The Stallion Who Can Never Die

The sun shone high in the sky, barely a cloud in sight, as numerous ponies walked through the streets, the memories of last night pushed to the backs of their minds as they went to work or school. Many chatted with one another as they went to similar destinations. The sounds of ponies outside were barely heard in the Lucky Day hotel room, where Scootaloo warily watched as the silver Pegasus placed a hoof on the bed as leverage to pull himself up, his face scrunched up as if the effort were difficult.

"You okay?" She cautiously asked.

The stallion nodded, before opening his eyes and Scootaloo instantly saw a change in them, like, there was far more age in them then before. He glanced at the great gray coat partly folded up before him, frowning a little, before glancing at the orange Pegasus, as if noticing her for the first time. He smiled and extended a hoof. "Captain Jack Harkness, very nice to meet you Scootaloo."

She blinked, not noticing that she had bumped his hoof with her own. "Y-you remember?"

"Just about every little bit." He grinned slightly.

"Well," She shrugged. "I have heard stranger names."

"I'll bet you have," Jack chuckled, before turning back to his clothes and folding them up. Moments later it hit Scootaloo.

"Hold on! I could've brought your memories back this entire time by just saying 'Torchwood'!?"

"You or anyone else, I guess, yeah."

She sighed. "Whoop-dee-bucking-doo... I still got you those clothes for nothing!"

Jack shrugged as he placed the pants and shirt in the box. "I still would've wanted them." He grabbed hold of his pistol, spun it around a few times, before checking its ammunition.

"Four shots left." He muttered, clicking the clip back in place. "Gotta make them count."

"So you have worked with them before," Scootaloo commented as she saw Jack examine his gun.

"Not this Torchwood, no..." He said as he placed the pistol back into its holster.

"What?"

He didn't answer as he placed his coat in the box and shut the lid. "So, Scootaloo..." He turned and faced her. "You still planning on coming with me and telling Luna about all this?"

"Well..." The Mare hesitated, looking out the window before back to the silver Pegasus. "Now that you've got your memories back, what would you need me for?"

"I don't know," he answered honestly. "But you are involved in this, and you've had history with this Torchwood, you might have a little piece of information that I don't have."

Scootaloo bit her lip and looked away as her mind briefly warred with itself. "I can't." She said, shaking her head. "I know I just said I would, but that was as a backup when your clothes failed to jumpstart your memory, now... I can't risk her recognizing me."

Jack nodded slowly. "Why is that? Had a history with her before?"

She didn't answer for a moment. "That depends on how you look at it."

"You fell back through time, didn't you?"

Scootaloo blinked, and stared up in shock, and found him looking at her with a sad frown and pity in his eyes. "How did you-!?"

"I'm experienced with time travel, trust me. Where's the other you?"

The Broken Pegasus turned towards the window. "In a small town, far far away from here. She'll be turning 11 in a month. It won't be much longer before she goes through the worst hell in her life... and becomes me."

Jack saw the lack of a Cutie Mark on her flank as she passed him, and Luna's words echoed through his mind. I've heard of many legends about ponies and their Cutie Marks... whose destiny was changed after an incredibly traumatic and painful experience, thus changing their Mark.

"I'm sorry." He said as he placed a comforting hoof on her.

She shrugged off the hoof. "Don't go all sappy on me, it ain't cool." She said as she struggled to hold back a sniffle. Damnit, mare! Pull yourself together! She mentally berated herself. Crying like a baby never does anything but waste time! "Besides, this isn't about me, this is about stopping them!"

She took a deep breath and calmed herself before looking at him again. "Can you stop them?"

"I'll do my best, and with Luna and me working into this, I'm sure one of us will get ideas as to where they're hiding."

She nodded. "Good. Then I'll leave you two to it." She turned and made her way to the door, but stopped next to the stallion, leaning  in close to his ear, she whispered in a seductive tone. "Don't hesitate to call on me if you need backup, though." Continuing on, she had her tail brush against his chin, leaving Jack staring at her with a raised eyebrow and a half-smile as she left the room, closing the door behind her.

For a few moments, Jack simply stood where he was, glancing at the white box and outside the window. "Well..." He muttered to himself. "Here I am."

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Luna's eyes popped open as she heard something knock hard against one of the windows. Sitting upright in her bed, she used her magic to levitate the curtains away, revealing daylight and a silver Pegasus who was struggling carrying a long white box while flying. Without hesitation, Luna used her magic to open the windows and guide him in.

Placing the box down, the stallion took a breath of relief. "Thanks, still not used to this whole flying business."

"It is no trouble, Harness." Luna replied with a smile, but noticed several subtle, yet significant changes in him. He carried himself differently, the way he spoke was slightly off from before, and he never hesitated looking at her before.

Before she could comment anything on that, he spoke. "It's not Harness."

Luna blinked in confusion. "What?"

It was then that he looked at her, a one-sided smile on his face, which seemed to almost shine, and also seem so much older. "Time for a reintroduction! Hi, Captain Jack Harkness, very nice to meet you, Luna." He extended a hoof to her, who stared at him incredulously.

"You've regained your memories!?"

Jack grinned and nodded. Luna's face exploded into pure joy. "Harness, that is wonderful! We must celebrate this momentous occasion!" She giggled. "and I mean we, as in we, this time."

The Alicorn moved to embrace him in a hug, but Jack raised a hoof. "Sorry, Luna, but we've got more important things to talk about first."

She blinked, surprised at his response, considering his distress at not remembering who he was, she had expected him to be ecstatic. Instead, he seemed cheerful, but also closed off.

"I know what it is we're dealing with." Those words put those thoughts on hold. She blinked in surprised.

"You do!?"

"Turns out, I was the key to all this." He said as he sat down. "It's an organization called Torchwood."

"Torchwood?" Luna rolled the word around in her head, it sounded familiar...

"I met someone who stands against it, she was the one who liberated all the items I was found with." Sensing what she was about to say, Jack continued. "She wants to remain anonymous, and I'll respect her wish, but she's an ally, and it's thanks to her that I now remember."

Luna nodded, suddenly remembering the mysterious voice she heard the first night she met Jack, wondering if that was the one he was talking about. "So what is Torchwood?"

"From what she's told me, it's a secretive organization that wants to remove Princess Celestia from power, probably also you as well."

Luna's eyes widened and her nostrils flared slightly. So this was a threat, but to her and her sister.

"They also are not above experimenting on little fillies for many years, as they did to her."

"What!?" Her wings flared open in shock and anger, later on, she would be surprised she had not used the Royal Canterlot Voice then. But now, her mind was processing the terrible knowledge. "What kind of experiments?"

"Nasty ones," Jack answered with a frown. "She wouldn't give details."

Luna's lips curled in a silent snarl at this, she was going to make them pay for this, she was sure. Closing her eyes and taking a deep breath, she calmed herself before gesturing for the stallion to continue. "She's also told me that they've been around for a long time, centuries I'm thinking, and Torchwood is not their only name, just their most recent one."

The Alicorn nodded. "Makes sense, it wouldn't be smart for a secretive organization that stood against my sister to maintain a single name for too long a period. It would make them more easily trackable."

"She mentioned that, by choosing this name, they were 'returning to their roots' as she read from a message she intercepted."

"What do you mean, 'returning to their roots'?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know, but it coincided with your return from the moon, she said that your return somehow motivated them to work harder, hence why they've been more active as of late."

Luna tilted her head in confusion, and a little bit of worry. "Why would my return motivate them?"

Again, Jack shrugged. "Maybe they thought that one Alicorn Princess was bad enough, now suddenly they've got to deal with two."

"There are three Alicorns."

He blinked. "What?"

Luna nodded. "She's very young compared to my sister and I, not even a century old, and she is the new ruler of the Crystal Empire, which is, officially, its own State."

"Huh..." Jack muttered as he thought this over. "She never mentioned her before, I just thought it was you and Celestia until now."

Luna nodded with a frown, this Torchwood was motivated by her for a different reason, and it worried her greatly.

"In any case," Jack said. "They've been more active, and they've got a plan of some kind, hence why they've brought me here."

"What do you mean?"

Jack stood up, and unfurled his wings. "This," he gestured around himself. "Isn't me. I wasn't born a Pegasus, or even a pony. I was another species entirely. Have you ever heard of race called Humans?"

Luna shook her head, not recalling that from anywhere in her memory. The Pegasus sat back down. "I'm not entirely sure, but I think this place is an entirely different plane of reality from my own, an alternate dimension, if you will."

"An alternate dimension? I don't understand, you mean another world?"

"In a sense, yes." Jack answered, before thinking how to better explain it. "There are infinite numbers of universes, worlds, some very similar to our own, with only a few changes here and there. Others are much more radically different, like my universe and this one. I think, because Humans don't exist in this dimension, I was changed into something more appropriate, thus I'm a Pegasus."

They were both silent as they both processed this information, before Jack shook his head slowly, chuckling. "I used to think travel to other dimensions was impossible, though considering how I got here, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised."

"How did you get here?"

Jack didn't answer as he got up and looked out the window, and the city buildings outside. "Time isn't a static thing, it's fluid, constantly changing due to the actions of, well, everyone. Because of that, sometimes there are faults, like with earthquakes. Rifts in time and space where things and people can accidentally slip in and out of."

He turned and faced Luna again, who stared in shock. "There's a Rift going right through this city, that's how I got here."

It then dawned on Luna. "The mysterious objects! That's why they keep appearing!"

"Exactly! They're pieces of alien tech and/or junk that's fallen from other worlds to this one. You have a whole museum dedicated to that stuff, your Rift's practically become a tourist attraction for this city."

"Incredible..." The Princess muttered.

"Amazing, huh?" Jack grinned briefly, before it faded. "But I'm not the first living thing to fall through here."

Luna's smile evaporated as well. "You're not?"

"Remember that beast your guards and I encountered? That was a Weevil, only it too was changed partially to suit this dimension. They're aliens that tend to hang in underground sewers, they mostly keep to themselves, they've got everything they need in there. Of course, every now and then, a Weevil gets restless, or gets a taste for something besides what's in the sewers (usually some poor soul), and they get out and attack whoever's nearby." He glanced out the window again. "It seems this Torchwood has been keeping an eye on them as well."

Luna raised an eyebrow at that. "This Torchwood? You mean there's one in your world as well?"

"Was..." He muttered. "In my world, Torchwood wasn't some secret terrorist group out to wipe out the crown, rather it was created by the royal family of Great Britain to defend the land against the Strange, the Paranormal, and the Alien. It was to salvage alien technology and recreate it for arming the Human race against a potentially hostile future."

"So, your Torchwood was created to defend its kingdom rather then destroy it?"

"Supposed to, yeah, it kinda fell from that at some point and ended up nearly destroying itself. After that, I picked up the pieces worth picking and reformed it to how you described it. We based ourselves in another city called Cardiff, which had a Rift much like this one, and kept a watchful eye out for any aliens or alien tech that came through. There were only a handful of us then."

His features dropped and, for a moment, Luna saw a stallion who had seen and experienced much horror and loss, before they hardened. "But now my Torchwood is gone, dead. Everyone involved buried or living another life."

Luna wanted to ask what happened but, not wanting to bring back painful memories, instead asked. "What about the Rift in your world?"

"After my world's Torchwood died, I found a way to seal the Rift, preventing anything from falling through it. With it closed off, I was free to wonder and... and move on. But then, I got warning signs from alarms I left behind, warning me that the Rift was opening up again. I rushed back to investigate but..."

"But you fell through."

The stallion shook his head. "No, it felt more like I was pulled through. When I got back to the city, I found out it was a very specific point, way too specific for the Rift to be opening itself up in its entirety. I followed the point to its source then-" He stomped a hoof on the ground. "That was when I felt something grab me and pull me through, next thing I know, I wake up on a different street, feeling all wrong everywhere. I reached out for my gun with an unfamiliar limb, before I lost consciousness. Next time I woke up, I was the amnesiac stallion you met just a day later."

"It was a trap!"

"It seems so, though I don't know how they even knew about me, much less pull me through."

"But why? Why go through all that trouble to bring you, and you specifically, here?"

Jack shrugged, not knowing the answer. "They must need me for something, though, and they didn't want me to remember. I guess they must've put some powerful Retcon in me while I was unconscious."

"Retcon?"

"It's a drug that causes selective amnesia, though in this case, it wiped out my whole memory rather certain ones."

"Why would they do that? Wipe out your whole memory, what does that accomplish?"

"Well, if you don't remember who you are, you don't know what you're capable of," He grinned at her. "And I'm capable of quite a bit."

For a brief moment, he stared right into Luna's eyes, just as they did the night before, but almost immediately, he looked away. "When you don't have any memories," He muttered. "You're lost, confused, and vulnerable, don't know when you've made a terrible mistake..."

Luna could almost see the guilt exuding from him. "Jack..." She began as she lifted a hoof to him, only for the stallion to stand up suddenly and turn towards the window.

"You know, the more I think about it, the more I feel they weren't motivated by you, exactly, but by desperation... I think I know what we should do."

The Alicorn blinked, and stood up. "What should we do?"

"Leave."

It took a second for her to process that. "I beg your pardon?"

Jack smiled. "It's simple, there Hub is here in this city somewhere, they need me for something specifically, why else would they grab a specific individual from another dimension? It's obvious they're desperate, desperate enough to pull a guy like me through here, a guy they need, so if the guy they need leaves the city where their Hub is..."

It then dawned on Luna. "You're not leaving to hide, you're leaving to draw them out!"

"Exactly!" He laughed. "Nabbing me from the shadows in their base city is easy, but in someplace like Canterlot, it would be a lot harder for them to get me without drawing attention to themselves."

"That's it! My sister could place you under Royal Protection, if you stayed with us in the palace, they would have no chance of taking you undetected."

"And once they reveal themselves, it would be all over for them. The only reason they're still around is because they've kept their existence a secret. So they now have two options: Let their biggest chance of victory go, and considering the risks they've done to get me here, I don't think they'll take that. Or, make the most daring move they've ever made and risk revealing their whole operation, even if they are successful in grabbing me."

"Harness, that's brilliant!"

Jack grinned, and opened his mouth to correct when he stopped suddenly, and ran the words in this mouth. "Harkness... Harness... huh, you know that still works."

Excited in having a plan of attack, Luna stood up and immediately set about putting her royal regalia on, levitating the brown strap to the silver stallion. "I believe this is yours?"

Jack's eyes lighted up at seeing it. "Ah, my Vortex Manipulator!" He chuckled happily as he took it and wrapped it around his right foreleg. "This handy thing is my little screwdriver right here and, no, that is not a euphemism for anything."

Luna blinked in confusion as she placed her crown on her head. "What does a screwdriver have to do with a... Vortex Manipulator?"

"You tell me." He said with a condescending look to her, before looking back at the white box and sighing. "I'm gonna miss wearing that coat. Ah well, can't have everything."

Curiosity piqued, Luna opened the box and pulled out the large gray coat, and eyed the other strange shaped clothing in there, it made her wonder what Humans looked like. "Your species wore clothing often?"

"Heh, all the time." Jack answered, then stopped. "Although, there was this one planet I visited where it was illegal to wear clothing of any kind. Very fun place, got a lot of exercise while I was there."

They were silent for a moment before Luna gestured to the window. "We should head out. The sooner we leave, the sooner we can end this."

Jack nodded in agreement. "Train station, then?"

Luna nodded. "I'll meet you there, I'm going to inform the hotel of my departure."

With that, the silver Pegasus jumped and flew out of the window, leaving Princess Luna alone with her thoughts. He remembers... but he seemed reluctant to be close to me... why? Glancing at the large, oddly designed coat, Luna turned it around and examined it from several angles, noting the buttons and markings on the sleeves, before placing it back down and quickly pulling out a quill, ink, and some parchment. I hope this will work...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[Ponyville: 2 hours later]

Tap-tap-tap-tap

A tall, light brown stallion in a postage uniform stood awaiting only a few moments before a snow white Unicorn with a vibrant dark purple mane opened the door. "Yes?"

"Miss Rarity?" The stallion pulled out a small folded envelope. "Urgent telegram from Princess Luna."

Surprised, the mare took the envelope and hastily opened it. Quickly reading through it, her eyes widened and she gasped dramatically. "WHAT!?"

The outburst caused the stallion to cringe. "Is something the matter?"

"Is something the matter!?" She shrieked. "I've got only a few hours to fill out an order from the Princess!!"

And then she slammed the door, again causing the stallion to cringe.

"I'm starting to get tired of having doors slammed into my face." He muttered as he walked away, hearing a few crashing sounds from inside the Boutique.