Back to Equestria

Granny Smith was startled up from her nap by a loud knocking at the front door. The old mare was about to call for Applejack to open it, before she remembered her little filly was in Manehattan. Grumbling, Granny Smith shakily got out of her rocking chair and onto her hooves, and teetered towards the front door.

Swinging the door open, she peered outside. “Eh? Who’s there?”

Two young colts stood at her doorstep, a pegasus and an earth pony. The earth pony she recognized as her own little Macintosh, who was currently unconscious in the other one’s hooves, but she had never seen the purple pegasus before.

The pegasus heaved the sleeping Mac into a semi-upright position, before asking Granny, “Is this yours?”

Granny Smith crouched down to her grandson, holding him up. “Yes it is, young man.” She felt a searing pain in her hip, but ignored it. She still had a few years before it gave out completely. “Macky, y’can’t just go wanderin off like-“

Granny started as she saw the bruises. “Macky!” She whipped her head to face the other colt. “What’d you do to my grandson?”

The pegasus put his hooves in the air. “Nothing! There was some business with a bully. I, uh, offered to take him home.”

Granny Smith cocked an eyebrow. “You carried him home all by yer lonesome?”

The pegasus shuffled his hooves nervously. “Um, yes?”

Granny eyed him for a moment. The colt gave a weak smile.

The old mare’s face broke into a wide grin. “Well, thankya sonny! You wanna come in fer some dinner?”

The pegasus’ eyes widened as the mention of food, but he quickly shook his head. “Um, no thanks. I really should be headed back home.”

“Home? But it’s almost nine o’clock.”

“Uh, yeah, I have a late dinnertime.”

Granny shrugged. “Okay sonny, but hurry back now. Don’t want yer mother worryin about ya!”

“Heh heh, yeah.” He waved a hoof, turned around, and began trotting towards the exit of the farm. Granny watched him go, curious.

As the young colt reached the farm gate, he turned around, and saw Granny still looking at him. She waved a hoof. He waved back, wearily, and began trotting down the road again.

He reached the end of the road, as far as he could go and still be able to see the farm house, and turned around again. Granny saw him again, and she waved again. The pegasus didn’t wave bak, but his head slumped down, almost like he was groaning. He turned and continued down the road, out of sight.

What and odd colt, Granny thought to herself. Ah’ll have t’ask Mac about him.

“Oh my bucking Celestia!” Spike groaned as he burst into the barn.

Marty, Applejack and Pinkie Pie all put a hoof/finger to his or her mouth. “Ssshh!”

Spike immediately lowered his voice. “Oh, sorry.” He trotted closer to the group, who was huddled in some hay besides the parked DeLorean.

Pinkie Pie scooted over, giving Spike some place to sit down in the circle. “Dude, what took you so long?” Marty asked. “The house is right there.”

“That’s what I was complaining about.” Spike responded. “I got Big Mac into the house just fine, but Granny Smith kept watching me as I walked away from the house! I had to go a ways down the road before she stopped watching me so I could come back.”

“Yeah, that’s Granny fer ya.” Applejack said. “She’s a might queer at times, but it usually don’t harm nopony.”

“Well, I feel harmed. I’ve had hooves for six hours, and they already hurt like Tartarus.”

Marty shook his head. “I’ve got some concerns about the way you guys speak here. I mean, ‘anypony’? Doesn’t that leave out Spike? And Tartarus? What the hell’s a Tartarus?”

The ponies gave him an odd look. “Y’know, Tartarus? The pit where they keep all the monsters? Guarded by a big dog?” Applejack questioned.

“That sounds... I dunno, kinda familiar. Is this a part of Greek Mythology?”

“What’s a greek?”

“What’s a... You know what? Nevermind.”

In Cloudsdale, on a certain date in 985, there were two Rainbow Dashes, who were both the same pony. The elder jumped from house to house, following her target.

It had been a long day for Rainbow. She knew that she had to, at all costs, avoid being seen by anypony. Such was the life of a mare who had a miraculously recognizable rainbow-striped mane.

She had been at this for two days now. Yet today, she couldn’t shake the odd feeling that somepony was watching her, even as she leapt from rooftop to cloudy rooftop.

Rainbow hear a small noise, as a tiny fluttering of wings. She quickly whipped her head behind her to find... nothing. Cursing, she returned to her stalking, resolving to catch her own stalker later.

As she focused on the roads again, she found that the subject of her attention was nowhere to be seen. She rose a few more feet into the air, gazing about. Oh, there she is, Dash thought to herself. How did she get under a park bench? This kid is gonna be the death of me.

Sighing, Rainbow flapped across town, once again the subject of childish antics.

“Marty,” a gentle voice whispered, “it’s time to get up now.”

Marty raised his head, groggy. “Mom?”

“GIT UP, LAZYBONES JONES!”

“Gah!” Marty flailed about, falling off of his hay bale in the barn.

“Applejack!” Pinkie, who had been crouching besides the bale, turned to her friend. “Why’d you have to go and do that? I was waking him up.”

“Pinkie, we ain’t got time fer dilly-dallyin. Granny’s gonna be awake soon, and we’ve got t’git out of here before she finds us.”

Marty slowly stood up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. “She’s right, Pinkie.”

“Aww. Okay. Can I at least wake Spike up?”

Marty stole a glance to another bale. Spike the Pegasus was ling on his side, snoring loudly. His wings were splayed out in different directions, giving the impression he had just crashed from flying.

“Sure, Pinkie.”

“Oh goodie!” the pink part pony rushed towards Spike, quickly stopping before she crashed into him. She gently brought her head down to Spike’s ear.

“Spiiiike...”

Spike grumbled, turning over.

Pinkie frowned. “SPIKE!”

“Gah!”

In a nearly identical pattern to Marty, Spike yelped, releasing a small puff of fire and falling off of his hay bale. He stayed on the ground, however, slumped in a heap of legs and feathers. “Owww...”

“Come on, Spike, we gotta motor.” Marty fished the DeLorean’s keys out of his pocket, clambering in to the driver’s seat.

“I never knew falling on your wings would hurt so much...” Spike groaned.

Applejack grinned. “Yeah, Dash always did whine when she fell backwards. Guess it’s a pegasus thing.”

Spike slowly got to his hooves. “Yeah, well, it sucks. I’m gonna have to ask her how the hell she deals with six limbs.”

Pinkie jumped at Spike’s face. “Ooh! You can do that now, Spikey-Wikey. We’re gonna go to Cloudsdale again!”

Marty stuck his head out of the car. “Really? Where’s that?”

Applejack turned towards the human. “Cloudsdale is a pegasus city, floatin a few thousand feet in t’air, northwest o’ Canterlot. I ain’t saw any sign o Rainbow in town, an that’s the only other place she could be.”

“Right, right...” Marty fiddled with the steering wheel for a moment, before turning back to Applejack. “Now when you say floating, do you mean like Laketown?”

Applejack rolled her eyes and cantered towards the barn door, gesturing for Marty to follow. Opening the door just a crack, she stuck her head out, and Marty did the same.

She raised a hoof, and pointed at a giant far-off cloud in the sky, riddled with funny rainbow-shapes. “That’s Cloudsdale.”

Marty blinked, thinking back to the sight of pegasi moving clouds around. “Oh. That kind of floating.”

They returned to the interior of the barn. “So, ponies can touch clouds? Or do you guys just have weird clouds here?”

AJ shook her head. “Naw, only pegasi can mess around with clouds. Some kinda magic. Twilight knows a spell, lets other ponies touch em, too. But Ah don’t know if we kin find another unicorn t’do that, here an now.”

“Well, that’s okay!” Pinkie patted Spike’s green mane. “We’ve got ourselves a pegasus right here! And we’ve also got a flying machine.”

“Hey, yeah!” Marty agreed. “Will flying through the clouds mess with them very much?”

Applejack shook her head. “Naw. Them clouds are like cotton balls. They just get a little rustled up, an pegasi just push em back. We’ll be fine.”

Marty smiled. “So what’re we waiting for? If we’re lucky, we’ll just pick up Rainbow, get back to the future, and we’ll be golden.”

The three ponies and one human piled into the DeLorean, once again glazing over the fact that it now had a back seat.

The engine blazed to life, and the car lifted into the air. “Absolutely nothing can go wrong!” Pinkie exclaimed.

Little Macintosh slowly cantered out of the house, the sun just peeking over the horizon, casting long shadows and dusty beams of light through the trees of the calm orchard.

Ah don’t think Ah’ve ever had dreams as funny as that, he thought. Applejack had gotten bigger, an was pretending to be mah cousin, an there was a flying boat.

The small colt trotted down the steps, shaking his head. At least I managed to beat Fiff. That much Ah’m sure of.

Just as the thought graced his mind, the barn door flew open, and Macintosh whipped his head to face it.

The flying metal boat from his dream shot out of the barn, rising into the sky and fading into the distance. Macintosh stood, slack-jawed, and watched it go.

“M-maybe Ah’ll go ask around, see what happened. Can’t ever be too sure of nothin.”

Rainbow had followed her target into a large, open area, necessitating that she duck and hide behind pillars. Luckily, her own stalker had to do the same, and Rainbow finally saw her chance.

Rainbow Dash pretended to move ahead to the next hiding spot, but instead merely hid on the front side of the pillar. She heard the soft flapping of small wings, as the stalker timidly followed her.

She saw her chance. Readying herself, Rainbow crouched, then jumped around the pillar again, pouncing on and crashing into the mystery pony. The two of them rolled across the clouds.

“Alright, you, who are you and why are you stalking me?” Rainbow yelled, pinning her stalker on the ground.

Her stalker... whimpered. Wait what?

Rainbow realized who exactly she was looking at. Sure, she was younger, but that pink mane was unmistakable.

“Fluttershy?!”

In a back alley of Cloudsdale, (also made of clouds, everything was made of clouds), nopony was around. It was quiet, and it was serene.

Suddenly, a large dark shape rose out of the cloudy ground, accompanied by a distinct whirring sound. The displaced clouds moved aside easily, and the large mass sat there, while its occupants had a discussion.

Marty rolled his shoulders, groaning. He had risen the DeLorean so that all but the wheels were above the cloud layer, giving the car a low-to-the-ground, mysterious look. The McFlys were nothing if not cool.

However, what was previously a simple plan was now a bit more difficult, thanks to a certain pegasus colt.

“How come I have to go out there alone? I already went and found Twilight!” Spike yelled.

Applejack was doing her best to calm him down, as Pinkie Pie opened the passenger door. “Come on now, sugarcube. We’ll be right under ya the whole time. All you have t’do is go an find Rainbow.”

“But I can’t go out there!” Spike was fully panicking, now. “How do we know if I can even touch clouds! Maybe I only look like a pegasus! I can still breathe fire, after all!”

Applejack rolled her eyes. “Pinkie, could you help me with this?” Pinkie nodded, and aided Applejack in getting Spike out the door.

“I’ve never bothered to touch clouds before! Can dragons even touch clouds?! WE JUST DON’T KNOW!”

The two earth ponies were flat-out pushing on his back, trying to shove him out into the cloud alley. Spike was bracing himself on the doorframe with his hooves.

“And what if I fall off! If I can’t touch clouds, I certainly don’t have enough magic to fly! And even if I do, I’m probably too young! Just look at Scootaloo!”

With a final heave, the duo pushed Spike out of the car, where he rapidly fell to the alley floor. “OH CELESTIA PRESERVE ME!”

Spike fell harmlessly onto the cloudy ground, with a soft and gentle bounce.

However, Spike’s panic was not to be deterred so easily, or at all.

The colt turned and attempted to leap at the open car door, bellowing. Marty quickly lowered the DeLorean again, disappearing into the mist.

Spike bounced off of Cloudsdale’s floor, falling onto his back. He shakily got to his hooves, unused to the malleable surface of clouds. The young colt began speaking aloud to himself.

“O-okay Spike, don’t panic, you just gotta find Rainbow Dash. That’s easy, right?! I just have to search a whole city, thousands of feet in the a-air, for a single pegasus, and not plummet to my d-d-death. That’s easy!” Spike spoke with a dazed look, his unkept mane falling over his face. “I’ll be fine!”

Immediately below him, the DeLorean still hovered, its door open. “Tarnation,” Applejack commented, “that boy takes after his momma, Ah tell you what.”

Pinkie giggled. “You’re right, AJ, Twilight’s totally his mom. They even have the same coat color!”

Marty chuckled, before asking “Where did Spike come from, anyhow?”

“Well, Marty,” Pinkie began, “When a mommy dragon and a daddy dragon love each other very much-“

Applejack pushed her over, and she fell back in her chair, giggling. “Twilight hatched Spike to get into magic school,” she supplemented. “Ah dun know the specifics, but because of some super-magic she did, they couldn’t put him back in his egg like they used to.”

“Oh, cool. Now why doesn’t he have wings?”

Spike pawed desperately at the cloudy surface beneath him, but to no avail. Still panicked, he glanced around the alley he was in, before darting to the edge of a building, and peering into a proper street.

It was a wide street, with various oddly-shaped buildings on either side. On one side of the street, giant cloud pillars extended into the sky, reaching up toward-

Oh, wow! Spike thought. Is that another layer of the city? How many are there? Why do they do that?

Cautiously, Spike stepped into the street, and began walking down it, doing his best to be inconspicuous. O-okay... I think I’m calming down... Everything’s fine...

Spike slowly made his way through the cloudy city, making random turns, hoping to get to a more densely-populated area. Eventually, he built up enough nerve to begin asking the other pegasi.

“Um, excuse me, I’m looking for a blue mare, about your height, with a rainbow-striped mane?” “...no, she’s not a filly.” “I dunno, maybe it’s a relative. But I’m definitely looking for an adult mare.” “No? Oh. Thanks anyway.” he continued in this pattern for almost an hour.

Spike groaned, his head drooping low as he slowly cantered down yet another city block. All the ponies here either have never seen her, or only seen her as a filly.

Then, from off in the distance, a faint yelling could be heard. Spike’s ears perked up, as he swiveled his head in the direction of the sound. Other pegasi acknowledged the sound for a moment, before returning to their lives. Spike, however, recognized that shout. He turned and galloped across the street, towards an open area with several pillars.

“Fluttershy?!”

A young Fluttershy ‘eeped’, and hid behind her hooves, trembling.

Rainbow Dash just stared, still pinning the small yellow filly onto the ground. “Wh... Why were you stalking me?! What’s wrong with you?!”

Fluttershy let out a sudden yelp, pushing Rainbow off of her with all her might.

All of filly Fluttershy’s might was not a large thing, but the yelp startled Rainbow, you shouted in return. “Gah!”

Seeing her chance, Fluttershy got to her hooves, and tried to bolt away. Dash quickly caught her tail, holding her in place.

“Fluttershy.”

The filly kept digging her hooves into the clouds, trying to get away.

“Fluttershy!”

The yellow pegasus stopped struggling and meekly turned around, her fear apparent in her face and actions.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’m not gonna hurt you, I just want to ask you some questions. Now can I let go of your tail?”

Still shaking, Fluttershy nodded. Rainbow released her grip, and she turned around to face the older mare.

“Okay,” Rainbow began, “Now, why are you stalking me?”

The filly looked at her with a pleading gaze. “Why are you stalking Gilda?”

Rainbow balked. “I asked you first!”

“Oh! Oh, well, I um, you see, I uh don’t, uh, um...” Fluttershy looked down as her speech descended into a quiet mumble.

“Didn’t quite catch that, Shy.”

“I-I was stalking Gilda, first.” Fluttershy stammered.

Dash blinked. “What? But I thought you hated Gilda.”

“Oh nonononono.” Fluttershy claimed, reaffirming with a shake of her hooves. “I’m scared of her, but I don’t hate her, not at all.”

“But why were you stalking her?”

“Oh, well, I just figured she’d be nicer if she had a friend, that’s all. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to say ‘hello’.”

Rainbow’s gaze softened. “What?! No, but she has friends. Tons of friends. She’s so cool!”

“Well, actually, she really only has one friend.” Fluttershy offered. “I mean, she hangs around you, Rainbow, and then she’s nice, because she’s happy. But when you go hang out with your other friends, like me, she just wanders around, sad. And when she’s sad, she acts mean.”

“R-really?”

“Oh, yes. It’s really quite sad.” Fluttershy frowned.

Rainbow remained quiet, alone with her thoughts. She marveled at Fluttershy’s ability to be nice to anyone, even those who were mean to her. But... I was wrong.

“So why were you following Gilda?”

Rainbow looked up again to see the inquiring gaze of the young pegasus. “Um, that is, if you don’t mind.” she added hastily.

“Oh, yeah, not at all.” Rainbow said. “I’m actually from the future.”

Fluttershy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Yeah. Some aliens came by with a time machine, so I used it to come here.”

“But why were you stalking Gilda?”

Rainbow sighed. “Well, she and I had a falling-out a while back. She came by to hang out, and for a while, everything was chill. But then when I tried to introduce her to my other friends, and she acted like a total bi-“ Rainbow caught herself speaking in front of the filly “-iiiead pony. Er, gryphon.”

Rainbow continued. “So, in the future, I’m supposed to represent Loyalty for this magic group thingy, right? But then I got to wondering if I’ve always been super loyal to my friends. I came back in time to see if she really was always a bad person, or if I had abandoned her.”

Fluttershy smiled. “Aww, cheer up adult-Rainbow Dash. Please? You didn’t abandon her.”

“But I did!”

The filly put a hoof on the older mare’s shoulder. “No, you didn’t. Gilda was being mean, so she went away. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

Rainbow pushed off her hoof, turning away from her. “But she’s still gone. She needed me and I didn’t help her.”

“Rainbow Dash!” Fluttershy asserted. Rainbow whipped around to give Fluttershy a surprised look. The filly immediately lost her confidence and shrunk down, but continued speaking. “I-i-if Gilda’s really n-n-not mean, then sh-sh-she’ll still want to be f-friends, right?”

“I-I guess so.”

“Then maybe you should just go talk to her?”

Rainbow sighed, then allowed herself a smile. “Thanks, Shy. I’ll do that.”

Fluttershy beamed. “Oh, wonderful! I just love it when I can help somepony.”

Neither pegasus spoke for a moment.

“Um, Rainbow Dash? I don’t think you were supposed to tell me you were from the future.”

“Oh, yeah. That’d make sense, wouldn’t it?”

A few blocks away, a young pegasus colt spied the two ponies conversing, and called out. “Rainbow Dash!”

Rainbow’s ears perked up. “What was that?”

“Rainbow Dash!”

Fluttershy looked over Rainbow’s shoulder. “Oh, I think it’s that colt. Did he come with you?”

Rainbow turned around, spying the mysterious purple pony. “No, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.”

Spike finally broke into a gallop, coming up beside them, and stopped, panting. “Rainbow! -huff- I’ve been looking -huff- everywhere for you!”

Rainbow shared a quick look with Fluttershy, before responding. “Uh, you’ve got the wrong mare, bud. I’m, uh, Rainbow ‘Blitz’.”

Spike furrowed his brow. “Blitz? What, no, Rainbow-“ he looked down at himself, then smiled in realization. “Oh! You don’t recognize me!”

Rainbow gave him a blank look. He rolled his eyes. “It’s me, Spike.”

Dash’s eyes widened. “Spike?!? But, why are you a pegasus?!”

“It’s a long story. But we gotta go. Did-“ Spike stopped as he glanced at Fluttershy. His eyes widened into another look of panic. “Fluttershy?! Dash, why are you talking to her?!”

Dash shuffled her hooves. “Oh, I was just, uh, talking to her.”

“About what?”

“About stuff, alright? It’s not a big deal.”

Spike slammed a hoof against his face. “Yes it is! We’re not supposed to talk to anyone!”

“Anyone!” Pinkie Pie exclaimed.

All three pegasi flinched, turning in the direction of Pinkie’s voice. She was in the zenith of a jump, starting to fall back to the ground.

With a faint woosh, she fell through the cloud layer they were standing on.

Nopony spoke. Slowly, Spike turned back to face Rainbow Dash. “....so yeah, Marty says that messing with the past can be really bad, and that nopony should know we were ever here.”

“Aw, dangit.” Rainbow looked at Fluttershy. “Sorry, Shy, but you gotta go.”

“Oh, okay.” Fluttershy meekly turned and began to canter off. (though, really, Fluttershy does everything meekly. This should really just be implied at this point.)

“Hang on!” Spike called.

Fluttershy stopped walking and meekly (see?! SEE?!) turned her head around.

“Uh, don’t ever speak of this to anypony. Even us. Got it?”

She nodded and smiled, meekly waving a hoof. “Um, see you in the future.”

Rainbow Dash and Spike watched her walk away. “So, now what?” Rainbow asked.

“This!” a voice called from below them.

Not even attempting to be subtle at all, Marty piloted the DeLorean straight upwards, bringing it completely above the cloud layer. Pinkie was standing on top, grinning.

Applejack stuck her head out of the gull-wong door. “Pinkie! Get back in here afore you all off!”

“Silly Applejack,” Pinkie scoffed, “I’ll just fall on the soft fluffy clouds.”

“Pinkie, you’ll fall through them clouds.”

Pinkie blinked. “Oh, right. Silly me!” She quickly jumped into the open door, a look of panic barely fleeing her face.

Marty stuck his head out, instead. “Finally, you found her. Come on, guys, we need to get going.”

“You can say that again!” Spike exclaimed. “Being a pegasus is too weird!” He eagerly bounded into the open car door.

“Come on, Rainbow.”

Rainbow Dash tilted her head, looking at the flying time machine. I have really been granted an oppurtunity, she thought, that nopony else could have. To see my own world from the outside, and to fairly judge what I see there. It is truly-

“Come on, Rainbow, we ain’t got all day!” Applejack called out. “Well, Ah mean, we do, but that’s not the point!”

Torn from her philosophical reverie, Rainbow blinked. Huh? Oh, yeah. What was I thinking about? Eh, it’s probably not important. She quickly took her place in the back seat of the DeLorean once again.

“Alright, girls and boys,” Marty said, as he piloted the time machine down through the clouds and into open air, “Let’s get going! What time did we leave?”

Pinkie Pie rattled off the date. “October fifteenth, 1002 AW, 12:33 pm.”

Marty punched the numbers into the Time Circuits, and steered into a wide open area to accelerate. “Now, let’s get the hell outta here, and forget this whole experience ever happened, hmm?” His remark was met with eager agreement from all four ponies.

“You ain’t off the hook just yet, Rainbow,” AJ whispered, by the pegasus’ side. “When all this is said an done, Ah’m gonna ask you why you brought us here. Savvy?”

Rainbow gulped, nodding. “L-let’s get home.”

Marty floored the gas pedal, and the DeLorean rocketed forward with alarming speed, hurtling through Equestria’s wide open airspace. Behind them, Cloudsdale still loomed high, but the entire Equestrian Valley, including Canterlot Mountain, was far, far below.

The time machine sped through the air, gaining speed. A small amount of sparks gathered around the front, quickly growing into a large halo of light. Stray blue sparks began to run up and down the length of the vehicle, and the glowing light quickly reached it’s culmination.

BANG

The DeLorean vanished in a brilliant flash, leaving behind a flaming tread of tire, which zipped through the air, before fading into nothing.

And all around the periphery of Equestria, a creeping change of darkness halted, not to begin again for seventeen years.