Prologue: A Plot that Spans Centuries
March 14th, A.R. 4567 — One Day Ago
Discord’s Chaos Realm had proven itself frustratingly difficult to find. Planeswalking to such a destination would have been simple enough, had it been a plane. But it wasn’t; rather, it was a pocket of the very same interplanar space, otherwise indistinguishable from its surroundings to those who weren’t scrutinizing it closely. A task easier said than done, as Tezzeret didn't see the Blind Eternities as much as he sensed them.
Within said pocket, the chaotic forces of the Blind Eternities had become dulled, blunted and tamed to levels that were non-lethal to living organisms, and filtered through a lens just close enough to reality to perceive as three-dimensional space. Tezzeret felt the constant tingle at his form disappear as he entered it, indicating his arrival. He flew through the multi-dimensional space, directing his movement with only his will. He passed by several floating objects that varied wildly in shape, color, form, solidity, and just about everything else, until he landed on a chunk of land that was decidedly more solid than most of the others. On it was a green lawn surrounded by white picket fence, with a simple two-story house lying atop it. His mechanical arm shifted as it gripped the piece of parchment that Bolas had sent him with. It was a simple paper, one that few others would find remarkable, but it was woven with the most powerful suggestion spells that Bolas could muster. All part of the elder dragon’s master plan, of course.
Tezzeret didn’t bother asking what Bolas’s plan was, or inquiring about the details. He was, much to his undying chagrin, a mere lackey. Experience had taught him that there was no purpose resisting, and his replacement prosthetic was always there to remind of that. In the past, mere thought of the vaguest possibility of betrayal had caused it to twitch wildly of its own volition. No doubt it was eagerly waiting for the first excuse it had to strangle him.
As he moved towards the door, a flying steak knife flew past him, barely missing his head. For a moment, he considered that the chaos of Discord’s realm wasn’t nearly as non-lethal as he’d first thought, but it was ultimately irrelevant. He wouldn’t be there long. He reached down and placed the parchment at Discord’s doorstep, and then knocked on the door, briefly wishing there were enough metal nearby to make a golem to do it instead. He then quickly ducked away, hiding behind a nearby tree just in time for the door to open. On its other side was a truly perplexing chimera, a being composed of many different animals mashed together without rhyme or reason.
Looking at him, Tezzeret could only wonder how this creature was his highest-priority target. Discord was, from what he had heard, one of the only beings in the multiverse older than Bolas himself. For countless millenia he had wreaked havok across thousands of planes, manipulating matter, energy, and reality itself on a scale that few could ever match.
That said, Bolas did seem convinced that he’s an idiot. He’d better be, if this is how I’m supposed to deal with him.
Discord looked around, his eyes gliding right past the tree where Tezzeret was hiding. The chimera’s eyes drifted downward, toward the parchment. He picked it up right away, eyes morphing into a miniature pair of telescopes that extended closer to the page. Good, thought Tezzeret, That means the enchantment’s working.
As the bizarrely transformed eyes retracted into their body, Discord held the parchment at arms length, reading its contents aloud. “’Visit the scenic plane of Koana! Endless oceans, lush islands, scenic volcanoes, and pristine beaches await you! Don’t delay, take a holiday off today!’” A sudden grin formed on his face. “A vacation? Why, that sounds lovely! Don’t mind if I do!”
There was a flash of light, and Discord disappeared in an instant. Discord wasn’t a planeswalker, and the magic didn’t even remotely resemble planeswalking, yet Tezzeret was made instantly aware that he had moved to a different plane. A tingle at his spine informed him that chaotic energies of the isolated pocket began to intensify. Without the presences of its master, the Chaos Realm slowly began to return to the Blind Eternities’ natural state. Despite the increasing awareness that he had to leave, Tezzeret could only gawk at the place where Discord had once stood.
“I can’t believe that actually worked.”
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Diverted Summoning WWU
Enchantment
Flash
When Diverted Summoning enters the battlefield, exile target creature or creature spell.
When Diverted Summoning leaves the battlefield, return the exiled card to its owner’s hand.
Sometimes the best way to solve a problem is to send it somewhere else.
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March 15th, A.R. 4567 — Present Day
The door slammed shut with a noise and weight that Time Turner had not felt since his spark ignited. Twelve hundred years ago, on this exact day, was the day that his life was changed forever. He had crossed worlds beyond imagination, seen the boundless expanse of Blind Eternities, wove the tapestry of time like a master craftsman, and glimpsed into time and tide beyond the farthest reaches of the multiverse itself.
And all of it, every single moment of all he had seen, was leading to this day. His heart pounded furiously in his chest, and despite the certainty in his mind of the outcome, he could only think of all the ways in which it could all go wrong. Twilight had sensed his anxiety in the days leading up to today, and probed him for details — everyone always did. But he couldn’t tell. Not everything, not more than a hint or a gentle tease of what was to come.
A single word spoken too soon. A single sentence overheard. A single thread pulled, or a single piece out of place. Just one mistake, and everything would come crashing down on a scale so catastrophic that few could even comprehend it. No, other ponies couldn’t know. Not everything. Only what they needed to, and only when they needed to know it. Nearly every other pony he had known had always called him the same thing. Cryptic, enigmatic, obtuse. But he had to be. That choice was made for him a long, long time ago.
Time Turner closed his eyes and took a deep breath, letting the warm air soothe his lungs. When he opened them again, he was once again greeted with the familiar sight of his laboratory. As it always was, it was a mess of knick-knacks and gadgets with functions only fully known to himself, collected from numerous worlds and times and alternate timelines that stoked the fires imagination.
But today, his laboratory was even more than that. Today, it contained the bounty of his entire life’s work. Precious gems, an obsidan flower, meticulously recreated relics of Mirrodin-That-Was, lost weapons and objects of power, massive glittering stones severed from their monument, and sigils born of gods from a now-tainted world.
It was all here. Everything was in place. His mind reeled with equal parts excitement and trepidation, racing faster than it had ever raced before. He was all but forced to speak his thoughts aloud just to render them coherent.
“Alright, Doctor Turner,” he mused to himself, “you’ve done a good job studying what made the first one tick, but for this one you’ll need to build it from entirely different parts. What you’ll need are a few extraordinarily powerful mana sources, a couple trinkets to enhance your own chronomancy, something that can temporarily boost your psychic magic to acceptable levels, and several artifacts that directly relate to the target. So let’s see here...” His eyes drifted, briefly across the assemblage of magical artifacts in his laboratory. “...five primary-color moxes in pristine condition, a black lotus, a timetwister in a bottle, a panoptic mirror imprinted with a time walk spell, an isochron scepter imprinted with ancestral recall, a shard of Ugin’s Nexus from an alternate time stream, very thankfully without the wonky effects on temporal stretching, Jorgan Hage’s warhammer, a counterfeit Mask of Night’s Reach, the five primary keystones to the Obelisk of Alara, and the original eight cartouches.”
A grin spread across his face. “Good, that should be enough. And of course, there’s the body problem, we’ll need to take care of that.”
Time Turner walked over to a simple wooden desk, one of the many pieces of furniture that was placed according to his own interior plan, an organization so perfect that all others perceived it as chaos. On it was a tiny corked and unlabeled bottle of brown-dyed glass, a pair of feathered wings sculpted into its body. He swiftly grabbed the bottle and popped off the cork, downing the sweet-smelling liquid in a single gulp, before his tongue could notice its deceptively foul taste.
A sharp pain shot through Time Turner’s shoulders, like a pair of serrated spikes bursting out the edge of his body. He gritted his teeth and grunted, feeling the sudden protrusions emerge further and further outward, the sensation in his hooves dulling as the pain intensified.
When the unpleasant experience finally halted, the ground beneath him felt deadened, the sense extending from his hooves into the earth having retracted back into his body. Yet at the same time, he felt noticeably lighter, like a weight had been lifted from him. A soft wind blew by, and he could feel it passing even beyond the new appendages that had suddenly grown from his back.
Time Turner craned his neck backwards, glancing at his new pair of wings. “Ah, molto bene! It’s been a while since I’ve tribeswapped. Not since that flying competition.” As his thoughts drifted to the recent memory, he tapped a hoof to his chin as he verbally contemplated. “You know, I do still feel sorry for what I did to that poor mare’s wings, even if was necessary, temporally speaking. Perhaps I should apologize to her before this is over? Ah, no, but then I’d have to explain that it wasn’t an accident, and I imagine she won’t be happy to hear that... I suppose it’ll just be our little secret then. My little secret.” Time Turner paused. His brow furrowed, and his muzzle curved into a frown. “Oh dear, I’m talking to myself again, aren’t I? Not just talking, but monologuing. Not even bothering to pretend I’m speaking to the abstract personification of friendship and getting along, either. Bloody hell, maybe I really am going mad.”
In the back of his mind, he knew there was no ‘maybe’ to it.
Anyone would go mad if they’d lived their entire life according to a script.
Only one thing left to do now. One thing, before the journey was made. He reached into his mane and pulled out the parchment that he carried with him for what felt like an eternity, so much a companion on his travels that it felt like a part of his body. He briefly scanned its contents, the scrawled writing on it so incredibly tiny and smudged, yet perceptible with perfect clarity to his own mind.
He reached out into the desk drawer. In it was another scrap of parchment, identical in shape, texture, size, and quality, save for the absence of yellowed aging over the course of twelve hundred years.
Time Turner reached with a hoof across the desk, firmly grasping the chosen pen and placing it into his mouth. And so the work began. Every word from the old parchment, copied onto the new. Each letter, each stroke, each splattering of ink a perfect duplicate. Moments passed, then seconds, then minutes.
And then, the task was done. Time Turner held the copy of the older parchment by the side of its twin. The only thing that distinguished the two was the creeping, ever-encroaching wear of time. One, a freshly-written set of instructions, the other, a faithful guide that he had carried for hundreds of years since his colthood. Time Turned smiled, and stowed both parchments away in his mane. Everything was in its place.
All the right cards were in his hooves. And now, at long last, it was time to play the game.
“Alright, Harmony, old girl. Let’s see if that Map of yours still has what it takes.”
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March 15th, A.R. 3367 — Exactly 1,200 Years Ago
“Now, my young apprentice, be good while I’m away.”
“Yes, master.”
Though he did not know it, those were the last words he would ever hear from Master Aeon. The young colt’s eyes followed the older green stallion’s silver mane as he trotted out the door, no doubt running another errand deemed too important to for a pony like him.
A sigh pushed past his lips. The only company he had now were the dozens upon dozens of clocks that lined the walls, their idle ticking sounds tapping rhythmically against his eardrums. There were so many splendorous clockwork timepieces of all shapes and sizes, so many artful pieces that had been lovingly crafted, and yet Aeon had not even given him the chance to so much as look at one of them. Instead, he was stuck sitting at his desk, studying the same dusty old tomes that he had always studied.
It just wasn’t fair. The town clock-maker was the most widely respected craftspony in every village and settlement for miles around. Surely there would have been something more exciting involved in being his apprentice. He wanted to be involved in something. Something that put his true talents to use. Something, anything.
Then, as if the world had heard his idle thoughts, a bright glow appeared in the space just behind him. The young apprentice turned his head around, seeing a glittering, golden light coalescing into the shape of a pony.
As the glow surrounding the strange pony faded, the apprentice’s jaw nearly dropped at what he saw. A stallion with a brown coat and browner mane, blue eyes, and disembodied a white collar that held odd garment around his neck, like a cravat, only straighter and narrower. On the stallion’s flank was a cutie mark, one that he had seen many times before, right beneath a feathered wing...
...Wings? No, it was impossible. Even without the incongruous wings, he was looking at an impossible pony. Surely, it was just an idle daydream. An overactive bout of his imagination, brought on by his own boredom.
“Oh no, it’s not a daydream,” the stallion replied. “And yes, I know exactly what you’re thinking. I wouldn’t forget what happened to me this day in a million years. Here, take this. You’ll want to hold onto this for... well, forever, if I’m going to be honest.”
The stallion reached into his mane and pulled out a fresh slip of parchment, the ink only just having dried on its crispy white pages. He quickly shoved it into the apprentice’s hoof, causing him to let out a soft yip. Curiously, he peered at the extremely fine writing on the page...
...And very nearly gasped, when he saw an enormous list of instructions. Instructions that, even at a glance, looked like complete gibberish. Exotic names unlike that of any pony he had heard of, descriptions of events that couldn’t possibly happen, and places that couldn’t possibly exist.
And yet still, there was no mistaking the script. Every single word of it had been written in his own writing.
The apprentice could only gawk. It was impossible, and yet... everything about it felt real. More real than anything he could have conjured up only in his mind. A single, burning question lingered on his thoughts as he stared into the older stallion’s eyes.
“...Who are you?”
“Well, I think we both already know the answer to that, don’t we?” the stallion replied with a smirk. “Now, I don’t have much time to ignite your spark before I return, so pay very close attention to what I have to say. Can you do that for me? I already know how you’ll answer that, obviously, but you’ll understand someday that I’m sort of forced to ask you that right now.”
The apprentice’s ears twitched against his head. There was a growing sense of unease building within his chest, but there was also something else, something unlike anything that he had felt before. Excitement? Fear? Bewilderment? What was it? Within or without, nothing seemed to make sense.
“I don’t understand,” said the apprentice. It was the only thing he could think to say.
“You will,” said the stallion. As he leaned in closer, there was a dull gleam in his eye, a mark of age far beyond that of any wrinkle or blemish. His lips were pressed into a thin frown, held down by a gravity and seriousness that the apprentice had not seen in any other living pony before him.
“Now you listen carefully,” the stallion said, “because I can say with absolute confidence that this will be most important thing you ever hear...”
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Pact of Destiny 0
(U/W) Sorcery
Search your library for a historic card, reveal it, put it into your hand, then shuffle your library. (Artifacts, legendaries, and Sagas are historic.)
At the beginning of your next upkeep, pay 2UW. If you don’t, you lose the game.
Author's Note
“...eat your heart out, Karn!”
I’ve actually had this chapter written in full for several years now, but now that my life has moved on and I’m finally able to put some real work into continuing my old fics, I’ve decided I should try to pick up the MLPlaneswalker Saga’s main story from where it left off.
Shards of Concordia was planned from the start to be the final story in the My Little Planeswalker saga. While I’ve written plans to continue the series after this fic, this is ultimately going to be the final culmination of the story arc that’s been set up since the end of Twilight’s Spark.
I’m pretty excited to see how this one pans out, as I’ve had the basic story beats for this fic mapped out for a long time and hope to have my ideas made reality soon.
