nature. Each one was tipped with a cryogenic warhead, as it was Techorse's intent to freeze Midnight Blaze in a block of ice and hold him captive until he could figure out what he was really up to.
Coincidentally, Midnight Blaze's energy spell was actually a “flesh to stone” ray he'd learned from a tome he found while digging through Twilight Sparkle's collection of the most highly sought-after spells in Equestria. Each pony was desperate to incapacitate the other so that they could be “brought to justice.”
Midnight Blaze had reached the limit of his charge, and fired the ball of energy into the air, almost twenty feet in diameter. The black sphere soared up into the air like a mortar shell, and started to slow down in its climb over Techorse, who spotted his own missiles incoming from the other direction. The weapons slowly climbed towards the apex, after which they would descend onto each pony and freeze or petrify him.
It was at this moment that the two stallions looked up at the nasty spells and rockets in flight, and realized that they'd probably made an idiotic decision. Both the ray and the missiles were going to cause a huge amount of damage to the outskirts of Ponyville, and likely, both of them were going to be caught in the blasts.
“Do... do you think, maybe I took it too far? I just wanted to beat you up a bit,” said Midnight Blaze.
“Yeah... you took it too far, but... hey, me too. I was so mad I wasn't really thinking,” laughed Techorse.
“I wasn't really going to hurt you, that thing was going to turn you to stone,” admitted midnight Blaze, “I don't really hate you, I just... I wanted my friends back.”
Techorse sighed and admitted his guilt as well, “Those were only going to freeze you in ice, I didn't want to hurt you either. But I got so desperate thinking I had to fight to keep my friends I kinda got carried away. We probably could have worked things out.”
The projectiles reached their final altitude and started to plunge down towards the ponies.
Midnight Blaze laughed at the absurdity of the situation, “Oh well, nothing we can do now. Hope somepony comes over and thaws us out!”
“Yeah, and keeps our statues clean too!” giggled Techorse, both ponies having completely resigned themselves to their fates.
The two stallions stepped towards each other and gave a quick hug to the other before letting go and standing perfectly still in a natural pose, such that their ice sculptures or stone statues would not look mortified. They then closed their eyes, sweat running down their foreheads, and waited for their inevitable dooms.
Each missile impacted on the ground, followed shortly by the ball of petrifying energy, and the combination of the two weapons set off a titanic explosion that shook the ground for a kilometer around. A light-blue mushroom cloud the width of a football field rose up into the air before dissipating after a few minutes of hanging in the air. When the dust had finally settled, the entire field of grain had been frozen in ice and snow from the cryogenic missiles, and the petrification energy had taken its toll. Two statues of two stallions, regret clearly on the faces of the stone figures, stood covered in ice crystals in the middle of the blast zone. It seemed that Techorse and Midnight Blaze were gone, their frozen statues left as an important lessons to those who might have the same foolish argument they had chosen to have.
Midnight's consciousness returned to him in the form of several rays of light entering his eyes on an otherwise dark background. Soon his vision had returned to him, ending his entrapment, and he could feel the wind again on his coat. Looking over to where he last remembered seeing Techorse, he found the stone crumbling off of him as well as they were both returned to their normal forms. Both stallions rubbed their eyes with their hooves as they tried to adjust to seeing light again. When their senses had fully returned, they were stunned to find that they had been revived by two Twilight Sparkles, their horns glowing as they finished using their magic to melt the ice and restore everything in the area back to normal. One was a unicorn, the other an alicorn, which approached Midnight Blaze.
“Looks like we were a little late,” the unicorn Twilight said, “good thing we learned these restoration spells!”
Midnight Blaze approached his alicorn Twilight and said with joy, “Oh Twilight, I am so glad to see you again!”
But to his shock, she angrily snapped back at him, “JUST WHAT THE HAY WERE YOU THIKING GETTING INTO A FIGHT LIKE THAT?!”
“It wasn't so...” tried to explain Techorse, but he too got interrupted by his own Twilight.
“Tech, I can't believe you decided to fight another pony with such heavy firepower! We saw the flume of ice from the library!”
“But... but!” said the two stallions together, trying to get a few words in while being yelled at.
“Resorting to violence, not trusting each other?” growled unicorn Twilight.
“Yeah, couldn't you have put off clobbering each other for another few seconds?” asked the alicorn Twilight, a bit disgruntled, “And don't you dare play the 'we're boys!' card. You know better.”
“We've settled things between ourselves,” answered Techorse, “trust us, we're not happy we fought.”
“Yeah!” protested Midnight Blaze, “I mean, we're in this weird future right now, and I went a little crazy. But both of us are cool now, promise!”
The Twilights looked at each other and then realized what had happened to their boys. They weren't aware of the situation as they were, and now they had both yelled at them for their violence, which could easily be explained due to the mix-up. Deciding the stallions had learned their lesson after all, they gained a happier expression and tone.
“Oh...” said the Twilight alicorn sheepishly, “you thought the time spell worked?”
“Of course I did,” he answered, “but that's not the case... is it?”
The alicorn Twilight then explained the situation, “It turns out when you goofed up that time spell, you accidentally cast a dimensional travel spell. Equestria has a few dimensional rifts like all planets, due to its gravity field. You accidentally slipped through and ended up here instead of our own Equestria.”
“But luckily, we found ourselves and can get you back home!” said the unicorn Twilight, “I still can't believe there are other dimensions!”
“So you forgive us?” asked Techorse.
The unicorn Twilight rolled her eyes, grabbed Techorse and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek. He was still stunned by the fact that there were two Twilights, none the less that one was an alicorn and one was a unicorn.
“Of course we do. Yeah, you shouldn't have gotten into a fight, but we know why now. Maybe we've learned the importance of not jumping to conclusions here!” she said.
“I agree,” answered Techorse, “and now that we've settled that, everything can be made right, I hope.”
“Yup, we can go back home to our own dimension!” finished alicorn Twilight, gathering her coltfriend, “Ready to go?”
“Yeah, just one more thing,” Midnight answered, turning to Techorse, “I'm sorry for everything, Techorse. I guess we won't see each other again, so I'm apologizing now for my behavior.”
“Not exactly,” said unicorn Twilight with a smile, “I think there might actually be a Midnight Blaze here in this Equestria. These dimensions of each planet out there are exact copies, just with different results over the course of time.”
“And there is a Techorse back home, he's an inventor there too!” announced alicorn Twilight, “We'll talk to him when we see him.”
“If that's the case, then that means...” gasped Midnight.
Techorse finished, “We'll see each other again, just not in this form. We'll meet the version of the other we were meant to. The one we can be friends with.”
The two stallions smiled at each other as alicorn Twilight cut a hole in the air with her glowing horn, forming a purple-colored hole in the atmosphere.
“Goodbye!” she said, “Take care.”
The two ponies disappeared into their portal back for home, which closed on itself quickly. Techorse and Twilight turned to each other, and stared for a few long moments.
She asked him, “So. Pretend this never happened?”
“Well, for the most part.”
About a week later, Techorse went to visit a humble artifact craft shop in another town. Rain poured down from the sky, and the inventor was quite eager to enter the store he was looking for in order to escape the bad weather. Soon he found the shop, a wonderful store shaped like an observatory, a brass telescope jutting out from the top of a domed building. A large sign hung from the main doorway of the gray and blue colored place, and it read: “Into the Mystic”.
Techorse pushed open the doors and shook himself dry before wandering into the shop alone. It was a cluttered place, with wooden shelves lined up neatly along the floor of the rounded building, but magical items filled the shelves. There were potions, artifacts, even toys and prank items that worked on magical hexes and spells. Most of the merchandise seemed to be scattered haphazardly, but that was likely because many of the items had been retrieved on the owner's travels, and had yet to be organized.
Seeing the awe-inspiring collection of magical items for sale, Techorse thought it might be the place after his talk with Princess Luna about it, and went to the front desk of the building, nearly tripping over a set of music boxes that played themselves. The high, rounded ceiling bore several chandelier that provided light as he made his way to the front desk, where a young unicorn pony sat in the chair near the cash register, and a large set of red-bound books that kept record of all the items in the store, a near-impossible task if not for the care of the owners.
“Hello there, what's your name?” asked Techorse of the colt.
“I'm Twinken,” he answered shyly, “welcome to Into the Mystic! Looking for something in particular?”
“Yeah, I'm looking for Midnight Blaze, is he home?” answered Techorse, smiling.
“Let me go get him,” answered Twinken, disappearing through a door that lead to the workshop behind the desk.
A unicorn pony, sapphire blue in color, appeared at the front desk soon after, and asked, “Hey, welcome to my shop! My little brother said you wanted to see me?”
Techorse smiled at him, and said, “Yeah, it's good to finally have found you, Midnight Blaze.”
This Midnight Blaze was shocked Techorse knew his name, and looked around for a moment to make sure no one was around, “Do I know you from somewhere?”
He responded with a smile, “You could say that...”
End
