“What did you say?” Twilight asked the boisterous Pinkie Pie that had knocked at her door.

“Come on Twilight! Come on! There’s a new shop in town!” Pinkie answered, bouncing in excitement. “And a strange one at that!”

“A new shop in town?” said Twilight, puzzled. She shook her head. “But Pinkie, shops do not grow out of thin air overnight. If there had been construction works lately, I would surely have noticed them…”

“Come on! Come on!” Pinkie squealed again. “It’s close to Rarity’s boutique and it seems to sell strange things too…”

Realising that there would be no reasoning with Pinkie, Twilight sighed, stepped out of the library, closed the door behind her and reluctantly accompanied the pink perspiring pronking pony along Ponyville’s large paths. When they arrived in sight of Rarity’s boutique, well into the outskirts of the town, Twilight halted. Pinkie was right: on the opposite side of the street, almost flush with Rarity’s shop, stood a strange building, which was not there the day before. Its shape was puzzling, as of many curves and bulges, not unlike a muffin that would have swollen irregularly. But the main weirdness was not in its crooked outline; it was in the material it seemed to be made of: a white, glistening metal, brightly reflecting the Sun’s morning rays. Twilight squinted to adjust to the unexpected brilliance. When she could see better, she noticed, gathered in front of what she surmised to be the main entrance, a few ponies – Rarity and Sweetie Belle, among others – engrossed in a lively discussion. She crossed the street and came closer.

“Hi guys!” she chirped. Everypony ceased to talk and turned to face her.

“Twilight!” Rarity exclaimed in a high-pitched voice. “Why, I’m happy to see you. Can you explain us where this weird building comes from and why it appeared so close to my boutique?”

Twilight sneered. “I’m afraid not, Rarity,” she answered. “I’m as baffled as you are. Let me find out what’s going on here.”

The alicorn trotted forward, the now silent group parting before her. She stopped in front of the shop window. Behind the thick glass, stowed on various shelves, she saw rows of weird – what were they? – variegated shining objects, some with a protruding barrel, some round, some jagged, some big, some tiny. More and more intrigued, she made a few steps towards the door. Her attention was drawn to a golden plaque nailed in the wall; “Equestria’s weapon shops corporation. Ponyville’s outlet.” she read, engraved on it. These words were followed by a rather cryptic sentence: “The right to be armed is the right to be free.”

Now what does that poppycock mean? she wondered. Weapon shop? The right to be free? Isn’t everypony free in Equestria?

She reached for the handle.

“It’s closed!” the voice of Rarity said behind her. Twilight turned around, casting a puzzled glance at the white unicorn. “I already tried to enter,” Rarity explained, “but the door wouldn’t open.”

“Then let me try again,” Twilight proposed. She turned back, extended her leg.

Silently, the door hinged open. Twilight stayed put; she could have sworn she had not physically made contact with the handle, as if the door had reacted to her presence milliseconds before she would actually touch it. Beyond the threshold, it was like a pit of darkness, probably an illusion caused by the stark contrast between the crude exterior light and the dim illumination of the interior.

After a short hesitation, she made up her mind and walked into the gloom.

“Don’t go in!” Rarity shouted behind her. “You don’t know what’s inside!”

Twilight froze, halfway through the threshold. “There’s nothing to fear!” she replied. “It’s just a shop. I’ll be back in a few minutes with an answer to this riddle, I hope. Wait for me right here!” She proceeded inside and disappeared from sight.

“I’m coming with you!” Rarity exclaimed. She bolted forth, but the door slammed shut as she was about to reach the entrance, and she crashed on it. Rebounding, she fell on the ground, groggy.

There was a dazzling flash of light that made everypony blink.

When they reopened their eyes, the shop was gone.

---

Twilight found herself in a large exposition room. As she had correctly inferred, the ambient light was dim, suffusing the whole volume from unknown sources, as if the walls themselves were radiating a faint glow. She looked around, perplexed. All over the place, showcases were filled with the same sort of strange devices she had seen in the front window. At the far end, though, she saw a desk with a till. She padded to it; her hooves were resounding softly in the desert room. Arrived at the desk, “Hello?! Is there anypony out there?!” she yelled.

“Oh! Excuse me! Be right there!” replied a muffled voice somewhere in a back-room. There was the rattle of several objects being shuffled, followed by clopping. A young, rather slim stallion appeared through a doorway. “May I be of service to you?” he politely asked, walking stately toward the desk. “I’d be happy to help you pick the most adequate weapon for your needs. I––” He broke off, and his eyes widened as he realised who he was facing. There was an embarrassed hush.

“But… But…” the stallion stammered. “I mean no disrespect, but how did you come here?”

“Err…” hesitated Twilight; she was beginning to feel queasy, too. “I just pushed the door and walked through the entrance. That’s all!” she replied and giggled nervously.

The stallion did not seem satisfied with this simple answer. “I’m sorry, err… princess, I suppose. I’m afraid you’ll have to wait a moment while I call the manager. Please excuse me.” He flipped a switch on a hidden board; there was a discrete buzz. “Sir?” he said in a subdued voice. “Sorry to interrupt you, but you should come down here on the double. I think we’ve just run into a big mess.” Rising his head, “It won’t take long,” he declared to Twilight. “Meanwhile, why don’t you enjoy our collection of state-of-the-art weapons in the showcases?” He rounded the desk and invited Twilight to join him.

“Why do you sell weapons?” asked Twilight. “Who would buy them?”

“Everypony who takes their security seriously,” the stallion said, as if it was self-evident. “The right to defend ourselves against the repeated intrusions of the militia was the motive that inspired our beloved founders when they opened the first outlet in Las Pegasus.”

Twilight looked at the stallion in incomprehension. “Militia? What are you talking about?”

“Tirek’s death squads, of course!” the stallion replied, shrugging. “What else?” He eyed Twilight intensely.

“Who’s Tirek?” asked Twilight, bewildered. “I’ve never heard this name before…”

The stallion did not answer. He seemed to be caught in a rushing flow of thoughts; after a few seconds, he collected himself. “I’m sorry Princess. The manager shall fill you in. Anyway…” — he guided Twilight to the nearest showcase – “let me show you our newest hoof-stunners. They operate on a miniaturised thorium based battery. The beam of energy they generate is strong enough to knock any intruder down, even at several hundred feet.”

Twilight examined the hoof-stunners curiously. “But how can you use them if you’re attacked by surprise?”

“A very clever question indeed. When you buy a weapon, we attune it to you. It then generates a protective field that will defeat almost all other known weapons. That’s why we carefully check the background of the ponies we sell our weapons to. We cannot afford to let them fall into the hands of the militia or any other thuggish group,” the stallion proudly explained.

“Surely the militia must have already confiscated some, mustn’t it?” Twilight remarked.

“They self-destruct when grabbed by a hoof they are not attuned to. And only our shops have the necessary equipment to initially tune or detune them. Of course, no member of the militia has ever entered one of our shops: the smart doors won’t let them in.”

“Are your weapons effective against magic?” Twilight asked.

Unexpectedly, the stallion burst into laughter. “Magic? You mean, like in the fairy tales?” he asked in return, when his guffaw had subsided.

Twilight gazed stupidly at him. Slowly, her eyes swept from the stallion’s face to his flank.

Bare.

He didn’t have any cutie mark.

There was a loud noise as a door flung open. Both ponies whirled their head in surprise. A portly, grey-coated, stern looking stallion irrupted into the middle of the room. Seeing Twilight, he froze. “Excuse me,” said the clerk to Twilight, “would you please wait a few seconds here while I confer with my manager? Thank you for your comprehension.” He walked off to the other pony.

Twilight focussed back on the showcase, trying to sort her thoughts out; she was vaguely aware of the two other ponies’ confab. All of this was strange, nothing jibed: weapons, militia, that “Tirek” she had never heard of, the absence of cutie mark, no magic. Was this some sort of joke? At least the weapons enclosed in the showcases seemed very real. But if it was a joke, who could have set it up? There was undoubtedly some sort of magic involved, and a mighty one at that: how else could that shop have popped up from nothing during the night?

“Princess?” said a low, gravelly voice. Twilight started as the sound of the rasping voice snatched her out of her reverie. She turned to face the two stallions.

“Yes?” she answered.

“I’m sorry for what is about to happen to you. We mean you absolutely no harm,” apologised the manager, “but we cannot take any chances. Your presence here clearly indicates that we have been attacked by some unknown device they must have secretly developed. We must preserve our integrity at all cost. I’m deeply sorry,” he repeated, and there was a genuine tinge of sorrow in his voice.

The alicorn, taken aback, gawped at him. She looked down and saw that the stallion had grabbed a tiny device.

He fired it.

Darkness engulfed Twilight.

---

Something clicked.

“It’s done,” said a distant male voice.

Twilight wearily opened her eyes. She was lying on the shop floor. A few steps ahead, a group of five ponies were observing her. They seemed concerned.

“She’s coming back to her senses,” the manager said.

“What happened to me?” Twilight asked feebly. “Did you stun me?”

“Unfortunately we had to,” the manager replied. “We had no time to convince you that what we have to do next is absolutely necessary.”

“What… What is it?” asked Twilight. Her mind was still reeling from the blow. She could not focus.

“Throw you outside this shop,” the manager declared. “As long as you stay here, and despite the precautions we have taken, your presence is a threat to our existence. However, we are not ruthless. We have swaddled you in an invisible protective suit that will isolate you from your surroundings. You’ll be safe.”

“Safe from what?” Twilight was completely lost.

“Don’t you understand? We’ve been temporarily sent back through time to your epoch. At this stage we don’t know yet how, but that’s probably a new weapon of the militia. When you entered the shop, you triggered a countermove that sent us back in our timeframe, more than a millennium into your future. That means you’ve instantly accumulated milliards of chronons into your body. Hopefully, the floor and walls of our shops are insulated, thus nothing happened. But if you step outside…” his voice trailed off. “Of all the known energies, the temporal one is the most potent. With what your body contains, you could easily blow half of Equestria.”

“What will happen to me?” asked Twilight, suddenly frightened.

“You will probably be sent back to your epoch. But please remember, if you value your safety and the existence of Equestria, do not try, I repeat do not try, to put this protective suit off. At least not until you’ve found a way to safely channel this formidable amount of energy. Now good luck!” He nodded to the other ponies; they moved forward and grabbed Twilight who was still lying on the floor.

“Wait! Wait! No!” shouted the alicorn; she kicked and wriggled madly to escape the other ponies’ grasp, but they held her firmly. In a desperate attempt to break free, she tried to cast a teleportation spell, but nothing happened. The manager hurried to the door, opened it. Twilight was roughly thrown through the frame.

She fell into nothingness.

---

“Twilight? Can you hear me? Twilight?” The familiar voice of Rarity roused Twilight from unconsciousness.

“Rarity?” she asked in a quivering voice. “Is that you?”

“Oh! Twilight!” exclaimed Rarity in relief. “I’m so happy to hear you!”

The alicorn opened her eyes to the familiar face of her friend. She forced herself into a smile. “I’m happy to see you, too,” she replied. “I had such a nightmare…”

“Shhh…” said Rarity. “Say no more. You need rest. How do you feel?”

Twilight cocked her head slightly and glanced around. She realised she was inside Rarity’s boutique, lying on a makeshift cot. “I feel… worn out,” she whispered. “What happened?”

“Well,” Rarity began, “there was that mysterious shop you foolishly walked into. I tried to follow you inside, but the door closed as soon as you entered. And then the whole building vanished in a flash. Poof! Everything was gone, you included. We searched for you all over the place, but you were nowhere to be found. So we warned the princesses, who immediately ordered a general shakedown. To no avail. It’s been a full week now, until––”

“A full week?” Twilight cut in and shook her head. “But I’ve been away an hour at most!”

“Believe me,” Rarity carried on, “you disappeared seven days ago. And suddenly you popped up at the selfsame spot, unconscious. Sweetie Belle discovered your body a little while ago, and we immediately carried you inside. I’m afraid there is not much else to say. But, oh!, you look so dreadful. I brewed some fresh tea. Do you care for a cup?”

Twilight nodded: “Please.”

Rarity rose and walked off to the kitchen. A moment later, she came back with a round tray loaded with two cups and a teapot, that she laid on a small but elegant table. Magically, she grabbed the teapot and poured its contents into the cups. “Help yourself!” the unicorn said.

Twilight reflexively conjured the levitation spell even the baby unicorns mastered; nothing happened. She tried again, but the cup would not move. “I’m too weak to cast a spell,” she confessed to Rarity. “Can you help me?”

“Why, certainly,” replied Rarity. She floated the cup toward Twilight’s lips, and tilted it slightly. But the liquid, instead of flowing into Twilight’s mouth, hovered above it and finally fell all over the blanket. “What?!” exclaimed Rarity in disbelief.

Twilight let her head plop down with a sigh. “It was no dream…” she whispered.

Rarity looked at her, dismayed.

“Some kind of invisible protected suit,” said Twilight. “They said trying to put it off will result in an explosion destroying everything for miles around.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Ponies in the shop.”

Rarity blinked several times. “Darling, I don’t get it. There were ponies in that shop?”

“Never mind,” replied Twilight and she made a dismissal gesture with one hoof. “I need to go to the library and look something up in my books. Could you levitate me there?”

“Why, of course, Darling! But are you sure you feel all right?”

“I’ll have to put up with it,” sighed Twilight. She smiled again, ever so slightly.

---

The afternoon was over. The floor of the library was littered with forlorn books. Rarity and Spike had spent several hours fetching the various reference works on science and magic Twilight had requested. But she had found nothing relevant. No mention of that purported temporal energy or of such particles as ‘chronons’.

Twilight was pacing to and fro, ears dropped, downbeat.

“Why don’t you ask Celestia?” proposed Rarity.

“There is nothing she could do for me,” replied Twilight, and she shrugged. “My library is as rich, maybe even richer, in science books as all the Canterlot libraries. If I don’t find the answer here, I won’t find it any place else.”

“Could it be some sort of phoney? Maybe they lied to you?” said Spike.

Twilight glanced at the baby dragon. “And if not? Are you willing to take the risk?”

Spike did not answer. Twilight heard him mutter something under her breath, but she couldn’t make it out. Suddenly all the tiredness of the day seemed to wash over her. She lowered her head and closed her eyes.

There was a swish and a screech. Twilight jerked her eyes open. She found herself in the middle of a street. “What?” she blurted, incredulous. A strange flying vehicle rounded a nearby angle and drove straight to her. It honked loudly. In the nick of time, Twilight leaped aside onto the sidewalk as the speedster hurtled by and vanished from sight in a wink of an eye.

A few pedestrians gazed stupidly at her, then resumed walking as if nothing had happened. Her heart pounding, Twilight glanced around. She was not in Ponyville anymore; at least not in the Ponyville she knew. One- or two-storey buildings, made up of glistening, metallic walls bordered the street. But that must be… She was interrupted by the rising roar of an engine behind her. She whirled.

A black hovercraft with tinted windows skidded to a halt a few feet from her. The rear door opened, and a grey stallion wearing a pair of sunglasses emerged from inside. He pointed a small device to Twilight, that she recognised as one of the weapons she had seen in the shop. “Princess,” said the stallion, “please get into the car.” He waved the hoof that held the weapon. “Don’t make me beg. You will be given all the necessary information later. Quick!”

Twilight groaned and stepped into the vehicle, immediately followed by the stallion that slammed the door close. The hovercraft peeled out. “I’m sorry for what will follow––” began the stallion.

“You are often very sorry,” Twilight cut in. “What do you have in store now?”

“You’ll have to undergo minor vexations such as this.” He drew a piece of dark fabric from his pocket, with which he blindfolded Twilight. “Please don’t try to remove it,” he said, once he was satisfied with the tightness of the knot. “I would really resent being forced to use my stunner against you. The next minutes will be far more enjoyable to you if you cooperate willingly.”

Twilight remained quiet. As she couldn’t see anymore, she felt the vehicle jink several times, pushing its way through what she guessed was a dense urban warren. At last, they came to a halt. Twilight heard the sound of a window being lowered, and there was a brief exchange in a foreign language she did not understand. The vehicle then seemed to plunge into the ground at reduced speed. Soon after, it stopped. Twilight was gently pulled out of the hovercraft, and led along endless corridors and steep stairs until her guides ordered her to stop, and rapped at a door. Somepony opened, and Twilight was gently nudged into the room. She heard the door close and latch; her blindfold was removed.

She was standing in a dull, grey cubicle. The walls were all bare. Facing her, behind an austere desk, two middle-aged mares. “Princess Sparkle,” said the left one, “let me first apologise for the rough treatment inflicted on you. You are now in one of Equestria’s most secret places, and ––”

“How do you know my name?” interrupted Twilight. “Who are you?”

The mare grinned. “Excuse me, I forgot the most basic politeness. My name is Shepherd Star, I am the current leader of the weapon shop corporation. And” — she waved at her neighbour – “this is Spick Span, my deputy. As for your name… I found your portrait in a very old book. You see, despite all the efforts Tirek made to destroy all the books, we managed to save a lot of them.”

“Why am I here? How did you know when and where to pick me up?”

“We made a mistake,” answered Shepherd Star laconically.

“What mistake?” asked Twilight.

“When we expelled you out of Ponyville’s shop. You must understand: we panicked. It’s not easy to react correctly under threat. We thought it was the best solution, but it triggered an unfortunate series of event…”

“Please elucidate.”

“We correctly guessed the militia had developed a new weapon; a sort of cannon that can move objects backwards through time. Of course, they had to pick a first target, and that first target was chosen to be Ponyville’s weapons shop. Why? I have no clue. And it worked indeed – until you interfered.”

“How?”

“You walked into the shop”, explained Shepherd Star. “At that precise moment, all the temporal energy that had been aimed at the building was instantly transferred to your body, and we were flung back to our present – or your future. Then, faced with the pickle of your presence, we bluntly decided to get rid of you, and shoved you out. But we had not considered the seesaw effect.”

“What’s that?” asked Twilight.

“Since you wear that insulated invisible suit, the energy you have accumulated cannot dissipate. Together with the building in which the temporal cannon was installed, you are now forming a sort of “time lever”, whose fulcrum is the date at which the attack took place. As long as we haven’t found a way to safely discharge all this energy from you, you are bound to oscillate between past and future, while the building does the same thing, but the other way round…”

“Charming…” said Twilight with a pout.

“Don’t be too bitter: we won’t let you down. We are working on it, and by the time you reappear, I’m pretty positive we will have figured it out. We fed the initial conditions into our computers and were able to correctly predict your first interphase. The suit contains a tracking emitter so we won’t lose you. Besides, the fact that Equestria still exists proves that you have not exploded in the past. So, there is hope!”

“Where’s the catch?” asked Twilight sternly.

“No catch,” assured Shepherd Star. She beamed. “Honest!”

Twilight did not answer. Her mind was working as fast as possible to find a flaw in Shepherd Star’s rationale; she had a hunch there was one. But where?

Shepherd Star looked at her watch. “No further question?” she asked. “This interphase is almost over. In less than one minute you’ll be sent back in the past. We’ll meet again in a few hours for you, a few months––” She broke off and sniggered.

“What?” exclaimed Twilight loudly. “A few months… for you? But you intimated the energy involved was constant. How could that be?”

Shepherd Star slowly turned her gaze towards Spick Span. “That was not very clever of you,” said the deputy. The leader’s head turned back to Twilight, but the alicorn was gone.

“Why did you lie to her?” asked Spick Span.

“I had not the heart to shatter her hope. We’ve ruined her life. Inadvertently, but we did. We can spare her that, at least, no?”

“When will the next interphase take place?”

“More than a millennium into the future…” answered Shepherd Star, as she prepared to leave the room.

---

Twilight stood in the middle of a forest, caught in a violent snowstorm; strong gusts of wind were keening through the trees and swinging the branches furiously. No Ponyville, not even a house in sight; nothing but trees, gloom, and snow. Strangely though, she did not feel cold; apparently the suit was providing her with heat. Reluctantly, she set out and trudged in the already thick snow cover, seeking a shelter.

After a few minutes of a gruelling fight against the blizzard, she finally came in sight of a small rocky mound, one side of which seemed to be less exposed to the gale. In a last desperate effort, she staggered to its base, and flopped down, exhausted. Her eyelids felt heavy, so heavy; all her body was aching. She curled up, trying to find a position as comfortable as possible. Unwillingly, her eyes closed and she fell into a dreamless slumber.

When she awoke, the forest was gone, and gone was the snowstorm also. Under the cold light of a gibbous moon, she was lying in a vast and deserted field of ruins. Broken shards of metal and glass, which glittered in the pale moonlight, were strewn all over; here and there, the absurd stumps of former houses were still standing as ominous reminders of the catastrophe that should have taken place uncountable years before. She stood up, and slowly paced along the road she had awoken on. The silence was total, eerie, oppressive. As she made her way towards the centre, she occasionally encountered wrecked vehicles, strangely deformed, as if they had been scorched or had melted under a blistering heat. Suddenly, she froze. What have I glimpsed? She turned around and walked back a few steps. In front of her, nailed on what remained of a metallic wall, a golden plaque was shimmering “Equestria’s weapon shops corporation. Ponyville’s outlet. The right to be armed is the right to be free.”

Realisation struck her like lightning: they had lied to her. The seesaw energy was not constant. No. It was actually increasing. Every swing of this monstrous teeter-totter would actually precipitate her into a remoter past, or fling her into a more distant future, and there would be no respite.

She was hopelessly bound to oscillate.

Endlessly.

Briefly, she had a vision of her body, lifeless, floating in the icy space, entrapped in that past-future cycle that would never cease, like the vain pendulum of a long forgotten clock. And yet she could not believe it; she could not accept that it would finish like that.

There was more to it than met the eye.

But what was it?

As she was pondering, the scenery suddenly changed. The buildings disappeared altogether. She was now in the midst of a desolate tract of barren earth. The daylight was strange. Looking up, she saw the sky was pink, and… were those flying huts? This must be when Discord was ruling Equestria, she thought. She tried to compute how far into the past she had been thrown this time, but found she was lacking the necessary knowledge. She could remember Celestia and Luna alluding to this period, but they never had explicitly mentioned how remote it was.

Reflexively, she began to walk, but stopped after a few steps. Which way to go? And what for? How long would she remain in this particular timeframe? One hour? Two? Six at most? What could she possibly do here? Her purpose, if she had one left, was elsewhere. It was pointless to move, pointless to wander aimlessly. Nopony could rescue her anymore. She had passed beyond all hope.

Thus, she simply lay down on the ground, waiting for the next swing to whisk her into an unfathomable future, and turned her thoughts inward.

She vaguely recalled that she had a decision to make. But what was it?

Past-Future-Past-Future-Past-Future…

---

Twilight was sprawling in a boundless night and a future so distant that nothing existed anymore. Equestria had disappeared, the Moon had dissolved into nothingness and the Sun was extinct. Eons ago, uncountable millennia before Celestia and Luna were begotten, the alicorn had breathlessly contemplated its glorious youth; she had witnessed the star and its planets emerge from the primeval nebulae. And now she was standing at the other end of the road, looking back, and her world was all but dead.

Only the distant, minute stars were studding the absolute darkness, like tiny beacons.

Expecting something.

Expecting her.

Suddenly she knew. The answer was so obvious, so evident. And with it came the only reasonable choice, the quiet acceptance of her inevitable death. But not a meaningless, absurd sacrifice. Oh no! On the contrary. And beyond sorrow and despair, her heart suddenly filled with joy and wonder. She thought about all she had known, her parents, her friends, her home; all the love she had received – and given. She smiled. She had had a rich life, there was nothing to regret.

And now her mind turned to her immediate future.

There was a limit to the amount of temporal energy her suit could handle. All that energy, waiting to be released.

The next swing, the last swing, would carry her to such a distant past… 

A past when nothing would be born, yet.

Not even the universe.

She would not behold its birth.

But she would trigger it.