//-------------------------------------------------------// The Green Time Traveling Pegasus -by Fruitstrike- //-------------------------------------------------------// //-------------------------------------------------------// Some Proper Funding //-------------------------------------------------------// Some Proper Funding “Sir, are you sure you want to do this?” My assistant, Forest Feather said to me. “Almost all of New Ponyville already think you’re insane. Getting rejected this time will break it.” I sighed heavily. “Yes, Forest Feather, I am absolutely sure I want to do this.” I told him as he lifted my project with his magical aura. “If I get rejected this time I’m joining the winning side.” Forest Feather gasped, but then took a deep breath. “Lets get going then.” We both left the house. Our hour long journey would only have been five minutes if all rebels weren’t enemies of New Equestria. The main streets are patrolled by the Pony Guard every second. Every Pegasus has to have a certified ID to fly above buildings, Unicorns are limited to only levitation, and Earth Ponies are forced to wear a special harness that keeps them from extending their hind legs too far back. An unknown character going by ‘The Screecher’ broke into the old Ponyville’s hospital and peacefully put the last Princess to sleep, thirty-one hundred years after she was sent in. It’s amazing how long a town and its Princess can last that long, from the beginning of the 22nd century to the 53rd century. Time is really confusing, but thats what I’m hoping to crack. After an hour, we arrived at the base of the rebels, where the co-leader, Special Agent Sweet Drop leads the rebels. Just arriving at the base is a challenge, being surrounded by automated turrets, spikes, and Unicorns, Pegasi, and Earth Ponies taught in the art of killing. Getting inside though, now there’s a whole other story. To get inside you have to pass three voice recognition activations, two voice password activations, a hoof print scanner, and and eye scanner. If you don’t pass any of those, then automated guns pop out of the sides and shoot at anything that moves. I told Aloe Sun, the desk receptionist, armed with legs that could buck you a mile away, that my assistant and I are here to see Sweet Drop. The stares at both of us coldly while speaking into a P.A. system, informing Sweet Drop of my arrival. “Send him in.” A hard, mean voice came from the speaker. “And schedule my appointment with that bipedal cat whats-its-name.” Aloe Sun nodded to the tightly sealed door to the right of us, and responded to Sweet Drop with a “Yes sir.” I pushed the sealed door open and walked into a long, wide hallway. The rebels have somepony for everything. There’s a pony for technology advances. There’s a pony for stockpiling food. And there’s even a pony for writing history. I know, crazy, right? I knocked on the door to Sweet Drop’s room, and heard a ‘Come in!’ from behind the door. I opened the door and walked in, followed by Forest Feather. Sweet Drop is a peculiar individual. The stallion has the hair, the eyelashes, the face, and the tail of a certain male thirty-two hundred years ago. But he has the voice and the glare of a stallion. “What do you want?” He asked me harshly. I cleared my throat nervously. I glanced at Forest Feather. He was shaking and nearly dropped the best project ever. “Sir, I have a proposal to make to you.” He raised and eyebrow. “You’re proposing to me? Are you gay, son?” I cocked my head. “N-n-no.” I cleared my throat out of nervousness again. Forest Feather’s knees wouldn’t stop knocking. “This is the next best thing right after the ancient mirror found in the Crystal Empire.” I paused for a very dramatic effect. “Time travel!” Forest Feather put the project down and pressed a large red button with his left hoof, and slid a large level down. The project whistled and steamed, and huffed and puffed. “You hear that?” I asked him dramatically, referring to the very engine like sounds coming from it. “Thats my shrunk version of a flux capacitor. A mini plutonium reactor powers a very powerful but concealed vibrator, which starts the flux capacitor.” Sweet Drop cracked his neck. A glint of curiosity flashed from his eyes. “Flux capacitor? Plutonium reactor?” He grinned, raising his voice to be heard over the loud noise coming from the project. “Are you telling me you just created a time machine?” This is the tricky part. I laughed nervously. “Um…well…ya see…” The curiousness disappeared. It was replaced with the same stare he had when I came in. “You have the two main things needed to make a time machine, but you don’t know how to use it?” “That is why we’re seeking your finance.” Forest Feather said to him, probably hoping to save my flank. “We ran out of the money we had to obtain the plutonium and build the flux capacitor.” Sweet Drop leaned in a little bit closer. Only a little bit. “We need to be funded just enough to make the other parts, and have a space small enough for the flux capacitor to work, but a space big enough to fit around twenty ponies.” “Why do twenty ponies need to go?” Sweet Drop asked. I put my right wing up to Forest Feather’s mouth, hushing him up. “Twenty specially trained ponies. If we want to win the war, we need to go back to before it started.” Sweet Drop’s blank stare switched to shock and excitement. “You want to go back in time to the 21st century, thirty-two hundred years ago to get the creature who started this all?” I was going to nod with excitement, but then something he said rang again. “We’d be going to the 23nd century, thirty-hundred years ago, on Nightmare Night, the night the screeching Banshee took five out of the seven descendants of the Friendship Crusaders. Not anytime before that.” Sweet Drop raised an eyebrow. “Surely you know about the Animus research we did on Star Shimmer, right?” I shook my head. “Well let me fill ya in. Last month, our scientists finally found out a way to record the lives of the ancestors of the subject. We learned that Starlight Glimmer, an ancestor that tried taking over Equestria in the 21st century actually met the screeching Banshee and tried taking it on. She actually came the closest to beating it that we have on record.” “Did you find out anything else?” I asked him. “We ran its voice through voice recognition software.” Sweet Drop answered, rubbing the back of his head with one of his hooves. “Turns out, the voice recognition software ran it through the database, and the screeching Banshee is confirmed to be from the 21st century.” “Do you know who it is?” Forest Feather asked. Sweet Drop nodded. “Some of us rebels call him by his codename we made for him. But the royals call him ‘Tirekia’. Tirekia is the twin sister of Tirek, who tried taking over the old Equestria.” Forest Feather nodded. “Yeah. I remember the history lesson we had on him. Isn’t he half pony?” “He is.” Tirek also has the power to suck the magic out of the three pony races. “We’re prepared for something like him if we have to face him again.” He went behind his desk and set a red and black folder on top. “We call him ‘Cheddar’. It’s a nickname my sister and I came up with. Cheddar is probably the only pony in Equestria that can suck the magic out of others.” “Even an Alicorn?” I asked. An Alicorn is a princess that rules over Equestria. Or a part of it, anyway. Suddenly a loud, beeping siren wailed. At first I flexed my wings, ready for a fight. But the colors of the siren weren’t dangerous colors. They’re blue and white. “What does that mean?” I asked him. Sweet Drop was speechless. So I asked him again. “What does it mean?” Sweet Drop shook his head. “It’s impossible. I saw the last of them die. I was there when Dark Sentry pulled the trigger. I saw both of them die. And Princess Twilight Heather’s been dead for a millennium…” “Sir?” I asked, thinking I know what he’s talking about. “Are you talking about Alicorns? Is that what that alert is for?” Sweet Drop sighed. “That alert is being triggered by our Alicorn detector I had our Optimistic Unicorn party install just to give him something to do.” He rubbed his chin. “It’s meant to detect a sudden flow of Alicorn magic anywhere in the world.” Sweet Drop got out of his seat and walked towards the door. “I believe you left us when we refused to fund this project. But now that I know why you did it, we’re putting all our extra resources on getting this thing done. Don’t fail us.” He flicked his tail for us to follow. “You can leave it in there. No pony has access to that room except for me and ponies I let in.” I nodded, and nodded again to Forest Feather. We followed Sweet Drop to the lobby with Aloe Sun, and into a large, steampunk room filled with Earth Ponies. “This is the Earth Pony room, where the ponies here study agriculture and Earth machines.” “What does this have to do with Alicorn magic appearing?” I asked him. Sweet Drop stopped walking and looked at me. “Stone Quibble! Come here now!” “Yes sir?” A brown, average height Earth Pony zipped beside me, waiting for a command from Sweet Drop. He had gray, smooth hair, and a light green war vest. “Show these two Pegasi to the Alicorn magic analyzer.” He gruffed. “And then take them to the Interdimensional Travel room. Tell the Pegasi and Unicorns there to drop everything and focus on their project they’re working on.” Quibble nodded. “Yes sir.” He flicked his right ear at us, gesturing for us to follow. “Come along.” “I’ll have your project put in the Interdimensional Travel room.” Sweet Drop told me. I nodded and hurried to catch up to Forest Feather and Stone Quibble. “So how come there aren’t any sirens wailing in the other rooms?” Forest Feather asked Quibble as I joined them. “Just the highest-ups?” Quibble’s eyes popped wide open. “The Alicorn sirens went off?” He asked, breathing hard. “That means that a Princess is out there!” “Well we wouldn’t know.” Forest Feather said. “Forget about taking us to the Alicorn magic analyzer. Lead us to the room Sweet Drop mentioned.” Quibble was about to say something, but quickly shut his mouth and walked, almost uncontrollably, to the room we’re needed at. “I’m going to go ask if I can lead a search party to the coordinates the analyzer has.” With that he skipped with enthusiasm away. Forest Feather and I looked at the steel door in front of us. A sign across the top says that it is the room we need. I raised a hoof up to the door, and knocked five times. Ten seconds later, the door opened halfway, revealing a dark gray stallion Pegasus with a light blue mane, slicked back. “Can I help you?” He asked. “Um, yes, you can.” I said to him, gulping. “Sweet Drop sent us here to work on my time traveling machine.” The Pegasus raised an eyebrow. “Time travel?” There’s a hint of excitement in his tone. “You’re seriously working on mastering time travel?” “Yes, we are.” I answered. “Me and my assistant here have run out of money to continue our work though.” I coughed nervously. “We need help with the small components. The flux capacitor and the plutonium reactor are the two main things we have complete, and the things we need the most.” The Pegasus held up a hoof. “One sec.” He shut the door. Keeping the voices of the Pegasi and Unicorns inside. Then the door opened again. Instead of the dark gray Pegasus, it was a light purple Unicorn that opened the door, this time opening it all the way. The Unicorn smiled at us, moving out of the way. “Make yourselves at home, time travelers!” //-------------------------------------------------------// Magic! //-------------------------------------------------------// Magic! “Where is the dematcircuit?” I asked the head of the room, Viola. “The dematcircuit is the device required for keeping the time machine from running into anything on its way through time by sending it through a time vortex!” Viola backed up, surprised at my sudden snap. “I-I gave it to Doctor Hoof. Ask him.” I felt guilty about snapping at her. The building of the time machine started about a week ago. The flux capacitor and the plutonium reactor have been installed in an empty box that was being worked on by another room. Whatever they did made the box bigger on the inside than on the out. Doctor Hoof didn’t feel so lightly about it, though. Which is odd. That kind of technology is awesome! “Doctor Hoof!” I called out for him. “Doctor Hoof!” “Right here, old chap.” Said Doctor Hoof. Doctor Hoof is a lot like a fictional character from a TV show that was aired centuries ago. “What do you need?” “Viola said she gave the dematcircuit to you.” I told him. “Its ready to be installed in the TAS.” The TAS is the name the room came up with for the time machine. It stands for ‘Time And Space’. “To surpass time, we have to surpass space too. And thats what the dema-” “I know what the dematcircuit does.” Doctor Hoof scoffed, suddenly angry. “I was the one who invented it.” I always knew Doctor Hoof was the one who made the dematcircuit I need. But the way he said it made me rethink how he meant it. “What do you mean?” Doctor Hoof sighed. “I am not actually who I say I am.” He said, turning away. “You ever heard of Doctor Whooves?” Doctor Hoof asked me. I thought back to my childhood when Forest Feather had told me about how possible time travel is. He told me about how a fictional character named Doctor Whooves. Doctor Whooves is a time traveler that goes throughout time, saving it. “Yeah. What about him.” “You’re looking at him.” Doctor Hoof said to me. “I am Doctor Whooves.” My mind went blank. I mean it literally went blank. “Y-You’re Doctor Whooves?” The Doctor nodded. “Do you know the hardship of time traveling?” He asked me. “I mean do you really know it?” I thought about it long and hard. Hardship is the quality of being hard to endure, uninviting or formidable. “Yes. I’m not going to be a time traveler. I’m going to be a time saver, per say. I’m going to right the wrongs that other time travelers have made, without disrupting time itself. I’m going to be the bite in her royal highnesses flank. I’m going to end the thirty-two hundred year long war.” The doctor nodded and gave me a small odd looking device. “That there is the dematcircuit. Plug a control lever in and poof, you’re thrown into the time vortex, rampaging down time.” “Thanks, Doctor.” I said, using my wings to hold the dematcircuit on my back. I walked over to Forest Feather and passed the device along to him. “Hey, you remember the Doctor? You told me about him a long time ago.” “Doctor Whooves?” He asked. “Yeah. Why?” One of my ears flicked towards Doctor Whooves, who was sitting on the floor, overlooking the manufacturing of the Chameleon. The Chameleon is a device thats going to be built right into the TAS. Its supposed to change the outside appearance of the TAS to blend in with anything that would match the actions of somepony doing something. “Doctor Hoof is Doctor Whooves.” Forest Feather stiffened, his wings going rigid, locking the dematcircuit on his back. “There’s a time traveler with us?” He asked, whispering. I nodded subtly. “You want to impress him?” I asked, forming a plan. “I need you to make sure he’s one of the twenty thats going on the time mission. Can you do that?” “Of course I can do that.” He answered. “But my opinion on who goes or not is inferior to yours.” I thought for a second. “Tell Viola I made you head of who goes on the time mission.” Forest Feather beamed. “Thats what friends are for.” He said. Suddenly everypony looked at him in awestruck surprise. Forest Feather was glowing. And I don’t mean he was beyond happy. I mean he was actually glowing. The casted glow was a bright green, same as his coat. He looked down at his front hooves, and gasped in surprise. Viola bounced over to us. “Whats going on?” She looked at Forest Feather. “No way…” Doctor Whooves came over to us. “Viola, you don’t think…” The glowing faded away. Forest Feather was breathing hard. “What happened?” Viola and Doctor Whooves looked at each other, and nodded. “Everypony, back to work! Her royal highness is preparing to launch an attack in a week’s time.” She and Doctor Whooves began walking towards a big door that only both of them have been in. Viola stopped and looked back. She flicked her tail at us, gesturing for us to come. When the door shut, we were standing in a medium sized room, filled with artifacts of all kinds. “Sit down.” Viola said calmly. “We have a lot to talk about.” “Like what?” I asked, ignoring her command and looking at the artifacts. “What was that glowing aura surrounding Forest Feather?” “That, my chap, was the aura of friendship.” Doctor Whooves stood beside Viola in her chair. “The last time the aura of friendship was recorded was a thousand years ago, a day before Princess Twilight Heather died.” He sighed. “I was there when it happened. Her royal highness was about to brutally murder Princess Twilight Heather. But Rainbow Stripe took the blow. I saw her dying body encased in a powerful, eye-searing light blue light. That was probably the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.” Doctor Whooves sniffed, and his eyes grew watery. “The blast sent her royal highness one hundred miles away. The next day…” Viola patted him on the back. “Our history goes back a long ways. I’m a descendant of the most famous violin player in all of Equestria. Sweet Drop is the descendant of special agent Sweety Drops. Aloe Sun, she’s from a long line of masseuses-turned-mercenaries.” She sighed. “We have to go back in time to rescue the five ponies taken by the screeching Banshee. And then to when Princess Twilight Heather’s brother went missing.” Something came across my mind. “Could the screeching Banshee be the royal highness up in Canterlotia?” All three ponies glanced at me wearily. “Could my royal pain-in-my-flank be a time traveler?” Doctor Whooves nodded. “Do you know of the Chrysalis Syndrome?” He asked Forest Feather and I. Both of us shook our heads. “The Chrysalis Syndrome is a condition in which a Looper awakens for the first time in a variant of their home loop. These Loopers treat this initial variant loop as normal until it ends. Once they awaken in a baseline loop, they experience difficulty accepting which reality is their baseline and which the variant.” I must say my mind is extremely quick at learning and adapting. “So if the royal highness is affected by the Chrysalis Syndrome, then that means she’s having a hard time adapting to this loop, if it is one. First off, how do we know we’re in a loop? Second, when does the loop restart? And third, how can we tell when it started so we can avoid it as much as possible?” “I can answer all three of those.” Doctor Whooves said. “If I had my time machine, I could tell you without looking thirty hundred years ago that we are in a time loop. Second, according to my memory, the loop is due to restart when the world is consumed in total light, which initiates the combustion of the planet. Its not due anytime soon. Third, we can tell when it starts when we go back in time. Actually, I could’ve answered all three questions with ‘we can tell when it starts when we go back in time’.” I nodded. “Makes sense.” “Tell us about the aura of friendship?” Forest Feather asked. “I mean I was just shrouded with it.” Viola’s horn glowed a light brown. “The aura of friendship was first recorded when Princess Twilight Sparkle, the Princess of Friendship, cast a very powerful spell.” A piece of paper appeared in front of the both of us. There was writing on it dating back to the 21st century. “The spell was cast on everypony in Equestria. When a strong act branching off of the six Elements of Harmony is performed, the magic the act produces is consumed and placed in a well deep below the earth, above the ruins of the castle of friendship.” “Princess Twilight Sparkle sacrificed herself for her friends when they needed it the most by performing an extraordinary act of magic. Tirek had returned and was after Twilight alone. When they met in battle, he had her friends trapped, and the only thing that could save them was her giving her magic to Tirek.” Said Doctor Whooves. “But she gave it all to him. From the very beginning of time when the first Alicorn, other than the two sisters, gave up said Alicorn’s magic, the Alicorn turned to ash.” “An Alicorn needs magic to live. When Tirek took the magic away from all the Alicorns the first time, he didn’t take the source of the magic.” Viola explained. “Anyway, Princess Twilight Sparkle had an Alicorn daughter Tirek didn’t know about. So before she gave her magic to him, she entrusted the rest of the mane six with Princess Twilight Dawn. Some stuff happened in between that we don’t know about. And then there’s now. Multiple sightings of the aura of friendship have occurred. But the royal highness took everypony who had it and threw them in a dungeon.” Something flashed at the back of my mind. “Quibble. I completely forgot about him. Did he get to go investigate the surge of the Alicorn magic?” Viola stared thoughtlessly at me for a second. “He and his squad was captured just before he reached the destination. Nopony knows what captured them, but Sweet Drop had to shut the Alicorn magic detector because it wouldn’t stop blaring.” I tilted my head. “We should probably go see what happened.” I told her. “Once the TAS is done, how about we go check what happened? And see if Alicorn magic is back or not.” Doctor Whooves shook his head. “Once you back in time, you alter the future. Even the slightest of changes could even keep Sweet Drop from being born.” “If we change the past, the royal highness might not be here, which would mean the rebels wont be here either. Which means we wont be here. And if we’re not here, we don’t go back in time. If we don’t go back in time, then the royal highness would still be here.” Said Forest Feather. “We’d just be making a paradox. But if we have magic on our side, we might actually survive the change of time.” Both Viola and Doctor Whooves were quiet for a minute, deep in thought. I shifted my hooves impatiently. Finally Doctor Whooves sighed. “Fine.” He said. “You two may go see whats up. But return with at least one piece of evidence, or nothing at all.” Forest Feather and I beamed. “What do we take to get there? Who do we take with us? How would we get back if we do find them?” Doctor Whooves grimaced. “That’s up to you. I’m putting both of you in charge of forming a group thats willing to go.” Um, that doesn’t make sense. “How are you putting us in charge? You’re just a retired time traveler.” Forest Feather said. “Do you know what the rebels fight for?” He asked us. “They fight for freedom and liberty.” I answered. “Why?” “I’m the pony who brought rebel groups together to form the Rebel Alliance against the royal highness.” He said, grinning in his old age. “I lead the rebels.”(�l� Author's Note I hope this story starts to be appealing to some. This is my first book on this site and also my first book in the mlp Fandom.....that I decided to publish. Please leave any helpful criticism in the comments below. Thanks! //-------------------------------------------------------// Prologue //-------------------------------------------------------// Prologue It was a dark and dreary night. The night time crickets wouldn’t quiet their chirping. The howling of the wolves pierced the ears of the Phillies staying outside and forced them in. On this most beloved of nights, everyone was scared. Not because it was Nightmare Night, but because of the new threat that comes every regular night. The screeching Banshee. The screaming Banshee is terrifying to everypony in Equestria. The bulls tried taking it on, and only three quarters came back. Next the royal guard went after it. Few came back. Finally, Princess Twilight Heather’s brother, descendant of the Princess of Friendship herself, went after it. Only he didn’t come back. Princess Twilight locked herself in her room for months upon end. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna sent search parties upon search parties out, hoping to find the brother and revive the heart of Princess Twilight. But that never happened. Twilight’s brother was never found. And Twilight’s condition got worse and worse. Soon the local doctor was taking care of her in Ponyville’s own hospital. There was a time when Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stopped visiting altogether. When they did, it broke Princess Twilight’s heart even more. Rainbow Stripe, the only remaining descendant of the mane six after Princess Twilight Heather was the only pony visiting her. Each time she saw her, it hurt her to look at her best friend. In the end, Rainbow Stripe proved her loyalty and sacrificed herself to gain Princess Twilight Heather an extra day of life before she was killed by what people call ‘death herself’. The screeching Banshee took the Pie twins, Strawberry and Apple Pie. It took Shy Wings, the last descendant of Fluttershy, the embodiment of kindness. It took Fasha, the one and only descendant of Rarity, the embodiment of generosity. And it took Jackapple, the last descendant of Applejack, the embodiment of honesty. It is believed that the screeching Banshee killed them. It is also believed that the screeching Banshee has them held captive somewhere far underground. But that’s not true. Not one bit. I know exactly where they are. Those five ponies are standing right behind me, following me into my cottage, in distorted time. The screeching Banshee is as real as ever, don’t get me wrong. But I was able to save them. It wasn’t hard, really. I was able to track them, but actually saving them was the tricky. And it’s quite the story on how I saved them, really. I just really hope saving them changed time and stopped her from taking over Equestria, and then the world. It all started way forward when, right when I asked for funding from the board to finally perfect something that only magic was just beginning to grasp.