Back to Equestria

        “Now what in tarnation is an Aerosmith?”

        An orange earth pony trotted between Marty and the yellow pegasus. She looked determined, and protective.

        “Tain’t nothin that’s gonna hurt her, is it?”

        Marty shook his head. “No, no no no. Nothing like that. It’s just music.”

        The orange pony turned to the yellow one, who smiled and nodded. “Alright,” she said, slowly, “But no funny business, now.”

        Marty nodded. He held the Walkman up to the pegasus’ gaze. “This one re-winds the music. Hold it till it clicks, then press this one.” the human demonstrated the buttons slowly. She nodded.

        He handed it to her, and she graciously took it, immediately hooking the headphones around her ears. The yellow pegasus smiled, and the orange pony visibly relaxed. “Okay then. Yer Marty, right? Oh, hay, of course you are. Come on.”

        The pony grabbed him by the arm and began to drag him to the other side of the room. How the hell can she grab my arm with hooves? Marty thought. The shy pegasus followed them.

        Marty saw Doc, standing awkwardly around another group of ponies, Twilight among them. Doc had removed the his lab-coat, once again revealing his Old-West ensemble. He looked extremely tired. Twilight brightened as she saw Marty being dragged towards them. “Thank you, Applejack.”

        “Dun mention it.”

        The purple unicorn moved the two humans in front of her group, who were joined by Applejack and the pegasus. “Girls, these are ‘humans’, Marty and Doc.” she said, gesturing with her hooves again. The time travelers waved nervously.

        “Marty, Doc, these are my friends. Applejack, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Rarity.”

        The small group gave a round of greetings to the pair. The white one, Rarity, began the conversation. “Say, Mr. Doc, is it?”

        Doc turned to face her. “Yes, that’s right.”

        “I say, sir, by your clothes I would guess you’re from Appleloosa, or thereabouts?”

        Doc looked down at himself, then back up, a curious expression on his face. Twilight chimed in. “Settler colonies, in a desert a few hundred miles west of here.”

        “Oh, uh, no. But I do live somewhere similar, you see.”

        The white unicorn smirked. “Well, everypony over there seems to be very attached to their hats.” Doc put a hand on his own hat, frowning.

        “Hay! There ain’t nothin wrong with a good hat. Everypony needs a good hat.” Applejack cut in.

        “Well, there’s no denying their value, darling, but does everypony really need to wear the exact same hat, everywhere?”

        “Yes.” the earth pony and the scientist replied, simultaneously.

        “Ya know,” Marty said, looking at Rarity, “I find it’s best not to question these people about their hats.” the unicorn rolled her eyes, nodding.

        Twilight spoke up. “Did you two find the food okay? I don’t exactly know what your species eats.”

For the first time, Marty noticed that they were standing besides one of the food tables. “Oh, great! I haven’t eaten in ages.” He grabbed the nearest food item, a large pink cupcake, and immediately took a large bite.

Doc cringed. Marty chewed his food, glaring at him. “What?” he said, through a mouthful of food.

“Nothing, nothing. It’s just that the first food item I ate here were those little cubes.” He pointed to a tray of greenish-brown cubes, stacked in a pyramid. “Grass and Molasses.”

“Oh, that’s gross.”

Twilight cut in. “Is something wrong with the food? We can get you anything you need if you-”

“No, it’s fine, thanks Twilight.” Marty nodded at the small unicorn. “We can eat it. Although, I wouldn’t mind some refreshments.”

“Ah can help y’all with that.” Applejack stepped forward. “What do y’all want?”

Marty raised his eyebrows. “Pespi Free?”

“What?”

Doc cleared his throat. “Ah, whatever you have would be lovely, miss.”

She smiled, then vanished into the throng of ponies. The orange mare returned a moment later, a pair of mugs balanced on her back. She hoofed them over to the humans. “Sweet Apple Acres Cider, the very best.” she smiled, almost seeming smug.

Doc began to bring the drink up to eye level, but Marty held his hand down. “Hang on a second. Doc can’t hold his liquor to save his life. You got anything non-alcoholic?” Doc opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of himself and closed it again.

Applejack blinked, digesting his words. Then she smiled, knowingly. “Oh, hay, this ain’t the good cider. Well, this is the good cider, but not the good-good cider. If ya know what Ah mean.”

Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie burst into fits of giggles, as Twilight rolled her eyes. “Marty,” she said, “We generally don’t serve that kind of beverage unless it’s for a special occasion. And even then, we should only drink it to be polite.” Fluttershy nodded in agreement, still listening to the Walkman.

“Oh, come now, Twilight.” Rarity trotted up to her friend. “While I hardly approve of indiscriminate chugging, a good wine. or port, is a wonderful thing.”

“Hey!” Rainbow Dash shoved in between them, “There is nothing wrong with chugging, or any other way I drink.”

They continued to argue. Doc threw back his cider in a single swing. “Marty,” he said, “with the shit I’ve seen today, I think I might take up drinking.”

He shrugged. “It would make this whole thing a bit easier to believe.” Marty shot his friend a stern look. “But if you go anywhere near alcohol here and I will tackle you.” Doc waved him off.

Applejack trotted up to the teenager. “Psst!” Marty turned his head to look at her. The rest of the small pony group were either still arguing about alcohol, or had wandered off. “If ya wanna get some ‘good good’, stop by the barn’s basement at noon. Dash’ll meet ya there.” Before he could reply, she slinked off.

Marty turned to his inventor friend. “You alright, Doc?”

“It’s a party, Marty. A party, with balloons. A party attended by lots of tiny, talking horses. In another world.” He stared vacantly forward, holding his cider mug.

They both nodded for a moment. The younger time traveler finished off his cupcake. “Well, it’ll probably make for a great study, eh?”

The old inventor smiled slightly. “Yes, it would.”

There we go. “And the best way to gather data would probably be talking to them, right?”

Doc’s face grew brilliantly large. “Right you are Marty! And I know just where to start!” He whipped around and walked up to one of the ponies, a tall, yellow stallion. “Excuse me, sir, but are you literate?”

Marty rolled his eyes. “He’ll be fine.” He turned again, and began looking for Spike.

In the back, Applejack peered curiously at a set of wooden barrels. “Hay, this is the good-good cider. Dang nabbit!”

Marty was sleeping, very soundly. He was having a very odd dream. He dreamt that his hands were glowing, very brightly. When he moved his fingers, the glow intensified, and began to creep further up his arm. The light grew so bright, it began to hurt his eyes.

He closed them. Immediately, he heard a loud tapping noise.

He opened his eyes again to be greeted by the roof of the DeLorean. He rolled off of the backseat, groaning.

“Marty! Up and at-em.”

He looked towards one of the broken windows, to be greeted by Doc. “There’s breakfast inside the library. Some kind of oatmeal. Then we’re going to have a demonstration!”

“Somebody’s in a good mood.” Marty grumbled.

“Perks of sleeping in a featherbed.”

“In a basement.”

Doc waved his hand. “Not in a car, though. Go on, eat! We have things to do, Marty!” He stomped off.

Marty shook his head as he clambered out of the car. He’s dealing with it. Doc had been quite stunned by the existence of Equestria, and Marty wasn’t sure if he was dealing with it well. I never really understood what was happening, so this isn’t new, he thought, but Doc alwayshad a grip on the situation. Now, though...

He closed the time machine’s door, and walked towards the tree-building, yawning and stretching his arms. Inside, he found a small breakfast perched on a table. Marty shrugged, then sat down to eat.

Sunlight illuminated the dusty library, and Marty absentmindedly watched the thousand little particles drift in and out of the sunbeams. Spike walked out of the basement, three more bowls in his hands. The small dragon wore a frilly pink apron.

The human choked back a laugh. “Nice apron, dude.”

Spike grinned, oblivious. “Thanks! Everypony says that, for some reason.”

Marty snickered, but said nothing. “Are they still outside?”

“Twilight and Doc? Yeah. Twilight said you guys were doing the ‘Einstein test’?”

“Einstein test?” Marty swallowed his last bite, thinking. “I don- Oh.” He wiped his mouth and stood up. “Come on, you’ll like this.”

The two assistants headed outside. Besides the library, Twilight and Doc were bickering over a single stopwatch.

“If we’re really going to send it forward five minutes, we’ll need two stopwatches. To be specific!” Twilight snapped.

“Really? The watch will have moved a few seconds, after you’ve waited five minutes.”

“Frankly, I still don’t believe that it’s even possible to have successive time-travel events! For all I know, you may just cast an invisibility spell and stop the watch.”

Doc threw his hands in the air. “Miss Sparkle, it seems that you would like an eyewitness account. I’d be more than happy to allow you into-”

“Are you joking! There would be no way to measure anything then!”

The inventor thought for a moment. “Why don’t you put your dragon in there?”

Spike jumped. “What?!”

The purple unicorn smiled. “That’s perfect! Congratulations, Spike, you get to travel through time!”

“But-!”

“Marty,” Doc cut the small dragon off, “Could you go get the DeLorean started? I could never get the damn ignition to work right.”

Marty shrugged. “Sure thing.” He strode around the library and climbed into the driver’s seat of the car. Revving the engine, he pulled the time machine forward along the ground, in front of the others.

Twilight beamed. “Okay, get in, Spike.”

Marty watched, bemused, as the unicorn persuaded the small dragon into the passenger seat. Once he was inside, mumbling, she beamed. “Alright, let’s get started.”

“Hang on,” Marty said, “We can’t go like this. We’ll freeze to death.”

Twilight looked confused. “What?”

Doc walked over, still fussing over the stopwatch. “The flux dispersal field is, ah, imperfect.” He pressed a button on top of the watch, and it clicked. “The exterior of the vehicle experiences massive heat loss, resulting in solid condensation.” He tapped the broken windows. “We need replacement glass.”

The young unicorn beamed. “I can help with that.” Once again, her horn began to glow a shade of bright purple.

An intense tingling sensation shot up Marty’s arms, spreading outwards from his hands. He gasped and withdrew them from the steering wheel, wincing.

The broken glass that ringed the DeLorean’s windows began glowing, as well. The shards began to melt and grow, then spread upwards with a consistency like syrup. The glowing glass spread across the area of the windows in a thin film, getting slightly thicker where two pieces of glass met.

The tingling sensation in Marty’s arms continued to spread upwards, eclipsing his shoulders and running into his neck. When it hit his spine, small cramps began to pop up along the back of his neck. He quickly put his hands to his shoulders. To his amazement, the pain stopped, and the human felt relaxed as he felt an odd... energy, cycling through his arms.

Twilight Sparkle watched him intently as she finished the job. She continued to remain silent, but gave Doc an odd look. Marty didn’t notice.

The glass on the various windows finally sealed shut, and Twilight released the spell. The odd sensation in the teenager’s arms ceased as well, and he gratefully placed his hands back on the wheel.

The new windows in the DeLorean were crystal clear, with the occasional imperfection where it grew slightly thicker. The imperfections played the sunlight across the interior of the vehicle, creating muddled shadows.

Doc opened the driver-side gull-wing door, rapping a finger against the glass. “Marvelous! Some sort of matter reconstitution?”

“Sort of. I turned the glass into a mushroom for a moment.”

To his credit, Doc only blinked. “Well alright then.” He glanced at the gas gauge. “What! There’s less gas in here than there was when we crashed!”

Marty shrugged. “Yeah, sorry Doc. I took it for a little spin yesterday. Just a short hop up to a cloud castle.”

“Marty, don’t do that! The don’t have internal combustion engines here! We do not want to have another situation like we did in 1885.”

“What’s the problem?” Twilight stepped forward.

“We need to preserve the gas.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Gas? It runs on a gas?”

Doc shook his head. “No, ‘gas’ is an abbreviation of ‘gasoline’. We use it to power our vehicles, in our world. And we only have as much as we brought with us, until we can get back.”

“Gasoline?” the purple unicorn chuckled. “We have gasoline.”

“You do?”

“Yes, of course. We just don’t use it for anything. It’s a byproduct of making kerosene. We can’t use it, though, because it explodes, instead of burning steadily. There’s tons of it in the general store.”

Marty gave the inventor a flat look. “Doc, is Twilight saying we could have gotten gasoline in 1885?”

Doc didn’t say anything.

“We didn’t have to destroy the fuel injector with the liquor?”

Not a word.

“Doc?”

“Uhh...” Doc glanced at the ground. “well, yes.”

Marty threw his hands in the air, where they hit the car’s ceiling. “Jesus, Doc? We went through all that for nothing?”

The inventor waggled a finger at the teenager. “Don’t forget! If we hadn’t stayed in 1885 for that week, I wouldn’t have met Clara! And, you wouldn’t have confronted Tannen, and still had problems with being called a coward! Then you would’ve gotten in that car crash with the Rolls!”

        Marty looked down, ashamed. “Yeah, you’re right.”

        Spike reached out the window and poke Twilight. “I have no idea what they’re talking about.” he whispered. She only shrugged in response.

        Marty closed the gull-wing doors, and Doc handed the stopwatch to Spike. “Five minutes, Marty!” he called out. “Forward!” He and Twilight retreated from the hovercar, to a decent observation distance.

        Marty turned the ignition. The engine roared to life without a hitch, and the DeLorean jumped several feet into the air. Spike sat next to him, clutching the stopwatch to his chest, his teeth chattering. “Relax, dude,” Marty said, “It’s fine. I’ve done this a million times.”

        “Really?” the young dragon asked.

        The teenager swept the car into the air, keeping low to the ground, but getting a good distance away from the Library. “Well...” He tallied it off in his head. “I’ve done this eight times. But that’s still a lot. And I don’t know how many times Doc has done it, but he’s been hopping to and fro constantly for more than a year. We’ll be fine.”

        “O-okay.”

        Once they were a sizeable distance from the large tree, Marty swerved the car to face it again, and flicked on the time circuits. The streetlight-colored dials flared to life, displaying the current time in Equestria. The ‘destination’ clock was blank, but the ‘departed’ clock still read 1986. Suddenly curious, Marty flicked the new porcelain switch again.

        The destination clock flickered, then displayed a curt message, ‘Err’. Marty shrugged, and flicked the switch again. The dial returned to normal.

        He plugged in the exact time, plus five minutes, then floored the gas pedal. They shot forward, the engine roaring in their ears.

        The Library, distant, rapidly grew closer. Spike began yelling, his voice blending in to the noise. The speedometer quickly passed 70, then 75. Sparks began to play off of the exterior, forming themselves into a halo of light at the nose of the car.

        The light grew brighter and brighter. Finally, just as they sped past the pair of grounded scientists, the sparks culminated into a brilliant flash of light.

BANG

        The DeLorean vanished, leaving a pair of fiery tire-tracks soaring through the air, curving upwards. Twilight fell back, stumbling. Doc whooped and threw his hands into the air.

        “Let me tell you,” he told the unicorn, “that never gets old.”

        For the passengers of the Time Machine, after the large flash, nothing changed. Marty swerved upwards, bringing the hovercar to a more manageable speed. Spike slowly stopped yelling. “Is that it?”

        Marty shrugged. “That’s it.” he lowered the car to the ground in front of the Library again, and cut the engine.

They collapsed onto the dirt with a thud, and Marty opened the doors. Spike jumped out, kissing the ground. “Oh thank Celestia! Sweet, sweet earth!”

Twilight trotted up and thwacked him. “Oh, stop being so dramatic. I hope you take to flying more when you’re older, for your sake.” She took the stopwatch from his hands. “Well I’ll be. Less than thirty seconds. Spike, was it instantaneous?”

The young dragon got to his feet. “Uh, yeah. We went towards the Library, there was a bang and a flash, then we landed. It really hasn’t been more than a minute.”

She beamed. “It’s been five! Oh, this is amazing!” she turned towards Doc. “and those fiery tracks! That must be temporal misalignment, as the tread begins to burn when the vehicle is forced into its proper place again! And due to retroactive physics, you don’t even get burned rubber!”

Doc walked up, nodding. “Yes, that’s right, actually. I thought of fixing the problem, but,” he shrugged, smiling, “I thought it looked cool.”

The lavender unicorn began pacing. “Non-thaumatic time travel, I can’t believe it. Without the magical aspect, you can surpass Neil Djerma Tyson’s rule of singular temporary transport!” She whipped her head around to look at Doc.

“I have to see it go back.”

The inventor nodded, then looked at Marty, leaning against the side of the vehicle. “You up for it?”

The teenager grinned. “Yeah. How far back do you want?”

Doc scratched his chin. “Hmm. We haven’t seen the back of the Library all day, right Twi?” Marty chuckled to himself at his friend’s use of the nickname.

She nodded. “That’s right.”

“So why don’t you fly off somewhere in the distance, where we wouldn’t have seen you arrive. Go back half an hour, and park the DeLorean behind the building. Stay hidden until after you see yourself depart. Then come out.”

Marty nodded, then stopped, glaring behind the inventor. There, he saw himself.

He was wearing the same clothes, and another Spike was standing beside him, wide-eyed. The other Marty held his guitar, as if about to play. He held a finger to his lips, then gestured for current-Marty to continue.

Current-Marty snapped his gaze back to Doc. Thankfully, the old inventor didn’t notice. “Can-do. Half hour? no problem.” He slid across the hood of the time machine, and quickly got in. “Come on, Spike.”

Spike was busying himself by staring, slack-jawed, at his future-self, unnoticed by Twilight. “Uh, yeah, okay.” He slowly got inside.

Marty and the young dragon rose into the air, then veered off, across the top of the small town, quickly fading into the distance.

Marty and Spike stood behind the two scientists, who were still busying themselves with staring into the sky. He looked to the dragon, who shrugged. Without a word, the teenager began a simple melody on his guitar.

The gryphon instrument twanged, and both Doc and Twilight jumped, simultaneously. The human inventor let out a high-pitched yell as he turned and saw them, still stumbling, and crashed into the dirt. Twilight just glared at them, her mouth open slightly, and her pupils the size of pinpricks.

Spike burst out laughing. Marty grinned mischievously as he played the song, a playful country melody. Doc got to his feet and brushed himself off. “Do you know how dangerous that was!?” he cried. “You could have seen yourself! Need I remind you what a paradox can cause?”

The teenager stopped playing. “Well, we did see ourselves, so yeah, actually, you do.” He frowned at his friend. “Doc, I understand why you did it, but I still don’t think it’s very much like you to lie.”

Doc raised his eyebrows at the middle of his face, betraying his folly. “What? Marty, I don’t kno-”

Marty cut him off. “Doc, come on. You can trust me. Paradoxes can’t destroy the universe, or anything else. I figured it out.”

The inventor’s face fell. “I-I’m sorry, Marty, I just had to be sure... with you and Jennifer...”

Marty put a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, I get it. But you can always trust me, Doc. Don’t forget.”

Doc smiled. “Alright, Marty.” He turned to Twilight. “Did you like the show?”

She grinned. “Yes!” The three laughed.

After a moment, Spike spoke up. “How come nopony ever told me I look so chubby?”

The noonday sun was high in the sky. Twilight had told Marty that the sun was pulled by their princess. He had thought it to be fiction, until she described her, and Marty realized it was the tall pony at the castle. Whatever, man. Magic.

There was something about her, though. She had known his name.

“It is good to see you again, Marty...”

He shook his head. Whatever it is, I’ll find out. Twilight had arranged a meeting with the tall princess at the end of the week. It would have been sooner, but the Princess had asked to wait. She wouldn’t have waited, if she had met us before, he reasoned, Princess... Solaris, or whatever it is, probably just read my mind or something.

He and Spike were making their way through Ponyville, to a farm on the other side of the town. Marty was idly plucking his guitar. Doc had given him a list of questions to ask any ponies he happened to encounter, as a part of his ‘foreign culture research’.

The farm they were headed to was apparently the financial center of Ponyville. The list included several questions on economics, too. “Y’know,” Marty said, as they curved down another road, devoid of buildings. “The town where I come from is kinda like this one.”

Spike was jogging, trying to keep up with Marty’s long stride. “Yeah? How?”

“Well, it started as a gold mine, see. Just one family, one business. Then, more people came to get the gold. Those people set up shops, making the town.”

The young dragon groaned. “You sound like Twilight.”

The human chuckled. “Yeah, it sounds boring. But I actually went there, with the time machine. It was pretty exciting. You ever see a western?” Spike shook his head. “Oh. Well, there’s a whole bunch of people trying to kill each other, and other people trying to save other people, and being heroic was an everyday matter.”

They approached a long wooden fence, with a wide gate. Spike fumbled with the latch, and it swung open. “Sound fun.”

“Oh, it was. Dangerous, though.”

They strode through, and the dragon closed the gate again. “Did they have guitars back then?” Fluttershy had returned the Walkman, and Marty had it in his pocket.

“Yeah. Acoustic, though. No electric. Which didn’t make it any poorer.” They swung round a corner, and the apple trees gave way to a large red barn. “There was one song, really catchy, that I could never shake from my head.”

Spike trotted to the front of the large red building. “This is Applejack’s barn. The basement is right around here.” He went around to the left side of the simple building. “I’ve never been inside, though. I’m not even allowed on the farm this day of the week.”

Marty followed him, and found himself in front of a set of slanted basement doors, jutting from the ground. Spike reached out and rapped a knuckle on them.

Hoofsteps could be heard, approaching the door from below. They stopped, just beneath them, and then laboriously climbed upwards. The light-blue doors swung open to reveal Applejack. She saw the two of them and smiled. “Hay y’all. Thirsty?”

Marty shrugged. Spike nodded eagerly. Applejack gave him a foul look. “What’er you so excited fer? Yer gonna be drinkin apple juice.” The young dragon’s face fell slightly.

The earth pony descended the stairs. “Well, come on in. Brace yerselves, it’s chilly down here.”

Spike followed her first, jumping down each step. Marty cautiously followed him down the short ladder, and swung the basement doors shut behind him.

The light-blue doors slammed closed, leaving nothing outside but a hot sun and peeling paint.