Royal Pin and his amazing team of co-workers had tried getting a request form to go to the temporarily aligned, resonant universe when a A-2 | Un/2 [Anomaly that covered two timelines, caused by a unicorn, unknown severity] had happened recently. Backtracking it was shown to be caused by a Twilight Sparkle, but since she had gone out of their jurisdiction they needed to join up with their alternate-version of their group. If it existed, to ensure Multi-Versal stability. It was the philosopher’s stone of CORE. A trans-universal, stable connection between two different timelines whose realities were resonating just enough to influence each others.

There were only 3 times that happened since the Agency had formed before this one. Once when Luna forgot her vow of abstinence, and created a wormhole to dimension where all currency, sociology, and economy was based off of booze. Where her Majordomo had to withdraw her from the portal. Once when a mad mage had wanted to see if the “inbetween” could be used to store a castle. note to self, if she ever takes this seriously. Do try to build things out of amorphously ambiguous alien matter. I do not want to pop out looking like a the outcome of a golem that mated with a block of swiss cheese and had a foal. Then of course there was the file that shan’t be named, rumors abounded to it being locked within a chest of Luna’s on the Moon, buried under a ton of moon rocks, and guarded by mummies.

But that file was just a pipe dream. She said that those notes were strictly locked away in the most secure library she had, and that the notes to going there could only be gotten by royal permission. And since she had made sure that book was in its proper place when ensuring a certain pony she wouldn’t name, didn’t take anything not hers.

Then came the event not even a few days later that changed everything. Trixie passed through the between, and fell through to the otherside. It was a day later when Luna came barging in. I’ve seen quite a few expressions on the Princess’ face when she made her occasional appearances in the CORE building … if you could call an underground complex built into the base of Canterlot a building. But I’ve never seen her panicked before.

“My little ponies, I have a most serious problem!” She said, her majestic face etched in a grim frown, “Trixie the Element of Magic, and my personal student was what fell through this second time. When your reports stated that another pony passed over. I knew who it was, and I fear that things are going to become problematic. You requested travel, but while I cannot allow any of you to leave this timeline. I will be needing a conference mirror to connect you with any version of you over there, or at least let the Princesses know for you to co-ordinate efforts in case things get out of hoof.

“But I’ll also be needing forms for traversing universes, with five others as well as a group near by to ensure that the portal and area of entering and leaving is stable. Otherwise I fear what might happen if the worst comes to pass. Now hurry time is of the essence!” Luna commanded.

Royal Pin, his knees shaking, walked up to her and bowed, “Princess.”

“Rise, Royal Pin there is no time for formalities.”

“Of course, I need to know as administrative coordinator would I be the one talking to the otherside? Or would you like me to get W for you so that the he can do it?”

“You shall be good enough. I need W for something else. Is he in his office?”

“I honestly don’t think he ever leaves. I’ve never seen a pony more dedicated to the job than him,” Royal Pin said with a grin. Sure W was rough around the edges, prone to yelling commands, and ran a tight ship. But he looked after his workers as if they were his own foals, and never left his workers hanging when they needed him. Best of all, W was competent, professional, and strong. The kind of pony one looked up to.

“That’s good to hear. I shall be back with the forms, and I’ll be sure to establish a clear zone with little interference,” Luna said with a curt nod of her head as she trotted at a fast pace for W’s office.

Looking at his peers rushing to their task Royal Pin yelled, “Alight ponies. This is where legends are made of. We either succeed and have a story to tell future CORE members, or we die under an avalanche of paperwork … this universe collapses then we won’t have anything to worry about. So no pressure and I have faith in every one of you. Let’s make our Princess proud!”

There was a smattering of applause and a few looked anxiously at him. Probably for hinting that if things went wrong their entire universe would cease to exist. But if Chronotopologists and Chrono-Ontologists were correct then when one universe became destroyed it’s temporal matter simply entered a space beyond space and was to become absorbed by another universe to keep itself stable. Thus their quanta would be absorbed and reincarnated in some other timeline. Or would become some spiritual-quantum particle that would enter a constant cycle of the Ethers.

So at the very least they wouldn’t be completely destroyed.

It was the next day when Royal Pin placed the mirror on his desk, alongside one that was linked to the team by the portal watchers that were outside Ponyville where Luna and the Element Bearers would be using for travel. Royal Pin, when he knew his brother would be spending a lot of time with them checked their probable branches, and he didn’t have an ounce of envy of them. His future was relatively safe compared to the hardships they would be facing. At least his headstrong brother was there to watch over them.

As Luna cast the spell and opened a stable portal to the otherside, Royal Pin watched in awe as the globe actually twisted upon itself and formed what looked like a sideways whirlpool. The outer edges pushed out temporal mass as the center pushed in temporal mass into the otherside. It was beyond beautiful, a stable multi-universal rift that kept both sides from gaining or losing mass on either side by matter of equivalent drawing in and pushing out. It was a work of beauty no artist could ever dream of beating. At least for a time nerd such as himself. Now it was time for something to motivate his team.

“Listen up everypony! This is the big one, the rarest of the rare events! Luna has entrusted us to keep the area clear and the timeline stable while she’s out of our temporal location. This is no different than Earth Ponies using their magic to keep nature working as it’s supposed to, or the Pegasi keeping the weather on time. It’s just another facet of reality us ponies are charged with keeping stable according to our design.

“We have no idea how long Luna will be over there, or what stress their journey could unleash upon our now shared localized timelines. Well ours most importantly to us. So Portal Team, I need you to ensure that the portal’s location forms no tears, and if it does that we stabilize it before we reach a C-666-A.

“Office workers, we are entrusted to ensure that all our team members are connected and working smoothly. You all are the greatest team of ponies I could ever wish to have work with me. Let’s make our Princess proud!” Royal Pin said to everypony.

I hope our universe gets recycled into a multiversal sector or even sub-quadrant that doesn’t have to worry about Corona. I think we’ve worked up enough good karma for that at least. After all we we’re cursed with the paperwork madness that’s Trixie. That’s more than enough to tip the scales in our favor.

Unfortunately things were never easy. At first things looked to be headed smoothly. Even though Luna had arrived and he wasn’t hooked up with his administrative alternate. He was almost hoping it would be a quick job. As awesome as it was, they all knew the inherent dangers of messing with time and the faster things moved the safer things would be.

Then he was given contact to his alt. whom interesting enough was himself. And before things went horribly wrong they had quite the interesting chat. If only it could last longer.

“So while we’re talking who should be named what?” Royal Pin 2 asked.

“How about I go by Pins, and you go by RP?” Pins asked.

“Good enough as any convention I suppose Pins,” RP responded before asking, “So I see Luna was cleansed from being Nightmare Moon in your sub-sector as well. Although you have different Element Bearers. How did they come about?”

“Nightmare Moon? We’ve had Princess Luna ruling as our Princess for the last thousand years. Corona the Tyrant Sun was released earlier this year by a Zebra named Zecora. Trixie who was Luna’s protege’ despite filling us with fear that our lives were in her hooves, pulled through and gained the Elements of Harmony. Although so far Corona hasn’t been fully bested. How about in your timeline?”

“Well, Princess Celestia is our Princess, and it was Luna who was lost for a thousand years. Our agency was one of a very few who had inside knowledge of Luna’s return given to us by Celestia’s own prophetic ability. For us it was Twilight Sparkle who was the protege as well as the one who gained the Element Bearers. Although Luna was cleansed on the first attempt.” RP answered.

“Interesting, do you have Problem Files on Twilight?” Pins asked eagerly wanting to see who had it worst.

“Three thousand, eight hundred, and sixty five. And we have several prophecies where she ascends to an alicorn, where she becomes an even bigger problem than she was prior to becoming the bearer of the Element of Magic.” RP answered with an eye twitch, “Trixie?”

“Um … I feel bad enough that I don’t think I should. After all the worst Trixie’s done is flood Canterlot, and set off several events for future prophecies while preventing many more. Including my dream one.”

“What was that?”

“A timeline where the most delicious -” Pins was interrupted by a loud crack that sounded on both sides of the Multiverse. And as a rule of hoof, if a temporal event ever made a physical noise. Then bad things were about to happen.

“Glint Spark! Give me readings!” Both sides yelled, and looked at one another. Giving each other nods they said simultaneously, “Make sure to coordinate with our alts. We shall keep this stable!”

“Sir!” Pins’ Glint Spark said worriedly, “We lost 35 mega-Thuams of magical energy and 12 mega-Thaums of temporal mass on the initial fracture. Now we are losing 4 mega-Thaums of both per second!”

“Portal Teams! I need you to not just seal the fracture. I need you to pull as much magical and temporal energy as possible!” Pins said as RP told his team to do the opposite.

“Listen if we only gained 2 MTs of both since the fracture. That means that hopefully 2 are in the In-Between, so if we survive this onslaught. When your ponies return to their time, they’ll carry over everything back. But we need to make sure that we rotate the Portal Teams. As well as reinforce them. What do you say Pins?” RP asked looking at the data on what looked to be a strange box of some sort.

“I agree! You heard him, let’s make it happen,” Pins said with gusto before adding,“While they are doing that, can you check to see what event caused the fracture RP?”

“Sure thing! Wow, things never get boring we can say that at least, Good thing Pinkie Pie and Cheese Sandwich keep us in shape with the natural chaos and improbability they generate,” RP joked.

“You still do that? We just made a new piece of paperwork labeling them Forces of Nature, under the new category 7. Just make sure to do it once a year, or on occasions where they spike. Then it cuts down considerably on paperwork,” Pins replied off hooves while poor Time Saver came stumbling towards him with a stack of papers bigger than he was.

“Sorry boss, this is all the data we have on this and past fractures. We still are working on something to make work like this quicker, but we haven’t gotten any funding since Greengrass and Prince Blueblood took office and started funneling funds for whatever they diverted it too,” Time Saver moaned.

Pins looked at the stack and could think of only one thing to say, “Buck me sideways.”

Turns out having two different Elements of Magic and their two alts meeting is a horrible idea. The fact that it was the Element of Magic fracturing that was threatening to destabilize the mutli-verse was horrifying. So it was a small blessing when the Luna’s and one Celestia appeared on Pins’ screen.

Celestia’s face dropped a little bit when Pins’ forced himself to draw in a deep calming breath and collect himself before giving a polite bow, “Princess Celestia I presume?”

“Rise, and yes my little pony, I’m sorry for the problems our timeline is causing you,” Celestia responded.

“It’s technically noponies fault Princess, and Princess Luna, which one of you is which?” Pins responded.

The one to the left pouted and while the one to the right of Celesta gave a rueful grin, “Why don’t you guess?”

“You’re our Princess Luna, I’ve never known you to pout before,” Pins said with a grin.

“What if this was a prank?”

“Um … then … am I right?”

Luna gave a nod, and told her team, “My Guardians of Forever. Worry not about this temporal problem now on this side. We’ll be working to keep things stable and undo the problems on this end. At least until the problem can be solved by the four possible Elements of Magic. But we need to disconnect your communications for a while. You’ll have contact shortly.”

“Yes Princess, and for what its worth, I’m glad you got to meet at least one good version of Princess Celestia. She looks like she’s a good pony,” Pins said.

L!Luna looked at Celestia and gave a bittersweet smile, “it is. Hopefully someday I can show you my sister can be just as good.”

“We have about a year or so before we can cleanse her for good. Don’t lose hope,” Pins replied.

As she gave a nod the screen went dark. Looking at the blank mirror beside him, and the scrying mirror on the far wall. He gave a sigh, “Now we wait ponies. Everypony make sure that everything gets recorded. We don’t know how long things will be dark, but there is always light at the end of the path.”

Connection came after the fracture ended, and things stabilized for good. Although things for a while looked like they were going south again, with his team preservering they kept things stable long enough for the event to resolve itself. When he got reconnected he saw two worn out Lunas. The one on the right said, “We are the Luna over here, and are sorry for the delay.”

L!Luna continued as C!Luna rested, “We were overpowered a the dark version of the Element of Magic’s spirit, Antithesis she called herself. And sealed both of us on the moon and Celestia in the sun. But things are now resolved the Element of Magic is whole again, and we shall be coming home soon.

“Even if none of Equestria shall know of the struggles you’ve done. Know that I am so proud of you. You’ve earned the title Guardians of Forever, even if most of you do enjoy using your agencies acronym. Still I shall issue you all tickets to the gala. Then afterwards, you can each have a few more weeks vacation time added to what you have already so that you can relax after such a hectic year.”

There was a chorus of tired cheers. But nonetheless, they were happy that their princess was happy. And that’s all that mattered.

Hey Pokes,

You’ll hear soon enough of Trixie’s adventures. If you haven’t heard already. There’s a lot about that I can’t say in letters, but it was a busy day at the office. Glint Spark, and Time Saver were an instrumental help as well. I don’t know what I’d do without those two. Especially Glint, she’s saved my hay bacon from the fire more times than I can count.

But who am I kidding, I don’t have a shot when it comes to romance. Too much work, although sometimes I’m afraid that I’ll become married to the job. I’ll be sure to try visiting you someday soon. Since Luna gave us vacation time. I’m thinking some time a few months before the end of the Gala this year. Possibly next year. But soon. We haven’t talked since the funeral face to face and I miss you Pokes. We used to be close, nonetheless never doubt that I’m looking out for you. Even if you don’t see me.

Anyways, I’m glad to hear from your last letter that Trixie’s taking care of you, although I find it odd that you say that her being a horrible boss is what makes her fun to work with. I’m just glad to hear that you’re okay. Well it’s been a long few days. Way too long, and I got to go.

KIT,

Pins.

Author's Notes:

Well this ends the miniseries. In my head canon, the ponies who had the shifting Hourglass CM's in L!Verse and Hourglass Cutie Marks were part of a time organiztion like Dr. Who, meets Time Cop, has a freaky menagea toi with Sliders. And burried under a quilt of Princessy Beuracracy. It also would mean things like Pikie Sense were simply ponies attuned to time and able to understand, vaguely, probable future events.

And Royal Pin was Pokie Peirces twin (since L!Verse and many fics use Pokey Peirce before they gave the name Royal Pin, and RP has at random times a Horse Shoe and Hourglass CM while Pokes has the well kown safety pin one). I was going to use this fic to introduce Pokey Pierce's twin. Then go to a fic where Pokes, and Pins get together (possibly with Glint Spark and Time Saver in the sidelines).

Alas, this fic isn't canon. But still it was fun to write.