Twilight was in the Canterlot Archives, surrounded by huge, complex old books. She was gracefully changing books with an impressive speed, completely engrossed. She was too absorbed to notice something was wrong in that library.
Everything was too quiet and too calm. As if the time had just stopped around her, waiting for something unavoidable to happen. A shadow was lurking by the corners of the library, totally quiet, without calling the attention of Twilight, who was fully concentrated in her books.
The shadow approached more and more the young pony, meticulously planning its attack. Twilight noticed a nervous breath in her back and she doubted wether to turn back or not…
PINKIE!
Pinkie couldn’t stop laughing. Twilight was as red as a purple tomato.
- Pinkie! You can’t go around scaring people like that! And what is that costume?
- It’s an evil spider, duh! The other day I found one in my window. It was HUGE! I wanted to kill it with a slipper, but I thought, “Pinkie, you don’t use slippers!” and…
Twilight calmed down, stopped listening to Pinkie and returned with her amazing reading.
- …with bright eyes in the cephalothorax, and it said “Crii, crii, criii!” can you believe it? ...
The books that Twilight was reading so carefully had a common topic, the distant past. She always had wondered if there had been something in the world before the ponies, and she was about to find the answer.
- …big mygalomorphs that produce neurotoxic polypeptides, making the prey…
She felt a deep curiosity about how could be the world described in the books and the idea of using a spell to travel to past was in her mind.
- …commonly known as “Hypochilidae Asustacecis”… Hey, watcha reading?
- It’s a fascinating book. It’s about the past!
- Uh, uh! It’s about big dragons and manticores and other awesome creatures?
- Pinkie, that’s the present. It’s about some fantastic creatures that inhabited the world many years before the ponies and how the life of these creatures was, but, to be honest, it doesn’t have too much information about them. So I want to go to the past and see for myself!
- Cool! Like in that show of the doctor who travels to future and kicks alien asses and there are explosions and stuff! Something Whooves, it’s called. So, why aren’t we doing it already?
- The books don’t give an exact date, and all of them gave a different approximation… I can try to calculate the exact date, but I need to concentrate in it, so, please, could you stay at the door and don’t let anybody disturb me?
- Got it!
Pinkie was on guard duty in front of the Archives door. She was marching with a broom in her hands when Rainbow Dash and Applejack appeared.
- Hey, Pinkie, did you see Twilight? – asked Applejack.
- Yeah! She’s in there!
- Is she busy? We need to talk to her about something – said Rainbow.
- Yes, she’s really really busy right now! She asked me to not let anybody disturb her while she’s working!
- And… What’s she doing exactly?
- SCIENCE!
Applejack and Rainbow decided to go away while Pinkie proceeded with her march. It’d be better not to interrupt Twilight when she’s working in something.
Many hours later, Pinkie was tired of waiting at the door because nopony was around there. Pinkie wanted to enter and ask Twilight how much she needed to wait, but interrupting her was against the orders that Twilight gave to her!
Meh, who cares?
Pinkie went to the Archives and saw Twilight writing things, completely concentrated in it. It is the best not to interr-
- Twilight! I spent hoooours at the door! How much longer until you finish?
- Actually, I’m almost done! I just need to calculate one more thing and we will be ready to go! The only problem is that I can transport to the past a maximum of two ponies! And I have to be one of them, obviously…
- Take me! Take me!
- … Okay…
Twilight doubted that bringing Pinkie with her was a good idea. She could scare the creatures with her jumps and shouts, but she had no choice. Pinkie had helped her a lot and maybe she wasn’t as carefree as Twilight had thought.
- Okay, everything is ready. Step on that circle, and remember, we don’t know what kind of civilization have those creatures. We don’t know if they can communicate with us or if they are hostile, or even intelligent. We have to be cautious, okay?
- Got it!
Twilight prepared everything, stepped in the circle with Pinkie and started to conjure the time travel spell. She was concentrated in the exact temporal coordinates. She wanted to be precise. That made the spell to take extra time. Also, the distance in time was really long and that required a lot of concentration and skill.
Rays and sparkles flooded the room. A colorful tide filled everything, changing from one color to another gradually in a beautiful rainbow of magic and mysticism.
Pinkie was tripping balls.
First a crack, then everything went black. A white light illuminated Pinkie’s face, then, suddenly, everything was gone.
Twilight woke up in a strange room. The walls looked like they were made with a very strong metal, like they were made to protect something. The room was very small, or maybe it only looked like it was because of the huge panel full of buttons that covered a whole wall from corner to corner.
The panel was totally covered by buttons and shiny lights. It was lucky that Pinkie was unconscious; she would have pressed all the buttons…
Twilight noticed that there were two creatures in the room. They were strange and they weren’t alike any other creature that Twilight knew. Well, maybe a big monkey. They were dressed elegantly and it seemed that they were speaking with each other, so they should be intelligent without a doubt. Twilight decided that the best thing to do would be to introduce herself kindly and maybe they wouldn’t be scared of her.
- Etjem… Hello, creatures of the past! My name is Twil…
The two creatures turned and aimed Twilight with an impressive speed with strange artifacts that were probably weapons, but when they saw Twilight they were frozen for a moment, as if their brains couldn’t process what they were looking at properly.
- Wha- Why the heck is a horse in there?! – asked one of the creatures.
- I’m not a horse! I’m a pony! And my name is Twil…
- A freaking talking horse!
- I am not a horse! I am a pony! And my name is Twilight!
The creatures looked at each other, still not understanding what was going on in that room. When they calmed down, they started to whisper, and then they reached an agreement.
- Twi… Twilight, right? Where are you from? Are you… from space?
- No! I’m from the future! I’m from a little village called Ponyville. It’s small but…
- From future?!
The creatures started to whisper again. Twilight was beginning to grow impatient, but she was excited because she was talking to real creatures from the past.
- Well… Uh… My name is Frank, and he is Carl. Twilight, do you know where you are right now?
- To be honest, I have no idea where or when I am.
- You are in a secret laboratory in the United States of America in 2015. Nobody who doesn’t work for the Government of the United States should be in this place. We work with sensitive materials. Do you understand?
- I think so… I can assure you we will not cause you more problems. We only wanted to see how the creatures of this era were. And it was a great discovery!
- “Humans”. The name is “humans”… And... What do you mean with “we”?
“UH, BUTTONS!”
Pinkie had woken up and the first thing she saw was the control panel with all its buttons, lights, levers and funny stuff that she loved so much. Without thinking it twice, Pinkie pressed the biggest and prettiest button she saw.
The humans were astonished for a moment. A flickering red light accompanied a shrill alarm and Twilight felt that something was really wrong in there. Pinkie was jumping of joy.
- Wh- Wha- What have you done?! That button activates the nuclear missiles. The coordinates weren’t set, they will explode anytime and towards anywhere in the world!
- So… It wasn’t the party button?
- We have to go to the missiles room. We can deactivate them if it’s not too late.
Twilight, Pinkie and the two humans ran thought the long corridor to the missiles room without saying a word. The humans ran as if everything depended on it.
When they were at the door to the missiles room Frank looked inside through the window and saw how the countdown was at 5 seconds left. Knowing that it was too late, the only thing he could do was shout “Run!!”
The missile shot out from there. It reached a high altitude before falling to the ground. Twilight observed how the humans ran trying to save the life, uselessly.
Twilight, despite their screams and the noise of the alarm, heard a big explosion in her back, far, but not so much. She heard how walls, roofs, doors and partitions broke down, and she decided to close her eyes and run as fast as she could.
Twilight opened her eyes, she was confused and dizzy, she looked around and she could distinguish Pinkie Pie next to her. They were back at the Canterlot Archives.
She woke up Pinkie shaking her.
- Pinkie… We have destroyed a whole civilization… Probably we killed thousands of humans… Children… whole families…
- Yeah… I’m hungry! Do you want a sandwich?