My Little Pony: The Chrononauts

Into a healthy morning light, both Twilight and Spike woke up from their slumber. Spike went to prepare their breakfast, as Twilight washed herself. She hummed soft and heartily to herself as she scrubbed herself clean. When she finished, she got in her robe and trotted downstairs; smelling the appetizing mealwork that Spike had prepared for them.

“Smells delicious, Spike!” She praised warmly.

“Thanks! I tried a different ingredient to bring some zing… Courtesy of Chez Spike.” He replied.

The two of them sat at the table and ate their meal. Twilight was reading one of her spellbooks in between bites, and Spike was playing with the Chronex. Naturally, this came to discussion.

“So Twi… What do you think we should do with this? Obviously we’re gonna give it a whirl, but like… Will it be just us two to start?”

“Precisely, Spike. Our first trip will be purely an experiment. Something for me to learn, and I need you to help me. I don’t want the other ponies caught in any… Unforeseen complications, so to speak. I don’t know what this thing’s capable of, so…”

“Makes sense…” Spike nodded.

Twilight stated, “So, according to Celestia, the Chronex is like the hub. We can’t travel without it. So, like she said, I’ll keep you in custody of it. And I’ll go get my Element after breakfast. We’ll both go, and see what happens.”

Spike wondered, “I wonder why it’s called the Chronex…”

“I would like to think it’s a portmanteau of Chrono-, which means time, and Nexus, which means like a hub. But I could be wrong… Maybe that’s how it works… That’s what we’re going to learn today.” Twilight answered.

After they had finished their breakfast, they went to Twilight’s quarters to prepare for the experiment. Twilight grabbed her Element, and wore it on her head. Spike put the Chronex on his wrist.

“Alright Spike, let’s get ready… Before we go, heaven forbid anything goes wrong from here on in, just know that I love you and you’ve been an awesome assistant and friend for me, mkay?” She gave him a hug.

“Back atcha, Twi.” Spike smiled, touched at the remark.

Twilight stood down and gave herself space. “Alright. Celestia said to genuflect. You go first; you have the Chronex.”

Spike nodded, and genuflected. The Chronex began to glow. Quickly, it went brighter, and a constant shining hum was buzzing louder and louder.

“It’s working, Spike! It’s working!” Twilight exclaimed.

She knelt down and genuflected in turn. Within seconds, her Element began to do the same. A shining bright rosy ball of energy grew between the Chronex and the Element, and both Twilight and Spike were enveloped in it. Not much longer, and the sphere quickly collapsed; taking Twilight and Spike within itself and its implosion. The house was now silent and without a soul.

Twilight and Spike were now in a void; silent as death, and strewn with iridescent blends of colors and imagery, unfamiliar to them. In one direction, they saw a nebula with an eerily realistic montage of the Terran world and its life, along with the world itself, constantly morphing in and out of its states. What they were seeing is the world in its every stages, from every location, all at once.

Spike was already getting heart-pounding nervous. “Twilight!? Where are we!?”

Twilight felt similar, but insisted on learning about this. “I don’t know, Spike. This is actually pretty creepy… But fascinating… Stay close to me…”

The two floated around, getting used to the void and its environment of silence and weird. “Let me see something…” Twilight wondered.

She raised her hoof outward, and began her magical work from her horn and Element. The imagery and iridescence that swirled around them suddenly came still…

“Hm…” She wondered again. She stopped using the magic from her horn, relying on only the Element. It was still the same. She had control of the void using just the Element. She then slowly moved her hoof around, and the nebulae began taking different sizes, shapes, and imagery.

“I see… Using the Element, I can determine when and where across this world’s history I can locate myself to… Try doing the same, Spike…”

Twilight stopped, and the void that stopped swirling, slowly picked up and resumed. Now it was Spike’s turn to try this. He floated back a bit, and with his hand bearing the Chronex, he did the same. And the reaction was the same. He was able to pan across any hour across any location on the world.

“Wicked cool…” He said in amusement.

Twilight supposed, “Alright, so from what I’m getting so far, we can’t come here without the Chronex, but once we’re here, we can all control it, as long as we have the Elements… Whoever wears the Chronex is the hub. Now, we need to test the ability to enter a period, then come back to here, then back home in Equestria… Are you ready, Spike?”

“Sure. Let’s do it.” He replied.

“Let’s see… Let’s pick something that looks simple and slow enough to go to, and then come back. We don’t need to do a full excursion now.” She suggested. She put her hoof up again and powered up her Element. She guided the nebulae to slow down, so she can gaze into it and see into where she would first prefer to visit.

She saw what appeared to be an older man in a toga sitting at a bath-side. It appeared to be a bright day around this tiny home of earthen material.

“Interesting. This looks pretty quaint.” Twilight suggested.

“It’s someone at a bath. Why is this even interesting you?” Spike asked sarcastically.

“Remember what I said about taking it slow? That’s gotta be it. Now… Let’s try this out.”

Both Twilight and Spike readied themselves, and dove into the nebula. In seconds, a bright rosy flash consumed the two, and they had flashed the same way into the new world, kneeling in genuflect as the Chronex required to function.

250 BC – Syracuse, Sicily

The two looked around. It was a very small home indeed. Musty in appearance and atmosphere; even in the air. They then turned to the side, and there was the older gentleman in his toga, by his bathside.

They looked at each other. The man was quite startled at what he saw. Spike felt the same and they both backed away from each other.

Twilight intervened before anything went awry. “Hello, sir! My name is Twilight Sparkle. And this is my assistant, Spike. Please, we come in peace.” She raised her hoof nervously, hoping something good would come of this.

The man hesitated a moment, before reaching his hand out slowly, beginning to open up to her. “Hm… Well met… My name is Archimedes… Now if you don’t mind, I would prefer to take a bath.”

Twilight thought a second. She should let him go, but she’s come this far. “Before you do that, I want to talk to you. I’m new around here.”

“In that case, don’t mind me while I take the bath.” Archimedes rolled his eyes up a bit. He sat back down to take off his sandals. “Go on…”

“Well, like… Where are we? Tell me about your kind. I come from a faraway place, and I want to learn more.”

“Faraway sounds about right. Heh. Anyway, this town is Syracuse. And I am a Greek.”

Twilight was trying to understand what he was saying. “So, you’re from Greek, but you live here. Correct?”

“Greece. Those of us ‘humans’ who come from there, are Greek people. Now, what pray tell, are you and him?”

I’m a pony from Equestria. And Spike is a dragon; also from there. I live in a world full of us equines. We have unicorn ponies and pegasus ponies and-”

“Pegasus!? He’s a mythical beast! A horse with wings! Clearly I must be going mad, even having a conversation with a talking horse and her dragon.” Archimedes laughed. He then turned to undress himself of his toga.

For a moment, Twilight and Spike winced. An older naked man.

Twilight shook her head to recollect herself and her study. “Wait, you know about pegasi?” Twilight asked quickly, getting past his snooty remark.

“Pegasus. He is a flying horse-god.”

“So there’s only one?”

“Correct.”

Archimedes turned his attention to the bath. He set his foot in to the bath. The water in the tub started pouring over and out of the sides of the tub.

“Hm…” Archimedes wondered to himself. He stood still a moment, despite the water slightly sloshing around. He took one more moment, and sunk his foot even deeper. More water spilled out.

Twilight and Spike looked at the tub. “What are you looking at, Archimedes?” She asked.

A strong glow in Archimedes’s face dominated his emotion right from there. “Eureka! I have found it! It just might make some sense now!”

Spike asked, “So, what is it?”

Archimedes pointed at the water. “Watch what happens, when I put more of my body in…” He sunk his foot even deeper, and more water spilled out. “I displace the water that’s already in there! This might help me determine the crown’s purity after all!”

With a sudden rush of excitement, he ran out from the bath and out of the house, running down the path in town in his complete nude, shouting his cheerful “Eureka!”.

The two stood there in his home, silent about what they saw.

“… That’s it? Water displacement? Who’d get so choked up over that?” Spike rolled his eyes up.

“That’s just it, Spike. We’re likely in a primitive period of human history. He had just discovered water displacement. Think about how this helps in not only their world, but ours too. We just saw a pivotal moment in history. And a scientific one at that, too!”

“I still think it’s funny we have magical power to traverse all of time in this world, only to end up seeing some dude get excited over bath water.” Spike chuckled to himself.

“Spike, think about what kind of innovations can come from that now. He can get to measure the volume of something without physically measuring it. He was mentioning something about a crown and its purity, so…”

Spike shrugged. “For a short trip, I guess we got something out of it for ya then.”

Twilight nodded. “You know, I’d like to explore the rest of this Syracuse place, but I did say this would be a purely experimental trip. Wanna head back and tell the others? Maybe they’d like to join us in the future.”

Spike agreed. “Sounds good to me. I’m getting a bit hungry anyway.”

The two stepped away from each other, and they genuflected. The Chronex was beginning to beam and glow, as did Twilight’s Element. The ball of energy grew from between them, and it enveloped the two before imploding, to return them to the void.

They appeared, and saw in front of them the same nebulae that held the history they searched. Spike looked around and behind him, and saw the portal that looked like home as they left it.

“Twilight, over there.” He pointed over and directed Twilight. The two floated over to the portal, and the same flashing happened between the void and Twilight’s quarters.

Present-Day Equestria

After the flash, the two ended up in her room, just as they had left it.

“Wow, Spike… That was actually pretty cool! I can’t wait to show the others.” Twilight cheered.

Spike said, “Glad you like it. Now if you excuse me, I’ma go grab a bite to eat…”

“Please, go ahead. Later, I’ll ask you to write a report on this for Celestia.”

Twilight couldn’t help it. There was such magic in being able to see a whole world’s own history and to learn from it. She couldn’t wait to see what else was available; but of course she wouldn’t go without the other ponies.