As the sky above Canterlot continued to darken, Gordito stared at Dr. McNinja in disbelief. This was the man who was supposed to always know what to do. This was the man who always had one more trick up his sleeve. Gordito had never heard Dr. McNinja say he didn't know what to do before, and he wasn't sure how to respond. Which was probably why the response he gave was less than stellar.

"What do you mean you don't know what to do?!" Gordito demanded.

"I mean exactly what I said," Dr. McNinja replied softly, his eyes vacantly staring straight ahead. "I don't know what to do."

"But this isn't how it’s supposed to work!" Gordito protested. "You always know what to do! That's what you do!"

"And what would you have me do, Gordito?" Dr. McNinja snapped. "This entire country is about to get flattened by the freaking moon, and the only chance we had at stopping it is behind a magic force field!"

"Is there like a magic spell for undoing force fields someone else made?" Spike asked Twilight Sparkle hopefully.

Twilight didn't reply right away, for she was preoccupied with gazing at the slowly approaching smiley face of death.

"No," she whispered. "there isn't. At least, not that I know of. Even if there is, Sparklelord’s spells are much more powerful than mine."

"You gotta at least try!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash. "What are we going to do? Sit here and wait to die?!"

"Is it going to hurt when it happens?" Fluttershy asked quietly. "I don't want it to hurt."

"It ain't gonna hurt, sugarcube," Applejack lied as she embraced Fluttershy. "We won't feel a thing."

Gordito felt the burning desire to draw out his guns at shoot something. It didn't matter what. Anything was better than just waiting to die. Suddenly, he heard an explosion from higher up the mountain. Before he even had the chance to look up, a pink-ish purple-ish light shined out from a place near the top of the mountain and washed over the sky.

Then the entire world flickered.

Before Gordito's eyes, everything changed. He wasn't standing in Canterlot, but back in George Washington's secret tunnels in Cumberland, Maryland. The scene only lasted for a split second before the world blinked again, and he was back in Canterlot.

"What was that?" asked a wide eyed Rarity, who apparently had witnessed the phenomenon as well.

"That... was my reality," Dr. McNinja said slowly. "The place where I entered the time space portal and entered your reality."

"So what does that mean?!" Rainbow Dash demanded to know.

"I don't know, maybe the moon is messing with the quantum physics stuff," Dr. McNinja figured, his head bowed.

Abruptly the ninja doctor's head snapped back up as a determined light began to glow in his eyes.

"Everyone follow me!" he commanded as he took off at a sprint, heading not towards Canterlot Castle but towards the rocky slope of the mountainside beyond the city of Canterlot. Twilight Sparkle used magic to set Spike on her back before she galloped after Dr. McNinja along with everyone else.

As the group charged up the mountain, Gordito tried to figure out what his Dr. McNinja was planning. His heart sank as he realized the answer. Dr. McNinja wasn't trying to save all of Equestria. That was no longer his purpose. He couldn't save everyone's lives. What he was doing now was to try and reach the portal and save at least ten lives. Gordito wanted to shout out in protest. Ten lives wasn't good enough. Yet deep down inside, he knew that Dr. McNinja was making the hard decision, cutting the losses and doing all that could be done. Gordito felt the earth underneath Yoshi rumble, as if preparing itself for the collision.

"Rainbow Dash!" Dr. McNinja called.

"Yes?" Rainbow Dash replied quickly, flying up beside him.

"See that light coming out from that cave up there?"

"Yeah, is that the portal you came through?"

"Yes, you need to fly as fast as you can and go through it," Dr. McNinja said grimly. "It should take you back to my reality where it's safe."

"What?! Are you saying I should leave you guys behind?!" Rainbow Dash shouted.

"Do as he says, Rainbow Dash!" Twilight Sparkle said. "There's no guarantee that we'll all make it before the moon hits! You need to at least save yourself!"

"But I can't—"

"Go!" Twilight Sparkle commanded, her eyes wet with tears.

Rainbow Dash hesitated only a split second before she obeyed, zipping out of sight with a trail of rainbow colored light.

Chunks of earth and rock started ripping up from the ground around Gordito and floated up towards the moon as he and the others frantically scrambled up the slope. With a scream, Rarity fell down into a hole created by the display of gravity's power, only to be caught by Twilight Sparkle's magic and set back onto solid ground again at a full run.

Gordito squinted, focusing on the cave entrance that was gradually getting closer. That was when he saw it. With a mechanical roar, someone who looked exactly like Dr. McNinja launched out from the cave atop a white motorcycle. It looked exactly like the motorcycle that Sparklelord used to be, but with a few differences. Large dark red saddlebags were attached to the back end of the vehicle, along with a large white cylindrical device that Gordito couldn't identify. Greatly confused, Gordito glanced at the Dr. McNinja who was still at the front of the group.

"It's not over yet! Go through the portal!" yelled the motorcycle riding version of Dr. McNinja as he made a sharp U-turn. Rainbow colored flames suddenly burst out from the back of the cylindrical device, boosting both bike and rider straight up the mountainside.

Gordito's mind had barely just begun to spaz out from confusion when six ponies, a dragon, and a boy riding a raptor emerged from the cave as well. Gordito recognized all of them, especially the last two.

"What in tarnation?!" Applejack swore when she saw the group coming out of the cave.

Each of the six ponies looked exactly like the Bearers of Harmony, except five of them wore fancy gem encrusted golden necklaces. The equivalent of Twilight Sparkle wore a crown instead. The only other difference was that the Rainbow Dash look-alike had one of her wings in a cast.

"No time to explain anything, just keep moving!" shouted the crown-wearing Twilight Sparkle as she and the other lookalikes charged down the mountain just like the other Dr. McNinja had. As they rushed by, the newly appeared version of Spike waved at his counterpart from atop the second Twilight Sparkle.

Next thing Gordito knew, he had reached the cave. Inside, the time space portal was pulsating wildly and flashing like a strobe light. The entire mountain shook again as he spurred Yoshi through the portal. It looked almost exactly the same as the first time he went through, a tunnel of pure purple energy that twisted and turned with no apparent pattern. This time, however, the speed at which he was moving was significantly faster. Gordito heard screaming as the energy tunnel snaked on. Some of them were definitely female, and he heard two very young male voices as well. It took Gordito a moment to realize he was one of them.

In no time at all, or perhaps a great deal of time, the tunnel came to an end and revealed a multitude of something green. Although Gordito had seen trees many times before, he did not recognize the green things as trees right away, for he was looking at them from directly above. Ever the party pooper, gravity took hold of the young gunslinger and pulled he, Yoshi, and the others screaming all the way down. Gordito felt his body painfully smack and break many tree branches before he landed with a thud on his back.

Gordito groaned and experimentally moved his limbs to see if anything was broken. Certainly, he was sore all over, but he didn't detect any fractured bones. As Gordito squinted up at the wide blue sky above the forest, he noticed a few things. For starters, there was no sign of a time space portal. Second, hanging like fruit from the unbroken tree branches above him were slices of delicious looking cheese pizza, which led him to believe that he was not back in his reality at all.

As he wearily rose up to his feet, Gordito wondered if he was still in Equestria. If so, he figured it couldn't be as bad as he originally thought if it had pizza trees. Movement in the corner of his vision suddenly caught Gordito's attention. The mustached twelve year old spun around to behold Dr. McNinja, who had just picked himself up off the ground. Yoshi, Spike, Flutteshy, Applejack, Rarity, Twilight Sparkle, and Pinkie Pie were all present as well, and were in the process of either sitting up or standing up.

"Owwwww, is everyone all right?" asked Twilight Sparkle as she rubbed her head.

The question was answered by grunts and nods from all. Gordito didn't hear any agonized screams of pain, so he figured that no one was hurt too badly.

"Oh my gosh you guys!" exclaimed Pinkie Pie, who didn't seem to be hurt in the slightest. "Look at the trees!"

"Okay, pizza trees, that's a new one on me," said Dr. McNinja as he glanced up at the trees.

"Excuse me," Fluttershy said very quietly. "Has anyone—"

"So, um, are we going to talk about what exactly just happened, because I am very confused," Rarity said, unintentionally cutting off Fluttershy. "I mean, we just saw ourselves, wearing the Elements of Harmony no less, run right past us."

"I'm still putting the pieces together, but I think I have a pretty good guess," said Twilight Sparkle. "I do believe that those ponies were us, but from the futu- don't eat that, Pinkie Pie!"

Pinkie Pie, who had been about to eat a slice of pizza off the ground, made a pouting face and glanced at Twilight Sparkle.

"Why not?" she asked.

"You don't know anything about that pizza. It might be poisonous or something," Twilight Sparkle said.

"Don't be silly Twilight, I know a lot about pizza! It has cheese, dough, tomato sauce, and it isn't poisonous," Pinkie Pie said.

"It doesn't grow on trees either," Twilight Sparkle pointed out.

"Can ya get back to the part where ya explain everything?" said Applejack.

"Pardon me, I think that—" Fluttershy started to say.

"Right, like I was saying, I think we saw our future selves run past us," Twilight Sparkle continued. "Apparently we're going to find the Elements of Harmony at some point in Dr. McNinja's reality."

"Actually, I'm pretty sure this isn't my reality," Dr. McNinja said. "If my reality had pizza trees, they would be planted all over America."

"Okay, well, wherever we are, we're going to find the Elements of Harmony and go back to Equestria," Twilight Sparkle said. "Come to think of it, it also means that none of us are going to die here, so that's a plus."

"Whoa whoa whoa," said Dr. McNinja. "What makes you think that?"

"Because all of us, um, passed ourselves with the Elements of Harmony. If that was us from the future, that's a guarantee of what will happen," Twilight Sparkle replied.

"No it isn't," Dr. McNinja said. "That's just one theory. another would be time traveling and making changes creates parallel universes. In other words, what we saw is only a possibility of what happens to us. We can't just throw caution to the wind."

"I think we—" Fluttershy attempted to begin a third time.

"Oh my goodness, my head is already starting to hurt from this discussion," Rarity said.

"Look, I've time traveled before, I know how it works," Twilight Sparkle said. "You can't alter time, you can only—"

Quite sick of the argument already, Gordito whipped out his revolver and fired a shot towards the sky. Everyone fell silent and glanced at Gordito with wide eyes.

"That's better." Gordito smiled. "Now, Fluttershy, you were saying?"

"Oh, um, it can wait until everyone else is done talking," said Fluttershy as she looked at the ground.

"No, no, I didn't waste a bullet just so everyone else could keep cutting you off. Say whatever you were trying to say right now," Gordito said sternly.

"But I—"

"Do it now!" Gordito demanded.

"Rainbow Dash isn't here!" Fluttershy blurted out.

A silence fell over the group as the predicament sank in. Truly, there were a great deal of questions that still needed to answered, but the question of Rainbow Dash's location was now the number one concern.

"Well, based off of Twilight Sparkle's time travel theory, I'm willing to bet that wherever she is, she has a broken wing," Dr. McNinja said. "Maybe our eventually finding her is guaranteed, but we should probably start looking all the same."

Gordito withdrew a bullet from his pocket and loaded it into his revolver to make up for the one he fired. It was clear to him that he was no longer in his world or Equestria, and he had no intention of being anything less than one hundred percent prepared for whatever else might be in this strange new world.