Hold Your Horses: A My Little Pony Story

A blast of light accompanied the traveling ponies as they arrived in Time Jail. Twilight, Sombra, and Savoir all successfully materialized onto the white floors of the space-time prison. The ponies opened their eyes and examined their surroundings. They were ecstatic as they observed a multitude of other ponies surrounding them. Some of them stared at the group of teleporting ponies, and some remained completely unfazed.

Twilight, eager to find Prose, immediately began interrogating the ponies in her vicinity. She walked quickly over to the nearest ponies and began canvassing for Prose.

“Have you seen a pony named Prose?” she asked.

“Who?”

“Have you seen a pony named Prose?”

“No, I’m sorry.”

“Have you seen a pony named Prose?”

“No, I haven’t.”

Twilight grunted in frustration as it seemed Prose was nowhere to be found. Sombra approached Twilight, concluding his search around the Recreation Room.

“Twilight, I’ve scanned the entire room, and I don’t see any sign of Chorus,” he concluded.

“Chorus?” a pony spoke up from a table behind the conversing ponies. Sombra and Twilight turned around to face the speaker.

“Do you know Chorus?” Sombra inquired.

Apple Crumble looked at the new ponies in condolence.

“Chorus and his friends were here a few days ago…” Apple Crumble explained.

Savoir Fare wandered over to his traveling party, joining the ongoing conversation.

“Did you two find anything?” Savoir asked Twilight and Sombra.

“Yes!” Twilight cheered. “This pony says she knows where they are!”

Apple Crumble shook her head and interrupted. “I didn’t say that.”

Twilight looked back at her. “Yes you did, you said they were here- wait… you said they were here a few days ago? They’ve only been gone less than a day!”

“Maybe for you they’ve been gone for less than a day. Time in Equestria doesn’t really have any relevance here. Your friends were here a few days ago, or what I experience as a few days ago,” Apple elaborated. “I don’t know where they are now.”

A pink pony with orange mane slid down the table and joined the conversation.

“They’re definitely in Limbo,” they explained. “Whenever anypony disappears around here, it’s because they were sent to Limbo.”

Savoir squinted quizzically at Fizzy. “Limbo?”

“Right, you ponies must be new here,” Fizzy Fireshine pieced together. “Limbo is like the time-out corner of Time Jail, except nopony ever comes back from Limbo. Your friends tried to escape, so they were definitely sent to Limbo.”

“Nopony comes back?” Twilight worriedly exclaimed.

“Nopony,” Fizzy affirmed.

Twilight, Savoir, and Sombra felt sick to their stomachs.

“Is there any way we can get them out?” Sombra inquired.

Apple Crumble shrugged. “Not any way that I know of. Nopony’s ever tried to free anypony from Limbo before. Then again, nopony has ever teleported into Time Jail before. How did you manage that?”

“It’s quite a complicated spell, actually,” Twilight explained. “But did you just say nopony’s ever tried? So… if we try to free them, it could be possible?”

Apple Crumble brought a hoof to her chin. “I- I guess…” she hypothesized. “I guess it could be possible… it’s just never happened before.”

Sombra’s eyes lit up at that admission.

“That sounds good enough for me,” he expressed. “Let’s go free them from Limbo, then!”

“Yes!” Twilight agreed.

There was an awkward, uncertain silence for a moment.

“So…” Savoir broke the silence. “How do you free somepony from Limbo?”

Everypony looked at one another, searching for a face that looked like it knew the answer. Nopony knew.

“Well, one thing I do know,” Fizzy spoke up. “Is that Effie watches everything. I’m sure she’s monitoring your friends in Limbo somehow. She could very well be watching this conversation right now!”

“Well, that sounds like a lead!” Twilight beamed. “I just have one question: who is Effie?”

Apple Crumble spoke up to clear the confusion. “She’s the boss of Time Jail.”

Twilight, Sombra, and Savoir shared a glance. They silently agreed they didn’t need to get caught up in semantics, and decided to just focus on freeing their friends.

“Of course,” Sombra acknowledged, not truly understanding what was being explained. “So, we just have to find out however ‘Effie’ is tracking our friends, and then we can potentially free them?”

Fizzy Fireshine nodded her head. “That’s my best guess.”

Savoir Fare smiled at the thought of having Ginger back. “Thank you ponies so much for your help, I think we’ll take it from here.”

Apple Crumble’s eyebrows tilted with worry. “Good luck,” she wished.

The ponies departed from the table and confidently trotted toward the exit of the Recreation Room.

“So, all we have to do is find out how this ‘Effie’ is tracking them, and we-” Twilight was bluntly interrupted mid-sentence by smacking straight into the invisible barrier at the entrance of the Recreation Room. She stumbled backwards and caught her balance. She stepped forward again and touched her hoof to the invisible barrier, feeling its invisible sturdiness.

“That’s all right,” she said, optimistically. “I’ll just teleport us past this barrier, and we’ll be on our way.”

Twilight concentrated on a quick teleportation spell. She swiftly encased herself and her traveling party in pink magic and willed them past the barrier. Or, she tried to will them past the barrier. As soon as she began to transport them across, green magic sparked up from the barrier and strongly pushed back against Twilight’s magic, sending her, Sombra, and Savoir stumbling backwards.

“Or maybe we’ll just find another way out of this room,” she suggested instead.

The party scanned the room for any potential exits. Savoir quickly noted something of importance.

“What about over there?” he pointed across the room to a vent screwed into one of the walls not far away.

Sombra and Twilight followed Savoir’s gaze over to the vent.

“I don’t see another way out,” Sombra conceded.

“Me neither,” Twilight seconded. “I’m willing to try the vent.”

The entire group rashly and naively sauntered over to the vent, completely unaware of the imminent danger that lied beyond that vent cover. Savoir made sure nopony was watching, then quietly popped the vent cover off of the wall, as one does. Each pony filed in, one by one, to the cold, dark tunnel. They traversed the ventilation system, following lefts and rights, inclines and declines, searching for a place they might find their friends.

“I see a light up ahead,” Savoir whispered. “It could be a step in the right direction.”

The ponies inched closer and close to the light until they came upon the backside of another vent cover. The light was coming from an office–presumably Effie’s office. Savoir peeked through the vent slits and observed the surroundings. It may have been Effie’s office, complete with blueprints, maps, plans, and a desk, but Effie was nowhere to be seen.

“This might be our best means of finding them,” Savoir whispered. “This ‘Time Jail’ boss has to keep some sort of hint for us in her office.”

“Well, let’s get down in there then,” Twilight suggested.

Savoir scooched up close to the vent cover, and carefully pushed it outwards. It easily slipped off of the wall, and noisily clattered to the floor. The ponies winced at the sound. One by one, they stepped quietly out of the vent and into Effie’s office. They immediately began to explore the office, searching for any hope of an escape. Sombra picked up the white nameplate on Effie’s desk. The Final Pony, it read in glowing green text. The ponies continued to mull about the office.

Suddenly, without warning, the door to the office abruptly swung open. Effie stood in the doorway.

“The vents. Really?” she laughed. “I thought- wait. Who are you three? I don’t remember extracting you.”

The group froze. Twilight immediately panicked and engulfed the group in a frenzied teleportation spell. This time, the spell surprisingly worked, propelling them out of the office and directly behind Effie. Effie turned around in a shocked rage at the strangers behind her. She impulsively shot a green light out of her horn at them, only to miss as they quickly dove out of the way.

“RUN!” Twilight advised her friends.

The group did not waste time. They immediately began to sprint away from Effie. Effie didn’t waste time either, and she immediately began to chase them at full speed. She sporadically shot green blasts of light towards them as they ran, desperately trying to stop them, to contain them. The ponies twisted and turned through the many different corridors of Time Jail. As soon as the runners began to hold a decent distance from their chaser, Twilight seized the opportunity to hide. As soon as they turned the next corner, Twilight opened the nearest door, ushered Sombra and Savoir inside, followed them inside, quietly closed the door, and ducked out of sight. The anxiety-inducing sound of Effie’s hoofsteps clopped outside of the door, then clopped quickly past. They had successfully evaded her.

The group let out a collective sigh of exasperated relief.

“That must be Effie,” Savoir ascertained.

Obviously. Sombra explored the room they had hidden themselves in, mesmerized by what they had found.

“What are these?” he spoke in awe.

“What are what-” Twilight started, before matching his gaze. The room was lined with magical glowing boxes, unfamiliar to anypony in the trio. Dozens of TVs were positioned on the white walls of the room, each depicting different ponies in different situations. Savoir witnessed a screen showing a pony trapped in a colossal, seemingly never ending maze. Twilight clocked a screen that showed two ponies trapped in a haunted carnival, forced to perform dangerous, death-defying stunts.

“Chorus!” Sombra shouted.

Twilight and Savoir turned to face the screen that Sombra was watching. Sure enough, Chorus was on it, and he looked intense. Dark circles ran under his eyes, and he looked… infected with something. Ginger Blush came up from behind him, donning the same sickly look.

“Ginger!” Savoir called out. He turned back to Twilight. “Do you think you could get them out of there?”

Prose stepped into view, matching with her friends.

“I can try,” Twilight determined. “Stand back.”

Twilight stepped forward, and Sombra and Savoir stepped backward, giving her space. Twilight began to conduct a spell, a spell that she planned to improvise on the spot. She didn’t have her spellbook, and she didn’t have time to thoroughly think anything through. She cast a pink beam of light at the TV. Immediately, green magic thrust itself back from the TV and at Twilight. Twilight, caught off guard, pushed hard against the magic, desperate to free her mare. The green magic strained against her powerful pink, and Twilight pushed as hard as she possibly could against it. Suddenly, the green magic retracted back into the TV and Twilight successfully pushed through. As her magic finally reached the TV, the screen began to fade into a bright white. The light shined brighter and brighter until the room was completely enveloped in a blinding white gleaming glow. A loud shattering sound snapped across the small room as the TV screen shattered, sending an explosion of energy in every direction, catapulting Twilight, Sombra, and Savoir against the wall.