The Time

June 11, 1999
Allentown, Pennsylvania

In a bright flash of light in a city alleyway, Adam stumbled out of the light and landed on a pile of garbage cans, covered in frost with steam that emanated from him. This felt much worse than the regular teleportation he was barely used to. He suddenly keeled over and vomited all over the pavement floor. "That was horrible..." he coughed as he tried to regain his balance. He slowly got up on his two feet and looked around. "Starlight? You alive?" he asked as he scanned the alleyway.

"Barely..." groaned Starlight as she crawled out of the darkness on her hands and knees, to Adam's surprise, Luna's potion worked, she was now a human. Adam ran up to her and helped her up so she can be on two feet. "...how do you humans do it? Stand on two feet?" she asked as she leaned up against him.

Adam blushed once he realized that Starlight was naked, of course ponies don't usually wear clothes, but now that she was human, her nudity was even more noticeable. "Come on, let's find you some clothes before someone sees you." he looked around the alleyway to see a back entrance with the words 'thrift store' written on the window.

After a successful break-in, both Adam and Starlight raided the store to look for clothes that they thought would be considered conspicuous for the era they are in. Starlight, being mostly clueless on human fashions just picked whatever caught her eye, a Red Hot Chili Peppers concert shirt and a pair of ripped denim jeans, and no underwear.

Once done, both Adam and Starlight sneaked out of the store and out into the streets of downtown. "By the way, what's with these things on my chest?" asked Starlight as she looked down at her bust. "Are these my teats?"

Pottstown, Pennsylvania

Outside of a motel, just outside the town, Zechariah went in to a phone booth and dialed in the number while he kept an eye on his hostage Danni, who sat inside the van bored. He waited patiently for someone to pick up the phone on the other end.

"Hello? This is Yavin Altmann speaking." said the person on the other end, unsure in who is calling.

"Brother, it's me, Zechariah." he began in Hebrew.

"Brother?!" Yavin was stunned. "What are you doing calling me? The CIA is already watching me because of what you did and-"

"Don't worry Yav, I won't be long, I just want you to get the machine ready." he instructed his brother. "And I know you have access, being diplomatic staff and all." he pointed out. "Now get it done, goodbye brother." he said before he swiftly hung up the phone before his brother could protest.

He left the phone booth and walked over to the van and Danni. "Now, come along and don't do anything stupid." he threatened her as he dragged her out of the van by the arm.

"Is this how you treat your dates?" Danni snarled.

"Just be quiet and act normal." he growled as he took her into the reception desk of the motel.

The receptionist sat back as he read the latest issue of Time Magazine. Zechariah tapped the bell to get his attention. The receptionist looked up at both him and Danni. "A room for the two of us for tonight." he requested in a low voice.

At a local diner, Adam and Starlight sat at a booth as Starlight gorged on some food, the time travelling has apparently made the mare turned human hungry from the amount of energy expended, she went through several meatless dishes, including several stacks of pancakes.

"You know, once you get used to walking on two feet, being a human isn't so bad." she said as she tried her best to use her new hands to eat. "So what now?" she asked Adam.

"Try to figure out where Danni and the bomb are being taken." Adam explained. "Now, if I were a wanted man with a nuclear weapon, where would I go?" he thought to himself.

"Well, I'd assume the embassy of his home country to claim asylum." Starlight suggest with her mouth full. "That's what I would do." she shrugged.

Adam looked at her before the thought crossed his mind. "Starlight, if that's the case, then they're on their way to Washington, the capital." he explained, he then waved over at one of the waitresses. "Excuse me ma'am, how far is it to Washington?" he asked her.

"About a three hour drive." she answered. "So, you two ready for the bill?" she asked the pair. Both Adam and Starlight suddenly looked at each other when they realized that they do not have any money on them.

Adam and Starlight quietly walked down the road outside of town as they waited for some kind of ride to pick them up, although since it was the middle of the night, it was increasingly unlikely.

"First time I dined and dashed in years." smiled Starlight.

"I just hope you are full and charged." Adam said bemused, he felt guilty for leaving that diner without paying.

"I bet you still don't like me." Starlight assumed.

"Well of course I still don't like you, after everything you've done to me and my wife?" he said annoyed. "I'm only putting up with you because you're our only method of getting back home."

She sighed in response. "I understand." she agreed. "But we sure had a good time together...at least at first..." she thought back.

"What we had at first was a loveless carnal relationship, if only I had known that you were just using me for your own gain." he said with shame.

"And if I didn't manipulate you?" she asked. "Would that carnal relationship evolve into something more?"

Adam looked away with even more shame before a large semi-truck suddenly stopped by the road next to them. A large rotund man with a thick white beard and Pittsburgh Pirates baseball cap popped his head out of the drivers side window. "Looking for a ride?" he asked the pair with a gruff voice.

"We're heading to Washington D.C. good sir." Adam answered.

"Well, I am heading to Baltimore which is on the way, so hop on if you don't mind spending the night at the nearby truck stop first." he explained to the couple.

Adam and Starlight decided to take their best hope for a ride and they both climbed into the cab. Adam sat on the passenger's seat while Starlight made herself comfortable in the truck's sleeper compartment. Once everyone was settled in, the driver began to resume its drive down the Pennsylvania countryside with country music the blared from the radio.

At a motel room, Danni was on one of the beds as she watched the small television that played the latest Tonight Show with Jay Leno. She then looked over to see Zechariah still by the window as he kept watch. "Do you sleep?" she asked him.

"Only when off-duty." he answered without his eyes breaking contact with the outside.

Starlight was soundly asleep in the sleeper compartment of the truck as it sped down the highway. "You got yourself a pretty nice catch." chuckled the truck driver, as he tried to make small talk with his mostly quiet passenger.

"Come again?" Adam asked confused by what he meant.

"Her, your girlfriend." he clarified, referring to Starlight. "You got lucky." he smirked.

"Oh no, she's not my girlfriend, she's just a travelling companion is all." Adam insisted.

"Right." the driver chuckled in disbelief, but decided to play along. "In my experience, a girl as beautiful as her doesn't stay as a travelling companion for long."

"And you say that because...?"

"Twenty-five years ago I married my travelling companion, she was a hitchhiker just like you two, and oh boy, did we hit it off instantly. Of course, that was back before I got this keg and before I nearly lost my foot due to diabetes." he joked as he pointed to his round belly. "Believe me, I was quite the lady killer back then."

"Well, I am already married, and me and her are only together because we happen to be going to the safe place, coincidentally." Adam said as made up a more believable story.

"Oh? Does your wife know you're travelling with a pretty little number?" he teased.

"She does." Adam answered.

The driver chuckled at that. "Sounds like a pretty understanding wife." he said as he drove down the highway.

June 12, 1999
Washington D.C.

Both Adam and Starlight got out of a station wagon and found themselves in front of Lafayette Square with the White House in the distance. "Thanks for the ride." Adam said to the driver before the driver sped away down the busy street. Starlight looked around, impressed by the city layout and architecture. Adam was more concerned with the mission at hand. "I've only been to the nation's capital once, about 110 years before now, back when Israel as a country didn't yet exist, much less have an American embassy." he looked around in confusion. "Do you know where we can find directions to the embassy?" asked Adam to Starlight.

"Well, I see a building over there with a sign that reads 'human knowledge in your finger tips, with two dollar coffee'." she pointed to a sign that had directions to a nearby internet cafe.

In another part of the city, Danni sat in the van as Zechariah waited for a black car to drive up to him. Once the car was parked, another man got out. "Brother!" he exclaimed before he wrapped Zechariah in a tight hug.

"Yavin." he responded back as he then broke the hug as he wanted to get straight to business. "Is the time machine ready?"

"I just want to know what you're up to brother, I'm concerned." he explained with worry. "Like what purpose do you have for our time machine?"

"I'll show you." he told his brother ominously as he lead him over to the van. "By the way, don't mind the girl, she's just a shield in case I need it." he said, much to Danni's annoyance.

Zechariah took out his bag and unzipped it to reveal the nuclear bomb's core. Yavin nearly passed out from the shock, his brother smuggled in a dangerous weapon into the American capital. "You brought a nuclear weapon into DC?!" he exclaimed in disbelief. "What for?!"

"Go back to 1993 and bomb the accord signing." he explained without remorse. "Then use the bombing as pretext to finally fulfill our prophecy of a truly Jewish homeland."

Yavin shook his head in disbelief. "That's...madness..."

"That's destiny!" he snarled at his brother. "We've been promised a homeland brother! Our parents sacrificed their lives to make it come true, only to have their legacy spat upon by those accords!"

Yavin sighed. "Look brother, I am not doing this for you, I'm doing this for our martyred parents. Just please, do NOT get me any more involved in this!" he then reluctantly handed his brother the access card to the facility. "I'll give you the card, but you deal with security yourself." he warned. He then turned and went back into his car without a goodbye.

"So...you're willing to kill your own former prime minister?" Danni looked on at the man, who showed no remorse for what he was about to do.

"He was a traitor to his country." was all Zechariah said as he zipped up the bag and then grabbed Danni by the arm. "Come on, we have no time to waste, let's go." he said as he practically dragged along towards the Israeli embassy.

At a local internet cafe, Adam, after a ten minute crash course on how to use the internet from the barista, was on Google as he looked up the address to the embassy. "Typewriters have change a lot since my time." he mumbled as Starlight looked on.

"Didn't you once say that one cannot change the past?" asked Starlight as she lounged back on her chair.

"Only if it affects your means of getting to the past in the first place." he explained. "If you do something in the past that ends up culminating in you not having the tool needed to get there, then it risks causing a massive paradox, one that the universe will naturally protect itself from." he lectured. "Now changing the future on the other hand..." he was quickly interrupted once the computer displayed the embassy address. "Found it, let's go." he quickly wrote the address down on a scrap piece of paper along with the directions, and quickly got up. Starlight followed.

"By the way, you never answered my question from last night." Starlight reminded him.

"Why must you know?" he stopped in his track and turned towards her. She just looked back at him without saying a word. "If you must know, if you hadn't manipulated me and used me, then yes." was all he said before he walked away.

Outside the embassy, both Danni and Zechariah looked at the building. "Remember, we're an Israeli couple living abroad who have come here to register, understood?" he instructed his hostage.

"Like I would ever be in a relationship with you." Danni snarled, slightly disgusted.

"The feeling is mutual." he said annoyed as he dragged her towards the building.

Little did they knew, but both Adam and Starlight were already there going through security. After a brief security screening, they were now both in the lobby of the embassy and a bit surprised by the amount of people that were there.

About a minute later, Danni and Zechariah were in security. "What's inside the bag?" asked one of the guards as he pointed to the duffel bag. Before the man could respond, he looked into the lobby and saw to his surprise Adam. He assumed Adam was there to stop him and that assumption caused him to snap.

The guard opened the bag to see the nuclear bomb and a stash of weapons. "What the...?" was all the guard could utter before he was swiftly shot in the head by the bag's owner.

Once the shot rang out, panic erupted in the lobby among the crowd. Zechariah used the panic to use his military training to swiftly subdue all of the guards and then jump through security. "Mr. Gray!" he yelled at Adam.

Just as Adam turned to face him, the man quickly shot at Adam, but missed once Danni pounced on her captor.

"Adam! Get to the time machine! I'll try to keep him busy!" yelled Danni as she tried to put her captor in a choke hold.

Both Adam and Starlight ran down a random hallway.

Zechariah just flipped Danni off of his back and slammed her down on the floor. He then swiftly knocked her out with the butt of his gun. "You've served your purpose." he growled as he ran off to try to find his true target; Adam.

As Adam and Starlight ran down random corridors, they were soon blocked by Yavin and three guards who pointed their weapons at the pair. Both stopped in their tracks with their hands up. "Son of a bitch, you're THE Adam Gray are you?" asked Yavin.

"You have a time machine in this building?" Adam responded, slightly intimidated.

After a minute of silence, Yavin put down his handgun. "Stand down everyone, believe it or not, this man wants to see what we've done to his invention." he explained. "Escort him there, I'll go keep my brother busy." he ordered.

The guards looked at each other with confusion, but did as told as they took Adam and Starlight deeper into the building.

Yavin walked down the other direction until he suddenly found himself face-to-face with his own brother. He pointed his handgun at him. "Zech, stop." Yavin warned.

"And here I was hoping you'd be supportive of me." he shook his head, disappointed.

"I know what happened to our parents was horrible, but using their deaths as an excuse to fulfill an ancient prophecy is just wrong!" Yavin pleaded. "So please brother, stop this, don't make it any worse!"

The pleas seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. "You know what's the difference between you and me brother?" he asked rhetorically. Before Yavin could answer, Zechariah drew his handgun and shot his brother in the chest, he watched without remorse as his brother fell to the floor. "I don't hesitate, even for family." he said coldly as he continued on his way.

In a sub-basement, the guards lead Adam and Starlight to the embassy's most well kept secret; their time machine. Adam was stunned that it practically looked like his own former time machine, but with a more contemporary design with enough passenger seats to fit up to five, and computer system. "Who else has one?" he asked one of the guards.

"United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, China and India." one guard answered.

"This is not what I had in mind when I invented this." Adam explained with disgust. "Does anyone have any idea of the consequences, or was everyone too busy focusing on trying to one-up each other?" he continued, angry that his invention was being used for purposes that sounded far from peaceful.

Suddenly, the door to the room burst open Zechariah walked in and showed off his marksmanship as he quickly dispatched all three guards in quick succession, leaving himself, Adam and Starlight still standing. "Good, you're here to see your greatest work be used to do something great." he smirked at the pair as he pointed his weapon at them. "In the machine, now." he ordered.

Both Adam and Starlight did as told as they got on the machine and sat down. The man was about to sit down with them, but stopped when he heard a gun get cocked. He smirked as he turned around. "Stop right there you son of a bitch." warned Danni who stood ready to fire, with a bloody wound on her forehead. "Adam, please explain to this bastard why his plan to blow up the 1993 accord signing that takes place right here in this city is a bad idea, explain to him why no matter how much he tries, the past will not change!" she demanded.

"Because it would destroy the thing that got him to 1993 in the first place." Adam answered as he broke the news to the man. But little did everyone knew, but Starlight slowly and quietly dragged the duffel bag with the bomb and all the weapons over to her with her foot.

"Now please stand down and surrender now." she ordered. Zechariah thought about it before he shrugged and get on the machine anyways. Danni, stunned began to fire her gun, but found that it kept misfiring. "What the?!"

He then swiped the gun off of Danni. "It won't fire with the safety on, I guess you were too caught up in the moment to notice?" he chuckled before he turned off the safety and pointed the gun at her. "Now get on as well, join your friends for a front row seat of history in the making." he smirked at the group.

Danni reluctantly sat down as the man turned on the machine. He pulled the lever and the machine was suddenly enveloped by a bubble before the computer read began to countdown away from the present date. Starlight, who happened to be sat behind the man quietly took out an army knife from the bag.

"We should be there in less than two minutes." Zechariah explained to his unwilling passengers with a smirk. But his personal celebration was short lived when he suddenly felt a knife plunge straight into his right forearm. "AHHH!" he looked to see that it was Starlight that did it. "You bitch!" he growled angrily as he tried to grab at her, only to find that the knife went through his arm and is embedded in the arm rest beneath it.

Adam and Danni took the opportunity to grab the bag and remove the bomb from it. Zechariah quickly removed the knife from his arm and suddenly placed Starlight in a choke-hold with his only good arm, he did not care that a lot of blood seeped from his wound. Adam held the bomb. "All of this trouble for what? Religious destiny?" Adam said to him, as the computer display passed 1993.

"My people were chosen by God, you gentiles would never understand that!" he snarled at the two.

"Maybe you should understand something about me first..." Starlight growled before she bit down on one of her captor's fingers hard, which caused him to reflexively let her go in pain. "...I bite!" she said as she got away from him.

The man quickly grabbed his handgun from the dashboard and aimed it at Starlight. "Glimmer, watch out!" yelled Danni as she suddenly got in the way. A shot rang out and then everything went quiet.

Danni looked down to see that she was shot in the chest. She suddenly collapsed to the floor. Zechariah began to stumble around clumsily as the blood loss began to take a toll on him, he tried to aim again, but soon he too fell to the floor, unable to get up. Adam quickly gave Starlight the bomb so he could go over to the controls to get the machine to stop, which was easier said than done since the controls were in Hebrew, and the calendar used was Hebrew.

Starlight looked over to Zechariah who looked longingly at the bomb she held as he grew increasingly weaker. "You want this?" she smirked as she taunted him. "Well, you can't have it." she chuckled as she then tossed the bomb out into the time stream.

"Starlight no-" Adam yelled in shock before a massive explosion rocked the machine, and shut down its electronics. The machine began to slow down to a stop. As soon as the machine stopped, the controls suddenly caught fire. "Oh crap." he muttered as he stood back away and then used his jacket to smoother and extinguish the flames.

Starlight got up from the floor, a bit bruised from the hard landing, but fine. "When are we?" she asked as she looked at the surroundings outside of the machine to see that it was now empty woodland.

"I don't know, the machine used a different calendar system than I am used to." he said as he went to Danni to check on her. He felt for a pulse only to find that she was still alive. "Danni? Can you hear me?"

Danni stared blankly at the clear blue sky above her. "I've never seen a sky so blue and clear before..." she said weakly.

"Danni, just hold on okay?" Adam held her hand.

"Adam it's okay, I think I was always destined to die..." she said as she thought back to what that voodoo priestess told her back in the bayou. "Besides..." she smiled at her fellow human companion. "...I've actually never felt better..." she assured before her smile suddenly disappeared and her body went limp and motionless.

"Danni? DANNI?!" Adam yelled out in desperation.

"Is...is she dead?" Starlight asked before a shot rang out and she fell back. Adam quickly turned around to see Zechariah was back on his two feet. He then shot at Adam several times, only to suddenly realize that he was out of bullets.

Silence fell between the two men, before Adam suddenly got up and ran off into the woods. Zechariah quickly grabbed his bloody knife and ran after him.

Adam quickly ran through the woods but suddenly stopped in his tracks once he found himself on top of a cliff with raging rapids down below. He was about to turn towards another direction but was suddenly caught off guard by a rough tackle from Zechariah that caused both men to fall off the cliff and into the rapids below.

Both men landed in the water and started to be swept by the fast moving currents of the river as they both wrestled with each other. Both did not see that a waterfall approached, and soon both went down the falls.

Next thing Adam knew, he found himself on the river bank, just downstream from the falls. He coughed up some water, and got up. Everything was quiet, aside from the sounds of birds and the rapids. He sat down on the grass as he took a minute to catch his breath, but quickly noticed that every time he took a breath, pain surged throughout his body. He lifted up his shirt to see a massive bruise on his side. He gave an annoyed grunt, but was at least relieved that his injuries were not any worse.

Suddenly, the silence was broken when Zechariah popped out of the river with a loud primal scream, only to be swiftly shot several times in the chest and once in the head, where he then promptly fell back into the water, and silence once again took root.

A stunned Adam turned around to see Starlight, with a flesh wound on her arm, who held the gun. "That was for shooting me...twice..." she breathed heavily. She then threw the gun away and walked over to Adam, to help him up. "You're lucky I managed to find you in just the nick of time." she smirked as he helped Adam up.

"Thanks Glim." said a grateful Adam. "So I guess, seeing as the machine is dead...we wait until you're a pony again and we go back to Equestria." he said.

"I guess so...although it's going to be a while since I have at least a day in this form to go." she explained.

"But I would love to go back to 1999 to give Danni the proper funeral she deserves." he sighed. He did not feel like it was proper to just abandon her body like that.

"Right now, we rest and find shelter." Starlight stated as she looked at the river and the large rocks in the river.

"Yeah, I could use a rest." he agreed as he clutched his sore side. He then began the long walk back to the machine, only to be swiftly knocked out by a large rock by Starlight. She stood over his unconscious body with a smirk, she showed no remorse at what she did.

"If you weren't such a moral person, you and me could've been amazing lovers, ruling Equestria together, spreading the message of equality to all ponies across the kingdom." she shook her head. "Such a shame." she then began the long walk to the machine by herself, leaving behind the unconscious human.

As the sun began to set, a nude Starlight stood before a massive bonfire, she quietly watched the machine turn into a burnt husk of metal, while the body of Danni that was inside also burned away. All of this time, Starlight thought about nothing but her deal she made with Celestia and what she planned to do once she was back in Equestria. But at least with Adam out of the way, she could finally focus on exacting her revenge and to finally bring equality to the kingdom. Once the fire began to die down, Starlight just quietly walked towards a random direction to look for a temporary place to shelter in until the potion wore off and she was a pony again.

Danni stood before her childhood home with a look of content on her face. She calmly walked over to a nearby log to appreciate the landscape before her, drenched in the light of the setting sun.

"Hey Dee Dee!" yelled a warm familiar voice. She turned around to see her father as he got out of his patrol car.

Danni with a smile ran up to him and gave her a massive hug. "I did it dad, I helped make my country proud, just as you wanted." she nuzzled him as tears of joy filled her eyes. "Now we can be family again."

He brushed his daughter's hair and then lead her inside the house to catch up on everything he missed since he passed away.

July 16, 1999
Undisclosed Location

Danni's superior officer looked on as one-by-one, each time machine the American military had was methodically destroyed, he watched the machines get disassembled with the Secretary of Defense and some of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in attendance to make sure the job was done. Also, copies of Adam Gray's notes on time travel were burned, along with all relevant records of Project Chronos.

The same thing was done in the other countries with a time machine, all of them, but one, agreed that such a power was too dangerous a liable for abuse. Israel's only time machine was gone, but they kept the documents in case the need ever arose to build another one. The only nation among them to not destroy their time machine was Russia, but none of the other nations knew about that.

"Congrats on your promotion to Major general Dean" said the Secretary of Defense to Danni's superior. He then walked along with the joint chiefs.

"To bad no one will ever remember you or your sacrifice Matthews." he sighed at the fact that all of Danni's hard work and sacrifice would never be known. He looked on as the final machine began to get disassembled before he put on his hat, gave one final salute in memory of Danni, and walked out of the hanger, ready to serve his country in his new role.

"I thought I heard some loud noises around here." said one male voice in a strange language that Adam never heard before.

"Who is that?" asked another as Adam made out three figures through his blurred vision, but he can not make out who or what they are.

"Never seen such a pale person before, or these clothes." said the third one as they checked his body out for signs of life, everything went black again for Adam.

Adam's eyes suddenly shot open and found himself in strange surroundings, inside a wooden domed structure, on an elevated wooden platform and covered in blankets that looked more like animal skin. He also noticed that he was naked. Confused, he tried to get up but suddenly felt his head throb with what felt like a splitting headache and collapsed down on the dirt floor. He tried to get himself back up, but then looked out at the opening to see a teenage girl in native clothes. "Help me..." Adam gasped out. The girl just ran away as she screamed something in a strange language.

Adam's head was spinning as he got up and sat down on the wooden platform, cradling his head. Suddenly, he found himself surrounded by several native men, who looked at him suspiciously. Adam tried to think about how he got here, but then suddenly realized that he could not. "Who...am...I?" he asked himself in shock.

The men looked at him with confusion. "Who am I?" Adam said again, much more loudly, as he hoped someone could understand his predicament.

"WHO AM I?!" he yelled at the ceiling in desperation.

June 13, 1499
Shawnee village

To be continued...