Prolog

The Present

Operation: Time Heist

Four worried ponies crowded together around a table inside the Brighthouse in Maretime Bay, watching their friend who was humming to herself and looking everything on the table over. They didn't need to crowd close to each other, of course there was plenty of space in the room. Through some unspoken need the four friends stood closer than they normally would. Where a wingtip on the back of another pony or the brush of a hoof against another would normally cause blushes and stammers of apology, these ponies needed a little closeness right now. Despite the brightly colored magic crystal and the warm sunshine coming in through the windows all of them felt distant from each other, almost cold in a way that had nothing to do with temperature. For several minutes the pony of their scrutiny had carefully checked over all the objects on the table, compared them to a list she had on her phone, and nodding to herself in a self-satisfied way began to pack them into her satchel. She might need those things where she was going, it wasn't a trip to another town she was planning. Not this time. This time she was going a little bit further than anypony had ever gone, and the absolute. Worst. Thing. Ever. Was that none of her newfound friends could join her.

"Are you absolutely sure this is the best way?" Hitch asked, finally breaking the silence. The other three glanced at him, then nervously flicked their eyes back to the fifth. "I mean come on Sunny, this is crazy!"

Sunny, the orange colored mare with the striped mane looked about to give her usual flippant answer that of course everything was going to be fine, and took a breath to do just that. But she caught the mood of her friends and slowly let it out. Sitting back on her hind legs her usual smile faltered and she looked them all over. Pipp, Zipp, Izzy, and Hitch, they had been with her since the beginning. Finding the crystal, getting magic back, they had stayed by her side through it all and "To be honest, Hitch, I am not absolutely sure of anything, much less the best way to proceed. I mean the five of us managed to bring actual honest to goodness magic back to the whole land. I just wanted everypony to be friends again, never in my wildest dreams did I expect that. But that's where we are, right?"

"Woah, that's the most serious I've ever seen you," Izzy decided, cocking her head to the side. "And we've been over this plan a hundred times."

"One hundred and thirteen, to be precise," Zipp informed them, consulting her notes.

"Not really the point," Hitch continued. "The point is you don't have to do this! We're only just figuring out magic, and you have no idea if this spell you found in that old book will even work, much less what it'll mean for all of us. You're talking about changing, well, everything!"

"Exactly." Sunny agreed, nodding hard once. "I owe it to everypony to try." She got back up and bent once again to her task of loading up her satchel. "I don't know how long I'll be able to transform like this. If it's just some sort of magical backwash from getting the crystals together tomorrow or even an hour from now may be too late. Right now is when I have the power to do this. And you've seen The Amazing Spider Pony same as I have. With great power comes great responsibility. If not now, when? I can't risk waiting." Besides, waiting wouldn't really gain me anything, would it? I know the spell by heart, there's nothing more to be done.

"But we might not even be friends afterwards!" Pipp reminded her.

"I know Pipp, we've talked about it. No matter what, I'll come find you. All of you. We will be friends again, I promise. And..." she hesitated, looking down.

"And?" Zipp prompted.

"And even if I can't, even if for some reason you don't exist anymore, think of the hundreds of years of strife that will be avoided! Isn't that worth it?"

The others shared a look, totally unable to respond. On the one hoof it made a certain twisted sense. Their goal was noble, nopony could fault what Sunny was about to attempt, if it worked out in the best possible way. Any one of them should be willing to lay down their existence for what Sunny promised. But on the other hoof, there was the danger...

"Besides, I think we'll all be fine," she continued. "After all, I'll be fine, so there's no reason you shouldn't be. You'll just have a few more friends that's all, and make them earlier. Nothing wrong with that, right?"

"How do you figure?" Hitch demanded.

"Yeah, what's your evidence for that?" Zipp agreed, and the two nodded to each other.

Ah Zipp, always playing the detective now, huh? "Because if I'm not fine, how would I have been here to do the spell I'm about to do, silly." She hopped over to her and booped her nose. "So I'm a permanent fixture, so to speak. An event that must take place, else all else come undone. The world will demand my existence, in a way. So events won't be that far off what we know, how could they be?" Of course I may come back to find nothing has changed for me, because some other Sunny in another reality has lived a totally different life because of what I did and hey, that's okay too. That's what Dragonclaw P would have me believe happens anyway.

"Or you open your eyes to a blighted landscape littered with pony corpses!" Izzy stuck her tongue out and flipped over onto her back, splaying her legs out in every direction. Her back leg twitched convincingly.

"Come on, no pony wants to see that!" Hitch protested, but the others noticed he didn't look away all that quickly.

"See what, Hitch?" she asked innocently, wiggling back and forth. "You see something you like?"

"Stop, stop it right now! I am a sheriff!"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Zipp asked.

The others had slight smiles on their faces, and Sunny went back to packing. But Pipp's face fell. "How do you know what you come back to will be better though? Like Izzy said, you could come back and thanks to your meddling, everything could be worse."

"What could be worse than all of pony kind hating and fearing each other for hundreds of years?" Sunny asked. "We lived together in the past, something happened, and then we didn't. We lost magic, even. That's the worst. I just want to make sure our bonds are strong enough that never happens. How can that lead to a worse outcome than we had?"

"That's too philosophical for me," Zipp admitted. "I'm more worried about the practical aspects, can you control your new magic enough to do this safely?" she went on. "It's not like you can practice this sort of thing. What if the book got it wrong? Look outside- Unicorns can barely levitate objects with any reliability and you want to do this? We still have no idea how to cast actual spells, pegasi can't seem to look where they're going, everypony is just... you know!" She gestured out the window. Visions of dropped objects and mid-air crashes came to everypony's mind.

"I have to, Zipp," Sunny replied seriously. "You heard Twilight's message the same as I did. Something happened in the past, forcing her to do what she did. The crystal was made in a time of fear, but this time it's going to be made in a time of unity. We lost so much, and for what? We don't even know. We have books about dragons, and griffons, and yaks, but where are they all? So much knowledge lost, friends never made. This way we don't have to 'get them back,' because we'll have never lost them! Oh, don't look so down everypony. No matter what, I'll remember you. Hooves to heart!"

"We really can't talk you out of it?" Hitch pleaded.

"Nope! My mind is made up!" With that she dropped the last item into the pack and closed the clasp. "How do I look?"

"Like someone going away... for a really long time," Izzy told her, eyes tearing up a little.

"I... I know. I'm sorry. It has to be done. I feel that with every fiber of my being." She glanced upstairs, where rainbow colored light was being blasted into the sky every second of the day.

"I know you do," she agreed sadly. "But that doesn't make saying goodbye any easier."

"Come on, it's not goodbye. If everything goes to plan, I'll be gone, like, one second. And I'll come back to find all of you, plus even more friends who I've known my entire life. You'll see."

"Come on Izzy," Hitch told her, putting his front leg across her back. "We agreed to support her, and that's what we'll do. In this moment we're her friends, and she will go seeing our smiling faces and knowing we have her back always. Right? She won't go angry at us, because we couldn't trust her. She's been right so many times before let's give her our lov- I mean, let's give, uh, oh buck it, I might as well just say it. Let's give her our love one last time!"

"Right." She wiped at her eyes and nodded. "Well, maybe she won't be able to transform at all and this will all be for nothing anyway."

"We can ho- I mean, we'll figure that out if it comes to it. Come on." He turned to the lift and everypony got on, heading to the second level. There was the crystal, source of all magic in the lands, shining away like a distant star. If it was going to be done anywhere, this place had the best chance of working. "All right, everypony," he told them. "Concentrate. She's doing this for us. For all the friends we never made, for all the years of hurt, and mistrust, and whatever the heck it was you unicorns were doing that whole time."

"Rude!" Izzy chided him. "Depression just happens to be our national pastime that's all. Along with superstition, xenophobia, you know, the usual."

"Thanks, all of you," Sunny told them. She looked at each of her friends, trying to put a brave face on this, but she could see their apprehension too plainly on each pony's face.

No time for that, Sunny Starscout. This is your plan, and there's no getting off this train we're on. Oh stallion, I hope Pony Fantasy 7 Remake is still around when I get back, I want to play part two… If they ever finish it. Around her the cutie marks of her friends began to glow, they were united now in purpose. No more arguing, no more hesitation. Sunny closed her eyes and tried to look deep inside herself for the magic she knew was there. Find your spark. Make it glow. You can do this!

She felt it, magic welling up inside her, and she knew it had worked. Squeezing her eyes closed even tighter she lit up her horn, magic flowing through her. Complex magical formula flashed through her mind, she had lived, breathed, and slept this spell for weeks and it was now or never. I can do this! I feel great! I. Can. Win!

In a burst of magic the pony known as Sunny Starscout was torn from existence, and the ponies left held their breath and counted.

One.

Two?