Trails Across Time

by Lord Pony

Rating: everyone
Tags: Adventure, Snails, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Alternate Universe, Sad
Length: 5926

Obsessed with changing the past, Snails has almost completed his ultimate invention: a time machine. Will Snails be able figure out the cause of the disaster and save his friends before it's too late, or is history doomed to repeat itself?

It's been over ten years since the disaster that changed the course of young Snails' life. Obsessed with changing the past, Snails has almost completed his ultimate invention: a time machine.

Will Snails be able figure out the cause of the disaster and save his friends before it's too late, or is history doomed to repeat itself?

I would love to hear anyone's feedback on my first story! It's my hope that after reading this, you'll gain a whole different perspective on the character of Snails. New chapters coming very soon!

Thanks to Darrin for the extremely awesome cover art!

Thanks to The Invincible for inspiring me to give writing a try, be sure to check out his stuff

Published 2013-03-10 01:00:01 UTC
Last updated 2013-03-23 03:53:06 UTC

Chapter 1 - The Journey Begins

Snails sat at his messy workbench, hunched over a haphazard collection of gleaming mechanical parts. He picked up two of the pieces in his hooves, eying them carefully before placing them back with a sigh. Glancing out the window he was surprised to see that it was nearly dawn. Once again he had worked through the night, and once again he had made little progress on his most important invention. He slowly leaned back, stretching his hooves high as he ran through the math in his head for the thousandth time. He was startled out of his reverie by a fierce grumble coming from his stomach.

“Can’t you tell I’m busy right now?” he said with a disapproving glare at the offending body part.

He pried himself out of the chair and began to pace about the laboratory, hardly noticing the sorry state of his surroundings as he passed piles of discarded gadgets and half-finished creations. Most of the surfaces were stained from years of oil spills and scorched from the frequent explosions. The windows were smudged and dingy, the light from the rising sun barely filtering through. He muttered to himself as he walked, an unfortunate habit developed over years of living in solitude.

“Maybe if I adjust the frequency of the output to resonate with the ambient chronal field…but how to compensate for molecular dissolution of the occupant…”

He stopped as he passed the mirror, almost surprised to see the pony on the other side. The golden face looking back would have been unrecognizable to any of his childhood friends. Gone was the perpetual goofy grin, replaced by a look that could charitably be called “grim”. A jagged scar ran down the side of his face, bisecting one eye and continuing down past his mouth. The most notable difference was his eyes, cold and hard and with none of the joy for life that had characterized the face of his youth.

“Sometimes life doesn’t let you forget the past,” he thought as he rubbed his scar.

He finally came to a stop in front of his life’s work, a machine taking up most of the central area of the laboratory. It was both his greatest achievement and his most bitter source of disappointment. The outer chassis was a shiny metal dome, about as big as a haystack. A large gem glowed in an open compartment, ready to supply days’ worth of power to the machine once it was turned on. The final component continued to elude him however, and without it the machine was no more than a polished pile of junk. He strode angrily to the giant blackboard, completely covered with numbers and equations that had taken years to develop.

No matter how he approached the problem, all of his research pointed to the same conclusion: Any attempt at changing the past would be ultimately futile, creating a stable time loop where whatever he did in the past had always happened. He had talked with Twilight many times about her experience with a time spell, and she had come to a similar conclusion. It seemed the nature of magic prevented time spells from creating a paradox, and he aimed to create a doozy. Thinking about temporal impossibilities gave him a headache; the purpose of the machine was to avoid them entirely by creating a passage through time uninhibited by the restrictive rules of magic.

Nopony was more familiar with the limitations of magic than Snails. Though he was born a unicorn, his magic had always been weaker than his peers. Even now it was a minor struggle to lift a piece of chalk with his magic as he began to re-examine his work. Growing up, the other ponies had assumed that having such weak magical abilities must make him stupid, and after a while he had even started to believe it himself. Not that his childhood wasn’t a happy one; it’s hard to disappoint somepony when they don’t think you’re capable of much in the first place. He had been content to simply drift along and enjoy the simple pleasures of a peaceful childhood, at least until the incident occurred.

Even his cutie mark, a picture of a snail, implied a certain slow-wittedness. Nopony suspected that it actually represented his aptitude with science and machines, as he had discovered one day as he was passing through an empty field. He had stopped to watch a family of snails inch their way across a large flat rock. As they neared the edge, he had realized that there was no way they could make it safely down the sheer (for them) cliff. Quickly and with hardly a thought, he had rigged together a miniature elevator system out of some large leaves, twigs, and some thread from his shirt. Watching the snails continue their journey with a big grin on his face, he had been surprised to see that his previously blank flank now revealed a sparkling new cutie mark for all to see.

Unfortunately, in a society where magic can solve almost any problem, science is not a popular talent. Thus he had never had much reason to practice his seemingly useless gift. He was lucky that after the incident, Twilight Sparkle had agreed to take him in and tutor him in both magic and science. Though she concentrated most of her studies on her magical abilities, Twilight’s keen mind was always searching for new opportunities for learning, something she had imparted to her new apprentice. Snails had lived with Twilight for almost two years. Living with Twilight and Spike in the library, Snails suspected that this was what it felt like to have a real family. He had been happy there, as much as could be expected, until the day Twilight got called back to Canterlot. With her friends having scattered across Equestria, there had been nothing more to keep her in Ponyville. She left him as the caretaker of the library, which he soon closed to the public and converted into his personal laboratory.

Twilight had always encouraged him to let go of the past and concentrate on the future, but Snails had little interest in a future without his friends. Growing up an orphan, his friends had always been his entire world. He let the chalk drop to the floor and used his magic to levitate a framed picture into the air in front of his eyes. Looking at this last tenuous link to his old life was one of the few things that could renew his determination to continue working, night after night for almost ten years. He looked at each pony in the class picture: There was his teacher Miss Cheerilee, the always rambunctious Cutie Mark Crusaders, and there was his best friend, Snips. They had been inseparable back then, and he had thought they would continue that way forever. His eyes finally stopped on the filly he had always had a crush on. He never got the nerve to tell her, and now it was too late. Too late…unless he could finish his blasted machine!

He picked up the dropped piece of chalk in one hoof and hurled it at the blackboard as hard as he could, watching as it shattered into a spray of white dust. Breathing in the cloud of chalk dust sent him into a coughing fit which lasted for several minutes. After recovering, he stared blearily at the place where the chalk had impacted the blackboard. One of his equations had been modified slightly, and in a very interesting way… He snatched up a new piece of chalk with his magic and began furiously erasing parts of the equation and scribbling in new ones.

“If that were true, it would imply…” he muttered to himself as he worked.

The chalk was a blur as it darted back and forth across the board, his mind making connections faster than he could write them down. With a last flourish of the chalk he stopped, almost collapsing from the realization of what he had done. This was the solution he had been looking for! He turned to nopony in particular and began talking.

“Don’t you see?! The answer is simple once you expand your analysis to include higher dimensions of time and space! Quantum entanglement through the 7th dimension would anchor the chronal signature of the machine and its occupant thereby bypassing the Novikov self-consistency principle!”

As the manic gleam faded from his eyes, he began to understand the full significance of going through with his plan under these new conditions. To use this new principle to travel to the past would spawn an entirely separate universe, one with a different timeline and a different Snails. Even if he managed to avert the disaster, his original universe would remain unchanged. He would never be able to live the life that he had dreamed of, never have the normal childhood that he deserved. He clenched his teeth in frustration, tears starting to appear in his eyes.

“It’s not fair!” he said, sniffling. “What’s the point of going back if nothing will change for me!”

He took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Gradually a strange smile began to grow on his face, one that never quite reached his eyes. He had almost forgotten the second reason he was so driven to travel back in time: to find the pony that was responsible for causing the disaster and make them pay. The smile grew even larger as he contemplated what he would do once he captured the culprit. As he turned to his workbench to start remodeling the time manipulation vortex, he wondered briefly why he could hear crazed laughter echoing throughout the empty library.

******

Twilight Sparkle had a troubled expression on her face as the flying carriage pulled to a stop in front of the library. She had been getting some disturbing reports about the activities of her erstwhile protégé, and she felt that it was her duty to look into them. She hated coming back to the site of so many bad memories, but there was nopony else that had a chance of talking some sense into Snails. She gave the stallions pulling the carriage a salute.

“Stay here with the carriage until I return, I shouldn’t be long.”

“Yes Ma’am!” they replied sharply, each of them standing at perfect attention.

She sighed, “I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to being treated this way,” she thought. Oh well, time to do what she came here to do. She raised a hoof and banged on the front door as hard as she could.

“Snails! I know you’re in there! Come to the door this instant! It’s Twilight!” she yelled.

She heard a series of crashes followed by a shattering sound, before the door finally opened. In the doorway stood her old student, wearing a dirty lab coat and looking thoroughly disheveled. He did however have a smile on his face, and she was surprised when he suddenly grabbed her in a big hug.

“Twilight, I’m so happy you’ve come! I’ve got so much I need to show you!” he announced.

She let herself be pulled into the library, looking around and marveling at how much had changed in the years since she’d lived there with Spike. They stopped at what looked like the cleanest part of the house, which really wasn’t saying much considering the general disaster area. Snails hustled her to a chair and began to pace as he started talking again.

“It took me 6 months, but I finally completed the device last night. Or was it this morning? I have trouble keeping track these days…” He trailed off for a moment, before picking up again. “Anyway, a few more minor adjustments and I should be ready to go. Don’t you see? I can finally fix things, just like we always talked about!”

Twilight’s eyes widened as her worst suspicions were confirmed. Snails had never outgrown his childish desire to change the past; in fact the delusion had only grown stronger during the intervening years. While it was true that they had often talking about the possibilities of time travel, she had always assumed Snails’ dismal aptitude with magic would cause him to give up before long. She knew Snails had a talent for machines, but everypony knew that science would never be on the same level as magic. She gave him a sad smile.

“I thought we agreed that the past should be left where it belongs, in the history books and in our memories.”

His face took on a surprised expression, “So you didn’t come here to congratulate me on my success? I should have known, you never really believed I could accomplish what I set out to do.”

She gave him a pained look, “Of course I believe in you, Snails. You have the potential to do so much good in the world, if you’d just focus on the present instead of living in the past.”

His face suddenly twisted into a sneer, made all the more unsettling by the scar that ran down the side of his face.

“You can keep this world, this time, I have no use for it!” he scoffed. “If you’re not here to help me, then why are you here?”

She answered after a brief pause, “I’m here because the residents of Ponyville have been hearing strange noises and seeing strange lights coming from the library lately. They’re worried about you Snails.”

“Bah!” he cried. “Those foolish ponies should worry about themselves. No matter, in another day I’ll activate my machine and be gone from this time. Who knows? I may never return.”

Twilight stifled a gasp. Had Snails actually discovered a scientific method of time travel? The very idea seemed impossible, but if he had…maybe he wasn’t delusional after all. If he really had created a machine that bypassed the restrictions of magical time travel, she couldn’t let him use it. Not in the unstable state of mind he was clearly experiencing. As Snails continued to talk about his plans, Twilight began to craft a tiny filament of magic around some rope she saw coiled in a corner, hoping to quickly subdue him without causing any harm.

Snails abruptly stopped his tirade in the middle of a sentence, a sad look crossing his face. His hoof shot out to the side, pulling a hidden lever on the wall. Twilight screamed as metal bands closed over her fore and hind legs, locking her into place on the chair. She tried to use her magic to release the bands, but was horrified to find that nothing happened.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t come to this, Twilight” he said. “This trap was merely a test for…somepony else. When I built it, I never imagined that you would be the test subject.”

Twilight struggled in vain to escape her confinement. “Why doesn’t my magic work? What have you done to me, Snails?!” she cried.

“Not to worry, Twilight,” he responded soothingly. “The anti-magic field only prevents magic use within a limited area. Once I turn it off you’ll be perfectly fine.”

Twilight began to relax. It was obvious he didn’t plan to hurt her, so what exactly was he planning?

“I’m not insane Twilight, as much as you may want to believe it. In fact, once I’ve activated my machine the trap will deactivate and you will be free to go.”

He walked closer until they were almost face to face. “I will always appreciate you taking me in when I needed it the most; you gave me my life back when I thought living was a lost cause. Now I want you to trust that I haven’t forgotten the lessons you taught me.”

Looking at him now, she briefly caught a glimpse of the shy, kind-hearted colt she had taken pity on so long ago. She managed a hopeful smile.

“I do trust you Snails, now don’t you think this whole trap business is a little unnecessary?”

“I wish that were true Twilight, I really do,” he said. “But I can’t let anything stop me from doing what I need to do. Not even you.”

He turned his back on her and walked into the adjoining room. She could hear the sound of heavy equipment shifting around, then a loud *Clang* as though a metal door had slammed closed. She began to panic; she couldn’t let him go through with this!

“Guards! I need help, get in here at once!” she yelled.

She immediately heard the sound of bodies slamming against the front door, but knew at once that it would be too late. A high-pitched whine began to grow in volume from the other room. As the noise grew louder and louder the entire building began to shake, almost causing her chair to topple over onto the floor. She fought as hard as she could to activate her magic to do something, anything, but it was no use. As the noise and the shaking reached a crescendo, Twilight cried out in pain as a sudden flash of blinding light enveloped the entire library. The light was the last thing she remembered before darkness overwhelmed her.

******

Twilight groaned as she regained consciousness, her vision and hearing slowly returning. Looking around, she realized that only minutes had passed since she had lost consciousness. She tried her magic, and true to his word the anti-magic field had been disabled. She tore off the restraints on her limbs and smashed open the front door with an explosion of magic. Her guards stood there dumbfounded as she stalked through the door, giving them an unpleasant look as she walked by.

“The princess will be hearing about you performance today, but first I need to get back to Canterlot as fast as possible.”

The guards looked at each other uneasily, but quickly moved to follow their orders. As Twilight leapt into the carriage it immediately rose off the ground and began to soar in the direction of the royal city.

“The princess will also be hearing about my performance, and she won’t be happy about it,” she thought, shoulders drooping.

Twilight looked back as the empty library faded into the distance and wondered if Snails had made it to the past with his machine. If so, she only hoped he was able to find the closure that he so desperately needed to move on with his life. She had seen the specter of revenge hanging over Snails like a shroud. She couldn’t help but be terrified that it would consume her precious student until nothing was left but anger, and the kind-hearted pony she had taken in would be gone forever.

Chapter 2 - A Well Timed Arrival

Snails had hoped to have more time to prepare, but Twilight had forced his hoof.

“Why can’t she understand the importance of what I’m trying to do?” he wondered as he gathered his things.

He hesitated a moment, trying to decide which of his many inventions to bring along. Who knew what kinds of difficulties he might encounter in the past? The sound of Twilight yelling from the other room snapped him out of his indecision, spurring him to begin stuffing everything in reach into his bags. It wouldn’t be long before Twilight called upon the guards who were standing outside the library at this very moment. As if on cue, a loud banging began at the front door. Snails took one last look around the library, trying to decide if he’d forgotten anything.

“I guess it’s now or never,” he said to himself.

His entire body was shaking from anticipation. This was the moment he had been preparing for for over ten years, and now that the moment had arrived he hardly knew how to feel. Stepping into the cramped interior of the machine, he pulled the door closed with a booming *Clang*. After settling into the seat and securing the safety harness, he turned to the control panel and began flipping switches and twisting knobs. His hooves flew across the controls with practiced ease as he recited the startup checklist.

“Main power on”, he muttered, “Time coordinates entered. Time manipulation vortex activated.”

The machine began to vibrate and whine as the power level indicator rose steadily. He had tested the machine before, but never had he allowed the power output to reach the all-important threshold of 1.21 gigawatts. He calculated that the chances were pretty even between a successful temporal shift and a catastrophic explosion. As the indicator reached and then exceeded the threshold, he gave one last salute to the world he was leaving behind and pulled the activation lever.

******

While he hadn’t known exactly what to expect, Snails had expected a bit more than a flash of light as his machine ripped through the fabric of time and space to deposit him at his destination. Without any windows he wasn’t even sure if he was still in the library, let alone if he had made it to the past.

“Only one way to find out.” he exclaimed, unbuckling himself from the safety harness.

The door opened to a view that almost took his breath away. An empty field of grass stretched out under the evening sky, the chilly night air making him shiver as it entered the hot interior of the machine. He quickly stepped out onto the grass and began an analysis of the current star locations, comparing them to a book he pulled out of a saddle bag. They all matched the locations in the book precisely, a book on star positions published almost 12 years ago.

Snails allowed himself a moment of elation, throwing his head back and giving an uncharacteristically gleeful “Whoop!” into the darkness. He’d made it! However, arriving was only the first and easiest part of the plan. His true task still lay before him.

With that sobering thought, Snails returned to the time machine to check the energy readings. He was relieved to see that the crystal energy reserves still had over 50% capacity remaining, plenty of power for a return trip to the future. That is, if he chose to return. If he was successful, the Twilight Sparkle of this timeline would never have a reason to take him in as a child, leaving nopony he cared about in the future to return to. He felt a wave of momentary sadness at the knowledge that he would never meet the Twilight he knew and loved ever again. However the moment soon passed, and he pushed the thought from his mind.

“Gotta focus on the plan, and nothing else” he told himself.

Save his friends, and catch the criminal; those were the things he had to concentrate on.

The first order of business was to hide the time machine from any casual observers that might happen to walk through the field. He knew from experience that this area was seldom visited during this time of year, but it always paid to be cautious. Applebloom’s family owned most of the farmland around Ponyville, and the last thing he wanted was to get caught skulking around by somepony who might recognize him.

Using his magic, he began the painstaking process of moving clumps of hay from a nearby haystack into a pile around the time machine. After about an hour of work, he collapsed onto the ground next to a haystack seemingly no different from any others in the field. To make sure he could find it again when needed, he placed three small but heavy rocks in the shape of a triangle at the foot of the haystack.

Next he shifted his attention to his appearance. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see his cutie mark; while it wasn’t unheard of for duplicate cutie marks to exist, he didn’t want to attract any more attention than he could help. Pulling a small square of cloth from a bag, he used his magic to carefully place it over the mark on his left flank. He had chosen a simple image of a wrench turning a screw, one that he hadn’t seen on any other ponies in town. He took a deep breath before quickly searing the cloth onto his flesh with a burst of magic. Pulling an identical piece of cloth out of the bag he repeated the process on his right flank. He turned to each side to admire his handiwork. It wouldn’t stand up to close inspection, but his lab coat covered his flanks most of the time anyway. Exhausted but satisfied, Snails began the long trek into town.

******

As Snails slowly made his way down the country path, a dark, pony-shaped figure crept out of his hiding place in a nearby grove of trees.

“I thought he’d never leave” he declared with disgust.

The figure stalked straight to the hidden time machine and began tearing the hay away from the entrance. Pulling an old, worn key from a saddlebag, he inserted it into the lock and opened the door. He stepped inside and felt around under the control panel for a hidden catch.

“Got it!” he exclaimed, watching as a hidden compartment flipped open on the floor.

Inside the compartment was a maze of wires and other components, all connected to a peculiarly shaped gemstone. Reaching down, the shadowy figure ripped the gem from its connections and stuffed it into his saddlebag, an evil grin on his face.

“You won’t be needing that, my dear Snails” he muttered as he closed up the compartment.

He left the machine and pointed his horn at the scattered hay. With a burst of magic all of the hay flew into place, leaving the time machine completely hidden once again. Chuckling ominously, the mysterious pony slipped away into the darkness. Soon the isolated field was truly empty; the only sound a forlorn whisper of wind winding through the lonely haystacks.

******

Cresting one last hill, Snails was treated to a panoramic view of his hometown. It was as peaceful as he remembered it, the rising sun painting the buildings with a beautiful golden glow. Tired and covered with dust from the long walk, the only thing on his mind as he trudged along the road into town was finding a place to sleep. To his dismay, his thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a commotion coming from the town square.

“You’ll never get away with this, Trixie!” a familiar sounding voice screamed.

Snails’ head snapped up and he began walking faster towards the source of the voices.

“Don’t tell me I ended up traveling to that day…” he thought as he rounded a corner and reached the square.

It seemed like the whole town was crowded into this one small area, their bodies forming a ring around the source of the commotion. He could hear the crackle of magical bolts and the sounds of small explosions coming from within. He could feel each of the hairs on his coat standing on end, which could only mean that powerful magic was being used nearby. He could only think of one occasion from the past that matched what he was seeing, though at the time he had experienced it from within the ring of onlookers. He quickly began pushing through the throng until he breached the center and was greeted with the sight he had been dreading.

Facing off on opposite sides of the ring were two unicorns, one breathing heavily and covered with sweat while the other stood calmly, seemingly none the worse for wear.

“Here’s an easy one Twilight, let’s see if you can match my age spell,” Trixie said, her eyes briefly flashing with a red glow.

She pointed her horn at a pair of young unicorns huddled off to the side, their eyes widening with fear as a beam of red light enveloped them. With a flash, the youths were replaced by a crying foal and an ancient stallion, the poor old pony barely able to stand. Snails’ eyes narrowed as he watched his young self being tortured by the merciless Trixie. He still had nightmares about how it felt to be spontaneously aged to a point where every breath is a fresh agony. As he knew would happen, Twilight’s counterspell failed spectacularly, dropping the young Snips and Snails in a painful heap.

“Trixie is the highest level unicorn!” Trixie said as Twilight and the entire crowd looked on in horror.

In that instant, Snails felt his carefully planned decision to prevent undue changes to the timeline slip away along with his self-control. Stepping out of the circle and onto the battleground, he called out to the blue unicorn as she was about to banish Twilight from the town forever.

“Hey Trixie! How about picking on somepony your own size, instead of tormenting a couple of kids?” he said with a scowl.

“Who dares challenge the great and powerful Trixie?!” she snarled, eyes locking on the tall, lanky unicorn that had stepped forward.

“Oh, it’s just some filthy commoner,” she said with a yawn.

With a casual flick of her head, she sent a pulsing beam of red light streaking across the square. Snails barely had time to raise his right foreleg in front of his face to intercept the beam. The light struck with a dull *clunk*, resulting in little more than a small wisp of steam rising from the impacted area.

“That should have left you writhing in agony!” Trixie exclaimed with an indignant frown.

“Been there, done that” Snails muttered as he began to slowly walk towards the fuming unicorn.

His horn began to glow as he flipped the switch on the portable anti-magic field generator he carried in one bag. It didn’t have the same range as the one he had used to trap Twilight, but it should be sufficient to cancel out any magic directed specifically at him. He made sure to use his magic to produce a faint sphere of light surrounding his body. No need to let anypony know that his protection was anything but a run-of-the-mill magic shield.

"Perhaps there is more to you than I thought,” Trixie said, her attention now fully focused on her new adversary.

She took a deep breath, her horn gaining in radiance until it looked like a second sun was perched on her forehead.

“You have to run, stranger!”Twilight yelled from where she had collapsed off to the side. “Trixie really means to kill you with this spell!”

Snails gave a savage smile as he ignored the pleas of his old mentor. The first time around he had been a helpless child, but now the scales had shifted. Now he would pay Trixie back in kind for all of the mistreatment he had suffered at her hooves.

“Citizens of Ponyville, watch closely! This is what happens to those who challenge the great and powerful Trixie!” she cackled, finally unleashing the magic she had been gathering.

A sound like a thunderclap echoed across the town as a continuous stream of energy poured from Trixie’s horn and impacted Snails’ shield. He smiled again, thankful that Trixie was too unimaginative to use her magic to harm him indirectly. The crowd watched in awe as he continued his slow advance, the beam of energy dissipating harmlessly around him as he approached.

Trixie’s eyes widened with disbelief as her magic was deflected. Gritting her teeth, she poured more and more of her energy into the attack, muscles trembling and flank heaving from the strain. Finally, when she saw that the stranger was almost upon her, her strength gave out and she collapsed gasping onto the ground. Snails stood triumphantly over her prone body, his right hoof hovering over her head, ready to deliver the final blow.

Suddenly his concentration was shattered by the feeling of two hooves wrapped around his neck, squeezing hard.

“Thank you, stranger…you saved me! You saved the whole town!” a smiling Twilight exclaimed as she continued to hug him.

He blushed, not prepared to deal with this sudden outpouring of affection. He glanced at the exhausted figure of Trixie and saw that several of Twilight’s friends had managed to remove her amulet and were carrying her off to rest. He shrugged, his desire for revenge satisfied for the moment. Let Trixie live the rest of her life with this humiliation. He doubted she would trouble the good ponies of Ponyville ever again.

He gently pushed Twilight away and pointed a hoof at the young Snips and Snails, still suffering under the age spell that Trixie had cast on them.

“Please take care of the children, Twilight Sparkle. I trust you won’t let them stay that way for long."

“Of course, the children!” Twilight cried. Stay right here, once I’ve finished with those two you can tell me all about that amazing shield spell you used against Trixie.”

As Twilight turned to reattempt her counterspell, Snails let himself fade back into the crowd until he reached the outskirts of the square. He turned to the road that led to the town inn, more tired than he could ever remember being. He could feel the scorching heat from the anti-magic device in his bag. Maintaining the field under such an incredible onslaught of magic must have almost burnt it out. He’d have to be more careful in the future to avoid such confrontations; he had to conserve his resources if he wanted to have any chance of succeeding in his primary mission.

When he arrived at the inn, the innkeeper was excited to hear what all the commotion in the square was about.

“I’m just a tired traveler, looking for a room,” he explained. “I don’t know what kind of trouble was going on today, but it seems to be over now.”

He pushed an extra bag of bits towards the innkeeper.

“My business in town is personal, and I don’t want to be disturbed by anypony that might come looking for me. Do we have an understanding?”

The innkeeper smiled broadly, tucking the bag into one of his many pockets.

“Of course, sir. We at the Prancing Pony are well known for our…discretion.”

As he entered his room and collapsed onto the bed, his last thought before losing consciousness was that maybe getting hugged by Twilight wasn’t the worst thing he had ever experienced.

******

Twilight Sparkle sighed. It had taken every last bit of her remaining strength, but she had managed to reverse the age spell and return the children to their natural ages. She watched as they scurried off, no doubt running to tell their friends about their harrowing experience. She turned back to where her mysterious savior had been standing, but was startled to find that he was nowhere to be seen, and none of the ponies in the rapidly dispersing crowd had seen him go.

“Where in Equestria did he come from, and how did he know my full name?” Twilight mused.

She resolved then and there to find the unusual stallion before he left Ponyville. She had a lot of questions for him, and no doubt there was much they could teach each other about magic.

“My interest in him is purely academic,” Twilight assured herself. “Besides, we can’t make Pinkie Pie responsible for welcoming every visitor to town.”

With a resolute nod, she turned and began trotting into town to begin her search.