The Scrapyard

The Doctor pulled out his Sonic Screwdriver once more with his teeth and was about to activate it before Twilight stopped him.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?” She shouted.

He dropped it to the floor before replying.

“I’m sorry Twilight, but we have to stop her before anyone else gets hurt.” He replied grimly.

“And what exactly does ‘stopping her’ entail?” Twilight demanded.

“Deactivating or destroying the Cyber unit is the only way to stop them.” He sighed.

“NO!” Twilight shouted adamantly. “I WON’T LET YOU KILL HER!”

“Twilight…” The Doctor replied, his voice filled with regret. “I’m sorry, I swear, but given the existence of those who have been converted into Cyber units, death would more than likely be preferable.”

“But you’re a time traveler!” She insisted. “You can go back and save her!”

Unbeknownst to the two ponies, the Cyberpony slowly began to advance on them.

“It doesn’t work that way!” The Doctor exclaimed. “I CAN’T GO BACK ON MY OWN TIMELINE!”

At these words Twilight crumpled to the floor with her ears flattened as tears streamed down her cheeks.

The only sounds filling the halls were those of Twilight’s heavy sobbing and the Cyberpony’s advancement.

The Doctor was about to reach down for his Screwdriver once again before he was stopped by Twilight’s words.

“I’m sorry…” she sobbed. “Rainbow Dash, I’m so sorry…I never wanted this to happen and I never should have let you come in her alone.”

Twilight kept her head lowered in shame as magical energy began charging up and the base of her horn, her face was obscured by her bags, all that was visible to The Doctor were the seemingly endless flow of tears as she slowly cantered towards the Cyberpony.

The energy manifested itself at the tip of Twilight’s horn in a bright sphere as she aimed it at the round plate in the center of the Cyberpony’s chest as she tried to steady herself from the violent shuddering she was suffering from.

Every part of her being screamed in protest of what she was about to do, but deep down she knew that The Doctor was right and if they couldn’t save Rainbow Dash, then at the very least they could give her peace.

But, no matter how well she rationalized it, it felt like she was doing the wrong thing and that she was somehow failing Dash yet again.

Now mere inches away from Twilight, she realized that it was now or never as she now had built up enough power to obliterate the creature with a single blast.

“Upgrading is compulsory.” It spoke in a soulless monotone, in stark contrast to Rainbow’s usual enthusiastic and sarcastic tones which only reinforced the horrific reality of the situation they were in.

Everything seemed to slow down as Twilight’s heart pounded in her chest, its sound filling her ears as she released the blast.

The Cyberpony thrown backwards as most of its limbs were ripped from its torso, exposing wire and circuitry before its pieces clanged to the floor.

The largest piece that remained mostly intact was its torso, which had a gaping hole in its chest and the right foreleg still attached as well as the Cyberpony’s head which was now silenced.

“Is this who you really are?” Twilight asked hoarsely with her back still turned to him. “Do you just get companions to come along with you to help you out, but when they get to be too much of a burden or they die, you just forget about them or act like they never existed?”

“I…” he began before Twilight cut him off.

“Don’t you dare tell me that ‘you’re sorry’, you were more than willing to blast her into pieces a few seconds ago.”

“I only did it because I realized that if I didn’t, then you would and I think she would have preferred it if she was killed by someone who actually cared about her.”

The Doctor could only stand there in stunned silence as sounds of a conflict broke out on the floor above them; he briefly wondered what was going on before returning his attention to Twilight only to see that she was cantering down the hall before breaking into a full gallop.

“Twilight!” he called out. “Where are you going?”

“I’m going to find whoever did this to Rainbow Dash and I’m going to make them pay!” she shouted back furiously.

The Doctor reached out to her with a hoof as if he could somehow magically pull her back or convince her otherwise, but he couldn’t do it.

In her state of grief, it didn’t seem like Twilight would be willing to listen to reason-much less anything he had to say.

Sighing, he picked the Screwdriver up of the ground with his teeth and slowly moved towards the destroyed Cyberpony before leaning down and trying to pry its faceplate open with the Sonic.

This ‘Cyberpony’ seemed to be different than the other forms of Cybermen he had encountered and not just in the regard that they were equine in design.

Much like the building that they were in, the unit he was examining appeared to be made using limited resources, which was nothing new-but, the mind games with the two elevators earlier gave him the impression that whoever was working for these Cybermen hadn’t been converted yet…or at the very least was still unconditioned.

The Doctor was almost finished unsealing the faceplate when a loud bang from upstairs causing him to glance up before returning to the task at hand.

Pulling the faceplate apart, what he saw inside shocked him.

“What!?”

Instead of a brain, there appeared to be more circuitry and wire within the protective casing.

“Of course!” he exclaimed.

At that moment the ceiling before him seemed to collapse as something fell through with a deafening thud.

Though he couldn’t see through all of the dust, he could hear a raspy groan.

“Hello?” He called over, uncertainly.

As the dust cleared he could see a cyan Pegasus with an unmistakable rainbow mane massaging a part of her head as she looked over to him and her wings spread out in excitement.