The Time

A sandstorm blew through the narrow streets of Klugetown, a settlement located in the middle of the desert that is known as being 'outside the law' according to its locals, many of whom have came here to continue on their nefarious ways away from civilization.

In one store, a rat manned the register, he did not except much business that day due to the storm outside, but still kept his store open just in case. He was snapped out of his boredom by the sound of the door chimes ringing and the sounds of boots on the wooden floor. He looked up to see a strange creature he had never seen before, almost looked like a hairless ape apart from the large mess of curly hair on his head. The strange creature just calmly walked up to the rat store owner.

"You have any maps?" the creature calmly asked the owner in a flat, almost bored, tone.

"What kind?" the owner asked suspiciously.

"Maps of Equestria." he answered plainly.

The rat just raised an eyebrow. "Equestria? Why would anyone want to go to that saccharine place? Look, buddy, Equestria is too good for you and-" he was swiftly silenced when he suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a pistol.

"Did I stutter? Maps, now." the creature said in a more threatening tone.

"Okay, okay, just give me a moment." he said as he went down under the counter only to instead reach for a wooden bat. The creature promptly shot the rat right through his hand before he could reach it. "Fuck!" he screamed out in pain as he saw a large bloody hole in his hand. "Look, buddy, if you came here to rob the place, just take what you want and leave okay?" he whimpered in pain.

The creature calmly put down his pistol and walked over behind the counter to get what he requested as the store owner just kept out of the way. He grabbed the appropriate maps and stuffed them all in his bag. He then placed a red gem on the counter. "This should help pay for the hospital bills, pleasure doing business." he said before he calmly walked off.

Once outside, the man placed a rag over his mouth and nose, and a pair of sunglasses over his eyes before he walked off in the dusty streets of the town.

He soon found himself in a seedy motel, his room bathed in the red neon lights from the signs outside. He looked over some old military files that he stole a few months back as he studied over the schematics of the bomb that was left behind in this strange land of the far future. He then grabbed his cup of coffee from the nightstand and drank from it while he turned his attention to a newspaper. He could not read its contents but the headline did include a photo of the one person that interested him and he smirked. "Adam Grey..." he said as he looked forward to meeting him.

"Thanks once again for teleporting the time machine here Princess Luna." nodded Danni as she checked out her machine to see if it was still travel worthy.

"No problem." responded Luna with a smile as she and Adam looked over at her and the machine. They were all in Luna's study, since later during the night, there was to be a masquerade ball to commemorate the first Nightmare Night since Celestia's passing. Luna felt that it was time to move on from mourning and return to normality for the sake of everyone.

Adam walked over to his human companion. "Everything looking okay?" he asked as he gazed upon the machine, and how advanced it looked.

"Works perfectly." Danni smiled as she sat down on the leather seat. She then got up and stepped out of the machine. "So, your highness." she turned to Luna. "Do you know where Celestia would've kept the nuclear bomb?" she asked her as she got down to business.

"Ever since the palace was destroyed, any personal documents that may have indicated where she kept it were lost, and me and Royal Guard Gleaming did our best to recover as much as we could from the ruins." she thought back. "We found nothing."

"The bomb had to have survived the explosion, or else there would've been an even bigger bang." Danni stated while in thought. "Maybe I'll go ask your guard Gleaming if he saw anything." she proposed, it was the only other solid lead she got.

"He should be in his private quarters on the top floor." Luna directed the human.

Danni nodded and started to walk off, leaving Adam and Luna alone. Once Danni was out of the room, Luna turned her attention to the other human. "Must be nice being reunited with a member of your species, especially a female one." she began.

"It is, but also complicated at the same time." Adam admitted. "She can be a little too...liberated for my tastes." he explained before he turned to leave. "See you tonight your highness." he bowed slightly to her before he left the room.

As Adam walked down the hallways, he caught up with Danni who was about to head up to the top floor. "Hope to see you tonight at the ball?" he asked her.

Danni turned around. "Why of course Adam, I'll be there." she assured.

"By the way," he began. "Once this whole thing is over, once your mission has been fulfilled, you are free to stay here if you want." he offered.

Danni smiled at Adam. "I'd love to, but unlike you, I actually have a life back in my home time period." she explained. "But thank you for putting up with me though, I appreciate it." she nodded, thankful for the hospitality given to her.

"Just don't get into any trouble while you're up there." Adam smiled in return.

"I'll try, but I can't guarantee it." Danni joked before she turned around and ran up the stairs.

Adam shook his head in disbelief and walked off. "I've been away from other humans for far too long..."

On the very top floor of the castle, where the ceiling was low to the point where Danni had to crane her neck, she came across the private room of one of Luna's loyal guards; Gleaming, she then knocked on the door.

"What?" was the response she got from the room's occupant.

"Just wanted to ask you a few questions, this is Danni, one of Luna's human guests." she explained.

After about a minute, the door opened, and Danni ducked through it to enter the small room, it was about the size of a standard dorm room from her Air Force academy days, but felt slightly more cramped than usual due to the various pieces of basic furniture and posters lining the walls, and apart from a small skylight, there was no source of natural light giving the room a slightly darker atmosphere. "Well, ask away." Gleaming said as he sat down on his bed, he still had on his normal guard uniform.

Danni just sat down on the bed next to him since there was no other comfortable place in the cramped room. "You helped Luna in the recovery of any items that survived the old palace's destruction right?"

"Yeah, me and some other guards, but I was the one that oversaw the entire thing." he stated.

"Did you ever encounter something...unusual?" she tried her best to explain.

"Like in what way?" he asked suspiciously, his eyes suddenly narrowed.

"Oh you know, something that is not of this kingdom, planet or...time period." she specified. "Something big, heavy and made of metal."

"Look, I've been a loyal member of the guards for five years now, and I have never once found anything fitting that description." he assured.

"Yeah, I thought you wouldn't." she sighed as she began to casually look around the room, walls plastered with photos of pony, griffon and minotaur pin-up models and pro-guard propaganda posters, just like the typical guard...maybe too typical, she thought to herself. She then turned to see a large stack of books on his small desk, they were the equally typical military themed books, but something underneath the books caught her eye, it looked like advanced schematics, schematics that looked awfully familiar to her. And this is the bomb that they left behind in the future; a Mark 4 nuclear bomb... she remembered the mission briefing and the projector that showed her almost the exact same schematics.

"Any other questions you wanted to ask me ma'am?" Gleaming asked with suspicion as his eyes briefly gave out a greenish shimmer.

Danni snapped out of her thoughts. "Oh no, it's nothing, I guess I'll get going." she then got up and began to walk out of the room only to see something fall out of the room's wardrobe and crash on the floor.

"Help...me..." it gasped, an emaciated version of Gleaming begged, too weak to move. Danni stood back in utter shock at the sight, only to bump into the other Gleaming. She turned around startled only to see a bug-like creature before as it lunged and hissed at her.

After Adam tried on the costume Rarity made for him, he walked into his guest chambers only to be met by the sounds of a beautiful sweet voice that hummed a tune. The human smirked as he knew exactly what it was, he happily looked around the room and saw his lovely wife in front of a mirror as she brushed her long wet pink mane, fresh out of the shower.

"So you had a shower without me?" Adam teased as he sat down on the bed to rest.

"Well, if I did, we wouldn't get out and we'd missed the party." Fluttershy winked as she finished brushing. "Although I wouldn't mind that at all." she blushed.

Adam laid back on the bed and stared at the gilded vaulted ceiling. "I just want to get this fancy masquerade thing over with, I had a hard enough time making through that Celestia memorial statue unveiling as is." he sighed as he felt guilty of being part of a lie to protect Celestia's reputation.

Fluttershy sensed her husband was trouble and she floated over to the human and cuddled up next to him on the bed to comfort him. She placed her head down on his chest as the human began to stroke her back, she knew that would comfort him.

Luna walked into her private chambers, relieved that she finally managed to find a few hours of alone time during her busy schedule. All the windows in her chambers were blacked out to simulate the night time, but she navigated the dark room quite well. After she made sure her pet opossum Tiberius was fed, she went over to her bed to rest and think of something she could do during her free time.

"Princess Luna?" said a voice that startled the princess. Luna got up and quickly lit up her horn to brighten up the room, only to see her faithful guard Gleaming before her.

"Gleaming? How did you get in here without my permission?" she asked suspiciously.

"The same way you do of course." he chuckled as suddenly his horn changed to be an exact copy of Luna's horn. The princess' eyes went wide in shock and she quickly got out of bed and ready to fight.

"You're a changeling are you? For how long?" she snarled as her horn glowed brighter.

"Three years." Gleaming smirked. "So long enough to know a lot about you."

"Any other changeling spies I should know about?" she asked.

"Nope, I'm the last of my kind." he explained. "Which means I have nothing to lose." he smirked.

"And what do you want from me?" she growled.

"Tell the truth about what really happened to Celestia, tell your loyal subjects about how she went crazy and was murdered." he chuckled. "Tell them that their precious princess didn't die as a hero, but as a villain."

"And if I don't?" Gleaming used his new horn to teleport in the room the nuclear warhead. Luna was stunned by the sight, the bomb that Danni wanted to find, the bomb that Luna knew would completely wipe all of Canterlot off the map. "You don't know what power you're dealing with...." she warned.

"I don't give a damn about that, if I die, I would be glad to take all of Canterlot with me." he snarled angrily at Luna. "This whole thing could've been avoided if you had giving my queen the love she wanted, now it is time to pay for your kind's misdeeds, you have until the ball tonight to tell them the truth, or else this whole city will become a smoldering crater, and don't you dare tell anyone about this." he warned before he and the bomb disappeared.

Luna just stood there as she tried to absorb what just happened.

Starlight Glimmer lounged in the palace's new conservatory as she basked under the warm sun, the outside air of the garden was a bit too crisp for her especially with autumn having started. As she lounged, she had a large tome levitating before her, it was an old advanced spell she got from the archives than explained the radical magic that is 'time magic'.

As she read, her mind readily absorbed everything written inside, although the fact that it was written in 'Middle Equestrian' made it slightly harder to comprehend.

Travelling through time is like teleportation, but with an added fourth dimension the tome read. That was easier said than done for Starlight. "Come on Glim, you can do this, it'll be all worth it..." she mumbled to herself.

Danni slowly woke up to find herself in what appeared to be a cellar with large metal pipes that ran along the walls, she assumed that she was in the utility corridor of the castle. She tried to get up, but soon found herself stuck, she looked over to see that she was shackled by the wrist to one of the nearby pipes. "Well, not the first time I woke up like this." she mumbled.

"I see you are finally awake." said Gleaming as he worked on the large nuclear warhead.

"So, you're a shape-shifting bug, what else should I know about you?" asked Danni as she sat up into a more comfortable position.

Gleaming turned to look at the human. "The name is Thorax, and yes I am a shape-shifting bug, and you should consider yourself lucky because we can't shift as bipedal creatures, only quadrupeds." he explained as he got back to arming the device.

"So why keep me tied up?" Danni wondered.

"Why?" he asked incredulously. "So I can feed on your love to sustain myself." he smirked as he then walked over to the human. "Don't worry, this won't hurt...much." he chuckled. Danni's surroundings suddenly went dark for her, as she felt herself gradually fade away into a black void.

Music began to play as the Nightmare Night masquerade ball, all of the invited ponies wore masks that covered their eyes with the mares overtly elaborate ball gowns and stallions in flamboyant court dress. Luna was the only one unmasked as she stood by the ballroom entrance and greeted all of the invited guests.

Outside in the ballroom patio, Starlight just looked out into the Canterlot skyline and the especially beautiful night sky that Luna made for the occasion. The mare just sighed out of boredom, she was not in the mood to socialize.

"Starlight? Is that you?" asked a masked unicorn stallion. Starlight looked over with confusion. "It is you!" he said with surprise as he took off his mask with his magic. "It's me, Sunburst, my goodness, it has been so long." he smiled, glad to reunite with a foalhood friend.

"Oh hey." was all the mare could say apprehensively, she was glad to see her old friend again, but felt like she did not deserve such a reunion, especially after all of the success he has achieved in relation to her.

"Aren't you glad to see me again Star?" he asked a bit surprised by the reception. Starlight cringed slightly from her foalhood nickname being uttered.

Starlight sighed. "I am, don't get me wrong Sun, it's just that...I think it's best that you have nothing to do with me." she explained as she looked away in shame.

"Star, we all make mistakes, I understand-"

"I forced someone to snap their lover's neck!" the mare snapped. "I think that's more severe than just a 'mistake'." she refused to look at him. "Now just leave, you were right to abandon me when you earned your cutie mark."

Sunburst looked at his old foalhood friend with stunned silence. "When you are ready to move on and relive old times again, just let me know." was all he said before he sadly trotted away back inside. Starlight just shook her head and turned to look back out at the balcony, but something got caught in her periphery vision; a flash of light. She looked down to the ground far below to see something carry a torch inside one of the sewage pipes. This roused her curiosity.

Danni tried to free herself from the pipe, but she knew it was futile without a key or a pick. She sighed with defeat and looked over at the bomb, the thing she was sent to recover, teasingly near her yet so far away. "Oh well sir, you see, there was this shape-shifting bug who wanted to blow up the kingdom for revenge, it was no big deal." she played the scenario out to herself.

She then saw the room start to brighten up as she saw someone that carried a torch walk up to her, and to her astonishment, it was another human, one that was not supposed to be here. He stood before her as he looked both at her and at the bomb. "So, I see the Americans have sent a woman to do a man's job?" he said dryly but with a slight hint of mockery in his tone.

"If you want, I can go to the kitchen and make you a knuckle sandwich." she snarled back. "You must be the traitor?"

"Traitor?" he laughed off the accusation. "More like savior, all in the name in giving my people their homeland they were promised." he said as he went over to check out the bomb.

Danni shook her head in disbelief. "Well of course you have to be a Zionist." she muttered.

He gave her a serious look and crouched down beside her. "You say that like it is a bad thing." he said in a low voice before he got up to look over at the bomb. "I see someone got this all nice and armed for me." he said, somewhat surprised at the positive turn of events for him. He then heard someone walk in and quickly hid away in a dark corner. He then quietly motioned Danni to remain silent.

Danni was confused, but quickly acted as if nothing happened as Thorax trotted in. "Time to make my showstopping debut." he chuckled as he went over to the bomb and carefully and methodically removed the bomb's core. He was careful not to make any sudden movements least he destabilizes the entire thing. Once the entire core was removed, Thorax began to laugh maniacally. "Soon, I, Thorax, will finally avenge my hive's destruction and-" he was ruthlessly cut short from a bullet that caused his entire head to explode in an explosion of blue colored slime and mist.

The man calmly walked out of the shadows completely unfazed, unlike Danni who was wide eyed in shock with some blue slime on her. He picked up the slime and exoskeleton covered core and gently placed it in his pack. Danni desperately tried to free herself from her bounds. The man saw that and suddenly shot the pipe open, causing Danni's bounds to slip off, freeing her. He then pointed his gun at her. "You're coming with me, now tell me where your time machine is." he demanded, he motioned to the sensitive core in his bag.

Danni looked at the man with disgust, but she reluctantly went over to him, she felt that it was best to cooperate with him for now, least he blows up everything that she has become attached to during her stay in Equestria. "I'll lead you to it...just be careful with that thing..." she referred to the bag.

The man forcibly grabbed her by the arm and practically dragged her out of the room, but his way was suddenly blocked by an unwanted sight; Starlight Glimmer.

"Okay, what's going on here?" the unicorn demanded, her horn glowed, ready to attack.

"Starlight, please no." Danni pleaded, she did not want her to get hurt, especially since Starlight did not seem to know what she was dealing with.

"You let her go!" Starlight ignored the pleads as she growled at the mysterious curly haired man.

"How about no!" he responded before he drew his weapon and shot Starlight square in the chest. The bullet flew by too fast for Starlight to react and generate a shielding spell. She fell to the floor with a face of shock permanently etched on her.

Danni froze in pure horror as she was dragged away, too much in shock to put up a fight as she was a friend dead on the floor.

At the party upstairs, everything went by smoothly as if nothing happened. That is until Luna used her magic to loudly tap on a nearby champagne class to grab all the guests' attention. The crowd and the band went silent to allow everyone to hear what their princess was about to say. "Thank you, thank you all for making this a successful masquerade ball." she began. The crowd murmured in agreement. "As you all know, this past year has been a great adjustment for not only myself, but for all of you, but I have been doing my best to be the best ruler I could be." she explained humbly. She sighed and looked down at the notes she hastily wrote down on her napkin, where she paid attention to one word in particular; 'abdicate'.

She looked at the crowd who waited with baited breath as to what she would say next. Adam, and Twilight and her friends also looked at her. She took a deep breath and was about to say what she wanted to next, but the silence was suddenly broken when someone barged through the large banquet doors.

Everyone looked to see Starlight Glimmer limp herself inside, a long trail of blood followed behind her. "We have...a problem..." she panted, exhausted and weak. Before she could say anything else, she collapsed on the floor.

"Someone get a doctor!" yelled a pony in the crowd. One of the first ponies to come to her aide was Sunburst himself.

"Help me get her to my chambers, quick! The longer we wait, the less effective my treatment would be!" he demanded as he wrapped an unconscious Starlight in his cape. "Now!"

Adam quickly run up to Sunburst and helped lift Starlight off the floor, and helped carry her up to Sunburst's room.

Starlight felt herself float endlessly through a void. "Hello?" she said as her words echoed across the vast emptiness.

"Hello Starlight Glimmer." said a new voice.

Starlight turned around and was stunned at the sight before her. "Princess Celestia?" her jaw dropped in surprise as before her stood the former princess herself.

"What's left of her." she explained ominously.

"Am I..." she gulped, intimidated by the sight before her. "...dead?"

"Yes, but not too far gone." she stated. "You want to live?"

"Well, yeah I want to live." Starlight stated. "I can't just die without exacting my revenge." she continued. "Not when HE is alive." she mumbled.

"Adam?" Celestia asked for clarification.

"Who else?"

Celestia thought for a moment. "Then I will let you live, and I will give you whatever ability you want...for a price." she offered.

Starlight smirked, the offer was much too good to pass up. "Any ability?" The alicorn silently nodded in response. "And what's the price?"

"For someone to die." Celestia responded. "And I think you and I both have someone in mind for that."

"Then I have one ability in mind." Starlight began.

Three days later...

Starlight slowly stirred awake, her head pounded, and her entire body felt sore and limp. "Ugh...I feel like I got run over by a train..." she mumbled to herself. She looked around at her surroundings only to find herself in a different room in the palace, and only to see her old foalhood friend on a chair next to the bed, asleep. The mare tried to get up, but found felt some pain shoot across her body and groaned in response.

"Starlight?" Sunburst slowly stirred awake from the sounds of the groans.

"Get Adam for me...now!" Starlight demanded weakly.

Adam stood in thought after he took in everything Starlight told him about Danni and the other human who shot her. "He took Danni's time machine." Adam explained to the mare. "We don't know where his time machine is..."

"What if you don't need a time machine to get to them?" Starlight began. Adam looked at her with confusion. "What if time travel without the aid of a machine was possible?"

"You're talking about using magic to achieve this feat are you?" the human said as he looked at her.

"I know it's a long shot, but I've been studying the spells, reading everything I could, and I think I may know how to do it." Starlight explained.

"But Twilight said that's-"

"It's not impossible if you use it efficiently." Starlight interrupted. "Besides, finding his machine could take months, and the more that machine stays idle, the less reliable it becomes."

Adam thought about what Starlight said, his only hope so far lies with a mare he did not have a great past with. "How can I be sure I could trust you?" he asked her.

"Because I'm all you have." Starlight was quick to point out.

The human stared at her, but realized that there was no better option left, he needed to save Danni and stop the man as quickly as possible before that bomb gets used.

"If only I had known about that bomb sooner, I could've destroyed it..." Luna said with slight shame as she barged into the room. Both Adam and Starlight looked at her.

"You couldn't have known..." Adam tried to assure her.

"Look, I have a feeling that a small talking unicorn would attract too much unwanted attention in the human era, so I want Starlight to drink this potion shortly before you two leave." she instructed as she then produced a vile filled with a peach colored liquid. Adam grabbed the vile and looked at it closely. "You have 48 hours before the potion wears off."

"Which means we have 48 hours to find the bomb before we get exposed as being strangers to the time period." Starlight added.

Luna nodded before she turned to look out the window. "I wonder what other secrets my sister has kept from me." she asked herself as she looked at Celestia's former sun.

"Don't worry your highness, we'll fix this, and we'll stop him and save Danni." Adam assured. "Now the question we should be asking ourselves is this; WHEN did they go?" he asked.

June 11, 1999
Allentown, Pennsylvania

A young man with spiky hair drove his van down the Pennsylvania countryside as he banged his head to the beat of the latest alternative hit that blared from his stereo. He enjoyed the song so much that he briefly forgot to pay attention to the road, and looked up to see two figures that stood in the middle of the road. "Oh shit!" he yelled as he successfully swerved around the pair and stopped the van. He quickly got of the van to confront the pair. "Hey, what the fuck is your problem? You're standing in the middle of the street!" he complained to them.

The man with curly hair quickly pulled out a gun and pointed it at the young man. "Woah there, what's your deal?" the young man reflexively put his hands up in fear.

"I need your van." he demanded in a dry yet menacing tone.

"Okay, okay, fine, you can have it, keys are in the ignition!" he pleaded as he watched the man with the gun drag his female companion over to his van.

"Please doing business." the man said before he pointed his weapon down and shot the young man in the foot.

"Fuck!" he yelled out in pain as he collapsed on the pavement. "These were new Converses you asshole!" he cradled his bloody foot in pain as the man and his hostage got in the van and drove off.

The van sped down the road, as Danni looked at the man and then to the bomb laid on the backseats. "My name is Zechariah, what's yours?" he asked, his eyes glued to the road.

"Danni..." she answered as she still tried to take in her current situation, and the fact that she was back in her home time period, although off by three months.

"Well, Danni, just be a cooperative hostage, and nothing bad will happen okay?" he instructed in a threatening manner. "Right now, you're just a shield, this has nothing to do with you."

"Bullshit." she exclaimed. "This had everything to do with me the moment I was sent on this mission!" she snarled at the man.

"And here I thought that you Americans were supposed to be our allies." Zechariah began. "You were the ones who shared with us the time travelling technology, you were the ones who let us borrow some of your weapons, you were the ones who protected us, but I guess I was wrong, you Americans are more concerned about covering your asses than protecting our homeland." he growled in a low voice. "Anything else you want to say to me?"

Danni just looked at the man in stunned silence, he was determined to get what he wanted. "Mind if we listen to some sports talk radio?" she nervously asked. For now, it was best for her to just be quiet and go along with whatever he demanded, least she'd risk angering him further. It was good to be back home.

To be continued...