Chapter 6: Crash of the Elements

In Pyro's POV

The headache. It’s back.

The moment I saw this pony, I just cringed. I clutch my head. Dark blue mane, white stripe down the centre. A slightly lighter blue body.

“So,” He continues, taking a step forward. “We can do this in two different fashions.”

The headache is clearing. I remember who he is: Hydrolus Waterfall. I take a glance at him. His smile was still stuck to his face. He is quivering as he takes each step towards me.

“The easy way,” Hydrolus said. His glare felt as if it tore through me, aiding the headache. I took a step back. His eyes were supposed to be a light topaz, but now they are dark purple, under the influence of the taint.

“Heh.” I respond. “You know, your attitude hasn’t changed a bit.”

I steadied myself, stood back up and lifted my hoof. “You know you aren’t going to win, yet you try.”

“Yes. I know.” He examined his surroundings. “But elementally, you already lost.”

Part of the wall of water came crashing down onto the land as he threw his right hoof forward. I set the ground on fire, evaporating the water. But, another part was released on top of me. I was soaking wet. Then the water froze, slowing my movements.

Meanwhile, Twilight was standing her ground. Unmoving. Staring.

“If you dare come any closer, I will be forced to use extreme measures!” I shouted. Hydrolus still inched closer. I melt the ice on top of me and stood my ground. I casted some arcane fire onto the wave, which evaporated the entire thing in less than a few seconds.

“I’ve never really listened to anybody. Why should I listen to you?” He continues to approach me.

I pushed a few buttons on my prosthetic. A flap opened and a rod stuck out. It was golden and black in colour, twisting towards the tip, where the Ignion Ruby was adorned. “I’ve warned you.”

“And what’s one pony going to do anyway?”

“It’s not like you have any more.”

I should not have said that. The ground started rumbling. And then it shot me upwards into the sky. “Guess again,” I hear.

Here comes Terrae Cobble, dark green mane and silverish brown body. “You know, I don’t get it.” I shout from above.

I feel the pillar cracking. I quickly jump down, only to see the pillar crumbling and in its place were metal spikes. A third pony emerged from nowhere. Completely silver in colour. I landed on the floor, unharmed. I glance at Twilight.

“What are you still doing here?” I asked. “Run!”

Twilight snapped out of her trance and started running away. But alas, some vines shot up from the ground and hardened into tough wood, forming a cage.

“Escaping I see.” A fourth pony came around the cage. He adjusted his glasses. “Also, don’t bother trying teleportation, unicorn magic doesn’t work on, or in, arcanic greatwood.”

“Silver Skyline,” I greet. “Arborus Trefoil. So glad to see you two. And even though you all have the same eye colour, which probably means you are tainted,” I jumped to dodge some spikes from Silver, “I believe you haven’t heard me say ‘Stay back or you’ll get it’, or something along those lines.”

“Oh, we heard it all.” Arborus replied. “And it’s quite simple. We are all a connected mind. And we are here to put you down.”

Hydrolus glanced at Twilight. “And your little friend here will get to watch the entire thing!” They stood in an arc, with me completing the circle.

I pull out the rod. The sword was revealed inch by inch, as I pulled it out of its slot.

“Don’t make me use this.” I warned. The sword was my best creation to date that doesn’t involve time travelling to get the parts needed.

“Oh you won’t.” Silver said, as arrogant as ever. He blasted a beam of mana toward Arborus, who was standing next to me. “And it’s very simple really.”

“Whoever is inside this circle,” Terrae continues, also blasting mana but towards Hydrolus. “Will suffer the wrath.”

I just realised that we were doing. We are standing in the pattern of the destructive cycle. Basically, the lore goes: water destroys fire, fire destroys metal, metal destroys wood, wood destroys earth and earth destroys water. The non-transitive cycle goes on. The circle we are standing in right now is the cycle of elemental destruction. Of course, there is the cycle of elemental creation as well which is along the circumference of the circle, but that is not focused into the centre, thus creating lesser creation and greater destruction.

Arborus directs his mana onto Terrae, while Hydrolus locks on his beam onto me. This caused me to drop my sword, letting it fall onto the ground, which then sliced through it seamlessly, the hilt preventing further damage.

“You can’t back out now.” Hydrolus said. Which is true, since whoever is partaking in the cycle is stuck in place until the cycle is complete.

“But that also means that if I don’t do anything, you will all be in a gridlock, stuck to the ground.” I grinned. “Checkmate.”

~scene change~

In 3rd Person POV

High above the circle was a balloon filled with soldiers and the two princesses. They all looked down, silently watching and observing the situation.

“They aren’t doing anything other than just standing.” A guard said.

“Yeah, but they are doing some weird business with the coloured pentagram.” Another replied.

“Should we go down?” Princess Luna asked.

Suddenly a bright light shone from behind them, which came everyone cover their eyes in response. The light died down, and in its place was a pony.

“Not yet.” The new pony said, grinning. “The time will come for you to enter the big picture.”

All of the guards turned around upon hearing a newcomer, all looking at him. They raised their spears, ready to attack, however the pony stood still, looking unfazed.

Soon, Princess Celestia stood forward. “Infernus.” She greeted.

“But how?” Princess Luna asked. “How are there two-”

“-of me?” Infernus replied, cutting her off. “Yes, time travel is a weird thing actually. It’s actually a time travel phenomenon called the ‘fulfillment paradox theory’. And according to that, by coming back in time to help my past self, I fulfill my destiny. Or rather, what I witnessed and experienced two hundred and thirty years ago.”

“And I assume you would leave now?” Princess Celestia asked. “There’s only one way down.”

“Of course. I’m leaving right this instant, any longer and spacetime itself may crash like a computer’s processing unit full of viruses!”

So he walked over to the railing and grabbed onto it. “Hey. Remember to do the thing I asked you to a few millennia back.” He told Princess Luna, before hurling himself over the edge, falling down to the ground and landing right next to his past self.

~scene change~

In Pyro’s POV

Any second now. “Hey Hydro. Remember my watch?”

“That was the thing that created this whole conflict in the first place.” Hydrolus hissed. The topic of my watch angered the taint. My real friends would not do that.

Just then a figure dropped from the sky, landing right next to me. “By ‘remember my watch’, I mean, deal with the single timeline madness.” He said.

Of course, my future came to my rescue. I really want to stick to the timeline without any time travel, but some situations have caused me to use the watch as a method of strategy.

He pushed my out of the way, the mana redirected to him. He completed the cycle with his mana burst toward Silver.

The other four ponies were taken aback at there being two of the same pony, so they temporarily lost their focus, weakening their mana. However, the mana was still strong enough to complete the cycle. The sky turned ominously dark at that point. With the little time that I have, I rushed over to the wooden cage. Twilight stood there, looking at me with a confused face.

“Don’t mind the future, he’s just doing his thing.” I say, summoning arcane fire to burn away the wood. Once the wood is completely burnt, I helped Twilight out.

“Run as fast as possible, warn all the ponies that there will be an apocalypse.” I say.

“It’s not that bad!” My future shouted back.

“Ok then. It’s not that-” Lightning struck the ground just ahead of us. “-bad. Very bad. Go. Run!”

Twilight started running away from the circle as fast as she could. I’ll have to trust that she knows what to do.

“To be completely honest, I don’t think she did what you told very well.” I hear from behind me. I turn around to find a black void starting to consume some of the energy of the fabric of spacetime. I just had enough time to realise the special ability from the cutie mark of whoever completed the cycle is the type or cause of destruction that is summoned by the cycle. Will be handy in the future.

The void that is consuming reality is luckily under control by the mana it's surrounded by. The five ponies are keeping it up, though it looks like they can’t handle it much longer. Chaos and turmoil struck the ponies nearby, as they started to scream and run helter-skelter in all directions away from the void.

Soon after, the void exploded, sending the five ponies backwards, before imploding, absorbing most of the explosion, but imploded even further into a miniscule black hole. Some of the branches from the house-tree were sucked right into the event horizon.

“Sweet! A black hole!” The future me shouts. He looks like he’s wearing goggles of some kind. Don’t know what it does, but will in the future. “This close to a planet too!”

“I’ve never seen one this close before!” I shouted back. I try to pull myself away from the area of effect of the large vacuum.

“Don’t worry, this one is tiny and it’ll only eat up about a third of this world before dying off due to the Hawking radiation!” The future me shout back. I look at him, perplexed.

“And you’re just going to stand there?” I asked. “Do something! Anything! This world does not deserve to die!”

“Oh alright. But turn around.” He calmly spoke.

I pouted before turning around 180 degrees on the spot. A few moments later, the vacuum force died down and the black hole was gone, however in its wake there lies a large hole.

The moment I feel the air stop moving, I turn around, only to see my future self holding up a jar with a black mess contained within it. He stuffed it into his bag before turning to see me peeking.

“How did you...” I started questioning my future, to which I will undoubtedly learn how to contain a black hole in what looks like a pickle jar. “Never mind.”

“That back there was not too difficult.” My future self smiled at me. “Takes a bit of practice of containing objects in a jar. What you are most likely wandering about is the parts to your watch right now. All I can say is that it is a scavenger hunt around these parts, none of them flew off to another time period.”

I smiled internally. “What about the other ponies?” I pointed towards the four.

“They’ll be fine. It looks like the black hole has sucked the taint straight out of their minds, don’t exactly know how. Just let them rest for a few moments.”

“And you’ll be here because you can’t teleport an unconscious pony.” I looked at my future self, rolling my eyes.

“And also I’m hungry. Time traveling can take a lot out of ya.”

“Heh. Agreed.”

Not long after I finished my sentence, we hear a few clanking of metals. A blimp has landed nearby and some guards in royal looking armor stepped out, escorting what looks to be a winged unicorn. No, two winged unicorns. One white and one dark blue. They also seem to be wearing crowns?

Both of them are surrounded by guards, two on each side of their body. And they are heading right this way.

I stood my ground, while my future self was nowhere to be seen. I would assume he has teleported somewhere else.

Meanwhile, the other four ponies started waking up one by one.

“Urgh... what happened?” Silver spoke up.

I started heading their direction, but a voice stopped me. “Stand your ground.”

Apparently it came from the white winged unicorn. “You are to stay there and await further instruction.”

I was then surrounded by guards. They all pointed their spears at me as if I were some sort of criminal. Well, perhaps I may be held responsible for creating a large hole behind the library of this town, but that’s years later.

“Nah, I’m fine. Get someone else to help me stand there, I’m gonna go help my friends.” I said. I tried to push past the guards. Keyword: tried. They stood so still that they may have become dense rocks that just wouldn’t budge. Well, I could try harder. The white winged unicorn is giving a speech now. I think that that is addressed to me, but I couldn’t tell as she is facing the other direction.

I lifted my hoof, preparing a telekinesis spell. With ease, I lifted a guard, creating a space for me to walk through. But, the guards were quicker, filling up the space in a matter of seconds. Even though that’s one less spear to deal with, it’s still a bit much. With an annoyed face I set down the guard a ways away from the circle, and used a bit more mana and lifted everyone who was surrounding me upwards.

“That’s not going to work.” The dark blue winged unicorn spoke up. She surrounded me in a spell bubble. I do not know what spell is used for the bubble, but I know that I can see through it. Well then. I set down the guards elsewhere.

I lifted my hoof again, whining a bit out of frustration. This time, I set up a teleposition spell. I can handle some mana usage fairly easily, but teleposition spells need superior concentration, which I am still working on.

I started focusing on the spell. The dark blue winged unicorn looked at me, perplexed. Once the spell was ready, I cast it. From everyone else’s point of view, I suddenly vanished. From my point of view, I just teleported.

Of course, I teleported right by Silver’s side, helping him up. The rest seem to be roughly awake enough to move. I gathered all of the ponies into one spot.

“Is everyone alright?” I ask. Hydrolus was groaning in pain, Silver can’t seem to feel his wings, Arborus broke his glasses and Terrae feels numb. Great.

We were then trapped inside a yellow dome. I look out to see the white winged unicorn expending her magic to keep us in here.

“Would you mind letting us out? We have a hospital to get to.” I ask very politely.

“Not until we can determine how large of a threat you are to our society.” She answered.

“Heh. Seems legit. What I asked was, ‘Can we please get to the hospital now?’ I’m pretty sure my friends are-”

“And I am pretty sure that you are definitely a threat to our-”

“And I am undoubtedly sure that I should not interrupt someone when they are speaking, even if I look like a monarch!” Yes, I interrupted her interruption.

“Well, for your information I am the co-monarch of these lands.” The white winged unicorn said.

“But still, you should not interrupt what I was saying.” I am getting very annoyed.

“Sis, I don’t think you should enrage this pony.” The dark blue winged unicorn spoke up from behind her.

“And why not? He almost vaporised Ponyville by creating a black hole! His friends helped too!”

“But I stopped it, didn’t I?” I said. My anger was getting the best of me. I started quivering due to who-knows-what reason.

“Even so, you are not going anywhere. This shield I’ve put up is the strongest shield I’ve ever created. Nothing can get in or out!” The white winged unicorn said, very fiercely and confidently.

I slowly lifted my hoof. I had a telekinesis spell up. Nearby, my sword started getting affected by the spell and started to move. It began to unsheath itself from the ground and when it was halfway out, It flew at high speeds toward the spell bubble, rotated and contacted with the bubble using the tip of the slicing end. My anger increased the raw force of the telekinesis, pushing the sword into the barrier. The yellow dome started to crack where the stress was.

I started to calm down, but also started to become serious. The force on the bubble increased threefold. The bubble cracked further, however the white winged unicorn was upkeeping it at what seems to be her full strength. With each passing second, my eye colour started to drain as if it were actual paint being sucked out of its can, and in the blue’s place there filled a red that resembled the crimson of blood.

My frown increased. I stopped shaking in my place and slowly stood up. I lit my body on fire. My left ear was twitching. The force on the sword decreased a slight bit, before increasing thirtyfold, shattering the shield completely, the sword piercing through the ground. I lifted up the sword using telekinesis, pointed it at the winged unicorns.

“I’m pretty sure I brought my point across. I am going to bring my friends to the hospital, and you will not stop me.” I said in a very calm but strict tone. “Or else, the consequences would be catastrophic.”

Author's Note

A/n: Yay, chapter is done! Time travel is a weird and goofy thing. More on that later. Yes, the sword is very strong. ‘Arcane purification techniques’, remember? This chapter was definitely a hassle to write not only being long and quite paradox-y but also my laptop cannot type double letters as fast. Like, pressing any key twice will only register one press if pushed too quickly.

In the next chapter: Pyro brings his friends to the hospital, which there he learns that a portal has been established from their planet to this one. Later, some taint flows through and fun stuff happens.