Back to Equestria

        The inside of the basement was noticeably cooler than the farm above. Applejack led them through the large underground room, past seemingly endless rows of large wooden barrels. The dark air was breached by the occasional naked lightbulb, hanging from the ceiling.

        Applejack trotted in front of them, her hooves gently tapping against the wooden planks. The earth pony smiled gently as she led them through the darkness. Spike followed her, nervously, glancing down the rows of casks with apprehension. Marty brought up the rear, idly wondering what was ahead.

        The continued walking for a short moment, before a light could be seen down the path. The trio arrived upon it and found two familiar faces.

        Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie, lounging on some old armchairs, mugs in their hooves. Another large wooden barrel was erected beside them, a temporary faucet inserted into the bottom, and a lantern, perched on top. A small oriental rug covered a portion of the floor. “Hey, AJ!” the blue pegasus choked out. “You made it!”

        The apple farmer chuckled. “Darnit, Dash, I told you to hold off until Mister Marty got here.”

        Pinkie Pie turned her head, then jumped onto the ceiling. “Whee! Hiya Marty-Marty-Marty-Marty-Marty! Hiya Spikey-Wikey!” She continued to bounce up and down, her pink head hitting the ceiling each time.

        “Hi, Pinkie.” Marty glanced around at the bizarre sitting space. He knew exactly what this was, but he felt obliged to ask, anyway. “What is this?”

        AJ fetched three more mugs from behind the cask. “Every week we come down here an drink. Tell stupid stories, that kinda thing.” She filled two of them up with the cider from the small barrel, and passed one off to the human. The orange mare then jumped on to a vacant armchair.

        Spike looked at the ground. “D-don’t I get any cider?”

        “Hay no.”

        Marty glanced down at the mug in his hand. It was filled to the brim with a frothy amber liquid, that bore a pungent smell of red apples. He cautiously took a sip.

        The time traveler was pleasantly surprised. He had been expecting something akin to apple-flavored beer, but this was an entirely different experience. The cider tasted more like wine, a sweet apple wine. It was cool, and frothy, scented with a myriad of winter spices, complementing the apple flavor without destroying it.

        Marty was halfway through his mug before the alcohol caught up with him. He coughed, a fiery feeling flaring up his throat.

        Rainbow Dash laughed. “Jeez, are all humans this bad with liquor?”

        He shook his head. “Nah, just going too fast. This stuff is great.”

        “Yessir, that is the best stuff we got. Applejack Williams, we call it. Ah can’t say Ah’m not flattered, but Ah’ve no clue where the ‘Williams’ comes in.” Applejack spoke up again.

        Pinkie Pie continued to bounce in her chair. “Yeah it’s really good! But don’t give any to Fluttershy or she’ll end up like she did on Hearth’s Warming last year!”

        Rainbow Dash finished her cider, then refilled her mug. “Oh, jeez, that was hilarious! Celestia, Tavi didn’t know what hit her.”

        The cowpony grinned into her mug. “Just goes to show, you never know what can happen when you get them musicians into the mix.”

        “Heyy!” Pinkie was still bouncing. “Marty here’s a musician! He’s got his guitar right there!”

        Dash snickered. “Really? Gee, I’m not sure we can trust you anymore, Marty.” all three ponies burst into rounds of laughter.

        “Hey!” Spike spoke up. “He’s got awesome music where he come from, though! It’s really cool!”

        “Is that so?” Applejack drawled. “Well, let’s here some of it, then! Ah’m curious as to what Fluttershy’s been so gung-ho on listenin to recently.”

        Marty laughed out loud. “That? Jeez, I’m not sure you’d like that.”

        The cyan pegasus slammed a hoof on her chair. “Buck that! Let’s hear it!”

        The human shrugged, then pulled the Walkman from his pocket. He inserted the Aerosmith tape, removed the earphones, and pressed play. Music escaped the small box, of a poor quality, but still enjoyable.

        Or at least, enjoyable to a fan of the work. The three mares listened calmly, giving the music a try. Their static faces betrayed their lack of enthusiasm, however.

        “Um, y’all got anything else? I ain’t so sure this is hittin home.”

        Marty nodded. “Yeah, the boys from Boston aren’t for everyone.” He removed the tape from the Walkman, and succinctly replaced it with another one.

        A mellow blues rhythm played into the space. The cowpony smiled. “Hay, this ain’t so bad. Who’s this?”

        “Otis Redding.”

        “Pappy always used to play the blues. Always makes for a good time.”

        Rainbow Dash waved a hoof. “Whatever, I still don’t trust musicians. You’re cool, though, human.”

        Marty leaned against a barrel, slowly plucking his guitar along with the music. “Come on, this guy couldn’t have been that bad.”

        “He was!”

        Pinkie Pie giggled. “Oh, Dashie, you’re so silly! You’re just sad because it didn’t work out. But that’s okay! He was a meanie.”

        Applejack let out a harsh laugh. “You kin say that again.”

        The small dragon assistant, wondering if ever was going to get any apple juice, spoke again. “I heard about this guy. Brolly, right? What was wrong with him?”

        Pinkie leapt from her chair again. “He was a meanie, Spikey-Wikey!"

        “Y’kin say that again-again! Good-fer-nuthin attention hog.” the cowpony growled.

        The pink party pony stomped a hoof. “He only wanted one thing!”

        Dash groaned, tilting her head back. “They all always want one thing.”

        Marty shuffled his feet. I’m not sure I feel comfortable about this. “Erm...” he managed to grumble, “What exactly is that one thing?”

        The pegasus locked eyes with him. “Oh, you know. The only. Thing. Stallions. Want.”

        The human grimaced. “You mean-”

        “Fame!”

        Marty blinked. “Fame?”

        “Yeah, Fame! What else would they want? Nothing, I tells yah!”

        The time traveler let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. “Oh, okay. Uh, how would going out with you-” he gestured at the cyan pony, currently taking a swig of cider, “-make him famous?”

        Rainbow Dash did a spit-take. “Are you kidding? Of course some alien wouldn’t know.” She her her mug aside, cider spilling on the ground.

        Applejack scoffed. “Hay!”

        Dash ignored her. “I am only the fastest flier in all of Equestria! I can do a zillion stunts! I’m a shoe-in for the Wonderbolts, aaand, I’m the only pegasus who can successfully perform a Sonic Rainboom! How’s that for famous?”

        Marty pursed his eyebrows together. “Wha-, what?”

        The orange cowpony interjected. “Come on now, sugarcube. Y’all know what makes ya really famous.”

        Dash sighed. “Fine. I’m also one of the Elements of Harmony, and I helped save the whole world a few times. But that’s not as big a deal as my stunts!”

        Puzzled, the human took another sip of his drink. “What is that?”

        “The Elements?”

        “Uh, yeah.”

        Applejack grinned, leaning back in her chair and tilting her hat over her eyes. “Well, I dun mean to brag, but us six are kind of a big deal. Ya see-”

        Pinkie Pie cut in, rather loudly. “We have magic necklaces! We defeat bad guys!”

        The cowpony gave her a sour look, but continued. “As Ah was sayin, we’re kind of a big deal. Yah see, there are these magic gems, that are magic. We all embody traits of these good things, ya see, so it’s only us that kin use ‘em.” She nodded, smugly.

        “Traits?” Marty asked.

        “Yessir. Ah’m the element o’ Honesty, if y’all were wonderin. Whatever Ah say is sure t’be the good an honest truth!”

        “And you being... honest, gives you magic?”

        She shrugged. “Sort of. Ah need the fancy jewelry, and there’s gotsta be all of us.”

        The pink earth pony began bouncing around the room, doing cartwheels. “I’m the element of Laughter! I can do a million funny things, and I like nothing more than to see somepony smile!” She stopped bouncing and zipped towards Marty’s face. He flinched. “YOU don’t seem to be smiling very much...”

        Marty put his hands in the air defensively. “Oh, no, I’m happy. Ish. I guess.”

        She peered at him intensely. The human weakly smiled.

        Pinkie burst into a much larger smile, herself. “Okey-Dokey-Lokey!” She bounded off.

        Spike ventured to speak again. “S-so do I get any apple ju-”

        “I, on the other hand-!” Rainbow Dash hovered in the air, yelling triumphantly, “Embody the element of Loyalty!” the human stifled back a laugh as the blue pegasus started doing poses in mid-air. “Brave! Trustworthy! And all around the best pony you’ll ever meet! Rainbow Dash is never gonna let you down!”

        Pinkie appeared out of nowhere again, bouncing alongside the pegasus. “It’s true! She’s so loyal, she never lets anypony down!”

        Rainbow grinned. “Yeah!”

        “She always stands by you, no matter what!”

        The prismatic mare’s face fell a bit. “Y-yeah!”

        “And she’ll never turn her back, not in a million years!”

        “Um, yeah...”

        “And no matter what you do, she’ll never give up on you, because she sticks by her friends, through thick and thin.”

        Dash was no longer having fun. “Pinkie...”

        “Why, I can’t imagine what it would take for Rainbow Dash not to give you a second chance! She’s your friend forever and ever and-”

        “PINKIE!” the pegasus grabbed the pink pony’s face, glaring at it. “Please, Pinks. Stop.”

        Pinkie Pie smiled. “Okey-Dokey-Lokey, Dashie! You’re the best!” the earth pony bounded off again. Rainbow Dash, Marty noted, looked awful. She gloomily sat down on a chair and stared at the bottom of her mug.

        AJ broke the silence. “So, enough about us. Yer an alien! What’s it like where yer from?”

        Pinkie completed another lap around the cellar. “Do you have slime pods? Ooooh! Or slime beds? Or slime buckets? Or slimey-wimey sandwiches?” She made a playfully disgusted face.

        Marty snorted. “Nah, we’re nothing like that. Pretty boring, actually.” He pointed at the three ponies. “You guys aren’t quite what I expected from aliens, either. Nothing like the movie.”

        “What in tarnation’s a movie?”

        The human didn’t know what to say to that. “Uh, nevermind. We’re pretty future-ey, though, if that helps. We’ve got like, computers and stuff. And we’ve been to space.”

        The pink party pony popped in again. “Space? You mean like the moon and stuff? Cause we’ve got a princess that’s been to the moon but she didn’t really want to go there she just had to go there because she was mean and-”

        She was stopped abruptly by the cowpony pulling her down by her tail. “We had a princess go to the moon n such. That counts as “space”, I reckon.” She put a hoof to her chin. “Say, is that what that flyin box of yers does? Kinda looks like somethin that would do that.”

        Spike threw his hands up, exuberant. “No, it’s actually a time machi-” He was interrupted by the human clamping a hand over his mouth.

        Rainbow Dash broke her prolonged silence, her ears perking up and her excited expression returning. “Did you say time machine? Like in Daring Do and the Lord of Time?”

        Marty grimaced. “Uh...”

        The pegasus’ eyes widened. “That’s per-... uh, that’s awesome! Can we see it? Applejack leaned forward, seemingly just as eager.

        He eyed the two mares, pondering his options. “I’m not sure that we should, cause, you see-”

        Pinkie Pie, who seemed to have developed a keen skill at interrupting the young human, once again cut him off. “Ooh! Yeah! Let’s do that! That sounds like lotsa fun let’s go go go go go go!” She bounded off towards the cellar door.

        Marty groaned, and quickly finished the rest of his mug of cider. He began to run after the pink pony, but stopped after a few steps. Eungh... That’s... GOOD cider. He regained his composure and, stumbling, continued his pursuit.

        Applejack hurriedly followed, shouting “Gosh Darnit, Pinkie Pie!”, with Rainbow Dash tailing her. The cyan pegasus smiled to herself, but said nothing.

        Spike glanced around, quickly extinguished the lantern, and trotted off after them.

        Twilight shuddered.

Doc looked up from his smoking test tubes, a pair of safety goggles obscuring his face. “Eh?”

The lavender unicorn shook her head, lowering the ball of fire from her face. “Nothing, nothing. I just got a chill.” Doc eyed her warily, but said nothing.

“Right. Back to these frogs.”

The small group of pursuers finally caught up with the pink pony, just as she arrived at the DeLorean’s current location, on a small hill beside the Library. She was bouncing up and down on the hood of the vehicle.

Marty threw up his arms. “Aw, don’t do that! There’s gonna be dents in it!”

Rainbow Dash pressed her face to the glass, her eyes widening. “Woooooah.”

AJ, meanwhile, eyed it warily. “How does a thing like that work?”

“Uh, well, I dunno.” Marty shrugged. “I mean, I know how the car works, but the time stuff is beyond me. I just know how to drive it oh would you get off of that!” He quickly swept Pinkie Pie off the hood. She giggled and bounced off of the ground.

“It can fly, right?” Dash exclaimed, her face still pressed to the time machine. “You guys used to to get up to my house.”

Applejack’s jaw dropped. “It still works? But Ah saw it crash into a million little bits n pieces!” She bit her lip, grinning. “You... might be partial to givin us a ride, maybe?”

Marty forced himself to smile. “Eh heh, see...”

The pink party pony jumped into his face again. “That’s a yes! Get in, girls!” She backflipped and bounced off of the driver’s side gull-wing door, and it slid open. Before the human could voice his objections, all three mares were tumbling around inside of the DeLorean.

The human groaned, then got into the vehicle after them. Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash moved to occupy the rear seating, with Applejack occupying the front, a wide smile plastered over her face. “Alright,” Marty sighed, “Let’s get this thing-”

“W-wait!” Spike came jogging up the hill, his face red from the exertion. “Wait f-for me... Ooh...” He stopped besides the car to take a few long breaths. “Ooh... That was a big run.” the small dragon quickly clambered into the passenger seat with the orange cowpony.

Marty dared to glance behind himself. AJ was shuffling her hooves in excitement. Rainbow Dash was sitting sordidly, a determined grin on her face. Pinkie Pie... Pinkie Pie was bouncing in her seat, looking like she was about to explode from excitement. “Okay,” he began tentatively, “let’s go, I guess.” He reached for the ignition.

The engine roared to life, and the DeLorean once again jolted into the air. The two earth ponies could barely contain their excitement, Pinkie squealing with delight, and AJ grinning ear to ear. Spike was still catching his breath, but Rainbow glanced around uneasily, glaring out a window. “How fast can this thing go?”

“Nononono!” Pinkie shoved a hoof into her friend’s face. “How does it to the timey-wimey stuff? Tell mmeeeeee...” she made a zombie face at him.

Ignoring her, the human demonstrated the car’s time functions as they slowly rose to a manageable altitude. “Well, uh, here you turn on these things,” he flicked the time circuits on, “And you pick a date, I guess.”

“Can you do July of 985?!” Dash blurted. Everyone looked at her. “...Uh, please?”

Marty shrugged. “Sure.” He punched in the date. “How about... July 12th, 985. See? That’s the destination, that’s now, and that’s the last place we came from. You punch it at eighty-eight miles per hour, with these on, and bam.” He abruptly flicked the time circuits off again. “But we’re not gonna do that.”

There was a collective moan from the Equestrian occupants. “Aww...”

“No.”

The cyan pegasus huffed. “Fine. How fast did you say this can go? Eighty-eight?” Marty nodded. “Pssh, that’s nothing. What can it really do?”

The teenager pondered this for a moment. “I dunno. It didn’t used to be able to fly, and back then I wouldn’t say much more than a hundred. Now, though, I dunno.”

“Well hay!” the cowpony smiled, “Let’s get this thang started! I always wanted to see what yer so bent up on with this ‘speed’ thing, Dashie.” Dash stuck her tongue out at her.

Marty rose them to a decent altitude, several hundred feet away from the rooftops of Ponyville. He gripped the steering wheel tightly. “Ready?”

All three mares nodded. Spike raised a claw. “Uh, is this really the best-?”

He was thrown backwards, sprawling into Applejack, as the car surged forward. Marty floored the gas, allowing the DeLorean to accelerate as fast as it could. Dash let out a whoop, smiling.

The distant landscape whizzed by as the vehicle shot through the air, quickly overtaking eighty-eight and still climbing. Applejack looked nauseous, struggling to hold her cider down. Pinkie and Dash were smiling, the latter sporting a determined look.

Marty glanced forward. the hovercar was nearing 160 mph, and they were rapidly headed straight for the palace-city atop the mountain. Not eager to return to the palace (or one particularly cranky white unicorn stallion with a blue mane) he began to slow down. “We’re not gonna get any faster, ladies!” he yelled over the whooshing air.

“Horseapples!” a cyan-blue hoof reached quickly into the human’s vision, straight for the time circuits.

“No!”

He made to stop her, but it was too late. The colored display lit up, and the flux capacitor surged. With the speed requirement more than accounted for, the effect was almost instantaneous.

BANG

        Princess Celestia hurried down the halls of the palace, on the still-dark morning of July 12th, 985. She was hurrying, in a royal and dignified manner, because she was late.

        The Princess was very excited. She was about to raise the sun for the Summer Sun Celebration, held again this year in Canterlot. Another year closer, she thought to herself, until Luna comes home. It was less than a century away, now. Buck, less than two decades. She had a right to be excited.

        And in her hurry, she had been late in ordering a replacement stained glass window for a certain, remote wing of the palace. She had to deal with more artisans asking her why they needed to replace the glass, at such a specific time, when the glass was still there, in pristine condition.

        She resorted to putting her hoof down, and delivering a direct order. She didn’t need to explain that confounded car, or its affinity for broken glass, to anyone.

        No, she was in a hurry.

        At the same time, on the same date, one Shining Armor was leaning on the railing of the palace, bored with sentry duty. As a junior-initiate, he was old enough to recognize the importance of sentry duty, but still young enough to be lazy about it.

        He stared out at the massive, beautiful valley below him. Equestria. It was really quite a sight. Oh, he knew that the borders extended well beyond this valley, but more than half the permanent settlements resided there! It really was the heart and jewel of the great nation. He was honored to protect it with every fiber of his being.

BANG

        The loud sound woke the young guard from his reverie. He peered at the direction it seemed to come from, an area of sky situated by the Canterlot Parade Grounds. there was nothing there. He began to wonder if he had imagined it-

BANG

        Apparently no-

BANG

        A large flash of light illuminated the early morning, just for an instant, and a large, metal... box, flew out of it.

        Flew out of it quite fast, actually. Shining barely had time to react before the strange flying object was already deep within the city.

        He shook his head, deciding if it were wise to report something that may or may not have been real.

        His decision obvious, he turned and galloped down the marble halls, shouting for his sergeant.

        Spike was having the worst. Day.

        It had started out pretty cool, to be sure. He was hanging out with an Alien, who was actually a pretty cool dude. A nice breather from his all-female cast of friends.

        Then they had gone into Applejack’s Cider Cellar. That was someplace he had never thought he would go, yet he got to climb down those steps, and see the endless rows of wooden barrels. He was still thirsty, but whatever.

        That’s when things started to go downhill. Pinkie Pie had somehow managed to convince Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Marty and himself to take a joyride in the human’s time machine. They weren’t going to actually use it, just fly around! But that’s just what you need to expect from Pinkie.

        He slapped a scaly palm to his face. I should know better by now! he thought.

        He was in an old wing of the palace, completely deserted, seventeen years in the past. The young dragon was leaning against the DeLorean, amidst thousands of pieces of shattered glass, with two of his friends passed out on the floor before him. Thankfully, they were mostly uninjured, and the legions of guards were looking for them on the other side of the palace. So there was no rush.

        He was particularly worried, however, about his two friends who weren’t passed out. After they crashed, Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie had vanished, and he had no idea where they might have gone.

        The baby dragon heard a groan, and looked up. Marty and Applejack were steadily getting to their feet/hooves, finally awake. The human managed to stand upright, brushing glass off of himself, and looked around. His gaze swept outside, and his jaw dropped. “Spike...” He breathed, “What is that?”

        The human looked down at the city below. Not but a stone’s throw from the window, there was a large open area, filled the brim with panicking ponies and guard stallions, all with looks of terror or anger.

        Spike shrugged. “That? We did that.”

Marty glanced at him. “Oh?”

“Yep. That’s what’s left of the Summer Sun Celebration.”

Marty panicked. “We did that, you said?” Spike nodded.

Shit shit shit shit shit, he thought. “Okay, so, what happened?”

“Well,” the dragon began, “Dash turned on the thingy,” he waved a claw at the time machine, “and I guess we went back in time. Again.”

The human looked at him. “And?!?!”

He rolled his eyes. “And then we flew over the festival, crashing into the stage. Everypony freaked out, and guards started to attack us. You flew us up and away, but then one of the guards fired a blast at us, and we swerved into the palace. They’d still be after us, too, but you kept the thing flying, and managed to get us into a really remote part of the building.”

Marty ran his hands through his hair. “How remote?”

“It’ll be days before anyone thinks to look here.”

Applejack finally managed to string together a sentence. “Huh? Wuzz goin on?”

“Applejohn!”

“Jack.”

“Applejack, then. You okay?”

She nodded. “Uh-huh. Just a mite nauseous, is all. Where are we?”

The human winced. “Uh...”

Spike spoke up. “985.”

“The year?!”

“Yep.”

The cowpony glanced around. “Where are Dash and Pinkie Pie?” Seeing the two boys’ faces, she panicked. “Are you kiddin me?!?! I dun even want t’think about what kinda mayhem they can be causin out there.”

Marty wrung his hands together. “Applejack, it is really important the neither Pinkie nor Rainbow change anything! Anything you do in the past can alter the future.”

AJ paled. “W-what happens then?”

The human said nothing, but the orange mare read his expression well enough. “Alright, really bad things. Gotcha.”

Marty nodded. “Okay. Do you know where Rainbow might have gone to?”

She shook her head. “No, Ah-” Applejack stopped, thinking for a moment. “...Actually, Ah think Ah have an idea, yeah.”

“Good. Do you think you can find her?” She nodded. “Okay. Spike and I will look for Pinkie.” He whirled around. “Spike?”

The human found the dragon on his knees, clutching his stomach. “Hey, dude, you okay?”

Spike just moaned.

Marty knelt down by his friend. “Man, you don’t look so hot. What’s-”

The baby dragon burped.

Applejack Apple watched, horrified, as the two bipedal males were engulfed in a massive ball of emerald fire.

Amidst the crowd of panicking civilians in Canterlot, a young purple filly slowly walked home, alone.

“Go to the festival, they said. You’ll love it, they said.” She grumbled as she trotted down the cobblestone road. “There was nothing there but that weird flying metal thing.”

Twilight Sparkle hung her head. “Who needs to see a princess raise the sun, anyway?” she sniffled. “I’m going to run away, and never set hoof in Canterlot again, so long as I live!”