(Ponyville Outskirts)

Our arrival home wasn’t exactly a warm welcome type. As soon as my truck had exited the portal on my side, the truck was surrounded by several dozen Royal Guards armed with spears (a good number of them comically held the wrong way) and one angry looking Solar Alicorn. I was hauled from the truck by Celestia’s magic and dragged to a command tent that was set up near the portal.

I was then tied up and placed in the center of what seemed to be a set of runes for what seemed to be a ritual of some sort. “Now, let’s see what is causing you to interfere with my plans for the future.” The alicorn said, her mane sparking a little bit as she activated her magic.

I quickly and calmly broke out of my binds and grabbed Celestia’s horn (which seemed rather hot for some reason...and I’m speaking temperature, not sex appeal). “With all due respect, Your Highness, what is wrong with you?!” I said with a raised voice. “You’re acting less like the Princess you should be and more like a control freak who has major OCD and want literally everything perfect in the way you think perfect is!”

Celestia didn’t seem to pay attention to what I said. “Supposed to be 6, not 7. Dimensional breaches need closing. Marriage later during crisis. Military unneeded while at peace.” She began to repeat in a crazy tone, her eyes crossing and separating and her mane taking more qualities of fire than a pastel rainbow. She briefly broke her mad ramblings long enough to shout out to the Royal Guards outside the tent. “Destroy the portal! Captain Armor and Princess Cadance have been brainwashed! It’ll break the control from the aliens!”

I smashed her face against my knee and left her gibbering about the imperfections of time while I left the tent and tried to rush to save the portal. However, it seemed that the portal was in good (proverbial and somewhat literal) hands, as Cadance was defending the portal alongside my Squad, despite her orders to go to a bar.

And ‘defending’ was less of what they were doing for the portal, since with her and my Squad were between them and the portal, seeming to get the idiots in gold to focus only on them and not on the portal, despite their superior numbers. And this wasn’t a fight, it was an assembly line of pain...literally. The Royal Idiots seemed to just go single file in attempting to take on Cadance and other members of my Squad, only to be comically punted to the side by Titan or Cadance or grabbed by the scruff of their necks by Greg or Midnight and tossed to the side.

While I was attempting to comprehend Celestia’s mental break and the Guard’s idiocracy, I looked to the portal and saw a concerned Celly and Tia on the other side. Celly shook off her shock and stepped through to intervene.

“Okay What The Actual *BLEEP*!” She shouted with the Royal Canterlot Voice. This got all the idiots in gold to stop fighting and immediately bow to her before attempting to continue the painful assembly line. Celly looked at me with a confused look. “I leave you for ten minutes and you’ve got a pain train lined up? What the hell happened?” She asked.

I opened my mouth to answer, only to be interrupted by the command tent going up in flames, revealing Celestia in a nightmare form...Daybreaker, I think it was called. “Disturbances to the balance of this world...must...be...eliminated.” She said while her neck twisted around 360 degrees. She then made to jump at Celly, but my fist to her face stopped her midair. She then collapsed on the ground and dissolved into mad giggles.

“Yeah, right back at you. Calm your shit and get up off your ass.” Celly taunted. Daybreaker didn’t respond other than to start muttering incoherently.

“She seems a bit beyond repair currently.” I said to her. I heard the flapping of wings and a slightly depowered Luna landed next to Daybreaker.

“It’s as I feared. My actions a millennium ago must have been more damaging than I would have originally thought.” She said, pulling a book out of a set of saddlebags. The book seemed to be bound in bloody leather and had a twisted mockery of Tia’s Cutie Mark on it. She gave it to me and I opened it, only to close it.

“The insane ramblings of a mad pony are written here.” I said, opening the book and showing Celly the repeated ‘the future must be perfect’ written everywhere inside.

“And those writings are literally on every surface of her study and bedroom. The only thing hiding them is a rather brittle and easily breakable illusion spell.” Luna said. “And here’s a picture I had a maid take...this time is different, and yet better.” She pulled a picture of the study out of the bag and showed it to us.

“This is… very very disturbing. To think I could have been like this…” Tia muttered as she exited the portal and looked over Daybreaker. “And this form...It’s a twisted mockery of my locked power. It’s as if it’s been corrupted by dark magic...I can’t even recognise myself.”

“This isn’t reality.” Daybreak said, slowly standing up, while her limbs started twisting in unnatural ways. “This isn’t my reality. Must fix the mistakes. Kronica, give me power.” Daybreaker activated her magic and her magic took a look of fiery sand and it started to swirl around us. A few seconds in and it stopped. “Wha...Kronica, have you forsaken me?” She collapsed on the ground again and cried sand, intermingled with mad giggling every so often.

“No. You have forsaken Harmony. Your mad pursuit of Order has blinded you to reality.” Tia scolded firmly. “Your reckless use of time travel spells sickens me. You are not fit to lead our little ponies. As your alternate self, I am telling you that it is best that you give up your crown for the time being.”

Daybreaker paused in her laughing crying to look at Tia with an angry eye. She stood up and made to stab her with her horn, but an ice spell from Luna to the back of her head extinguished her mane and tail and caused her to faint. “Mommy, she put my hair out again.” She said before losing consciousness.

“...Ugh. Where's Pinkie Pie when you need her?” Celly groaned. “This whole situation has drained the laughter right outta me.”

“Her and the other Bearers are currently taking some time to recover from what I had revealed to them about Daybreaker.” Luna said, pulling out a magic suppression ring and placing it on her. “So, you are going to have to rely on your version of the Element of Laughter to do that.”

“You seem to be more accepting of alternate universes than Daybreaker here.” I commented.

“Accelero provides plenty of relativistic years to study up on things of the modern era. It doesn’t mean I’ll get used to it or like it, but it helps.” She said. “I leave her punishment up to you, Alternate Sisters.” She walked off.

“Huh. Do gods have a stronger sway in this world? I've never heard those names before.” Tia asked.

“It’s a speed spell.” I answered bluntly. “Luna used the spell to study fast. A relative decade at least in the span of a few minutes or hours.”

“Oh.” Both alicorns said in realization.

“We just named spells after what they did.” Tia said.

“Accelero just sounds like my Perception Shift spell.” Celly added. “Really, there’s no need to give it fancy names. This is Equestria, not Hogwarts.” This got Tia to giggle a bit.

“Some spells haven’t been renamed, like almost irrelevant spells from long ago.” I said. “Jumping onto the topic Luna wants us to address, what should we do with Daybreaker?”

“I have a scholar in my world who studies mind magic and mental afflictions. I believe he may be of help in setting my alternate self back in line.” Tia said, chuckling slightly. “And wouldn't you believe it, it's his magic that helped me and my Luna sort things out after the Harmony blast weakened her.”

“Any objections from the presently gathered?” I asked, looking around from the pile of idiots to my Squad. “What about Celly, any objections?”

“I don’t see why not.” She answered.

“Good. I think you’ll like him.” Tia said as she levitated Daybreaker onto her back and walked back through the portal with Celly following.

“Well, that was fun.” I said, looking to my Squad as they had confused looks on their faces. “Umm, you want the long or short version.”

“Short.” My squad answered simultaneously.

“Alternate universe.” I said, pointing a thumb at the portal. The Squad nodded in understanding and looked at me expectantly. “For now, keep the portal safe while I head into town and check on my sister and see if Luna is willing to have a small base built around the portal.” I commanded.

“Sir! Yes Sir!” They said before taking posts around the portal.

“Caddy, I hope I’m not overstepping my bounds as your husband to ask if you are willing to help the Royal Guards recover from their ‘battle wounds’ and tell them to start looking for new work?” I asked.

“Don’t worry.” She said as she began picking up the idiots and dusting them off. “You’re not overstepping anything. Just get going on your tasks.”

I nodded and got into my truck and got it moving towards Ponyville.

(Ponyville Proper)

Driving my truck through town was rather easy, but it was somewhat scary driving through town. Since most ponies never saw or heard of a truck, they were both scared and unpredictable. Thankfully, in their unpredictableness, they kept away from the truck by either being frozen in fear, or taking refuge in the nearest set of cover, like a building or a bush.

It took a few minutes before I arrived at the Town Hall. Ponies stepped out of hiding once I stopped the truck and got out. Entering the building, Luna was discussing something with Mayor Mare. Approaching the two, Luna looked up and greeted me. “Ah, the Fat Captain. Come in. We were just about to discuss some details concerning you.” She said.

“The Auxiliary Captain?” The Mayor asked in slight confusion. “I thought you said that the town would get a small military garrison, not just an Auxiliary Squad.”

“Their track record in service, as well as their Captain’s exemplary status as the ‘Saviour of the Equestrian Military’ is why I’m recommending him and his Squad to be that garrison.” Luna turned to me with a somewhat expectant look. “If he is willing to accept.”

I nodded to the Princess. “That I do. I just hope the town has a few houses for sale and that they don’t mind a Princess moving into town.” I said in response.

“Princess Luna, are you moving into town?” The Mayor asked her.

“I believe he is talking about his wife, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza.” Luna said, looking at me with a slightly questioning look. I nodded to her unspoken question satisfying her.

“Quick question before I go check on my truck; you know where Twilight is? When you said she had to recover from the news you gave her concerning Celestia-” I spoke, but Luna interrupted part way through.

“She is recovering with her friends in the Golden Oaks Library upper floor.” She said. “Go handle your sister. I’ll wrap up things with the Mayor.” She gently gestured for me to ‘shoo’.

I followed her orders and left the building to my truck. Said truck was surrounded by curious ponies: the ones closest to the building noticed me coming first and parted for me to get into the truck. “Okay, everyone. Time for all of you to step back. I’m gonna start this up and I need the driving space so I’m not running over anyone.” I said to the gathered ponies. They heeded my words and back up a lot. I then started the truck, scaring some ponies, but putting the others in awe. I then drove through the crowd (thankfully not running anyone over), and got to the library.

Inside the library, a nurse and a doctor was seated at the library’s central table, sipping tea and talking. “Scanning Ms. Sparkle’s mind has revealed that the corruption of Celestia’s mind could have been part of her nearly breaking herself.” The doctor said to the nurse, while showing some scans and notes related to the scans.

“And don’t forget the major OCD she has, the plot worship she had when anything involving Celestia is brought up, and the full blown anxiety she gets when anything isn’t perfect according to her.” The nurse shot back, pulling out a larger set of notes. “Luna had the Upper Canterlot Hospital send me a copy of all her records.” She said to him, answering the doctor’s unasked questions.

I cleared my throat, getting the two medical ponies attention. “I know there’s the whole ‘Doctor-Patient confidentiality’, but can I have a summary on my sister’s mental damage?” I asked them.

The doctor took a moment to comprehend what I said. “Oh, Captain Armor. Yes, of course. Your sister, at least to a certain scale, has a similar mental state that Celestia, now Daybreaker, has.” He said.

I must have looked ready to freak out, because the nurse quickly interjected. “‘Similar’ is the key word in describing her condition.” She said, calming me down quickly. “Comparing an immortal’s mind to a mortal’s mind is like comparing is like comparing a fancy vase to a glass cup. While both are breakable, the vase is easier to break and harder to replace or fix.”

“So,on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being perfectly fine, and 10 is insane asylum), how bad is she?” I asked.

“I’d give her a range of 7 to 8.” The doctor said. “It would have been higher if she hadn’t have had such supporting friends. You may see her, if you’d like. Maybe you being there would bump the number down a bit?”

I nodded and went up the stairs to the upper floor bedroom(?) and peeked inside. There, literally stuck in a huge group hug, was Twilight. She was accepting the hug while seemingly stuck crying in both joy and sorrow. She noticed me and extracted her forelegs so she could gesture that she wanted to be held by me. I carefully pulled her out of the pony pile and then sat against the wall, letting Twilight to curl up on my belly to cry herself to sleep. Twilight’s friends followed me to the wall when I extracted her from them and they curled around me and rested while watching my sister.

“This is going to be interesting when Cadance comes looking for me.” I muttered under my breath as I stroked Twily’s back to comfort her as she slept.

Author's Note

huge plot twist and a little bit of a crossover with Switchlock's story (for a brief moment to get the plot twist going).